4 Therapists Discuss Going “No Contact”
No child wants to go no contact, but is there a right time to?
It wasn’t until after my son was born, as I spent month after month staying up all night holding him to my chest, that childhood memories of emotional disconnection from my parents started flooding back in.
I would never treat him that way, I found myself thinking night after long night as I cradled a baby that refused to sleep any other way, I would never let him feel that way.
The thought kept eating at me, fueled by exhaustion and the stress of keeping it at bay, until it finally boiled over during a car ride with my mother, when an offhanded comment she made that I can no longer remember flipped the switch and left me yelling that she let me out of the car and just keep driving, which she did.
In that moment, it finally hit me: I was done.
No more visits.
No more calls.
No more texts.
Done.
And while neither the feeling nor the distance lasted, I have to admit that for a little while, even within the anger and pain, going no contact was the freest I’d ever felt.
It took more than a year of grief, therapy, and many, many books, before I was centred enough to resume contact and work things out, which we did.
I am one of the lucky ones, having parents who were ultimately willing to listen and work on improving themselves. Unfortunately, that is not the case for most people who consider going no contact - the wounds cutting much deeper and the parents much less willing to change.
It’s no help that the idea of going no contact has remained a highly controversial topic, with many of those opposed claiming it has led to the degradation of the family unit. However, my own experience showed me that it could also be a lifeline for those who feel unable to heal in any other way.
Wanting to gain more insight into the topic, I recently interviewed four therapists about going no contact with your parents, inquiring about their perspectives on who it’s right for and what is most important for people to consider ahead of making that choice.
The therapists I spoke with, and to whom I owe deep gratitude, are: Lindsay C. Gibson (author of Adult Children Of Emotionally Immature Parents), Sherrie Campbell (author of Adult Survivors Of Emotionally Abusive Parents), Amber Groomes (creator of Dr. Amber Writes) and Kaitlyn Elizabeth (creator of Dialoguing).
Included below are highlights of our conversations about going no contact with your parents, edited for clarity and readability.
Will: What leads people to taking a measure as extreme as going no contact with their parent/s?
Lindsay: Very often there is a feeling of exhaustion that comes over a person when they are sort of treading the same ground over and over, and feeling like they’re not being listened to or feeling like there’s no real connection there.
Sherrie: When you are no contact, usually there’s just no other choice there, there’s no other viable way that you can survive. That makes no contact a little more understandable because this is not a hate driven decision it’s a self-protection decision.
Will: How do you know if going no contact is right for you?
Kaitlyn: it’s all about empowering one’s self to make the choice that leads to the most harmony within their internal system as possible. Oftentimes, our bodies have some sense of what is and is not OK.
Sherrie: It got to the point where I realized there’s never going to be contact unless I willingly submit to being abused and manipulated my entire life, and I didn’t want to submit to that anymore.
Lindsay: How does it (interacting with your parent) feel? What’s the rest of your day like when you get off the phone, or what is it like for you when you’re being asked to respond to a text that maybe you don’t even want to get in the first place? What does all that feel like to you? And if the answer is that it feels draining, exhausting, angering, then you’re getting the signal that for whatever reason, this is not a good time for you to be in contact with that person.
Will: What are some things to think about before going no contact?
Amber: Anyone considering going no contact should anticipate that cutting contact with their family member will likely still be accompanied by painful emotions, such as grief, self-doubt, and anxiety.
Lindsay: The first steps for any move like that has to be really having a good connection with your own self, with your own awareness of your energy, of your tolerance. - What would make this feel somewhat better? Would it feel better if, instead of phone calls every day, I had a phone call twice a week? Or once a week? Or once a month? You play around with what would feel somewhat better than the way it is now, and usually that involves having either shorter contacts or more time in between contacts.
Will: Can going no contact be a temporary measure?
Kaitlyn: Absolutely. If you can’t/don’t want to do it permanently, break it down into what you can do. This will give you a sense of what you need - of what’s working and what’s not. Each person is different in what they value, in what they need, in what no contact means to them and their internal beliefs.
Amber: I have seen some individuals who have gone no contact with the stipulation that their loved one agree to engage with them in family therapy, and then using therapy as a resource to help them decide when contact outside of therapy would be reasonable.
Will: What about people who can’t go no contact - for example, when living with their parents, caretaking, or being close with other members of the family?
Amber: this is a situation where I would recommend a lot of education and practice with establishing and maintaining boundaries. Both emotional boundaries and boundaries around things like shared household tasks, finances, transportation, space, etc. Telling someone to "set boundaries" sounds simple, but the reality is that it is very challenging for most of us to make big changes in our relational behavior, especially with people in our family of origin. - And the family system tends to buck against changes. It wants homeostasis even when that homeostasis is very unhealthy.
Lindsay: No matter what the situation, a person can always always be working on strengthening their own sense of self internally, being their own supporter, and validating themselves that their feelings are reality based, that their needs are just as important as the other person’s needs.
Will: Is there anything else people need to know about going no contact?
Lindsay: Giving yourself the permission to think your own thoughts and make your own decisions, to set your own limits, can be tremendously growth promoting - in some ways more so than if you had had the luxury of just saying I need to be out of touch for a while.
Kaitlyn: You can be almost absolutely sure it's the right choice, and making it will still bring a swirl of feelings. Sometimes it's relief and shame - e.g., I’m a bad person, daughter, etc - or pride and fear. It’s rarely just one feeling. Most of us need someone, or several someones, to help us hold a container for the myriad of feelings that come up when making a change like this.
Make sure your support system is aware of what you are doing and "on call," so to speak, for moments of loneliness and/or know the red flags of when you are beginning to isolate and what to do to help you stay connected.
Will: Thank you so much for your time.
Academy of Self Help Podcast
In today's episode, I sit down with psychologist Dr. Lindsay C. Gibson to discuss the difficult decision of going no contact with your parents. We explore what no contact really means, how to decide if it’s right for you, and the emotional impacts of this decision. Welcome and I hope you enjoy the episode: