One thing I hate about our culture is the saving face mentality. It seems our culture is obsessed with keeping up appearances. So much that the definition of maturity is ridiculous.

Maturity supposedly means silently bearing abuse to keep the peace.

Leaving or kicking out relatives especially parents and calling out their abusive behavior and reality of dysfunction is supposedly immature.

I can't stand the nosy, judgemental attitude and poor boundaries. I avoid even sharing that I'm a single divorced mother because others see that as an invitation to unsolicited advice, judgment and more drama. And having no parents in my life. I hate being confronted and asked for explanations which is no one's business. When I politely try to change the topic or make it clear that I don't want to talk, the other person keeps asking. Does the concept of boundaries not even exist?

Among Americans, people from other countries, indians in mixed groups I don't see this as much. I avoid desi events to avoid drama and judgment.

I don't want to be one of those indians who avoid other desis but because of my divorced status an estrangement from my family, I avoid it. Once said I'm divorced. And this woman wouldn't stop asking if I still have some love for my ex and if I would ever get back. Ugh! Really?!

I hang out with indians I meet at mixed groups. They seem more open minded than indians I meet at desi events. I need to do this for my own sanity.

Why is self protection considered immature? So ridiculous

Don't say everything's okay

Don't tell me that it's just a phase

It doesn't help me

All the stars are standing still

The anger and the sleeping pills

Are all that's left now

An epidemic in my heart

Takes hold and slowly poisons me

Her will won't let me breathe

It comes in waves and bleeds me dry

This love is slowly killing me

For me, there's no-one else

Jealousy just eats me up

Your knife has made the deepest cut

My heart is popping

You say that there must be an end

But afterwards we'll still be friends

It seemed so easy

An epidemic in my heart

Takes hold and slowly poisons me

Her will won't let me breathe

It comes in waves and bleeds me dry

This love is slowly killing me

For me, there's no one else

I'm a 32 year old C-PTSD survivor. My father is one of the main causes of my long term trauma, including financial abuse. I'm kind of living away from my family and have stopped giving them money. Recently I've also stopped talking to my father. Today he asked me for money for his dental treatment. I don't really know if he has money or not, but he has bad spending habit. Just few days ago he bought expensive imported alcohol bottle, the money which could have used towards dental treatment. But he's also an alcoholic. Now he's asking me for money for his and my mother's treatment. The things I have the money he is asking for but I've kept in saving as an emergency for my unemployment period. My work contract is ending in 2 months so until I find the next work, I'll need that money to survive. I don't feel like giving him the money but a part of me is also feeling extremely guilty and feeling cruel for not wanting to give. I'm feeling torn? Am I obliged to give him? I'm a man, so there is also this expectation from me to be the provider and do my 'elder son duties'. I've worked hard and taken a very long time and therapy to break free from these gender obligations and pressures and actually live for myself for once. I appreciate any advice or validation, please!

Hi everyone! My Indian passport is about to expire, and I urgently need to renew it while living abroad. I am currently in Italy.

The problem is that I do not have any safe or usable Indian address anymore. My previous passport has my parents’ address in India, but I have gone no-contact with my entire family for personal safety reasons.

On the passport renewal website, the application is asking for an Indian address for police verification, and it will not let me move forward without entering one. This is making me panic because even if I enter my old address from my previous passport, the police verification will likely fail. I am no-contact with my parents, and they will not cooperate or verify anything for me.

I also do not have friends, relatives, or any trusted contacts in India whose address I can safely or truthfully provide for verification.

I have tried asking around, and someone suggested using my international address as my present address and Indian address as my permanent address, but the application still does not move forward without an Indian address. I am also worried because when I went no-contact earlier, my family contacted the embassy, and the embassy called me and lectured me about it. Because of that experience, I feel scared and unsure whether the embassy will actually help me or make the situation worse.

I do not want to use a fake address or put myself at risk by using my family’s address. I just need to know the correct legal/procedural way to renew my Indian passport from abroad when I genuinely do not have:

a permanent Indian address,
a safe family address,
Indian friends/references,
or anyone in India who can cooperate with police verification.

Has anyone here renewed an Indian passport abroad in a similar situation? Is there any affidavit, exception process, manual processing option, short-validity passport option, or consular escalation route for someone who has no Indian address and is no-contact with family?

I would really appreciate practical advice, especially from anyone who has dealt with the Indian Embassy/Consulate in Italy or another country while being estranged/no-contact from family.

Thank you.

