You only have one mother

When society blames the survivor for going no contact

I’m hitting a point in my life where i’m heavily flirting with the idea of going no contact with both of my parents. This is not a destination that I have abruptly arrived at, but rather something that has been a consideration for a long time. In fact, this is the second time in three years that I have felt whole heartedly that I am on the precipice of making this huge, permanent and very complicated decision.

What I have witnessed throughout the past few years is the resistance of society to the concept of cutting all ties with a parent and how this resistance can further blame, shame and dismiss the very painful reality of the survivors experience. It seems that society and the people within it are on a whole, more comfortable with judging the person for going no contact with a parent or convincing the survivor to remain in their family system, than trying to actually understand what has brought that person to the point of considering walking away. What would be more helpful and frankly more kind, would be to validate and actually hear what that person has experienced and how that has contributed to the consideration of going no contact.

The most common phrase I have heard is ‘you only have one mother’ and I can’t help but notice that the significance of a mother role outweighs any information provided of the abuse she may be inflicting on the people around her. Society has taken the stance of defending an abuser because she is a mother, rather than looking at the situation and saying ‘how could a mother do that to her child?’. This approach is baffling to me and deeply invalidating to individuals that may be trying to speak out about a toxic family system. Throughout time of discussing no contact with others, I have also noticed that you don’t normally hear, ‘you only have one father’, even if your considering cutting off both of your parents… why is that? Do we centre motherhood as more important, more impactful, that the mother has more of a responsibility for that child over their father? Simple answer is I think we do expect more from mothers. You often hear, ‘they are such a great father, they are so involved’ when a father does for a child what any parent should be doing, they are doing what the mother may do everyday without any recognition or praise because it is what is expected of her by society. I wonder then if societies resistance around going no contact with your parents put emphasis on the mother because people see the mother as someone who is always there and supporting behind the scenes, where they can’t possibly fathom a mother doing any harm consciously to their child.

I think it’s also a frame of reference. If your parents have always been there, have always been a loving and present support system, then maybe you can’t understand why anyone would want to cut off their parents, potentially looking at isolated instances of abuse as simple human mistakes. For survivors of abuse at the hands of their family though, its not as simple as people making mistakes, it runs so much deeper than that. When you speak up about the abuse you have lived through, you can only portray a tiny fraction of your experience, so it’s hard to articulate the depths of how impactful it was. When disclosing abuse, you don’t have the ability of sharing your emotions on a body level, the person hearing your story can’t viscerally feel the reality of what your daily life was like. Their spirit can’t witness what it was like to live with the parents you had, to immerse themselves in the ongoing experience of living through their abuse, tension, gaslighting and loneliness, that you felt as far back as what you can remember. When disclosing abuse, you don’t have time to explain every instance of abuse that occurred, so it will tend to be a watered down version of how the narcissistic family system was set up to isolate and scapegoat you (if that was your role within the system… it was mine). By using phrases like ‘you only have one mother’, you are actively colluding with the abuse and further gaslighting the survivor into potentially believing that they are being too harsh, too dramatic, too sensitive, or what they went through is a regular human experience. This needs to stop. As a society, we need to pause and actually truly hear what that person has gone through, to validate and listen without interruptions or dismissals. We need to put ourselves in the survivors shoes and to understand why no contact may need to happen in order for that person to have a life that’s true to them and is safe, both physically, emotionally and spiritually.

Below I have compiled a list of equally damaging phrases or questions that Survivors of family abuse may also hear in response to confiding in someone about going no contact. Please note that the people saying these statements aren’t necessarily bad people or have bad intentions, but as a society we are conditioned to respond in certain ways to things we may really not understand on a deep level or have enough information to make a full judgement on someones situation. The intention of breaking some of these statements down is to raise awareness on how what we think is helpful may actually be harmful.

. ‘You need to forgive your parents in order to move on’.

