The Cost of No Contact: What I've Lost, What I've Learned, and Why I'd Still Do It Again

A deeply personal story about walking away from people I’ve loved — and surviving it.

There are people I miss every single day.

People who are still alive. People who used to love me. People I used to love so hard it rearranged my nervous system.

People I’ve gone no contact with — sometimes out of necessity, sometimes out of desperation, sometimes out of pure survival.

And none of it has been clean.

There’s this idea that no contact is empowering. That it’s this bold boundary move. That it means you’re “done” with someone and stepping into your self-worth like a badass goddess.

And maybe it is. Eventually. But for me?

No contact has mostly felt like grief. Like guilt. Like second-guessing. Like tiny heartbreaks that still flare up when a memory slips in uninvited.

It Started With My Dad

He left before I turned one. In and out. Sometimes there, mostly not. And growing up in the ‘80s, I was the kid waiting for a phone call that never came. That’s not technically no contact — but it felt like it. And I internalized that silence hard.

At nine, my grandmother — my mom’s mom — cut off my mom after a fight. Half the family followed her. Which meant I was cut off too. No explanation. Just gone. I saw her once when I was a teenager, and once again at a wedding nearly 20 years ago. Cold. Distant. Nothing like the woman I remembered.

My dad’s mom also disappeared somewhere along the way. She died in 2010. I hadn’t spoken to her in years.

That’s the thing about no contact in families. It doesn’t always come with a decision. Sometimes it just happens… and you’re left with the ache.

The First One I Chose

The first no contact I consciously chose was my ex-husband. He was abusive. Controlling. Volatile. And I stayed for too long, like we all do. Because we’re scared. Because we don’t know what life on the other side will look like. Because we’ve been taught that endurance is love.

But when he drove drunk with my daughter in the car? That was it.

Phone blocked. Energy sealed. Door shut. And for the first time in years, I could hear myself think.

And Then There Was Him

The man I still think about every day. The one who gave me a kind of love I had never felt before: unconditional, open, raw. He told me from the start he wouldn’t stay forever. And I stayed anyway.

I stayed through the ache. Through the not-enoughness. Through the knowing. He didn’t hurt me. But his presence slowly unraveled my sense of worth. Not because he was cruel. He wasn’t. But because I was madly in love with someone who just wanted me “right now.” And that is the message I felt every single day.

I still ran to him, though… for 10 years. He was my sense of peace. My safe haven. My inner voice. I can see now that that distorted my view on all things “safe.” He is a drug to me. He is my heroin.

I am working daily to ensure that if I happen to see him in the future, and he looks me in my eyes, my nervous system won’t collapse. When I walked away the final time, I knew it had to be for good. So I blocked him. For both of us. I had to find new ways of finding comfort. And so did he.

It’s been five years. I still grieve him like a death.

There Are More Stories

Too many no contacts to fit into one post. Some were clean breaks. Others were messy fractures I still haven’t made sense of. Friends I thought were soulmates. Family members I begged to understand me. People I had to leave, not because I stopped loving them, but because loving them meant losing myself.

Some of those stories are still raw. Some still bleed when I touch them. But I’ll tell them. Eventually. Because I know I’m not the only one. And maybe hearing mine will help you make peace with yours.

More soon. I’ll keep writing these stories. There are pieces of me still healing, and I know there are pieces of you that are too.

— AudraHealing out loud, so you don't have to heal in silence.