My mother was a verbally abusive drug addict and drunk who abandoned me every single time I needed her. Among many of the horrible things she has done to me is a time when I was 14 and she put a gun to my head and wanted to shoot me because I was supposedly a bad kid. She has said the worst things a parent could ever say to a child and has always had excuses to not take accountability for her actions. She is a narcissist who plays the victim in every situation, manipulates the people around her and enacts revenge on anyone who who puts themselves above her. And it took me 41 years to finally walk away.

My dad, although much less cruel, has been continuously absent physically, mentally and emotionally. He’s made it clear that I am a disappointment and that he doesnt respect me. As a kid he refused to spend any time with me, favored my younger sister in obvious ways and blamed me for things like my parents divorce. I have always tried to get his interest and respect. I’ve always defended his actions. I’ve been there with him through some of the toughest times in his life and yet he always seems to magically forget that it was me, not my sister, who was there to help him through it. Recently he has berrated me for things not under my control, belittled me and told me just how much respect he has for me. It took me 40 years to walk away from him.

I disowned my parents because I can’t stand the thought of spending the next 40 years of my life the same as the first 40. They have beat me down and affected my life so negatively that I’’ve missed out on great things because of issues created by them. I took accountability for my life and the first thing I thought I was accountable for was to free myself from toxic people. They were the most toxic and the first to go.

The effect has not felt the greatest. I feel guilt and shame for doing that to my parents. And although it relieved me of the day-to-day pain and hurt of having them in my life, it traded for an all encompassing pain of loss. Disowning your parents leaves a big hole in your heart and soul that nothing can replace. That need for a mom and dad, although never fulfilled with them in my life, will now never have the chance of being fulfilled at all. Disowning them meant disowning a part of myself. I’ll always wonder what a real mother or father would have felt like. I’ll always wonder who I could have been if they had just been loving and supportive parents.

I don’t regret disowning them, but I will not lie and say that your problems go away when you do. Some issues just cross over and stay with you, while other, new issues, pop up. I feel just as lonely and heart broken with them out of my life as I did with them in it. The only real positive is that I know, over time, I can heal these issues. Without my parents there to constantly open the same wounds over and over again, they can now begin to heal.

Also, it took me over 40 years to become so sick of them that i disowned them. Just because they are your parents doesnt mean they deserve a place in your life. If they are creating more b ad than good in your life, disown them. THEY are the paREnts. THEY are responsible to be the positive influence in your life, not the thing that keeps you down.