Family Toxic and Why It Matters

When do you know it's time to cut off a toxic family member? I think it's different for everyone, Jay. I don't know that there's a moment of knowing. I will say in my particular case, there was an episode that happened. A thing happened that was so reprehensible, but very frankly, if that reprehensible thing had happened without the context that led up to it, I wouldn't have gone no context. Totally. Yeah. So, it wasn't the one event, it was the accumulation. And this event kind of cemented that all those data points up till then were was in fact the thing.

All the times I tried to say maybe not, maybe not, maybe not. Oh, definitely. It may be an event that was preceded by a lot of other approximate events that felt this way. It may be that you literally feel like you're getting sick. I would also say, Jay, people have to pay attention to what I call the natural experiment. And the natural experiment happens when something intervenes and we don't have contact with them. Who knows why? Life goes on and one day you lift your head and you say, I haven't talked to them for 6 months and that was actually that's been this has been really nice. And you notice the difference in your life. I'll even give you a small example. It was a holiday of some kind. I don't know Thanksgiving,

Christmas, something like this. And the very problematic person in the family system was being a little bit petulant and tantrumy and decided not to come to the main event. I it was like a dinner or something. And some of the family members were sad. They're like, "No, no, you should come." And another family member who would have ultimately been the person responsible, I think, for getting them said they don't want to come and let's honor that wish. And they said, "No problem. Okay, you don't have to come." They all got together. The group that got together had the most magnificent time. Two of them noticed. They like, "This is amazing." Like, and they noticed it was

simply that person not being present. It didn't necessarily lead to no contact. But my point about the natural experiment is sometimes the world comes together to create a circumstance. And you see the wow, when they weren't at the wedding, it was so much easier. when they weren't with at the dinner, it was so much easier when I didn't have to include them in the decision. It went like clockwork. You see the differences when this person isn't around, but also by being apart from them, you might say, "It's funny. I don't feel exhausted when I wake up anymore. My stomach isn't hurting me. I'm not getting migraines as much." You may literally have changes in your physiology as this stress goes

away. You might find that you're sharper at work, but I don't know that there's ever a moment. I think that there is often an episode that makes you say, "Oh, hell no." It's really only people who are more manipulative and petulant and really immature that would end it over one episode. Here's the rub, though. Here's the problem. Let's say the big event happens and that's when you say, "I'm not going to be in contact with men anymore." Everyone around you thinks it's just the one event. They don't realize it was a trajectory of stuff. They'll say, "Oh, come on now. You're going to go no contact with someone over one thing and they're not able to hear that." No, it actually was about 1,500 things, but this was the

this was it's like the closet rod. I always use that analogy. There's one last piece of clothing you put on that closet rod and it all collapses. It's not cuz that was a heavy piece of clothing. It was just the last piece that rod could hold. Can you please define what no contact means? It's just what it sounds like. It's no more contact. It's no more digital contact. It's no more in-person contact. You're not taking that person's calls. You're not showing up to where they are. It's almost like the death of a relationship even while the people are living. That's an interesting way of thinking about it because I think no contact it

feels like okay, I'm not going to call them. I'm not going to talk. But when you think about what you just said, that carries so much more weight, that definition. I read in the national survey from Cornell University's family estrangement and reconciliation project, they found that 27% of US adults reported being estranged from one or more family members. 27%. That's huge. So cutting off family used to be unthinkable. Now it feels like it's everywhere. What changed? I think there are start a lot of cultures and parts of the world where it's still unthinkable. You cannot do this. Listen, more people are talking about things that were once sort of deemed shameful. The sort of cultural and societal control of you

can't do this and people are saying yes, I can. I think there's more information. There's more content conversations like this. That said, I really have to say that this remains a huge shaming issue out there that when we hear someone is estranged from a family member, most people's mind will go to what's wrong with you? What's wrong with your family? It's immediately a very pathized kind of a take on it. But the problem is that no contact happens for such different reasons. In some cases, no contact is happening literally because a person says there's no safety here. I'm aband fully abandoning myself to remain in relationship with this person or even feeling like there's potential harm even

if it's not literal harm. It's not that somebody's going to come and hit you, but this psychological sense of vigilance or that here we go again. And for a classical example I'll give you, somebody was abused as a child, physically, sexually abused, and the family system minimizes it, perhaps even denies it. Which means as a child, that person wasn't protected. And now as an adult, their attitude is you're still trying to wipe out a part of my history that I'm trying to integrate so I can heal. So that's a point at which some people a dear friend of mine Kimberly Shannon Murphy has been very outspoken about this about her own story of family abuse and she said no more. I realize I hit that wall where in order

