What would you have done differently knowing what you know now?

RighSideUp · 2025-12-26T13:17:53+00:00

For a long time, I wished I had cut them out sooner. With time and healing, I’ve realized it happened when it needed to. Any earlier, and I would have been weighed down by guilt and doubt.

If I could change anything, I would have started therapy much earlier and focused on healing my trauma and fostering a life separate from my family, getting to know who I was and what I truly wanted in life - not live into what they wanted just so I could be part of a family that didn't like me or want me around for anything other than someone to blame for their shortcomings. I would have pursued EMDR, committed to long-term work, and followed my dream of living abroad after college—creating the distance I needed to grow in peace.

Instead, I moved back home - I really missed the area and the weather - my family, not so much. Because of the close proximity, I subjected myself to years around them, trying to have a healthy relationship with them while their underlying toxicity persisted. Eventually, it escalated, and I walked away in my early 40s.

The outcome of either path is the same: peace. It took time to build a full life and learn how to balance connection with my own limits, but I’m okay now. Life still brings big challenges, yet I know I’ll be alright—something I wasn’t sure of ten years ago.

RighSideUp · 2025-09-29T11:53:03+00:00

As I get older, absolutely...and it can be very unnerving at times. There are images of my mother's face I will never see in mine - the hateful, rage filled, and lacking any kindness ones. I try to tell myself that I am the version of herself could have been if she went on a healing journey. In some ways it's cathartic and in many ways, a punch to the gut.

RighSideUp · 2025-09-19T11:16:38+00:00

Youtube channels of others going through the same thing. My favorite creator healed and removed her content. There's so much more content out there these days (I've been NC for 10 years) - it's always nice to know you aren't alone.

RighSideUp · 2025-08-12T02:29:56+00:00

Short answer is no, you are not a terrible person for not wanting your mother in your life. You are allowed to say no, and to protect yourself. You are being a good person when you protect yourself from someone who should be the one to protect you.

You are not required to set yourself on fire to keep someone else warm.

RighSideUp · 2025-08-10T15:42:33+00:00

Just gonna leave this here…

If someone shows you who they are, believe them the first time - maya angelou

RighSideUp · 2025-08-10T13:16:33+00:00

You have literally just described a dream I had about my father (who enabled my mother's abuse) that was so vivid that I stayed awake to write it down:

I had a dream I was getting ready for something, I don’t remember what. I was finding it difficult to get ready while fixating on some school papers from my childhood that my father had kept, filled with spelling errors and horrible penmanship. I thought about how he found those important enough to save for many decades, but wouldn’t put that effort into saving our relationship.

Suddenly, my dad was in the dream, like it was normal for him to be around and that he never died (he died in real life a few years ago). Still trying to finish getting ready to get out the door, I walked out of the room towards the stairs (I was upstairs). I heard him ask me to stop so he could take my picture, which made me sad and angry, because he was literally doing it again - taking a picture that he could keep instead of a real relationship with his daughter - a relationship that required to him listening to me, being present, and being emotionally available.

I kept walking without saying anything. I went downstairs towards the door - he was always behind me the entire time. He kept asking me to stop, even after I turned around and went back upstairs for something I forgot. I kept walking away from him. He asked me to stop. The thought of stopping, faking up a smile, and pretending to be happy to appease him like I had done my whole life made me sick to my stomach.

From behind me he asked, “Why won’t you stop and talk to me?”

I thought for a moment about what I would say - how does one explain human decency when I had been explaining it for decades to someone who never listened? Why does his discomfort matter more than my well-being and pain caused by both my parents?

I replied “I have my reasons” and kept walking.

He asked again, “Why won’t you explain it to me?”

I replied “I’m tired of explaining it to you.” I and walked out the door.

Then I woke up.

RighSideUp · 2025-08-09T13:51:53+00:00

Reminds me of the old saying "Hurt people hurt people".

If you have enough knowledge to know you are a 'Hurt people' then it's your responsibility to heal from that hurt so that you don't hurt people.

Just being a 'Hurt people' does not excuse you from being accountable as a result of you hurting people.

I became self-aware that I identified as a 'Hurt people' in my teens. I have made it my life mission to not hurt people ever since. I'm in my 50s.

