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“I Asked Him To Stop, But He Couldn’t”: 30 Things That Had People Disowning Their Parents
Interview With Expert
The concept of family is still very important in our society. We say that our values and what kind of person we are come from our family. Yet the reality is that more and more children don't maintain contact with their parents once they leave the nest.
A shift in values is the main reason experts cite when it comes to family estrangement. Shontel Cargill, LMFT, explained to Vogue that adults now prioritize their mental health and well-being. They choose to cut off their toxic or abusive family members to safeguard their emotional health.
So, when one person asked on Quora, "Why did you disown your parents?", many people came forward with their stories. People say that sharing helps, so if you'd like to tell us your family estrangement story, feel free to do so in the comments below. Us Pandas are usually very supportive of one another!
Bored Panda reached out to two experts in the field of family estrangement. The first one is Family Estrangement Specialist Coach and Researcher Dr. Becca Bland. She's the founder of Stand Alone charity in the UK, which helps adults who are estranged from their parents or children.
The other is Psychotherapist Tina Gilbertson, the author of Reconnecting With Your Estranged Adult Child and host of the biweekly Reconnection Club Podcast. Both experts kindly agreed to share their insights about family estrangement with us.
This post may include affiliate links.
#1
My mother shipped my childhood horse for meat. She lied to me and said that my mare was sick and had to be put down. I was paying $50/mo to my mother to pasture board my horse, and as she got no grain, and hay was 1.00 per bale then, my mother was making a profit. I was in grad school, and scraped the money together out of my stipend (I certainly never got any financial support from my mother).
When i found out, months later, what she’d done, I called her on the phone and her answer was a snarled“what did you care? You didn’t live here anymore.” I then disowned my mother and told her that if she ever contacted me again, I would turn her into the authorities (she has skipped out on a lot of debts). That was more than 20 years ago, and we’ve had no contact since. I hear about her from my relatives and she makes up lies about me to them, how I’ve been fired and have no friends, how I’ve abused my pets. Just nonsense, but cruel things.
Please, no comments about “forgiveness.” I have accepted what she’s done and moved on, so I am fine. She is obviously not repentant and is therefore not deserving of forgiveness. So no dime-store psychology please.
Lost Penny 4 months ago
People who start preaching, "But they are your parents!! Forgive and forget! Family is the most important thing!!!! Your parents gave you LIFE!!111"... I want to slap those people in the face with a dead fish.
Although the reasons for family estrangement can be many, Dr. Becca Bland says her research from the University of Cambridge shows three main ones. Although they are not exhaustive, they are as follows:
- Historic abuse and domestic violence;
- Divorce and remarriage;
- Differences in morals, values, and beliefs.
Psychotherapist Tina Gilbertson agrees. "Adult children stop communicating with their parents for many reasons, but the essential problem is how they feel in the relationship. Usually, it's not the unchangeable past that's the sticking point. There are current dynamics in play, such as the parent's inability or unwillingness to understand, acknowledge, or effectively address a negative experience in the present."
Dr. Bland also makes some observations from her own specialist practice. "I can see that adult children often feel a lack of safety in raising issues with their parents. As such, the dynamic doesn't have the capacity to handle conflict and the skills to repair the relationship."
#2
It took me a long time in my life to disown my father forever, for good, not looking back ever, and I am so much happier since I did. I did spend months or even a full year not talking to the guy and not taking his calls, but my mom always made me feel guilty after some time, until I was able to tell her: “Mom, I want him gone from my life forever, I don’t want to see him ever again or speak with him ever again and if you even mention him again, I’m also cutting you out of my life.”
I was so harsh with my mother because that was the only way to make her back off, to make her understand how much the man she married (and gave me his genetic information) hurt me, every time I saw him. He was physically and emotionally abusive to me until I was 12 years old. At that age, he hit me and I was so angry because he had hit me just for existing, that I hit back and the next thing I knew, I had supernatural strength from the adrenaline and he was on the floor begging that I stop hitting him. After that time, he never hit me again but the emotional abuse continued.
He was also economically abusive, to my mom and later to me when I started working at 16. He stole money I was saving to buy something I wanted, and when I confronted him, he said he had every right to take that money since he had fed me and gave me a roof for 16 years. He also said that everything I owned was his, and he had the right to keep my stuff when I moved out. I had to sneak out at 2 a.m with just a bag of clothes, in order to move out of there.
When I was in my 20s, he insisted that I had to break up with my boyfriend and introduced me to random guys telling me “you should be dating him instead of your boyfriend” (luckily not in front of the guys, but still). However, the worse came when he found out that I was bisexual and not dating men anymore. He confronted me about it at a restaurant and I admitted it. He started yelling and I thought he was going to stab me with the knife, and I believe he had the thought but noticed everyone at the restaurant was looking at him and didn’t do it. I left and that’s when I didn’t speak to him for a year, until my mom insisted that he had “changed” and that he “accepted” my relationship. Of course he never did and he made plentiful of hurtful comments, both to me and my partner.
Every time I saw my father in my adult life, he would pretend to be nice for a while and then at some point he’d yell to me or say something hurtful, I cut him out of my life for months, and then my mother would again do the show of “but he chaaaaaaaaaaanged!”. He never did change of course. He didn’t apologize, not even once. Every time I confronted him about how badly he treated me, what I told him was “I’m willing to forgive and forget the past but I need you to understand how you hurt me, so you don’t do it anymore”. Every time I told him that, he’d start speaking about his own childhood and how his childhood was so difficult for him, and never acknowledged or validated my feelings or his own role about the difficulties in my childhood.
The last straw for me was a few years ago. He was in the hospital, in intensive care, but they allowed two people at a time to visit. I went in with my father in law. My father started insulting my FIL and my partner (who wasn’t there but still). When we left, my FIL was generous and told me “don’t worry about what he told me, it was probably the medication”. But I knew that it wasn’t true and that every word that my father had said, was exactly what he thought. And I decided to protect myself and protect the family I choose. And that’s why I’ll never see the man again and when he dies I won’t be to his funeral, I just don’t care about him. He made me not care.
PHOTOBOB 4 months ago
Most people will say, "you should always keep family in your life." Not true. We all need to cut abusive people from our lives. Family or not. Often family is worse. What I went though with my father was not nearly this bad. when he passed away I felt nothing. No loss. No relief. He was already gone from my life.
#3
Yes, there are plenty of reasons dating back to my childhood to be angry with my mother, but I decided when I became a mother myself to forgive her. I was an idiot. She earned my utter disdain all over again. For anyone who has cut off their parents I urge you not to give the bastards another chance to betray you.
