CALLING HOME with Whitney Goodman, LMFT - Going No Contact

Episode Date: March 12, 2024

In this episode, Whitney Goodman will discuss the topic of going "no contact" with family members, a decision often made due to abusive or toxic relationships. Prior to this episode, Whitney took some... polls on Instagram and found the majority of those that have gone no contact with a family member did so primarily due to feeling unsafe in communication with them. This week on the podcast, she’ll talk about why going no contact is often a last resort after attempts to set boundaries and communicate have failed. Whitney will also discuss the process of going no contact, including setting internal boundaries, deciding on the level of access the person will have, and dealing with mutual contacts.  Have a question for Whitney? Call Home at 866-225-5466.  Join Whitney’s Family Cycle Breakers Club for further support and discussion on family dynamics at CallingHome.co. Follow the Calling Home community on Instagram or TikTok.  Follow Whitney Goodman on Instagram or TikTok.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Starting point is 00:00:43 most of your getaway wherever that is because the only thing better than a great playlist is a great trip. Life's the trip. Make the most of it at Best Western. and save at bestwestern.com. I am so excited to be recording this episode because I have been working on it for weeks. This is the long-awaited, no-contact episode. So many of you supplied your thoughts, your stories, and you voted on polls. about, and I love doing these episodes because I feel like it gives people a really good peek into what this issue is actually like for a lot of people. And you guys always show up
Starting point is 00:01:37 every time I ask you for feedback or insight on these topics. And it's so, so helpful for so many people, you have no idea. If you haven't listened to my episode on adult children of emotionally immature parents, where I go through and talk about some poll results, things that people felt about having these types of relationships with their parents, I highly recommend going back and listening to that because it's the same format as this episode. And I got such good feedback on that one. You guys found it super helpful. And so I'm excited to hopefully do that again today. So let's go ahead and dive on in. The topic of no contact is certainly very, what's the word I want to use? It's very triggering for people.
Starting point is 00:02:28 It's very taboo. And there's a lot of people who are very, very upset that people are going no contact with them. And so I wanted to really break this episode down into a couple of parts. The first thing we're going to talk about is what it means to go no contact and why someone might choose this path. And then we're going to talk about the different questions that I asked all of you all, my Instagram, what you guys think about going no contact, what your main reasons for doing that were. And then I want to go through how to deal with the actual process of going no contact
Starting point is 00:03:06 and then also dealing with some of the feelings of guilt or shame or pushback that you might get when you decide to do that. This episode is mainly going to be for people who are thinking about going no contact or who have gone no contact. But I also think it would be really helpful for anyone that is on the receiving end of being no contact with someone because you might want to get an even deeper understanding of why they did this and how you can interact with them in a way that is respectful and understanding. So let's go ahead and get into it. It's really hard to find a definition of what it means to actually go no contact. And it seems like some of you feel that going no contact is the same thing as being estranged and some of you don't. So I think for the
Starting point is 00:04:01 purposes of this episode that when you go no contact with someone, it means that you are ceasing to interact with them or to have conversations with them for a period of time. Now, of course, there are many different layers to this, right? You might be going no contact with them 100%. You're not speaking to them. You're not seeing them. You're not interacting with them. There are people who still maintain a relationship in certain ways, right? There are no contact with them as in they're not speaking to them or they're not directly interacting with them, but they may still follow them on social media or they may still talk to people who talk to this person. And so they do have some level of contact with them.
