Does the way I explain the process of my healing really matter?

Recently, I came across a person’s live event on social media. This person was asking a question relating to a valid experience that many of us go through. “What would you do if you found out that someone close to you is jealous of you?”

The speaker of this live event asked for responses after which they gave their own response based on their experiences. The speaker stated that it’s difficult to remain in a relationship with someone who is jealous (envious) of you. From my own experience, I can vouch that I totally agree.

In fact, I have lived through this experience in a cyclic fashion when it has come to dealing with narcissistic individuals. I have found that I could not continue on the same path with a person who is jealous or envious of me and wants my life or wants to be me. All the while that I had been trying to relate and connect to these individuals, they were literally despising me and projecting their hate onto me.

So, naturally, I replied to the speaker that I would cut such a person off and out of my life. As much as I have love these people, the progression of the relationship I believed I had with them only waxed worse with them because their jealousy and envy of me only widened against me that much more. Much to my surprise, this speaker was not pleased with my response.

The speaker responded to me with, “Let’s be adults here. Cutting people off is childish. You should know better.” What? That was my train of thought. What? I don’t get it. To say I was a bit taken aback by the speaker’s response was an understatement. I was confused, but then the speaker went on to address how cutting people off is immature even though the speaker never took the time to consider my process for doing so.

Instead of considering the process of what I went through, the speaker was ultimately hooked on my statement, “I cut them off.” I had to wonder why my phrase even mattered if the act of letting the people go is what I did. The speaker went on to explain that “Mature adults don’t cut people off. They let people go. When they realize that people no longer want to be a part of their lives, they simply release them. They don’t cut them off. Cutting them off implies they were immature about it.”

I suppose I was a little too blunt in my response regarding my process, but I was never immature about it. I tried to explain how painful the process was in coming to my decision since each of my connections were with people I loved dearly and figured would be in my life for years to come. This speaker simply couldn’t accept what they considered my use of slang by implying I gave those situations and people the ax. (((Shrug))) But does it really matter?

The process of my healing has been tumultuous … not an easy task or a fascinating cake-walk at all. When I listened to the speaker rattle on about my incorrect terminology, I couldn’t help but wonder if my phrasing or wording of the process of how I have dealt with past situations makes me appear as immature. I realized, however, that regardless of how I phrase my process, I was the one who walked through it.

Either way, I severed ties with people who did not have my ultimate best interests in their sights. I severed ties with narcissists. Cutting them off, letting them go, releasing them, or walking away all concludes my relationships with them. Those relationships are no more. They are cut off from my life. The process for each one, either way, was a painful but sobering one. Letting go of people I have loved and still love was never easy.

When I think of cutting someone off, it’s a done deal. There is no going back. As with a tree, there is no regrowth of a cut off or severed limb. It is easier for me to live my life without a limb that has no use or that weighs me down with toxicity. So, I sever that limb. I do not replace. I simply do my best to move on in the hopes that broken place will heal. Some connections just aren’t meant to be, and even if I have ever felt that some of those connections were meant to be, life happens and changes occur that are beyond my ability to control.

If I am dealing with someone who is toxic, it’s my decision about what I am going to do. I do not believe that “cutting someone off” is an implication of immaturity. It’s simply an indication that I no longer deal with that person. No one knows what it took for me to come to that point … to make it happen. No one knows even how long it took for me to come to that point. The maturity is in my ability to actually do something about it no matter what I decide in the end. I, alone, must be accepting and happy with my decision. It’s my life.

Frankly, I’d rather cut off a narcissistic person than continue to have that person wreak havoc in my life. So, I chose to respectfully disagree with the speaker’s point of view even though I understood they were attempting to show their terminology was coming from a loving place in simply letting a person go. Yet, I know that I’ve loved, and I loved hard, but as with any situation in life, I live, learn, and grow.

Besides, personally speaking, and this is just my opinion, there are some people I’ve just had to cut off. It wasn’t like I didn’t give them a time of grace or even not fail to warn them. For me, narcissists have been those people I cut off, released, let go, severed ties with or chose to go no-contact from. Maybe that’s not for the sake of acting in maturity, but it is how I’ve managed to survive and thrive.