for me to heal the rest of the way I had to end contact with people whose presence was harming me. That's one piece. Now Jay, there's a group of people that go no contact because it's punitive. I'll show you. You're never going to hear from me again. So let's say I don't we're siblings, right? and you won't, I don't know, loan me money or do something I want you to do and say, "Jay, you're dead to me, right? Because I'm going to punish you because you wouldn't do the thing I want." Nobody makes this decision lightly. Those punishment people do. They're like, "Forget it. You won't do what I want." No contact, right? But for the people who are doing it for reasons of safety, protection, healing, so that they no longer have to abandon

themselves, they will work this through for years and years feeling guilty, feeling disloyal, feeling like bad people, wondering what's wrong with them. And that will churn and churn. Oftenimes there's a moment I'm I'm not going to bring too many details with it because I'm trying to protect some of the people involved, but I'm recently actually now actively kind of going through a no contact family situation. And it is something that had played out for such a long time in a family system, right? And it's like the child part of me is like something's not right. And then the adult part of me is like I can turn away. It wasn't a person I had

contact with. Then I was having more. I'm like, wait a minute, I know more about this. It doesn't feel cool. Then the terrible thing happened. I was like, "No, this would be a cancellation of myself in the name of culturally trying to maintain a relationship." Right? So that evolution I'm telling you for me that was a 40-year process. This is that's not a decision that's made lightly. And I think what we're doing, the injustice we're doing here is assuming that someone who's gone no contact has made this decision capriciously or frivolously. Not all families are good. They really aren't. Many families are harmful. That and I wish we lived in that candy-coded world where all families were safe. They sure as hell are not. And many people

listening to this say no, they're not. And that the complicated process someone goes through. But ultimately for me as a psychologist, I can't tell someone to go no contact. It's a decision they make for themselves. And that at best as therapists, we hold their hand. Good therapy is when a person is making choice for themselves. As uncomfortable as it is, ultimately the parent can't swim for the child. The child has to swim themselves. The child has to ride the bike themselves. The client has to feel that they've made this decision themselves as terrified as they are and live it. And I'm going to tell you now, I've to see in my practice, granted I focus on a unique area of the narcissistic relationship,

the vast majority of people I've seen make no contact decisions from a place of harm reduction, safety, protection, all of that. It has ended up quite well for them. A lot of the people you speak to, are they going no contact as first immediate action or is it a last resort? They are like, I've tried everything. One more. Do you understand? And then there's more of the deni denial, more of the gaslighting, more of the manipulation, more of the what disrespect. Call it what you will, but there's this moment, and it's not just in the no contact, but I think no

contact manifestation when you become acutely, actively, and consciously aware that you are actually slicing off massive parts of your authentic self to maintain a relationship. and on top of that have become hypervigilant watching every like in essence it is just a full self-abandonment you become aware of that you're now choosing between self-loathing or self-p protection and the problem is you know the words of the great Gabbor mate he's like there's no pain-free path folks there isn't one because if you choose this point this path of I am not going to have anything to do with this person anymore it doesn't feel safe it doesn't feel healthy family members, people from the world at large. People in your community are

going to say, "Oh, come now. There must be a way to they're your family. You only have one family. You only have one whatever fill in the blank parent, aunt, uncle, cousin, whatever it is, right? That's the push back, sister. That's the push back that comes." So you could imagine the amount of resistance people who are engaging in no contact protectively are going through for them to still make that decision. Cut out a sense of belonging which is a primary human need. It's not that punitive. You're not doing what I want. I'm going to cut you off. That again that's much more punitive, petulant, tantrumy. It's an entirely different experience.

