Brain Cancers

Not everyone who shares your blood deserves to be in your life. I had to learn that the hard way. Growing up, I watched my dad be violent and cruel to my mom and my sister. The house never felt safe. It felt like a place you had to survive.

For a long time, I thought that because he was my father, I was somehow obligated to forgive, to excuse, to keep him in my life no matter what. But the truth is, the title "family" is not a free pass to mistreat, manipulate, or guilt-trip you. Some of the most dismissive, invalidating, and exhausting people we know are the very ones who share our last name.

When my dad was diagnosed with brain cancer, I was torn between anger, grief, and relief. And when he died, a part of me was almost glad. Not because I didn’t value life, but because I knew I would never have to wrestle with the decision of whether he would get access to me, to my peace, or to the family I might build one day. His death meant I wouldn’t have to decide between keeping him at a distance and protecting myself. The decision was made for me.

Now I understand you are allowed to protect your peace. You are allowed to go low contact or no contact. You are allowed to prioritize your mental health over preserving some glossy version of "family."

Because family is not always love. Sometimes family is the deepest wound. And choosing not to let that wound keep bleeding into your life is not betrayal. It is survival.

Healing sounds like it should be safe. But in a toxic family, it can feel dangerous, because once you start seeing clearly, you can’t unsee.

For years, my family acted like my dad wasn’t violent or abusive. On the outside, he was a pastor, a missionary, someone admired in the community. People would tell me how lucky I was to have a father like him. Inside the walls of our home, though, it was a very different story.

As a kid, I learned quickly not to talk about it. If I hinted at his anger or how unsafe I felt, I was met with silence, denial, or worse. I was told I was exaggerating. Everyone acted like it wasn’t happening, so eventually, I did too. It felt safer to go along with the version of reality my family wanted me to believe.

It wasn’t until I started my own healing journey after my father died of brain cancer that the cracks in that story became impossible to ignore. Therapy, journaling, and honest conversations helped me put words to what I had lived through: abuse, violence, control. Once I saw it clearly, I couldn’t unsee it.

But here’s the cost. Healing didn’t bring me closer to my family; it made me the problem. Suddenly, I was “ungrateful,” “disrespectful,” or “turning against the family” just for telling the truth. Setting boundaries was treated like betrayal. My clarity threatened the image they wanted to protect, and in toxic families, that image often matters more than reality.

It’s painful to wake up and realize the people who raised you may never acknowledge your reality. Healing brought me grief. Grief for the dad I needed but didn’t have. Grief for the years of pretending. Grief for the family I still wish existed.

But healing also brought me freedom. I don’t have to minimize what happened. I don’t have to stay silent to protect someone else’s reputation.

The cost of healing in a toxic family is high. It may mean losing relationships or being misunderstood by the very people you wanted love from most. But the cost of not healing is even higher. Because once you see the truth, you cannot go back to living a lie.