The Viral Advice to Cut Off Your Parents

One day, along this beautiful journey called life, I finally left my parents' home.

—

I was eighteen.

I did not yet understand why I needed to leave so badly.

I simply knew that I would.

—

I came home from school and told my mother that, because of my excellent foreign language grades, my teacher had told me about an opportunity to spend a year abroad as an au pair for a doctor's family.

One year.

That was the plan.

Funny how one year quietly became a lifetime abroad.

—

I wrapped the news beautifully.

I explained that I would work, save money, and later finance my studies in the capital myself.

I had big dreams.

I wanted to study law.

I wanted to become a judge.

I wanted to bring a little more justice into this world.

—

Ah.

I smile when I think about it now.

As if one judge alone could decide what is right and wrong.

Life turned out to be a little more complicated than that.

—

My mother couldn't really say no.

Besides, she knew me.

"If I tell you not to go, you'll do it anyway."

She was right.

I would have.

—

I remember the relief.

That is the word.

Relief.

—

I knew I was about to be free.

As if a bird that had been trapped for eighteen years could finally fly wherever it wanted.

—

And so I left.

No money in my pocket.

A phone without credit.

A bus ticket.

And an entire unknown waiting for me.

—

I had absolutely no idea what life would bring me.

Probably for the better.

Otherwise, I might never have gone.

—

But during that bus ride, I remember feeling unbelievably happy.

Today, I understand why.

Back then, I told myself a beautiful story.

—

I convinced myself that I wanted to earn money so that my parents and I could finally escape scarcity.

I convinced myself that I wanted to create something that would make my parents proud.

And perhaps part of that was true.

—

But another truth lived underneath.

—

I finally wanted out.

Out of the constant tension.

Out of never knowing what kind of evening was waiting for us.

Out of violence.

Out of silence that never felt peaceful.

Out of carrying emotions that had never belonged to me.

My mother's sadness.

Her loneliness.

Her disappointment.

Her anger.

Somehow, they had all become mine.

—

She rarely allowed herself to lean on another adult.

Instead, she leaned on me.

Long before I was old enough to carry anyone.

—

She often reminded me that she had given birth to me because my father had always wanted a child.

She already had a son from her first marriage.

Having me was her gift to my father.

—

But he kept leaving.

And whenever life became unbearable, she would sometimes look at me and say:

"I gave birth to you for him.

And he doesn't even need you."

—

Children don't question sentences like these.

They become them.

—

My father struggled with addictions.

And with being emotionally available.

He came.

He left.

He came back.

Then disappeared again.

—

But there is another truth that deserves to be told.

Whenever I spent time with him, the world somehow felt different.

Quieter.

—

Men of his generation rarely said,

"I love you."

His words often remained unspoken.

But when his addictions were not speaking louder than he was, his presence gave me something I rarely experienced anywhere else.

Calm.

Understanding.

A quiet sense of being admired.

—

I never really found that with my mother.

When I turned eighteen, my father eventually came back home.

But by then, years of guilt had built a prison around him.

He had hurt my mother too many times.

And somewhere inside that guilt, he no longer knew how to stand up for me.

—

Back then, divorce was almost unthinkable.

Today, many people separate too quickly.

Back then, many stayed far too long.

Today, many leave before they truly see each other.

Neither extreme guarantees safety for a child.

Life is rarely as simple as choosing one side.

—

As a child, I often wished my parents would simply separate.

I thought peace lived somewhere outside that house.

—

That was the real force behind my leaving.

And it is okay that I wrapped it differently.

It is okay that I needed a more beautiful explanation.

It is okay that I still identified with being the rescuer.

Because I needed to leave.

—

And for that, I remain grateful to this strange and magical thing called life.

Even though it was only the beginning of a very difficult road.

The important thing is:

I went.

—

Because only when you create distance from what never felt good do you finally become capable of seeing how much pain you were actually living inside.

—

The first years abroad, I continued living beautifully inside my rescuer role.

Every time I came home, I arrived with gifts.

Money.

Solutions.

Attention.

—

For the first four years, I visited exactly four times.

Every visit looked the same.

Two weeks of making my parents feel like the happiest people in the world.

Then I returned abroad.

Exhausted.

Empty.

Without money.

—

Nobody knew that I worked three jobs.

Cleaning in the mornings.

Waitressing during the day.

University.

Then more waitressing at night.

—

All so I could spend two weeks each year trying to make my parents happy.

And then return to my tiny room abroad completely depleted.

—

Years passed this way.

Until one day my body finally said:

Stop.

—

And so the healing journey began.

The first phase was brutal.

Therapy finally gave language to what had happened.

I understood how much trauma had been created inside my family system.

—

Then came anger.

Then came grief.

Then came rage.

—

For the first time, I could finally say:

Do you know what this did to me?

—

I grieved my father's absence.

I grieved my mother's emotional instability.

I grieved the little girl who was always trying to hold everything together.

—

And I thought that maybe, finally, I could make something right.

Because ultimately, all we want is justice.

We want them to understand.

We want them to acknowledge our wounds.

We want them to say:

"I'm sorry."

