Silenced
I wrote a Facebook post and then was told that if I cared about certain people...I would take it down. Typical protection of abusers.
I did not go no-contact with my abusers lightly.
I went no-contact after a lifetime of physical, psychological, and emotional abuse — and the systematic erasing of my own childhood through gaslighting and reality manipulation.
“You told me you wished you aborted me.”
“NO I DIDN’T. YOU’RE CRAZY. What kind of mother would ever say something like that?”
That’s how it works.
What kind of mother would say that?
So the child assumes she must be insane.
That was the training: question yourself before you question authority.
My father worked at my small business for a time.
It was convenient. He had owned a store once. It seemed simple.
Clock in.
Work.
Clean.
Restock.
Clock out.
Except he didn’t.
No clocking in. No cleaning. No accountability. Lunch trash left behind like I was the help. And I said nothing — because I knew his anger. I knew the jaw clench. The red face. The volatility.
One day a customer asked what he deemed a “stupid” question and he screamed:
“She’s so fucking stupid. Get the fuck out of this building you stupid fucking idiot.” The woman didn’t hear him, but the negativity just echoed in my store for minutes.
I kept smiling.
I had been conditioned to normalize male rage. To absorb it. To manage it. To pretend it wasn’t happening.
That was one of the three final reasons I went no-contact.
Months later, my parents cornered me about payroll discrepancies — in front of my children. Not with curiosity. Not with collaboration. With threats.
“I’m going to quit if you don’t fix this.”
I didn’t fix it.
I was done. Done with my mother inserting herself into my business. Done being told I shouldn’t own it. Done being shamed for how I ran it. Done being treated like an incompetent child while carrying the weight of everyone else’s chaos.
Walking away was the first boundary that felt like oxygen.
Then there was the beach house.
My grandparents died and my parents inherited money. Instead of stabilizing their children — one of whom had four kids, a missing ex-husband, one disabled child, and had drained her life savings paying IRS debts she didn’t even know existed from said ex husband — they bought a second share of a beach house.
“It’ll be yours one day.”
A share.
“You can use it anytime.”
Unless I actually asked.
For my birthday weekend?
“No, your dad’s going with friends.”
They went together. Three empty rooms.
The performance of generosity. The withholding of access. The lesson: dependence without autonomy.
But the moment I knew this had to end was at the aquarium.
My disabled son was overwhelmed. He’s nonverbal. The lights, the noise — it was too much. He cried.
From the driver’s seat, jaw clenched, knuckles white, my father screamed:
“Shut him the fuck up.”
Abuse toward me had been buried and rationalized for decades.
But toward my child?
That was the line.
The final crack came at a wedding.
My mother was watching my kids. I had promised pizza. I forgot to place the order. The night got cold. Time slipped.
Panicked calls:
“Mom, there’s no pizza. Grandma left. She called and they didn’t have an order so she just left. What do we do?”
I stood there watching my friends get married and thought:
She would rather punish me than feed her grandchildren.
And suddenly it was clear: I was never the villain. I was the scapegoat.
So here is what I wrote publicly, and I will not soften it. I took it down, and in it’s place: This Substack will be shared with a silly customization of my audience so I don’t “harm” any one with my truth.
So painful.
Everything going on right now is disgusting. I’ve been no contact with the people who raised me and others tied to me by blood for a long time — not just because I realized some of them openly support pedophiles, but because I finally accepted a truth I spent years trying to outrun: when I was a scared child begging the adults in the room to listen, they decided that me being a child, a girl, was the problem and I was dramatic or problematic or even psychologically unwell.
Every excuse except accountability my entire childhood all the way up to turning 40.
I was sent to a convicted drug dealer’s house every other weekend in a custody arrangement. It wasnt ok. While there- men touched my face, my shoulders my back, my head and told me I was a “pretty little girl” after buying drugs from my biological father.
Only God knows what Ive blocked out of my memory those days.
I told the adults. The people that should protect me…and they told me not to tell anyone outside of that immediate bubble. They didnt want to “look bad”…honestly I also think it was a “break” from parenting that would be inconvenient to disrupt.
I was just told I was being dramatic and to “hide under the bed or something “.
I told the school guidance counselor and instead of believing me- he went to my parents who said I made it up. So, obviously- he believed the adults . (This also happened in every single school I atteded- I told the adults, they were told I was dramatic and making it up- case closed. )
I listend to accusations of sexual abuse against a baby get spoken out loud and then buried because of what reporting it would “do to the family.”
I come from a lineage of women who would rather preserve what they call normal than disrupt it to protect a child.
Because of that, I was conditioned to stay silent. I was gaslit into believing my memories weren’t real, that my fear was dramatic, that my voice was dangerous.
Eventually, I did the only thing left to protect myself — I walked away.
Ive been walking away from the people that raised me since 2011. One year after having a baby girl and looking at her and knowing I would never be the mother I had…I would never be one of those adults.
So right now, I dont even really see anything shocking.
I see institutions protecting predators, families protecting reputations, communities protecting comfort over children — I’m not confused. I’ve seen this before.
This is what rot looks like when it’s normalized.
The system isn’t broken. It’s functioning exactly as it was designed — to protect itself.
it’s time for it to collapse.
And I actually love being the no-contact black sheep of the family. I now know My story is real, my feelings are valid and I’m not scared of hurting anyone’s feelings “because they’re family”.
Blood might be thicker than water but water is what we are all made of.