Ask for you experiences going no contact with a parent

I was no contact with my father for over 25 years best thing I ever did. Only one of my siblings kept in touch with him and he was so nasty to her. When he died no one from his family went to his funeral none of his siblings cousins or children. It’s only since he died I feel that I can forgive him.

@dottypotter I’m not striving for perfection. I’m striving for not being abused. Nobody would ever say that a woman shouldn’t leave an abusive spouse because she was just swapping him for the problem of being alone.

I will survive being estranged. I’m not clear that I would’ve survived another 20 years of being in their lives.

Also, of course nobody knows for certain what kind of parent they’ll be. There’s a difference between being imperfect at times and saying the wrong thing, and being emotionally abusive and/or addicted to alcohol, and unprepared to do anything about it.

I honestly think we’re talking about such different things here that I’m not surprised you can’t get your head around cutting your parents out of your life.

I went nc with my father for the last 10 years of his life. It was temporary but having dd1 made me realise I could never resume contact.

My earliest memories are of severe violence toward my mother.

I was cut out of his will. Which is darkly funny because in his lifetime he used to threaten to disinherit my paternal half sisters if they didn't pander. So he actually got to follow through on it with me. Expect he enjoyed that.

My paternal half sister are minimal and no contact with me because I went nc with my father. Minimal contact sister is fully aware of why. They just pretend it didn't happen. They weren't in the home then anyway.

My father smashed my mother's head so hard against the ceramic toilet bowl once it broke. I'm surprised she even survived that attack.

@dottypotter Repeating what I said earlier. Very, very few people would do something this self-injurious for no reason. I’d extend that a bit further: very, very few would do it because their parents weren’t perfect. It is an extraordinarily difficult and traumatic thing to do, and I struggled on for two decades because I kept telling myself that I wasn’t perfect either, we all make mistakes, they did the best they could.

It made me miserable.

Your parents loved you and had your back. That’s fantastic. My parents loved me, but they weren’t capable of being parents. They weren’t perfect, and they weren’t monsters - they were that tricky bit in the middle where you have panic attacks being around them, where you have flashbacks, nightmares and week-long depression after being in their company at Christmas, and you feel like you’re the one with the problem.

I’m not perfect. The difference is that I did not choose to have children despite being seriously unfit to parent and then take it out on those children. If you have fond memories of your imperfect parents then I’m honestly glad for you. I don’t. I have fear, guilt, anger, and grief.

Please be careful. If a friend or colleague said this to me I’d be gutted.

I agree with so many posts here, it is liberating but can be difficult when the parent or outsiders even, dosn’t make it easy.

My mother is a controlling, selfish manipulative narcissists. I’m currently NC, been now for 3 years, the hardest part was my DCs asking for her and my DBs DC as, as others have said it sometimes means cutting other family members out. It’s not the first time I’ve gone NC, I did for about 6 years, I only let my DPs back in my life when my first DC was born because I wanted her to have a relationship with my family, mainly my dad. I don’t regret it as I got a few years seeing my Dad while he was still alive but I always knew that one day it would go bad again. Unfortunately my Dad enabled her their entire marriage, I think he stared to see the truth towards the end. As a result my DB who has always been her baby won’t have anything to do with me. I’ve not gone NC with my other DB, buts it’s quite obvious he dosnt see me to make life easier for him. I’ve actually avoided speaking to relatives because I don’t want the hassle of getting lectures about my mother as there is one face for them and another for me. Plus they see her as the poor widow these days. I would love to tell them what she really thinks about them, but that would make me as bad as her.

Don’t fall into the trap of thinking after some time that maybe you blew it out of proportion and things may not be that bad. I’ve done that and regretted it.

If you can get counselling or even have a good friend who is supportive that you can off load to that will help as you will have all sorts of emotions going on. I still occasionally get a pang of guilt, sadness, resentment but I’m able to process it better these days after talking to a counsellor.

I read about children thinking their parents had all these faults but why about us children we had faults as well. Nobody is perfect. My parents weren't always supportive of me but on the whole they loved me and were there for me. They had my back and tbh there's nobody quite like a mum or dad. I never cut off from then and glad I didn't. Mum is dead now and miss her like mad faults and all. Please remember nobody is perfect. If there is more good than bad though I would hang on in there.

Thank you Trixies for trying to understand how difficult it is. Will leave the thread now

I have gone NC with sister and mum a year ago.
Took me a while to realise how toxic they both were.

