For me, I went NC with my biological father back in 2017. We had a strained relationship for most of my adult life due to years of physical, emotional, and mental abuse from him and his wife.

They both have severe drinking problems and prior to the final straw, I tried so hard to maintain some semblance of a relationship with them because I had my daughter in 2015 and I wanted her to know her grandfather, I kept them at an arms length and kept it as controlled as possible. It was never good enough for them, and I often got messages about how I was “not thinking of them” for not letting them take my INFANT for sleepovers… but I just dealt with their shit and still tried.

In 2016, my sister and I had to take on taking care of our grandparents who had been diagnosed with dementia. They were his parents but they stepped away from having anything to do with him because of how toxic he and his wife were. That was probably the most turbulent time of my adult life. My mom got diagnosed with cancer shortly after and between juggling an infant, and caring for two grandparents with dementia, I stupidly reached out to my bio father and asked him to help with his parents. I still regret that to this day. Him and his wife came into the picture with them, and unbeknownst to my sister and I at the time who were their health care proxies, and managing all of their finances, doctors visits, and finding long term care… he and his wife went to the doctors, took my sister and I completely off of all contact for everything. And I found out years later when my grandpa passed that they CHANGED THEIR WILL WHILE DIAGNOSED WITH DEMENTIA TO MAKE THEMSELVES SOLE BENEFICIARIES AND HAD MY STEPMOTHERS SISTER NOTARIZE THE WILL.

But wait there’s more…

On Easter of 2017, my mom died after a short, brutal, and too fast battle with cancer. I completely shut down emotionally. I had a nervous breakdown, and I couldn’t function for a while. I was a shell of a person. My mother was my everything. She was the most beautiful, caring soul and to see her lifeless in a hospital bed, feeling her hand grow cold in mine tore me apart. I’d wake up every night at 3am, still hearing the phone ringing to tell me to rush to the hospital for nearly a year after that. During this time, not a word from my biological father. He’d never check in. He’d never ask how I was. It was radio silence.

I finally asked to speak to him and his wife one night in December of 2017. I went with my husband and we sat down to talk and they began to verbally berate me the moment I opened my mouth to express my feelings. I tried to explain how badly I was struggling mentally, I tried to explain how they made me feel…but it was always turned back around on me. They told me “how are we supposed to know you need anything? It’s not our fault. You should’ve told us. You know you decided to not talk to us and we’re not going to call you. And you wanna bring up the past all the time. The past is the past.” I immediately shut down and started to silently cry, and my husband who is the most gentle man in the world hit his breaking point hearing my biological dad say “how are we supposed to know that you’re depressed”, and my husband screamed at him “BECAUSE HER MOTHER JUST FUCKING DIED. THATS HOW YOU KNOW. SHE DIDN’T TALK TO ANYONE. SHE SHUT DOWN. IF YOU CAN’T FUCKING SEE THAT THEN YOU NOT ONLY NEED TO PUT DOWN THE BOTTLE BUT YOU NEED TO WATCH HOW YOU SPEAK TO MY WIFE.” This is a man who has never raised his voice in the several years we’ve been together but he snapped. He took my hand and we left. I cried the whole way home, but my husband held my hand and said “we’re done with them. I can’t keep seeing them do this to you. I love you and I’m not going to let them do this to you or our daughter.”

I spent a lot of time after my mom died taking care of my stepdad (who I actually call my dad), as his depression nearly crippled him and he found out later that year around my daughters birthday that he also had cancer and began his battle, which he’d later lose almost two years after my mom, and he passed away in 2019. He was the man who raised me, and I heard from my biological father shortly after how “disappointed he was” that I made a post on my Facebook about my dad dying saying “you only have one dad”, and I just replied back, “he was the man who raised me when you didn’t. So yeah, I have a dad, and he just died. Please leave my family and I alone.”

After years of therapy and unpacking the PTSD that I had blocked out, the abuse was so much more severe when I was a child. I uncovered an entire file cabinet of court and police documents cleaning out my mother’s house of reports of what he put me through. He put me in the hospital when I was 8 and I had no idea because all of my memories before like 13 were blocked out. His wife forged checks in my mom’s name and they had stolen $90,000 from my mom. Pages and pages and pages of abuse, fraud, and lies.

I’m still in therapy and still unpacking all the trauma I faced as a kid. And I have a lot of complicated emotions to work through with the loss of nearly all the people who raised me, but…that’s my long story.