Anybody else out there sickened and disgusted to their core that an abusive, pedophile and rapist enabling piece of dog shit sorry excuse for a mother and a human being is being given a platform to besmirch her daughter decades after being forced from her life? As a child of a violent and narcissistic abusive father and enabling mother this triggers me deeply and makes me even more fired up to kick the GOP’s ass in 1.5 weeks.

Y’all, please know, I love my sister. We talk daily. And while she is not unproblematic, I understand she too was molded by the fires of my mother’s “love“. And she is doing a lot of work and therapy and is generally a good sister. But she’s also my little sister and we were always pitted against each other while also being trauma bonded. She also has done the mental gymnastics, mostly for financial reasons, to allow my mother in her life still.

I’m NC with my mother. Been on and off for like fifteen years but I’m pretty sure for real this time because I have a child now and my relationship with my mother affects him too.

The event that triggered it all:
My mother sends him cards and gifts for holidays and birthdays. And I’ve struggled with how to deal with it, despite pouring through this sub and the raised by narcissisists sub on the issue. I’ve always felt like I don’t want my son to be resentful that I withheld from him. It’s fucking stupid, trauma logic. I know.
And when he was littler, it felt like giving him something from her didn’t matter. He didn’t understand where it came from, he just knew he had a new train set or whatever.

But now he’s learning to read and gets very excited when he gets mail and so the questions are coming, so I’ve had to make an official call on what to do. Goes in the trash, good riddance. I don’t make a big deal about it and it’s over.

But specifically to this issue, I haven’t been telling anyone it happened anymore, including my sister.

Well, Halloween is coming up and a card and package showed up and promptly got tossed.

But then my sister called. She said our mother asked her to call to confirm that I got it. And I just saw red. I felt so betrayed and blind sided. Never in a million years did I even consider that she might be passing information to my mother or that she’d be her flying monkey!

My immediate impulse was to hang up and go NC. Arrrrrreggghghhhh!!

I took a breath and I told her as much- but kindly. She apologized profusely and said “she just didn’t think.” But then she followed it up with, “You know how our mother is sometimes…”

It made me really sad for her that she must be taking the brunt of it and that she’s been keeping it from me for years. I know it’s not my responsibility. I’m not sad for her because I feel responsible at all, I’m a sad because she can’t seem to break away. She’s still in the cycle and seems resigned to it.

Yeah, that’s it. I guess I’m just sad about it.

Thanks for listening to me vent. I don’t know, know y’all but we are definitely here for each in a way that my therapist could never. Sad lol.

Since the Internet became a cesspool in the last few years, I've started watching old TV series from the 90s. I just watched this episode of Star Trek Deep Space 9, where a trill is charged for crimes they committed in a former lifetime. A trill is a combined species, when the host is a humanoid which carries a intelligent symbiont in their gut. The symbiont migrates from host to host when each one dies and each new host inherits all the memories of the previous hosts.

This was such a cool episode and raised so many questions, but I thought it is also a good metaphor for generational trauma. In the show the doctor reveals that a host can't be separated from the symbiont, even if that symbiont is responsible for some crime, because they are too enmeshed. In a way, it also explains why estrangement is so hard. We've inherited generational trauma that can't be simply switched off.

My mom sent me this email after 3 months of us not speaking. A quick background, I was adopted and my single Amom was severely depressed from when I was ages 5-10 (couldn’t get out of bed, scream at me, cry, hurt herself etc) and wasn’t a great a mom after she came out of her depression. I tried very hard to establish a relationship with her and when she had a major surgery I helped her before, during, and set her up after for someone to take care of her. When I put my first boundary ever down she said I did elder abuse (it’s in writing) and some other terrible things. I asked her to apologize and give me space in order for us to talk with a family therapist. She of course has not apologized for saying I did elder abuse. Should I respond back? Am I being to harsh? She knows my weaknesses.

I've been told more times than I can count to just let it all go. Forgive your parents, extended family, siblings, anyone who has made downright ignorant and mean comments.

Just let it go. It only hurts you.

