So I've been gone from the community for a while. I've been completely NC going on 2 years so I haven't needed it as much but I wanted to share this.
Despite going no contact, there was still this feeling that I needed to explain myself to my former family. Every now and then, I'd get the split second urge to reach out to more distant family members that I hadn't tried talking with yet but then I'd remember trying before when I was younger... and how that went.
I tried to tell people, mostly extended family members, growing up because they were pretty much the only people I was allowed to interact with unsupervised. I wasn't believed and often religiously shamed for speaking out. I tried to tell them when I was at my wit's end with everything much later as an adult. I wasn't believed then either. Actually, I was laughed at.
Today, it occurred to me, I don't need to say anything. I don't need to tell anyone the specifics of how my parents mistreated me. All of my parents' children are completely no contact with them, none of us visit, none of us attended our father's funeral, none of us have anything to do with the 'family' at all anymore. None of us shared our addresses, phone numbers, emails, or anything. There is no clearer communication than that. We are all very clearly, very obviously, absent. That is communication, in my mind, that is very hard to misread.
Absence speaks louder than words.