Family Estrangement is Strange

Garnet and the Moon Help Can Help You Cope With the Grief of Estrangement

If you have found yourself estranged from your family, you are not alone. Estrangement, and the grief it often comes with, have become many people’s family “normal.” And while it’s not always all bad, it can be difficult to cope with, especially as you make your way through “firsts” like holidays and birthdays without the people you once were attached to. 

Social media allows us a window into other people’s worlds and through those windows it has become apparent estrangement has become commonplace for many people. This can happen for so many reasons, but likely the most common through line is that adult children don’t feel seen or loved as their authentic self. People spend lifetimes trying to mould themselves into a shape accepted by their families, into a version that could be more lovable, and often, in the end, the exhaustion of always changing to conform outweighs the grief of being estranged. 

Estrangement is often a choice of last resort. When people have felt unseen and unheard for so long, sometimes it is more fruitful to separate from the pack they’ve known rather than always feel like they are “too much” or “never enough” to be loved simply as they are. Often they have had to make space for toxic or harmful behavior from family who claim to love them, from intentional cruelty to the neglect of simply being forgotten about or an after thought. 

Estrangement can be extremely healthy for the people making the decision to choose themselves. I know that in my case, it most definitely is the healthiest option for my life. Estrangement offers a chance at liberation in our authentic selves. We have the opportunity to surround ourselves with people who love us for us. We can begin to repair the things we were taught to hate about ourselves, and transform the poison garden of other people’s stories about and reactions to us into fertile ground for a life more beautiful than trying to meet the expectations of others. 

The liberation that comes with estrangement, however, is not without it’s own kind of grief. There is a sadness that can color the edges of newfound freedom that is hard to define and navigate. Being estranged is a practice in holding the both/and of love and grief. We can be both joyful at our liberation and the chance to live as our authentic selves and also deeply sad and sorrowful that our families were not the people we needed them to be. It can feel like a balancing act to stay present and joyful, and there are days where the grief of estrangement may feel heavy or suffocating. Those days are valid and so is that immense grief. 

If you’re interested in working through estrangement grief with someone who understands deeply where you are coming from and can help you make steps on your path forward, you can always sign up for 1:1 grief tending and identity work here. If you’d like to do some work on your own, head over to the shop and grab our Journal to Work Through Estrangement Grief. Gift yourself 28 days (they don’t need to be done consecutively) of creative prompts to lead you through writing, art, and ritual where you can process grief and start (or continue) building out your roadmap forward. 

If you are navigating estrangement grief this year as we enter the end of year holiday seasons, I am sending you love and fortitude to be in the both/and of it all. Blessings to you and your most authentic, sacred, holy, and beautiful self. 

You are welcome to read more about my experience with estrangement here, or here, or here