Choosing Family Estrangement

Estrangement is not something I often hear people speak openly about. When it is discussed, it’s frequently framed as a failure or shameful. But the truth is that one in four people report being estranged from a family member, and I suspect there are many more people who don’t talk about it due to shame or embarrassment.

Addressing Stigma + Shame

The stigma associated with my family estrangement has been a huge source of shame for me. It has been helpful in my healing journey to name where my shame comes from, so that I can become aware of my thought patterns and ask myself if these thoughts are helpful or harmful. I can trace many of my internalized judgments to messages and tropes that I learned from movies and tv shows, as well as cultural norms conveyed to me by spiritual leaders, community members, and my family members themselves. These include messages like, “blood is thicker than water,” “you’ll regret the time you didn’t spend with them,” “let bygones be bygones,” and “practice forgiveness.” I have learned to see that these messages only serve to create a false image of family as something that is idealized and must be protected at all costs. 

I have come to understand that these messages do not serve me in my healing journey. And so I’ve replaced them with a new set of messages that I developed with the help of therapists, friends, mental health websites and podcasts, as well as my own inner voices of wisdom. These messages include, “I have the right to distance myself from people who are harmful to my well-being,” “it is courageous to end a relationship that no longer serves me,” and “I am allowed to feel and trust my feelings.”
 

Deciding What is Right for You

Each person’s decision to reduce or end contact with family members is unique. For me, there were multiple harmful dynamics in my family system that led to my decision to become estranged. While the childhood sexual abuse was the most severe form of harm I experienced, it was the denial of my abuse by multiple family members that caused me some of the most painful moments I can remember. I experienced ongoing emotional harm in my household, separate from sexual abuse issues, related to unhealthy religious/spiritual norms, hyper criticism, emotional incest (emotionally treated like a romantic partner by a parent), and being put in the role of therapist and mediator for family members. In addition, my experience with homophobia – to the point of being told that my partner was not welcome at family gatherings – was another painful factor in my decision to end contact. 

My estrangement was not the result of an isolated incident, nor was it an impulsive or spontaneous act of rebellion, despite these cultural messages I’ve heard about estrangement. My estrangement is an adaptive response to a pattern of painful interactions which I carefully considered before I made the decision to distance myself, and ultimately cut off contact from family members. While I now know that the decision to remain estranged is the best decision for me, it is also something I wrestled with for years. At first, I cut off people entirely, then attempted to communicate through email, or letters, or with help from a therapist, and then cutting off contact again. 

The decision to stay estranged is a choice I make every day, and while I remain open to the possibility that things may change in the future, I feel confident that staying estranged is the best choice for me right now. 

Walking With Grief

Throughout my healing journey, it has been important to recognize and tend to my grief from the loss of my family relationships. Not only did I lose connections with individual family members who I once was close with, but I also lost connection to the family and community systems from which I once derived a strong sense of belonging. This has required me to adopt a practice of “walking with grief”: acknowledging daily that grief is something I carry with me and will continue to carry for the rest of my life. 

A frame that I’ve found helpful for understanding my experience of grief from estrangement is the concept of “ambiguous loss,” a term that refers to loss without closure, such as when someone is missing or kidnapped. For me, this captures my sense of grief as feeling like an open wound, marked by the constant knowledge that, as long as my family members are still alive, there is a distant possibility that our relationship may change. At the same time, I carry on my life without them, and accept this uncertainty as part of my life. 

Holding A Complicated Truth

I have found along my healing journey that acknowledging my grief as a living part of me has allowed me to make space to experience a wider range of positive emotions. The more I face and process my anger, grief, and other difficult emotions — the more room there is for joy, wonder, freedom, and love. Sometimes after I process a particularly difficult memory of abuse, I am surprised to find that positive childhood memories will surface over the next few days. 

It has sometimes been hard to accept the positive memories, because they don’t fit in to my trauma narrative that I had a “bad” childhood. I’ve learned that the truth is more complicated than dividing things into “good” and “bad.” Even though I experienced abuse and pain in my childhood, I also experienced connection, fun, and wonder. The people who harmed me also showed me love and affection. These complicated truths can be very hard to hold, but they also reveal an insight into ourselves. We are neither all good nor all bad. We have the ability to overcome the bad things that happened to us, and rejoice in the good. We have the ability to discern and choose what serves us, and release what does not.

Choosing Your Own Path

Ultimately, the path to healing is unique for each survivor. Just as distancing or ending contact is a valid choice, staying and working through difficult relationships is also a valid choice. Each of us is on our own healing journey, and no two journeys look the same. There is no guidebook, no right or wrong way. For me, the best guide has been to start with self-compassion, to choose what will allow me to live my best life, and to express my highest potential. This is the value I most want to pass on to my son, to my friends, and to other survivors.  For my fellow survivors, I encourage you to fill your life with people, experiences, and things that soothe your soul and support your healing. This is your life—it’s your choice who gets to be a part of it. 

Recommended Resources

A Few Resources that have Been Transformative in My Healing Journey:

Hidden Water 
A restorative justice response to the impact of child sexual abuse

Second Wound
A site for survivors of sexual abuse and assault, focusing on the experience of revictimization

Survivors of Incest Anonymous 
A 12 step program for survivors of childhood sexual abuse