Going No Contact and the Wisdom of Goldilocks

Going No Contact and the Wisdom of Goldilocks (originally published in the Friday Edition of HeartBalm Healing at https://heartbalm.substack.com)

Going no contact can be one of the hardest decisions you will ever have to make. Severing ties with family is a self-determined and empowered step toward ending emotional, physical, and psychological abuse. The consensus is that the choice to go no contact falls into three distinct categories:

1. Limiting family connections and the amount of time spent with family or avoiding specific family members or events that are the most triggering and abusive. (This could be a first option before fully going no contact and might feel like the best long-term option for your situation.)
2. Deliberately choosing to go no contact and removing toxic family members from your life.
3. The choiceless choice – when the choice to go no contact is automatic, made for you, or when there is literally no other choice to make but to sever all contact.

You may find that one choice may feel too much, another too little, and one may feel just right. No matter where you are in the process of making this decision, it is never easy. Making this choice is much more consequential and important than porridge, or the comfort of household furniture, and should not be taken lightly. No offense, Goldilocks.

For many going no contact means cutting ties and having no interactions or communication with a dysfunctional family of origin or removing yourself and moving farther away geographically. Going no contact is an empowering step to take, but it is also challenging to navigate this kind of break from toxic family members and extended interpersonal relationships. The web of players, loyalists, and enablers can often work together to undermine your decision and cause more trauma, shame, and harassment, all in an effort to get you back into your assigned role within the family structure. The abuse you receive leads to the relief that abusers count on to manage their own demons. Losing you as the scapegoat, whipping post, and innocent vessel to project all their own anger, fear, insecurities, and mental health issues onto is a loss for them and their egos. However, unfortunately, they will generally find another person to traumatize and project onto if you cut ties, so they can continue to avoid and deny their own issues and revel in seeing pain and suffering play out in another.

Concerns might arise over the timing of your decision or you may experience invalidating and sabotaging thoughts about separating from family despite your own mental health needs. You may find yourself ruminating over the consequences, fallout, or backlash that you may suffer, or equivocating and negotiating with yourself to decide if the situation is “bad enough” to move forward with severing ties completely. If you find yourself normalizing or minimizing toxic behavior this could be a sign of trauma bonding and a way of avoiding this very difficult decision.

Trauma bonding is developed over time and lives within the nervous system. It is the glue that holds an abusive relationship together. Every time your fight/flight survival response is activated in conjunction with sustained trauma by an abuser, an adrenaline connection is established. Repetitive abuse coupled with a familial abuser or abusers can create a confusing narrative that muddles the boundaries between healthy and toxic attachment. When we are taught that mothers, fathers, and family in general are supposed to love us, but they hurt us instead, a psychological conflict or cognitive dissonance occurs that creates insecurity, shame, low self-esteem, and internalized wounding. This repetitive dissonance, abuse, and hormonal triggering can create a labyrinth of misperceptions that confuse abuse and neglect with love.

In my own experience, it was never a decision I made willingly. It was a choiceless choice. I felt lucky in some small way that the choice was one that was clear and made for me. My family, especially my mother, had pushed me to my limit. There were many growing and considerably toxic moments that had been coming to a head – and then the last straw broke. I was at a family event and my niece overheard a very degrading and hurtful statement that my mother said to me. My mother was usually able to hide her jabs and hateful actions toward me, but,  on this occasion, she was revealed. The look on my niece’s face towards my mother was absolute disbelief and disgust – and then she looked at me to see my reaction. My niece explained her outrage to me, as she was confused and concerned for me. I was so used to being treated cruelly and wasn’t sure what to say but was uncomfortable and overwhelmed by the fact that someone else was now in the toxic pool with me and had seen a small portion of what was going on. I was stunned. The level of shame I experienced by having a witness to my abuse was terrifying at that moment and is still felt today, and the tears that arise as I write these words and relive that moment are a time capsule of disgrace still held deep within me.

