Twelve years ago, I broke up with my mother. She beat me and my siblings hundreds of times in our youth, and she inflicted on us an array of other behaviors that qualified as emotional abuse — from insults and tirades to humiliation and gaslighting. Her abuse continued into my 40s, when after years of futile efforts to change the dynamic between us, I severed ties with her for good.

十二年前，我和母亲断绝了关系。我们小时候，她数以百计次殴打我和她的其他儿女，还对我们实施了一系列可被认定为情感虐待的行为，从辱骂、没完没了的数落到羞辱，再到精神操控。她的虐待一直持续到我40多岁。在历经多年徒劳地试图改变我们之间的关系后，我最终和她彻底断绝了往来。

I expected to feel guilt and grief after my decision, and I did. I didn’t expect to feel joy, but I did. Cutting ties with my mother was one of the most transformative, liberating moments of my entire life. It filled me with uplifting emotions — peace, pride, elation, anger (yes, anger can be uplifting) — that I had never felt before.

做出这个决定后，我料到自己会感到愧疚和悲伤，事实也确实如此。但我没想到自己还会感到喜悦。与母亲断绝关系是我人生中最具变革性、最让我感到解脱的时刻之一。它让我心中充满了从未有过的振奋情绪——平静、自豪、欢欣，甚至还有愤怒（没错，愤怒有时也能让人振奋）。

But for several years, I kept my happiness mostly to myself. During much of that time, my happiness took a back seat to my shame.

但在随后几年里，我基本上将这种喜悦深藏心底。在那段时间的大部分日子里，我的喜悦之情都被羞耻感所掩盖。

Cultural taboos against estrangement — cutting or limiting ties with relatives — make even the most well-intentioned souls withhold support from those who need and deserve it most. When I tell people I’ve written a book that argues for stepping away from relatives who have done us physical or psychological harm, the most common response is concern but not necessarily for those of us who step away. Many people worry about the family members who were cut off. “Isn’t that devastating for your relatives?” they ask. Or “Isn’t no contact kind of drastic?”

疏远亲人——切断或限制与亲人的联系——是一个文化禁忌，这使得即使是最善良的人也不会去向那些在这方面最急需也最应当得到帮助的人提供支持。当我告诉别人我写了一本书，主张和给我们造成身心伤害的亲人保持距离时，最常见的回应是表示担忧，但这种担忧并不一定是为我们这些选择疏远亲人的人而发。许多人担心的是那些被断绝关系的家庭成员。他们会问：“这对你的亲人来说不是毁灭性的打击吗？” 或者“完全不联系是不是有点极端了？”

Still others retain a fixation on reconciliation, even suggesting that advice to cut ties is immoral. Some openly questioned my ethics, reminding me that spanking was perfectly acceptable among my mother’s peers or assuring me that she was doing the best she could or berating me for my refusal to forgive and forget. For a long time, I was unable to offer the correct response to such judgments: No abuser’s ignorance or era or condition excuses her behavior any more than her treatment of us gives us license to abuse other people.

还有一些人一味地执着于和解，甚至认为建议断绝关系是不道德的。有些人公然质疑我的道德观念，提醒我说，在我母亲那一代人中，打孩子是完全可以接受的，或者向我保证说她已经尽力了，又或者指责我拒绝原谅和忘却。在很长一段时间里，对于这样的评判，我都无法给出恰当的回应：施虐者的无知、所处的时代或自身的状况不能成为其行为的借口，就如同她对我们的伤害也不能成为我们去虐待他人的理由一样。

My experience of abuse and estrangement, along with that of dozens of other survivors I spoke with, convinces me that estrangement is often the most moral option. What’s immoral is encouraging people to remain in relationships that hurt them.

我自己遭受虐待和疏远亲人的经历以及我与其他数十位幸存者交流的情况让我坚信，在很多时候，与施虐亲人疏远是最合乎道德的选择。鼓励人们继续维持那些伤害他们的关系才是不道德的。

For centuries, society has pressured us to protect the family unit at all costs and vilified us when we failed to do so. Clichés like “blood is thicker than water” have lately been augmented by pundits and aggrieved relatives who complain about the proliferation of hashtags like #toxicfamily and #nocontact on social media. The critics’ complaints are varied — from dismissing it as a TikTok fad to bemoaning spoiled millennials who see trauma in the ordinary ups and downs of family life to attacking therapists who, by advocating estrangement from family, are accused of ignoring the profession’s guidelines to do no harm. This criticism ignores the fact that some of the most commonly cited reasons for estrangement are abuse, neglect, untreated mental illness and addiction that hurt family members.

