Why I Had to Go No Contact with My Family of Origin

For most of my life, I gave everything I had. I tried to understand myself, explain myself, and prove myself, in an attempt to earn the acknowledgment and love from my family of origin that never seemed to come. No matter what I did I ended up on the other side of blame, shame dismissal, and misunderstanding. My lived experience, my pain, my humanity—could not be acknowledged by those closest to me in a way that every human deserves.

Every time I engaged with my family in any heartfelt attempt to find resolution and understanding, I was met with the same painful patterns.

Healing from childhood trauma is profoundly difficult when you remain enmeshed in a family system that refuses to acknowledge your pain, denies your lived experience, and insists that you are the problem rather than a product of what happened to you. It’s like trying to mend deep wounds while still standing in the fire that caused them. When those around you dismiss your reality, shift blame onto you, and refuse to examine their own role in the dysfunction, it can feel impossible to break free from the cycles of harm.

True healing often requires stepping outside of that system—choosing yourself, even when it means walking away from the very people who shaped you.

Going no contact wasn’t about punishment or revenge. It wasn’t about proving a point. It was about protection. It was about dignity. It was about finally giving myself—and the young parts of me—the care and safety we never received from the people who should have provided it.

Going no contact was a choice to heal. To see all of my parts clearly. To know, honor, and finally integrate the truth of what I had experienced.

Creating space was the only way I could truly hear the young, exiled parts of me that carried deep pain from the abuses they experienced. As long as I remained enmeshed in the family system, their voices were drowned out by the noise of gaslighting, obligation, and self-doubt. But when I stepped away, I could finally tend to them. I could finally give them the love, safety, and recognition they had been aching for all these years.

It wasn’t easy. Walking away from family is one of the hardest things a person can do. The the grief is immense, the ache of longing for things to be different—unbearable. But the cost of continuing as things were was too high. And the freedom of leaving? It gave me the space to finally breathe, to finally rest, and to finally begin the process of healing in a way I never could before.

To those who are struggling with similar choices, I see you. It’s not easy. But you deserve to heal. You deserve to be safe. You deserve to honor the truth of your experience, no matter who refuses to acknowledge it.

And if no one has told you this before: walking away from harm is not wrong. Choosing yourself is not selfish. Protecting your tender, wounded parts is the most courageous thing you can do.

Healing starts when we finally listen—to ourselves, to our pain, to the parts of us that have been waiting in the shadows for our attention and care. And sometimes, the only way to truly listen is to step away from the noise and create the space we were never given.