I remember a movie we saw a few years ago, it got wildly enthusiastic reviews and one at least one Oscar. It was typical of the way Hollywood presents families.

The movie was about the complex relationship between a mother and her daughter. Throughout the movie, the mother was abusive, cruel and insulting to her daughter.

Life with a mother like this was hellish, she called her daughter stupid and predicted she’d end up visiting her in jail. At the end of the movie, the daughter fled to New York, and there, forgave her mother and called her to tell her how much she loved her.

The film was hailed by critics as a powerful and realistic love story about families.

I didn’t agree with that.

As often happens, I felt curiously out of touch. To me, the mother was abusive and had lost the privilege of being loved. The daughter seemed trapped to me, bound by emotional forces and  expectations – family is everything and cannot be left behind – that disturbed me and that I don’t share.

I was rooting for her to leave and stay away. No American movie would end that way, even though may families end up that way.

I guess I am radical when it comes to families. Being the member of a family isn’t a lifetime pass to cruelty or emotional abuse. Love is not a card that guarantees lifetime admission. I believe that must be earned, and deserved. And forfeited when appropriate.

When I met Maria, I discovered that she was often deeply depressed as the weekend neared, she went to have dinner with her family every Sunday, and had for a decade, even though she felt ignored, diminished and unhappy there, she felt she could not be herself and dreaded the ritual nature of the gatherings. It was as if everyone had the script but her.

It was just what her family did and had always done. No one was asked if they wanted to go no one ever did anything else.

When I told her she didn’t have to go every single Sunday if it upset her so much, she was stunned. It seemed obvious to me, but not to her.

She said she had no idea that was an option, her family lived by an unspoken understanding that no one in it ever deviated from, to the extreme extent she didn’t even know going was a choice.

No one noticed how unhappy she was at these dinners, or ever asked her how the felt about going every single Sunday of her life.

The whole ritual was shrouded in guilt and obligation.

This was not the first time I wondered about the similarities between the conventional and idealized idea of the family and a cult.

Cults are defined in various ways. One is a religion or sect usually considered to be extreme, with followers surrendering control of their own lives to authoritarian or charismatic leaders. Cults are often considered to be obsessive, especially faddish, with devotion or veneration to a single person principle, ritual or thing. People in cults are not asked what to do, they are told what to do.

No parent likes to think of their child in a cult, and surviving cult members often talk of these feelings of worship, control and the surrender of self.

Wow, I thought, that does sometimes sound like family to me.

Our culture venerates family, and almost every movie, TV show, or novel I’ve ever seen about family ends with a great and dramatic – and tearful – reconciliation, no matter what.

To walk away from family is unthinkable, a taboo, a heresy. But sometimes, it is a rebirth, a lifesaver. It was for me. Maria loves her life now, she doesn’t get depressed on weekends, she looks forward to them.

At Christmas, the idea of family is raised to a level of purity and wonder and iconic connection.  Yet I know so many people in the world who find this the most difficult time of the year, because that is not the story of them and their families. And their discomfort and isolation is a story that rarely makes the news. Nobody wants to challenged that myth.

For Maria, breaking away from those Sunday dinners was one of the most difficult and frightening things of her life. She suffered for months.

The process replicated everything I have read about people who leave cults. Now, when she wants to see a member of her family, she calls them up and sets up a lunch or dinner.

She sees them when she wants to, she does  not sacrifice half of her weekend every weekend of her life. She does not sacrifice her own sense of pride and identity. She can be herself all the time.

But it wasn’t easy. Holidays are still sometimes frightening to her, she feels guilty and unworthy for being away from them. It was easier for me. I made my decision to wall myself off from my family when I was 11 years old, and I never went back.

I have great respect for the idea of the family. I know some wonderful families who offer one another great love and support and connection. I write only for myself, not for others.

But I also know so many people who are confronted every day with the idea that submitting to the rituals of family is never a choice, but an almost holy obligation. Family cannot be denied in our culture, it is the most important thing, the one thing one can never leave or turn away from.

Family can be a very painful thing for very many people. Nobody knows how many, there are few surveys about that.

I realized early on that I needed to get away from my family, for reasons I don’t need to detail here. The decision saved my life, although some members of my family have been and are – still furious with me. They don’t understand. They don’t want to understand.

My point here is not that families are bad, I know many that are quite wonderful, the people in such families are blessed, and I wish I could have been one of them. The shattering of my family was perhaps my life’s greatest and most painful disappointment.

My only explanation is that they nearly destroyed me, and would have if I didn’t get away from them.

I guess my point is that there is something cult-like about the broad cultural idea of the family as something that is so sacred and essential that it can never be left or turned away from, no matter what.

To me, love and trust like that should be earned, not granted as a sacrosanct right. It can be denied or taken away at any time for cause. Maybe fewer children would be so broken and harmed.

In life, we have choices. We can talk to who we wish and have dinner with who we want, the absence of choice is slavery. It is in the cult that one has no choice, it’s in the cult where people’s minds are controlled to the point where they are without choice.

We are otherwise supposed to be free.

Family, like all communities, is very important, the foundation of so much life.

But if there is a message in this for me, or from me (I’m not telling anyone else what to do), it is this:

If it hurts or frightens or damages, it’s okay to walk away. The only ending isn’t to grandiose drama, total absolution and surrender to something that isn’t good for you or for me.

The enduring symptom of a cult is the absence of free will and choice. People surrender their freedom and independence to others. Yet that is what I so often see and hear about in families. There, surrender and obligation is considered righteous. In a cult, we see it as a form of imprisonment.

As I get older, I sense this great emotionalizing of the family serves the people who run our world well. There is a lot of money in it, from college tuition to housing to health care to fast food, and nobody wants to deal with the consequence of looking at the reality of family too deeply.

When I was young, I felt imprisoned by family. When I met Maria, she felt the same way.

Is that really the righteous and most wonderful path? After she stopped going to those Sunday dinners, the family continued on without any interruption or drama.

No one really cared why she left or wanted to know about it. It was as if the door slammed shut.

She sees her mother and sister from time to time. None of them have ever talked to me since.

And yet we are very happy, growing stronger and more fulfilled, learning every day how to better live our lives and do our work.

Both of us are building new families, seeking relationships of trust and nourishment. Family can come in different forms, it’s not only found in blood.

I remember telling my very fine therapist how guilty I felt that I didn’t –  couldn’t – see my mother for the remaining years of her life.

Why guilt?, she asked. They hurt you and you decided to not be hurt and  take care of yourself.

For me the decision to get a way from my family and stay away was my happy ending, even though I doubt I will ever see anything like it in a Hollywood movie.