For me, the reason I cut off my mother a second time comes down to 2 categories;
Manipulation) my mother manipulated me into putting up with constant verbal abuse of me, my husband, 2 out of my three children (for some inexplicable reason she hated my son since the day he came home from the hospital) she would tell me how much she adored us, while putting us down with the next breath. She lived with us and although she was well below retirement age she worked for 3 months in those ten years. My husband supported her financially and yet she verbally abused him until he would not leave the bedroom when she was in the house. She would often take our youngest child aside and tell her she was the only “good” member of the family. She said she supported me emotionally, but would tell people I no longer wrote (when I was managing to turn out roughly a novel a year). She then complained that I didn’t share my work with her but every thing I did, from writing, to my appearance, to cooking, to my personal taste in music she had a back handed insult for. I once had a great public reading before a very hard audience and all the way home she calmly explained to me why it had not been a success. Every morning when I began to to write she would do everything to distract me, beginning with turning the t.v. on full blast and ending with stomping around the house shouting about being ignored. I could not go on a date with my husband without her getting in her car and following us, then sitting at the table beside mine and saying “I’m not allowed to sit with them”. When I had sex, with my own husband, in my own bedroom after the children had gone to bed she moved a chair beside the bedroom door and sat there coughing and sighing loudly. When confronted about any of this behavior she either denied that it had taken place at all or she somehow shifted the blame so that everything was my )or my husband’s fault). Add to this she never swept the floor, cleaned a single bathroom, or washed a dish on the time she lived with us, instead she pouted, mocked, and generally threw a fit when we cleaned the house, telling our children we were “crazy” for cleaning. I tried to make healthy meals (my mother is diabetic) but she would refuse what she referred to as my “hippy food” and would instead spend what money she had on fast food that would send her blood sugar sky high. She refused to go to the bank or the hospital for routine check ups unless I dropped everything to accompany her. She refused to do anything unless I accompanied her and if I did anything that was not about her she would huff and pout and rail.
Lies) I explained that my husband and I were leaving the state with the kids and not taking her with us. I soon afterwards discovered after confronting her about the verbal abuse and manipulation and that she had been lying to all our friends and family for years, telling them I had taken financial advantage of her (she never paid a single bill in all the years she lived with us and threw a hissy fit during the three months she worked and I asked her to buy a few groceries) What enrages me is that anyone actually believes her. Not only have I cut my mother out of my life I have decided it’s not worth the effort to convince anyone stupid enough to believe that I was sponging off of her. There was nothing there to sponge.
I know this is rambling and disjointed but years after the fact I am still too angry to write about it calmly.
Nothing in the world could convince me to give her the opportunity to harm me again.
Lost Penny 4 months ago
This woman is a textbook narcissist & manipulator. OP is a strong person to be able to get away from underneath her birther's disgusting thumb.
"Sometimes, when parents ask for a reason for the cut-off, adult children will say, 'You should know why,'" Gilbertson explains. "Since most of us are confused by our own emotions half the time, we don't understand each other very well. And that's as true for family members as anyone else."
Dr. Bland observes that parents often don't have the emotional capacity to have these kinds of conversations. "I often see parents who simply don't have the skills to make a space safe for an adult child who wants to share their thoughts, feelings, and needs. It's hard to hear negative feedback, and they may deflect and call the adult child sensitive, selfish, or entitled. This pushes people away further and reduces any faith that the dynamic can change."
#4
After about 14 years of emotional abuse I disowned my father
I was not that child who run out to welcome ‘'father’ home from work. In fact I stayed inside and my stomach would twist in knots so much I had to run to the toilet and have stomach cramps, especally when he was late home which meant certain trouble because he had been drinking and very short tempered.
My stomach knots where like Oh no whats going to happen? Dinner is ruined, down it goes to the floor, another broken plate, Mother gets punched, another brused rib or two. I sit quietly crying wanting it to stop and this went on for years, The Police where called a few times by the neighbours, That horrid noise of crying and his yelling and hitting
One day I seen the worst, I was inside looking out the window to the back yard with my mothers back towards me and him facing me. Some angry look on his face and some angry words said and then he punched her in the face and she goes down knocked out and he proceeded to kick her all over, I was shocked, stunned and horrifie. Tears flowing down my face wanting this horror to stop. Who will stop it? I was 7 or so and then made a promise to never marry, And I never had
After their devorce, he could not let go, he would find us and harras my mother to take him back and we had to move to get away from him until he finds us again and on it went, During this time I went to a few different schools and why bother making friends because we might have to move again and we did again and again. I had no social life outside of school and now still not devolped socially considering my age.
Never had a relationship, just 2 brief flings. Tried to k*ll myself 3 times. Drink and drugs from late teens to about early 30s. Almost died from a dirty needle.
Never seen or talked to my father for 30 odd years till my mother heard on the grape vine he might of died, Find out she tells me and if it's true I can lay my ghosts to rest, I find out and it's true, some ghosts are gone but some won't go very easy, I have lots of stuff bottled up inside, Anger and unused Love, horrid lonelines to name a few Also found out he was married 8 times, I am from the 1st and I knew about the 2nd which ended like the 1st, How many other lifes are ruined? Sad.
#5
I was adopted by my maternal aunty when I was 4 and, looking back, it was the absolute worst thing for both of us. I was always told she has desperately wanted a daughter, as she already had two boys, but I honestly believe she hated me.
From the constant put-downs, constant surveillance and insults, my breaking point was when she swung for me because I had apparently shut a door too loudly- as she dropped me off at work. The only way I avoided a black eye was by throwing my hands up and blocking her, and then tumbling out of my own car.
It was a eureka moment and I realised I could take no more. I left, trying to take one small bag and my laptop with me (not something she had bought me, something I had been given by a trust for my writing). She told me if I left, I left with nothing - and so I said ‘fine’ and walked out of the door.
Disowning her, and by default, my uncle, who would never disagree with her, changed my life to the extreme. The first few months were the hardest - I was sick, constantly in fear that she would turn up and kidnap me at any point. I quit my steady job for most part in the fear that she knew where I would be (the other part was the fact I could not drive and i had to rely on others to ferry me around). I was paranoid and heart-broken and angry and sad and a mess of emotions sailing in a sea of relief.
The rest of my family all responded negatively to my leaving, saying she made one mistake and she spent every night crying (I had seen her cry just once). My oldest adopted brother (cousin) called me a few names and the younger one failed to say anything to me - and never has since. My Nan cried and asked me to go home. It hurt to see them hurt - but I still did not go back.
After a few months, I was no longer technically ‘homeless’ (I had mainly sofa surfed as I didn’t want to put pressure on my boyfriend as we had been together only three months; not very long to be moving in, but one I caved in to once I realised I loved him, it made sense and it was less stressful).
I had a job at a local cafe and had started driving lessons with a new instructor who even discounted my lessons when I told him the truth. I had met with another aunty and uncle and started to reveal what had gone on behind closed doors and they started to say they had suspected things were bad. My boyfriend was absolutely amazing and his mum was great as well for letting me move in with them.
I started to feel like a weight was gone from my shoulders; not all at once, but gradually. And I felt like I could suddenly take a breath. It finally started to feel like living and that was the most shocking part for me. I was used to living in constant fear and now I had started to smile and mean it.
Its been over four years now (I’m 22) and I can honestly say that if I had not left, I would have ki*led myself. It’s a very big thing to say, but I was dying slowly and was at the end of what I could bear to live with. I hated myself and I don’t understand why she didn’t love me, what I had done to make her hate me so and that was worse than anything else. Loving someone that does not love you back is hard at the best of times, but for a mother not to love someone she had to chosen to take care of is a slow poison.
I will always be thankful I escaped, but there are the regrets I will always carry with me - my Nan still gets so upset about it and I hate to hurt her, and I have no contact with one of my brother’s (youngest out of the two) or my adopted father. I hate that she hasn’t seen my little house, or seen that I have a good job, or loved my boyfriend like the rest of my family. But I doubt she ever would have wanted any of those things, so maybe it is my regret wishing she had cared.
I will not and will never regret the choices I have made to get me here.
