Talk To The Hand
on going no-contact with toxic and emotionally manipulative people
I’m not speaking with my parents.
I’ve actually given up, for real. I’m done trying.
It’s hard, I’m such forgiving person by nature. I root for people. I try to offer my hand how I can.
The truth of how we’re all just doing the best with what we’ve been given, victims of circumstance, is never far from my mind when dealing with interpersonal conflicts.
I flare up. We all do. I say things I regret sometimes. Other times, I say things that need to be said, but in the wrong way.
Regardless, when the dust settles, I care about people. I still want what’s best for them and I like to feel the same in return.
Especially when I love people. Then, it becomes incredibly important for my heart to feel understood, to make sure they feel the same, for us to give each other permission to let go and forgive and heal. Even if we part ways or take space, just to know the love is still there.
My heart just hates unresolved conflict. It has trouble finding closure on bad terms.
Still, despite the fact I carry such burdens for things left unhealed, I just fucking can’t with these people.
Not Anymore
They are manipulative, emotional blackmailers, whose personal identities are locked into the idea of having been great parents.
A decade ago they decided to get their affairs in order and make a will. Since then they’ve been positively morbid, especially with COVID, just living in a little doom bubble, waiting to go. Telling themselves they did a wonderful job.
The last few times I walked into their home felt like entering a living delusion.
The lie: their family is amazing and they the did the best job ever as parents, and its time for them to be rewarded for that.
The elephant in the room: me. Unacknowledged trans daughter. Unprocessed misogyny. Unseen transphobia. That unfortunately typical brand of narcissism found in folks of an older generation..
Sorry to my elderly friends. Ageism is real, and I’m not trying to be a part of that. I’ve met so many older folks who completely shatter ideas one might have. People’s who’s spirits are evergreen, forever young. I can only hope to one day be as pure and wise as these wonderful examples of elderhood I have been blessed with in my life.
Those examples are not my parents.
But What Did They Do?
God, where to start.
I had been coddled by my mother. Reared in a ‘mommas boy’ kind of way. Because my dad was scary and broiled with toxic masculinity, so how would I not gravitate towards my mother? Especially considering who I was inside. Take the best of two options.
She was overbearing though. Total helicopter mom.
I didn’t know what was going on for a long time. Thought it was normal parental behavior. That is, until I saw the truth reflected in the faces of my peers. Heard honest truths from friends, of how I was truly perceived. People saw me as coddled. Babied.
So, in junior high, looking to remake myself. I became a little rebel—a liar.
I lied to my parents for so long. They’re great with denial too, so that helped a lot. They never saw through the facade to realize their perfect ‘little boy’ was gone.
That is, until they caught me smoking weed in the house—like a total idiot—with a childhood friend senior year.
I only had a few months of school left and I was getting reckless.
After that they started drug testing me. If I failed any of the tests, they were threatening to not let me go to film school, as I had been planning.
I smoked the day after every test. Then worked out like a crazy person to sweat it out before the next one.
Passed each one though. And they sent me to school—paid for it. I’m very grateful for that.
They also held every single thing they ever did for me over my head as means to manipulate me—attempt to mold me and steer my decisions—make me into the good little citizen they would have me be, rather than take the time to learn who I truly am.
Still, my mom never let it sink it. Such a master of denial.
She treated me like her ‘little boy’ right up to and through coming out and beginning my gender transition.
Her inability, along with my fathers, to let go of their projections about who they wanted me to be—always false, mind you, always a lie—is the primary catalyst for our lack of contact now.
But how did they take it?
Coming Out
So, for context, I’d been having a really positive era with my parents. I’d reconnected with my father over spirituality, and my life was meeting their standards for approval like never before—wife they loved, kid on the way, working a solid job in the tech-adjacent industry—all the things that qualify success in their view of the world.
I was making them feel good about themselves.
Then I called and dropped the bomb. Just told them both, one after the other. Mother first, before I had her hand the phone to father.
I had written it out. But was going mostly from memory in the moment.
Basically, giving a speech. So fucking nervous.
I’d practiced on my sister a month earlier. It was hard enough with her, even though I already knew in my gut she’d be supportive.
The biggest reason I was nervous, with all of them, was because I knew I’d hidden myself so well.
