Transcript of Edge Note: Why Going No Contact Is BS.

Welcome to Notes from the Edge, where we have the conversations we should have been having all along. We talk about the things that we're not talking about. I'm your host, Lisa Lacey, writer, trauma educator, executive advisor, and author of the upcoming memoir Notes from a Certified Madwoman. Welcome to The Edge. Welcome to another episode of Notes from The Edge. I am your host, Lisa Lacey, and this is the place we have the conversations we should have been having all along. Welcome to the solo episode today, and today we're going to be talking about going no contact. Go no contact. That is the

advice you received after narcissistic abuse. Block them, disappear, never speak to them again. And I understand why people say it. And for some people, no contact is the safest, healthiest, most necessary decision they will ever make, especially when there is danger, stalking, intimidation, or violence involved. I am not here to talk anybody out of protecting themselves, but the idea that you have to go no contact to heal That is bullshit. And today I want to explain why, because sometimes you share children, sometimes you share a business, finances, property, a courtroom, an aging parent, or an entire family system. Sometimes leaving the relationship doesn't mean you can erase the person from your life. And sometimes the very people telling you to go no contact have no idea what it would cost you to try. My second husband was a clinically diagnosed narcissist. With NPD, that diagnosis is part of my story, but I'm not suggesting everyone with that diagnosis behaves the way he did. I'm talking about the behavior I experienced— chronic infidelity, addictive behaviors, financial exploitation, emotional abuse, physical abuse, and spiritual abuse— where my beliefs and search for meaning were used against me. By the time I got out, I didn't just doubt him, I doubted myself, my instincts, my judgment.

My ability to tell the difference between love, pain, and control. And if you've ever been in a trauma-bonded relationship, you know that leaving isn't always one clean decision followed by immediate freedom. You can recognize the harm and still miss the person. You can know the pattern and still want the good moments back. You can feel the relief one hour and grieve the next. The push and pull of fear, attachment, hope, and intermittent affection can be incredibly difficult to untangle. And here is an important distinction: I did not have children with my second husband. I had an exit that many people do not have. There was grief, damage, and identity to rebuild, but I didn't have to coordinate school pickups with him. I didn't have to exchange medical updates about a child. I didn't have to sit across from him at graduation or negotiate holidays until our children were grown. So before we tell a parent to just walk away, let's ask, who is handling custody? Who is answering the school? What happens at the pediatrician's office? What happens when a court order requires communication? What happens when the other parent uses every exchange as an opportunity to provoke, punish, or pull you back right into that old dynamic?

Just block them isn't a parenting plan. Sometimes the healthy answer is very limited structured contact. Sometimes it's parallel parenting rather than forced cooperation. Sometimes it's communication in writing only about the children through a court-approved app or another safe channel. Sometimes it's getting professional and legal help to develop a plan that actually protects you and your children. And this isn't just about exes and co-parenting. I have a deeply difficult relationship with my mother. I describe the patterns I've experienced as narcissistic, and I have to make painful decisions about how to— how much access she gets to my life because she also has a relationship with my adult daughter. She helps my daughter. Their relationship is not the same as mine with her, and my daughter is not required to have my experience. She is not required to make my decisions or carry my history in exactly the way I I do. I can respect that she has a different relationship with her grandmother while also refusing to pretend my own experiences didn't happen. I don't have to force my daughter to choose sides to prove she loves me, and I don't have to give up my boundaries to keep other people comfortable.

In a family system where relationships overlap, a perfect airtight version of no contact can be unrealistic. Information travels, milestones happen, people need help. You can spend years trying to control every intersection, or you can decide what you are and are not willing to participate in. So I stopped asking a long time ago, how do I make her disappear from my world, and started asking, how much access am I willing to give? My energy is a privilege. It's not a public utility. Not everybody gets unlimited access to my time, my attention, my emotions, my explanations, or my inner world. Being related to me does not automatically grant that access. Having a history with me does not grant it either. I can decide how long a conversation lasts. I can decide what subjects are on the table. I can decide where a text gets a response today, next week, or even never at all. I can decide whether a family gathering is worth the emotional cost. I can decide what I will share and what belongs to me alone. A boundary is a decision about my own behavior. And it sounds like I'm not discussing that. It sounds like I have 10 minutes, then I have to go.