#6
My parents divorced when I was young. Both my parents remarried and had children with their new spouses. My parents' new lives did not include me.
My father left when I was in middle school after he became wealthy. He left me behind because he did not want his new prestigious employer and rich friends to know he had a child from a previous marriage and a mentally ill abusive ex-wife. My step-mother hated me due to the drama my mother caused.
I grew up with my mother and step-father. My mother and step-father were incredibly abusive toward me. I often got locked in my bedroom for days. I needed special permission to use the bathroom. My last name was viewed as a curse word therefore I was forbidden to say it. My mother made me do the dishes using dish soap I was allergic to, she laughed when my hands blistered. My step-father forbid me from eating 'his food’ so I ate mainly at school. I often was forced to spend holidays alone in my room while the 'family’ celebrated in the living room. My birthday often got forgotten. My mother referred to me often as 'you stupid worthless piece of s**t’. She dressed me in cheap baggy unisex clothes in which I got bullied for at school. These are just a few examples. At 18 she and my step-father kicked me out of the house. At 18 I started adulthood alone, with no job, no money, no car, little life skills, etc.
My parents refused to fill out FAFSA so I was denied financial aid for college. Financial aid for college is based on your parents income until you are 24. I was expected to foot the bill myself while supporting myself on a $15,000 yearly income. Since I had no degree I only could find work at low paying jobs. My mother worked for a university where her kids could attend for free. My mother refused to complete the paperwork then told the university I wasn't her kid. She laughed as she continued to screw me over. I tracked down my absent father and he refused to help me.
My 'parents’ tell everyone I'm either this horrible monster or I'm not their child. They raised their kids (my half siblings) to hate me and believe I'm not family. My parents loved my half siblings and raised them with love. My half siblings got off to a good start in life with their college paid for, cars bought for them, they got to live at home until they could financially support themselves, my parents introduced them to others (networking), etc.
I discovered my father not only became wealthy but became well known as well. He's met famous people. He's traveled. He vacations in Paris often. He became wealthier by the year and sat back as I got abused and struggled.
I no longer speak to my 'parents’ or other relatives that believe the lies. My parents are the most evil, selfish, pieces of crap I've ever met.
Lost Penny 4 months ago
These are getting worse and worse as I scroll down. I am literally feeling sick.
It might seem like there are more and more adult children who go no-contact with their parents. But Dr. Bland says that there is no evidence in research to suggest this. "There isn't any longitudinal study to show an increase or decrease. However, due to more focus on the issue in the press, we have a greater societal dialogue around it."
"This gives an illusion [that] it's on the rise, but, in reality, we are simply talking about it more," Dr. Bland clarifies. "It is important that we talk about it more and allow space and dialogue in society for the grief. It's also important to understand these decisions are never flippant and are often long considered and incredibly painful to make."
#7
Yes. I am an Indian. India is known for its family bonding where people stay in a same roof with their parents even after getting married and having a child.
I have completely cut off ties with my family. I eloped with the guy I loved as my family was not ready for inter caste. They think that they have disowned me but in reality I have disowned them because they couldn't see my happiness. They couldn't let me decide whom do I want to spend the rest of my life with even after being an adult. What's the point of relations where it is just for the sake of society and not for each other's happiness. My family has not tried to reach me in years nor have I tried to tell them about my existence. I am happy in my life and they are happy in theirs.
Regina Holt 4 months ago
Good for you, getting out of that life, into one that makes you happy.
#8
I could no longer stand by and watch them enable my brother.
My brother is abusive (emotionally and physically - he has sent my father to the hospital), mentally ill, and addicted to drugs. He is diagnosed with Bipolar I with psychosis and with Narcissistic Personality Disorder. He is unable to take responsibility for his own actions and frequently blames my parents for his numerous issues, despite living under their roof, and swings back and forth between worshipping them and accusing them of horrendous things.
The violence is the worst part. He’s almost 30 and my parents are in their 60s. For the past ten years, I’ve expected a knock on my door and the inevitable news that he’s k*lled them. I’ve cried and begged my parents to kick him out. Put an end to it. They have gotten a restraining order, but quickly had it retracted so he could move back in. The abuse continues. And so on. It’s been so stressful for me that I had a nervous breakdown a few years ago.
My father has repeatedly stated that he can’t throw him out. I distanced myself after the breakdown. I had to. I felt as if I would lose my mind if I didn’t. Nothing changed.
My brother recently began directing his vitriol toward me. I knew this marked the beginning of the end. I knew my parents would allow this behavior to continue and expect me to “deal with it” just as they have. They both claimed to understand why I needed my distance, but my father would often make comments like, “I wish I could just run away” or “it’s hard for me, too.” This made me feel guilty that I was placing my needs first.
Once my brother set his sights on me, I knew I had to cut him out of my life. Because he is so deeply involved in the lives of my parents, this also included cutting them off. I also knew their silence and the lack of consequences would enable my brother’s poor treatment of me - and if there were any chance of healing our relationship, that would destroy it.
I specifically told them that if and when my brother was out of their house, we could contact each other again. Since then, I’ve heard nothing.
My mom did text my spouse. The text message read that she’d let us know “when [ my brother ] was out.” As much as I want to hope, I have no reason to believe that they will ever change. This is the choice they made. They choose to enable him. I have to accept that. All of this happened one week ago.
I’m still struggling so much. I miss my mom. She’s my best friend. I cry almost every day. Even watching a scene between someone and their mom is enough to get me going. I want nothing more than to pick up and phone and text her, but I know I can’t. I’m so angry that their shared passivity has allowed this to happen and they don’t value me enough to make the necessary changes for the sake of our relationship. I feel robbed of what would have otherwise been a wonderful family.
#9
I cut all contact with my father about 1,5 years ago. I was never abused, and my dad is not a bad man, for which I’m glad. Obviously there are other people with far more pressing reasons to cut contact with a parent. My father and I just never really “bonded”.
My parents split up when I was a new-born. I never lived with my father, and I was raised mostly by my brother’s dad (who is my true father figure). Once every two weeks I had to spend the weekend with my biological father, during which he took me to my grandparents and we did fun things, like day trips and such. Not so bad, when I was a child.
Even though I’m sure he loves me, he never really showed an interest in me as a person. I was his daughter, but he never asked me about my grades, my friends, my hobbies, or my boyfriends. The older I got, the more awkward those visits became, as there was nothing to talk about. Usually we just watched a lot of tv, while he fell asleep on the couch until it was time to take me home to my mother.
As an adult, the visits were still awkward, but he became very meddlesome in my “grown-up” decisions. He felt as though he had the right to tell me what to do. I appreciate good advice, but he just always went too far, even becoming angry when I made an important decision without telling him. He expected me to follow his opinion about my carreer, or about buying things like a house or a car, blindly.
The breaking point came when I was renovating my house and he was fighting me on every decision. He was calling me non-stop, starting as early as 6.30AM, even on Sundays. He duplicated a key to my house without asking. He showed up unannounced AND (explicitly) uninvited. It was exhausting. It was toxic. I was very quickly approaching a nervous breakdown. I was crying all the time. On multiple occassions I asked him to stop, but he couldn’t and wouldn’t. He just didn’t respect my boundaries. The last conversation we had was after he had tried to contact my builders behind my back to get them to stop working. So I ceased all communication, and I’m so much happier for it.
