Have you cut off contact with your family at all?

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Perhaps a parent or sibling you don't speak with much or at all really. I've read posts of people just leaving and in turn leaving your family in the past etc. I can't fathom that. I know I wouldn't just be cutting out mom/dad (Who are the meanest BTW) but then my older sis (while knowing of my AS diagnosis) will still side with mom and cut contact and in turn I'd not see my nephew and I'd like to see him grow up. I understand HAVING too (University/dorm life sure) OR a boyfriend/roommate situation. but just leaving no where to go and group homes aren't that great (going from posts here on WP) and $705 (full SSI check) will NOT cover a home and even getting assistence due to the houseing market issues ALOT of more needy people need homes than me. It'd be a big shock to under take and I'm not emotionally ready for that although as you guys have read my family does push me to breaking (crying wanting to scream etc.) Any stories of cutting off contact. I'd like to hear your stories/views. Thank You.

I don't see how cutting your family off completely would help but I know like a few people who have actually done that due to something that has happened in the past or something like that.

If I were to do that, it would just destroy me and I can't imagine myself cutting my family out at all.

Yes I pretty much have to a point, and they did too intentionally or not. I don't think I would have cut off with my mom and dad tho, eventho they were tough about some things they weren't actually mean, they were very honest and good people, and my dad understood me amazingly well, or at least my special interests didn't seem to bother him at all, he was buying me books about whatever I was interested in. I think we had more in common then I realised at the time.

But I rarely talk with my sister and brother, they are just not very interested in talking to me, I have nothing in common with my sister, and my brother has his own issues (I get along much better with him tho).

And I like my uncles, aunts, and cousins, but they are kind of tough for me, for example I've always been the weird one in the family, and they always made fun of how much I understand animals (they were raised on a farm so they are used to be somewhat tough with animals ... sigh), among other things they make fun of about me. They also think a video of a family party where you can see me at around 5-6 yr old running around for no reason is very funny. They always put pressure on me too with whatever new age stuff they are into, the latest was a few of my aunts and some algae that supposedly cured everything including depression etc., they can get really annoying with that. So anyway I rarely see them.

Sadly, except for my youngest sister, I have had no contact with my parents or siblings in over ten years, But my family is the money shot for dysfunction and breaking contact was the only way to gain any sense of control and healing. Even contact with my sister is sketchy at best.

Have you been away from home before?

If the answer is no, try living on your own first. Cutting off contact with your family can come later.

My bf's mom is into the same kind of thing--trying to "cure" the stuff he and his brother have had to deal with their entire lives (OCD/depression), not to mention their vision problems from congenital glaucoma. They haven't cut her off, but they may go for a month without talking to her.

What menintights said made sense--don't burn any bridges until you've tried living on your own and know you can do it.

After my parents die, I'm going to cut off contact from all my other family members. Nearly all of them have hurt me or my parents in one way or another, and I know they would probably take advantage of me financially knowing I'm on Social Security.

I've cut ties with extended family although I feel kinda bad about it. It's with my grandparents on my mother's side of the family. My grandmother is a bitter alcoholic, and I just can't bare to be around her. She drives me nuts because she gets so animated and loud and obnoxious and judgmental. Also I have a low tolerance for drunk people since my father was an alcoholic when I was little.

I've cut off contact with my grandmother because I don't know how to confront her about her problem (Also part of it I find may just be my problem with having a low tolerance for drunks). My grandfather however I feel very badly for cutting off contact. He is a very kind man, but he is her husband so I can't talk to him and not her. Also other family members have confronted him about her problem and he defends her to the end, and isn't so kind about that topic.

I feel bad about this though because I really like both my grandparents and have many fond memories of them. I just can't stand to be around my grandmother anymore. I've not talked to either of my grandparents in over a year now, but it just feels wrong. I wish I could tell her about her problem without losing control of myself because I think she deserves to know why her entire family is slowly receding from her. I'm not the only grand child to lose tolerance of her problem.

Also there are other things that bug me about this conflict. If I ever have children I want my grandparents to be able to meet their great grand children. I'd feel awful if I kept something like that from them. So I'm hoping someday I have the courage to tell them why I've put a barrier between myself and them and maybe she can recover from her addiction some day so our relationship can be fixed. I don't hate my grandmother... she's just currently intolerable so I've had to distance myself greatly

I can't cut off contact with my family at the moment, because I have a lot of things I need to work on, and I have no time to be worrying about Uncle Sam constantly reaching in my pocket. But once I get things straightened out, I'm never talking to them again. I've gotten enough crap from them to know that cutting all ties is the best situation. Sure, I have good memories from the past, but losing contact won't diminish that. At this point, they have raised me up as far as they could, taught me all that they could...and I have nothing left to learn from them, nothing left to gain except more misery and craptastic gatherings of the looney lions at Thanksgiving. They don't seem to notice or care that I have plans of my own, and that trying to mold me into a second version of them isn't going to work because I have something that none of them have: An identity. That is much more important than dollars and cents. I'm at peace, and they never will be, and I think they sense that, and try to disrupt that peace because they are jealous. They can inform me that my job sucks, and that I need to hurry up and finish my degree, and that I need to go see a shrink that they don't want to pay for every time I say something they don't like, and that I should be grateful for my parents giving me a place to live (as if my being here costs them a lot of extra money; I pay for my school, my car, my car insurance, my credit card bills, even my haircuts) but it all falls on deaf ears, because you can't force somebody to respect you.

My family pretty much cuts off automatically. We never were close [except for being isolated, nobody with outside contacts] or communicative. I have not cut off anybody, though my brother cut me off, contact just hardly ever happens.

My wife is more like you on this - every so often she tried to cut down or avoid family for self preservation, but it is not in her. Keeps in touch, in some cases doing all the work, though sometimes it costs.

My immediate family, not large to begin with, cut off relations with me by dying. Only my mother is still alive. In general I kept a cordial relationship with close relatives, even if we had nothing in common. That paid off with my very frosty grandparents who discovered in their decline that I was a decent and reliable grandson and were finally able to express some affection.

I have less cordial relations with my numerous cousins. I let my mother do the Christmas card thing with them and I have been known to flee town to avoid their visits.

I have a plethora of relatives I never see or talk to yet hear about because my mother sees them all a few times a year.

Have you cut off contact with your family at all?

30 years ago

No, I would never cut my family off! There is nothing so big that I would feel the need to be THAT dramatic about it. 2 of my family have left, and I understand they have their own lives, (so do I) but I will still see them if they want to see me.

I wouldn't intentionally cut off my family, but I do foresee it happening. I don't currently talk to any family members aside from my parents, without my parents' initiating the communication. As such, when my parents pass, I doubt very much if I'll suddenly take up contacting other family members on my own.

I wish.