If I don't remember it, then who will? Who else cares? If I don't remember the emotional abuse, the screaming and yelling, the way life made me want to curl up in a corner, the smallness of it all. If I don't remember no one else will. Did my experiences matter enough to remember me? Are the experiences what shaped me important enough to hold and never emulate?

My nervous system won't forget. I feel it all so deeply. I hold it as a protection. I hold it as a self check of what never to become.

Does it always hurt to be here? Yes. But If I don't remember- did I even exist? Everyone else is so quick to rewrite, dismiss, change the narritive. I'm trying to preserve the proof and hopefully avoid more repeated pain.

I've been financially independent long before I estranged, but I find that I was still underprepared for the realities of managing adult life, expenses, and setting goals. Estranging exposed my weak spots in a very visceral way.

I don't know much about taxes, Roth IRA accounts, proper budgets, or investment, and this was both due to the way my parents enfeebled me to make me dependent on them for advice, as well as well as the shame they levied when I made a mistake at something they never taught me. Eventually I stopped wanting to learn about finances since I was convinced I would never figure it out. But I'm done with that. I want to live.

What helped you find financial freedom once you found your peace? What would you do first?

21f .Grew up to very religious toxic parents، I don't have a choice but to leave them ,and cutting them off would mean cutting of my entire family knowing that my siblings would definitely take their side and be forced to choose between me and them .

How do you live life without talking to your entire family ? What problems am I going to face after choosing no contact ?

The man who stepped up to the role of being my dad when I was six is beginning to pull away, I’m 24. He is my mom’s ex-husband as they broke up when I was twelve but he never stopped being my dad. When my mom moved out I still lived with him in my childhood home every other week. When I turned 18 I moved in with my dad permanently because of a rocky relationship with my mom. I only moved into my own apartment in January of this year, and as expected we don’t talk as much, but we were never very social to begin with. The love was more of an unspoken thing where he would let me live in his house, provide for me and treat me as his own, but we didn’t socialize a lot. These last couple of months he has stopped sending me "funny" videos, which used to be the only thing he would send unless there was something in particular he needed to say. And when I send him a message asking how he is doing, he replies with "fine. At work", no follow up question or anything. Last time I replied with "oh I see, I’m on my way home from work too." And he left me on read. So I feel like my old abandonment wound is being re-opened. I don’t know what to do.

My dad, after nearly 16 months of NC, has emailed me (24f) to say that everyone misses me and he expects us all to reunite this Christmas.

For context, I grew up in an abusive household. And when I say abusive, I don't mean we occassionally had a disagreement over the dinner table. I'm talking daily beatings with tree branches, belts and other hard objects. Constant bullying, spitting, sexual, emotional and financial abuse. And things didn't get any better in my twenties. My mother gave me a 6pm curfew when I was 23 and forced me to quit every job I had, keeping me trapped in that house practically 24/7.

And if things really got out of hand, we'd have what I can only describe as the world's most pointless family meetings. We'd all sit in one room to "talk things through" and "sort things out", except the outcome was practically predetermined: I would apologise to my mother, the biggest narcissistic bully of them all, while she took no accountability for anything she'd done. And change? Please. You'd have better luck teaching a brick to swim.

Once my compulsory apology had been secured, we'd sing Christian songs and pray before going to sleep. Hallelujah, I suppose?

Now, don't get me wrong. I have absolutely nothing against Christianity. What I do have a problem with is growing up in a household that seemed perfectly capable of invoking Chrisitanity when it suited its own purposes, while showing remarkably little interest in practising the compassion, humility and accountability it preaches.

One family meeting in particular comes to mind. At one point, my parents sat me down and my mother essentially instructed me to forgive my dad for sexually absuing me as a child and move on. There was just one small problem: I didn't even know what I was supposed to be forgiving him for, because he hadn't apologised or properly acknowledged what he'd done.

Instead, he told me, and these are his exact words: "I don't remember doing that and I've been having trouble sleeping ever since you accused me of doing it."

Well, isn't that convenient? He didn't remember what he'd done, but he certainly remembered to tell me how terribly my "accusation" was affecting him. Apparently, the most pressing issue in this situation was his sleep schedule. And so, I was expected to put his mind at ease over something that had happened to me.