My sister is a narcissist and also has MH issues which she fails to address, my mum enables her. They'd guilt me into giving them money which was never used for what it was supposedly intended for, would cause constant arguments about me never seeing them even though I'd go a few times a week, and they couldn't be bothered to see me.

They stopped me from going to my own grandmothers funeral because it wasn't "a good idea", they always have to be in control.

The final straw was when my sister tried to break into my flat while I was pregnant. She was caught on CCTV and yet she denied it, and my mum also covered for her.

I still feel a lot of anger and hate even though I now have a quiet life, definitely think counselling would be beneficial. It might be something you want to look into.

Good luck

I know a few people who are NC with their close family members.

We are NC with some as well.

I don’t know anybody who goes NC without a reason. There is usually an incident triggering NC that is a proverbial last straw after years and years of bad treatment.
Sadly the offenders play DARVO and go round family wailing “what have I done to deserve this” and said family ostracises the real victim(person going NC) as they are painted as the bad ones by the villains.

Good riddance albeit it hurts that they choose to believe just one (and twisted) version of events.

After NC... peace, no shit being thrown my way,no drama.

The only person who is an absolute cow his is your mother.

Good on you on having therapy, it will help you to understand that loving parents don’t treat their kids this way.

As for hitting- sadly sometimes to retaliate is the only way to stop it. Nothing to be ashamed of.

Go NC if you can- if your mother can’t/won’t understand basic rules of having civilised relationship then she’s not worth of having one.

You are a separate person and as such should be treated with respect by anybody including your mother.

Nc with both dps (divorced when I was a baby). 10 years nc with dm then had cause to contact her (legal matter) regretted it within 2 weeks. Lasted just over a year. Been nc since 2012...she did send a woe is me letter and a few texts. I wrote back that I was sorry we couldn't have a dm /dd relationship anymore. She left me alone.
Df remarried and she never hid her hatred for me.. Df saw my dc for about 7 years then he won big money and they moved. I left it a few years and did call him... Sm shouted down the phone no room for my dc. Not sure why as they never had dc alone never mind overnight!! I stopped ringing. Been 21 years. He has no idea how many dc I have or where we live.

I'm on the precipice of this at the moment. I've been having a terrible few weeks after trying to talk to my parent about the abuse I faced as a child, and who won't accept what they did. It's been a horrendous and lonely time reliving it again. Unfortunately their response to me talking about the abuse is what is driving me to go NC. If they had just responded as a loving parent
might have, perhaps I could have moved towards forgiveness.
I very much doubt that many people would put themselves through the pain of going NC for no reason. Unfortunately a lot of emotionally abusive people refuse to accept their children's feelings as valid or think that abuse is only physical.

Interesting thread, I suppose that it shows that there are two sides to every story. At least in the minds of the people involved. When you only hear one side ("my parents are abusive" or "my son in law is a racist") it is impossible to pick apart the rights and wrongs of the individual situation. What I mean is, I am certain that the mother in the OP's case genuinely believes she is doing nothing to warrant her child going NC, despite how obvious it is to anyone who is removed from the situation.

My advice is go for it, if there is a toxic environment you need to either treat the cause of the toxicity or remove it entirely. Treating an abusive mother isn't an option, so NC is the only alternative. The important thing is to remember it's a permanent move. It's too easy to forget how awful people are when we have no contact with them - rose-tinted spectacles and all that. Once you've gone NC, stay NC, no matter they or other relatives try to persuade you to change your mind or they try to make amends.

I went NC with my dad for 10 years when I was in my mid 20s. He was trying to bully and control me as if I were still the small, scared child I had been. I did eventually get back in touch in a very controlled way...I felt strong enough to cope with him and the relationship was much more on my terms that it ever had been before. I don't regret the NC and I dont regret getting back in touch. He died not long after so I guess I felt all the loose ends had been tidied up.

Sorry @VivienScott
I was taking my lead from other posters who were speaking from the other side .

@2beesornot2beesthatisthehoney She may well fall into the category of "very, very few people". I've just not seen a parent with an NC child say anything other than "it's for no reason" or "they're mentally ill". It happens, but it's too rare to account for the statistics on family estrangement.

I feel this is getting a bit off topic for @VivienScott - one of the reasons why FB groups are exclusively separated between NC adult children and parents of NC adult children.

Even if what you are saying is true, unless your daughter is hundreds of people @trixies point still stands

I fear her MH issues have twisted reality for her so much so she cannot differentiate between the two .

That's what my mother has said about me. It's not true, she just doesn't want to admit the truth