Starting point is 00:04:48 in 2024, it is very, very difficult to completely eliminate someone from your life and not see them, hear about them, run into them. There's all these different ways that we can contact each other these days. And so I think some people view no contact as like a hard stop rule. I am not speaking with this person. They are essentially dead to me. They do not exist. And there are other people who view no contact as maybe like a low contact type of thing where they still keep tabs on them. They still know what this person is doing. They check in every now and then, but they don't have a full-blown relationship with them. And there are also people who are taking this no-contact as just like a break or a way of saying, I need to step away from this relationship. I need to go
Starting point is 00:05:38 no-contact for a moment while I figure things out or until you are able to work on yourself or to take accountability. And there are people who view no contact as a permanent solution. And that's where I would say there's a direct overlap here then with estrangement. So if we're talking about no contact and estrangement, for some of you that might mean the same thing. And for others, these have completely different definitions. So let's go ahead and get into some of those polls that I did on Instagram. I posted these for 24 hours and I received, like I said, probably between 2,500 and 3,000 responses to each of the individual questions. Again, I like to say this caveat with every episode where I do these polls and I talk about these results. This is not academic
Starting point is 00:06:26 research. I do not have relationships with these people. I have not validated their stories. These are simply questions that I ask to my audience, which is a large group of people that are interested in this topic and that have dealt with it in the past. I ask them questions and they're able to provide their responses and their insight into these topics. So, of course, take everything that I'm saying with a grain of salt. And the other thing to remember is that this is a decent sample size, right? There's like 3,000 people that have responded to each of these questions, but people accidentally hit the wrong button. You know, there's definitely room for error here.
Starting point is 00:07:05 And so you can listen to these themes, take them as general pieces of information, and learn to incorporate them or try to incorporate them in your life in the way that you think is best for you. You don't need to take this as like the gospel. This is just something that this is true for this specific group of people. All right, now that we've gotten that disclaimer out of the way. So I asked my audience, have you ever gone no contact with a family member? And 2,160 people or 79% of respondents said yes. So the majority of the people responding to these polls were in that group of people that have made the choice to go no contact.
Starting point is 00:07:50 And I think that's an important note. And then 14% said that they considered it, but they haven't done it yet. So we have the majority of respondents here saying that they've gone no contact or they are considering it and just haven't been able to do it yet. And then I asked people, I went no contact because blank. And this is pretty interesting. the number one response, 72% of respondents, said, I didn't feel safe communicating with them. And that is why they decided to go no contact.
Starting point is 00:08:23 One of the biggest rebuttals that I hear from people who are on the receiving end of no contact is that going no contact is not a good communication strategy. People who go no contact are not good communicators. They're not leaving room for dialogue. They're not leaving room for improvement. And my response to that typically is that going no contact, and we'll see this reflected in future poll results, is often in response to many, many times of attempting to communicate and that being unsuccessful.
Starting point is 00:08:56 It is very rare in my 10 years of experience working with people and their family relationships for them to wake up one morning and go no contact with someone without previously attempting to communicate with them in a different way. Now, does that happen? Maybe it's just not been part of the group of people that I have consistently interacted with around this topic. And I find it to be completely rare. And so I think this is important to note is that the majority of people here that are saying, I've got no contact with a family member, are saying that they did so because the communication was not safe. And they're setting that boundary. We had 6% that responded that they wanted to teach them a lesson. And my point of throwing this in there is that I find that a lot of
Starting point is 00:09:48 people do state that going no contact is weaponized. And it's a way to get people to do what you want or to manipulate them. This is kind of the rhetoric that I hear from a lot of estranged parents online. And I find that to be such an interesting insight into this because the majority of the people who go no contact that I speak to actually have just given up. They're not really trying to enforce any type of behavior change in the other person. But 6% of people did say that they were trying to make some type of a statement maybe or wanted to teach them something. And then the other 22%, which I do see this a lot, especially around young adults. who are trying to differentiate from their parents, maybe feel enmeshed with them or like they
Starting point is 00:10:36 cannot become their own person, said that they needed space to work on themselves. So 22%, that's a good size percentage of people that you're going to see who said, I need space away from my family or from this person to work on myself to get to a place where I feel like I can have a manageable and sustainable relationship with this person in the way that works for me. And that's an important piece to remember. So then I asked people is no contact a permanent or temporary plan for you? And 17% said temporary. 32% said permanent, which then that to me makes this fall into the category of estrangement. They are deciding to permanently estrange from this person and to no longer have a relationship with them.