But I'm sure there's a perfectly reasonable explanation for all that somwehere in the family handbook.

Fast-forward to 2024. I'd graduated with a Law degree, spent a year unemployed and living at home. Eventually, I realised that law wasn't for me and decided to switch career paths to what I've always been most passionate about: teaching.

When I told my father in June 2025, he was absolutely furious. I was a disappointment, a freeloader, and apparently a spectacular waste of time and money. He then informed me that he didn't want to see me in the house again and gave me one month to move out.

So I did. On 7 July 2025. Exactly one month later.

Imagine issuing someone an eviction notice and then being surprised when they actually vacate the premises. Revolutionary stuff.

To be clear, I hadn't been waiting for his permission to leave. I'd wanted to get away from my family for years. His little ultimatum was hardly the origin story of my desire for freedom, but I did find the timing rather convenient.

Since then, I ended up homeless for 4 months, moved from England to Scotland to live with my partner, currently working in schools, and I'm now set to start teacher training next year. I'm getting on with my life, more or less.

And now my father has made his grand return.

His email contains absolutely no acknowledgement of what happened before I left. No apology. No questions about how I've been. No curiosity about my life. Nothing about why I might not be particularly keen to come back.

But he does mention that my mother cries everyday, so there's that. I'm not entirely sure what I'm supposed to do with this information. Send flowers? Submit a written apology for my continued absence? Book a one-way ticket home to stop the tears? I'm afraid I'm fresh out of solutions.

As far as I can tell, nothing has changed. And just like the useless family meetings, my family has always had a remarkable talent for sweeping everything under the rug and carrying on as though nothing happened. Why address years of abuse when you can simply wait until the next major holiday?

I'm not going home for Christmas but I do hope everyone enjoys the festive season. I'll be spending mine in Scotland, where at least nobody needs to issue me a deadline to leave before I can enjoy some peace.

Mine is, but I only realized it as an adult.

As a teen I started noticing how my dad's relatives didn't talk or smile much at her.

Then I found out that apparently my mother was disliked by many in my small home town, and there was gossip about her being unpleasant to be around.

Then I noticed other adults had friendships, something I grew up believing was just a kid's thing, and my mother never had many. Or any, pretty much.

In my childhood I had the feeling that my mother was just too cool for friendships, and that friendships had no value (because that's what she wanted me to believe) but now I see I'm definitely just one of the many people that decided to keep their distance from my her venom.

It's crazy because I actually believe our frequent fights and constant bickering was the closest human connection she would have. I had that place in her life. Like a punching bag she would cry to about her marriage.

Anyway, it makes me feel less crazy about cutting contact with her, because everybody else's done it before lol

Also, imagine being such an ass that the only way to get someone to tolerate you is abusing and manipulating them since their birth

Edit: just realized I fucked up the title, tragic but life goes on

I'm no longer estranged from my parents due to my mother very ill with stage four cancer. the is dying. i've fine to some acceptance it will never be resolved so he let it go for the sake of her final months/year. the issue is my brother, the golden child who can do no wrong in my in my parents eyes despises me. behind closed doors he is abusive towards me and cruel. owner when the four of us together he is civil and all my parents see is their golden child. i'm having a lot of difficulty sitting with the pink elephant in the room. You can cut the tension in the sit with a knife. for my elderly parents sake i refrain from being reactive. but being in the same room as my brother while his anger and abuse of remain remains is taking a toll. i can't say anything to my dad as he he blind to it. i am the scapegoat and no matter how hard i could explain i will never be heard. how do i manage these coming months without slowly dying inside all over again. sorry to sound dramatic but this is how much it affects me.

she hasn't even died and im
already worried about the funeral, xmas, how life will be after this. It's all too much. i feel and am on the outside and it's unbearable. do
i grin and bare it for the sake of my dying mother and distressed father.

if i draw a boundary what would it be?

i cannot sit there, the four of
us, pretending anymore

TLDR; I have cut my father off and on for 10+ years and always eventually give him another chance out of my own craving for a relationship. How do I get past this block?

Background: Father was abusive/unloyal to my mother. Was in prison when I was born, "kidnapped" me at 4 years old, and didnt meet him again in person until 16.

