I’ve been estranged from my family for 8 years. My narcissistic mother was my abuser but it’s also all tied into white Christian nationalist propaganda. The part at the end about their propaganda vs learning from actual professionals…”They think so little of me that they think my actual core values, beliefs and thoughts that I've carefully thought about, don't come from me at all. And I'm just willfully latching onto propaganda. So to me, I'm now like, anytime they say that, I'm just like, wow, you really don't know me, and you think so little of me and my intellect.” OMG that gave me language to my feelings. They are so indoctrinated by their propaganda, they think that all the reading and research I do from credible sources to develop my own views and beliefs about the world, is the same as theirs. And I work SO HARD to learn from people smarter than me, that it truly HURTS SO DEEPLY that they belittle my intensely intentional learning. Dang. Thank you for this.
As our son will soon be turning 3, I told my husband we shouldn't leave him unattended with my parents anymore. He's at an age where my mom will try to start indoctrinating him, so we've had to go even more low contact.
On one hand, it's hard because we used to rely on them to watch him for an hour here and there because we both work. On the other hand, it's easy because I can barely stand to look at them since the inauguration.
"...something that I often hear is that point of estrangement, a lot of times there's already been an emotional estrangement that has existed for a long time. And it's really just making that emotional and internal reality more explicit."
Yes yes yes. So much of this episode spoke to me (Limbaugh Dad in particular, and "apologist for death" is doing some heavy work), but this was so validating to hear. Going no-contact is not a negotiating tactic, and neither is it a means to punish our parents; it's a reflection of a relationship at an ever-widening impasse. It's an acknowledgment that the real you and the version of you that they require you to be to maintain the illusion of a relationship are in irreconcilable conflict, and that continuing on as two different people to satisfy them is both untenable and extremely unhealthy.
It didn't happen overnight for me, either. There wasn't one big blowout where we laid everything on the table and went our separate ways. It was their willful inability to see me as an individual with autonomy and agency. It was their being taken aback every time I expressed myself--my likes, my needs, my ambitions. It was the constant infantalizing and refusing to accept that I am a fellow adult. It was all the walking on eggshells and self-censoring of what I really think and believe so as to not upset *them*...while at the same time they belittled and devalued *my* emotions. It was the dread of hearing my phone ding with a text because it might be the one asking me to call and keep up the charade and bite my tongue while enduring another white Christian nationalist monologue.
At some point we just can't do it anymore. Estrangement is a desperate act of self-care and self-preservation that's made only after exhausting all other options. And...it's *okay*.
Goodness… I’m ADHD AF and also, DL’s story resonates with me SO hard. I can’t help but respond as I’m listening to the episode rather than at the end. My “official” estrangement is very recent (about 2 weeks ago I sent the final emails or texts or whatever and did the contact blocking stuff), but my emotional estrangement started about 30 years ago (I’ll be 40 this year). I don’t know why I’m saying all this to strangers, but it’s just been mind blowing to hear someone (like DL) basically lay out exactly what I’ve been feeling and seeing in my family (Rush Limbaugh Dad? We’re the perfect family? And on and on) for so so long. And recognizing that even at a very young age, I was able to recognize that what was being said (racist, homophobic, sexist, etc) wasn’t right. I have a soon-to-be 6 year old son, and the moment I found my mom repeatedly praying with my son at night even though I’d asked her not to, that was when I realized that all these feelings and inklings I’ve been having for decades were either going to bubble up and destroy my mental health or that I needed to create separation immediately. My husband and I moved to Washington State from South Carolina (where I was born and raised and all of my family: parents, brother, sister, extended family still lives) 4 years ago, and that in some ways made things worse. Because then it became like, “okay, morally, ethically, religiously, politically we have nothing in common anymore and also… we’re about 3,000 miles apart.” It took Trump becoming president again and 4 years of limited contact to fully break me out of my toxic relationship with my family. Also, lots of therapy over the years that kept nudging me in that direction. I will say, one of the most meaningful things about DL’s story for me is just how hard she says it is. It’s absolutely HEARTBREAKING and GUTWRENCHING, and up until the moment I sent the final words and hit “block” it was literally tearing my life apart with guilt and shame and fear and worry and all the negative feelings related to what I thought my responsibility was as a daughter or sister or aunt or whatever. This is decades of being the black sheep, feeling the judgement, trying to love through all of that, having no voice, becoming more and more disgusted with what I was hearing and less and less compliant and complacent as a member of this blood unit I was born into. It’s such a hard thing to explain to people, because it’s like a death by 1,000 cuts and nobody has lived my life but me. I just know that my life is SO much better having drawn this final line and given myself permission to REALLY move on and imagine a future and a family history reset for my husband and my son and whatever kids or partners he has as he grows, whoever he decides to be. It feels safe now. I just really needed to share this, and I’m so so grateful again for this Substack/podcast. I know I said that on my first response to the second episode in this series about Nazi Germany and estrangement as well. It’s a revelation, and I appreciate this content and this space so much!
