Estrangement

Will we ever talk to each other again?

Whether you're dealing with parent-child estrangement, sibling estrangement or some other form of familial estrangement, the state of being estranged takes its toll on your being. For parents of adult children who've chosen No Contact it can feel sudden. You can be left wondering What happened? Why? For adult children who've chosen to estrange from their parent(s) it can feel confusing that it is confusing. One could be left to wonder, How did you not hear me? How did you not see the warning signs?

One thing for sure is family estrangement is a painful situation and a therapist can help navigate the feelings and experience of being No Contact (NC) or Low Contact (LC).

Believe it or not, this is more common than you think.

People tend to compare themselves to others and the others always seem like "the perfect family." Truthfully, there is no such thing. Now it doesn't mean your own lived experience doesn't show you a jocular, holiday-loving clan going on vacations together and singing songs with one another deep into the night. But I think that family? That's the aberration. More common is there is a chink in the armor.

"Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way." —Tolstoy

Boundary setting can be hard to implement, hard to live with, not your choice, or at best a complicated choice. Perhaps you speak to your dad but not your mom, or you would talk to your dad if he didn't stick up for your mom. Perhaps your daughter slowly drifted away and now she has blocked you and you really miss her, you want to explain yourself. Maybe it's a sibling you've decided to cut off contact from, or that sibling stopped returning your calls.

Estrangement doesn't happen overnight, but if you're the one who's being iced out, it might feel that way.

However this is playing out in your life, one thing is certain: It’s not easy, it is painful, and figuring out your identity and who you are in this is half the battle.

Talking It Out Can Make The Difference.

Whether you are The Estranger or The Estranged, you can work through what has led to this, what it's like to live with this, and decide how you want to approach it.

• Maybe reunification is a possibility.

With a therapist versed as I am in the world of estrangement, you needn't be alone as you think about what reunification means, what is needed to set it up for success, and how you can feel supported as you pursue that.

• Reunification is not a possibility.

If remaining estranged is your choice or the option you are left with, therapy can aid you in sitting with that decision, examining the cost and the benefit of estrangement. Therapy invites you to examine out loud what happened that has gotten you here and then how to be yourself, like yourself, feel connected to self and the world.

I've worked with estrangement long enough to know if nothing else, examining it in the containing space of a therapy gives you a nonjudgmental space to work out those difficult emotions that if nothing else is preventing you from leading your best life.

My therapy approach is designed to meet you where you're at. I combine Attachment-Focused therapy with person-centered therapy. Trained in EMDR, that modality can be extremely useful, especially if you are dealing with C-PTSD. Of course grounding techniques are an integral part of my practice. Knowing how to feel right inside while you face some hard stuff supports you and provides comfort and ease through difficult times.

What if there was no physical or sexual abuse in my background but I still want to be No Contact?

You don't have to justify your decision to me — and you also get to look at, and maybe even embrace, the fact that estrangement can make sense because of your lived experience. You didn’t come to this decision without some serious injuries. Physical and sexual abuse isn't the only thing that erodes safety or trust.

Will you judge me?

No! That is not my job. My job is to help you. Last I checked, judging someone doesn't really help them improve their mental health.

What if my family member has said they never want to see me again?

I believe in respecting other's decisions and boundaries. If though you seek reunification and believe you're willing to do the work to look honestly at yourself and how you can do what is necessary to affect reunification, we can look at writing therapy and using my practice as a bridge toward controlled and respectful communication.

Can you provide family therapy if my daughter/son and I want to come in together?

Yes, absolutely. When there is willingness on both sides to come together, therapy offers a safe and contained space to answer the question: How did I get there? How did we get here?