This statement is complete bullshit and completely untrue. Why should I forgive them, how about they take responsibility for their behaviour?. You do not need to forgive anyone in order to process your feelings around the abuse or to start living a life that is more authentic and true to you. You do not owe anyone your forgiveness and it is absolutely possible to continue on your healing journey without giving people who hurt you your forgiveness. If you feel that’s what you want to do then go for it, its your journey, but please also know that you’re in control of this choice and not forgiving someone won’t hold you back from being able to heal. In the past, I was in an extremely controlling and abusive romantic relationship that completely broke me, I have radically accepted what happened but I will never give that person my forgiveness, because frankly they don’t deserve it in my eyes. I’m happy to take that non forgiveness to my grave and as a society we should celebrate peoples autonomy to decide whether they want to forgive or not. Giving forgiveness does not make you a better person than someone who chooses not to and we should not put that expectation onto everyone with what they ‘should’ do in order to move on. Has my choice to not forgive stopped me from healing? Absolutely not. I can now look at that experience and not have a super strong emotional reaction to it like I used to, why? Because i’ve processed a lot in therapy and inner work, none of which involved forgiving that abuser. Of course I still have feelings bubble up or flashbacks but they are always going to be there regardless of my forgiveness and I have accepted that. I’ve moved on to a better life, a better partner and a better career path, so yes it is possible.

. ‘No family is perfect, we all make mistakes’.

Yes, no family is perfect, but there’s normal family ups and downs and then there’s abuse and narcissistic family systems. By saying that no family is perfect in response to someone confiding in you about their abuse, it fails to recognise how severe or serious someones circumstances are. This statement can normalise abuse and further gaslight the survivor into thinking they are being too extreme with how they are reacting to the behaviour of their family. To be on the receiving end of this also just feels so invalidating, like the abuse you witnessed or were subjected to are on the same level as your parents getting a little angry at you from time to time, systematic abuse doesn’t equate to normal family experience. This statement feels like an unrecognised and unnoticed pain of the past, to once again give your abusers the benefit of the doubt. We all may have used abusive behaviours at some point in our life and that doesn’t inherently make us bad people, however continuous abuse of a person, especially a child is never acceptable and can have irreversible damage to someone psyche or lead them to develop long term health conditions. This should not be comparable to people just making mistakes or sometimes reacting in ways that were not appropriate.

.'Have you thought about how much you will be hurting your parents if you cut them off?’

This one truly makes my blood boil. If you’re like me and have a parent who is chronically in the victim role, you may have frequently been met with them saying things like ‘but what about how I feel, what about me, this is making me feel so low and depressed’. What some people don’t understand is that the person potentially going no contact with a family member, has normally taken their whole life of abuse to reach this breaking point. What about the survivor? What about their feelings of being continuously let down and failed by the people who are supposed to love them the most. For me, my whole damn upbringing was centred around how my mother felt, everyone walked on eggshells around her as she projected the parts of herself she didn't like onto other people. I’m done with considering her feelings at this point because she never considers mine. Again, this question is putting the responsibility onto the survivor and I think its unjust. If your parents are hurt with you cutting them off, then thats what I call ‘facing the consequences of your actions’.

. ‘But what sort of childhood did they have?’

Don’t get me wrong, exploring what your parents childhood was like can be extremely beneficial to a survivor in understanding the cycle of abuse and to gain understanding as to why and how the abuse may have happened. However, I feel like this is useful to explore with a therapist who is trained to navigate these topics within abuse, to still provide a space where the survivor is still seen and validated for their experience. This should be on the clients terms, if that’s something they want to explore. I personally feel like this is more beneficial to unpick when your further along your healing journey, after you have been validated. I think this because if you’re from an abusive or narcissistic family system, you may have spent your whole life making excuses for your parents bad behaviour or even been gaslit into thinking it was you who instigated or deserved the abuse. Therefore, by asking this straight after someone has told you that they are considering going no contact, this could make someone feel that they should immediately grant their understanding to their abusers. Most of the time what survivors just really want is to be heard and to possibly for the first time, have the focus on them and their story and their emotions that they are trying to make sense of. The childhood your parents had can give you knowledge to generational trauma or abuse, but that doesn’t justify the hurt that they put you through, it doesn’t automatically make it okay once you understand where it’s come from. Don’t get it twisted, I do believe that some people can use abusive behaviours and recognise that this is bad and reform from those behaviours, but many abusive family systems won’t ever change and the perpetrators within those systems may never have the self reflection or desire to recognise their behaviours and change them for the better, because the family system is set up to benefit them.