I’m further in now, and what’s striking me is the fact that, for me, most of my life up until I left Christianity at 24, I had this idea that even though me and my parents had this strained relationship, my relationship with my siblings (I’m 40, they are 47 and 49 respectively) was still ok. Not great, not as close as when we were kids, but that they were of a younger generation and felt more reasonable and could have discussions that I couldn’t have with my parents.
Well… I think one of the most devastating things is that over the past 10 years, my brother and his family have been moving into the far right Christian nationalist movement HARD with tons of anti-LGBT rhetoric just as like Sunday boilerplate conversation. And my sister has had her breakaway moment from… sanity?… with COVID. She became a huge COVID denier, wouldn’t get vaccines, now is just obsessed with MAHA, and I don’t even recognize her anymore. She has always appeared to be the centrist of the family. I think that recently with Trump and feeling like I just NEEDED to talk to someone about it, I opened myself up to my siblings in a way that I hadn’t for a very long time. And that ended up revealing that they have been my parent’s children for a very long time (I’m much younger and had a completely different, more absent, experience with my parents after my siblings left the house and went on to be adults before me). So, when I did my blocking and ending of contact, it’s everyone. Not just my aging parents but also my brother and sister. I feel like, about 3 weeks ago when I realized how similarly they felt and believed (and voted) to my parents, it brought up a level of disgust and inability to be complacent that I wasn’t expecting. After I sent my final closing emails and messages (nothing damning or shaming or attacking, just recounting my experience in the family over the last 20-ish years and how I was raised with these values from Jesus and have watched my family become unrecognizable compared to what I was taught to be and believe as well as other things, none of it “mean” or written in anger or an angry tone), they all sent messages fully excoriating me, attacking my mental health, my character, my ability to be a parent, my failings as a daughter and aunt and member of the family, etc. I will say that seeing all that did make it easier to make a clean break that I don’t know if I’d have been able to make earlier, but its still very painful to see and experience. Again, don’t know why I’m sharing this here; I just feel compelled (is triggered the right word?) after hearing DL’s experience, especially her disappointment with her family’s reaction to her writing a book and her ability to work with her sister to try to get her parents vaccinated. It’s really putting a lot into perspective and context for me that I don’t think I was able to really articulate before. 🫶
I’ve been estranged from my family for 8 years. My narcissistic mother was my abuser but it’s also all tied into white Christian nationalist propaganda. The part at the end about their propaganda vs learning from actual professionals…”They think so little of me that they think my actual core values, beliefs and thoughts that I've carefully thought about, don't come from me at all. And I'm just willfully latching onto propaganda. So to me, I'm now like, anytime they say that, I'm just like, wow, you really don't know me, and you think so little of me and my intellect.” OMG that gave me language to my feelings. They are so indoctrinated by their propaganda, they think that all the reading and research I do from credible sources to develop my own views and beliefs about the world, is the same as theirs. And I work SO HARD to learn from people smarter than me, that it truly HURTS SO DEEPLY that they belittle my intensely intentional learning. Dang. Thank you for this.
As our son will soon be turning 3, I told my husband we shouldn't leave him unattended with my parents anymore. He's at an age where my mom will try to start indoctrinating him, so we've had to go even more low contact.
On one hand, it's hard because we used to rely on them to watch him for an hour here and there because we both work. On the other hand, it's easy because I can barely stand to look at them since the inauguration.
"...something that I often hear is that point of estrangement, a lot of times there's already been an emotional estrangement that has existed for a long time. And it's really just making that emotional and internal reality more explicit."
Yes yes yes. So much of this episode spoke to me (Limbaugh Dad in particular, and "apologist for death" is doing some heavy work), but this was so validating to hear. Going no-contact is not a negotiating tactic, and neither is it a means to punish our parents; it's a reflection of a relationship at an ever-widening impasse. It's an acknowledgment that the real you and the version of you that they require you to be to maintain the illusion of a relationship are in irreconcilable conflict, and that continuing on as two different people to satisfy them is both untenable and extremely unhealthy.
It didn't happen overnight for me, either. There wasn't one big blowout where we laid everything on the table and went our separate ways. It was their willful inability to see me as an individual with autonomy and agency. It was their being taken aback every time I expressed myself--my likes, my needs, my ambitions. It was the constant infantalizing and refusing to accept that I am a fellow adult. It was all the walking on eggshells and self-censoring of what I really think and believe so as to not upset *them*...while at the same time they belittled and devalued *my* emotions. It was the dread of hearing my phone ding with a text because it might be the one asking me to call and keep up the charade and bite my tongue while enduring another white Christian nationalist monologue.
