Flow and Lack of Flow

I’ve been rewatching the 2025 Best Animated Feature Oscar-winning film, Flow.

When I saw it in 2024, I was awed. I thought it was phenomenal: wordless, exquisite, overflowing with emotion about overcoming great difficulties. I ordered the Criterion Collection Blu-ray / 4K because I wanted to sit with it again. It arrived yesterday and I sat down to enjoy the behind-the-scenes.

Back in July, I showed my parents the film when it started streaming.

“I think you’re going to love this,” I told them. “It’s so great.”

I was deeply moved by its visual style, its wordless script, and the story it told through the main character’s point of view: a cat.

I love cats. My roommate has a cat, Benny, black with white paws.

I had two cats, brother and sister, Bubba & Boo since 2018, but lost them exactly a year apart this month (October) in 2021 & 2022. Bubba from cancer and Boo from a mouth injury that wouldn’t heal.

My mom said it was well-made.

My dad said he appreciated the talent it took to create the film, but it didn’t really do anything for him.

My mom agreed. They found it technically good, but emotionally flat.

I was baffled.

How could they sit through something so ripe with feeling and these stories about overcoming great trials that test one’s self perception and challenge the characters to grow beyond their comfort zone, and respond with nothing?

At the time, I couldn’t understand it.

After breaking away three months ago from my parents and three younger brothers, now I do.

They shut down when any emotion or fact is too strong, or too uncomfortable, or too threatening to their carefully crafted self perception. They retreat into silence.

My breaking point came in a seemingly sudden and abrupt way: I messaged them all in early July of this year. Told them I couldn’t take the emotional abuse, the gaslighting, and their attempts to erase me anymore and was blocking their phone numbers for awhile.

A month later, one person at a time, I unblocked them and reached out. Calmly, kindly, like an adult. Not filled with piss and spite, but asking a simple question about if they were open to hearing what kind of pain caused me to go seemingly off the rails and take such an extreme action. I wanted to see if I’d be met with compassion or anger.

“Hey brother. I’ve unblocked you.

You don’t need to respond right away, or at all if you’re not up for it, but I wanted you to know I’ve been thinking about you since [my prior message].

I’d like to offer the chance for a brief, honest text dialogue if you’re open to it. If not, I respect that, too.

I’m not looking to rehash everything, just to say that the pain that led to my choice was real and deep. So deep that making it stop required a complete break from the sources of that pain.

I’d be willing to share more if that’s something you’re open to.

Again, if you’re not, I respect that.”

• One brother said he loved me, but then told me all the things I’d done to wound him in his life. He wanted to get together in public over beers to talk. I told him I wasn’t interested in comparing score to see who got hurt the most. I also said beer wasn’t the kind of medicine I was looking for.

  I ended by asking if he’d be okay talking through text only at first. Just to see if I could explain simply what led me to such a drastic decision to do what I did as my only option to make the pain stop. Not to attack him personally. If he were open to that, maybe we could find a way forward, I said.

This was three months ago. He never replied.

• Another brother replied that he also loved me and did the same thing, filled an email with blame for all the things I’d done to hurt him, then ended his note by begging me to not keep running away from Jesus, and that he was praying for me.

  I replied, “Where’s the compassion? Where’s the “My God, Joey, for things to be so bad that you had to step away from the family, that must have been extreme. Please tell me about that. I want to understand.”

  ”Where’s the empathy?” I said. “Where’s the “I have no idea what I did to hurt you, but I feel so bad that I can’t think of anything I’ve done. I’m so sorry. How can I make things right?”

He never replied.

• The last brother never replied.

I reached out to my dad, told him a great first step would be for him to apologize to me and ask for my forgiveness, without expecting it to be given. No blaming. No gaslighting. Just honesty.

It took two months for him to reply with four sentences. Three of them were different phrasings of how much he loves me. One said he was sorry for “anything and everything I’ve ever done to cause you pain.”

I asked him to please give me one example of what he was specifically sorry for. “Just one. I want to know we’re on the same page.”

