Recent articles about NC

[Sidney37]

So I've been happily enjoying the peace that has come with NC with my verbally abusive mom for several years.  Therapists have supported it.  But now all of these articles, Oprah interviews, WSJ articles that are coming out about how therapists are inappropriately pushing no contact are leaving me with my head kinda spinning.  Questioning everything

I didn't have sexual or physical abuse but I've had emotional abuse and manipulation for years.  I'm in my 50s and almost went to the guidance counselor in 8th grade after a health class presentation about how emotional abuse is as bad as physical abuse.  Several classmates tried to get me to go. 

In college several friends walked me to the counseling center after my mom taunted me 2 weeks after my great aunt's death that she would have told me my aunt died but I went 48 hours without calling home - the expectation was twice a day every day or I'd be punished with a threat of trying to get my car that I paid for repossessed or not paying her small percentage of my college tuition so I'd have to drop out.  I'd maxed out my student loans and was working 2-3 part time jobs while full time in school.  I found out 2 weeks after her death that she had passed away to punish me for not calling. 

She made the same threat when I was either pregnant or postpartum that if I didn't call multiple times a day to gossip about my neighbors, husband and in-laws that she wouldn't tell me that my grandmother(who was in a nursing home) had passed away.  I'd have to start getting a local newspaper (3 states away) and check it daily.

So now that there seems to be a turn in public opinion on NC, I'm questioning everything.  I didn't go NC because of who my family voted for, their religion or differences in opinion on LGBTQ which seems to be the topic of these articles.  But the tide seems to be turning that without severe physical or sexual abuse, I should be "repairing" and learning more "capacity".

How are you all dealing with this besides just not reading the articles?

[Rebel13]

Hi Sidney,

Your decisions about your relationships are completely up to you and you are the only one who can truly judge them. If NC has made your life better, then you made the right decision! It's also a decision that can be modified anytime you wish, or if circumstances seem to merit a change.

Personally, I don't believe anyone makes the decision lightly, as a lot of recent media seems to suggest. I did take a year off from communicating with each of my parents, separately, when I was in my early 20s, but returned to the relationships for 30 more years of struggle. Maybe young people now are doing something like that and getting the space they need to make a different decision as they mature and learn more? I also think there is an aspect of this reaction that stems from older people feeling threatened that their own children will decide not to speak with them, stemming from their own insecurity or guilt. But again, if their family relationships have experienced only the "normal" ups and downs, I don't think that's very likely.

In the past year I took an online class with a fairly reputable and well-known older professional in the trauma and mindfulness field, and that person made a comment similar to the ones you are referencing, suggesting that (young) people break off contact without "good enough" reasons. It bothered me a lot, but I just don't agree with that, and it has definitely changed how I interact with that practitioner's content.

It seems like social patterns and understandings go through phases and have times of being trendy. There's something else personally meaningful to me which I have observed go through this process in the past. I think trauma, personality disorders (particularly narcissism) and treatments for those and related conditions are popular and getting attention right now. My experience has been, when this happens, a lot of people latch onto the trendy thing simply because they see it everywhere they go, or they see other people getting something from it that they think they want (attention, a sense of community, etc.). And then popular culture moves on, and if the trendy thing wasn't truly meaningful to them, those people drop away. And the people for whom it was truly meaningful or useful continue to incorporate it into their lives. I'm imagining the same thing is going to happen with this. We just have to wait it out.

In the meantime, of course, protect your health, safety, sanity and peace of mind as best you can!

[Call Me Cordelia]

Oh, I hear you. There are a lot of older folks in my church who have experienced more of that narrative that my generation is going NC over what amounts to the parents political beliefs being taken as a personal invalidation. And it's all too easy to make the assumption that I'm one of "those people" until you talk to me for about a minute.

See there's the thing. I think it's so much a scapegoat response to cling to the invalidation as maybe it's true and dismiss all the validating and supportive behavior of your classmates in 8th grade, and your college friends, and your therapists. People who know you and see your actual life, not people who don't know your story and are painting with a very broad brush. Whose picture is more likely to be accurate?

You can't "repair" or have "capacity" with people like your mother. Your mother punished you for individuating and doing perfectly developmentally appropriate things in a really over the top and cruel way. She demanded enmeshment on a more than daily basis. She took no responsibility or even saw a problem with herself. Only you. She demanded all or nothing, and persisted in demanding it. Where's the possibility for capacity here? It's not a question of getting tougher or forgiveness. The one who forced your hand is your mother. Her way or the highway, and you very reasonably couldn't live her way anymore. You probably tried the path of repair and capacity for a very long time. You certainly kept on long after the other eighth graders saw the problem. You get to decide you've had enough. And you don't need society at large to approve or understand.

[Tribe16]

So now that there seems to be a turn in public opinion on NC, I'm questioning everything.  I didn't go NC because of who my family voted for, their religion or differences in opinion on LGBTQ which seems to be the topic of these articles.  But the tide seems to be turning that without severe physical or sexual abuse, I should be "repairing" and learning more "capacity".

I hear you. I went no contact because my mother was cruel and seems to have no remorse or interest in repair. I believe she has no remorse because a lot of the things she has said about me to others has gotten back to me, "Oh my goodness! I have no idea why she is so upset". Not true. She got my letter.

I often think, "She's old. I should reach out, try again." What will that accomplish? I think she will feel more empowered that if she ignores me long enough eventually I will come crawling back. Silent treatment and "tough love" are her weapons of choice. And it has nothing to do with politics, or any -isms... but has everything to do with "why is it so hard for you to be kind"?