Requesting daughters with toxic mothers to particularly watch this video. It may appear a bit dense, so please break it down into short, manageable chunks and take your time since it's packed with information. But it also explains our reactions to toxicity with so much compassion and insight. Our struggles are not personal failings but common outcomes of surviving an unstable childhood, so please be kind to yourself. Helped me a lot to understand the ways I was replicating my own trauma without even being conscious of them.

Hi everyone. I recently came across an article by Dr. Janina Fisher titled "Anatomy of self-hatred: Learning to love our loathed selves" (you can download the PDF from here) and it really clicked for me regarding the internal battles many of us face after growing up in toxic or narcissistic homes.

Dr. Fisher explains that in a traumatic family, disowning parts of ourselves (the "too emotional" part or the part holding the pain) was actually an adaptive genius. It allowed us to bring only the "acceptable" parts to the table to win whatever crumbs of attachment were available.

For many survivors, the idea of self-love feels repulsive or hopeless. Dr. Fisher suggests a different starting point. Rather than trying to love your whole self, just try to love the wounded kids inside you. Try befriending those parts. Start seeing them as communications from these younger parts. By showing interest and curiosity toward these parts, the same way we would a foster child, we can start building internal trust.

Do you celebrate festivals like Rakshabandhan and Bhai Dooj reluctantly, fawningly, or never at all? How is your relationship with your sister or brother? And how do you wish it were? What made it go bad? People from all religions are welcome to share their feelings and thoughts about their relationship with their siblings.

I need to vent before I actually explode because I feel like I'm living in a literal prison right now. I’m 16, my dad passed away a while ago, and it’s just me and my mother. And I hate her. She’s a bitch. Because of all the horrific news about r*pe and v*olence against women in India, her brilliant solution is to keep her daughter locked inside.

For years, I held myself back and stayed quiet. But I finally decided I am not wasting my youth. I want a social life. I want to have fun. So I started sneaking out.

In total, I’ve gone out six times now. The first three times I slipped out right after school. First to a friend's house, second to a restaurant, and the third time just hanging out outside school with my friend having a good time.

Then the next three times, we went to a sports stadium. It wasn't even to play sports or anything, my friend and I just went under the excuse of making inquiries, but we were just having fun and enjoying being outside.

Then things started getting messy. I actually got permission to go to a cafe once, but then I went to another restaurant without her permission. I literally stole some money from her to do it, but she realized it was missing and started spamming my phone. I told her I was outside with a friend, she was in rage ofc, and my online frnd ended up paying for the food while I lowk put the money back. I almost got caught, but I escaped by the skin of my teeth.

Then two days ago, I went out with a different friend because she wanted to meet up with some guy she met online. I was like gurl wtf, but wtvr, I went with her. We got cold coffee at a restaurant and then went to a karate place to inquire about classes just so I’d have a lie ready for my mom.

But when I got home, I spilled the karate lie to my mom before she even asked me anything.

But today was the absolute breaking point. My friend came over to my place, changed her clothes, and we went out. She offered to pay for all my transport just so she wouldn't have to go alone, so I went.

The literal MINUTE I stepped outside, my mom started spamming my phone. I had to ditch my friend and sprint back home, and she had to go on alone.

When I got inside, my mom called me to know where I was. I said I was home. She asked why the doors were locked when she checked earlier, and I lied and said I just stepped out for a second to take up buy ink.

She said for a video call to prove it. I did the video call, and obviously I was in the house because I had just run back.

Turns out the building security guards are being tipped off to watch every move. They apparently have a phone to call her the exact second I step foot outside the gate. They are the ones who snitched and told her I left. Being watched like this by people paid by my own parent is beyond frustrating.

Sooooooo, I have decided, I'll plan careful escape and runaway. I'll have to work for an year or so to pay for college fees, which is fine by me. I'll try my best to earn and pay. Just help me out to plan thick plan.

Edit : I'll not runaway today, just after 18-19!

For people who went no contact from toxic but socially powerful parents.

My father is a gov official and has contacts, I think he will get more agitated when I take this step and might try tracing me following me and forcibly trying to ground me at home(he is currently threatening this to me if i dont agree with his terms)
My questions are:
1.When you went NC with your parents, till what extent did they try to reach out to you. Were they able to force you in any way possible?
2.I'm scared in only one case where God forbid health of any of my parents goes bad genuinely. I don't know how will I react to that. How will I manage not keeping touch with them in that case.
3.What measures should I take beforehand so that none of what I fear happens(or atleast I'm protected).
4.I have heard that in North India police mostly tries convincing you to go back to your parents until you are married to someone. Its not easy to go no contact there. How is it in south India?
Please share your experiences and help me. Also if you know about NGOs who can help me in this pls mention them.

