This post discusses family dysfunction, addiction, abuse, estrangement, grief, and boundaries. Please read with care. 💚💜
“Blood doesn’t make you family. Loyalty does.”
— Eric Thomas
When Loyalty Becomes Self-Abandonment
Family loyalty is a beautiful thing.
And it should be.
At its healthiest, loyalty means loving people through difficult times, supporting one another, telling the truth, and continuing to care even when life becomes complicated.
Loyalty itself is not the problem.
The problem is when loyalty is used to excuse ongoing toxicity or to require you to act like nothing happened. Then, when you try to talk about it, the conversation may be cut short. What happened may be minimized. The subject may be changed. Or someone may make excuses for the person’s behavior and explain why you should be more understanding.
This is not only about refusing to forgive something that happened years ago. In most of my situations, the pressure to “let it go” has been especially difficult because the unhealthy behavior and chaos never stopped and continues today. This isn’t about one specific person but many people that I have decided to set boundaries with.
Harm within a family can take many forms. It can include emotional, verbal, physical, psychological, or financial abuse. It can involve manipulation, intimidation, humiliation, chronic criticism, controlling behavior, repeated invalidation, or boundaries that are continually ignored.
Not every harmful family experience fits neatly into one category of abuse. Sometimes the damage comes from being repeatedly pulled into someone else’s drug-induced chaos. It can mean living around unpredictable moods, dangerous decisions, unsafe people, crises, lies, and broken promises. It can mean being expected to protect someone, calm them down, or clean up consequences you did not create.
Something does not have to look extreme to an outsider before it becomes unhealthy for the person living through it. Although this article focuses on family loyalty, the same pattern can happen with close friends or romantic partners. Love, history, and loyalty can all be used to pressure someone into accepting behavior they would otherwise know is wrong.
In my own family, it is not that I have been told I am unwelcome. They still want me to come to family gatherings. But attending would require me to be around people I have deliberately chosen not to have in my life. It would mean being cordial, which I can do, but why would I do that to myself; especially knowing they can’t handle boundaries. Often, acting like nothing happened simply so everyone else could have the kind of gathering they want.
I refuse to put myself in that position.
Then my absence becomes the problem instead of anyone asking why being there no longer feels psychologically safe for me. You may be expected to allow the toxicity, ignore your instincts, betray your boundaries, and act like behavior you know is morally wrong is somehow acceptable because of who the person is to you.
That is what I mean by self-abandonment. Self-abandonment is not only staying quiet about your pain. It is being expected to betray your own judgment so someone else never has to face accountability.
Then, if you finally speak up, leave, end the conversation, or create distance, everyone focuses on your response instead of the behavior that led to it.
You are called unforgiving.
Dramatic.
Disrespectful.
Immature (the irony!)
And in most situations, those people were not physically there. They don’t know the full story. They didn’t see the trauma or disrespect. But they are sure quick to judge how the situation should be handled.
“When you change, the people around you have to adjust. If they refuse to adjust, they will try to shame you back into your old mold.”
— Unknown
I Was Toxic Too—but I Decided to Work on Myself
I am not writing this as someone who believes I have never hurt anyone. Especially during my addiction, I absolutely was toxic.
I made selfish decisions. I reacted from pain, anger, fear, and survival. I was always involved in drama and arguments. I hurt people I loved, and even when I did not completely understand the damage I was causing at the time, I carried an enormous amount of guilt for it afterward.
However, I got sober. I started examining the parts of myself I did not want to look at. I worked through trauma, accepted responsibility, went to counseling, learned healthier ways to communicate, and began changing the patterns that had hurt both me and other people. I am not saying I have been perfect in my behavior since I got sober….. far from it. But each time I realized I was being toxic, it was a lesson that has continued to improve. And overtime, you learn how to think before acting. I would not call myself toxic anymore, but of course, I still have my moments.
I am still going to counseling, working on myself, and going to trauma therapy. Healing does not turn anyone into a perfect person and I will always be a work in progres. But there is a strange thing that can happen when the person who was once struggling begins to heal: people who were comfortable with the old version of you may start treating your growth like arrogance.
When I acknowledge unhealthy behavior, people act as though I believe I am talking down to them or acting “better than”.
When I protect my peace, I am called selfish.
But I do not believe I am better than anyone by any means.
I also believe change requires more than repeatedly saying you are sorry while continuing to hurt the same people in the same ways. When people continue hurting others, it is often because enough people excuse or enable their behavior enough that they can continue living the same way without facing meaningful consequences.
Taking responsibility for the person I once was does not mean I must accept mistreatment for the rest of my life. Guilt is not a debt that gives other people permanent access to me. Accountability means recognizing the harm you caused and working to stop causing it.
“You can love them from a distance, forgive them quietly, and still never let them back into your life. Protecting your peace is not disrespect, it’s self-respect.”
— Unknown
The Person Who Keeps the Peace Usually Pays for It
Every dysfunctional family seems to have roles.
