What made the NC finally feel complete - how to radically accept it?

[Sidney37]

Hi all.  I haven't been around in a while.  I've been doing lots of therapy and working on myself. For those of you at the very beginning of NC, I can tell you that it gets easier, but still painful.  I'm much less defensive and reactive because I'm not being criticized for every decision every single day, but still sad around holidays.  There is a sense of being an adult for the first time and in control of my life, and that is so freeing. 

My cousin had a birthday recently.  He was my favorite relative and the one who was most likely to also go NC.  He was VLC at various points in time for the same reasons I am NC.  We are both in our 40s but for years we have reached out on birthdays and other special occasions.  We've visited when passing through town and texted pictures and anecdotes about our kids throughout the year.  Last year on his birthday, I texted and hoped for the usual back and forth catching up.  Nope. I got a "thanks", no response to my follow up question and haven't heard from him in over a year at the times I would usually hear from him. 

This year I didn't reach out on his birthday for the first time in years.  It feels so final, so isolating, so lonely.  I think it was the right decision, but I'm not totally sure.  I didn't expect it to hit me the way that it did.  He was the last family member who I had hoped wouldn't be affected by the smear campaign.  I shouldn't make an assumption why he stopped communicating, but it's hard not to.

I'm working on and reading about radical acceptance.  If you have done that, are there any tips that you can offer that help to radically accept that you are no longer a part of a family other than your tiny family that lives in your house?  It should be enough, but it doesn't feel like enough.

[moglow]

On your cousin, it may be he's got a lot going on and just overloaded. He may be nose deep in his own family stuff and struggling. Or maybe he's wary of getting dragged off into other family stuff, not knowing there's nothing to get dragged off in. Or just hit a rough patch in general. He may be hurt that you didn't contact him and not sure what to do or say. I'd probably reach out to him a few more times, see if you get any response.

My family is very different from so many I know - no one even pretends to a bond of any kind. After my grandparents passed everyone kind of separated to their own corners, then random gatherings later [holidays or funerals]. She never had any real relationship with any of them or their families, so by extension neither did we. Now all the aunts and uncles are gone and mother is the only surviving member of her family. She was too deeply enmeshed in way too much family drama, pitting them off against each other and stirring things she had no business in, so even the nieces and nephews who liked her saw her for who she is. AND she set herself up as keeper of contact info, wouldn't share what she had so we've all lost touch now. The ones I wanted to contact I have no idea where they are or even last names given marriage #2 or #3.


But the radical acceptance - I keep telling myself I can only do what I can do. I can't and don't want to control other people, and I don't want to force something that just isn't there. Being family sounds all well and good until you realize those bonds just aren't there and for some of us never were. Sometimes our chosen families truly are our best. There's no shame or fault in that - those we can build as we want!

[Call Me Cordelia]

Hi Sidney, good to hear from you! I'm glad you are doing well overall. But yes, holidays are foggy times for many of us.

You asked how we accept that we aren't part of a family except the tiny family that lives in our own houses. What works for me is a solid reality check. What was it really like to be part of extended family gatherings? Did it feel good or were you stressed for days before and snappish for days after? How was the anxiety and stress level?  Who there did you really enjoy spending time with? Who there was likewise interested in you? How are you spending holidays now?

For me it's really easy to get back to my life now is 100% an improvement. Nothing or very little to regret.

Aside to Moglow, my family experience was very much like yours. I never had real relationships with ANY of my family members. I spent family gatherings when I was a child reading a book, as a teen I made other plans, and as an adult I attended one time and that was enough. I do have contact info circa fifteen years ago. When I married my mother gave me a Rolodex pre-loaded with her entire Christmas card list, with the instructions that I was to send cards to all these people now. Including her hairdresser and church lady friends. But most of the people in there, I'd never had a real conversation with them.

[mary_poppins]

If you have done that, are there any tips that you can offer that help to radically accept that you are no longer a part of a family other than your tiny family that lives in your house?  It should be enough, but it doesn't feel like enough.

Yeah, I get this question. I thought about it for a long time when I've realized I was never a part of ANY family. My family (and if yours, too if it's full of PD s) never acted as a family unit. They manipulated us, forced us to do hurtful things (dropping our boundaries, keep the family lies and secrets, keeping a fake family image and accept abuse from anyone who abuses us including them!) and treated us like we do not matter or do not exist.
Sincerely, I've been raised by a cult because a cult feels like a better explanation for what I've gone through for the past 38 years of my life.

Not sure if you wanna do this too but I wrote what a loving family is on a piece of paper and what its characteristics are and what my family's traits are. It looked so strange and I could feel like I was (all these years) living a lie. My family is not a representation of what a loving family is so I lived a lie and in a truly inauthentic way.

If you've heard of Dr Judy WTF on Youtube, she talks a lot about recovery from narcissistic abuse being a connection with your authentic self and your authentic life. Getting out of the 'house of cards' scenarios that our PD parents created for us is really hard but there's no other way to do it. When you decide to live authentically, you realise your PD family does not match your new values. In other words, becoming healthy means cutting all unhealthy people out of your lives and not going back to them. It's like when you decide to get sober. You cannot have a little alcohol today and a bit more tomorrow. That's not what becoming sober is.

All I'm saying is that, when you're becoming healthier and stronger without the toxicity we got from our family, we won't be needing or wanting our PD families anymore. I know they created a form of brain addiction in us as children (love addiction) and that we feel like we need to be a part of their group (more like a clan) but we don't really need it. We're adults and can decide if what we had with them in the past is enough to make us happy now.
And I don't think it is.