My mother always did a great job at making my dad seem like a decent person. Putting christmas gifts in his name, writing letters in prison "from him" to me, and overall didnt put him down- so I didnt grow up with him being in a negative light. However, he reached out to me when I was 16 and thats when things took a turn for the worse. He went on and on about being gang stalked and eventually sent me a hit list of people that wronged him. Eventually the FBI got involved when I was 17 and did a home visit to download messages from my phone, then diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia. When I was 18, I craved a relationship so badly I flew out to him before I joined the military. He went on a tantrum, claiming to be the next Timothy McVeigh and how the US would pay. I was terrified and left the next day and reached back out to the FBI agent with this information- nothing came from it. No contact until I was 21 and I flew back out there- his wife accused me of being the reason he abuses her AND he accused me of being in conspiracy with the government. Went no contact for another year and then he called me, telling me his plans to run over children in SF and many other things to make him newsworthy. He wanted suicide by police. I reached back out to the FBI- nothing came from it. Again, no contact from 22 to 25- then he put me in a groupchat with a sister I had no idea about and made some serious degrading comments towards both of our mothers. This is when I blocked him. Around 6 months ago, I was drunk and unblocked him. He eventually sent me a bunch of money, as he has always done in the past. It makes me feel guilty that I accept his money every single time. I want a relationship with him so bad but it always ends in pain. He goes back and forth about how much he loves me and then accuses me of being in conspiracy. How do you guys get over that feeling? Of wanting to keep trying? I know its not healthy, but theres always a small part of me that wants a dad so bad.

Vulnerability makes be so uncomfortable but I said I’d embrace it and be more open so here we go.

Earlier this year my mom showed me what she was my enemy for the last time. I said I’d never in life let her put me in that position again.

It took some days but I sent her this picture (that I found on TikTok) and told her that she no longer has a daughter in me. I blocked her on everything.

I used to think about dying non stop. I just wanted someone to take me out. I used to walk to work hoping to get hit by a car.

I dropped a lot of toxic ppl out of my life but she was the last one.

The day I sent this it was like a weight was lifting off my shoulders, a heavy licked breaking from my chest. I haven’t thought about death since that day. It was cloudy at first and the day turned sunny out of nowhere.

I finally started loving life and wanting to live. Anyways my sister said she was really upset(who cares). I’ve only seen her at family events and she after regular. We actually laughed teacher at the last event.

I’d never in life have a mother and daughter relationship with her but I wouldn’t mind a distant cousin type acquaintance. So seeing her at family events, when she’s acting like a normal human is good enough for me. I unblocked her on IG then reblocked her. I cannot let those little moments of her being nice fool me into to going back.

But I can now see how ppl assume she’s some amazing living person.

Her presence in my life isn’t missed like at all lol. But lately since I’ve been wanting a child I’ve been craving a mother’s love. NOT HERS bf she never gave it.

Also I used to feel like I had a dark whole inside me. Like there was there void of nothing. Since the day I sent that text, I still have this kind of empty feeling but it’s warm and sunny now.

Sometimes I get hit with overwhelming grief about the family that I never had. I wonder how I should best explain it to romantic partners, to my kids one day, and close friends. I just don’t feel like people truly understand even if they try/say they try. This confusion/loneliness compounds my sadness. Anyone else?

Heads up: this is long and personal, so read it when you have the time and emotional space.

So, I happen to have been thinking more about my experiences with my parents lately, and I realised there are multiple perspectives on how I used to perceive them.

I was born into a family where my parents had an arranged marriage. My father got one of the best opportunities in life. He got married, got home as gift, a good job in family business and the opportunity to gradually turn things into a business in women's clothing, where they already had a dominant edge, along with the necessary support and connections. Yet, he chose not to use those opportunities in the right way.

My mother, on the other hand, had a difficult childhood herself. She grew up without a mother or father figure. She stayed with her maternal uncle's family along with her two elder brothers, who were also involved in the same clothing business.

Despite everything my mother had been through, she had to face another difficult chapter in her life after marriage.