. ‘What if something bad happened to them or they died?’

This question is really common and although that question does flash across many minds of survivors wanting to go no contact, its not a reason to keep an abusive person in your life. The reality is, we are all going to die at some point and we don’t know when. But my thoughts on this are that if my parents die without wanting to truly see me, validate me, hear me and take responsibility, then it’s their loss and not mine, even if they do die. I will have complex emotions if they were to die but I feel my whole life I have been grieving the parents I never had, grieving what could have been, rather then what is. Again, this puts obligation and responsibility on the survivor to consider allowing someone in their life who continuously lets them down and hurts them, just for the fact they will die someday. And I do wonder if the same question flickers through my parents mind, ‘what if Bea dies, how would I feel that I didn’t show up for them the way they needed’.

.’They worked so hard to put a roof over your head and to feed you’

Spoiler, that is a parents responsibility to do so when they have a child. Yes, in some circumstances this could have been extremely difficult for parents to keep their head above water and ensure a secure stable environment and i’m not dismissing that, however this isn’t the child’s fault or responsibility. Just because your parents put a roof over your head and food on the table, doesn’t mean you owe them for that and that certainly doesn’t grace them permission to abuse you. A child needs more than their environment, they need connection, love, acceptance, safety and support. No child deserves to live chronically tense and worried each day if their parents anger will be unleashed upon them either through physical, mental or emotional abuse or neglect. To this question I would also like to answer with a question, did they really try their best and how do you know they tried their best? They might have had limited knowledge in how to parent in a healthy way but what’s stopping them from reading a parenting book or researching into children’s mental health? I’ve witnessed my parents try their best at things in their life and can say with my whole chest that parenting was not one of them.

I felt like I was pulled to write this post to open up the conversation of going no contact and to raise awareness to how our words can affect survivors of abuse. If you have used any of the statements or questions listed above, I understand that it doesn’t always mean that you had malicious intent but I hope this post helps you to recognise how we should support people who are trying to confide in us.

If you are a survivor of an abusive family system, just know that I see you. I know going no contact isn’t something that everyone can actually do due to many circumstances. If you’re currently considering going no contact then I share your pain and the weight of this experience, the grief and the internal inner child that is getting triggered despite this being potentially the best thing you can do for them. It’s not a decision that comes easily or quickly for many of us and you absolutely deserved to be loved, cherished, seen and appreciated for the wonderful unique person that you are. There are people out in the world who get it and will stand behind you and support you. I’m deeply sorry that you have been let down by the people who were supposed to be a safe space, the people who should have been role models of how to be rather than how not to be. I hope for you that you continue to stand in your power and recognise the impact you have in the world, even if you can’t see it right now. That goes for any survivors, whether no contact is happening or not, keep on shining!

I would like to finish this post with a quote that has been shortened over time, where society has taken the incorrect meaning from it and used to guilt survivors into staying in abusive family systems. Society knows this as ‘Blood is thicker than water’, meaning, family ties are stronger than outside relations. The original quote is actually;
’The blood of the covenant is thicker than the water of the womb’. Meaning, the bonds of the covenant, chosen family or people who share our painful experiences are stronger than relations formed from blood family.

I am grateful to the Substack community that I have been able to build. I see you and I am here to support, resonate and cheer on other brilliant survivors, truth tellers and creatives. Your experience and words deserve to be put out into the world and someday soon or in the future, your words will fall into the lap of someone who really needed to read them at the time.