A Year of No Contact
“This is not to say that most adult children choose estrangement lightly, or that they pay no social cost. In my experience, most adult children estrange themselves only after a long period of trying to have a better relationship with the parent.” – Joshua Coleman
The above quote from Coleman illustrates the desperation that adult children engage with when deciding to estrange themselves from family. This family can be just one parent, both parents, siblings, aunts and uncles or an entire family. There are different types of estrangement for every level of friction.
How did a movie nearly destroy me? Well…. One of my partners and I went to see Everything, Everywhere, All At Once. And if you haven’t seen it… holy crap, go see it. There’s a reason it’s winning all kinds of awards. I MAY or may not get into spoiler territory so fair warning!
The main plot of the movie is this relationship between a mother and daughter of an Asian immigrant family. It progresses through a WILD sci-fi ride of multiversal madness in its truest form, but at its core always comes back to the strained relationship between mother and daughter. The daughter is gay, and brings her girlfriend home and they discuss just introducing her as her “friend.” (felt that one) There is a moment where at the end **spoilers** the mom (Michelle Yeoh) tells her father that she “won’t do to her daughter what he did to her” and then I lost it. She broke the trauma cycle FOR her daughter. Why couldn’t mine do the same? Right… the crying…
And I wanna say it was a cute emo girl crying… it was NOT. This was full-on sobbing. Mascara and snots everywhere running down my face in a fairly packed theater. Didn't stop when the movie ended either…. Oh nooooooo. Continued for another two hours of just gut-wrenching sobs. I’m fairly certain my partner thought I was broken. I’m not a huge public cryer, especially not big dramatic sobbing, but this felt like validation and an example of all the understanding and love and support that was never afforded to me and never would be. The entire experience was so painful and so cathartic and freeing, I felt like a lifetime's worth of expectations had been lifted off of me.
After this episode of catharsis, I felt freer and more secure in my decision. I knew I could never change or force somebody to be something that they weren’t. I forgave my family for their ignorance, if only in my own head and heart, and I focused on my own chosen and homegrown family.
I chose complete physical estrangement, after years of emotional estrangement. After SO MANY years of trying to set healthy boundaries it finally came to a head that was untenable. There was no going back after certain things were said and threatened. I had tried temporary estrangements before, even up to several months. But it always resulted in some fake better behavior for a couple weeks and then back to the same old shit.
What was the same old shit? Invalidating my sexuality (bisexual), harsh criticism of my parenting style, gross rejection of my family make up (poly’d open triad) as well as many philosophical, scientific, religious, political and social responsibility opinions. I’m a pretty open, wildly liberal, yay science and vaccines, pro-choice, pro-environment person. Yes, I can be abrasive, and loud and opinionated, but it stems from many years of being forced to keep it all inside. I’m a passionate person, and moreover I like to think I have compassion for all people. Even those who harmed me for so long.
So what does estrangement look like in this modern age? It was surprisingly easy. I know physically the act of just NOT seeing people isn’t all that difficult, especially if you didn’t see them a lot beforehand. It was the little things that took time to manage and figure out. No texting, no release of the kids' information. My family had already long blocked me on social media for my “embarrassing opinions” so that was something I didn’t have to do. But for the most part, it was simple enough to put that distance between us.
So how’d it go? At first, as expectedly terrible as I thought. I was still feeling a lot of grief over the relationship I wish I could’ve had, the mother she could’ve been, the best friend sisters that were supposed to be built-in for life. I was grieving all of that, and feeling those emotions. But, much like any abusive relationship, where one person is constantly being taken advantage of, eventually the logic and reason were the loudest voices in my head. There were some very mean and hurtful attempts to get me to rescind my no contact rule that resulted in my having to block numbers from my kids devices. I kept mine unblocked and deleted everything that was full of the same vitriol, I never responded after saying what I had to say.
I HAVE to mention that I did not do this “willy-nilly” or without support. I was under the care of an amazing therapist with whom I had discussed this very same scenario endlessly. I was prepared emotionally, and had strategies to discuss it with partners and my kids. It was a very supportive environment with lots of coping mechanisms and strategies laid out and it still took a heavy emotional toll.
Several of my friends and my partners’ family members have commented that I seem “lighter”, “less stressed”, “way less anxious”, and “happier overall.” All direct quotes. I hold no anger towards my OG family anymore, they did the best they could or were able to at the time and while that didn’t work for me, it worked for them. So now we can live our parallel lives much happier without each other in them.
What now? So now, I continue to focus on my chosen family, growing family and friend bonds that are rooted in mutual respect, love, appreciation and align with our values, lifestyle and choices. I will encourage my children to be as authentic as they’d like to be without fear of rejection or loss of love. I’ll love my partners with the same vehement determination and protection, and care I always have. From here, we just live and hope for the best.
