I am no contact with both of my siblings, by my choice, and it is one of the healthiest thing I have ever done for myself. I think I may have tried too long before really knowing, or at least accepting what I knew to be true about the futility of trying.
An unfortunate side effect of this is I don’t get much chance to see my nieces and nephews who have grown up to be really fine people. I don’t know how two people as reprehensible as my siblings managed to raise such fine men and women, maybe they were able to escape the toxicity and dysfunction, or maybe they weren’t the target like I was.
Anyway – I saw this on Instagram today and it really resonated with me – via Patrick Teahan
By the time a childhood trauma survivor gets to the point of going no-contact, they’ve already been in a continued lifelong process of lowering their expectations of having a healthy connection to fathers, mothers and siblings.
We know they are not going to respect us – we tried.
We know they are not going to see us – we tried.
We know they are going to choose the most abusive person over a relationship with us – we tried.
We know they are going to say, “I knew you’d do this.”
What gets lost on the toxic family is our reasons for going no-contact.
-that we value respect of others, including ourselves.
-that we want honesty, empowerment, love, and support in our families.
-that we believe in raising terror and shame-free children.
-that we believe in maturity and accountability vs BS and drama.
-that we believe in autonomy of self and body.
-that we believe in relationships that are mutually satisfying.
-that we believe in hard emotional work vs being miserable or stuck.
The audacity of a family to demonize someone leaving to go and try to cultivate these things for themselves, their children and their relationships.
Your thoughts?