The Rope I Was Holding Alone

Severing my relationship with my mother was a mix of empowerment and escape—of finally choosing myself, but also running from a place where I no longer felt wanted.

I had every reason to cut ties with my mother. She was cruel, manipulative, self-centered, and emotionally unsupportive. But estrangement isn’t as simple as outsiders might assume. The decision doesn’t come easy, and it never feels clean. Being removed doesn’t take away the history or the feelings.

It took months before I could walk away.

My father had just passed, and I was in the final stretch of a toxic, emotionally abusive long-term relationship. After two years of working up the nerve to leave that relationship, I had no choice but to move back in with my mother while waiting for an apartment near my graduate school to open up.

My dad had only been gone for about three months. The grief was still so raw, so consuming. At first, I justified a lot of my mom’s behavior—I assumed it was her own grief. But over time, it became clear that this wasn’t about loss. It was about patterns. About being hurt all over again.

Ironically, it was the therapist I saw for grief who helped me name the dysfunction between my mother and me. Her words gently shook me awake.

The longer I stayed in that house, the more fractured our relationship became.

At first, I tried to preserve something—anything. I planned to move two hours away, imagining that physical distance might create emotional space. I thought if we only had a few opportunities to speak and to see each other, the space would bring clarity and connection.

But instead, it only magnified her narcissism.

There comes a point when you’re standing there—scissors in hand—realizing it’s time to cut the rope. It’s terrifying. Empowering. Dizzying. Like you’re about to free fall into the point of no return. While I longed for a version of life where I was away from the toxicity, I was also consumed by guilt, fear, and shame. What kind of person cuts ties with their only remaining parent?

It feels like an internal war between being an adult and still craving safety like a child.

But when I thought about the string that binds us, I realized something: it wasn’t taut. It wasn’t being held from both ends. She wasn’t fighting for me. She wasn’t even holding on. I was the only one grasping it, desperate to believe it still mattered.

So I stopped pulling. I let distance do its quiet work.

There was no grand confrontation. No emotional reckoning. No final conversation. Because the truth was—she didn’t seem to notice I was gone.

The occasional phone calls were purely logistical. Always brief. Always emotionless. And then, like clockwork, the passive-aggressive jab: “Don’t be a stranger.”

That one phrase could unravel me. It felt so taunting. It was a sharp reminder of what I longed for—and would never get.

What makes this kind of estrangement so uniquely painful is that it doesn’t always follow a rupture. It follows a realization.

You realize they’ve stopped caring.
Or maybe… they never cared in the way you needed.
They minimize. Dismiss. Ignore. Forget. Rewrite.
They don’t ask where you’ve gone.
They don’t notice the silence.

And yet you’re the one awake at night, replaying it all, asking yourself if you’re doing the right thing.

Even with all the evidence, the therapy sessions, the boundaries—I still have moments where I just want a mom. Not her, necessarily, but a mother. I ache for a version of her that never existed. I still spiral into questions: Why wasn’t I enough? Why didn’t she fight for me?

That ache doesn’t disappear with distance.

Estrangement is an adult decision, but it cracks open a child-sized wound.
The little version of me—the one who internalized her mother’s moods, who thought love had to be earned—still searches for safety. For someone to see her. Hold her. Love her unconditionally.

But healing is knowing that it won’t come from this person.

There’s a painful paradox in all of this: you can fully understand why estrangement is necessary and still deeply crave the connection.

That doesn’t make you weak. That makes you human.

This ache I feel, the longing, the confusion, the sorrow for a decision that seemingly meant nothing to her—it's mine to feel. Mine to grieve. Mine to heal through. And all of it is valid.

Healing now looks like surrounding myself with the kind of love I didn’t get.
It looks like setting boundaries without building walls.
It looks like knowing when to stop reaching out just to feel seen.
It looks like becoming the safe place I once needed from someone else.

The grief of estrangement isn’t just about the loss of a person—it’s the loss of what never was and what will never be. It’s the disappointment of a parent-child relationship that never flourished and the confusion that comes from a parent who could not show up in the way you needed. But even in the absence of that relationship, I’m learning to give myself what I once begged for. I no longer need to earn love or prove my worth to someone unwilling to see it. I can hold space for the ache and for my healing. Both can exist. And little by little, I’m building a life where I am safe, chosen, and deeply loved—even if it didn’t start that way.