几个世纪以来，社会一直迫使我们不惜一切代价维护家庭的完整，而当我们未能做到时，又会对我们横加指责。“血浓于水”这样的陈词滥调最近又被一些专家和心怀不满的亲属们拿来反复提及，他们抱怨社交媒体上诸如“有毒家庭”和“断绝联系”等话题标签的泛滥。批评者们的不满五花八门，有人将其斥为爱抱怨、被宠坏的千禧一代在TikTok上制造的一时风潮，这些千禧一代在寻常家庭生活的起伏中都能看到创伤，还有人攻击那些提倡与家人疏远的心理治疗师，指责他们无视了行业中“不可伤人”的准则。这种批评忽略了一个事实：人们与亲人疏远时，最常提及的一些原因包括虐待、忽视、未得到治疗的精神疾病以及成瘾问题，而这些问题都对家庭成员造成了伤害。

The anti-estrangement attitude that prevails in all corners of society, from religion to psychology to pop culture, is grounded in a deep and often willful ignorance about the prevalence of child abuse, the serious harm it inflicts in childhood and beyond and the profound healing that can result from estrangement. Many people — even abuse survivors — fail to recognize the most common forms of maltreatment or grasp their deep impact on us.

从宗教到心理学再到流行文化，社会各个层面普遍存在的这种反对与亲人疏远的态度源于一种深刻且往往是故意的无知。这种无知关系到虐待儿童现象的普遍性、它在童年及之后所造成的严重伤害，以及与施虐亲人疏远后所能带来的深度治愈。许多人——甚至包括虐待幸存者——都未能认识到最常见的虐待形式，也没有理解这些虐待对我们产生的深远影响。

Almost everyone believes that sexual assault of a minor equals abuse, and many would agree that physical assault is abuse, too, although hitting a child is legal, to some extent, in all 50 states. But emotional abuse, a more common kind of maltreatment and the one most likely to persist into a survivor’s adulthood, often goes unnoticed. The most common kind of all, neglect, is itself one of the most neglected in our culture and among the most harmful.

很少有人会否认对未成年人的性侵犯属于虐待，很多人也会认同身体伤害是虐待，尽管美国50个州都在一定程度上允许打孩子。但情感虐待这种更常见也最有可能持续到幸存者成年后的虐待形式却常常被无视。而“忽视”这个最常见的虐待形式本身就是我们文化中最被忽视的问题之一，同时也是危害最大的问题之一。

Only after I started researching my book did I discover the pervasive silence that hides the intertwined phenomena of abuse and estrangement. This silence starts early, and it often starts at home. Kids are hard-wired to believe that whatever they experience in the home is normal and to put their caregivers on a pedestal, regardless of how they treat them. Abusers cement that belief by convincing kids that they deserve their abuse. Institutions like schools and churches can add to the stigma, either with potentially toxic messages like “honor thy father and mother” and “turn the other cheek” or with no teaching at all. Then there are the sins of omission committed by all those — relatives, neighbors, friends — who may witness abuse but say or do nothing.

直到我开始为写书做研究时，我才发现，对这一问题的普遍沉默掩盖了虐待与疏远相互交织的现象。这种沉默很早就开始了，而且往往始于家庭内部。孩子们天生就会认为，他们在家庭中所经历的一切都是正常的，并且会把照顾他们的人奉若神明，无论这些人如何对待他们。施虐者通过让孩子们相信他们活该被虐待，进一步强化了这种观念。学校和教堂等机构可能会加剧这种污名化，要么传递一些潜在有害的信息，比如“孝敬父母”和“要以德报怨”，要么根本就对此不做任何教导。此外，还有那些可能目睹了虐待行为却什么都不说、什么都不做的亲戚、邻居和朋友们，他们这种不作为也是一种罪过。

Pop culture also normalizes family dysfunction, tacitly encouraging us to endure difficult relatives rather than estrange them. Popular TV series, from “The Sopranos” to “Succession,” show us clans that stick together season after season despite abuse that would be suspect if anyone other than a relative perpetrated it. And we’re awash in a sea of self-help books, podcasts and videos that urge us to set aside our sadness, forgive and forget, be grateful for what we have, accept that everything happens for a reason and draw good things to us by thinking only good thoughts. This toxic positivity makes us ignore our emotions and stifle our pain, which lets our abusers, and the culture that abets them, off the hook.

流行文化也使家庭功能失调变得常态化，默认鼓励我们忍受难缠的亲人，而不是与他们疏远。从《黑道家族》(The Sopranos)到《继承之战》(Succession)等热门电视剧向我们展示了一个个家族，其中的行为如果不是亲人在实施，估计就会被认为有虐待之嫌了，但是，一季又一季，这些家族维系在一起。我们还被大量的自助书籍、播客和视频所包围，这些内容都敦促我们抛开悲伤，选择原谅和忘却，对我们所拥有的心怀感激，接受一切发生皆有其因的观点，只有往好处想才会有好事发生。这种有害的积极态度让我们忽视自己的情感，压抑自己的痛苦，从而让施虐者以及助长这种行为的文化得以逃脱应有的指责。

All these forces and more obscure the scope and impact of abuse. Research suggests that child maltreatment may increase the risk that one will suffer a slew of ailments in adulthood: diabetes, high blood pressure, lung disease, cancer, stroke, depression, anxiety, addiction, relationship problems, suicidal ideation and more. Few survivors recognize these conditions as the fallout of abuse; instead, we tend to see them as normal or as innate mental or physical flaws for which we blame ourselves. Fueled by shame, too many of us keep quiet and forgo the support we might receive by sharing our experiences with other survivors.