Often, one person is protected and excused while multiple other family members are expected to understand, adjust, and live around that person’s behavior.
But why is the person causing harm allowed to be exactly who they are while everyone else is expected to become smaller to accommodate them?
Keeping the peace seems noble until you realize that the peace only exists because the people affected have been expected to swallow their pain and everyone else’s bullshit.
They stop bringing things up because it usually leads to guilt trips or passive-aggressive behavior meant to make them drop the subject. They are expected to overlook hurtful or inappropriate comments and behavior’s even when it makes them uncomfortable….. accept apologies without changed behavior and keep showing up because they know they will be blamed if they do not.
That is not peace.
I can think of times in my early twenties when certain people made me feel obligated to show up according to their expectations. If I did not visit often enough, stayed less time than they wanted, had other plans, or simply needed space, I would stress about how they were going to react and what explanation they might accept. Its amazing how much time I spent worrying about it.
Either way, whether I showed up or said I could not, I think the same shit would have been talked. If I went, there would be something to criticize. If I did not, there would be something to criticize.
That went on for years. Eventually, I realized that no matter what I did or how carefully I tried to manage everyone’s reaction’s, it was never enough.
“Toxic family members will see your boundaries as a personal attack because they’re used to having unlimited access to you.”
— Unknown
When Love and Support Are Only Words
They say they care, but the majority of my family does not know what is happening in my life (in the least), what I have been building, how much progress I have made, or how much my mental health, recovery, career, and entire life have changed….. or even what truly happened in the past.
Hell, they do not even know ME anymore. Period. And frankly, actions speak louder than words, so it is obvious they could not care less or they would ask. Very few of them could explain what my business does or what I write about on my blog without looking it up first. That would not bother me nearly as much if those same people were not so comfortable judging my decisions.
Many of the assumptions about me come from the exact people I have set boundaries with. They tell a one-sided, “poor me” version of the story in which they are the victim and I am always the problem, while leaving out the behavior that made the boundary necessary.
The rest of the family does not get both sides, and for some reason, they do not care to hear mine when I try to explain it. It is often treated as though I am talking shit or making excuses, which is incredibly invalidating and disrespectful, especially when someone else’s version was accepted without question.
But honestly, I could not care less anymore whether they know my side or not. I know what happened, and so do the people closest to the small tribe I actually confide in. They have seen the texts, heard the conversations, and witnessed situations for themselves. I do not need to convince people who have already decided not to understand.
Then there are family members who do understand because they have seen that side themselves. Yet they still find a way to defend the behavior, minimize it, or fall back on. But they’re family, as if that means everyone else should simply get over it. Recognizing the harm and choosing to excuse it anyway is not neutrality. It is enabling.
Love and support, man, have to mean more than words.
“True growth is when you love your family enough to wish them well, but love yourself enough to stay away from their dysfunction.”
— Unknown
Forgiveness Does Not Require Reopening the Door
I experienced this when I went to treatment and made the decision to set a boundary with my father.
There was grief in that decision. I was not only grieving the relationship we had. I was grieving the father I needed, the stability I never had, and the hope that things might eventually become different. I grieved the fact that I lost my father, most likely for the rest of my life.
The boundary was not punishment, and it was not even a “never”, type of scenario. I asked for two years of sobriety before I would consider having contact again, which included the lack of drama. That was what I needed to feel safe and protect the recovery I was trying to build.
Honestly, if I had seen him trying in any meaningful way, I probably would have been too flexible and let the boundary go. But I knew my father, and nothing I saw suggested that anything had truly changed.
My sponsor played a major role in helping me understand the difference between forgiveness and access. In recovery, we learn about forgiveness, releasing resentment, taking accountability, and making amends. But my sponsor helped me realize that those principles do not require me to reopen the door to someone who has been abusive, continues disrupting my peace, or has made no meaningful effort to change.
Forgiveness cannot be forced, and it does not require reconciliation.
My grandmother pressured me to forgive my father almost every time I talked to her. It was really the only thing she seemed to be interested in talking to me about…. and to this day it makes me so sad she didn’t understand. Eventually, it became difficult to visit because so many conversations turned into that. When they did not, we often sat in silence. I tried asking questions and sharing parts of my life, but she did not seem to understand much of it, care about my recovery, or what was happening with my mental health, work, or life in general. I think her age and health made a lot of the situation with my father harder for her to understand or accept. She chose to stay ignorant to his actions — I think it was just easier for her to accept — and she believed every word out of his mouth.
Shortly before she passed and had become unconscious, I visited her with Justin. He was able to meet her before she passed which meant alot to me. We did not say much as it was difficult for her to speak, but I told her I was sorry that I could not have been around more. I instantly was teary eyed and she saw that. I was not apologizing for protecting myself or saying the boundary was wrong. I was sorry that the circumstances had cost us time together.
Something about her response and the way she looked at me, gave me a sense of understanding I had never received from her before. She always acted like she never understood what was so wrong with my fathers behavior and I was being dramatic and needed to get over it, because he is my father. But our conversation felt like we were telling each other, without needing many words: I love you. I am sorry things became this way. This was not what either of us wanted but I truly believes she understood in that moment.
