Grief After the Cutoff

December 8 was a big day for me. It was a day when I finally, forcefully, put myself ahead of my family and a deep connection with my mother. I cut her off, for a number of reasons, thus completing a sort of transition process that started in 2020.

I’ve never felt truly part of my family for a number of reasons. My father died when I was young, and because Mom and his side of the family did not try to get along, I never got to know them or talk to them, beyond the very occasional birthday get together. When I was older, my mother told me some things that she didn’t like about them and how she and my dad didn’t get along with them, and I wonder if it changed my personal views of them, created a hesitation in me.

My stepfather was an ass, and still is. I think he’s proud of it. He’s racist, sexist, and showed favoritism among us kids, which created a lot of fear and distrust when I did something wrong and had to face him. He and Mom fought a lot, and I remember at least two times in my childhood that I came home and found our things (mine, my Mom’s, and my little brother’s) piled on the lawn or driveway, the locks changed. The bus that dropped my brother off would arrive, and he and I would sit and wait for our mom to come home. She would inevitably panic and we would find ourselves in a hotel, eating fast food while she argued with him on the phone or cried and complained about how awful he was. I haven’t spoken to him in a few years, because I came to the realization that we were not close and I did not need a relationship with him.

Last year, during the pandemic, there was a misunderstanding that blew up and caused me to break things off with my mother’s side of the family because I was not treated fairly, with the exception of one or two cousins. I was treated like a child, and even took a long break from my mother, not speaking to her until midspring. We talked about our issues and made up, and things were okay… but not the same.

During the break, I thought a lot about my relationship with my mother. She often asked me for advice about dating and relationships and has a lot of trust issues due to her bad history in terms of dating. I often felt put in the middle of her relationships. I didn’t feel comfortable giving her advice. I also had gained some weight, and when I told her about it, she told me she “didn’t want me to lose myself,” which made me really angry, because I don’t feel that my weight has anything to do with me being myself. However, any time I tried to talk to her about these things, she would teeter between calling herself a bad mom and talking about things from my childhood for which I had long forgiven her, or she would tell me she had no control over my feelings and couldn’t make me feel bad. I was very frustrated about the situation but had a hard time articulating why.

Then, last month, an incident occurred that I couldn’t ignore. I called my mom and she was with her boyfriend, who was less than perfect and had some qualities I did not like, and who had treated my mom in a disrespectful way in the past. I never told my mom why I didn’t like him because she was enamored of him and she’s an adult and can make her own decisions. If she wants to be with someone, I have no right to try and tell her no, to my mind.

Anyway, she was talking with him in the background and we were talking about plans for the holidays when she asked me something I never thought my mother would ask me.

“Hey, you should write about me and boyfriend’s sex life, like a “Fifty Shades of Grey” story. That way, we can tell the REAL story about how [boyfriend] hurt his leg, and you can publish it and we can split the money.”

I was absolutely shocked. Not at the idea of writing and publishing a fictional erotic novel, but at the idea of knowing explicit details of my mom’s sex life. While I encourage couples talking about sex and people who have teen kids not being afraid to help their adolescents learn about sex in a comfortable, informative, and safe environment, the only things I want to know about my mom’s intimate life is that she is safe and happy, that consent is important. For me, this was like being invited in to watch her in the act or accidentally walking in on her. I felt so uncomfortable, I couldn’t really respond to her. She then told me she had to go because she had company over.

After talking it over with my husband, I decided to take a break from her again. I wrote her a text saying that I wanted to take a break because she made me uncomfortable and listed a couple of occurrences where her actions caused me to feel uncomfortable. Then, I talked about how upset I was at her regarding her inappropriate request. I told her I didn’t want to talk to her until at least Christmas, and she responded with “If that’s how you feel, fine.” I got angry about this and told her that if she wasn’t going to take my discomfort seriously, I didn’t want to talk to her at all anymore and was going to cut her off. She responded with a number of rushed apologies, saying that she hadn’t read my text in full, that she had people over when I called, that she just blurted it out, and begging for me to talk to her. I got mad about the apologies because she didn’t own what she had done and tried to downplay what she had done, even though she knew it was out of line. I chose to ignore it and cut her off

What followed was the hardest month of my life. I was depressed, anxious, constantly checked my phone for messages and reread the last texts between us. At my lowest point, I even felt suicidal, and spent a few days in bed because I just couldn’t try to be happy, no matter how I felt.

Then, my mom texted me the day after Christmas. It was small and simple, saying that she was sorry she didn’t make contact on Christmas because she was afraid and that she loved my husband and myself. And I realized that she wasn’t just afraid of me being angry with her, she was afraid of facing the consequences. I was afraid of me not being able to stick to my convictions and to take care of myself, instead of worrying about disappointing my mom, which was always an issue I didn’t realize I had. I had never been given the proper tools to process feelings, to own them, and to stand up for myself, because my feelings were never expected. I had always respected Mom’s feelings, but she never respected mine.

There’s been a rising trend in familial estrangement over the last few years, according to Maddy Savage, who wrote an article called Family estrangement: Why adults are cutting off their parents. Her article discusses0 reasons why some people have cut off their parents or another person in their family whom they were once close to, and briefly discusses the feelings one endures when undergoing this change. However, the article does not ask how those creating the cutoff are dealing with the emotional fallout, the journey with becoming comfortable with one’s actions taken to break a toxic and abusive cycle. I feel that everyone has a different way of dealing with grief, but personally, I did a lot of self-care and self-reassurance, and learned to look for people who were supportive and did not question my motives or try and cause me to feel guilt over my actions. To anyone out there going through the same thing or thinking about doing so: whatever your decision, you deserve support from those around you and please, take care of yourself. You can put yourself first and be selfish as a means of self-preservation.

The interesting thing is that, when I mentioned or someone asked about my estrangement with my mom, people asked me why, or made oblique comments about how “one day she would be gone,” inferring that I would miss her after she is gone. People didn’t realize that they had not been in my position, and therefore didn’t understand that I already miss her. I still love my mom. I’m also angry with her, and that is okay. My reaction to her actions is okay and helped me process the anxiety and depression I’ve felt. They also looked at my choosing to cut her off from me, as opposed to her actions as a parent and how inappropriate they were. The truth is, I don’t have to justify my actions or reasons to anyone but myself. Also, trying to justify hurt me and made me wonder if I was regretful or not.

So if you are feeling alone because you have cut off a family member, or are thinking of cutting off someone toxic to you, its okay. You have a right to your feelings and you do not have to justify your source to anyone but yourself. You have a right to be selfish to preserve yourself.