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For those of you who have gone no -contact, how has the relationship with guilt, forgiveness, selective memory (starting to romanticize your abuser after a period of time), and voicing your boundaries manifested itself in your no-contact journey?

Has it created peace in your life? I am thinking of not necessarily doing no - contact but at the very least, having my family have minimal contact with me. I am putting my peace of mind first, so I can heal, and most importantly, so I can be self aware enough to not subconsciously repeat abusive patterns. As much as I know I am different from them, I picked up subconscious beliefs and behaviors that I find distasteful in myself and I am working to improve.  I will improve.

But I'm curious if any of you could tackle some of the questions above, doesn't have to be all - but I'm thoroughly interested in how different people approach these topics.

the more space I got the more I could think clearly. I wanted a normal family , but the hardest was accepting they were not normal, that they didn't respect me to the point of me thinking that I was defective and at one stage I became suicidal. 
A friend once asked me
"Why would you swim through shark-infested waters only to get to the family boat and have them throw you back in the water. Where is the dignity and self-respect in it?
I realised that self respect starts with me and accepting that whilst I am who I am...they are who they are and will never change.

I'm NC, almost a year now. The first six months was a lot of wondering if I was doing the right thing. Slowly I remembered things from the past and realized that I had been wanting to be free for so long. I learned a lot about myself, what I wanted and behaviors I wanted to change.
I'm essentially LC with my family, as I'm not a social person and live far from most of them. They want things to go back to normal, but I've set stricter boundaries with them so they no longer pressure me to reconcile. One day I might, but my uBPD mother has yet to acknowledge that she did any wrong - of course that is the problem which ultimately lead to NC.

Hi

I can only share where I'm at in this particular journey.

I'm NC with my mother since 2 years, very LC for years before that.

I wouldn't say it has helped me, exactly... because I just find the issues I have/had with her resurface in other relationships. I don't know what's better - having contact so one can be exposed and forgive, or not having contact so one can move on. I say that because for me a lot of the abuse was early childhood so it's sort of 'hidden' and just comes out in patterns with others.

But in general I would say, the less toxic people in one's life the better... only because the journey of healing/forgiveness is really up to us and if they have shown they can't/won't be a part of that, it's pointless to hope they will. The reason I went NC with my mother was because I reached that knowledge of pointlessness.

It's a very personal decision though. I think if I reached a point of real strength in myself I would see my mother once a year, because she's still my mother. But I wouldn't tie any other expectations to it. I think this goes for generally toxic people too that the strength and validation of the situation would need to come from me, without any hopes of them.

Totally with you poppy2! In the end I made up my mind what I thought proper to do that for mom and did that, no more, no less. On some levels there was stuff I  knew would ony get resolved with her death. Since she passed, it stays just as complicated only I somehow have the feeling I am doing this to myself  lol repetition compulsion is a thing. The way I think about it is that we need to tell the story and if we are heard no other way it will be through our actions. I work on my issues in therapy and try to avoid recreating my childhood for myself or anyone.

Hey, I can relate to a lot of this. I also felt a lot in the last few years that the next time I would 'see' her is at her funeral. Now I think differently, or am slowly coming around to the idea of forgiveness, and then very firm boundaries. Of course, I've also not spoken to her in a long time, but I'm a different person now. I imagine (have no idea how practical this is) that if I can get to a point of completing validating myself about all that happened, I can deal with whatever she will throw at me. But that's just my thought of the moment, it's a lifetime pursuit.

Dear Poppy, you are completely valid about everything that happened. Completely.
 :hug:

Thanks a lot  :hug: It seems to me like you also have a very sound and valid approach to these difficult issues.

I would rather deal with the fall out from No contact that have to be the subject of craziness of contact