I’m no longer anxious because I have to invite him only out of obligation and count down the minutes for him to leave. And I can finally live my life like the 34-year-old adult that I am, instead of him treating me like a child that is stupid and incapable of deciding things on her own. He bad-mouthed me to the entire family, since he thinks I’m just an ungrateful daughter, but I never really connected with them anyway. The only real victim here is my grandmother, who believes everything he says. I regret not having contact with her, but to her I’m just the bad seed now…
Tina Gilbertson adds that it's hard to measure the incidence of family estrangement, since only 20 years ago, there was almost no research on the topic. "Even now, in quantitative research, there's still an open question of how to define estrangement. There's a lot of speculation about estrangement increasing, but for the moment, that's all we have: speculation."
#10
My father was a liar and a manipulator. When my wife and I had first started dating and dad found out she had her own home, he decided he needed in. He called us with an elaborate tale of pancreatic cancer and him having limited time left. Of course, I immediately appealed to my wife/girlfriend asking her to take him in. She agreed, but on the condition he share info with us on his diagnosis. Turns out she was WAY smarter than I had ever thought. She recognized him as a manipulator and was determined to prove it.
Soon enough things began to change. Dad became very rude to the point of being verbally abusive. Had this been a few years prior I would have probably bowed out to him. Unfortunately for dad I had my Girl. She mad me smarter and resistant to his bull. Long story short, Dad got the boot. I still had not disowned his butt. A few years passed and my girl and I decided to marry. That was when he uttered the famous “ I’ll die before I let you marry her!”. Well that went over like a fart in church. I did marry her and I did cut dad out of my life for a bit. I thought that might be the end. No even close.
I didn’t see dad again until I lost my Aunt. I saw him at a funeral and decided to give him another chance. It wasn’t like anything could go wrong, right? Well needless to say, I got blindsided. Not by my father, but by my sister. By this point I was working for KBR in the Middle East. It was a good paying job and I averaged about $8000 a month. My sister knew this and hatched a plan. My father and I had agree to meet up at the airport the day I was flying back to work. Our relationship was still on the mend. The day before I left my sister contacted me. She told me that I was to deposit $5000 a month into her account so she could “care for my father”. And by “care for my father” I mean fuel her drug habit. If I said no she would “make my life hell”. I told the dippy b***h to take her best shot. Knowing there wasn’t anything she could do to me she changed he tactics. If I contacted my dad she would make his life hell. Dad was living with her at the time. I hung up on her. I suspected that my dad might be behind the whole thing. What could I do?
I did what I thought was right. I cut them off completely. Zero contact whatsoever. They tried to call, but I wouldn’t answer. They tried to e-mail, but I deleted them. In my eyes they were a cancer, and the only cure was amputation. Years passed and the calls and emails stopped. Finally, my uncle stepped in to try and heal the breach. I told him everything. Showed emails, texts, and calls from her. I left it in his hands. He said that he would talk with my dad and have him call me. I was now working in Afghanistan. I got a call from my wife. My Uncle had passed. Had he talked with my dad? I have received no communication. My wife then told me he had begged he to have me call him. I thought about that for days. My answer became clear.
No. I would not call. He had started this and he could call me. I talked with cousins and had a message passed to him. If you want to talk, you call me. He never called. More years and I received the call I knew would come. Dad had died. He apparently had gotten sick with a flu and refused to get it treated. It became pneumonia. Dad was gone. He basically died alone. As for my sister, she contacted me to give her control over dads affairs. As she was adopted and I was his natural child, I had power of attorney. I sent her a document from my lawyer allowing her to clear out his storage unit and bank accounts. She didn’t contact again until months later claiming I had never sent it. Considering I had sent it as a registered letter and my receipt showed that it had been signed for, I decided it was just more drama. I cut her off again.
Life is good now. I have my wife and child. I live states away from my home state. I found out my sister had my dads ashes and some family things. She left them in an apartment when she tried to screw my older brother
#11
I know from my own past with parents that they can be cruel, nasty, selfish and much more deliberately, they know it will cause pain, that is why they do it. I also know from my own past experiences that if you try to explain exactly what they did to others they do not get it, they get this idea that it cannot be as bad as you say it is as a parent would never do such things.
My father was forever telling me that I was a waste of space and he was ashamed of me. He told me I was unloveable and nobody would ever care about me, he was still telling me this when I was middle aged. I met a wonderful man and wanted to marry him, the man would not listen to how nasty and cruel my father was and insisted on meeting him to “ask for my hand in marriage”. I very reluctantly took him to meet my father. i was then about forty years of age, so did not need permission or approval. They met and my father went on and on to him about what a waste of space I am and that he was mad to love me and want to marry me.
I had always been very studious and well behaved as a child. I never swore, never did anything wrong, was never in trouble with the police, never smoked, nor drunk or too drugs. I set up a business and worked very hard and became a self made millionairess by the age of thirty five. My father - on the other hand - was constantly drunk, he often got in trouble with the police for shop lifting and he was always too unambitious to get himself a decent job. But my father was old fashioned and believed that a woman should be a housewife and not be interested in achievements. That she should always be at the beck and call of her parents and always there instantly when they want something, and all a one way street. When he parted from my mother - when I was about fifteen, he told me then that he would never love me because he thought it was wrong of me to leave and go off with her instead of staying to clean the house and cook for him. Nobody in their right mind would have left a fifteen year old with a man who was constantly drunk and in trouble with the police. A few months later he told me that he was going to move away and marry another woman when his divorce from my mother came through, that he never wanted me to know his address or phone number, see him or speak to him again.
When your parents are cruel to you it hurts far more than it would if anyone else did or said the same thing, yet most people make excuses for them because parents cannot be that bad! They live in a dream world.
My father did many cruel things to me and eventually I had the last say by not attending his funeral.
Yes I would have disowned my mother if she had sold my horse and stolen my money that way. And it really does not matter if other people agree with you or not, you do not need to justify your actions and choices, it was you that suffered it not them.
#12
Because I am a victim of child abuse my parents k*lled my soul when i was a child + I don’t believe in rebirth so I want to live my remaining life peacefully no matter what people say and I will not forgive them no matter what…
"What is clear is that there's more open discussion about it today, whereas family estrangement used to play out mainly in the shadows of society. My own grandmother disowned her parents back in the 1930s," Gilbertson shares. "But [she] didn't talk about it. My mother simply never met those grandparents."
#13
I disowned my parents, grandmother, and baby sister.
Mom-ever since the age of 10, she treated me like someone she didn’t like. In fact, she treats other kids outside of her own like they are so precious, then she treats her two daughters like they’re special (not like other’s kids, though), then she barely spoke to me or my little brother. She’s also one of those people that acts so kind out in public, but is cruel to family behind closed doors. She does this so she can get sympathy from others, and make us look like the bad guy when s**t goes down. Once when I was a kid, she actually beat me for a very stupid reason. Not spanked, beat. I accidentally hit her in self-defense, mainly trying to keep her from hurting me. She then threw me outside with the garbage, and called my Grandmother and said I had attacked her. Grandmother held that over my head for years, making me look like I was a bad child. More recently, a few years ago, she called the police on me saying I was threatening and intimidating her. In reality, we got into an argument over the dishes (which I had been doing, and had just sat down while the dishwasher was going). She did this in an attempt to have me thrown out, since she didn’t actually own the house.