They're not the same because what this becomes a conversation about Jay is becomes a conversation about a bigger issue called repair. Right? the repair of a rupture in a relationship. And it's not always easy to repair a rupture, but it's the only way forward. If ruptures cannot be repaired, the relationship slowly dies. That's what happens. It becomes untenably unsafe. Right? So, the person who ultimately goes no contact in these unsafe situations has likely tried to repair several times. They'll even say, "Can you see what you did to hurt me? Can you see?" They're literally putting out a PowerPoint. I'm giving you the road map here for this apology and the other person either doesn't get it,

gives an anemic apology, or will give the weak apology and turn around and do the thing again. Right? It's the doing the thing again that is so horrifying because if someone says sorry and then does it again, that's not safe. they've you've just shown me you can do a thing that's harmful or unsafe and no matter what you're going to likely do it again. So that becomes the core of what this is or the denial of another human being's experience. Families might feel uncomfortable because something uncomfortable happened for example abuse in the system and nobody wants to sit around and talk about that but usually the survivor of these experiences simply wants to hear that happened. we're so

sorry and maybe even acknowledge and we didn't protect you sufficiently. Right? That's oftentimes all a person we can't we know we can't turn back time. We can't go back and fix it. But the acknowledgment of our pain, bearing witness to someone's pain, that is what people want and there's a chance of moving forward. But what I really am struggling with is the rhetoric which is that we put the light of shame and blame on the person who's making the decision to say this is not safe. This is not healthy. This is taking a toll on me. I'm stepping back instead of focusing on the person or people whose behavior was the catalyst. Yes. For this choice. Once again, we are putting the focus on the person who is

harmed as being the problem. What are the most common reasons you see people that you work with and that you've come across through research that go no contact? I think the most common ones are, like I said, denial of childhood experiences of abuse. And with that denial, that can lead to a second reason, which is now people are sometimes saying, I'm actually concerned for my kids. they nobody's even willing to step up and acknowledge this happened and they're expecting my children to be in the presence of an unsafe person. So those can often be a catalyst. Another piece is repeated attempts at repair. You

know, you keep trying to say, "Please don't do it again." They do it again. Please don't say that again. They say it again. They'll even say, "I'm sorry." And then they'll do it again. So there's no way to get it fixed. Sometimes it's what I call sort of the scorched earth piece. The thing that's done cannot be undone. Now, it could be something as like they're intoxicated and they put your kids in the car with them and they drive. They leave the kids unsupervised in a dangerous situation. It's usually a case of irresponsibility or something that ended up putting people at risk or harm or actually something terrible happens that can be a catalyst for no contact. Maybe it's not the kind of

physical sexual abuse, but it's even like a lifetime criticism, devaluing, you know, the year over year it's going to be the same comments about your weight, about your career. It's just it's a neverending, negating, abusive, harmful cycle. That can be a case. Now, we're living in interesting times where there's a tremendous amount of political polarization and there are people who are saying what you voted for has hurt the people I love most dearly in life. That's actually leading to some no contact as well. And it can be sometimes multiple of those in some cases can be very unique to the situation. I always say it's like a slice in the fabric of trust that slices the fabric of safety. You know, both of those things are happening. And we don't

always think of it as feeling unsafe because we're often not in acute danger. But when people go through this, they'll say, "I feel sick when I have to see this person. I feel sick after I talk to this person. I feel anxious." I mean, literally sick. People say, "I get rashes. Their autoimmune symptomatology may flare up. They get gastrointestinal issues, terrible headaches, like my body falls apart at this contact." So there's sometimes even that awareness. And then it was interesting. I just was talking to a woman on our own network and she was talking about going no contact with her own mother. What happened was she felt a relief like she'd never felt in her life. She said, "I don't have to go

through this again." You know that and she said was not easy. It was a nightmare to make the choice and then a lifting of this horrible weight. So not everyone feels relief. A lot of people say feel the guilt and the shame. But those are the kinds of catalysts to why people make this choice. And it's usually not one thing. It's many, many, many things that can culminate in that one big bad thing. So, you can point to an event, but I promise you, everyone who says, "I went no contact after X happened," might tell me everything that happened before X. Was never just about X. That was the proverbial straw.

According to psychology, how do we know if someone has the ability to change? Human beings are in are fallible creatures. We make mistakes. We make mistakes in relationships all the time, in marriages, in friendships, with siblings, with parents. It's never the mistake. It's always the repair, right? The ability to be vulnerable, to have the conversation. And I do really believe that repair, there's a real anatomy of how we repair that there's the person who did the harmful thing takes accountability. bonus points if it's spontaneous accountability, but takes accountability, recognizes it, bears witness, bears witness to the pain of the other, offers an apology, not

