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No Contact, No Shame: Protecting Self While Loving Family | Thinking Out Loud · Thinking Out Loud | Kimberly

• Thinking Out Loud - Podcast: Welcome back to Thinking Out Loud. In today's episode, we're going to interview Deja Cates, where we dive into the complexity of family dynamics and the journey of self-discovery. I'm thrilled to be joined here with Deja, who shares her personal experiences navigating relationships with her father and the impact it has had on her well-being. Together we explore themes of estrangement, acceptance, and the importance of setting boundaries for mental health. Hello everyone. I am the eldest of Five kids. I have a lot of memories of myself and my siblings spending a lot of time together. We would get my mom's ⁓ camera out and pretend to be news people. We would make up dances. We would play together all the time. My house was definitely the house that all the kids wanted to be at. Neighbors were always coming over. They didn't have to knock. They were allowed to come inside. We always had. People over, I was always spending time with my siblings. This was before cell phones or really internet. So we really spent a lot of time outside and spending time with one another. I was really close with my mom. I realize now that I had anxiety as a child, but growing up, I was just considered super sensitive. I would cry all the time and wanted to be with my mom all the time. And I remember. Things being more strained with my dad. We very much wanted approval from him and I loved him, but I remember it always being more conditional. He was super into sports. I'm not very good at sports. To this day, I'm not athletic. I like to do art. I like to cook. I'm more of an artistic person. He very much was, we're gonna be tough and you're gonna do sports. That was really difficult because. I didn't connect with him. ⁓ my siblings all played sports. They were able to connect with him with that. I remember his love being conditional. I remember always being like, Hey dad, look, I've got rhythm and like trying to dance to show him, hey, you have something to be proud of me. I also have memories of My mom and dad fighting. They tried to keep it away from us, but it spilled over. My dad was never faithful to my mom emotionally. ⁓ he would never physically cheat on my mom. He had ⁓ a sports program where he would train kids to be athletes. For some reason, there was a lot of single moms there. He very much was let me be the savior. For your children, they would only want to talk to my dad. So they would call and hang up. Or my dad would say, Hey, I'm gonna watch your kids for you while you go to work when my mom is at home with her four or five kids. I have a lot of memories of that because I was so close and attached to my mom. It was difficult to see that it caused some strain with my dad, even though I very much loved him. I wanted him to be proud of me. That was difficult when I didn't have the sports aspect. To sum it all up, I spent a lot of time with my siblings and a lot of time with my mom because she had an in-home daycare. She was always home. We were always hanging out. When my dad got home, we would start our tours and we would do the things that we needed to do so that he wouldn't ⁓ get mad because he had a temper. We always needed to be careful about what we said and what we did. My mom did a really good job of buffering that. She would say, just don't upset your dad, whatever you need to do, and then we'll figure it out ourselves later. That worked fine until my mom got sick. She had leukemia and she fought hard for a year. It was just too much and she passed. And then it was all five of us kids with my dad. That was tough because we didn't have that buffer anymore. My siblings all went to go live with my grandma. I was about twenty-one. I was already ready to move out and everything. That was tough because we all grieved separately and my dad used his basketball moms to help grieve. That was hard because I would see him with other women. That caused a rift between him and I. And that's where as an adult I started making decisions to pull myself away from him. It was hard. The relationship had been strained since I was Young, I've always been overweight and I remember him making comments about my body as a child, and that's led to me as adult being weird about being the first in line to get food or having body image issues. I've always known that his comments are unkind. They make me feel a certain way about myself. When I met my husband is when I started considering my relationship with my dad and how he was affecting me. Because my husband is very different than my dad in the aspect my husband sees me as a partner and my dad sees his children as more of property. We very much are there to serve his needs. We are to listen to him and what he says. If not, then we are disobedient and disrespectful. My husband saying, Your dad shouldn't be talking to you like this. I would never talk to my daughter like this, really open my eyes to say, you know what, this isn't right. I don't have to deal with this. There was a moment in time it had been leading up to this. My dad is the kind of person where something happens and he doesn't act on it immediately, he stews. He had a dream He thinks that my mom comes to him in his dreams, and that's a whole nother thing for another podcast. He said that she came to him in a dream and said