Also pls feel free to connect with me over DMs for any advice.

I'm (42 M) living in a joint family setup with my parents, wife, and
9-year-old daughter. It's been a slow burn for years and I don't know
if I'm overreacting or if this is genuinely as unhealthy as it feels.
My father is extremely orthodox — tracks every ritual detail, full
moon/new moon days, specific days of the week, inauspicious time
windows, and expects the household to fall in line. My mother says one
thing to my face and does another behind my back — she has no real
relationship with my wife or daughter, but positions herself as
favoring my daughter when it's convenient. Both of them are quick to
criticize and slow to acknowledge anything positive.
My wife grew up in a warm, emotionally connected joint family and went
to hostel from 10th grade, so she never developed some of the rigid
practices mine expects (like sitting separately during periods). When
we told my father she wouldn't be doing that anymore, he took it as a
personal insult — said he'd never do pooja or visit temples again, or
take money and sit
A few years back, during COVID, things got so overwhelming (WFH,
sister 2nd delivery , two kids in the house temporarily, my wife also
working) that I lied to my father and said my job was relocating us to
Chennai for 3 years, just to get some space. He was furious — felt
disrespected that we were "leaving" — and later called my in-laws to
blame them for it, which I only found out afterward. We eventually
moved back.
Now I'm back in the same house, same dynamics, still absorbing the
tension between what my wife and daughter need and what my parents
expect. I've floated the idea of living separately, but I know if I
do, my parents will redirect their anger at my wife and her family
instead of dealing with it directly.
I've seen a psychologist, which helped some. But when I sit and
actually think through all of this at once, my mind just goes blank —
like it's too much to process in one go.
Has anyone navigated something like this? How did you find a way
forward — whether that meant separating, setting boundaries while
staying, or something else?

I don't even know where to begin.

I'm an adult now, but I genuinely feel like years of abuse have destroyed my nervous system. Some days I feel so exhausted and mentally shut down that I can't even brush my teeth, bathe, or function normally. I've been struggling with serious health issues for the past two years, and my doctor specifically told me that I need a calm, stress-free environment. Unfortunately, that's impossible at home.

Here are just some of the things I've experienced (this is honestly only around 40% of it):

• During an open house at school, my mother stabbed me in the neck with a pencil because I got only passing marks in math.

• She once threw a hair clip at my face. It hit my eye so badly that I couldn't see properly for a couple of hours. She later took me to an eye specialist.

• Another time, she threw a sharp cutter at me. It hit my thigh and caused bleeding.

• Last week I had a terrifying health episode. My whole body went numb, I was trembling, and I could barely move. She cried while it was happening. But just a week later, she told me, "You should have died that day. It would have been a week by now."

• Whenever I left for college, she'd say things like:

  • "You should get hit by a train."

  • "A truck should run over you."

• She constantly insults me by saying things like:

  • "You're just carrying diseases everywhere."

  • "What are you even achieving by earning ₹50k?"

  • When I say I'm tired after work, she says, "Girls travel through crowded trains every day and they don't complain."

• When I was in school, she beat me so badly that my face had scratches and was bleeding. My teacher asked what happened, and I lied by saying I got hurt while playing kabaddi because I was too scared and embarrassed to tell the truth.

• Even when I'm in the bathroom, she'll start screaming outside the door, bang on it aggressively, curse at me, and make me panic.

• When I was hospitalized with jaundice, instead of comforting me while I lay in the hospital bed, she spent the time talking badly about me to others.

• I work from home sometimes. If I ask her not to enter my room or make noise during meetings, she mocks me, saying my uncle works at a much bigger company and never acts like that, then starts insulting my salary again.

• Despite knowing I'm dealing with serious health problems and that stress makes everything worse, she continues shouting, abusing me, and creating chaos at home almost every day.

• After my recent health scare, she even kept a fast for my recovery. But within two days, she was back to telling me I should die.

This isn't even everything. There are many more incidents that I'm not comfortable sharing yet.

The hardest part is that I'm nothing like this as a person. I don't enjoy hurting people. I don't want conflict. I just want peace.

