I Started Cutting Toxic People From My Life
Here’s How It Helped Me Become More Resilient
Like so many of you, I grew up in a home full of arguing, toxicity, lies, and betrayal. Most of it was caused by my mother and her mother.
My dad worked his rear off to provide for his family. He quit college when he found out I was on the way, yet still worked his way up through multiple levels of software development, eventually learning 12 programming languages in order to keep up with the new technology over 3 decades.
But no matter how much he achieved, how much he earned, how much he pushed, my mother was there to take advantage of him.
When I was 3, she cheated on him. When I was 4, my grandmother made horrendous false accusations against my father, and yet my mother would still sneak us over to visit her mother, despite the horrible years we endured because of her.
At 11, I remember my dad’s car being repossessed. He was the sole income earner. It turned out, my mother was not mailing the payments for utilities and the car, and was spending the money elsewhere.
Her lies were never ending. Her spending out of control. And the arguments never seemed to end.
A moment that brought peace
At 12, they divorced. And it was quite possibly the best moment of my childhood. My parents decided to let us choose which parent to go with, and I chose my father. My brother chose my mother, and he is now just as terrible as she is.
Throughout the last 27 years of my life, my mother and brother have continued to rage a world of toxicity. Lies, deceit, manipulation, anything you can possibly expect from narcissists and toxic people.
With them came a never-ending supply of stress and conflict and everything that was wrong in my childhood overflowed into my adulthood in some form or fashion.
A definitive turning point
Once I hit 26 or so, I made a conscious decision to no longer allow toxic people to harm me, my family, nor my future. Starting with my brother.
The one who once was my best friend when we were under 10-years-old had become a nightmare. From physically attacking my father to using him for money to metaphorically biting the hand that fed him, my brother was the bad seed, the black sheep, the one that was poisoning the vine. Once my father decided to disown him, I knew it was the right thing to do.
Well over a decade later and I haven’t talked to my brother not once.
The next bad fruit to go
Cutting off my mother came not long after my dad passed away.
Before she moved into my house (my dad had already lived with me for 3 years before she moved in, too), my dad had near 100k in the bank, saved up during his time with me. By the time he passed, she had drained him of every single dime. (Keep in mind, neither of them paid me a penny to live in my home.) She had kept his room in a constant state of uncleanliness, filled his hours with her with negative toxic gossip, and made his last year of life worse than it needed to be.
After he passed, she badmouthed him. Blamed him for every crime and sin she had committed in the previous 37 years. The woman that I watched single-handedly ruin my family, my father, their finances… she had nothing good to say about the man that literally spent everything he had for her wasteful spending and debts, until his final breath.
Eventually, I could tolerate no more. And my life has been much more peaceful since.
A happy ending
Not allowing toxic people to poison my daily life has allowed me to heal and recover. It has brought me peace of mind and renewed strength. It has given me a new resolve to never allow people to use or abuse me or my loved ones again.
There’s one more person that I’d like to cut from my life. Unfortunately, for legal reasons, that day is still a decade away. But through learning to cut off other toxic beings in my past, I now have firm boundaries and refuse to be disrespected. I don’t know if I would have had the strength or knowledge to not allow belittling and manipulation if not for my mother and brother.
In the end, cutting the bad fruit from your vines can save you a lot of trouble in the end. Not just financially, but emotionally and physically as well.
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Impressive story. I've read it twice.