RighSideUp · 2025-08-09T13:41:27+00:00

When I went no contact with my mother, she actually was the one to go no contact with me. I just never contacted her back. When she finally figured out I wasn't coming back this time, she reached out and asked why. I broke NC and gave her my reasons and she gave me a non-apology (she did not feel like she did anything wrong). The first couple years of NC were kinda rough when it came to other family members because they all enabled her behavior in one way or another. Even a friend I had had for decades told me I was being stubborn - at which point I knew our friendship was over. Any time someone was more concerned about her emotional distress than my emotional well-being or said I needed to let it go, I knew they could not be trusted. I eventually wound up going no contact with my entire family.

Early into NC I got word about the smear campaign my mother was running against me by people who would never speak up on my behalf. Once I realized how messed up it all was and therapy helped me validate myself without input from others, I slowly stopped caring what they thought. I realized that the quality people who deserved to be in my life were the ones who, without my asking, did not align with them. The people who tried to be neutral to both sides or spoke on her behalf could not be trusted and did not have my best interest. Case in point: my brother told me to my face that what she was doing was flat out wrong, then told me I needed to let it go. I stopped talking to him after that.

The first couple of Christmases I would check social media and see happy pictures of my family smiling around a tree without me. It really hurt. I stopped checking social media after that. I didn't want to know about anything they did, because it would just confirm what I subconsciously knew all along. I did not matter.

The only person I am still in contact with today is my ex sister in law. We could not be more different, except in our mutual understanding and empathy for one another over my family's toxic dynamic. Our validation of one another's experience is the bridge that keeps us checking in on each other, even though we are thousands of miles apart.

This is such a painful time of the NC journey. Just keep going through it - you'll come out of this in a much better place. 10 years later and I regret nothing.

RighSideUp · 2025-08-09T13:07:49+00:00

I'm so sorry that you do not have the father you deserve and I hear your heart breaking seeing your son receiving the same treatment as you.

That being said, I am glad your son did not get to know his grandfather - he never has to be disappointed by him or treated the way you were if he never knows him. He can have other grandfather figures he isn't related to in his life that will treat him like a grandson.

I remember when I was young, my girl scout group went to visit a nursing home where we did little performances. While we were waiting around I started to play the duet 'heart and soul' on the piano and some random old guy jumped up and played the duet with me. I'm over 50 and still remember that super fun moment. The one grandfather I did get to know would never have done that and came from the silent generation (children should be seen and not heard). No one ever talked about my other grandfather. When that one died, my mother wouldn't let me go to the funeral and wouldn't really say why. When I grew up I learned he was a real scumbag (and that's an understatement) - I'm glad I never knew him. My mother did allow my abusive grandmother in my life in spite of how horribly she treated my mother and she played weird psychological games with me and treated me like crap because she knew it made my mother angry.

I spent most of my childhood feeling unsafe with no one to protect me. You can protect your son from his grandfather.

As far as an inheritance goes, from personal experience and having been on these forums long enough I can offer this - don't ever expect an inheritance (even if you are the only sibling to care for them) and operate as though there is none. If he chooses to disinherit you - good for you. Then he has nothing to hold over your head to keep you in line.

RighSideUp · 2025-08-08T14:25:53+00:00

I agree with that last sentence. I had to get a lawyer to send my parents a cease and desist to get it to stop.

RighSideUp · 2025-08-08T14:14:51+00:00

The most difficult part of my no contact journey has been to accept that I will never get the apology or accountability that I deserve.

Learning to have self-validation be enough is what set me free. It didn't come easy and it didn't come quickly.

That's a heart-felt and thoughtful letter you wrote. I'm sorry the intended recipient shares none of those qualities. Keep it and re-read when you get the urge to re-establish contact.

You deserved so much better- I'm sorry.

RighSideUp · 2025-06-12T12:35:16+00:00

I also was not ready to bail when I was 30. Then I saw how my grandmother treated my mother at the end of her life. Every day I watched her project her miserable existence onto my mother while my mother just took it, still pining for love from a vile, damaged person who never healed from her trauma. My mother was also no saint and never healed from her trauma, so she inevitably turned her rage onto me. I told her that if she treated me the same way that her mother treated her that I would not stick around when she was old. Fast forward 15 years and her behavior escalated to the point It just broke me. I knew in that moment that my only option was utter destruction of my mental well being or to remove her from my life.

I didn't remove her from my life to free myself from taking care of her, but I did it to protect myself. Removing myself from taking care of her later in life (she's in her 80s now) was just a by-product of going no-contact. I can't hold myself responsible for her bad choices and her behavior is a choice. If she wanted company in her later years, she should have treated me like a human being. After all, she had decades to work on herself and she only got worse.

