What made you cut off your parents and how did you handle the grief?

11 comments

1. My father was abusive towards my mom when they were married (I was a toddler), which I only found out and completely understood when I was an adult. This was mirrored by his present actions and crystal clear in his political choices and statements, so cutting him off was both logical and easy to do.

   There is no grief, you can’t miss what you never had.

2. One threatened to shoot me in the face in my own house while I slept after I told them I wasn’t straight.
   I talked to my therapist. I focused on my chosen family.

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4. The way my parents treated me was just absurd and unacceptable.It was just really toxic and negative. The breaking point was when they made me choose between my mental health and college WHILE I was in the hospital for suicidal attempt because of them. I dropped out, left my parents and haven’t been back since.
   At first, I cried and it was really painful but now it’s been a couple of years and it no longer bothers me that much. Thanks to therapy, I’m doing much better.

5. I cut off my Mom after she clamped down on my independence. I was 18 and she was treating me like a child still. And when I say child I mean she was treating me like a literal 5 year old.

   No privacy, no independence. For example holding her hand when outside the house. Having a bedtime. Her dressing me. Her helping me bathe. Several times she insisted on helping me potty.

   It finally boiled over when she spanked me. An 18 year old girl. That was it

6. They were toxic and abusive and disgusting human beings. There was no grief, only relief.

7. I cut off my mom. I realised that being blood related doesn’t excuse abusive behaviour, and that family is about love, care, respect and safety. She was never willing to offer me any of that, and I have other people in my life who do.

   I wish it could have been different, and in a way, I’ll always mourn that I’ll never get to have that close, trusting relationship that so many other women have with their mothers. But she was the one who made that decision through her actions. Excluding her from my life is me giving myself the love and respect I’d never get from her.

8. I came out to them as trans and it went pretty bad. Among other things, I was called autistic (no), a crossdresser (nope), a fethishist (ew), and probably more; I was also told I would ruin my sisters lives, I was told they felt sick when they thought of me, I was reminded pretty often that I looked ridiculous, would never be pregnant, and would never be a real woman. My mom compared it to her wanting to be six foot tall and blonde, my dad got angry a lot. They never got violent but they were intentionally and persistently cruel and insulting every chance they got.

   Didn’t handle the grief very well to be honest – I cried every night for months and multiple times a week for years, I was simultaneously too clingy and distant with my friends, I latched onto a five year relationship that, in retrospect, didn’t work well for either of us and made us both progressively more unhappy. My life was also shitty in a practical sense – I tried to work & do college at the same time, ended up fucking up both in several ways, and I was incredibly broke basically constantly. I ended up going deep back in the closet for a long time for all the above reasons. We have a somewhat civil/polite relationship now, but I don’t trust them even a little, and we’ve never been any kind of close since.

   On a lighter note, I think I’m finally on an upward trend and growing into a person I want to be, and I’m working on staying healthy and living my life in a sustainable way.

   If I were to give advice to someone in the same situation, I think the biggest thing is to really value and nourish the relationships that you value. It’s easy to get wrapped up in baggage and fear, and lose the supports you have available to you. They’re so hard to regain once you lose them, and you’ll *really* need the emotional support of other close relationships, so hold onto them.

   The practical part is hard, but achievable, even as a young person. But you *will not* be able to sustain it without some kind of social, emotional support. You need a found family of some kind, or the strain and emotion and pain of your situation will make things very turbulent and unsustainable, in my experience.

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10. I’m an orphan now and I feel great!

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