Starting point is 00:11:29 And 51% said it depends on what happens during the no contact period. I think this is a very important insight that a lot of people are saying, I haven't written this relationship off completely. And some things that that might depend on if I had to guess would be the other person taking accountability, either or both parties changing and working on themselves, everyone finding a way to move forward in the relationship in a way that makes sense and feels healthy and reciprocal for everyone in the relationship, but that there is still this idea that the door is open and that things are supposed to be happening behind the scenes to help improve
Starting point is 00:12:15 the relationship while these people are no contact. That to me is a positive sign. now back to what we were talking about the start of this episode is like are no contact and estrangement the same? I asked you all this and 23% said yes, estrangement is the same as no contact. 44% said they're different and 33% said I'm not sure. And I kind of mentioned this to you guys, that to me they feel a little bit different. I think it depends on the intention again behind the no contact for those people who said, I am no contact with this person permanently. that would likely fall under the category of estrangement and people who feel like they're different would probably say because it's temporary or because I'm open to reconciliation or I'm
Starting point is 00:13:06 open to things changing within this relationship. Now this is a really important poll here and an important response to pay attention to. I asked people before going no contact, did you try limited contact or boundaries first, 84% said yes. Okay. So 84% of people are saying that before I decided to cut this person off and to not communicate with them, I tried to have a different level of contact with them and I tried to set boundaries with them and it was unsuccessful. And then I had to go no contact. And I don't know how much each of these people try. to what degree they tried to make this relationship different, but there was certainly some effort made. And 84% of these people did not wake up one day and just decide to cut their parent or
Starting point is 00:14:03 their family member out of their life without attempting something before. That's their understanding of the situation. This episode is brought to you by Square. You're not just running a restaurant. You're building something big. And Square's there for all of it. giving your customers more ways to order, whether that's in-person with Square kiosk or online. Instant access to your sales, plus the funding you need to go even bigger. And real-time insights so you know what's working, what's not, and what's next. Because when you're doing big things, your tools should to.
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Starting point is 00:15:18 or someone that you are responsible for, I do think that you should try other things before going no contact and that you should attempt to set boundaries and you should attempt to communicate with this person that you are not going to speak to them and why you are doing that. That is, of course, always the desirable ideal approach to this and the best way to communicate and set everyone up for success. but that is not always an option in every situation, particularly if you're talking about an abusive relationship or a relationship where you feel like you are physically or emotionally in danger, it makes sense why you would need to pull away. For example, if you are in a domestic violence
Starting point is 00:16:05 situation, whether that is with a sibling, a parent, a partner, it is probably going to be extremely risky and dangerous for you to explain to this person that you. you are no longer going to speak to them and like where they can find you and where you're going. That would not be a situation where it would be ideal or safe or recommended for you to make that type of decision. And so I think these are very nuanced and it's something that you absolutely have to decide depending on your unique situation. I will not apply like an always to that question ever.
Starting point is 00:16:42 Then I asked people, did you explain why you're going? contact. And this was interesting. I think this goes back to what I was just saying, is that 52% said yes and 48% said no. So it was split pretty evenly here and there was about 3,000 responses to this question. So if I had to guess here, a lot of people are probably responding no because they decided to go no contact like after those attempts and then did not explain themselves. They just decided to cut contact with this person when they went, no contact. I could be incorrect in that assumption, but in the stories that I received in my DMs and what I've heard throughout my clinical career and what I've learned from doing this podcast
Starting point is 00:17:28 and this work, I would make that assumption. Now, going back to what I just said, I think it's always ideal to at some point in the process of going no contact, explain why this is happening to the other person. if you feel that you can do that in a safe way. That doesn't happen necessarily in person. It could happen in a letter, in a text message, in a phone call, in an email, have a therapist help you. There are a lot of ways to go about having this conversation.