based on how they're inconvenienced about it, but I am so sorry. I can see this hurt you. You're suffering and I'm so sorry I was a part of that. But then the ringer of ringers is they change their behavior. And then that's when we say, I am so sorry. Let me like let me collect myself because this wasn't okay. Now, they can't keep doing that. They can't keep slipping and saying sorry, slipping and saying sorry. But some time may go by and then they'll make the mistake. Again, accountability. And that's the back and forth dance. That's how you know it's Yeah. All the things I just said, accountability, apology, bearing witness, but above all, behavior change. That's it. That's how

you know someone can do it. And I'm sure you've been in relationships where there's been repair. I've been in relationships when there's repair. And what's amazing is when there's repair, the relationship gets stronger. It actually goes to a much deeper place because now you've shown that even when something scary happens, you're protected because someone's saying, "I didn't do right and I will try to do right." Every harmed person out there would have loved to have heard that. But that's how we know. It's the actual manifestation of the behavior. It's not because someone says they're going to. Sadly, it's time.

Totally agree. Let's say someone's listening right now and thinking, I want to go no contact. But then at the same time, they go, I can never go no contact. It's my mom or my dad that like did so much for me. I know they weren't perfect, but we start to justify and fill in the gaps and we start to make excuses sometimes or we start to maybe even have very valid points, but there's still a part of us that goes, I don't want to see them because I can't. If someone's in that position, how would you encourage them to think about and reflect on that? What I want to know more than anything is what's your why? What's driving it?

Some people say, "I get sick every time I see them. I get hurt every time I see them. I literally don't feel safe in my body when I'm with them. I'm not even myself. It's an outof body experience. I'm concerned for my kids when I'm with them." Pay attention to your why. If your why is I want them to feel as bad as I have, that is going to often be a less healthy reason and it can leave the person who's gone no contact more likely to experience regret. But I would say to folks, this is number one rule of no contact. I personally think never tell the other person you're going no contact because it becomes a lot of clanging bells and it feels like a tactic at

that point. In many cases, no contact is a gradual stepping back. Anyhow, it's it's pretty rare for a person to see someone every single day until Friday and then on Saturday go no contact with them, right? It tends to be successive approximations. And what might be is that you're spending less time with them. And there may be a sweet spot that you say, I am not voluntarily going to show up, but if it's something like I'm not going to miss my cousin's wedding because they're going to be there. So some people will kind of try to clear out that kind of territory. Some people will do the form of low contact where they say, "If I see them, it's going to be polite conversation. I'm not going to

tell them what's going on in my life. I'm not going to engage them in any significant way. I'm not going to sleep in their home. I'm not going to have a meal with them." So, some of it may actually look like that. So, I'll tell people figure out the success of approximations and what helps you feel safer. Because sometimes through agency, a person will say, "I know I'm going to my cousin's wedding to see my cousin get married, but I may very well leave before the dinner because I think that's when things are going to kind of get hot and I'm going to let my cousin know you mean so much to me. I want to see your wedding. I want to see that moment you're getting married, but I think that the dinner may be too much." I think we

can communicate to other stakeholders. What I also remind people is no contact may not always be forever. This is a big one for people because I view no contact as a time of healing. Is a time when this person who leaves you feeling unsafe in your body and self-abandoning and all of that, you've removed that stimulus for a while. You can do a lot of the hard work of healing. Really get back in your body, get, you know, really explore your sense of self, your authentic self, connect in other healthy relationships. armed with that when circumstances line up that you may have to be in contact with that person again.

You're in a much different position to do so much more from a place of agency. I'm not going to stay all evening. I'm not going to get into those topics. If they start poking, I'm going to give myself permission to leave. Then probably not feel as triggered, too. So, I think the decision really comes from what is driving you. And things can always be rolled back if they don't feel right. And nobody needs to know about it. you're never announcing your no contact. You're not telling the other person. You're you're doing it yourself. Naturally, you might find that person reaching out and that person might start saying things like, "Why are you ignoring me?