Dad-I loved him so much as a child. He was usually there for me, and it was clear he had a plan for me to run the family once I was of age. Skip ahead to 2014, I was living with him when he was hit with spinal stenosis…leaving him unable to walk and limited use of his arms. Night he went to the hospital, he told his nurse I neglect him. I actually avoided him because of his verbal abuse when he was drunk. Then a few weeks later, he said me and my brother were the worst sons in the world. Don’t even know why he was angry with us that day. We just walked in the room, and he said that to his doctor. I was so pissed I didn’t speak to him for two months. Things started getting a little better, but I noticed how his opinion changed of me. He went from calling me Michael Corleone (strong, future leader of the family) to Fredo (the family embarrassment). He started lying about how the family was treating him to his caretakers at the hospital (like saying we weren’t helping him work out, when in reality he didn’t wish to.) His verbal abuse got worse, though he was no longer drinking. I’d hear him and my mom talking about how ashamed they were of me, and my baby sister. He was very cruel to me. He yelled at me just for parking in the garage. It took my mom stealing $10, 000 from him to get yelled at the same way. Last night we spoke, he kicked me out for not making him a plate of chicken. Not that I refused to do so, he was mad that he had to ask (normally when I did, he’d say he didn’t want anything). He kicked me out and said if I didn’t leave, he’d call the police. I haven’t spoken to him since.
Grandmother-loved her like no other growing up. As a teen, we started butting heads. She’d actually disowned me twice growing up, but we reconciled. When I was in my 20’s, she started acting really strange when I went to visit her. She said to just relax and enjoy my vacation at her house, not worrying about getting a job or anything. Then she’s constantly angry because I didn’t have a summer job. She got mad at me when my then-12 year old aunt answered the phone in the upstairs room where I was staying. Though I’ve NEVER done anything to any woman, she basically said that if my aunt ever hinted to her that I’d try anything, she’d have me arrested. Later, said she would always take my mom’s side against me, even if my mom was in the wrong, simply because I’m a male. Obviously, I didn’t trust her anymore. Skip ahead to this year, the night that I was kicked out of my dad’s house, I had some money saved up and went to Georgia. She saw my FB post about my parents, then she leaves a nasty message on my Messenger saying I owe my dad an apology since I stole his love from my uncle (who he had raised as a son).
Xenia Harley 4 months ago
I went no contact with my father, and more recently, my sister. Best thing I ever did! Some people are just horrible human beings.
#14
When I was 16, I told my father that I wanted to learn how to do my own laundry. My father said, “I don’t want you to!” At age 16, After I saw my older brother get a letter in the mail from a company that my father had invested in the stock market for my older brother, I asked my father to teach me how to invest in the stock market. My father said, “I don’t want you to!” At age 16, I told my father that I wanted to go to college, even after my older brother had dropped out. My father said, “I don’t want you to!” Then I said, “But dad. I want me, to want me, to go to college.” My father then said that if I wanted to go to college, that I had to pay for it myself. So, I did! I graduated. I moved out & far away.
#15
When I was younger, my childhood seemed fairly normal. However, as I got older I realized things weren't as normal as I had thought. Looking back, I realize my father took us on drug deals, had us in unsafe situations, was constantly drinking and being violent as a result. He was in and out of jail and prison while I was growing up. But he was my dad, so I let it go and allowed him back into my life.
As I got older, he kept doing the same things and making the same mistakes. Since I was older, I was allowed to decide if I wanted to continue visitations with him. I decided not to. As time went on, and he got divorced from his second wife, his lifestyle and poor choices continued to spiral out of control.
Eventually he was involved in a violent crime, where he assaulted another person during a drug related incident. He ended up in prison, again. He was charged with multiple crimes, including assault and r**e. He is currently serving a 14 year sentence in prison.
Although I have forgiven him for putting us through these things, and not being there like a father should be, I dont feel the need to allow him back into my life. I do feel like forgiveness is helpful, but reconciliation is not always necessary. You can forgive someone, without giving them back the power to hurt you again. That's why I no longer talk to my father.
Regina Holt 4 months ago
Reconciliation is not always necessary. It too me too long to learn that.
Luckily, individuals seeking professional help due to estrangement issues have more options nowadays. "There are more and more individual support practitioners training in this area," Dr. Becca Bland says. "There are also, thankfully, more specialist training programs emerging. Finding non-judgemental support is crucial to process this difficult experience of family and the complex grief that comes with it," she believes.
#16
She became overbearing when I had my oldest son. She would demand to “help” but flake when I actually asked for help, and stuck her nose in where it didn’t belong. She said she was going to make up for subpar parenting by being a good grandmother.
I drastically reduced contact with her for my own sanity. She assumed my husband was being controlling. One day, she came over unannounced and demanded to know what his problem was. He was calm and said he didn’t want to argue with her. She escalated and kept pushing the issue. She finally said that my father had m****ted me when I was a child because she was not getting her way.
My husband calmly asked her to leave our house. She pushed him and called him a piece of s*** in front of our 2 year old and 6 month old.
I have not had a relationship with her since. I do not know what to believe. I can’t decide which is worse…that she would make up allegations like that or that she would actually allow it to happen, stay with him until I was nearly 13, allow my sister and me overnight visitation with him, allow him to work at a school as a coach, and to wait until I was 35 to say anything.
I will never know for sure and I will never forgive her for that. I can’t even imagine other things she might allege if she isn’t getting her way and I can’t take that risk.
Lost Penny 4 months ago
I had to follow the link to the original because I couldn't figure out what m****ted meant... Fffs.
#17
Primarily for trying to break up my marriage because they did not "approve" of the person.
First time it happened when I had dinner with them (my then-fiance was at the table as well), and my mother proceeded to speak to me in our language (my fiance did not speak this language) asking whether I can leave him.
Second and final time, when I thought that I could have overreacted, and I called my mother to speak to her. At that time, I was expecting a child, so my thought was to establish peace and then break the great news to her.
Instead, she proceeded with asking me when will I leave my husband.
It was a final straw. I never spoke with her since (a decade now) and not planning on doing so until she comes to her senses.
Granny's Thoughts 4 months ago
Don't expect her to come to her senses. Keep her out of your life forever.
#18
So really it was what they did to me as a child, but I didn’t understand the trauma until I was in my late teens/early twenties.
For my father, it is pretty cut and dried. He left home when I was too young to remember, never made any contact apart from promising to take me out on my 4th birthday, I still remember the phone call. That never happened and he disappeared until one day when I was 18 I bumped into him in a nightclub. I approached him, he didn’t know who I was. I asked if he remembered me and his face dropped. Long story short, he took me shopping and I later discovered it was with a stolen CC. So I returned all the goods and signed his name on all the returns receipts. Later in my twenties, after I’d had my first child, I received a letter from him, addressed from HMP Belmarsh. He told me to ‘go f*** myself’ in those words….His loss.
My mother is a more complicated story. She met a new man (latest in a long string) when I was 17 and changed the locks to the house so myself and two of my younger sisters could no longer access our home. The youngest of us elder three went into care, while myself and the 2nd oldest were thrown to the wolves. (as a side note the very youngest of us, was kept home and always treated differently, special holidays etc, she had a different father maybe that’s why?)
