Feeling harassed after going non contact with family

[TheHoneyBadger]

Hi - I went non contact with my birth family about a year ago and even now go through letters through my door and just yesterday my son was playing out and approached by my father in his car.

I really want it to stop and was wondering if there is anything legal I can do - not as in criminal law but as in maybe I could get a solicitor to write a letter saying I've formally requested to have them stop contacting me and approaching my son and that if they continue I will consider it harassment and a matter for the police.

Am i being ridiculous or is this something I could do? If it is possible any ideas roughly how much this would cost?

I am reaching the point of wanting to move away but I have a secure tenancy and am trying to build up a work from home business so would rather not rush into it just to get away from them and I feel I shouldn't really have to move away in order to be left alone - if it was an ex boyfriend or something I'd have no hesitation in going to the police but with family and how entitled they seem to feel to demand I should have contact with them it 'feels' different somehow.

Any advice would be gratefully received. Thanks.

If you are sure (and God knows I spend most of my professional life promoting the idea that no daily relationship is beyond redemption) then you could ask the Pollis to go round with a harassment notice. You would need to persuade them that you had requested the family leave you alone and they had ignored that on more than one occasion (i.e. a 'course of conduct'). A harassment notice does not invoke a criminal procedure: if the person who receives is acts in defiance of it, the Feds will generally act.
This would cost you nowt.
But really. No really. Are you sure you want to do this? Could you not ask them to back off just for a while?
I do hope you find a way to avoid such an extreme step.
GL,
HP

family, not daily. I was autocorrected incorrectly.

If they are pursuing a course of conduct that is causing you harassment, alarm or distress then I would involve the police.

thanks for replies.

huppo this is kind of the problem. for as long as they leave me alone and don't come near us i am happy and at peace with my decision. then comes a letter and i'm filled with anxiety and angst about it all again. the letters are never about anything changing or any realisation but always just a demand to be a good girl and let them have their way because they want it iyswim.

their level of entitlement and the way that i was raised to have my feelings and experiences and abuse ignored, denied and twisted into being all in my head or all my fault still has the power to unnerve me and fill me with self doubt and guilt and shame (not surprising really given that's what i was trained for).

it is SO confusing. more so obviously because of my son and whether i should just suck it all up for his sake and have contact yet i know rationally that i don't want him exposed to their madness or role modeling of relationships and family.

sorry bit of a waffle. i don't know what to do. i wish they'd just leave us alone after having seen his grandad and his grandad saying, 'we don't know why mummy won't let you see us, we miss you so much, we have your christmas presents (great grab for a kid) at home....' etc to him my son is now saying maybe i do want to see them sometimes.

it's so confusing to know what to do for the best.

incidentally the letters are always from my father never my mother who is the real issue. at one stage i offered him the opportunity to come visit my son regularly at my house but he refused - it's all or nothing basically.

Well that sounds absolutely horrible.
The problem is that running from it is not going to solve it. You may think you can get stronger by going cold-turkey but as you said, it only takes a letter to arrive and you are in difficulty again.
Though I am a family lawyer, I am very familiar with the IAPT scheme - Improving Access to Psychological Therapies. It is an initiative run by the NHS to attempt to get people light-touch intervention quickly and without the stigma of mental health services, in order to deal with exactly this sort of thing.
Rather than continuing to run from your past, would it be sensible to have a word with your GP about IAPT? Look it up. That could give you the strength to be calm when your family contacts you and mean the children could grow up with access to their family but with you there to make sure the pattern doesn't repeat.
The very best of luck,
HP

TheHoneyBadger You might want to put this on the relationship board. The people there have quite a bit of experience in this sort of thing.

One thing is that if your family are too toxic for you then they'll be too toxic to your DS, they are already confusing him.

FryOneFatManic, that may not be the case. TheHoneyBadger acknowledges that there are problems with her own relationship with her folks that might not affect the children. My former father in law was violent towards my ex and her brother. He was a generous and loving grandfather to my child. TheHoneyBadger shows wisdom and good sense, in my view, to allow for the possibility that despite her toxic experience the family could be good for her children.

Surely it's irrelevant whether these people are your family? You've asked them not to contact you and repeatedly they have done so. If they were neighbours, you'd consider it harassment.

Perhaps it would be better to formally notify them again that you do not wish any contact from them, keeping a copy of the letter, and then logging incidents of contact thereafter, to build up a story to take to the police. If you've already got the letter and the log, I would ask the police to caution them.

i know what will be said on relationships and rightfully so. i was looking for a legal perspective but huppo gave what i presume responsible families give which is room for the element of doubt and being sure there aren't other solutions.

i waiver. yesterday a dear friend overseas died and it had me waivering one way in my sadness for his loss. today it's passed. my son has seemingly forgotten all about it and my friend has advised just ignore and wait and see what happens next or if he genuinely does want to see them or was just reacting to one encounter (and mention of presents).

my feeling is to 'rest and digest' on it for a while. they always go away for november anyway so digesting for a few weeks would actually buy me a couple of months itms.

they are toxic, they are definitely too toxic for me - whether that definitely means too toxic for my son i'm pondering.