Why are you avoiding me? Why haven't you come over for a while?" And I feel like that's a weak point for someone. How does that person hold their ground without getting into explaining and getting lost? Like, what have you found as being helpful? It's so challenging, Jay, because if the person really doesn't respond, right, the person's reaching and saying, "Hey, why aren't you responding this, that, and the other, the person who has chosen to end contact will be accused of ghosting that person." And we view ghosting actually as avoidance. And I do want to put in this point about avoidance. Something I'm hearing in sort of the push back on people who make the choice to go no

contact, people who are estranged from their families, it keeps getting framed as avoidance. Is there a subset of cases where it is about avoidance? Sure. Like I said, that 27% is a mucky number if you will, right? There are people who are saying, "I don't want to have an uncomfortable conversation, so I'm just going to do this." But in many, many people who are going no contact to feel safe, they've attempted to have the uncomfortable conversation dozens and dozens of times. And remember, the people who are the hmers who are uncomfortable, unsafe, whatever they are, they're likely not aware, right? or they've come up with a blameshifted, you know, this isn't my problem, it's a your problem thing, but

they feel entitled to access to this person who's kind of drifting away. If they completely block contact, they will be called ghosting. To which I said, then let them say you're ghosting, but I understand that's hard. People are saying, I don't want to be characterized like that because that's not who I am. I wouldn't do this in another relationship where this is not happening. Okay? Whatever you say to that person is not going to work. Some people will say, "Okay, I didn't want to announce it, but I am going to say to them like this is not healthy for me. This is not safe for me." Personally have an example I'd gone

through quite some time ago and it was a it was more in the friendship realm. There was nothing that could be said without it escalating into something actually quite terrifying and it had to end, right? That person then went on said terrible things to many, many people I thought respected me and just said it's a what we call sort of a smear campaign. So, you had to tolerate that. So if you didn't communicate the way that person wanted and it always ended up in the same place, you have to reconcile radical acceptance that if you attempt to say this has not felt safe. I don't feel like I can be myself. Oh blah psycho babble. Did your therapist tell you? See what I'm saying? You're going to come up

against that wall. So you have to be gerted against that. Maybe you have again tiger's cage. Maybe seeing that one more time like this is why I went no contact and you'll push to that. I'm not I'm just simply not responding to this anymore. You might just say listen I can't do this anymore. Now you have put a punctuation mark on it. You're saying I'm exiting stage left. Like I'm out of the scene at this point. At that point I will bet you any amount of money J Shetty right now that person you've gone no contact with is going to paint a terrible picture of you to the world. These things I almost view it as like almost like a hero's journey.

All these bridges and fires you have to cross. like there's going to be a smear campaign, there's going to be the same old accusations, there's going to be a this. Yes, these are the terrible crumbling bridges you have to cross. And all of this was exactly what you were afraid of. No pain-free path. This path is every bit as painful as we knew it was going to be. So, this should be confirmation. You knew it would be, but now you are no longer in contact with someone because it would forever be this mess. I do think that people can again experiment with no contact is how I've always put it with the clients and patients I work with and I've never seen anyone come to this decision easily.

Every single person will say grief, grief, grief, grief, grief, regret, grief, grief, grief, shame, grief, grief, guilt, grief, guilt, grief, and then peace. But my god, it was a hell of a path to get there. And even still, they'll say, I'll see families, a person with their parent, a person with their friend, a person with whomever, and with I'll look at that with envy because I don't have that. These are not easy decisions. But those punishers, sure, that's I guess it's a little easier for them, whatever their journey is. And yes, there are people where it's avoidance. Those are great candidates for therapy to figure out like because they're usually people who are in that

avoidance mode are very scared. They're scared to make any move. And in a way, it makes sense cuz every move is going to be painful. It's almost like if you choose no contact, it's grief, regret, guilt, shame. And if you choose to stay connected, it's pain, stress, pressure, fear, right? But it's also Jay, societal belonging. Oh, look at you. Oh, wow. It looks like you guys had a great trip together. What a great picture of all you together. Oh, our family's great. And you're now living this lie. I think that eats you up. But that societal yay, that's a hell of a bomb.

Yeah. It goes a long way. It's almost like that societal validation covers over some of those cracks and that's why we stay in those places that do so much damage to us. The shame now is carried internally, right? Versus externally. Okay, I have nowhere to go on Thanksgiving and I don't have really a family anymore. And the world is wondering like I wonder why they don't talk to their family because their family seems to be getting together but they're not. You have to endure all of that. That's also an external shame too. But the staying in it that's the internal shame and that internal shame will eat you up alive. If

they're thinking about no contact, would you encourage them to think about a time frame rather than forever? Listen, when people use the word forever, I always know I'm dealing with someone very anxious, right? Because it's a catastrophizing term. I don't know what the hell forever is. So, I'm saying let's let's let's take the word forever out of our vocabulary. For the foreseeable future, you're not going to have contact with this person. And you can see a sense of lightning there, right? Like it's not like cuz forever feels so big. But for now, you're not going back and forth. You're not responding. And there is often a go in the devices and you block the capacity. I know in my case when I tried to go into contact,

