The Toxicity Tenure

 

A long time ago I cut off my mother and stopped all contact with her.

There were a multitude of reasons but the main was that being around her caused me anxiety and stress and a whole heap of other toxicity.

When I walked away it helped fix a lot of the problems but it turned out to be a short-term solution. The big picture remained unpainted and I was unable to move on.

I had initially believed that cutting her out would free me from the bad thoughts and negativity around my experiences with her, however the long-term story was that, without resolution (which deep down, I knew I wasn’t going to get) there would be no closure. So I held out and after 6 and a half years I finally got in touch with her again, we met for lunch (which I paid for) and as we left the restaurant I gave her a hug and said “|I don’t want any more bad blood, I’ll call you soon”. We speak about once a week now and things are more or less normal.

The reason I decided to stop all of this was simply because, despite fantasising about seeing it through to the end of her life, I realised that she has paid for what she’s done and was probably in pain every day that I didn’t speak to her, regardless of the fact that she deserved my absence and silence.

I am all for revenge but I am also for reform.

People need to be punished, to know pain if they have done wrong but ultimately I am not Lucifer and cannot damn people to an eternity of suffering**. There needs to be a beginning, middle and end to the experiences we have (as there is to life itself) and there will be no reform without a chance of a life beyond the misery that is given to you as payback for the sins you have committed.

I cut her off because she had hurt me, badly. But as I got older I realised that to bring someone into this world and then have them not want to know you at all must be a horrible pain to bear, even if your own actions have led to this. The toxicity she had brought into my life was still there while I wasn’t talking to her because all the bad things that would NEVER be resolved couldn’t be moved on from. I wanted closure so badly but recently realised that she had paid for what she’d done due to losing all contact with her son and the debt was clear.

When we reunited there was no dramatic hugging or crying. No heartfelt apologies for past wrongs. We just met, had a pleasant couple of hours eating lunch in a nice restaurant and then went on our ways, the previous 6+ years not mentioned except to fill in what life had brought us both in that time.

In the end the justice I had always wanted was there and I just hadn’t seen it. Silence and then reconciliation. The books are balanced and I have a future free of toxicity but also free from guilt.

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** I never much saw the point of this. If there is no hope for release then an eternity of biblical pain just becomes a rather unpleasant normality. Another reason I'm Agnostic.