As we grow studying the ten stages, we leave others behind. We outgrow certain relationships and part company with those who cannot grow with us.

As we grow studying the ten stages, we leave others behind. We outgrow certain relationships and part company with those who cannot grow with us. We seek other child within members with whom we have an affinity—those who nurture our developing sense of self and our deepening wonder at our recovered life.

As we wake up, we leave behind those invested in the recovery sleep of constant dissociation. As close as our relationships may have been in the past, our convulsions of consciousness are not welcome to those who remain in dissociated oblivion. Our very presence disturbs them and they retaliate by denigrating our awareness. We must be very careful not to allow others’ deadened life force to numb our newly-won vitality. We must guard our precious perceptions and not squander these treasures on those whose defenses would undermine their meaning.

Perhaps most difficult of all, we must leave the memories of our families—and particularly our parents. We must part company with these primary figures who wield tremendous and often deadly ancestral power. If we are not disciplined and committed to our departure, their censoring voice will crush our adult attempts to escape their orbit.

Some leave their parents with direct confrontations, which may be necessary to break the poisonous cord of family connection. Others may leave with quiet grace—such that the family may not even notice. Perhaps we needn’t disturb their sleep. We may even choose to maintain civil, but distant contact, as long as we are not pulled back into their world of dissociation and denial. But this is risky because they will try to pull us back. Yet no matter how we leave, withdraw we must, leaving behind the hope of their joining us and blessing us as we venture into the depths of our recovery.