For Africans who have Gone ‘No Contact’ When the Rainbow is Enuf

A.K.A. How We Speak to Survivors

Belonging so fully to yourself that you’re willing to stand alone is a wilderness — an untamed, unpredictable place of solitude and searching. It is a place as dangerous as it is breathtaking, a place as sought after as it is feared.

Brené Brown — Braving the Wilderness

I had decided to go no contact with my parents. It was the safest decision I had ever made for myself, but yet it was highly contested among friends and family members alike.

Don’t you know family is the most important thing? They’d ask. Can’t you forgive and move on?

I would try to provide a reasonable explanation when fielding their questions. When you tell people that you have given up your family, they often assume that you’re too irrational to assess your situation with clarity. I never knew how to explain myself in a way that could convince them that I hadn’t gone mad.

How to tell them?

Family doesn’t automatically mean safety.

I’d start the conversation there. But then there was always pushback.

We’re all only human. Can’t you make it right again?

I’d feel a weight on the load I was carrying get heavier. Make it right…well, what’s right? I’d think. Us all together, again? I’m not sure I can hold that expectation. You see, I’m trying not to sink, because, well, you can’t carry a load that isn’t. yours, or you won’t survive.

To everyone’s disappointment, I chose to listen to my internal compass, and this felt dangerous to do, as I was often rewarded for going against my better judgment.

I felt like such a failure for not being able to mend things between us, as I had been advised, so many times, to do. As the daughter of African immigrants, the belief that blood is thicker than water has been deeply ingrained in my DNA. And here I was making a mockery of the most prized institution next to marriage in my bloodline: family. I was sure a few of my ancestors were turning in their graves as they watched how I was living, so self righteous, so unable to do the dutiful thing; forgive and maintain contact.

As the daughter of African immigrants, the belief that blood is thicker than water has been deeply ingrained in my DNA.

If I had stayed, I know that my decision would have been praised. I know what these congratulatory voices would say very well. Look at how well she got over it. Look at how well she loves her family.

Something in me cracks when I think about this, because why is the mark of showing how well one has loved synonymous with how well one has managed treachery? It’s a practice within so many of our families that often leads to our annihilation. And yet, we continue to find virtue in it. Many of us have been taught to believe that it’s the hero that stays and the coward that leaves. It’s the coward, the one who has cast herself out into the wilderness, who must provide a reasonable answer.

Even now, I find myself rewriting sentences and peeling through every word to make sure I’m explaining myself in a way that makes sense. But as I’m fighting to find the right words to explain this situation, I also find myself wondering where is the language within my bloodline that goes beyond Mom, Dad, aunt, uncle, elder, child? Wouldn’t it be worthwhile for all our sakes to find a more expansive vocabulary to find a collective explanation for tragedies that can occur within a family? I need a language that speaks to how a family can function as a system where there are other roles at play: scapegoats, mascots, golden children, abusers, and enablers. Where is the language for betrayal and denial? Where is the language for how complicated these dynamics can be?

…why is the mark of showing how well one has loved synonymous with how well one has managed treachery?

After years of mulling it over, I’ve landed on an explanation that feels like the truth. I didn’t leave because I was angry, or because I couldn’t forgive, I left, because once I did, I was able to inhabit my body. It was the first decision I made that felt like I was stepping in the direction of having a life. For once, to fully exist, I wouldn’t have to be divorced from myself.

Do you know what it’s like to live outside your body?

It’s not something that can be explained with logic, but it’s like your life force is being siphoned away. It’s hard to explain, but I can tell you that I’ve spent most of my life fighting to get back inside my body and make it a home.

***

I’ll tell you about my latest dating experience, as this is where I have found myself the most vulnerable in the pursuit of connection. I had met someone who had made me feel safe, or should I say, safer? Whatever the feeling, it was a rarity and the ease that came in our brief courtship was welcome. After a few long conversations about values and hopes, I let him know the bullet points of my no-contact situation. He brought up family quite a few times, and I sensed family was important to him. As I didn’t want there to be any awkwardness between us, I told him what I could, doing my best to not over-explain.

I love them. I wish them well. For the time being, the situation works for me as it is.