When I got the call she was about to pass, I considered returning, but I realized after thinking about it, that moment had already been my goodbye. I wanted my final memory of her to be awake, looking at me with what felt like understanding, not unconscious and near death….. and not disappointment because of my father. Honestly, it was the most heartfelt conversation I had with her as an adult woman. She was just not that type of person.
I loved my grandmother deeply. Choosing to protect my serenity will never change that. Some of the people who have told me to forgive, let go, or tolerate harmful behavior because that’s family have cut out their own members of family over far less, including a couple hundred bucks, or political disagreements. That hypocrisy is difficult to ignore; especially when they are the people judging my life that they knew nothing about. It is easy to preach forgiveness when you are not the person being asked to walk back into the chaos.
Blood does not give someone unlimited access to your life. You are allowed to forgive from a distance. You are allowed to release resentment without rebuilding the relationship. You are also allowed to decide that forgiveness is not something you can offer right now.
“Trauma is not just what happened to you. It is also what didn’t happen—the safety, mirroring, and protection you missed.”
— Dr. Bessel van der Kolk
“We don’t outgrow our childhoods; we carry them in our cells until we consciously do the work to unpack them.”
— Unknown
Adverse Childhood Experiences Do Not Stay in Childhood
Adverse childhood experiences, often shortened to ACEs, are potentially traumatic experiences that happen between birth and age seventeen. They include abuse, neglect, witnessing violence, and growing up in a home affected by substance use, mental-health problems, parental separation, incarceration, or other conditions that repeatedly undermine a child’s sense of safety and stability.
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, prolonged stress from these experiences can affect brain development and the body’s stress-response systems. It can influence mental and physical health, attention, decision-making, relationships, and vulnerability to substance misuse later in life.
Accountability and understanding can exist at the same time.
Understanding the effects of my childhood has helped me recognize why chaos once felt normal, why my body reacts so strongly to certain situations, and why protecting my peace has become so important.
Many people in my family know very little about mental health, and sometimes I honestly feel like they think it is a joke. Because of that, I rarely talk about it.
If someone is screaming at me and I begin shaking, ”which is a trauma response”, I should not be made fun of or dismissed as being too dramatic, especially by family. My body is reacting to years of chaos and fear. That reaction is not a character flaw. It is a survival tactic activating because I know I am close to cracking and going too far myself.
That same lack of understanding shows up in how some relatives talk about my alcoholism. If I say something is not really my scene anymore, usually I mean there will be too many beligerent drunk people there and I simply do not want to go, it is not a good time anymore. But I hear, It’s a state of mind. Get over it. It’s all in your head. Everytime.
I was never really offended by the comments themselves. What offended me was the judgment behind them, judgment from people with no understanding of addiction and no apparent interest in trying to understand it. And if I had continued drinking or relapsed, they would still be talking shit.
I watched my father’s addiction affect our family for years, and then I watched my own addiction nearly kill me. But yeah, it is all in my head. Healing has made me more aware of what I can and cannot safely allow into my life, regardless of when people are ignorant to things they don’t understand.
“My peace is expensive. I paid for it with my own healing, and I will not discount it for anyone.”
— Unknown
Choosing Yourself Is Not Betrayal
For some reason, some of my family members have made comments and seem to assume that if you do not allow someone into your life, you must be blaming that person for everything that has ever gone wrong in your life. I have been told a version of: Stop blaming your parents for your problems (and several times now).
Every time, my first thought is: When did I ever blame them? (when I was concious lol). It makes me wonder what they are saying to people vs reality or is it a situation of if they are really that ignorant to the reality of the situation.
Acknowledging what happened to me and setting boundaries is not the same as blaming someone else for every choice I have made. I can understand how my childhood affected me, tell the truth about the harm and tell my story, while still taking responsibility for the person I became.
Choosing myself does not mean I stopped loving people.
It means I finally stopped abandoning myself.
Next week, I want to go deeper into the difference between blaming your parents and finally telling the truth about what happened… and why so many people get it confused.
Thanks for reading! Until next week, keep healing, keep growing, and keep telling your truth! 💜
“You don’t lose family when you heal; you just stop participating in the generational cycle.”
— Unknown
References
- Centers for Disease Control and Prevention: About Adverse Childhood Experiences — Definition, examples, and potential long-term effects of ACEs and toxic stress.
- National Institute on Drug Abuse: Drugs, Brains, and Behavior—The Science of Addiction — How addiction affects the brain and behavior and why it is not simply a matter of willpower or mindset.
- U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs, National Center for PTSD: Common Reactions After Trauma — Common emotional and physical trauma responses, including hyperarousal, feeling shaky, and reacting strongly to reminders.
- Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration: TIP 57—Trauma-Informed Care in Behavioral Health Services — Research-based guidance on trauma, retraumatization, substance use, mental health, safety, and recovery.
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