所有这些因素乃至更多其他因素都掩盖了虐待行为的范围和影响。研究表明，虐待儿童可能会增加一个人在成年后患上一系列疾病的风险，包括糖尿病、高血压、肺部疾病、癌症、中风、抑郁症、焦虑症、成瘾问题、人际关系问题、自杀念头等等。很少有幸存者意识到这些状况是虐待行为的后果，相反，我们往往认为这些是正常的，或者是我们自身内在的精神或身体缺陷，并因此而自责。在羞耻感的驱使下，我们中太多人选择保持沉默，放弃了通过与其他幸存者分享经历而可能获得的支持。

But others are speaking out — and stepping away — at last. I began writing my book just as estrangement became an epidemic, as Joshua Coleman, a psychologist who has studied the phenomenon extensively, and Will Johnson, the chief executive of the Harris Poll, have called it. In the past year alone, stories in The New York Times, The New Yorker, The Guardian, NPR, Oprah Daily, Vogue and elsewhere pondered the implications of this apparent uptick. And a Harris Poll conducted in November in collaboration with Dr. Coleman buttressed the anecdotal evidence I shared above, putting the proportion of estranged Americans at 1 in 2. (The previous benchmark — 27 percent — came from a Cornell study published just four years earlier.) These numbers disprove one of the most persistent myths about estrangement: that it’s rare. In fact, it is perhaps becoming the norm.

但终于，一些人开始发声，并选择断绝联系。在我开始动笔写我的书时，恰逢对这一现象有大量研究的心理学家约书亚·科尔曼和哈里斯民意调查公司首席执行官威尔·约翰逊开始声称，与亲人疏远已经成为一种流行现象。仅在过去一年里，《纽约时报》《纽约客》《卫报》、美国国家公共电台、《奥普拉每日杂志》《Vogue》等媒体都探讨了这种明显增加的现象所带来的影响。去年11月，哈里斯民调与科尔曼合作进行的一项民意调查也印证了我上面所分享的那些轶事证据，调查显示，美国有一半的人曾与亲人疏远（而此前的基准数据是27%，来自四年前康奈尔大学发表的一项研究）。这些数据推翻了关于与亲人疏远的一个最持久的错误观念，即认为这种情况很罕见。事实上，它或许正逐渐成为一种常态。

Estrangement’s growing visibility reveals a shift in social attitudes brought about by several factors. Among them is the pandemic, which thrust some families into painfully close quarters and offered others a hiatus that some members came to relish. More young people are in therapy than in previous generations, and they’re more knowledgeable about concepts like trauma, narcissism and complex post-traumatic stress disorder that relate to abuse. Yet another is the opportunity social media gives people with abusive relatives to support one another and escape the isolating stigma that society, family and even well-meaning friends impose.

与亲人疏远的现象越来越多地出现在人们的视野中，揭示了社会态度的转变，而这种转变是由多种因素共同促成的。其中一个因素是新冠疫情，它让一些家庭的成员被迫长时间共处，痛苦不堪，而对另一些家庭来说，它提供了一个休息的机会，有些成员甚至开始享受这种状态。与前几代人相比，现在接受心理治疗的年轻人更多了，他们对创伤、自恋以及与虐待相关的复杂创伤后应激障碍等概念也有了更多的了解。还有一个因素是，社交媒体为那些遭亲人施虐的人提供了相互支持的机会，让他们能够摆脱社会、家庭甚至是出于好心的朋友所施加的那些让人倍感孤立的污名。

Whatever the causes, I’m profoundly encouraged to see signs of a decline in the shame and stigma that have so long prevented survivors from embracing the lifesaving potential of estrangement. For me, it was the healthiest possible choice, and that’s true for other survivors of parental abuse. One of them told me he had cut ties with his father “to save my life.” Another declared: “I feel proud that I did it. I want to get a tattoo with the date.”

无论原因是什么，我看到幸存者选择与施虐亲人疏远可能带来的羞耻感和污名化在减少，这让我深感鼓舞，长期以来，正是这些羞耻和污名促使人们不愿意做出一个可能拯救生命的决定。对我来说，这是我能做出的最健康的选择，对于其他遭受父母虐待的幸存者来说也是如此。其中一位幸存者告诉我，他与父亲断绝关系“是为了自救”。另一位则宣称：“我为自己的决定感到骄傲。我想在身上纹上断绝关系的日期。”

I don’t recall the exact date of my estrangement; otherwise, I might do the same thing. I consider that date as significant as my birthday. Maybe more so, because it’s the day I finally stepped out of my mother’s dark shadow and into my own light.

我不记得我与母亲断绝关系的确切日期了，不然我可能也会这么做。我认为那个日期和我的生日一样重要，也许更重要，因为那一天，我终于走出了母亲的阴影，迎来了属于自己的光明。