Who here has successfully disowned their deserving family and how? - Help.com

What do you mean by “deserving”? I changed my name when I turned 22 (in 2008) then moved to the other side of the country. It hurt like hell, so I don’t know if I’d call that “successful”…

How can you possibly do that to your adorable hedgehog family?

you can just stop responding to them

Comander Ikari - That’s funny!

why do you want to disown your family?
what members of your family do you want to disown?

Later on in years you probably will reflect on your relationship with your parents and want to mend old wounds. If they die before then, you might just feel bad about never getting the chance. So, I would say put them on the back burner for now. Talk seldom perhaps like once or twice a year, and only go home on holiday’s if you feel like it. Then when the feeling of healing old wounds appear, they hopefully will be there for you; if not, at least you tried.

why? what kind of falling out have you had with them?

Aunts, uncles, and cousins are lower on in the rank and file system if you know what I mean. Not that big of a deal.

honestly, I can understand having such a treacherous relationship with one or two members that you want to disown them, but it sounds like youve just had a majour blue and you feel like theyve all ganged up on you, if thats so its no reason to disown them…
unless youd like to explain otherwise

why would you spend so much time helping them if youd only suffered abuse and neglect as a child
please explain a little more thoroughly
I have had experience of disowning a family member, but its not something to be taken lightly and simply in a moment of anger - we all get angry with our family from time to time and feel like ‘disowning’ them, and I’m sorry but without more details it sounds like your just really heated up right now and need to cool down

yes, I know plenty of people who write books on their family life because they felt so hard done by and needed to express themselves, I’m one of them, most never get published though, its just a good way to express yourself
but im sure you can give some basic details why you feel like this, I know I can explain myself without pulling out the old novel
my parents broke up, I dealt with it pretty good until my dad starting using me, first as someone to depend on (i was a child and had the responsibility of keeping him happy) and also to get back at my mother
over the years he subjected me to all the court details and kept telling me how bad my mother was, all the bad things she does to him - and me!
I was very confused and heavy hearted for many years, instead of being a child allowed to develop normally I was forced to become an adult without having developed the coping skills of an adult, until finally, after 10 years and thinking it should all be over by now I asked him to copy the family videos for me, this meant alot to me as for most my childhood I had so many memories of fights, court, feelings of being depended on ect I just wanted to regain some memory of a happy childhood.
He imediatly wrote to my mother abusing her for using me to get hold of the video
I could no longer deal with his sever paranoia and persistent hate and disowned him

now thats only the basic version, its really far more detailed than that but it gives you an idea

the way you disown family is really quite dependant on the dynamics
for example, you might want to disown your cousin but not your aunty, you might want to disown your siblings but not your parents, this would all be pretty difficult to disown portions of your family and expect you can do so without affecting the ones you want to stay in contact with
it would be difficult to visit your parants because you can just expect them to tell your siblings to stay away just because your coming over, and what about last minute drop ins
then theres the fact that by disowning your cousin your aunty may well just turn around and not want contact from you

it was easy for me because my father was not connected to the rest of my family at all so it didnt affect anyone but him and me

you cant just disappear, not if you want to stay in contact with any of them
if you want to disown every member though it really isnt that hard, move away, change you number to private, dont accept any requests on facebook, if any of them harass you send the police to have a word to leave you alone or be facing a charge of harassment

MrsKatieness wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
What do you mean by “deserving”? I changed my name when I turned 22 (in 2008) then moved to the other side of the country. It hurt like hell, so I don’t know if I’d call that “successful”…

do you regret it?

No not at all. It was the biggest present I ever gave myself. It hurt because it always hurts to have to cut people out of your life. And even though I’m really super content w/ my situation right now here in terms of school, friendships and relationship etc, I knew this was something I needed to do for myself. I needed to do it to break free of their influence and negativity. It really depends on your family circumstances. If it’s hurting you and making you bitter, negative and weak to be around them then maybe you should consider it. But just understand that it’s a pretty drastic thing to do, and it should be a last resort.

Also, changing your name is a pain, but it’s sort of fun…:) I changed my entire name because it was all composed of various family names.

That’s unfortunate. It’s really good that you’re independent though! That means you don’t have to see them if you don’t want to. Well, like I said if it’s something you feel like you need to do, you should do it. You can do it, promise :) Best of luck w/ everything!

i think if youre moving away and changing numbers etc anyways, youre not going to have much contact with them at all. just cut off contact except with those you want to still talk to, then at least you still have a link to your family.
are they in prison for being abusive/neglectful? that should make it easier too.

MrsKatieness wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
why? what kind of falling out have you had with them?

A childhood of severe abuse and neglect. And an adulthood of me trying to “help” them and only to get hurt in return.

“I didn’t write this post to express myself. I just wanted to know if this could be done. It seems so difficult, in this age of technology, to “disappear”

“I just want to get away from them and start a new life! I deserve it. I would like to hear stories of how people did this successfully. “

I would say that I did it as successfully as you can. I’d be happy to email/pm you separately. It’s very hard, both to do and for people not in your situation to understand. Being abused, and then having no one take responsiblity for it is very difficult. Then having all the extended relations, who never intervened to help you, continue to act as though nothing happened, is almost like being abused all over again. It’s like living a lie everytime you are around them, pretending nothing happened, everything is ok, and it’s ok with you that they did nothing to help you. So it is a legitimate thing that you are asking.

But be prepared, because for the rest of your life, people who have never been in a situation like that will never understand. The more successful you are in life, the more others will doubt that you had legitimate reasons to cut off ties, because they assume you are successful because you had a good family!

Additionally, you need to be prepared with a public “life story” that you can use professionally. Every person you meet for the rest of your life will ask about where you came from, where your family is, and how close you are — everyone, professors, new friends, new employers! So you don’t necessarily want to “disappear”, because you probably already have friends, past jobs, references, and other connections that you don’t want to loose, and without family connection the other seemingly trivial connections will become more important. Put yourself in the position of an employer considering hiring someone who has separated from all family and has no references from her past either!

The good news is that creating an extended family of your choosing is possible, but it should only be done under the most extreme circumstances, because it is not easy.

MrsKatieness wrote:
This reply was extremely helpful and I thank you for that. I would like to send you some follow up questions one day if that is alright with you.

Gladly! I think my email is accessible, if not post back here and let me know I need to fix the status.

I hope this works out for you. I’m going through the a similar issue and trying to relocate to the other part of the country. When you find out how, please email me.