that something big was happening to my life. He came to me and said, You're either pregnant or you're engaged. I am neither one of those. And he said, Okay, well, just so you know, Jeff doesn't need to ask permission. I said, Okay, that's good to know. Three months later, Jeff did propose. My dad didn't like that, and he stooped on that for months. Jeff proposed in September. It was April of the next year. Is when my dad finally let that come out. He was planning a trip to Lagoon and he had asked whether Jeff's kids were coming. I said, ⁓ yeah, that would be super fun. And he went off. He said, How dare he try to take advantage of me? You guys are wild animals. ⁓ because we were essentially living together at that point. He was being judgmental about us being together and how Jeff was super disrespectful. I stood up for myself and I for Jeff. I said, I can't do this anymore. We need to be done. I said, I can't. I'm done. I haven't spoken to him since. That was ⁓ six years ago now. What do you think ⁓ people misunderstand going out contact with parents? My dad is very good, or he was, because it's been six years, so maybe he's grown. I'd hope that he's grown the last six years. There was more than once that I would wake up to these long-ass text messages, these novels about things that he's held on to for so long, and then he wouldn't let us respond. There were times where when my husband and I first started dating, he sat me down for three hours and talked about I was a shitty mom, a horrible sister, bad daughter. My husband was shocked because where did this all come from? Then at the end of these long conversations, he would say, Now I've said what I need to say. I'm going to give you a few days to a few weeks to think about this. When you're ready, come back. We wouldn't even have a chance to respond to the things that he had said and twisted in his brain that he's been spewing on for years. When it comes to your question, I think the thing that people have a hard time understanding is they think that it was easy for me to walk away. I've heard, especially older people who their children are my age, ⁓ how could you just walk away from your parents? They're your parents and you should respect them. ⁓ What about your kids? They're losing time. Their grandkids are missing out. All the things that they could give them. And I say, this was one of the hardest decisions of my entire life. Love my dad. And I don't have two parents anymore. I only have one parent. Now my kids don't have any grandparents other than my grandmom. It's been difficult trying to explain myself to others when they're not in that position, or maybe they've taken abuse from their parents for years and they thought they had to, they look at me and they go, Who do you think you are turning away your parents because I went through it? What I mostly get is the people not understanding. I've been thinking family dysfunction is a pyramid scheme. I learned the psychology behind entitlement is suppression of anger and powerlessness. Because of that, I feel it's a pyramid scheme. I cashed in all this anger I suppress, all this powerlessness I suppressed. I finally got myself to the top being a parent. Now I get to dump all that on you guys. Do you think some people bought into it? They bought into the pyramid scheme. Like what? You're supposed to take out your suppress anger like a normal person onto the younger generation. What do you mean? They have been taught to do that, right? They see their grandparents treating their parents a certain way, and then their parents treating them that way. It is just a cycle. And I do give my dad grace because that's exactly what happened to him. His mother was very abusive. the stories he used to tell me were insane. And he goes, see, I could be like that, but I'm not. It's almost like he gives himself credit for not being as bad as his parents. He's still causing other trauma. I still to this day have issues that I try hard not to pass on to my children. It's hard going back to this pyramid scheme idea of entrangement with parents and them thinking, why is this happening? It never worked. They shouldn't have been cruel to you. You shouldn't have been cruel to your kids and your parents shouldn't have had that happen to them in the first place. Somewhere along the line it had to stop. And it's not because people are inherently bad and people are inherently good. It's about choices and behaviors. I think a lot of it is about performance. On TikTok. I remember this guy, he was talking about his childhood, the moms clapping at church, but glaring at him, your mom's enjoying church, but you just beat your butt. Yeah, it's 'cause they knew it was wrong. They knew it was not acceptable. Somehow they had to get that aggression out. Come on, it's not okay, guys. Or even like Pastors talking in church about all the tea in their family. Come on. Your kids in the church with us. Let them make friends. Don't embarrass them. That's why if you're in a pyramids game, you're likely gonna go in strange. Or your kid bought into it. They bought the package deal. They're waiting for that free car. This whole dangling a carrot. It's sad that you have to dangle a carrot to get your kids to want to be around you. And I think though, people don't know that there's another way. Interesting that you bring that up. My dad has come into money. He has tried to use it, not firsthand, but secondhand. My dad's having a really hard