Although I am a minimalist, I found a thread of similarity when I realized that hoarders often experience a sense of feeling violated, left vulnerable, and exposed when their homes are cleaned and organized. The mountains of clutter, clothing, belongings, and random, everyday things are put in place initially to isolate themselves; hide behind feelings of embarrassment, shame, and pain; and shield and protect themselves from others and what they fear. I did not realize the full scope of my hidden feelings and triggered wounds at the time, but once someone else saw the truth of what was happening, the hidden hoard, you might say, I soon realized how exposed and vulnerable I felt in that moment.

There was always a big part of me that wanted others to understand what was happening behind closed doors, to help and save me, to find out about the abuse and neglect at the hands of my mother, and how she had recruited family members and others to her side as proxies and enablers. Yet, when my niece looked at me, I felt so much shame and humiliation that I was the one exposed and left feeling unprotected and completely devastated. It was as if the truth had been hiding behind layers of trauma and neglect that were now cleared away, and visible for all to see. While the truth was revealed so too was a level of shame that I could not abide. It was as if my own niece could now see my unworthiness, undeserving self, and unlovability. She could see that my own mother and family did not care for me or love me and treated me with disdain.

At that moment, as much as I love my niece, and knowing how much she loves me, I felt a breaking point within me and knew that I could not sit through another family event. I could never have her or any other person witness my degradation and abuse at the hands of my mother and family or see me exposed. I also realized what I had been putting up with, accepting, and how retraumatizing each encounter with my family was and would be in the future. This event was the last straw, and when it occurred, it was clear and severe enough to make my decision to go no contact. I knew then that I was done. It was never a solid thought or a statement that I made to myself. I don’t think I had even entertained the idea prior, but, at that moment, I knew I could no longer play the part I had been playing in my family or feel like a victim of their abuse one more day.

I ended up moving more than 2,000 miles away from my family, which included my extended and loving family of friends and the few members of my family of origin that I trusted. My new home was a place that felt like home to me from the first time I had driven into town and thereafter. I had visited this place frequently over the years and fell in love with the energy, beauty, space, simplicity, and response of my own personal feelings. It seemed like a great place to start building a new life. So, one day, when it felt just right, I hooked up my truck to a U-Haul packed with my belongings, along with my dog and two cats, and left everything behind in hopes of better times ahead.

I remember starting out in my new community and feeling free. It was as if someone turned on a bright light and said, “Now, go be authentically you.” I did not have to hide or wonder who I might know around every corner, or who was going to judge, ostracize, harm, or hurt me, or just do something randomly mean and demeaning towards me. The experience and freedom to be authentically myself had never been more realized than it was in my new town. My shame was nowhere to be found because no one had access to my past, my history, or my family that recruited others to join in abusing and hurting me. My family was well known in my hometown, so the feeling of freedom, peace, and relief that no one knew me in my new world was transformative.

My relationships continue to ebb and flow as all involved get older. I feel much more empowered and have developed very strong boundaries when dealing with family members, and others who push their limits with me, but there is still unhealed trauma that gets activated and boils to the surface. I struggle, heal, and fall again and again, but I keep getting back up. I write and share and listen and heal one Friday Edition and HeartBalm Healing podcast at a time. There is growth, expansion, and evolution that happens when going no contact and facing the next steps of rebuilding a life for yourself that is grounded in healing, self-loving actions, and an empowered HeartSpace that grows as we grow. It is an ongoing garden that needs tending, nourishing, harvesting, and a lot of love, compassion, understanding, rest, forgiveness, and gratitude.

Getting support from a trauma-informed professional can help make this transition more manageable and provide tools, structure, and a developed plan for moving forward. When you begin to remove toxic people from your life, you begin to understand that who you surround yourself with is entirely your choice. These empowered and positive actions support your own wellness and healing journey, and you begin to understand and embrace your own magnificent, deserving, authentic, and loving self. You nurture the ground you walk on and begin to find all the ways that you are deserving and that you are worthy of everything good!

I no longer look to my abusers with any expectation of remorse, apology, restitution, restoration, or relationship. I’m at peace, accepting that they won’t and can’t help me out of the mess they created. But,  I’m the best qualified for that job anyway and I’m happy with the job I’m doing.

— Christina Enevoldsen, The Rescued Soul: The Writing Journey for the Healing of Incest and Family Betrayal

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