Sometimes the Family Ties Feel Like Chains
Finding Your Real Family
They Made You, They Don’t Own You
Stupid holidays. Always making people introspective and stuff. But as they say, “When in Rome, don’t fight City Hall.” Or something like that. This is the time of year when people reassess, re-evaluate and take stock of their lives. It’s no accident that right after the holidays is when all the well-intentioned, but usually doomed, resolutions get made.
Discussions and essays abound on the topic of narcissistic abuse. Some of that occurs in the workplace or between strangers. The worst of it comes from the people closest to us. The closer you are to someone, the lower your defenses and the worse they can hurt you if that is their intent.
I was raised by narcissists of the first order, who put their own egos above everything else. Narcissism is as much cultural as interpersonal. My parents were heavily into religion, and could be counted on to quote the Bible liberally, at least insofar as it suited their purposes. Narcissists are ace cherry-pickers. One of their favorite passages was the Fourth Commandment, the one that mandates honoring your parents. Yeah, the narcissists loved that one.
I am not a lover or hater of religion. I’m not religious now, but I was raised in a very religious environment, and actively participated in my church through high school. A lot of people find value in religion, and for those that do, more power to them. I met some really nice people at church.
What I despise is weaponized religion. As a kid, I was not just being gaslit by my parents, but told that the narcissistic gaslighters had a mandate from God, and that I would burn in a literal Hell if I pushed back, as that would violate the divine ruleset.
Remind me, why did I stop talking to my parents?
That leads into the real point I wanted to make, and that is that we are not stuck with the people who brought us into this world. That is an accident of biology, nothing more. I grew up being told “blood is thicker than water,” “friends come and go, but you’re stuck with your family,” and other such nonsense.
Life is too short to spend it “stuck” with people you didn’t choose and who are dragging you down. I know some people have good relationships with their families, and I am truly happy for them. If only it could be that way for everyone. Count your blessings.
My mother-in-law died just a few weeks ago. We had cut off contact with my wife’s family years ago as well. My wife got a phone call from her brother. It was a rude call, just a short, terse voice mail demanding that she call back. She blocked his number, then checked the local paper online, and found her mother’s obituary.
The same woman who backhanded her with a fistful of heavy rings and bloodied her mouth as a teenager died in early November as a frail 93-year-old with a very generic obituary, probably just the local paper’s boilerplate. No tears were shed, and we did not attend any kind of memorial or funeral.
We don’t even know or care what they did with the body. That’s how narcissists end, frail and alone. It’s a waste, but I will never cry for them. Not as long as I and people I care about bear the physical and emotional scars of their abuse.
The best part of my own life started when I left the state my family reside in, and went off to graduate school. I knew it was time to make the break. In fact, when selecting which graduate schools to apply to, I had a few criteria, and I still remember them. My family lived (and still does) in Colorado, near Denver. I hated the snow almost as much as I hated my family.
That led to my criteria for schools. The first was a gimme, it had to have the program I was interested in. It also had to be someplace warm. I was determined to put the nasty winters behind me. Finally, it had to be not in Colorado or in any state that touched Colorado. I did not even consider schools that were less than two states away. I was accepted into schools in Florida, Texas and California. I chose California.
Moving out of state was weird. I still remember those first few days of school, looking around and finding myself in a major city where I knew not one soul. It was incredibly liberating. Before long, I found myself meeting people and experiencing sides of life I never knew existed.
Some of the people I met were dysfunctional. I kicked them to the curb without a second thought. I did settle on a new, and small, group of people who became my core circle of friends for the next few years. All were people I could never have met if my family were still in the picture. Basically, anyone who wasn’t a cisgendered WASP was persona non grata, as far as the parents were concerned.
A few of that circle of friends dropped away over the years. One died a few months ago. (Screw cancer. Seriously.) One lives in Northern California, and I haven’t heard from her in years. One is here in San Diego, and we have been in touch, but only virtually (thanks COVID!) One moved back to Malaysia. One lives in New York City, and we saw her recently, at her husband’s memorial service. I married one.
These people changed my life, entirely for the better. Those were changes that would never have occurred if I had not broken ties with my very defective blood relatives. Would I have liked a good relationship with my relatives? Of course. But they are broken people, and I will not tolerate their abuse. They made their choices. I made mine. I have enough self respect not to let them drag me down. I do not wish them good or ill. They do not exist in my current reality, and there can be no place for them here.
This piece was directly inspired by a comment from a wonderful person here, The Silent Wave, who always manages to see through all the nonsense that spills from my keyboard and extract some meaning from it. Thank you, my friend!