I slept in my car out front and then relied on the kindness of friends and strangers to get by until I unexpectedly fell pregnant at 19. At this point, she gave me a small amount of money (it wasn't hers, my sisters had old building society accounts which turned into bank accounts and they received bonus cash for this that they weren’t aware of and that she spent) to pay a deposit for a one bedroom flat for me and my firstborn.
I always allowed her to be part of my children’s lives but reminded them often to be cautious around her as I felt she couldn’t be trusted. She’d given away every pet we ever had as children and seemed to find it just as easy to throw away her kids, so I felt it was only right to be guarded.
After 20 years, her marriage to this man fell apart and I provided a sofa for her to sleep on and an ear for her to listen. My daughter warned me that my mother had actually cheated on her partner and that it was her own fault for being in that mess, but still, she is my mum so I did what I felt was right. After a few weeks, unsurprisingly, she ran away with a new man and left my kids pretty distraught. We haven’t seen or spoken to her since, and that was almost 3 years ago.
My daughter is now in her twenties, renting her own place and at Uni. I still keep her bedroom, and probably will until she marries! I would never want her to feel the abandonment that my parents forced upon me. My son (now 17) might never move out as I’ve babied him sooooo much, but I’m fine with that too! :)
Con O Cuinn 4 months ago
HMP Belmarsh = Her Majesty's Prison Belmarsh. A UK prison for category A prisoners; murderers, rapists, etc. Also known as the UK's Guantanamo for holding terrorism suspects indefinitely without charge.
Dr. Becca Bland is one of the professionals who help adults deal with estrangement. "I run a powerful group program that allows adult children to process their loss and grief together with others."
"These types of groups have been studied and their impact is considerable," she points out. "It is such a widely misunderstood issue, and finding others who understand adds a social dimension to how we process, move forward, and integrate these experiences."
#19
A lot of things.
1. I suffered both physical and mental abuse from them
2. Bias amongst siblings. My brothers receive more recognition and love as compared to me, I’m a girl.
3. They believe that I don’t deserve tertiary education.
4. Whatever I love to do, they hate it and always try their best to sabotage it.
5. They were never there for me, they never respect me, never support me.
6. They believe that my depression is a joke and that I’m just lacking of attention.
These are just some to name a few.
LonelyLittleLeafSheep 4 months ago (edited)
Sounds very familiar to me; add misogynistic, racist, homophobic, Evangelicals to the list and we're in the same family. Screw them. They don't deserve you. Edit for spelling.
#20
My father is an undiagnosed sufferer of borderline personality disorder and my mother is codependent. I have not spoken with them in nearly 20 years. I was so exhausted from the gaslighting, manipulation and toxic criticism. They are racist, judgmental and homophobic…and that doesn’t even mention the strange behaviors, the way my father’s moods can flip on a dime. I can’t recall a day growing up when my father didn’t take pokes at how fat, ugly and stupid I was. If I showed how much the comments hurt me, then I had no sense of humor. Most of the abuse from him was mental/emotional but there were a couple of occasions when it crossed over to physical. The final straw came well into adulthood when I introduced them to my then fiancé and they behaved as though he weren’t present in the room at all. I left deeply angry and resolved never to contact them again. There was no argument or discussion, I simply left their house and never went back. They have never attempted to reach out to me and eventually moved out of state. At the time of separation, people who knew us could not understand why I would turn my back on my father, who outwardly appears to be this great, jovial guy. He milked it for all it was worth and painted me as the ungrateful wayward daughter with my mother nodding her head and agreeing with every single thing he said. Therapy and the passage of time have helped me understand that a) they are both unwell, b) there’s nothing I can do to make that any better, c) the daily insults from dad were him lashing out at his own overweight mother, and d) I did the right thing to preserve my own sanity.
#21
It is difficult, but sometimes the right choice. I will not speak for everyone because I only know my experience, but I have cut ties with my mother. I am 20 years old and have not spoken to her since I was 18/19. I had a difficult childhood where she abused substances, emotionally and verbally abused me, and at times, she was physical. She attempted to control every aspect of my life and make me second guess all of my choices.
The choice is hard to make, even though I spent years dreaming of it. After the final straw, I cried. I got therapy, which I still attend. Sometimes I mourn her and think about what could have been.
But she robbed me of my childhood and I will not let her rob me of the rest of my life. My life without her is a relief.
Regina Holt 4 months ago
I'm glad you got into therapy. It helped me see that some of the things they did were abusive.
Dr. Bland stresses the importance of talking to someone when you're estranged from a family member. We should address it "as a grief" and "allow others space to share their feelings," the expert says.
"If you have a friend who is going through it, then it's important to give space for the complexity and feelings rather than minimize [them]," Dr. Bland explains.
"It can be easy to think these situations can be easily fixed or judge people for letting go of family members. But in reality, family trauma is a considerable challenge for an individual to navigate. The space adult children take is often very necessary to help them heal, grow, and become whole."
#22
Growing up I saw my father about every 2 weeks since my parents were divorced. After being abused by his drugie girlfriend who was literally half his age and the lack of child support he wasn’t paying I eventually had him phased out of my life by my mother. After she died in a car crash when I was 15 I had to move in with my father. A man I hadn’t seen in over 4 years. I spent the night after my mother died on the couch of a cr*ck w***e my father was sleeping with. I woke up at 3 a.m. to see my him being chased out of that apartment with a butcher knife. You see my father is a very likable man. Intelligent, well spoken, easy going, handsome, good at his craft (concrete and masonry).
You see all these things don’t make you a good father unfortunately. My father is a 65 year old bachelor, he has 3 children between 2 different women and has never been a father to any of us. He’s always been a gambling addict with poor money management and an even worse temperament at times. This man live’s his own life, always has and always will. In my 25 years of life I have received exactly zero birthday presents from this man, and never received a Christmas present. He has blown off my dinner invitations and request to meet more than I care to mention.
My father has never been abusive. He never sexually assaulted me. He never stole from me. I cannot even say I dislike my father as a man. He’s just never been a father. He has no emotional availability, he’s selfish, and as a son it’s hard to stay in contact with him. After not being there for me my entire life and the little to no s**t he gives about me in adulthood I can say talking to him is more of a chore on my psyche than anything else. I have constantly thought about changing my number and just forgetting his. Now that my grandmother (his mother) has passed away and his grieving period is done this thought has just grown stronger, I owe him nothing and he does nothing but add stress and toxicity to my life at this point. I think the bigger question is why haven’t I disowned him at this point.
#23
It was the day of my mother’s funeral after a very fast illness and sudden, unexpected death. My husband had run an errand for Dad. He was gone about an hour. During that hour, one sister (older, middle) cornered me as I sat at the dining table. She spent most of that time telling me what a horrible person I was, listing every perceived mistake I had ever made in my life, all the times I had disrespected her, etc. When my husband came home he found me sobbing, curled into a fetal ball behind the guest bed.
That afternoon and for the rest of that weekend I would not be in the same room with her. I spent my time composing a long email listing every claim she had thrown at me and why each was wrong (or blown out of proportion). It was all I could emotionally manage.
She never even acknowledged the email, let alone apologize for being such a bully. I waited two weeks and sent another email, asking if she got the first one. She acknowledged that she did. That’s all. Just a “yes I got it.”