Starting point is 00:17:57 But that being said, I do think that having that conversation can be helpful when it is possible. And we'll get into more of what that would look like as well. Okay. Next question I asked is, and this is a question that I get all the time from family members who are estranged and I understand why they are wondering this. It's how will you know if they change if you're no contact? So like if you cut someone off and you're no contact with them with the family member, how will you know that they've changed if you're not speaking to them? And 22% said, I plan to change. I plan to check in when I'm ready. So for these people, I would assume that no contact is temporary for them and they're planning on reaching out to this person. 42% said, I won't know and I'm not sure how to handle it. So there's some confusion or ambivalence here about this decision. And 37% said, I don't want to know, it doesn't matter. And I would imagine that those people fall into the
Starting point is 00:19:04 category of viewing this no contact as permanent. And they don't really have any interest. in learning anything about what this person has done to improve the relationship. So let's talk about this. If you are no contact with someone and they are working on themselves and they are improving, and you fall into this category of like, should I check in with them when I'm ready? I want to talk about what that could look like and what that could feel like if it goes well or doesn't go well. So there is a chance that. that you could do a lot of work on yourself, healing, decide to come back to this relationship with the intention of repairing things with this person. And unfortunately, unless they've
Starting point is 00:19:51 communicated with you or you've observed it, you really have no way of telling where this person is at in their process. And so I think you have to go into this like breaking no contact, re-igniting contact with someone with a little bit of awareness that things could be the same with them. But you could be different. And so you might show up very differently in this relationship. You might have a very different way of handling it, of managing it. And you might not be as triggered or as reactive to them. You might be able to manage having a relationship that works for you. Now, there's another piece to this where you could go back to the relationship and say, I can't do this. This person has not changed at all. They have not improved. And I don't feel like I can have a relationship with them. And you need to be prepared, I think, for a certain level of disappointment or realizing that you have to accept this person as they are right now because they have not changed. or they don't plan to change. And that's the thing about no contact and viewing it as in flux
Starting point is 00:21:06 sometimes and as temporary and how that can be healthy. Because then you're able to like give this person the time and the space and the ability to like work on themselves and know for yourself that you can move in and out of this and you can always go back to no contact. You can try to initiate contact again when you're ready and that these things don't always have to be permanent. Oh, hi, buddy. Who's the best?
Starting point is 00:21:39 You are. I wish I could spend all day with you instead. Dave, you're off mute. Hey, happens to the best of us. Enjoy some goldfish cheddar crackers. Goldfish have short memories. Be like goldfish. Now, if you're someone that says, like, I don't really know how to handle this. I don't know how to check in with this person. I think that there are ways to tell where this person is at in their process. Are they going to therapy? Have they stopped using substances? Did they end a relationship with a partner that was a problem? Are they making amends? Have they shown accountability? Like, really thinking about,
Starting point is 00:22:25 how can I check in with this person's progress? And were there any conditions that I placed on this relationship or on us coming back together when I decided to go no contact with this person? Can I go back to that and check in with where I was then? And then for those of you that are saying, like, I don't want to know and it doesn't matter. Okay, that's where you're at right now and you might be there forever. And that's fine. I have to trust that people who are in that position are in that position for a reason. And they feel that that is the best decision for them moving forward. The next question I asked everyone was, do you feel guilty about going no contact? And this was interesting. Only 17% said all the time. Fifty-eight percent said sometimes and 25% said
Starting point is 00:23:16 never. And so to those of you that never feel guilty, I imagine that you are deeply rooted in your why and you feel very convinced and sure that this is what you need. And I think that's a good place to be in. And for those of you that sometimes feel guilty or all the time, I want to speak to you that there is such immense societal, cultural, religious family pressure to remain in contact with people that you are related to no matter what. And we hear so many messages like this, right? Like but she's your mom or you need to love your brother, whatever it is. You know, they did so much for you. And we leave out the fact that there are a lot of people out there that can be very cool and harmful and mean. And sometimes those people are our family members. And so the piece that I like
Starting point is 00:24:13 to go back to is like, if anybody else was treating me like this outside of my family, would I keep them in my life? Would I be okay with it? How would people respond to me telling them that my friend does this to me or my partner does this to me, would it be acceptable? And a lot of the time, our answer to that would be no. People would be like, oh my gosh, don't forgive that person that was abusive to you or why would you try to maintain a relationship with them. And so we have to think about why we have such lower standards for our family members than we do other people in our life.