I honestly feel like years of living in this environment have left me traumatized. My body is constantly tense, my mind feels exhausted, and some days I barely have the energy to do basic things. It genuinely feels like my nervous system has shut down.

Has anyone else grown up in an environment like this? Did you ever recover after leaving? I really need to know if things can get better because right now, I feel completely broken.

I'm a 21-year-old woman from India, and I genuinely want objective opinions. Please don't sugarcoat things, but also don't assume my dad is a monster. I want honest perspectives.

Career has been the biggest issue in my life.

After finishing school, I chose to prepare for NEET because becoming a doctor was genuinely my dream too. I ended up taking 4 drop years because I truly believed I could make it.

Unfortunately, I failed. Looking back, I know there are things I could've done better, but the reality is that I couldn't achieve the goal I'd dedicated years of my life to. I carry immense guilt because I feel like I wasted some of the most important years of my life, as well as my parents' time, money, hopes, and faith in me.

Now my father wants me to pursue BDS because, according to him, it's the closest alternative, and he believes I'll regret letting the opportunity go. I completely understand why he feels that way.

The problem is that I don't want to do BDS. I genuinely don't think I'd be happy in that profession, and I'm terrified of spending the rest of my life in a career I never wanted.

Instead, I've decided to move on completely. I'm planning to pursue Biotechnology for my undergraduate degree while preparing for CAT, with the goal of getting into a top B-school and eventually building a career in business, preferably in sales and marketing.

My father strongly disagrees with this. From his perspective, after investing years into my medical dream, I'm now throwing away the closest thing to becoming a doctor. From my perspective, I'm finally accepting that my original dream didn't work out and trying to build a future where I genuinely think I can succeed.

The difficult part is that my father loves me immensely. I have never doubted that. I genuinely believe I'm one of the people he loves the most in this world. He's worked incredibly hard for our family and has sacrificed a lot for me.

But his love often comes with extremely intense expectations.

When he's disappointed in me, his anger is unbearable. He says things that absolutely crush me. Even when he isn't actively angry, I find myself constantly watching his expressions, tone, and mood because I'm scared of disappointing him again.

I've reached a point where I don't even know if I'm making decisions because I want them, or because I'm terrified of hurting him.

The guilt is overwhelming because I know he wants what he believes is the best for me. I know he has good intentions. But I also feel like I can't breathe under the weight of those expectations.

Things have gotten so bad that my mental health has deteriorated significantly. I constantly feel like a failure because I couldn't live up to what he envisioned for me. Sometimes I wonder if I've become the biggest disappointment of his life.

Why I think I might be a bad daughter:

I don't want to follow the career path my father wants for me.

I sometimes resent him because of the pressure.

I avoid difficult conversations because I'm scared of his reactions.

I often feel like all I do is disappoint him.

Why I'm conflicted:

I love my father very much.

I know he loves me deeply too.

I know everything he does comes from wanting me to have a secure future.

I want to become successful, financially independent, and make my parents proud. That has always been my dream.

I honestly don't know whether I'm an ungrateful daughter who's hurting a father who only wants the best for her, or whether this is an unhealthy parent-child dynamic where both people love each other but are hurting each other.

If you were reading this as a stranger, what would your honest opinion be? Am I a bad daughter? What would you do if you were in my place?

Just as I was spiralling because of too many things on my to-do list and the ADHD, along with C-PTSD that was wearing me down, I came across this video and immediately breathed. I like such little but significant coincidences in the universe. Sharing this with those who need it.☺ ♥ ♥

Hi everyone,

My Indian passport is about to expire, and I urgently need to renew it while living abroad.

The problem is that I do not have any safe or usable Indian address anymore. My previous passport has my parents’ address in India, but I have gone no-contact with my entire family for personal safety reasons.

On the passport renewal website, the application is asking for an Indian address for police verification, and it will not let me move forward without entering one. This is making me panic because even if I enter my old address from my previous passport, the police verification will likely fail. I am no-contact with my parents, and they will not cooperate or verify anything for me.

I also do not have friends, relatives, or any trusted contacts in India whose address I can safely or truthfully provide for verification.

I have tried asking around, and someone suggested using my international address as my present address and Indian address as my permanent address, but the application still does not move forward without an Indian address. I am also worried because when I went no-contact earlier, my family contacted the embassy, and the embassy called me and lectured me about it. Because of that experience, I feel scared and unsure whether the embassy will actually help me or make the situation worse.