I have not spoken to her since. And because my other older (oldest) sister just stood there, I have barely spoken to her. Their emails are automatically filtered to trash. They don’t even know my phone number in Spain, where I now live. I no longer have any sibling photos on the “photo wall” in the hallway. I consider myself an only child. I will not return to the US for either of their funerals when the time comes. They are not welcome to visit me in Spain and I don’t even want them notified when I die.
#24
My dad gave me an ultimatum: “[pay] first month, last month, and deposit - or - move out”. I moved out THAT NIGHT. I was 17, still in high-school, and had just been in a bad car accident which caused my car to be in the body shop for 6 weeks, for repairs, 150 miles away from where I lived. I bought a scooter to get to work, and stayed with friends until I could afford and find my own place to live. When I did find my own place, it was in an unfinished basement with no heat. I didn’t stay there long, and did eventually get into a decent place. I didn’t really speak to my dad much after that. He had a serious drinking problem, and he may not even have remembered it after he did it. Not my problem, not my job to baby-sit him. Later in life, like a decade later, we started speaking again and I did visit him so he could meet his 1st grandson. They had a great day together and I went back to my life. A few months later he got in touch with me about a car that I rented while I visited him. Supposedly the car rental company was coming after him for the cost of the rental, which I paid in cash, as I returned the car. Anyway, it caused yet another rift. I know I paid the bill in cash, but he didn’t believe me. He went to his grave with us not speaking. That is one of the only regrets I have in life. I did pay it, but the 200 or 300 wasn’t worth it, I should have just sent him the money and a copy of the receipt from the cash payment I gave to the car company. I have never rented from that company again, and will not ever again. Sorry Enterprise, but you won’t f**k me over again. I did enjoy renting from Enterprise many times before that, with no issue, but that is too big of an issue to let go. The person working the counter probably stole the money or something.
Lost Penny 4 months ago (edited)
Am I the only one who thinks that the father was trying to squeeze money out of OP & made up a story about the car company? Then again, the story is strange. If OP rented the car then it was in their name. Why would the company come after the father? Also, wouldn't you contact that company as soon as you heard something like this? Especially if you had a copy of the receipt? Strange story.
Although going no-contact might be better for one's mental health, psychotherapist Tina Gilbertson explains that it's still not an easy thing to do. "While there may be relief in getting away from a painful situation, it's hard to be happy about removing your parents from your life."
#25
I disowned my parents. My mom because for the past 6 yrs she has been in an abusive relationship. We as a whole family have helped her, gave her money, gave her places to stay and so on. But she continued to go back. I just cant comprehend why. If all of these horrible things are going on why. It has started to cause me to become a person i dont recognize. I get so angry and violent. And thats not the person i am nor do i want to be that person. She was a good mom but made bad decisions, especially when it came to relationships she had.
When she would get mad at me she would say things to me, things you just shouldn't say to children. Even if you did apologize it wasnt right. Any way i just recently helped her out of the relationship again, and i gave her a choice. Either it was the family or him. Well she chose him, so i have walked away. Its toxic. And drama. I dont understand.
My father i disowned him because i felt like he put Batman and comic con before his family. I know this sounds ridiculous. But he literally lives down my road and would never stop. Never called to check on his grandchildren. Miss his granddaughters first birthday. Misses my sons 4th birthday. Pretend that he didnt know who I was talking about on the phone. And when i called him out on all these things , i was the bad person. I am selfish. I care only for money and i was a spoiled cunt. These were the things said to me. By my father. I guess i shouldn't have been surprised tho. I know he has a temper. But then he told me i was dead to him. So …. And now i have no desire to fix it. Ive bee through so much with them both. And its not the kind of example i want around my kids.
I mean its cool to follow your dreams like my dad does. I just wanted him to spend more time with his grandchildren. And my mom i just want her to be the woman she once was. When i was growing up she always told me to stand up for myself. And not to let a man put his hands on you. I just dont understand. So i just gave up on trying. I dont want to keep helping if she is going to continue this viscous cycle. I dont know if im wrong or right. But. I dont know what else to do. I dont want my children growing up, Seeing and being around what i had to deal with as a child. They didnt ask for this. I want whats best for them. And if that means not talking to them or seeing them than. Thats what ill do.
Lost Penny 4 months ago
OP is right, but omg-omg-omg, BP did not censor c u next Tuesday!!! I am screenshotting this!!
#26
My parents are toxic. Im never allowed to address anything with them, or have any negative emotions, or else theyll stop talking to me. Whem they do things that hurt me, they just say well that's the past, even if it was 10 min ago, or they wont allow me to talk with them about it at the time. They favor their other kids, and treat me like the scapegoat. Just not worth it, in my opinion.
Debbie Stansfield 4 months ago
I hear you and I am so sorry! I too went through the same thing. I am youngest of 5 children and was NEVER allowed to call my parents out on ANYTHING. Especially my mom. Dad absolutely worshipped the ground she walked on and wouldn't allow me to tell her when she would do something I didn't like. The few times I tried to tell her how hurtful something she said or did was she would say "you're bringing everyone down". But my 4 other siblings WERE loved to call out both parents and the parents would apologize! My parents would NEVER apologize to me. My mom ruined my wedding day. My dad and mom took our rented wedding limo for a ride without telling us so the "grandkids could have some fun" and my husband and I were left stranded in the park where we were having our pictures taken. We were abandoned and we had to walk 4 1/2 miles in 85 degree heat (me in a 10 pound wedding dress & hubby in hot tuxedo) to our reception (which we arrived late to). Mom was upset that we were late.
#27
My parent was telling people I wasn’t talking to them even when I was calling or visiting at least every other week, where other people were giving me a hard time about avoiding this parent, but I was the one reaching out. The parent wasn’t ever bothering to contact me, just bawling to other people and slandering me.
This was particularly frustrating, since even then, I could have filed criminal charges on this parent—and that was with only partial realization of what I had grounds for.
Ultimately, I stopped bothering to reach out, telling them to do so, and waited for them to make the first move. Within weeks, I was getting folks asking why I’d stopped talking to my parent. (This parent lived maybe 5 minutes away, btw, and my younger brother lived in the apartment below me—and the parent was visiting him often.)
A few months later, they stopped by and gave me grounds to call the cops to escort them out (though I didn’t realize that until later). This parent played a few different social angles to try to make me feel as if I was bad and wrong for refusing to be their puppet. I pointed out that I’m not responsible for their happiness and that they weren’t the only person who had gone hungry to feed the rest of the family.
A few months after that, they stopped by again. I didn’t let them in, but I conversed politely and demonstrated that I hadn’t been lying when I’d said I was playing along when I responded how they wanted in conversation—I ignored or defanged all their attempts at anger baiting, ignored an opening they gave me to verbally lash at them, and haven’t heard from them in the few years since.
There’ve been a few situations of potential catfishing, but [shrug].
I have no intention of endangering myself to make nice with someone who’s only interested in controlling me.
Contrast this with my other parent, who I met more recently, actually listens to what I say, enjoys hearing about my interests (even if they’re not this parent's thing), offers help that’s actually helpful, and follows through when I accept an offer.
"And despite the growth of support for going no-contact in the last few years, there's still plenty of social and internal pressure to reconnect with parents. [This] means disowning your parents is still not an easy path to walk. So, parents should focus on why their adult children are interested in estrangement, rather than wondering whether they're jumping on some sort of bandwagon," the psychotherapist explains.