I was well aware that nobody in my family had any kind of clue.
It’s easy to hide as a closeted trans woman. Nobody sees you, regardless. That’s why people transition. To finally be seen in a society of people that judge and treat others based off their outward sexual characteristics.
That’s what I was so worried about though. Their doubts. And the weight of their judgements.
So, I came prepared to be understood. But that takes two.
The conversations went objectively well.
My wife had announced her pregnancy, something my parents had been waiting for and were ecstatic about. To then get this news they would never expect.
Shock. That’s what their reaction was. Genuine, bona fide, states of shock.
It was just stunned silence. Then general affirmations of unconditional support.
I’ll give them that. Over the next two and a half years, as I tried to get them to see and understand me, they always remained resolute—if in words alone—that they’d always support me and want what’s best for me.
Too bad what was best in their eyes was to ‘think of my family’, instead of transitioning, and allowing myself to be born again free.
They think this surface level ‘support’ absolves them for abandoning me in my most trying times, because I had the audacity of demanding they acknowledge me as the daughter I am. A task that seems so simple, yet, so hard for them. They could simply never use that language with me. A bridge too far in their mind. Proof of their refusal to accept or understand the truth of transgender validity. To them, this would always be some kind of psychological disorder, some delusion.
Here is an example of what their completely unchecked transphobia and misogynies meant for me practically.
Arriving for a family gathering, my father greets my sister, her daughters, my wife, all with this kind of adoration and pedestalization, doting on his ‘beautiful girls’. Turns to me—freezes—most awkward of all silences.
Granted, that is an awkward position for an old man. But at the same time, its emblematic of every fucking experience communicating and interacting with them. My very presence reflected not only their transphobia, but their misogyny. The way he treats women is infantilizing, and I’m glad he doesn’t treat me that way, even if it’s because he sees me as a man.
They are ashamed of me and cover it with thinly veiled words of ‘support’. They don’t understand. They don’t want to—refusing to seek help with a counselor or someone to speak it through with—shutting down when I have tried. Determined, literally, to not learn about the ideas of gender as a social construct, gender non-conformity, etc.
My parents want to stay in the comfy bubble of ignorance they had made for themselves.
I don’t fit within that bubble. Because I reflect their own failures. Their own prejudices. Their own demons.
They have been the single most prominent suppressive force in my entire life, in terms of locking my true self away.
I knew Daphne would not be safe in this family.
Finally, with a wife who supported me, feeling so loved and supported by community that surrounded me. Along with spiritual support from an awakening that led to many profound and life altering revelations. I felt strong enough to stand up to them.
And I was proven right. Despite compromising myself, over and over again, for two years. Trying to earn their understanding and acceptance.
I’m not safe in their family.
Straws That Broke the Camel’s Back
There were countless things. Micro-aggressions every time we spoke.
You should’ve heard the condescension when I even mentioned the term.
‘Have you heard the term micro-aggressions?’
‘Micro… aggressions?’ my mother said back.
Yes, mother. When people’s prejudices make them say and do things that cause the very folks they’re prejudiced against to cringe.
When they do it over and over.
Those instances. They have a name.
But my parents have the ‘sticks and stones may break my bones but words will never hurt me’ attitude. That pervasive indifference to all things relating to emotional intelligence. It’s absurd really. Once you’re outside of the bubble.
It’s the madness infecting the whole of American right-wing politics.
The resistance to the evolution of human culture. Blind fear, grasping for ways of old that never really existed.
My mother called me ‘man’ all the time. Literally tried to gaslight me to believe she used that language with everyone. When I calmly brought it up to her, she proceeded to get highly volatile with her emotions and call me over sensitive.
When I very first revealed to her my name. Such a moment of vulnerability.
You’ll never fucking believe this.
Her response was, “We’ll see.'“
Literally, those are the words that came out of her mouth.
That’s the attitude beneath the veneer. How supportive.
The pattern with my mom was this. Deadname, misgender, give a woe is me speech about how hard it is to change the way she thinks about me. Always defensive. Always pushing away their own guilt. Making themselves into a victim of my newfound freedom as a transgender woman.
When, in response to her deadnaming me, I said, “My name is Daphne.”
Albeit, sometimes with a little force. I would be gaslit, every time.