It sounds like the conversation has become disrespectful, I'm ending it. And it sounds like, please put anything necessary about this topic in writing. And then here's the hard part. I actually end it. For years, I thought that I had found the perfect explanation, the perfect words. Somebody would finally understand and respect my boundaries. But understanding is not a requirement for respecting my limits, and their disagreement does not cancel my decision. Now, I also want to be careful here. Limiting contact is not always easy, and it's not always safe to announce a new boundary to someone who retaliates. You have to consider your circumstances. Quietly changing your availability, documenting communication, and getting support may be wiser than confrontation. Safety comes before making a point. Your phone lights up and your stomach drops. You see a name on a screen and suddenly you're rehearsing your defense before you've even read the message. You walk into a family gathering and a version of yourself you thought you'd outgrown shows up before you can stop it. That reaction doesn't mean you failed at healing. It means old experiences can leave powerful associations. Your nervous system can learn to anticipate the conflict, and relearning safety and choice takes practice and sometimes takes support from a trauma-informed professional.

You might still feel anger or sadness or grieve the parent you needed but never had. Or manage the thought that you were building, or the version of yourself who kept trying to make it work. You can miss someone and not call them. You can be furious and not explain or defend yourself again, and you can wish they would apologize and stop making your peace contingent on that apology. And healing isn't about never feeling anger or grief again. It is about deciding what to do With those feelings. What I do believe is that recovery should give more choices, not another rigid rule you're terrified of breaking. Maybe no contact is the right choice for you. Maybe low contact is the right choice, and maybe your choice is structured contact because you have children together or because your family relationships are that intertwined. That is a real path too. The question is, is this safe enough? Sustainable and consistent with the life I'm trying to build. Contact is not consent to unlimited access. A necessary conversation doesn't entitle somebody to my finances, future plans, or vulnerabilities. That's discernment. You do not need to prove someone's diagnosis to name harmful behavior.

What matters to you happened. How it affected you matters. Whether you're safe matters, and if you're currently living with threats, physical violence, coercive control, or stalking, this episode is not telling you to negotiate better boundaries with the person causing you harm. Please get confidential support and create a safety plan suited to your situation. Sometimes no contact with appropriate legal and practical protection is absolutely the right goal. My issue is with turning no contact into a moral test. As if parent responding to a court-required message is weak, as if in the same courtroom as a relative erases years of growth, as if healing only counts when you make a dramatic exit. Sometimes healing is a locked door. Sometimes it is painfully ordinary. It's attending a family gathering for 1 hour instead of 6. It's letting your grown child have her own relationship without appointing her the referee. It's refusing to defend your version of events to people committed to misunderstanding it. It's not abandoning yourself just because someone else is disappointed in you. Today, access to me is earned through respect, consistency, and safety. Not perfection, not blood, not history. Respect. And some people will have a front row seat in my life.

Some people have a phone call once in a while. Some people received only information that's necessary, and some get no access at all. You are allowed to build boundaries around the life you actually have, not the life a stranger on the internet thinks you should have. You are allowed to stop explaining, stop rescuing, stop paying, stop performing, stop being punished, and stop giving away pieces of yourself just to avoid someone else's reaction. No contact is one tool. It is not the definition of recovery. So here's the question I want to leave you with. It's one I always ask. What did you perform in order to survive? Were you the peacemaker, the fixer, the people pleaser, the endlessly available daughter, the spouse who could always forgive one more time and go back? The parent who never had a need of their own. And what would change if you stopped playing that role, even when you can't completely remove the person who expects it? You do not have to disappear to reclaim yourself. You get to decide who has access, how much, for how long, and what cost to you, because your energy is a privilege and you decide how it is spent.

And how much of it you will grant. What are you performing in order to survive? And what might happen if you set down that role, mask, or performance? Will it lighten your load at all? I'm Lisa Lacey, your host. When you find the answer to that, welcome to the edge.