time because he won't include my baby in the will because he doesn't know him. That made me upset, not because I want his money. I've never needed his money. ⁓ it was more why is that an issue? If this is your grandchild, you should want them to be taken care of. Money has always been a thing with my dad. It is what it is. I did ask him to move in with him after essentially a divorce. I lived with him for six months and he had me pay rent. Even though the house was bought with my mom's life insurance, the house was all paid for. He still had me pay rent. I had left our relationship and I didn't have anything. I left with essentially the clothes on my back, so I had to I took out a lot of student loans to pay for me living. I've got a lot of student loans now. How did you navigate the grief of loving someone while also recognizing the harm they were causing you? How are you able to balance that? Or are you still trying to figure that out? I'd say I'm working on that. I s very much love him and would like a relationship with him one day. I very much have leaned on my siblings. We are all close. My one of my sisters works with me. My other sister, she lives in town and I talk to her often. I try to do the Sunday dinners like we used to do with my dad and keep up the traditions. Growing up, my relationship with my dad was always strained, and my siblings were most important to me. Spending time with them has made it easier. There are times where I have wanted my dad when hard things have happened. I've cried for him multiple times when I felt like I needed his strength. And I've had to lean on my husband for that. I went to counseling shortly after I stopped talking to my dad. I went to see a counselor. And interestingly enough, my dad was seeing the exact same counselor. He was getting both sides, which you know never happens. It was great to be validated by him because he would hear what my dad's saying and say I can't disclose what your dad said. What you're feeling is 100% normal. I validate your feelings. I think you should go to a support group for kids with alcoholic parents. That was validating to me. My dad stopped going to this counselor shortly after. He wanted me to go to the counselor because he thought the counselor was going to convince me to start talking with him again. That didn't happen. So he stopped seeing him and I kept seeing the counselor for about a year after that. It was validating it to see no the things he was saying and doing was wrong. I wanted to add too about how I love you being the older sibling. You do have power in those dynamics because you are the oldest. And you can tell that you're a wonderful sibling because your siblings want to be around you. They choose to be with you. They're not forced. You were in a lot of ways their protector. I see you're trying to do something different. I think it's amazing that you chose to support your siblings. You chose to heal. You chose to be a role model. You express yourself when you get frustrated, but you love your siblings. And it's nice because having younger siblings that love you so much, and or even with me, with my daughter, I can be frustrated with you, but I'm in the leadership role of this dynamic. I don't have to make you submit to me. Instead, I can lead you well. I've been loving that change. That's what I hear what you did as an older sibling. Yeah, very much so. And there has been some difficult times. My sister that's closest to me in H, she stopped talking to my dad for almost three years because I I'm the seed. that has sprouted in my dad to be mad at anyone's. If someone does something with me, he's mad at them. I got married and my dad wasn't invited because we still weren't talking. And my siblings were in my wedding and he was very upset with them. To the point where He sent my sister a letter and said, You get my girlfriend's name off your house. And if not, we're gonna take the house away from you. And she was a single mom. My husband and I signed for her house. She has chosen to have a relationship with my dad again after that. She knows that I don't support a relationship with him per se, because he hasn't really changed. I 100% support her decisions. If she wants to have a relationship with him, I want it to be good. I hope. That it's enough that he's changed and that it c she can keep her boundaries and he can spend time with his grandchildren and that it's beautiful. That's been hard because he's never really apologized for the things that he's done. And she kind of was, Okay, I need my dad again. I understand that. I've wanted him again too. My boundaries have been more firm than hers. That's been something that we've had to work through. We talk about it. She knows that she can't come and tell me everything. We understand that's not healthy for us. We both do a good job at keeping those boundaries. I think that's healthy when you're in a community to unless you're trying to see is there a part of this pattern that I'm not seeing? Am I doing something wrong? Or is this just wrong in general? I need to have a conversation with someone. I can see within a community dynamic trying to solve, am I missing something? I understand people needing that kind of sounding board. That's a human thing. It's the villainization. It's hard if you're choosing estrangement and you're choosing to move on. To talk to someone about it who's choosing to stay. I can hold space that, yeah, he probably did abuse you. I've