Backlash Against No Contact!

 

                                          from a website I support....

The estranged parent movement is growing. Ollie Matthews has done multiple videos on estranged parents. One can tell the estranged parents are rallying. None of them speak of real reconciliation or taking accountability.  They all scare me. Maybe a few do have drug addicted children or ones who have other challenges, but reading this stuff is scary.  They look mean. Some snobby ones clean their neat freak large decked out houses while complaining about their adult children. In a narcissistic run society, that those who talk about narcissism openly are going to be vilified. 

There's a bunch of different "influencers" now on Facebook that are coming out against no contact and the ACON movement, I don't want to give their names. Let me give you paraphrased comments on their boards by them and their followers. All say going no contact is wrong, and that adult children are following a cult, and wicked in following no contact. Some are religious in orientation claiming they are Christians. Funnily enough in the Bible it warns in the last days, that there will be division in families and Jesus Christ even preached you are to follow him above any relatives. They are angry at adult children, in most cases their own, who went no contact.

Some paraphrased comments from a variety of these boards:

"As long as parents are blamed, children will suffer!"

"You grandparent alienators are creating great havoc!"

"Those therapists are lying to my adult children and gave them evil advice to go no contact with me!"

"Accept the imperfections of the woman who made you!"

"Your parents are imperfect humans, why do you expect perfection?"

"Too many parents are dying alone today over conflicts that could have been worked through if cutting contact hadn't been normalized."

"When did human flaws become unacceptable?"

"I have read new articles on adult children cutting off their parents. Some are reporting this cult like behavior is being promoted by suspect therapists, social media and some religious groups. It is considered cool nowadays to do."

"Mother hatred is now promoted; mother is blamed for everything!'

"The devil is causing division in families!"

"Therapists only get one side of a story, it's easier to dump a parent for life instead of encouraging communication and resilience. No one wants to be uncomfortable or have to work at a real relationship anymore!"

"Your child made you a villain for the mistakes you made."

There's scary memes like these:

20,30, 40 years of abuse isn't enough supposedly you are supposed to take more. I hate when they abuse Christian terms like "convicting".

Sad to see this as I agree with Rowling on other issues, here the class divisions I have mentioned rear their ugly head. Financially prosperous parents treat their children who haven't done so well like trash in too many cases, I see it in her words. Narcissistic parents will sneer, "it's not my fault you failed!", even ones who did direct sabotage. Also isn't it better to walk on from someone you are never good enough for or successful enough to pass their muster? I have said for years when families became competition clubs they were ruined. There was a certain point, some of us walk, knowing more years of put-downs are intolerable. We have to deal with our lives as they really are, not as someone thinks they should be. 

Hmm was being locked in my room for hours "normal parenting errors"? I agree don't blame every problem on your parents, you do have to be responsible in life but talk about minimizing of abuse when they call it "small mistakes or missteps.". There's always that certain strain, of "We did nothing wrong." 

This one makes no sense, people who had parents who said things like "Do your best" and "we will work together" wouldn't be going no contact in the first place in most cases. We were told we never would be good enough and figured out 4 decades in, we only had more years of put-downs and sabotage to look forward to until we got out. 

They got their own books now.

Hmmm this title says it all "Forget them kids",  It's kind of cold but they probably had that attitude pretty early on. Too many people breed who shouldn't I have funny thoughts about the "family" biological system failing. The bible warned in the last days people would wax cold. DNA doesn't mean much anymore does it. It sure doesn't ensure you get along with another person. I don't have all the answers but it does seem like some basic connections in society are being long ago broken. It's not all the kid's fault either. 

Didn't most of them move on long ago? Their inability to connect or feel is why many of the adult children walked. I felt kind of odd reading some of the estranged parent boards because many were lamenting the absence of their adult children. In my case, I've been gone so long it no longer matters. Mine really showed no evidence of caring that I was gone. There never was any tears, or written appeals of "please come back" or even feigned apologies. 

 Mine is glad I am gone, and the few impersonal cards were sent for appearances so she could tell people she contacted me. The cards never had anything personal written in them. She never cared about anything or anyone or had any emotions in the first place. Maybe this is why the crying mothers on estranged boards were kind of weird to me. All gave me the willies with the same traits there. This included the smugness, the overly high self-regard, the critical natures and seeing themselves as "perfect".

Mine was high on the spectrum, with possible psychopathy. We could never stand each other, there never was any closeness to look back on, so in my case there's no positive memories of each other to lament over. The hoovering is probably over now all parties have moved on. As I wrote earlier advanced no contact can be strange. I moved on with life and so did they. We have nothing in common. They don't value what I value and vice versa. With enough time, you are strangers anyway.

I notice with the influencers, none seem apologetic, or even admitting any faults. I had the thought, Did any of them bother to apologize and thought probably not? With all of them, there's a certain look in the eyes of the ones that made videos, where I could see why the adult kids ran for the hills. 

Then there is this essay which has been making the rounds on Facebook, I saw it repeated on at least 10 pages including one called "Grandparent Alienation". 

"No Contact is a trend with a cult mentality

There is a growing trend unfolding on the internet, the No Contact trend, which is a cult minded movement. Many are being entrapped in the absurd idea that what is best for their mental health is to be isolated from their most important relationships when something goes wrong. In other words, cutting off their principal internal support network.

Whoever wrote this doesn't realize that when people go no contact, most of the time there was never any principal internet support network! I was completely alone in the world before I met my husband. There was no one to turn to, no one who cared. If something bad happened to me or someone hurt me, my abusers would take up for others who harmed me. 