Apart from listening to Dr Judy WTF, I also try to remind myself who the people in my family really are. I have a list with the things they've done and when I read it, I remind myself why I do not want to be a part of their 'cult'. It's a reality check.

[Unknown]

Sidney37,
I can relate to your question... I have been NC x 3 years with my NM, and (2) NS, and the smear campaign from those 3 - pretty much cut out all extended family. I only used to talk to a great aunt, as far as extended family goes but it looks like they got to her too.. and now, not even a blip the last couple of years. My radical acceptance comes from realizing -grounding in the reality - that there is nothing I can do about it. Honestly, I am not that broken up about it because we weren't close anyway. They were all on my mother's side of the family- and you can guess where the alliance goes..... not to me.

It hurts. Yes. The holidays are a painful time - I think when I start to get sad realizing my own mother refuses to humble herself to apologize and have me- and her grandchildren- back in her life is ...tragic. I can't wrap my brain around it. I understand intellectually, that it is her shame that is preventing her from humility....from all the things a normal person would do... but OTOH, when I am FOGGED like during the holidays, I get sad and I 'don't get it' emotionally. And that's ok. Sometimes the brain and the heart don't match up.

And I think that is perfectly ok because that is normal... It is expected .

Then, I do a reality check and realize I, too, had zero enjoyment at family gatherings. Zero people actually cared about me- zero comfort, - and I was stressed to the max- corisol shooting through my bloodstream for days leading up to the event and even weeks afterward.
It's amazing I didn't spontaneously combust with all that internal stress going on.
The holidays were filled with drama, angst, bickering, back stabbing, arguing etc among key PDs.  Not fun at all. There was always 'something.'

Now, it is just my FOC. It is 100% peaceful. Tranquil. No drama.
Very, very small. I am still sad, - sad because our FOC is so small in number. ..  when I really think of it- I am not sad for what I lost, but what I never had in the first place. We are small- isolated and alone - but we are mighty in love.
This realization - helps me focus- that helps me reclaim my radical acceptance.
I hope this helps you Sidney37
May peace and joy surround you this time of year -  NC is bittersweet.

[Jolie40]

If you have done that, are there any tips that you can offer that help to radically accept that you are no longer a part of a family other than your tiny family that lives in your house? 

this will be year 2 of only husband, child, and I for Christmas

trying to make it more festive so bought more lights for outside
hoping to go to church, also even tho we've stayed away since pandemic
after church, we put pjs on & drive around looking at lights

sent out Christmas cards to friends even ones who stopped sending
as cards come in, I tape them to door which reminds us there's people who care enough to send us greetings

it also helps to give to strangers this time of year be it donations or volunteering
I like to carry some Christmas cards with money or gifts cards in car glove compartment to pass out to people we see holding signs

[daughter]

Rec'd certified letter from attorney, requesting that I renounce my future ownership interest in my parents' property. Yup, that had definite note of finality.   You take the facts of situation, assess their reality, and accept outcome with resolve to no longer "fix it".

Other prior substantial punitive actions had already been taken towards me, inheritance-wise, even prior to my NC decision, while I was functioning at 95% "dutiful daughter".  NBM-instigated estate maneuvers were accidentally disclosed by enNF, exposing NBM's blatant extreme favoritism towards GC nsis and overt disfavor of SG me.  Per NBM and enNF I was supposed to "accept it, because it is what it is".  FOO's high-functioning PD-disordered dysfunction was dizzying.

That said, attorney letter, about 18 months into NC, was radical confirmation for me, for NC decision, for zero effort to ever attempt to reconcile even on superficial level.  Funny, my EnF didn't think estate-related legal actions would cause such "finality"; he still pokes my oldest DS "tell your mom we miss her, we want to see her, we don't know what the problem is!". 

[Hilltop]

This thread has been interesting.  I am NC with the extended family.  I also had a cousin who I thought I could build up a separate relationship with.  I ran into her and I suggested we later get together for a coffee.   I told my mother I had run into her and we were catching up.  My cousin had been fine when I ran into her. She was completely different when we went for coffee. I noticed something was off and for me this is the way it is.  Something feels off and I am the one in the dark.  She kept on making comments about how proud she was of her brother, my other cousin.  Over and over.  I was unsettled and can only assume there was a smear campaign, otherwise why was she going over and over how proud of him she was and how well he was doing.  She had never done this before.  I then texted her for her birthday and nothing and then I got ignored on my birthday.  I decided to go NC with the entire extended family and have been since then.  I think I realised I couldn't fix it, it is simply too hard.  I can't fight back against the lies, they just keep coming.  I don't know for sure if something was said to this cousin but from previous experience when people act weird like that and I have a gut feeling then something is usually up.

I simply don't want to live surrounded by that.  Its too confusing.  Like Unknown posted interactions are simply uncomfortable, its stressful.  I still text occasionally with my mother, no contact with father as all communication goes through mother.  If I have a stressful period coming up I now block her texts because a text from her can put me off for a day or two.  I really don't feel like its my place or responsibility to 'fix' anything now.  Nothing I have done so far has worked to fix anything so I am done with hitting my head against a brick wall. 

Having to let go of the entire extended family is isolating and can feel lonely but what's the alternative.  Its just so exhausting having to deal with them or ignore behaviour or feel like I have to continually implement boundaries.  I just don't want to live that way but yes its hard and holidays are really hard.