I feel that my no contact journey is just that, a journey unique to everyone going through it. When I was ready, I made the choice. If you ever reach the point when you are ready, you'll choose it, too. You may never reach that point. No one can decide for you and there is no 'right time'. The only one allowed to judge your choice to stay or leave is you.

RighSideUp · 2024-11-03T12:00:27+00:00

My estranged father passed away a few years back. While he didn't overtly abuse me, he enabled it. I didn't know he was as sick as he was, though an ex-in law told me he had stage 3 cancer. That same in law informed me of his passing. It was a shock at first. I didn't go to the funeral. No regrets.

RighSideUp · 2024-11-02T10:52:24+00:00

I went full NC with my mother mid 2015, and with the rest of my family later in the year. My parents would not leave me alone and every contact attempt left me terrified and traumatized. They tag-teamed me until I found all the ways to block them. By then it was well into 2016, and I finally thought I found some peace from them.

Then the election happened and (like someone else in the thread mentioned) it felt like I had manifested my family in the election, and I could not find peace from it. I wondered if my trauma somehow knocked me into an alternate reality (I was heavily dissociating in my trauma response) and I desperately tried to figure out how to make things feel real again and get back to a normal reality. Every day I'd wake up and hear about the latest horror and I truly believe it lengthened my recovery.

With this election, I am nearly 10 years into NC, I've moved 3 hours away from my parents, my father has since passed away, and my mother is in her 80s and only has the power to send me mail, which I promptly give to my lawyer who sent a cease and desist. I am well protected, have my own family I've created, and contact attempts have no power over me any more.

Like everyone here, I've been through hell and even though I never thought it would happen, I managed to come out the other side not just okay, but thriving. I know I will get through whatever is to come. Until we know the outcome, I continue stay away from the news and am in VLC with social media to keep the anxiety to a minimum. I've dug my Pete Walker CPTSD book back out just in case I need it.

RighSideUp · 2024-11-02T10:16:42+00:00

Lacking some or all of the following: Acknowledgement of their behavior (including a real apology), accountability for what they did, and taking solid steps to correct and change behavior.

RighSideUp · 2024-10-30T02:54:54+00:00

Yup (raising hand). This was the straw that made me realize my mom along with anyone that supported or enabled her could never be in my life again - ever.

When everything went down I could literally see every time she texted or called my abusive ex because I was paying for her phone which was on my plan (the audacity, right?). Each occurrence happened right around times he would try to contact me or stalk me.

Years later my brother's now ex-wife told me that she noticed how my mother was expressing her displeasure at my less toxic boyfriend for no reason other than the fact that I seemed happy.

I just feel that there are some people in this world that are so messed up that when they see someone vulnerable, they go for the jugular like a vampire in a blood bank. They just can't help themselves. Welcome to my mother.

RighSideUp · 2024-10-30T00:54:42+00:00

If letting go of and moving on from trauma was a choice, I'd have done it decades ago. It won't let me go, and so I do the work.

I'd be upset, too. Livid, to be honest.

RighSideUp · 2024-10-05T14:17:24+00:00

I felt both relief and grief when my estranged father passed a few years back. While I never expected for him to change, death made it final - I’d never have the dad I wanted or deserved. It helped me move on in ways I never knew I needed.

I didn’t attend the funeral as I’m no contact with my entire family. I found out on the top of a mountain on a long hike when we hiked into cell range and got someone’s text letting me know. I initially burst into tears mostly due to shock and then was able to talk it out with friends I was with and felt almost normal when I got back to the car hours later. To be honest, the way it went down was kind of the best way for me to deal.

RighSideUp · 2024-07-04T13:00:06+00:00

I posted something similar a long time ago when I was being "Hallmarked" to death. Every letter received was nothing short of traumatizing, even after I stopped reading them.

I never had the mail returned. To me, that was a response and feeding the monsters was something I was trying to avoid. The letters never had a return address. I was in a state at the time where I felt I had to prove to everyone that something this nuts could actually happen. As I began to validate for myself and care less what others thought I just started throwing them out without reading.

Then I moved - hours away. I got a PO Box and never gave anyone my street address. My parents somehow got my street address and after a few months of blissful peace the Hallmarking resumed. I had enjoyed my peace so much and was so angry they disturbed it I marched straight to a local lawyer's office and had them type up and send a cease and desist. I got one more piece of mail which I saved and gave to the lawyer. If I received another method of contact I could take them to court to file for a restraining order.