heard stories. I believe you. It's so hard when you're the person hurt. You don't know how much abuse I endured. It's hard. I think you handled it so healthy and I love it. You always inspire me. I even realize if my own one of my aunts, we call her the crazy one, I shouldn't be calling her the crazy one. I shouldn't feel I have to be in a competition when it comes to my freaking pickles. Sad that people need to use me. To make fun of her because my pickles are better. First off, I'm a Taurus. Of course I'm gonna make some good pickles, or I'm not even gonna show them. Okay? That's just standards for me, not everybody else. Second off, that's a weird thing to be in competition with your aunt about. So I try not to engage. ⁓ you know your aunt. Even that I was like realizing how toxic that is because you kind of put in the conclusion, you don't even ask questions. I think this is also a good point to bring to the fact that in your acceptance. That your dad may never change. I also feel it helps you change though. Not your expectation not to lower it, but rather say I don't have to sign up for it. Yeah, very much. When I talk to them and they do bring him up, what's a lot of well, dad did this and it was really great. And I say, I'm so happy for you. I'm so happy that he's making these changes and he stopped drinking and now he's taking in care of himself. He hasn't healed enough to mend the bridge with me or to address what he's done. To us, I support one hundred percent them having a good relationship. And then every now and then they go, ⁓ he did it again. And I go, Yep, and I'm here for ya. How have you maintained connection? I think it depends on the sibling. With my youngest sister, who I see multiple times a week, I have to be more careful with her. She is sensitive, very similar to me. She was the basketball star, and dad held on to her the longest. She made it all the way to college and she would have gone beyond if she hadn't decided to come work with me. Two years ago, and I had to talk her off of a ledge, essentially, because of something that he had said. She's still has a relationship with him after that. I'm more gentle with her and talking her through the things that he said. She was so young when my mom died that she doesn't remember a lot. She was she was 10 or 11. I had 20 years with my mom and she only had 10. My dad is what she's got. So I give her grace and understanding and don't put my two cents in when it comes to the relationship. I try to nurture as much as I can and help her learn ways to guard her heart. So that he's not able to affect her. We both still love him and this is the guy that he is. And she's made the decision to be around him. And I haven't. She's also the one that doesn't tell me as much. He's still the same old guy. I kind of lost myself and lost her for a little while when I entered my own abusive relationship, which I lost everyone at that point. But we've found our way back to each other. She has said more than once, you are like my mom now. You are the person who I looked up to. I sent her a message this morning randomly and I said, I am very proud of you. Because I want her to hear that and I want her to know that I very much have taken on that role of the parental figure. How many years apart are you guys? My sister closest in age is eighteen months. And then my brother is four years younger than me. My youngest sister is nine and a half younger than me. And we've got a youngest brother who is fourteen younger years younger than me. He has severe disabilities. He lives with my dad still. ⁓ and he'll live with him for the rest of their lives. I don't get to see him very often because of the strain with my dad. He sees me and he's like, What's up? And then he walks away. He's so funny. He's such a sweet guy. I promised my mom on her deathbed that I would ⁓ help take care of her babies. I've tried my best. I know there's ways that I've failed them, and then other ways where I've gone above and beyond probably what I will continue to do so until I died. They're all that I have. I'm sure you see pieces of your mom in every single one of them. Yeah. We can sit around and talk about her and I love telling my youngest sibling ⁓ sister things. We'll be sitting in the car and a song will come on other that was mom's favorite song. Or did you know mom liked this kind of pie? Or mom used to laugh like this and she'd be like, I had no idea, or I forgot. We can have that. Connection. I grew up in the same house. We all had such different experiences. My sister who's closest to me does not give my mom as much grace as I do. If we talk about mom, her views are more negative than mine are. It's always interesting to talk to her and see how she felt and then see her parenting style and how she's parenting her kids as opposed to the way I'm parenting my kids in the memory of my mom and the trauma that we're not not try bring on to our being the oldest, you probably got a lot of one on one with your mom before she had your second your second sibling. I could see you guys probably having a completely different dynamic. That makes sense for her. It doesn't take away from you either. Going back to now that I know the age difference, I looked it up about sibling power dynamics because I don't think people understand and you did. If you're the close zero to two, you're pretty much peers, but the oldest still has more power. Then if you're two to four, there's starting to