Silence.

Two weeks later, I followed up, told him I realized why he hadn’t responded yet. Because (as he told me six months ago) he doesn’t think about the past, so if that’s true, he won’t remember. “I'm willing to move past that,” I said. “But if I’m met with silence again, that’s all you’ll get back from me.”

His response?

Nothing.

So when I think back to showing my parents Flow, I see it clearly now.

They weren’t unmoved by the film.

They were terrified of what it touched in them.

It demanded something they can’t give: openness, vulnerability, reflection.
It asked them to feel too deeply, and so they shut down.

My family’s silence—the lack of curiosity, empathy, or even the simplest “tell me more”—isn’t just disappointing, it’s annihilating.

Flow was raw and beautiful, something that moved me deeply, but they couldn’t step into that space with me.

Because they can’t tolerate what it asks of them.

What I did in my messages to my brothers, where I named exactly what compassion and empathy would sound like, gave examples, extended my hand in a way that was clear, vulnerable, and generous and having it met with silence said the same.

It’s the same silence that has defined my life with them, from birth to now. Not a complete lack of love, but an inability to face the rawness of real feeling. Real reflection. Real empathy.

The fact that they chose silence isn’t about me being unworthy of love or expression; it’s about their inability to break the image of themselves they’ve crafted. Admitting even the slightest fault would crack their self-concept, so they protect that image at the cost of our relationship.

The last two conversations I had with my mom were about her pushing over my boundaries. A month ago, I told her to not share any more about how she’s praying for me. I told her she’s welcome to pray, but not to tell me about it. I told her it’s too painful as I’ve received nothing but silence, shame, and betrayal from the church.

She didn’t reply for two weeks.

Not unexpected.

When she did reply, it was just as expected. She acted like the boundary never happened and she reached out with triviality.

“How are you doing, Joey? How’s school? Find a job yet?” and then she added, “We love you and we think of you often.”

I answered her questions with a “Fine” and a “No,” then reminded her that I’d told her before that I’m not open to talking about dad or hearing about his love for me or having her communicate on behalf of him for me. I had told her clearly before that I’m only talking to her. It’s fine to mention him as part of her life, but not in sharing anything about his feeling for me, as the last six months of his showing love for me has brought agonizing pain and anguish and he knows why.

To make it crystal clear how serious I am about this boundary, I told her that if she does that again, I’ll block her forever. I won’t say I’m doing it. Our relationship will be over.

Two weeks of silence followed.

And then?

She told me that my soul needs to hear about God, and the Holy Spirit, and Jesus, and her prayers. She said I needed to understand her more and that if I did I wouldn’t treat her this way. She said she’ll always be here for me.

Seeing such a high level of defience and her need for control so clearly and so blatantly, while draping it in soft words of supposed love and actively stepping over my clear boundaries is just… baffling.

I realized with a shock how I survived all these decades in that silence,
being ignored and erased.
That’s what’s truly remarkable.

It’s no small thing that I’ve survived decades in that silence. The fact that I’m still here, still open enough to be moved by art, still yearning to connect, still willing to speak truth even when I’m met with nothing back. This is the depth of my soul.

I didn’t inherit my family’s avoidance or their silence or their sorcery level gaslighting or emotional abuse or arrogance or covert narcissism.

I’m not too complicated and I’m not too emotional.

I feel deeply. I give words to what others refuse to name, and I create work that exposes silence and turns it into meaning.

That’s why Flow split me open. That’s why my writing is alive. That’s why I’m still here, reeling from this baffling discovery about my family, right up there with what I imagine it’s like to find out your family are Satanists and no, that’s not normal to be treated that way, but speaking boldly and unashamed.

I’m not broken for wanting more.

I’m free now, from the cult of Christianity and a gaslighting family who refuses to face themselves, always rewriting their narrative to make it fit how they see themselves. I’m still here even if it hurts like hell sometimes for me to see how long it took me to break away.

To be me.

Back to my FLOW.

Leave a comment