I see it as- they are just people.

 

Abusive people in families just love to shove the 'blood' thing down your throat at every turn- and it makes it harder that they make you feel like you have no choice to put up with it.

 

But, you don't. That's the simple fact of the matter. if someone is tearing you apart, no matter who they are, they have NO RIGHT. Just because they are 'family' doesn't entitle them to special, preferential treatment.

 

Sometimes it's just best to do something for YOU. You have to look after yourself first. You have every right to cut these people out of your life if they are hurting you. Going No Contact will help you to heal. It will help to undo the damage that they have done to you.

 

Sooner or later, it's not going to hurt as much, or maybe not at all.

I had a whole family turn against me because I dared to speak up against n father and his outrageous behaviour. Which of course, he initiated.

But I told him (before I went NC) that he did us a massive favour by doing this. And I still believe that, because I feel nothing for none of them, least of all, my estranged n father. I have so much more in my life, and I don't have to constantly suffer, be choked and suffocated, and I don't have to look over my shoulder anymore. Leaving them behind was the best and wisest thing I have ever done for myself.

 

So, believe this- it will get easier if you stop the cycle. You have a voice- and with abusers- the only way they can hear it loud and clear is through your absolute silence.

 

I hope that things get better for you, Lots of Love, Love Kyra xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

kyra has put that so well. It is true that No Contact heals the hurt and does a power of good. I have been 3 years NC with my mother. I was in a bad way with her working away at me, but I am much, much better now. Cutting her out was a big step to take, a difficult decision. I look at it philosophically as simply 'just one of those things', a sad chapter in my story.

 

My healing has been like an onion, with many layers peeling away, with me thinking the journey was thus done, but then realising there is another layer, a more enlightening and repairing layer.

 

It's a big thing to do, cutting a parent out. I believe they know that it is difficult for you to do that, and they bank on you not being able to do it. I think of my mother as looking for someone she can abuse who can't get away: workers who were under her who needed their jobs, students who needed their diplomas, and me a son who was easy/soft/honourable/loyal. What she looks for is a situation like one of those child's bat and ball games where the ball is on a piece of elastic.

 

I suppose you can count yourself unlucky if a parent or partner happens to be a narcissist, because by the time you find that out you will be in bad shape. How can you expect that kind of insane behaviour? You can't. But life is full of all kinds of things, and this is just one of them. You just have to accept the sadness and cut them out and let time do it's thing, which is like they have died and you go through all that grieving thing, with all those loving and tender moments you shared with them as a little kid, which just keep popping into your head hourly, etc. And you wonder somewhat bewildered how it can all have ended this way. It's just an illness, or that they have 'gone off on one' whilst being too much of a dimwit to see what they are like, like Mr Scrooge in 'A Christmas Carol', who needed the ghosts of Christmas to show him his self.

 

But I am actually quite a happy chap, these days, three years on. More confident and stronger and wiser.  I've come to accept it as my life. It's just one of those things. I do not regret going NC for a second. It does get much easier and it does get better, good infact. Infact the NC situation is becoming no problem at all.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I have had another think about this question you pose, and want to reply again because I don't think I answered your question. You asked, 'How?'

 

Well, how I did it was to sit and state clearly and plainly, in no uncertain terms, that it was obvious that we had a relationship that wasn't working like it should, and that it caused me so much disturbance, upset and stress that I thought we shouldn'e see eachother again, at all, and the reason why this has to happen, and happen now, is because I have high blood pressure and simply cannot take on this kind of stress, and that I have to think of my health at this point in time, and that I also experience palpitation and irregular heart beats at times. So for this reason I need to have no contact with you. Then I got up and left. She was trying everything to control me: weeping, balling (all fake, of course), and then shouting and being hard and nasty. It was awful and upsetting, but I said my piece and just got up and left. She later hoovered, lying about health of family members, etc, as an excuse for contact, then coming around and putting me on the spot, etc, but I just stuck to my guns, remembering I had to look after my health.

 

Then, you just get on with it. There's birthdays and such, but you just plough straight on and stick totally with what you have decided, no contact at all, ever, and feel any pain, and don't doubt yourself (it's too serious a business to waste your wonderful gift of life), and put as much time in as you can in this way to create as much distance as you can, and learn to become accustomed to the new reality. In time it gets easier, and you become happier and become involved in your own world rather than totally absorbed in the crazy and miserable world they create for you. And as time passes, and the onion peels away you come to realise more and more how right you were to make that big decision.  It is like when you are involved you just can't see clearly, so you wonder if you are doing wrong, etc, but after time you wonder why you ever put up with that insanity/abuse, and it becomes clear that it was abuse, and you just feel so glad you are out of it, and if like me, so sorry for those poor souls who continue to put up with it.

HI Lonestar.

 

How about "Mom, dad (whatever) I've decided that any future contact with you is to be by email/email. I'm not going to get into the reasons. This is my decision so if you need to cotnact me please mail me (email me) and I will do the same."

 

You can expect  some whining and gnashing of teeth here from them, but withstand and expect that.

 

Your decision is made and it's a done deal!m Stick, to your guns and remember that the personality disordered expect that if they whine and complain enough everybody will do their bidding.  So, let them bellyache, but don't respond to them in any way. When their efforts don't provide results they'll give up - that may take a whle if they are used to somebody who always seem to say yes

When I went NC with my N/P father, I wrote him a letter and mailed it.

 

This was over 20 years ago, so snail mail was the only way back then. I didn't know about NC or the benefits, I was really just a teenager.  But I knew he was a terrible influence in my life.  I knew that as long as he had the ability to reach out to me nothing I ever did would be good enough and I would always be living in the shadow of his abuse.

 

I wrote the letter and I never looked back.  It was a relief to do it and it was the only way I was able to start to heal from a lot of the things he'd done in my past.  It was the best decision I'd ever made in my life.

 

I think a lot of people feel guilt about these things, but I always said to myself that just because he is my biological father, doesn't mean I have to sacrifice myself on his altar.