Starting point is 00:24:50 And I also think just listening, you know, you're here listening to this. podcast. If you're following me on social media, if you're a member of the Family Cycle Breakers Club at Calling Home, you are then surrounded by people who get it and who understand why you have made the decision that you've made and that affirmation can be really powerful. I truly believe that no one wants to go no contact. No one wishes to be estranged. It ends up being a decision that they have to make because of the consequences of remaining in that relationship. and I hope that you can find peace in knowing that a lot of times what you're doing is protecting yourself more than anything.
Starting point is 00:25:33 I also asked people if they went no contact because of abuse. And many people who are on the receiving end of being no contact will speak about this publicly, that they feel that abuse is the only reason that someone should be able to go no contact. contact and otherwise they should try to maintain contact with that person. And I think this is really nuanced and really based on the individual situation. We also generationally, culturally, in certain groups tend to have very different definitions of abuse. I find myself interacting with people who feel that certain things are not considered abuse that I definitely know have the same consequences as the things that they feel.
Starting point is 00:26:24 our abuse and our understanding of what is abusive and what is harmful, what causes trauma and pain and long-term consequences has certainly evolved over the last several decades. And we now know a lot more than we did about what is harmful to people. And so we need to adjust our views about abuse and our ability to reconcile and repair for things, even if we didn't know at the time that they were harmful. And so 1% of people selected only physical abuse, that they became estranged just because of physical abuse. Sixty-four percent of people said emotional abuse was the reason that they became no contact. 17% said yes, both physical and emotional abuse, and 17% said, no, there was no abuse, but they still went no contact. And I think this is
Starting point is 00:27:18 really interesting that emotional abuse is the number one. reason. And that's probably because with physical abuse, you know, people may have found that once there was physical distance, maybe they were able to maintain some certain level of contact with this person that was safe or the physical abuse ended. Sometimes as people get older and they move into adulthood, the person who was physically abusing them, that family member is not able to anymore because they're no longer a child or smaller or physically dependent on them so the person really moves into emotional abuse as their main control tactic or their way to achieve authority over this person. And I would imagine that that's why a lot more adult
Starting point is 00:28:04 family relationships are seeing patterns of emotional abuse as a reason to go no contact and necessarily physical abuse, you know, particularly at this age. All right. So that was all of the results that I collected. I think there was some really interesting patterns and the themes in all of that. But now I want to talk a little bit about what the actual process of going no contact looks like. Right. So a lot of you might be thinking about this in different ways, right? But I think it's very important that when you're deciding to go no contact to do this in a way that is sustainable, that makes sense for you, and that is actually like methodical and well thought out. Sometimes we get upset with somebody and we just
Starting point is 00:28:54 block them on everything and we're like, I'm never talking to this person again and we don't really think about what that's going to look like in five days, in a week, how it's going to impact us. And we're not actually ready to maintain that boundary. We set it too quickly and too strongly. And then we end up going backwards on it and the other person doesn't really take what we're doing very seriously and it's not sustainable for us. So the first thing you have to think about is like, what are my internal boundaries going to be about this? And when I say internal boundaries is that you can go no contact with someone as in you're not speaking to them and still spend all your time thinking about them, obsessing about them, trying to change them, wishing that they were
Starting point is 00:29:39 different. And really the only thing you're doing is getting physical distance from this person, you're not actually eliminating them from your life. And so you have to think about if I'm going to go no contact with this person, how am I also going to work on and heal myself and make sure that I am taking care of myself during that process? And how am I going to make sure that even though I'm not seeing this person, they're still not like taking over my life? You also need to think about how am I going no contact with this person? So am I going to block them from social media, phone, email accounts, how am I going to make sure that they don't have access to me and what type of access do I feel comfortable with? Some people do feel