#28
My mother was a verbally abusive drug addict and drunk who abandoned me every single time I needed her. Among many of the horrible things she has done to me is a time when I was 14 and she put a gun to my head and wanted to shoot me because I was supposedly a bad kid. She has said the worst things a parent could ever say to a child and has always had excuses to not take accountability for her actions. She is a narcissist who plays the victim in every situation, manipulates the people around her and enacts revenge on anyone who who puts themselves above her. And it took me 41 years to finally walk away.
My dad, although much less cruel, has been continuously absent physically, mentally and emotionally. He’s made it clear that I am a disappointment and that he doesnt respect me. As a kid he refused to spend any time with me, favored my younger sister in obvious ways and blamed me for things like my parents divorce. I have always tried to get his interest and respect. I’ve always defended his actions. I’ve been there with him through some of the toughest times in his life and yet he always seems to magically forget that it was me, not my sister, who was there to help him through it. Recently he has berrated me for things not under my control, belittled me and told me just how much respect he has for me. It took me 40 years to walk away from him.
I disowned my parents because I can’t stand the thought of spending the next 40 years of my life the same as the first 40. They have beat me down and affected my life so negatively that I’’ve missed out on great things because of issues created by them. I took accountability for my life and the first thing I thought I was accountable for was to free myself from toxic people. They were the most toxic and the first to go.
The effect has not felt the greatest. I feel guilt and shame for doing that to my parents. And although it relieved me of the day-to-day pain and hurt of having them in my life, it traded for an all encompassing pain of loss. Disowning your parents leaves a big hole in your heart and soul that nothing can replace. That need for a mom and dad, although never fulfilled with them in my life, will now never have the chance of being fulfilled at all. Disowning them meant disowning a part of myself. I’ll always wonder what a real mother or father would have felt like. I’ll always wonder who I could have been if they had just been loving and supportive parents.
I don’t regret disowning them, but I will not lie and say that your problems go away when you do. Some issues just cross over and stay with you, while other, new issues, pop up. I feel just as lonely and heart broken with them out of my life as I did with them in it. The only real positive is that I know, over time, I can heal these issues. Without my parents there to constantly open the same wounds over and over again, they can now begin to heal.
Also, it took me over 40 years to become so sick of them that i disowned them. Just because they are your parents doesnt mean they deserve a place in your life. If they are creating more b ad than good in your life, disown them. THEY are the paREnts. THEY are responsible to be the positive influence in your life, not the thing that keeps you down.
Stephanie R 4 months ago
I agree that the trauma doesn't disappear when you go no contact, but knowing they will never hurt you again is a mighty powerful super power ❤️
#29
I haven’t ran-away or disowned my parents, but I’ll be doing so very soon.
My parents aren’t exactly bad people, but I view them as stubborn and ignorant. Understanding their background, I can’t hold it against them. My father is a Vietnam refugee who was torn from his parents at ~15, and my mother had her education cut short, despite her dreams to become a teacher. My grandmother passed away when my mother was a child and then lost her chance at schooling due to cost.
So why do I want to leave so bad? Asian stereotype here, but the marks the expect is very strict. Never have they hit me once, surprising for an Asian family, but mentally it takes a huge toll. The expectation is 95+ in the IB program (in Canada, I’ll be honest, I’m not sure if being Canadian makes a difference, but I heard US has different scaling) and that’s something I can’t do on a normal day.
I’ve come to love animating, and just picked up GFX design, and even then my parents can’t accept that I love these things and expect me to become a doctor. (again, Asian stereotype) Where I thought I would get support and love for what I want to do, all I get is just my relatives conveniently driving me away from animating and offering family business jobs.
Now I still love my parents, and in some ways show that they love me, and I don’t want to leave them, but it’s too much to hold mentally. I tried to change my parents, explaining that my current marks are perfectly fine and I can still be successful, but they just won’t budge. If you’re looking for an opinion on to leave your parents or not (just in case), try and try again to make it up with your parents. If you can’t see change and the attempts come at the expense of your health, the last resort is disowning them. -Shotonne
Alexandra 4 months ago
I'm not sure there is anything to make up. You just want other things from life, you have different interests and your parents don't support that. Not because they're evil: they're very set in their ways and views. It's just a matter of compatibility. You haven't harmed them or treated them badly, why should you make up for who you are?
#30
I just couldn’t deal with them anymore. There was always this pressure to be something I wasn’t. They were trying to be supportive but in all the wrong ways. They never understood what or who I was no matter how hard I tried to explain it.
I had to be done with them. It was the only way I’d even get better.
It worked. Cutting them out of my life helped so much. I highly recommend it to anyone. Family are more often than not more of a burden than a help. They will drag you down with them if given the time of day.
Why did you disown your parents?
Sunny Day 4 months ago
My dad molested me. My mom knew & did nothing. It took a long time to realize how much that had affected who I am, but finally I walked away and hadn't spoken to them in over 15 years when they passed. I did not attend the funerals.
Guess Undheit 3 months ago
I read the obituaries on both sperm and egg donors with relief. My only regret was never telling either of them to GFY.
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Ken Schroeder 4 months ago
My wife's father molested both of his stepdaughters after he remarried. Her sisters have forgiven him, but that was a line neither of us were willing to cross. He never was allowed with 20 feet of my daughter until after she received her black belt in karate and a warning that he was s**t. He died maybe two years ago. No, we didn't go to the funeral. The only reason I would ever go to his grave would be so we could dance on it. Really, f**k you Fred.
Tyranamar Seuss 4 months ago
My mother said I enjoyed being molested by my brother and that it was fun. She knew bc she'd talked to the rapist and he'd enjoyed it, so clearly a good time for all. I immediately hung up on her. That's the last contact I ever had with her. She did this really creepy thing where she called and left a voicemail from my dad's number singing a really weird Happy Birthday. I had to block everybody. Yikes! So glad to be rid of them all!!
Stephanie R 4 months ago
O...M...G.... it is completely and absolutely unhinged to say (or even THINK about saying) something like that to a victim!! I am so incredibly sorry! You deserved to be protected ❤️
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Sunny Day 4 months ago
My dad molested me. My mom knew & did nothing. It took a long time to realize how much that had affected who I am, but finally I walked away and hadn't spoken to them in over 15 years when they passed. I did not attend the funerals.
Guess Undheit 3 months ago
I read the obituaries on both sperm and egg donors with relief. My only regret was never telling either of them to GFY.
Load More Replies... Ken Schroeder 4 months ago
My wife's father molested both of his stepdaughters after he remarried. Her sisters have forgiven him, but that was a line neither of us were willing to cross. He never was allowed with 20 feet of my daughter until after she received her black belt in karate and a warning that he was s**t. He died maybe two years ago. No, we didn't go to the funeral. The only reason I would ever go to his grave would be so we could dance on it. Really, f**k you Fred.
Tyranamar Seuss 4 months ago
My mother said I enjoyed being molested by my brother and that it was fun. She knew bc she'd talked to the rapist and he'd enjoyed it, so clearly a good time for all. I immediately hung up on her. That's the last contact I ever had with her. She did this really creepy thing where she called and left a voicemail from my dad's number singing a really weird Happy Birthday. I had to block everybody. Yikes! So glad to be rid of them all!!
Stephanie R 4 months ago
O...M...G.... it is completely and absolutely unhinged to say (or even THINK about saying) something like that to a victim!! I am so incredibly sorry! You deserved to be protected ❤️
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