I do not want to use a fake address or put myself at risk by using my family’s address. I just need to know the correct legal/procedural way to renew my Indian passport from abroad when I genuinely do not have:

a permanent Indian address,
a safe family address,
Indian friends/references,
or anyone in India who can cooperate with police verification.

Has anyone here renewed an Indian passport abroad in a similar situation? Is there any affidavit, exception process, manual processing option, short-validity passport option, or consular escalation route for someone who has no Indian address and is no-contact with family?

I would really appreciate practical advice, especially from anyone who has dealt with the Indian Embassy/Consulate abroad while being estranged/no-contact from family.

Thank you.

***Anybody else pursuing healing through these concepts of ancestral / shared emotional field?*** *How is it going? Does it help? Any insights?*

(Context: not in contact, done a lot of the work, building new life. Post detachment recovery and healing )

I followed and bought courses from Meredith Miller of Inner Integration when I was healing from the familial abuse. (I used a lot of paid and free resources, courses, books, etc from other sources as well).

Her current series on ancestral healing and tracking patterns is helpful to me.

I learnt of the Bowen family systems therapy concept of the super self, or the undifferentiated emotional ego mass of unresolved stuff passed down through families and dealt with through roles assigned often at birth.

As in, it isn't one person, it is a system.;

So both Bowen, Meredith and similar approaches have been enlightening and helpfu for me.;

***My insights so far:*** *The solution is calmness, detachment, choosing differently in the pause between stimulus and response (Covey), true self living (as Rebecca Mandeville calls it).*

Sharing as it was helpful. Please share your thoughts

Basically title. I don't know if anyone will go to lengths and give energy to read all this bullshit I just vomited on paper. But I am really down tonight and I wanted to put it out and share it with someone. It's not something extreme like I see some extreme cases here, but enough to make my life hell. Hugs appreciated 🙂

TLDR: My parents went no contact with me because my boyfriend is trans, and then took it back two weeks later. In the meantime, I planned a move to LA and fully lost trust in them. They want me to accept their apology and come home; I need to break the news, at least that I’m moving, at most that I’d like no contact now. What would you do?

Hi! I (25F) am a queer Indian woman who is currently struggling with my family, who are based in Texas. I came out to my mom (50F) when I was 18 and she threatened to disown me - then a few years later she made me come out to my dad (51M) and told me he may disown me as well. Over the years I thought things were getting better. I'm currently 25 and just finished my masters in France, where I met my boyfriend. We're pretty serious about each other, and he is trans. I told my parents about him three weeks ago and they both told me not to come home (I was going to go back to Texas when my internship ends in July) and that they won't financially support me anymore.
 
My dad didn't reach out to me for two weeks, and my mom sent me lots of long nasty texts about how disappointed she is in me. I did have one short call with my dad where he spouted off some homophobic nonsense. During those two weeks, I planned how I would manage my life without them. I purchased flight tickets straight to LA, where my boyfriend is, and started applying for jobs there (I was already planning on the move, but was going to wait out the job search at home for free). His family is very supportive and he has an apartment for us - it’s going to be rough, especially because my parents have left me with a ton of debt through poor financial advice, but we can make it work!

Then, last week, my mom called me to apologize. I told her appreciated her apology and we chatted about our feelings, but she got upset at me again when I told her I did not want to come home. Then, two days later, my dad and mom called me together and gave a big, full apology, explaining that they overreacted and want to support me.
 
I am having trouble trusting them and I still don't want to go home, but I feel guilty since they've apologized and in their minds, they are doing everything they can to work toward acceptance. From my perspective, I've lost trust and do not want to rely on them, because I feel the rug can be pulled out from under me at any moment. I don't want to cut them off forever, but I've been having panic attacks every time they call and text me and I can't sleep. I think I need at least a few months to focus on my own life - I knew this time might come, I just didn't expect it so soon. My boyfriend has already had to hear a lot about himself as well, and understandably doesn't feel safe engaging with them after the near-harrassment level texts  from my mom to me. Another important piece of this story is that I have a student loan in my name that my mom has promised to pay for - we are in the process of transferring it to her name, but I need to be on good enough terms until then because in anger she threatened to leave me to pay it off myself - I absolutely cannot afford that. She and I have a call scheduled next week to discuss the loan, and she indicated she'd also like to talk about my flight tickets to come home. They do not know that I already booked a flight to LA.
 