He was curious at first, asking questions that felt like he was asking to understand rather than. condemn. His questions gave more latitude to paint a nuanced picture. There were questions about where I fell in the birth order in my biological family, which I found to be a very astute question, as this allowed me to talk about the importance of birth order in my upbringing and what it meant to exist in that particular role. He asked a pointed question about what it was like growing up in an immigrant family. This allowed me to talk about the love I had for my parents; their sacrifices, their pressures running the wheel of attaining the American Dream. It also allowed me to validate my own experience of feeling pressure to be ‘a good girl’. I was able to tell him that existing in that system came with a high price, one that often demanded one to be seen and not heard. I guess it was a scar I was revealing. Sure wounds heal, but the mark of what happened is always there, and that means, one day, it’ll have to be contended with. My desire for a meaningful connection outweighed my fragility around sharing this part of myself. I was open to see where things with this person went.

I left, because once I did, I was able to inhabit my body. It was the first decision I made that felt like I was stepping in the direction of having a life. For once, to fully exist, I wouldn’t have to be divorced from myself.

But then something shifted, or at least, it felt like a dramatic shift when we met each other the next time. I tried not to focus on it, as I couldn’t make sense of the feeling that kept pulling, telling me that something was different. We sat down to dinner, and after some back and forth he asked: “Do you think you’ll ever reach out to them?”

My internal spikes went up. It wasn’t a dangerous question per se, but I couldn’t help but sense danger, a lingering assumption somewhere. Of all the questions one could ask, why land on the one that would take so much emotional labor from me?

How tired I was of it all!

Over the years, I had paid a lot of money to talk ad nauseam to professionals about what had happened, every detail, every crevice of terror, every avenue for possible healing, reinvention, redemption, possible reconciliation. Where I was in my story was quite clear: put your own life jacket on first. And now here I was, having to justify a decision that had already caused so much grief. I found myself wanting to shout: I’ve. Just. Got. My. Life. Back. Bruh. How I wished he had asked another question. Perhaps a more empathetic one? I understood that he wasn’t a mind reader — no one is — but it was another reminder of the tax that comes with having to be the bridge to one’s understanding, the terrible weight of it all when one is simply trying to enjoy a ham sandwich at a tapas bar.

I didn’t tell him any of this of course, as I was busy scrambling for an answer that would smooth out the jagged edge forming between us. But it felt like a setup, like another failure that I’d have to learn from when things between us eventually fizzled. I was already anticipating this, sadly. Then he said, “In my last relationship I waited a long time to meet the family, not sure if I want to do that again…”

I had wished that we could go back to our last date. We had walked outside, just wandering about, two people talking, sometimes holding hands, sometimes a kiss, how short lived it all was. After that date, I couldn’t help but think about our encounter, mull it through my mind, on repeat. To stop the loop, I finally asked myself: If I had been my own date, how would I have spoken to me?

This question answered everything.

***

Through many dark nights of the soul I learned how to find the language needed to restore myself. It had taken years to give a truthful answer as to why I left. And it took me much longer to speak to myself with any grace, for why my decision made sense to me. I think now I can say I have truly begun an authentic forgiveness process that starts with myself, the many ways I shut myself down before anyone else could. The vicious ways I internalized years of pent up rage that plummeted me into a depression. How difficult it was to find a good word to say on my behalf.

…where is the language within my bloodline that goes beyond Mom, Dad, aunt, uncle, elder, child?

I have the words now, not many, but a few. My hope is that down the line there will be more. I hope that any survivor reading this discovers the words they need to ease the pain in their chest and smooth out the lumps in their throat. For me to do this, I have to imagine the woman I’ll become ten years from now. This is a good start as it means I’m willing to walk this uncertain path for another decade. And isn’t that what surviving’s all about? Knowing that one day we will get to meet the person we’ve spent the grueling present toiling to be? So as I breathe through each tear, each disappointment, and through every part of my body that still aches, I yearn for the me from ten years on lovingly speaking the words I need to hear now.

My heart breaks for you, for what didn’t work out. You’re going to have to move on. Please. Give yourself grace.

Homage to Ntozake Shange

Photo Credit: Shirley Elsie