Starting point is 00:30:25 comfortable with some level of access depending on what the relationship is like with that person. There is no rule that it has to be all in or all out across the board. You have to decide what is right for you. The other thing to think about is dealing with people, who are still in contact with that person. I hear about this a lot, particularly when it comes to adult siblings and parents where one child is estranged from the parents and the other person is not, the other sibling, and that sibling is constantly reporting back to the parents who are getting put in the middle, and that can be very challenging. So thinking about what you're going to share with other people, what conversations you need to have with the people that you
Starting point is 00:31:11 are still in contact with who might be in the middle or having relationships with both of you. And you need to find a way to not let your relationship revolve around that person anymore or allow them to get in between you and potentially like a sibling or someone else that you want to have a relationship with. You also need to think about how you are going to respond or react or keep your boundaries intact if and when this person tries to initiate contact with you. Are there certain types of contact that you would be open to? Would you want to hear from them if and when they decide to work on themselves or take accountability? Are there certain ways that you would prefer to hear from them? Things that would be less triggering or less
Starting point is 00:32:02 activating for you and that's a good thing to work on with a therapist as well. And I think the last piece here is really making sure that you are working on yourself and trying to heal from what has happened within this relationship while you are not speaking to this person. I think a lot of people feel that if they just go no contact with someone, their life will immediately get better and everything will improve. And sometimes, yes, it does get better when you are not experiencing abuse all the time. but you still have to recover from and heal from and learn to deal with what has transpired in this relationship and often you have to grieve the loss of this person that you likely
Starting point is 00:32:49 thought was going to be in your life forever if they are a family member or someone that you felt should have treated you better that you should be closer with and ending contact with them doesn't repair that piece. The last thing I want to talk about here is is that, you know, a lot of people ask me, like, is going no contact a good long-term solution? Is it a form of good communication? They say people who go no contact are not good communicators or they just don't want to do the work. And I have not found that to be true. And so I want to end this episode on this note that when people go no contact, it is typically not all the time, but a lot of the time. Because they have already made so many attempts to communicate,
Starting point is 00:33:43 set boundaries, and try to make this relationship work, and it has not been successful. So they have decided to go no contact with this person. The other rebuttal that I hear a lot is that if they go no contact with me, are they just going to do that with everyone else in their life. How is this a good strategy? Are they just going to cut their boss off or their friend off? And you hear kind of some of these ridiculous examples. And I want to remind everyone that someone going no contact with someone does not mean that they're a bad communicator all the time. For some people, it does. They're going no contact because they're avoiding and they're isolating and they do not have the skills to communicate or repair. That absolutely happens. But
Starting point is 00:34:27 there are also people who are quite skilled communicators that end relationships with people who refuse to meet them where they're at, who refuse to stop treating them poorly or violating their boundaries or abusing them. And those people are not bad communicators. They just cannot find a way to communicate in a healthy way with that person. And then the last piece here that we often forget is that we are not entitled to a relationship with anyone in an adult. And this is a really painful realization, I think especially for parents who feel that because they invested energy into their children, they should be entitled to a relationship with them. You can even see this with siblings that you're like, they should want to talk to me.
Starting point is 00:35:13 They should want to be in relationship with me. But the reality is that we all get to decide who we want to communicate with, who we want to have relationships with. And it is not legal or impossible to say, I don't really want to have a relationship with that person. I don't like them. I don't like what they bring to my life. I don't like the way that they treat me. I don't like the way that they feel about me or that they talk about me or my partner or my children.