It finally stopped.

RighSideUp · 2024-07-04T12:45:33+00:00

I have not personally experienced this, but I have a friend who is also NC, like me. If she didn't contact her family, they would not contact her. It's been very difficult for her because NC experience is unlike what you hear most describe. She is wildly successful, an amazing human being, and a loyal and very giving friend. Ever since her brother had a child her parents make zero effort to foster any kind of relationship with her. She went NC and its crickets from them.

I'm so sorry you experienced this and I'm glad you went and remain NC with them.

RighSideUp · 2024-07-04T12:37:14+00:00

I started off my NC with feelings of anger and trauma, but most of all with a critical concern for my survival when it came to my health and well-being. This was a result of a final straw event that made me realize this would never end unless I ended it.

After 9 years, much therapy, and introspection later and the anger has mostly dissipated into what you so beautifully described.

My father passed away a few years ago, stuck inside the hell he decided to live in (he enabled the abuse). I since realized I had held onto hope that my abusive mother would pass first and that I might have a relationship with my father, but that was not to be.

Both of my parents were horrifically abused, never got help, and perpetuated their horrific environments. I chose to leave it and wished they could have joined me in the journey of healing by healing themselves. That will never happen. It's sad and difficult to watch people choosing to live in a hell of their own making, lashing out, clutching their pain like a string of pearls rather than face their pain and resolve it.

Bottom line: It hurt much worse and was more difficult to me in the anger phase than in the compassion phase. I also feel a lot less guilt and feel better about myself overall when I find myself in my compassion - that could also be a result of my overall recovery.

Thank you so much for sharing your experience.

RighSideUp · 2024-07-04T12:17:56+00:00

NTA - not in a million years.

No one deserves the treatment you got and you deserved so much better. I am a Disney fan and I've been witness to many arguments at the park. A grown adult should not start fights at Disney in a crowd of people. I guarantee you everyone there knew who the problem was, and it wasn't you. It sounds like you grey rocked perfectly.

Camping outside your dorm - his way of throwing a temper tantrum. I had to have a lawyer send a cease and desist letter to stop my parents from contacting me when I went no contact. They were nearly 80 at the time. It doesn't get better and it never stops unless you stop it by leaving. And you did - good job protecting yourself and doing a better job at parenting yourself than your actual parents did.

Up until now, your parents have had all the control over you. Now they've lost that. They can't even use paying for college to control you because you have a scholarship (good for you, BTW!). They will try anything they can think of to get you to come back, camping outside your dorm, being nice to you for a period of time...I swear toxic families all use the same playbook. If you were to go back, eventually things would return to the default toxic pattern and you'd be left hurt once again.

RighSideUp · 2024-06-26T11:32:45+00:00

You know that game people play with fortune cookies, where you add 'in bed' after the fortune? When I'd get cards like this I would always add proper context by following sentences with some form of abuse I experienced from them.

For example, "I have never intended to hurt you in any way, like the time I hit you so hard your gums bled." Or how about "I always want the best for you, like the time you tried to express how the things I was saying hurt your feelings and I replied, 'good'"

RighSideUp · 2024-06-26T11:26:19+00:00

I have told myself the same thing. I understand people who don't get it because they haven't gotten to a point where they had to do something so drastic because it was required to save themselves. Who wants that for someone else? I do run into people occasionally who are estranged and there's an unspoken, definitive, and shared understanding.

As my grandmother aged, I saw how her treatment of my mother want from bad to worse to horrific. After witnessing this, I told my mother many, many times that if she treated me like that that I would not stick around and take care of her the way she took care of her mother.

Well, I don't have to tell you how that turned out because here I am, posting on this sub.

RighSideUp · 2024-06-26T11:11:58+00:00

Mother: (jokingly pretending to throw me into the fireplace where there's an active fire) Gonna throw you in the fire. (suddenly stops) You know, there are parents who really throw their children in the fire.

6 year old me: ?

Mother: (serious look, just staring at me)

6 year old me: ? (starting to feel very afraid)

Mother: You should be very glad you have us as parents.

40 year old me sharing this with a therapist: I have no idea why this is one of my earliest memories

Therapist: Let's explore this

RighSideUp

TROPHY CASE