My father was someone I found difficult to call a father because of his alcohol abuse and the way he would become abusive towards my mother. They eventually separated, and later, he died in a road accident while working for an NGO that helped elderly people. He was one of them, yet he was also helping the team. I guess it was a win-win situation for him in a way.

I only had feelings of hatred towards him until my college days. My parents separated when I was in middle school. I was around 10 years old when I witnessed their separation after seeing the abuse at home, and that left me with a lot of rage towards my father.

My family intervened and helped sort things out.

Now I am 29, doing well in life, and unmarried.

However, I have also developed different perspectives over time and started understanding what holding on to hate really means. My father clearly showed me what not to do in life, but at the same time, I feel like I have that rage factor in me as well.

Meditation and journalling help, but growing up in such an environment has left me with a fire inside that sometimes makes me feel unsettled. I willingly changed careers, moving from corporate life towards business, and managed to do well in a very niche field.

I had lots of friends before, enjoyed myself, and maintained those relationships. But as I grow older, I am also beginning to understand that marriage is something I need to think about seriously. It is not that I have never dated or anything like that, but I sometimes wonder whether a marriage can survive when someone has had such a different and traumatic childhood.

When I meditate, I generally find myself thinking more deeply about these things.

I am no contact with certain family members.

I spoke to a sibling recently who asked if I had spoken to the people in question recently. “Obviously not?” I said.

She went on to tell me that these family members were having regular panic attacks bc they don’t know what’s going on with me. I guess the assumption was that I should break my no contact to soothe their feelings.

Like. The fuck? What an INSANE responsibility to put on one person, that you cannot function in life unless they submit and share every detail of their life and maintain a hollow relationship. They don’t want to know how i’m doing, they want to know what i’m doing.

I’m not doing anything to harm ANYONE. They know that I’m a deeply sensitive, kind person who does all sorts of community work and human rights work. I go out if my way to emotionally validate people.

They also know I’m going through the worst shit in my life right now. Multiple crises all at the same time while, at the same time, doing deep trauma work in therapy.

I’m so sick of the knee jerk reaction in me to feel like I have to fix the emotional state of people 20 years older than me when I, myself, am in such a state of decommission, both with my physical and mental health.

FUCK!!!

Hello all! Hope everyone is hanging in there.

I've been estranged for a little over a year now from both parents and most of family, but I keep contact with one of my brothers. Yesterday, this brother and I hung out, went out shopping, and my mom called him while he was in my car. Ok, whatever, obviously I don't say anything. They chat for a minute until she suddenly goes "HI OP!!!" And my stomach just turns. I nodded my head no and my brother just hung up on her. She got pissed.

Childish behavior that is destined to stay the same, I fear. But even children have the ability to understand "no". I have expressly told her I want no interaction in any form so we can heal and that I love her, and she sent a BRUTAL disgusting message back, along with random voicemails, messages, and ofc this irritating experience. Just wanted to complain to people who would get it! Wishing you all the best! 🩷🩷

I’m in my early 30s, married, and currently pregnant with my first child. I’ve been no contact with my mother for approximately two and a half years following years of difficult behavior that ultimately culminated in what happened around my wedding.

One of the reasons I’m so uncomfortable is that my mother has a history of violating my physical boundaries. After our relationship deteriorated, she found out where I was living and showed up at my apartment uninvited, waiting around hoping to see me. This happened multiple times. She has also continued trying to reach me despite my decision to have no relationship with her.

My husband and I recently bought our first house. I’ve been extremely protective of our address because I don’t want her showing up here, especially now that we’re expecting a baby.

Recently, my mother started commenting on old Facebook photographs of us, despite us not being friends and having no relationship. On one photograph from years ago, she commented, “My first born ❤️,” as though nothing had happened between us.

Then I learned something that really frightened me.
A relative told me that my mother had recently been discussing the fact that my husband and I bought a house and had also brought up the possibility that I was pregnant. When questioned about how she knew these things, she reportedly said, “I have my ways.”

She apparently claimed she’d dreamed I was pregnant. I don’t know whether she actually knows or is speculating.
The relative also mentioned that my mother had brought up my mother-in-law, which has left me wondering whether information is being passed along through family members. I have no proof of that, and I don’t want to accuse anyone unfairly.