No contact has become "cool"; and relationships today have become disposable. It has become a black or white mentality where people have become expendable. "If you fail me in any way, I'm ghosting you". The trend has become so widespread, that today it seems cool to self-isolate even from parents, family, and friends. Nobody is safe from been disposable, not even their mothers. The only thing that they need to do is to put a label of "toxic" or "narcissist"; on their head and they are gone from their lives. Seriously? How can somebody think that is a good idea?

Too many relationships are disposable but there has to be a relationship in the first place. One thing I faced in later no contact, was the realization that there actually was no relationships, I had been shut out years ago. I knew nothing of the personal thoughts, dreams or ideas of those around me, and they had absolutely no interest in sharing of those things with me. How can someone be expendable when they never let you in the door? The self-isolation often occurs from the other side far earlier. It's sad how they call everything a label to describe what people faced. Some people faced real abuse and serious abuse. Mine didn't even care if I lived or died. And I was supposed to sit there and take it for the rest of my life? In many cases my own included, ostracization came from the abusers anyhow at a certain point. Most who went no contact were drawing a line knowing full separation was inevitable anyway. 
"They left me before I left them."

One thing about this society as it grows more authoritarian, this includes parental ties where authority is everything, I noticed something changing some decades ago especially when parents went all helicopter on kids, how control and domination became the central theme of families instead of cooperation and sharing lives. 

The leaders of this trend which have been using social media to spread the word, are especially cruel with mothers, using as their principal weapon the classic "mom shaming". Everything can be qualified as a trauma or abuse, and mothers are to blame for every frustration they had as a child.

Here they minimize abuse and trauma. Whoever wrote this maybe has never faced abuse or true toxicity, that's the only thing that explains it to me, or they are an abuser themselves seeking to minimize and excuse their actions. 

Mom’s today can easily be labeled as "toxic narcissistic abusers"; without a diagnosis made by a mental health professional. By dehumanizing parents with labels, the leaders of this cult minded movement have made them disposable human beings. Family is not important anymore. All the classic strategies of brainwashing are being used to attract and engage followers until they surrender their autonomy to the movement and isolate themselves from their most basic internal support system.

How is diagnosis going to happen except for maybe a few who get caught and are in the criminal justice system? These are not the type of personalities who are going to step foot in therapist office. Most narcissistic parents have dehumanized their children for decades before the adult child goes no contact. 

With the help of social media, influencers, life coaches, unethical therapists, and pop psychology, are promoting this trend all over the internet with books, web pages, courses, and videos. Sadly, this trend has been remarkably effective in changing the mindset of vulnerable people. The statistics on estrangement from parents nowadays speak for themselves. According to the most recent research 30% of adult children are or have been estranged from one or both of their parents in recent years. Research shows that about one in ten adult children in the United States are estranged from their parents at any given time, and the saddest thing is that the trend is growing.

The therapists for ACONS probably have saved lives, it's interesting they are the target of some of these estranged parents. They keep calling no contact a trend, when for many people myself included it was about saving our lives. It was running from evil and knowing we would have been destroyed to stick around. Sadly, more people will read this kind of stuff and be guilted into sticking to abusive situations. Their statistics do not shock me. I believe that the economic and other changes where one generation lived a certain kind of life that has now been taking away from the younger generations, definitely is leading to a massive crack up between generations. Sadly, too many members of the older generation are unable or refuse to face what has happened to their adult children's lives. They either deny it or they blame their adult children and call them "losers". So, there are multiple factors as to why this happening, the collapse of the US economy in my opinion is one of the biggest drivers and add the forced economic separation that began in the 1960s that I wrote in my Economic Nomads article. If you don't have money to see people or it becomes a huge economic burden to do so, the relationships over the years deteriorate. What does family mean when everyone lives thousands of miles away? Not much. 

What is going to happen with the next generations? How are the new generation of parents going to parent their children in a world where everything is a trauma, and every parent can be labeled as a toxic narcissist at any time for the most frivolous of reasons by their own children?

Hopefully if they have children, they will treat them better. The denials here are thick. How about some love? Some seem unable to even contemplate that word and what it means. No one leaves a family for no reason, this is not something you do for frivolous reasons, just the fact whoever wrote this, doesn't get that piece is sad. 

Today’s parents seem to be thinking that the no contact trend isn't going to affect them as well as their children are growing up. It seems that these parents that have gone no contact with their parents think that they are going to be perfect and not make any mistakes at parenting. How "narcissistic" is that? It may be naïve of them to believe that their children would not apply the same label they themselves found ok to them in return. How can this next generation of parents expect empathy from their own children if they did not have empathy for their own parents? This “no contact blank label” nonsense must end.

Probably many of them will not have children. Their own parents made it such a miserable enterprise, they probably want to avoid the whole mess. They knew their parents weren't happy with them so why repeat the process?  Beyond the economic reasons I think that's one reason Millennials and Gen Z are having far less children. The lack of empathy came first from the parents.

I found reading all this to be very sad. A few parents, maybe drug-addicted or children with personalities disorders of their own left, but with most I kept thinking, "None of them want to take accountability" or even question or look at what role they played in the failure of the relationships. Almost every ACON who went no contact goes through the process of questioning what they did wrong, for the relationships to fail. I did so in my 30s before no contact. I realized it was all unfixable and that's why I left. Their lack of taking accountability or the inability to do so is what destroyed the parental/adult child relationships in the first place.