then other family members were getting in there trying to contact me on behalf of that person. Then I had to go and block and then I came to find out that you could contact me on my computer when I thought I'd blocked your number on my phone. It's like that's a glitch. And then it's the emails and then you start realizing, wow, there's a lot of ways to contact me. You have to meander. Sometimes people will send you a letter by mail. You know, um you become much more discerning on which phone numbers you pick up. It's it can feel like an onslaught for a while. And many people with whom you go no contact with,

especially if entitlement is a big pattern. They feel entitled to you. They feel entitled to an explanation. And there's a part of me that even when I'm hearing a client say, I'm thinking, how interesting. They wanted an explanation that they couldn't figure this out. Have you ever experienced people who've gone no contact and then experience a lot of grief and regret? People who go no contact, especially if there's not a lot of, you know, clanging and yelling and I'm never not talking to you anymore. So there's no clear demarcation point. Most cases, I'm not hearing this. I'm not hearing people 6

months in saying in fact they're saying I feel I'm relieved. I'm really relieved. You know, it's pretty rare. More what I've heard more of Jay is people have gone no contact and someone gets sick or is dying and their bigger question is I don't get a second chance at this. Am I going to regret not making an attempt at a goodbye? No one can answer that question for you, but you're right. You do only have one crack at this. And in those cases, some people have rolled up to check in and say their goodbyes. And the person who was dying was just as ornary and mean as ever. And you know what people said? They said, "I wasn't upset." In many ways, I listened to my heart. I showed up and it only confirmed

the decision I made for the last 20 years. In some cases, there is a moment there's a connective moment. I think that's pretty rare, you know, that there's I'm so sorry for everything I did. People want the deathbed confession. It's pretty rare in these cases. Sometimes people go expecting nothing but to say I can't do this again so at least let me show up. But by and large once people get to that initial can I can by the time people really make the protective no contact decision they have been harmed so many ways that it is a relief. It's a relief. Is forgiveness always healthy? No. You know how I feel about that. Hell no. And I'm so tired of this fetishization of forgiveness. There's a voluminous psychological literature, spiritual

literature that shows it's good. But then there's other studies on the shelf that people don't always pull off that show that when forgiveness is repeatedly offered in situations where the harmful behavior is repeated, the forgiver actually experiences negative psychological consequences. I think the challenges with forgiveness is people do it from a place of fear when they do it from a place of being shamed. You'll see in spiritual communities all the time. What is wrong with you? You're dark-hearted. How dare you don't forgive? It will lighten you. Maybe it will and maybe it won't. I have seen people heal brilliantly without forgiving. And if anything, they'd feel like forgiving this person feels like

one more form of self-abandonment. Because the fact is, Jay, in many cases of trauma, abuse, relational trauma, what happened has changed that the person being harmed, their emotional DNA forever. It is a heavy burden that has to be carried that affects how a person trusts the world, how they go into future relationships, how they even trust themselves. It's a effing legacy that a person carries their whole lives that may not always be forgivable. And forgiving someone is not going to press the accelerator on healing. Some people will say, "I don't even know that I ever forgave them. I'm now indifferent to the whole thing. I've done my work. I'm in a different place. Forgive. Maybe, maybe

not." And I think one of the challenges is because I've had this debate with people. They say I think you and I are I think you are talking about forgiveness, but we're not using the same word. One of the dictionary definition of forgiveness is to cease to feel resentment. Mhm. I don't know how many people who forgive actually have ceased to feel resentment. I don't. I can think of a handful of relationships in my life where the wrong the wronging changed me forever. Changed I go through the world differently. I don't forgive that. I will I resent that. I resent how I still sometimes

have to go through the world, feel unsafe in the world. No. And I'm healing just fine. And I've seen I countless clients have said that moment of you and some other author saying we don't need to forgive was an absolute pivot point because what happens when you make it forgiveness all your damn work is going into forgiving a perpetrator instead of doing the healing work inside yourself. You get there don't get there. You can heal if you forgive. You can heal if you don't forgive. But if it's performative and it's being done in the name of self-abandonment it is going to set you back. Okay. Someone goes no contact with one parent and suddenly siblings, aunts, even grandparents start pressuring them to fix it. How should someone handle that kind of family backlash?