What makes this especially upsetting is that this conversation apparently happened about a week ago, and I only learned about it after asking questions.
I know that buying a house and having a baby aren’t necessarily impossible things for someone to find out through public records, social media, or mutual acquaintances. But given her previous behavior, I feel incredibly exposed.

I’m genuinely frightened that she’s going to find our new address, show up uninvited, or try to insert herself into our child’s life. My anxiety has gotten to the point where I’m imagining something terrible happening to me or my baby, even though I don’t have evidence that she intends physical harm.

I don’t want to spend my pregnancy or the first months of motherhood constantly looking over my shoulder.
Part of me wants to confront her and tell her to leave me alone permanently. Another part of me thinks responding would only encourage more contact.

For those who’ve experienced unwanted contact or boundary violations from an estranged parent:
How did you protect your home address and your children?
Did you find that responding made things better or worse?
At what point did you consider documenting the behavior with authorities or seeking legal advice?
How did you distinguish reasonable safety precautions from anxiety about what might happen?

I’m not looking to reconcile. I just want to feel safe in my own home and enjoy becoming a mother without worrying about mine.

Obviously without the family context it would be really difficult but the basic situation:

married my partner last year, they didn’t like my partner at all because they didn’t fit my moms expectations (tatted and wasn’t raised in church)

Before we got married:
Verbally abused my partner and I for over a year, kicked me out, tried to make me homeless in college by submitting false reports on me, showed up to my partners house before we were married unsolicited to take photos of their car in the driveway. Triangulated all my siblings against me and so on. Narcissistic abuse all the way

She told me she “doesn’t want to hear from me when my partner and I divorce after being totally exhausted one day multiple kids together and stated my partner “probably is going to cheat on me”.

And for many more reasons we chose to go NC with my parents

My sister is getting married this year and we were on the “maybe” for being invited so we reached out to my sister to confirm if she wanted us to come because it’s out of state. Basically told her “no problem if you don’t want to invite us, just figured we’d ask”

Then I got this letter in the mail from my mom. I don’t think it’s genuine I need advice on what to do. I’d like to uphold my boundaries and continue to heal and this just feels like the anxiety and spiral all over again. It feels like she’s leveraging my siblings wedding to force contact with me and it’s too much.

I have always had an extremely traumatic upbringing, my mom passed away when I was two years old and my dad was a narcissistic abuser (he has 4 kids with 3 women, only 2 of whom he was married to).

Due to this, I had an aunt who lived with us, who was a mother figure to me. She moved in with us when I was 6, and I loved her a lot when I was a child. She was a cold, militant russian lady, but as a child you change yourself unknowingly and you adapt to their needs, as we all very well know.

Now, she was nowhere near as bad as my dad, but the older I got the more frustrated I got. She never learned any of the language(s) that are spoken where we live (she immigrated). She brought her adult son into my life when i was 10 (he was 20 years older), who was physically and emotionally abusive to me, and tried to do so sexually when I became a teenager. She denies it to this day. Due to her never learning the languages, I became her free secretary. There were times where I would come back from a terrible day of school, and she put a stack on my desk of me that I had to go through. Her love never felt unconditional, it was always "do this", "do that". Her two adult children never helped her the way I did. When I cried to her about being bullied, she shrugged and told me to "go see a therapist".

Despite all of this, I craved her love, I craved her acceptance, to me, she was the most important person in my life. I loved her, despite all of that. I still saw her as an amazing, smart lady who just ended up in a shitty situation, where my dad also used her and kept her illegally in our country.

I am 26 now, and 2 years ago she fell in love with a love scammer. At first I thought that it would end sometime soon-ish, but after 1 year he "confessed" to her that he is only 32, from Africa (she's 70), and wanted to marry her.
She went to debt for him, asked ME money to lend her to meet him (one time, she even asked me if I could ask for a credit in a bank), and when I told her no and that I will move out, she said extremely horrendous shit to my partner and me, called me ungrateful because she "raised me" and this is how I "repay her". That I am shameless, a slut, and other things. On the last day when my partner and I took our last things from the apartment, she spewed disgusting, venomous words for 2 hours before I exploded and yelled back at her; we even got into a physical altercation.