—

We hold onto the hope that if our pain is finally recognized, something inside us will heal.

—

But what we often don't realize is this:

Part of our suffering is not only the wound itself.

It is also the impossible hope of changing what can no longer be changed.

—

Eventually, we become exhausted.

Then comes another phase.

Forgiveness.

—

Everyone talks about it.

You should forgive.

They are your parents after all.

—

So you try.

You suppress your pain.

You minimize your experience.

You tell yourself that you have moved on.

—

And then the body speaks.

Anxiety.

Psychosomatic symptoms.

Illness.

Because what wants to be felt cannot be permanently abandoned.

—

So the healing journey begins again.

—

Eventually, something changes.

You understand yourself better.

And strangely enough, the better you understand yourself, the harder contact sometimes becomes.

Because all it can take is one visit to realize that your wounds still remember.

—

And then one day you hear the viral advice.

Cut them off.

Protect your peace.

The only way to heal is to cut them off.

—

And something inside you screams:

Yes.

I need to do this.

Otherwise I will break.

—

But parents are not ordinary relationships.

And for many people, the story does not end with distance.

Sometimes it begins there.

—

There are decisions that bring relief.

And there are decisions that bring grief.

Sometimes cutting off your parents brings both.

—

One person creates distance and finally begins to breathe again.

Another creates distance and discovers an unbearable grief.

Another never fully manages estrangement at all.

—

None of these experiences are wrong.

—

Sometimes cutting off your parents is absolutely necessary.

There are situations involving abuse, violence, severe manipulation, or profound harm where distance becomes an act of protection.

Sometimes it truly is the only way to heal.

—

This is not an essay about enduring the unbearable.

And it is not an essay against estrangement.

—

This is an essay about something else.

It is about the grief that few people talk about.

It is for the people who created distance and still cried.

For the people who left and still loved.

For the people who could never fully let go and secretly wondered if something was wrong with them because of it.

—

Perhaps there is nothing wrong with them at all.

Perhaps their hearts simply found a different way to survive.

—

Because parents are not old friends.

They are not colleagues.

They are our beginning.

—

And when we distance ourselves, we often separate not only from people.

We also separate from:

family rituals,

childhood memories,

belonging,

hope,

and the fantasy that one day it could finally become different.

—

And sometimes losing that hope hurts most of all.

—

This is why so many people experience both at the same time.

Relief.

And grief.

Freedom.

And guilt.

Peace.

And longing.

—

If I made the right decision, why does it still hurt?

Because the right decision can still be painful.

—

Sometimes the deepest wound is not the relationship itself.

It is the impossible position many people find themselves in:

needing distance from the people they still love.

—

Because every child loves their parents in some way.

Not always safely.

Not always freely.

Not always visibly.

But often, somewhere, the bond remains.

—

And that is why estrangement is rarely a story about indifference.

It is often a story about love, pain, disappointment, protection, and loss all happening at once.

And we talk far too little about that.

—

I did try.

For weeks, I stopped all contact with my mother.

I wanted to know what life would feel like without constantly carrying the weight of our relationship.

—

But there was something I hadn't fully considered.

Creating distance from my mother also meant losing my father.

And somehow...

that hurt even more.

—

So I never fully managed estrangement.

Not because the wounds disappeared.

Not because everything became beautiful.

But because losing both of them hurt me more than carrying the imperfections that still remained.

—

My parents are old now.

And somewhere along this journey back to myself, I stopped seeing only the parents who hurt me.

I also began seeing two wounded children who simply repeated the only love they knew.

—

Yes.

They could have chosen differently.

As I eventually did.

But they didn't.

And somehow, I have made peace with that.

—

I no longer expect the relationship I once dreamed of.

I no longer fight reality.

I no longer ask them to become who they have never been.

—

I simply love differently now.

From a distance.

With boundaries.

With choice.

With awareness.

—

I help when my heart genuinely wants to help.

I answer when I have the capacity.

I care.

But I no longer carry their lives on my back.

—

Some days are easier.

Some days still hurt.

But my decision is conscious.

And I can sleep peacefully beside it.

—

Perhaps this is what maturity sometimes looks like.

Not fixing.

Not cutting off.

Not forcing reconciliation.

Simply accepting:

This is what the relationship is.

And loving as much of it as your heart can honestly sustain.

—

As I am writing this essay, my father is lying in a hospital bed and I am abroad.

The next few days will tell us whether it is serious.

If it is, I will take the first flight home.

Of course I will.

—

Today, I sent him flowers.

White and violet.

A small teddy bear.

A mug that says:

The Best Dad in the World.

And a little note:

"Daddy, may this little bear protect you and bring you home soon. Never forget that although I am far away, I am always beside you. Get well. I love you."

—

I was later told that out of everything, the thing that made him happiest was the mug.

The one that called him

"The Best Dad in the World."

—

And I smiled.

Because perhaps…

he is.

—

Not because everything was beautiful.

Not because nothing hurt.

Not because he gave me everything I once longed for.

—

But because he is my father.

The only one I have.

And somehow, through everything we lived and everything we didn’t, he became part of the woman I am today.

That feels like enough.