Told I was being sensitive. Threatened with being cut off by them for speaking up for myself. Which, I had done with class I might add. There might have sometimes been force in my words. But it was controlled force.
They’d use any assertiveness I found to stand against their tyranny as a weapon against me. Spun a story like I was flying off the handle. While they did exactly that. It’s infuriating to be gaslit that way—fully aware of what’s happening. Still susceptible to the funky ass vibes that drag you down when you take that kind of bullshit on. And from people who are so blind, it’s maddening.
My father couldn’t even look at me as my transition went on. Tried to pretend he was zen. That’s his whole schtick now. He pretends he’s enlightened by using the privilege of his retirement to block out everything that doesn’t make him feel good. Which came to include me as soon as I stopped being his fake son.
Speaking of My Father
I’ve repressed it too much. But honestly, him pressing sports on me, giving me no choice in the matter. Putting me onto teams he coached. While, surely intentioned from a place of eagerness to be that traditional father, still led to some of the most deeply traumatic experiences of my life.
Even before he put me onto his sports teams, since I was very little, I had been groomed to meet masculinities standards.
I knew very well, from the sharp and high energy reactions my father gave when I showed signs of femininity, that I needed to hide myself from him.
One of the first things that came back to me about suppressing my true self. When I began to let it all unfurl. Was remembering times being around male elders in my family as a child, just being myself, and seeing them share weirded out glances between themselves.
I can remember how I internalized the need to conform myself to the expectations of others. And how I was expected be inauthentic. Masculine.
Since masculinity came so unnaturally to me, I was just a kind of nothing, but enough of a nothing to skate by.
Most people just thought I was weird.
I used humor, and I was absurd. People liked me. But they thought I was different.
That’s how I hid. And it hid me well.
Weird Garett.
Even able to hide on those fucking sports teams, with a bunch of boys who police your every movement to not be that of a dreaded effeminate.
Don’t be gay.
Well, guess what everyone? Guess what dad? I’m the gayest bitch ever.
Because I’m a trans woman. Who is SUPER for gay for girls. And all the wonderful queerdos like me.
That’s too much to understand though, for sure. A bridge too far.
And like I said earlier, I’m done. I just can’t with these mother fuckers anymore. I’m sorry, lord. They’ve done burnt my last nerve right out.
No Safety Net
It feels weird and scary to not have a familial safety net. My parents had always been there as an ultimate back-up, no matter how dreadful that idea actually seemed.
Operating this way is frightening. I’ve never done it before. And to do it navigating a divorce and separation and bankruptcy is brutal, in all honesty. Such an act of trust.
I make a good amount of money. I’ll be okay. But I don’t know where I’m going to live next month yet.
I doubt my ability to pass a credit check anywhere, despite my ability to pay rent. And I have no family to co-sign.
Regardless, I’m trusting the shit out of the universe right now. I know things will be okay. It’s just one day at a time.
One sad liquidation of assets at a time.
Strangely freeing though, feeling as the possessions leave me, so do attachments.
The bottom line to all this stress-rambling is that having a guaranteed back-up place to stay would be nice in the face of these stresses.
Yet, after having become the villain of my parents twisted story. And for them to have chosen my ex over me in the divorce, in spite of physical abuse I suffered—clearest sign of their baggage—knowing that returning to the them would mean making false apologies to people who still haven’t done a lick of the personal work that would be required for them to see me as a daughter. I just can’t.
No, yeah, I’m not doing that.
I will sleep in my frozen ass car if I have to. Thank you.
There’s just no way.
This time without them in my life has been frightening, but so freeing. I’ve never felt safer to allow myself to emerge fully. Their consistent disaffirming presence in my life was a huge deterrent from fully arriving as me.
I will not compromise myself on that level ever again. I’m better off for it.
While this last holiday season was sad, because I didn’t really have anything going on, other than a quiet Christmas Eve with me and Logan, and was otherwise alone.
I know that next year I’m going to have filled that empty space with something magical. Count on it.
The person or people who are there for me next year, will see me as I am. A woman, who is beautiful, and authentically me. It will make me feel freer to be around them, not less. And my life is going to be so much better than it ever could have been by keeping these toxic connections alive.
I’m looking forward to it.