This is a tough one because this is what I'm saying. You it's very difficult to isolate and go no contact with just one family member, especially if the family system is relatively close linked within that group of grandmothers and aunts and siblings and all of that. Even that group is heterogeneous. Some of those f folks are safer and maybe more psychologically aware than others. if there's even one person in that group you feel that you could actually have a safe conversation with without it becoming again a laundry list but rather say after years of this I don't feel safe and I have found that I just I can't do it anymore and maybe give a sprinkling of reasons and so this was not this was not a decision I came

to easily all the things we've talked about so please understand where I'm coming with this and I'm the first to understand how difficult and inconvenient and everything. This is for everyone. I love you dearly. I didn't want that, but I also can't do this. All right. Hopefully, there's one person. Here's where we go. There's no pain-free path. There's going to be no version of this where everyone in the family signs off on it. There's just it just doesn't happen that way. So, if you could have that one person who can say even one person who bears witness and gets it, even if it's still chaotic, you might still you may feel a little less like you're losing your mind and at least feel heard. But I think that

pressure you have to have sort of few stock answers like I hear you. I love you and I understand why this is hard for you, but please also understand why this would be hard for me. I can't do this, but thank I thank you for reaching out and I get it and I know this is hard. You can give an empathic response. The thing I would discourage people from doing is turning this into a battle every time. After months of silence, a narcissistic parent suddenly becomes loving, generous, and attentive. How can you tell if it's worth to let them back in? How would you encourage someone to stay strong in their boundary or think about that in general?

Yeah, I think that in a case like that is get away from the g idea of games playing and get more into what feels right and safe to you because again, you know what the game's going to be. If you say no, oh my gosh, I'm being so nice to you. nothing's ever enough for you. If you say yes, you might get pulled back into the system. That's why I'm saying any period of no contact should be a time of healing. Cuz if they do come back and you've done your work and then they are nicey nice and you're having realistic expectations about it and then that nicey nice starts descending into manipulative, you're able to say, "Here we go again and I can disengage again." Because I think the challenge with

trauma bonded relationships is like all the lights go on immediately and we're right back into that really stuck self-laming self-abandoning space. But if we can say I'm going to show up here as my whole self, I know that they can't handle hearing anything about me, so I won't. They're going to be nicey nice. It'll keep I'll keep it superficial. And some people might exactly what I we said sometimes no contact can go into this sort of new wave of the relationship which is much more superficial sort of cordial with zero expectations and you kind of get in and you get out. It's sort of like a meet and greet at that point and that might be your parents might just like the optics of saying

look I got together with my kid and you then might have come to a more reconciled place of it. I just want people to get away from the whole magic kind of hallmark mo moment that it's all going to be perfect and work its way out. The fairy tale is not likely to happen. You wouldn't have gone no contact for no reason. That happened for a reason. Mhm. Okay, final one. Someone who's no contact feels pressure to invite a narcissistic parent to a wedding or let them see a new baby. What should actually guide that decision?

What feels safe to you? How do you want to preserve that day? How do you want to preserve this moment? what how do you want to move forward? But because it's your day, it's your wedding day. It's your baby. These are your moments. And there may be what gets complicated is for example, there's a sibling who or a grandparent who desperately wants this person at the wedding and you're very fond of the sibling. You're very fond of that grandparent. A wedding is two people. I think there's a meaningful conversation that should happen between the two people getting married. The baby has two parents. That should be a meaningful conversation between those two people who are the key stakeholders

in this entire experience. So that's I keep bringing it back to the sense of safety and authenticity. Some people will say I hope I never get married again. So I wouldn't I may want this person here but I have to be realistic about what this looks like. I don't want them to have a role in this day. So it might be I don't want them involved in any of the ceremonial stuff but they can come. Other people say absolutely not. this would cast too long a shadow. It's a no. But I do think people need someone to walk them through this. This is where therapy becomes crucial that a therapist has no skin in the game, right? That's where it's friends may have their opinions and family members, but a therapist, they

just want you to have the healthiest version of that day. And I think that this is where having that professional guidance with enough time leading up to it. So once again, you're not abandoning you to make this family system work on what is a very important time for you. And if you do decide like, oh, I'm going to have them there to maintain the radical acceptance, the realistic awareness, the realistic expectations, that's a very personal choice. But if you if it doesn't feel safe, it's no is a complete sentence. If this clip brought you value and you'd like to watch something else, this next video has been chosen especially for you based on your viewing behaviors. I hope you

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