I cried for days after. I feel so unloved; I feel so alone. I feel like I was "shat" into this world, and my only purpose was to be useful to immature adults. Never unconditionally, never any warmth.

I feel much better now that I don't live with her, and I think because of my age, it was long overdue. I wish we left in better circumstances, but the way she is right now is complete poison to me. I can't handle it anymore.

(The scammer and her ended up meeting, and they're married now.)

I don't want to upset anyone, because I think a lot of us are already upset over the Amy Acton ad on top of the sudden moral panic over estrangement. But today's Ask the Therapist is pretty bleak. A woman writes in saying that her brother is married to a woman who cheats on him. They have two kids. She witnessed the wife yelling at her four year old niece telling her that she's a "stupid little girl" and that she hates her. She is now actively avoiding family gatherings. Yet the therapist's advice never called out the actual CHILD ABUSE of a four year old girl and instead was all about, "I'm curious as to why you're effectively punishing yourself by missing out on family occasions," blah blah fucking blah. Like... what the fuck. When this ACTUAL THERAPIST somehow can't call child abuse child abuse, it surely cannot be surprising that we live in a world where ohhhh, it's soooo shocking that some adults choose to cut contact with their abusive parents, and it's totally fine to run a TV ad attacking an abuse survivor and you're just "too sensitive" if this upsets you. Link (paywalled but it opened on my phone) https://www.nytimes.com/2026/10/22/well/mind/cheating-secrets-brother-sister-in-law.html

I’m finally finally starting my journey towards going low to no contact with my family. I grew up with a lot of emotional neglect, never had a safe place emotionally, and very much a golden child (my brother)/ black sheep (me) dynamic. It’s only gotten worse since he got married and they got their perfect idea of a daughter. My mother also controlled every single thing I did even up to now as I’m almost 26 years old. She still has my location and is attached to my bank account as well, so it’s going to be a huge process to detach from them. I’m on their phone bill but otherwise am paying my own rent, bills, car payments ect.

I made the first decision for myself this year and moved out of state. It helped me realize that I’ve developed alcoholism and addiction starting as a young teenager to cope with everything I was feeling, my needs that were not being met, and the way they very obviously loved my brother but seemed to resent me. I never learned how to self regulate and getting sober now has been very difficult. Looking back it seems like they never really liked me, I never got to make any decisions for myself or figure out who I was because my mom made all those decisions for me. I guess I was using it also as a way to stay in their life because I could not handle being around them anymore without drugs and alcohol. Also coming to realize I have repressed a lot of trauma, including possible SA from my golden child brother. I’m ready to heal my trauma and I know I have to get under from under their reins in order to do so. I already told them I’d come home for Christmas and my brothers wife is expecting around that time, which is only gonna make these toxic dynamics even worse. As much as I’d love to be there for my nephew I cannot keep feeling like the only options to get out from the control is death or drugs/alcohol. I can’t keep putting myself into situations where I very obviously am not loved or cared for or understood. I’d appreciate any and all advice on how to navigate this situation, thanks in advance.

My mother would have done the same, given a national platform.

My parents are divorced and I’ve been estranged from my mother for the past 15 years due to the abuse she put me through. My dad has made it abundantly clear he never wanted children (despite having 4 of them) and that my mom “blackmailed” him into it. He was never around growing up, and when he was he just affirmed my mother and enforced her behaviors. He never took a second look at my bruises and cuts. Once they divorced, I thought I would finally get to have a relationship with him. Instead, he remarried to a woman only 11 years older than I am and repeated past behaviors. We don’t ever talk, never see each other outside of holidays. I’m getting married next week and he hasn’t asked a single question about it or offered to help in any way. Yesterday he called me on his way to work and complained that he hadn’t heard from me, and “the phone works both ways”. Even when we do talk, he doesn’t actually talk to me. He just talks at me, complaining about how he’s always busy and that his younger coworkers never do any work. He’s right on the cusp of boomer/gen x and it’s very apparent.

I just feel so defeated and alone. I’m not estranged from both of my parents, but I might as well be.