become a clear power dynamic. Five to seven, there's a severe power dynamic. Then essentially eight and up, you are basically a parent. Yeah. To that that sibling's eyes. That was really pressed into me when I was growing up too. There was more than one time my dad would say to me, We had you to take care of your younger siblings. That was drilled in. This is your job and your responsibility. The siblings that are closest to me in age, we hung out a lot. We were more equals. I do consider them the babies when it got to my babies. I was taking care of them. My mom would leave them with me. I have a memory of me being nine, staying home alone with my sister as a newborn, and my mom going and picking up kids from school. Now, granted, it was for 15 minutes, maybe that's something that we did. Because I was such a mothering role to them. My mom had the in home daycare, so there were always children around. I was always the eldest who was hoping to change diapers and that's been my role forever. And I think that's why I've fit into The occupation to help take care of people. My jobs have been some form of taking care of people. When I worked at the assisted living, I was taking care of the elderly. And even when I worked in retail, the reason I wanted to was because I wanted people to feel good in their skin and good in the clothes that they wear. So I would essentially help care for them in that way. And that was drilled into me from a young age. And it's lucky that my Personality that I'd fit into it really well. Do you feel like some people who are coming out regretting having kids is because their family systems and connections made them feel they had to have kids? Yeah. I can totally see that, especially because people are being pressured by their family members. As soon as they get married, they're, ⁓ when's the first baby? When's the first baby? Not including people who have fertility issues and already want kids, people are essentially being bullied into having kids, whether they want to or not. That's the tradition and that's the way they've been grown into. That's the that's what their parents did and that's what they do. It's the pyramid scheme again. They've married someone who falls into that. So even if they don't want to, well, my husband wants kids, so we have to have kids. They don't feel like they have a choice and they regret it and then they're drowning. And the cycle continues where they're grumpy with their kids and then the kids have trauma and then they grow up. It's just a cycle. When people are I don't want kids, then don't. Yeah. It's okay. I don't judge you. It damages them. Please don't. Yeah. I always hear my youngest sister and my stepson. My stepson still feels this way. My sister's like, I don't want kids. And I'm always like, that's okay. That's what you want to do. That's fine. I also think that things change when you get in a relationship with someone that you love and want to have that with. Because I feel my two sisters and I, we all have major daddy issues. And the first real relationships that we were in were very much people like my dad. My closest sister and I dealt with ⁓ heavy abuse in our relationships and neither of us are in those relationships anymore. It took a long time for us to cope with that and to find someone who is not like that. ⁓ there's that piece when it comes to my youngest sister where she was in a difficult relationship and she's I don't think I want to have kids because I see what my sisters did. Now that she's in a relationship with someone who's supported of of her and is not like my dad, she's like, you know what? Maybe I could have one or two. It's interesting to see how that changes. I have very much drilled it into my younger siblings. Do not have babies with someone that you don't like. And you know who you like and you know who you don't like. There's a gut feeling. You know, even you can say, but I love them. No, you they're not gonna be a good parent. You could want all you want, but you know that this person's not nice to you half the time. Don't be stuck with them forever by having a baby with them. That's been huge with me. Talking to my sibling because both my sister who's closest to me in age, we both have had children with our abusive exes and not me anymore. My sister very much is tethered to him for the rest of her life because even after the kids turn 18, there's going to be weddings and family functions and she will have to see him forever. I've been helping her through that. You need to know what you want. And what you don't want, find someone that's already doing that. That's already them. Freaking Darcy from Pride and Prejudice. And everyone's like, he's such a dreamboat. Well, he's not. He created all those problems. He did. He was an ass. He really was. And I mean, she forgave him and they moved on, whatever. She accepted the assholery that he was. My goodness. No. Yeah. All of that could that whole thing. I think that's the problem is we forgot we see you clearly don't like each other and you could not stand each other, but you're gonna marry each other anyways. Anyway. It's funny because my family uses well, we couldn't have done all that bad because you turned out fine. I turned out fine because I fucked up a lot. Yeah. Because I was trying to learn. You didn't help me. You don't care credit. Yeah. My dad does the exact same thing. He goes, Well, you You know, he'll say to my sister, Well, Daisha's done really well