At some point we just can't do it anymore. Estrangement is a desperate act of self-care and self-preservation that's made only after exhausting all other options. And...it's *okay*.
Goodness… I’m ADHD AF and also, DL’s story resonates with me SO hard. I can’t help but respond as I’m listening to the episode rather than at the end. My “official” estrangement is very recent (about 2 weeks ago I sent the final emails or texts or whatever and did the contact blocking stuff), but my emotional estrangement started about 30 years ago (I’ll be 40 this year). I don’t know why I’m saying all this to strangers, but it’s just been mind blowing to hear someone (like DL) basically lay out exactly what I’ve been feeling and seeing in my family (Rush Limbaugh Dad? We’re the perfect family? And on and on) for so so long. And recognizing that even at a very young age, I was able to recognize that what was being said (racist, homophobic, sexist, etc) wasn’t right. I have a soon-to-be 6 year old son, and the moment I found my mom repeatedly praying with my son at night even though I’d asked her not to, that was when I realized that all these feelings and inklings I’ve been having for decades were either going to bubble up and destroy my mental health or that I needed to create separation immediately. My husband and I moved to Washington State from South Carolina (where I was born and raised and all of my family: parents, brother, sister, extended family still lives) 4 years ago, and that in some ways made things worse. Because then it became like, “okay, morally, ethically, religiously, politically we have nothing in common anymore and also… we’re about 3,000 miles apart.” It took Trump becoming president again and 4 years of limited contact to fully break me out of my toxic relationship with my family. Also, lots of therapy over the years that kept nudging me in that direction. I will say, one of the most meaningful things about DL’s story for me is just how hard she says it is. It’s absolutely HEARTBREAKING and GUTWRENCHING, and up until the moment I sent the final words and hit “block” it was literally tearing my life apart with guilt and shame and fear and worry and all the negative feelings related to what I thought my responsibility was as a daughter or sister or aunt or whatever. This is decades of being the black sheep, feeling the judgement, trying to love through all of that, having no voice, becoming more and more disgusted with what I was hearing and less and less compliant and complacent as a member of this blood unit I was born into. It’s such a hard thing to explain to people, because it’s like a death by 1,000 cuts and nobody has lived my life but me. I just know that my life is SO much better having drawn this final line and given myself permission to REALLY move on and imagine a future and a family history reset for my husband and my son and whatever kids or partners he has as he grows, whoever he decides to be. It feels safe now. I just really needed to share this, and I’m so so grateful again for this Substack/podcast. I know I said that on my first response to the second episode in this series about Nazi Germany and estrangement as well. It’s a revelation, and I appreciate this content and this space so much!
I’m further in now, and what’s striking me is the fact that, for me, most of my life up until I left Christianity at 24, I had this idea that even though me and my parents had this strained relationship, my relationship with my siblings (I’m 40, they are 47 and 49 respectively) was still ok. Not great, not as close as when we were kids, but that they were of a younger generation and felt more reasonable and could have discussions that I couldn’t have with my parents.
Well… I think one of the most devastating things is that over the past 10 years, my brother and his family have been moving into the far right Christian nationalist movement HARD with tons of anti-LGBT rhetoric just as like Sunday boilerplate conversation. And my sister has had her breakaway moment from… sanity?… with COVID. She became a huge COVID denier, wouldn’t get vaccines, now is just obsessed with MAHA, and I don’t even recognize her anymore. She has always appeared to be the centrist of the family. I think that recently with Trump and feeling like I just NEEDED to talk to someone about it, I opened myself up to my siblings in a way that I hadn’t for a very long time. And that ended up revealing that they have been my parent’s children for a very long time (I’m much younger and had a completely different, more absent, experience with my parents after my siblings left the house and went on to be adults before me). So, when I did my blocking and ending of contact, it’s everyone. Not just my aging parents but also my brother and sister. I feel like, about 3 weeks ago when I realized how similarly they felt and believed (and voted) to my parents, it brought up a level of disgust and inability to be complacent that I wasn’t expecting. After I sent my final closing emails and messages (nothing damning or shaming or attacking, just recounting my experience in the family over the last 20-ish years and how I was raised with these values from Jesus and have watched my family become unrecognizable compared to what I was taught to be and believe as well as other things, none of it “mean” or written in anger or an angry tone), they all sent messages fully excoriating me, attacking my mental health, my character, my ability to be a parent, my failings as a daughter and aunt and member of the family, etc. I will say that seeing all that did make it easier to make a clean break that I don’t know if I’d have been able to make earlier, but its still very painful to see and experience. Again, don’t know why I’m sharing this here; I just feel compelled (is triggered the right word?) after hearing DL’s experience, especially her disappointment with her family’s reaction to her writing a book and her ability to work with her sister to try to get her parents vaccinated. It’s really putting a lot into perspective and context for me that I don’t think I was able to really articulate before. 🫶
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