After the estrangement: those first few months

It's ok to be in a fog.

Those first few months

You have done your thinking, bargaining, praying and hoping. You have tried ignoring it. You have tried reaching out, keeping the peace, explaining it again, explaining it then just the one more time, and your nervous system is in overdrive: you cannot continue the fight, the flight, the freeze or the fawn and you realize, it’s them or me.

You re-read the passage in Toxic Parents that advises how to write a tactful, thoughtful, non-blamey, chock-full-of-I statements, “I need a break” letter. You walk to the post because you need the air. You swing open the heavy, metal lid on the cold blue box and you slide your letter down the chute, before you change your mind.

You walk home, doing your best to take deep breaths and keep your feet steady.

And then you wait. That’s all you can do. You have informed this person, after all, that you need to cease contact, and the only way you know that they will abide by that is if you don’t hear from them, but since you always could hear from them, you stay on high alert.

It’s easier to calm your nervous system after you made the decision to take this break.

You have taken this break in order to stop the bad things from happening in this relationship.

There is no hope of healing your past with this person if the bad things, the slights, the intrusions, the abuse and the disrespect—keep happening. You will not only not get better, you will get worse.

So you wait. You think about people in that family system or group that you could reach out to, and weigh the pros and cons. Who is safe? Who will believe me? Who will spy? Who will miss me? Who will call me selfish? Even the most loving and sympathetic person in your family cares deeply about your narcissist. So even though you are right to choose you, they might not see it this way. Neither will a lot of your friends. These friends, who seemingly have no skin in the game, weigh in on your situation, projecting onto your their lives and their stories with their dysfunctional but not monstrous and destructive parents. They judge. After all, they put up with the person, and they turned out all right.

You start to stay away from people. You read books. You cry. You make food.

You keep waiting.

The person notices and tries to contact you.

* *

You start getting voicemails that you feel too anxious to open.

Something gets delivered. It’s a strange card. It’s an ugly bouquet. It’s a toy full of lead paint for your child. It’s a bag of groceries you don’t need. It’s a box of chocolates with only cherry nougat fillings.

You battle whether to send it back— That’s attention. That’s contact,—to keep it—those cherry chocolate nougat blobs aren’t going to eat themselves!—or throw it away—you are very ungrateful for throwing away a perfectly good giant bag of fruit. Just cut the mold off.

You throw away the gift but not the guilt.

You cry and look at old photos.

You start to doubt yourself.

You start to call yourself selfish.

You remember, take it one day at a time.

You talk it out with people.

Are you sure? They ask.

The fuck are you asking that for? Of course I’m not sure, you say. I’m just trying to stop the bad things from happening so I can function and this is the only thing that has worked, you say. It would work a lot better if people could be supportive, you think, but do not say.

You reach out to less judgy friends. Someone validates you. Slowly, you are learning who and how to trust. You start focusing on your routine, your hygiene, your sleep, and the people who are in your life, who are standing by you.

The first holiday goes by. You feel lonely. You tell yourself you won’t look at social media. You look at social media. You see all of them smiling, partying without you, the narcissist in the center, smiling like a ghoul. You close the app and make cookies, the ones that person hated. You discover a sense of humor you thought you had lost.

The days start feeling like the present instead of the past. You discover simple pleasures. You continue down the road, and wait for your head to clear just a bit more, before deciding anything.