for herself. I couldn't have done that bad. And I'm like, I've been counseling off and on for thirty years. And I put myself through school and I did I've had to heal from the death of my mom and from losing my dad and from everything else. You can take some credit, I guess, for genes, because I'm stubborn and I that's because of you, I guess. I used it in the right way. I didn't keep the cycle going. My son He's not gonna have to worry about food. Did going no contact change the way you see yourself and your self-worth? Yes. And I would say that not just from my dad. I was in an abusive relationship for nine years. Fifteen, if you count since we've been not together anymore. When I left that relationship, I promised myself that I would not. Allow someone to take advantage of me and make me feel that way anymore. It was about two years after that relationship that after the relationship with my ex ended that I ⁓ ended contact with my dad, but kind of built upon that. And I've grown since then. so the whole thing has been tracked to me growing into the person that I am. I still have confidence issues sometimes. My dad used to say things to me. ⁓ that would tear me down. I said the food comments are talking about my body. I don't constantly have that anymore. I feel more confident in myself. I model now, which is exciting and so much fun. I have my own agency, which I don't know if I ever would have been confident enough to do. I think I have a stronger relationship with my siblings. I'm have more of a backbone, I would say. I try not to put up with negativity in that way. It's harder with the business. ⁓ when it comes to my personal relationships, I definitely have been braver to say no to people. And that was always really hard for me before. I would say that it's still a learning process. I don't feel like my personality has changed once I definitely don't feel as anxious when I look at my phone because I used to get so many negative text messages from both my ex and my dad. I don't have that anxiety overfilling my life anymore, which has brought a lightness to my life, which I didn't have. Did you block them both? Yes. Every once in a while I checked my block messages. I haven't gotten any from my ex. My dad, he's messaged me twice. One time, I'm assuming it was for my youngest sister, because it was about basketball. Every once in a while I checked because I missed one from my dad where he had meant to text me and he said, I would like to see your twins. Can we make that happen? And it was a month later before I saw it. And I said I'm willing to work that out. And then I never heard from him again. I did let them see him twice through my sisters, which was difficult for me. Cause I didn't know what he was saying and my twins I didn't know what they were going back and saying to him about my life. He hasn't seen them in years and he's never met my two year old. What does letting go with love mean to you though now? I can love him from afar and want what's best for him because I do. I want him to be able to have a beautiful relationship with my siblings and with his grandchildren. I wish him all the best. I would never wish anything negative upon him because he is my dad and I will always love him. I've learned that I have to love myself. I have to put myself first, or else I cannot be the mom that my children deserve. I can't be the wife. That my husband deserves with his negativity, essentially let go of and know that I can still love without having them being present in my life. And I have to forgive myself for the things that I've done, but I also am learning to forgive him and giving him grace for the person that he is makes me not be angry with him because I don't want to be angry with him for the things that he's done and the ways that he's hurt me. When I think about him. I want to think about him with love and with kindness and grace and understanding and knowing that's the person he is and I accept him for who he is. And I'm no longer trying to change him into the father that I want him to be. I love him for the father who he is. And I understand that that's who he is. You learned I don't have to sign up for how you love. Yeah. Yeah. I think they feel abandoned by the people they were abusing. I refuse to be abused and you refuse to see it as abuse. I'm not abandoning you. Instead, I'm checking out. I don't want to be treated this way. Yeah, it's so true. What boundaries were the hardest to hold during that period of time? Well, it's interesting because with my dad, it was just I'm not doing this anymore. And then that was essentially it. He was blocked and he didn't try messaging me anymore. His girlfriend tried messaging my husband, and I would request not to hear what she said. That's the boundary that I put up that I've decided I'm not talking to them anymore. It was hard to know that they were saying things and for me to be like, I want to hear, but I also don't want to hear because it's just gonna be awful. So that was difficult. There was much else when it came with to my dad because it really was a hard block. I would say another big one was just my kids because my kids would ask for him. ⁓ they'd say, Where's Papa? Where's Papa? And I'm like, Papa and I have had some problems and Papa and I aren't ready to talk about it yet. And they were so young they didn't really understand. That was difficult. He also tried to reach out to my ex and get access to the boys through them, which