Starting point is 00:35:41 And because of that, our values are just not aligned and it doesn't feel good to be in a relationship with this person. We may all feel that way about some family members. We can decide how far we want to take that. For some people, it might mean limited relationship. It might mean seeing each other only on holidays. And for other people, it might mean that I actually cannot allow you to be in my life because it causes so much distress and upheaval when I do. And so while this can be extremely painful and I think violate a lot of people's cultural,
Starting point is 00:36:18 family norms, religious norms, societal norms that we feel like. we are entitled to these relationships, we can't force someone to spend time with us. We can't force someone to talk to us. All we can do is show up in the best way possible. How can we show up with kindness and respect and acceptance and understanding and get to know this person and show genuine interest in their life and what they're doing so that they seek out relationships with us. Can we treat this person the way that we would a good friend or a colleague or someone that we respect and we want to interact with and stop assuming that just because we have a relationship with them through blood or through genetics or through marriage that we are entitled to have access to
Starting point is 00:37:12 them? And this is a really controversial thought, I think, in some circles. I think it even is in my culture and in my upbringing to say these kinds of things, you know, but I find that families are close when they want to be close and when they show up in a way that allows them to be close. There are a lot of benefits to staying in contact with your family members. There are a lot of benefits to maintaining strong generational ties. And when a person decides that they cannot have contact with their family member, they are giving up a lot. They are giving up maybe a potential inheritance, generational wealth, you know, a roof over their head. If they've gotten to an emergency, they're giving up, you know, access to their culture and their lineage. They might
Starting point is 00:38:08 even be giving up relationships with other children or healthy people in the family. that they want to interact with. They're giving up the ability to have someone there in a crisis to help them. And so it's very hard for me sometimes to wrap my head around the fact that there are people who will risk losing all of that to cut off a healthy family member. Most of the time they are weighing the options and saying, this relationship is so challenging and so difficult for me that I am willing to give up the potential to access all of that. or I know I have no access to any of that. These people don't help me in an emergency. They're not there for me. They don't show interest in my life. They shame who I am as a person. They don't like me.
Starting point is 00:38:51 They don't show up for me. They treat me poorly when I do see them. So what am I getting from this? And I understand why some people would say, my life is just better not having these types of interactions. And so for any of you that can relate to anything that I've talked about in this episode, that you've had to go, no contact, you've had to make that difficult decision or you're currently working through that decision, I have the deepest amount of empathy and understanding for you because I think it takes a lot to get to that position. And I don't think any of you are in a place where you're saying, this is exactly what I thought my life would look like. I dreamt of cutting out my entire family. of going no contact with my mother. No one wants that. And some people will continue putting up with a lot of shit to avoid having to do that. And we see that with, you know, how many people who still stay in contact with people that are continuously abusive to them that they probably wouldn't do if that person wasn't their family member. And so I hope that hearing from thousands of other people that participated in making this episode possible was helpful to you.
Starting point is 00:40:09 If you were one of those people that participated and that helped with this episode, thank you so, so much for sending me your stories, voting in the polls, sending me your DMs. I really appreciate it. I want to remind you that if you'd like to connect with other people like you who are going through this, I do run groups inside the calling home community. We have six groups a month right now where you can be. meet with other family cycle breakers. You can get feedback advice and share your stories. Every time I leave these groups, like I tell my husband at the end of the day, like, that was the best group. I almost cried. It was so meaningful. Like, I get so much out of just even being
Starting point is 00:40:49 present in these groups. And I can attest to their power and how helpful they have been for so many people that have joined calling home. So if you'd like to join us, you can visit callinghome.com to sign up for the Family Cycle Breakers Club. Otherwise, I will see you again next week for another episode of the Calling Home podcast. And just a reminder that we also have those Q&A episodes that are going to be happening every Thursday. So you can listen to those. Those episodes are short, sweet. And you can really, get to know what some actual real people are dealing with and how I would respond to them in their specific situation. I hope you have a great rest of your day. Thank you so much for
Starting point is 00:41:38 listening. And don't forget to subscribe and leave the podcast a review if it's been helpful for you. Thank you.

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