Against Gratitude
Going no-contact with toxic parents
Most parents do their best for their children, but they make mistakes along the way. It’s part of being human. Toxic parents, those who physically or emotionally abuse their children, are another thing entirely.
Either way, forgiveness is one option, whether it means letting another person off the hook for how they hurt you, or letting yourself off the hook of staying hurt.
Forgiveness has many faces. For me, forgiveness meant going no-contact with my two adoptive parents.
Adoption is complicated under any circumstances, and in my situation it was further complicated by secrecy. I was the elephant in the living room, a child who could walk into a room of adults and make conversation stop cold. Secrecy and shame not only hid the truth from me, it made my adoptive parents miserable. As a very young child, though, I only sensed something was very wrong with my family.
I met my husband’s family in my twenties, a few years after a cousin had revealed the family secret to me: that I was adopted. My future husband was a traditional kid of guy, and he took me to meet his parents one day early on in our relationship. They astonished me.
His parents’ attention that day was focused on him and his siblings. The parents posed questions…
