Is it time to cut off your toxic parent?

In 2017 I was having a huge depressive episode, I attempted suicide and had to attend mandatory counselling. In one of our sessions I told my psychiatrist that I had noticed my parents were a trigger and any time I came into contact with them I would experience suicidal thoughts and a dangerous shift in my mood.

I won't go into too much detail here, though I have other blogs that discuss this, but my psychiatrist's advice has stuck with me. He said "You either have to accept your parents as they are and that they will never change, or you have to leave them in your past and move on".

It took me years to fully understand this advice and at the beginning of this year I made the hard decision that I couldn't have them in my life anymore.

What factors should you consider if you are thinking of removing your parents from your life?

1. Are they doing you significant harm?

If they are physically hurting you then you should absolutely remove them from your life and consider pressing charges. However, there are more ways to hurt someone than hitting them. My parents were overly critical, I was never good enough; my career, my university degree, my home, my body. It all came under fire and some of it was so discrete that I didn't even notice.

My parents would wait until we were in public (for example in a restaurant) before they would begin the worst of their quiet criticisms so when I burst into tears I looked irrational or overly emotional.

Any type of emotional abuse is still abuse and would be a good enough reason to say enough is enough.

2. Are the weight of their opinions becoming too heavy?

I am a very spiritual person and I now have a lovely display in my living room with crystals, candles and angels on it. This has been a new addition because if I had put it up before I know I would have been ridiculed for my beliefs. The freedom I felt arranging those things was unbelievable.

I have noticed that since removing my parents from my life I have been doing more of the things that make me happy.

3. Is the past too much?

Over the past two years I had been working on myself really hard. Specifically, on overcoming the massive amounts of childhood trauma I had because of the abuse I suffered from my step-dad. I really needed to do this inner work.

However, the realisation that I had was that I was incredibly angry with my Mom for just standing by and watching it happen. She just allowed it. Overtime I realised that she wasn't the "nice" parent for not abusing me and occasionally showing me a shred of love, she was equally as guilty as my step-dad for just standing by and watching.

When this occurred to me, I found it very hard to forgive her. It was then that I began noticing the emotional abuse that she performed that had gone under my radar because she was never physical.

4. You have given up hope.

If you have reached this point then you know it is time. You have hung on until now praying that one day, they will be the parents you desperately wanted as a child. That maybe when you get that job, or write that book or do that amazing thing, they will finally love you and be proud of you.

If you know in your heart that no matter what you do, they will never change and you will always feel this way then you are about to make the hardest decision you have ever made.

End note:

If you are about to remove a parent or both parents from your life then expect to grieve. You haven't just lost the person they are today, you have lost all of your hopes for love, affection and closure from them. Be extremely kind to yourself at this time and if no one else says this to you today: I am proud of you for picking you.