kind of sucked, but that didn't happen. It was something that my dad had tried. The kids were really difficult to holding that boundary because I was like, if you are being mean to me, how can I trust that you aren't gonna be mean to my kids and cause the same trauma to them talking about their bodies? Cause I'm not there to protect them. or to respect their space or for you to not discipline them the way that I was disciplined. Because you very much nothing you did was good enough. My dad is very charismatic and he's a very much a people person and he's so loud and boisterous but it's Funny. He's just someone that you want to be around. And then he just does something that's awful or says something really neat. He very much liked my ex to the point where he had a picture of her and I in his house for months after. I asked mentally, physically, sexually, all the things abusive to me. I don't want to see their face. And he was like, then he excused it. He was, Well, you didn't tell me any of that. I've told you multiple times. He still wanted a relationship with he still had a relationship with my sister's husband for years after she left him, after he knew everything. Everything. He very much wants to manipulate and use people. That's how he wanted to get access to the grandkids, was through excess. And then he would the exes and their current spouses would all go have dinner with him. Like it was so weird. What healing have you found on the other side since distance? I've learned to accept the dad that he is and to grieve the dad that I wanted. I've learned that it's a again, it's okay to say no to people and to support. my siblings in their journey of figuring out what their boundaries are with dad. And being with my husband has been very healing because he very much sees me as a partner. He asks me questions before just doing things and we talk about things and we make big decisions together as opposed to him being like, hey, we're doing this because I'm the husband kind of a thing. So that's been really great and in in empowering, I've been empowered not being in that. relationship with my dad or my ex where I'm subservient my partner and I or we're partners. And that's been that's been really nice. Enstrangement is not always an action of rejection. Sometimes it's an act of recognition. The recognition that love cannot survive with where authenticity is forbidden. The recognition that peacekeeping and peace are not the same thing. The recognition that family loyalty should not require self abandonment. There comes a point where the cost of staying becomes greater than the pain of leaving. When That happens. Distance is not necessarily punishment. Sometimes it's protection. Sometimes it is grief. Sometimes it's the first honest boundary a person has ever been allowed to have. And do you connect with that? Well said. And I feel connected to every word of that. I think it's so true. I think it's hard for people on the other side to understand that because they're feeling rejected. I never rejected my dad. If he knocked on my door right now, I think it would take everything in me not to just jump in his arms and just hug him. ⁓ and sometimes I wish he would. I also have to recognize that I have to love myself. I have to love myself first and put my peace and happiness above with him that is toxic. It really is too bad because we're both missing out on so much time. Much time that we could have with each other and have good times. Because I'll be the first one to tell you that I'm not perfect and I've said things that were hurtful and done things that were hurtful. I'm willing to talk about those things. When I'm not met with that, that's really hard because he's not willing to say that. I have to give myself grace Because I was the person that I had to be in the environment that I was in. And now I'm the person that I am because of the environment that I'm in. And that's not the person you are. It's just the person that you had you had to be in that time. And that's why I'm able to give my dad grace too and love him from afar because I know that he's the person he has to be because of the situation he's put himself in. Absolutely. It just comes a point of when you're a warrior for so long. But you want to be a gardener. You can't keep being a warrior. You're just gonna keep destroying your garden. Yeah. You're gonna hurt your kids. It's a battle I have to face every day. You're doing great. You really are. Thank you. I feel like I've turned out pretty good. My final thoughts is distance is not always rejection. Sometimes it is the first opportunity person has ever had to exist without constantly editing who they are, to speak without calculating, to feel without permission, to be without shrinking. For many, that kind of space is not the end of a family story. It's the first moment they get to understand what a safe one might have looked like. And it's so hard. It is so hard. Thank you for joining us on this heartfelt exploration about family, love, and personal growth. We hope that Deja's story resonates with you, opening the door to conversations about maintaining boundaries and prioritizing mental health. Remember, it is okay to put your safety first. And to seek peace, remember to drink your water and cherish the relationships that bring you nurture, growth, and peace. Thanks again for sitting with us and listening to Thinking Out Loud. I'm Kimberly, and we'll see you in the next episode.