If you’re away from family today, whether limited contact or no contact, remember this: You’re here because you still love them.

If you didn’t, you’d feel nothing. No guilt. No grief. No wondering if you made the right choice. Not thinking about them on a day like today, maybe even missing them and wishing things were different.

That pain you’re feeling? That’s love. Love that finally chose to protect itself. Love that refused to turn into hatred. Love that said: “I care about you too much to let this destroy us both.”

Without distance, love doesn’t grow stronger, it turns to resentment. We’d show up and smile until we couldn’t see their humanity anymore. Only their disorder. Only our pain.

And then we’d lose them completely — not to boundaries, but to bitterness and hate.

Your boundary is an act of love:

- For them, because you’re refusing to become someone who hates them

- For the relationship, because you’re protecting what’s possible

- For yourself, because you deserve to survive this

Whether you’re low contact or no contact, you haven’t given up on loving them. You’ve just found the only way you still can.

Their pain is real. Your pain is real. And both can be true while you choose yourself.

You’re not abandoning them. You’re loving them the only way that doesn’t destroy you.

That’s not weakness. That’s strength. That’s grace.

Today and every day — you’re doing the right thing.

Merry Christmas.