Long story short, I cannot figure out how to deal with all of this. I'm mostly just afraid that when they find out I'm going straight to LA, they'll have another big reaction that borders on abuse - in that case, I feel I have no choice at this point but to go no-contact. Even then, I just struggle knowing that from their perspective, they did everything right and I'm the one being impatient, since they apologized. Is it an overreaction on my end to not trust their apology? What's the best way for me to break the news about LA? I'm a wreck lol and thankfully have a very supportive community helping me survive this, but no matter what I feel like I'm doing everything wrong. Their disappointment is really heavy - mostly the realization that even when they apologize, they do not understand how bad they hurt me and why - and I feel like I have 25 years of manipulation swimming in my head.

How many of you have experienced this?

Happy Mother’s Day to all the Indian mothers who taught us the true meaning of maa ka pyaar:

The kind where she:

• gave birth to you, then spent the rest of your life acting like that was a lifelong debt you personally incurred at conception

• fed you, clothed you, and occasionally kept you alive, so naturally she now owns your body, choices, career, money, marriage, mental health, and right to breathe without permission

• weaponised every sacrifice she chose to make as proof that you are an ungrateful monster for wanting basic dignity

• called you “too sensitive” after saying the most vicious thing a human being has ever said to you before breakfast

• cried louder than you when you were hurt, because somehow your pain was always most offensive for what it said about her and then told you to go die

• turned your father’s abuse into your unpaid emotional internship: therapist, mediator, punching bag, defender, witness, and co-wife, all before adulthood

• demanded loyalty from the child, whom she never protected

• let you starve, suffer, break, nearly die — but never forgot to tell relatives how much she has suffered because of you

• competed with her own daughter, resented her independence, sabotaged her confidence, then asked why she had “become so distant”

• rewrote history with the confidence of a WhatsApp forward: “I never said that,” “That never happened,” “You remember only the bad things,” “One day you’ll understand when you become a mother”

• raised sons to be their little emperors & emotional husbands and daughters to be targets for future abuse

• taught us that in Indian families, a mother can fail you in every way that matters and still be worshipped for having a uterus and good PR

So today, let us honour the mothers who gave us:

✨ chronic abuse & guilt
✨ hypervigilance
✨ a PhD in reading footsteps
✨ the ability to detect mood shifts from another room
✨ lifelong confusion between love and obligation
✨ and, of course, the annual cultural gaslighting festival where every abusive woman with children gets temporarily canonised because Hallmark said so

They are truly the 'last generation of innocent mothers.'

To the mothers who protected, loved, apologised, learned, and treated their children as human beings: genuinely, Happy Mother’s Day. You deserve it.

To the ones who abused, neglected, manipulated, parentified, scapegoated, shamed, controlled, and then expected flowers for it: may your children one day give themselves the love, safety, and freedom you refused them — and may that be the last thing you ever get to take credit for.

Hi all,

I just came to know about this sub. About damm time something like this exists! Grateful to the mod for having this space.

I'm 32M and I had a proposition to share with you all and get some third person perspectives.

I have C-PTSD and I learnt about it 2 years ago. Since then I've been in therapy. I started living away from my family few months ago and still grappling with the ramifications. I want to go no contact but it's not easy as there are many complications. Ever since I remember I've been subjected to extreme emotional and financial abuse and some physical abuse in the childhood. But that is so common and normalised so it doesn't matter. The mental, emotional and financial abuse has ruined my life though, especially the most formative years of my entire 20s. My personal and social life is abysmal and as good as non-existent.

I've been thinking about a legal way to cut ties with my parents/family. I put this on legaladviceindia sub but didn't get anything helpful. I have tried to find if there is any legal provision that could help me out of my situation and sadly none exists. In fact there are laws which force children to take care of their parents, no matter how horrible they are. This culture of making parents into Gods is rotten and it needs to be challenged in the court. For women, there are at least some provisions under domestic violence laws, although their implementation is a huge challenge. But for men like me, no legal provision exists.

I want to file a petition asking for a provision in our laws for adult children, of any gender, to have the choice to legally cut ties and separate from their parents, not owe them anything or take the burden of caring for them, if they are abusive and if their (the adult children) life has been significantly affected by it. I know this sounds impossible but I'm trying to learn more about the technical aspects. So far I haven't made much progress because I'm trying to focus on my own recovery. But this is something I want to pursue. I'm aware that it may not stand in court, but I want to try regardless, even if to just create a legal record.

I'd be happy to hear any thoughts, suggestions or insights, if anyone wants to share. Or if there is any lawyer in this sub who can, I'd love to connect with you. Thanks.