I read Toxic Parents years before I actually attempted cutting my abusive family off completely. Back then it wasn’t easy to find support online or anywhere, really, which is why my husband was a godsend. With all his flaws and with all our struggles, he’s still my rock thirty two years later.

I should have known leaving “the clan” wasn’t going to be easy. I also learned right away that you can’t pick and choose who you keep and who you discard, you have to just walk away from them all or none of them because they, unlike you, are a package deal.

They work as a collective where you, the individual, are a threat to them.

It wasn’t long before the phone calls began, then the letter, then the unannounced visits. I had moved two weeks before they showed up at my door so that was kind of funny. At my new house, the one I’m in now which is a dream for us with its view of the Tetons and a full acre to spread out on, they began sending the sheriff to do “welfare checks”.

On me.

It’s actually funny because it gives me a chance to chat with the sheriff’s deputies who come out once a year or so or whenever one of my narc family members decided to dispatch them in this control game, and we update my “file”. They are well aware of what whackjobs my birth family are, so they just play along and we get on with life.

My point is, don’t expect them to let you go easily. I’ve even been encouraged by our local LE to get restraining orders to stop them but why bother? If they want to waste their time, energy and look like fools – again – let them.

My life continues to go on without them, as it should.