Family estrangement refers to being physically and/or emotionally distant or altogether, disconnected within your family relationships. This distance can look different from person to person—it may involve little to no contact, or it might look like talking with or even spending time with your family, while feeling emotionally disconnected. In this blog, I share some of the reasons that can lead to family estrangement as well as some of the common effects it can have on a person.

Factors/Causes that Can Lend to Family Estrangement

Family estrangement can be prompted by numerous factors. Sometimes, it can be the result of a specific conflict or argument that you had with a family member. At other times, it can be the result of more chronic, harmful patterns within the relationship over time, that culminate to a certain point where the relationship feels unsustainable.

Effects of Family Estrangement:
The Impact on One’s Emotions and Thoughts

Whether family estrangement was prompted by a specific conflict/argument or was the result of more chronic, harmful family dynamics over time, it can lend to a mixture of different emotions, including anger, sadness, grief, remorse, confusion, etc.

Conflicts and arguments may have arisen upon major life transitions, such as changing schools, deciding what college to attend, changing friend groups, getting into a relationship (and getting out of a relationship), marrying, having children, changing jobs/careers, moving, etc. If your family member and you disagreed or otherwise, argued over the choices you made, it may understandably make you question whether or not you made the “right” choice. On the other hand, it may highlight how you and your family member do not share (maybe have never shared) the same core values/beliefs.

Chronic, harmful family dynamics that can lend to estrangement may include experiences of abuse (including but not just limited to physical abuse; also, emotional/verbal abuse, sexual abuse, financial abuse, neglect, etc.). You may have been the person who was abused and/or you may have been the witness to abuse (or in other words, you may have been the person who endured vicarious trauma). When you’ve experienced these more chronic, harmful family dynamics, you may also find yourself questioning yourself a lot. This questioning isn’t tied to any specific event but rather, to your whole sense of self and trust in what you experienced as real.

This is because one of the ways that might have helped you to survive chronic harmful family dynamics/experiences of abuse, was to downplay or otherwise, repress what was happening to you. *If you could convince yourself it was not as “bad,” you could feel less angry, sad, remorse, confusion, etc.
*In a future blog post, I’ll discuss more about why this is.

When you’ve experienced these more chronic, harmful family dynamics, you may also find yourself questioning yourself a lot. This questioning isn’t tied to any specific event but rather, to your whole sense of self and trust in what you experienced as real.

Effects of Family Estrangement:
The Impact on One’s Identity and Relationships

These different emotions and thoughts can disrupt your sense of identity; it can disrupt how you see and understand yourself. After all, family—whether biological or not—are usually one of your first and most formative influences. Beyond this, your family is also one of the first and core sources of belonging and security; even if it was just a surface-level sense of belonging and security. Even if your family and you may have never seen eye-to-eye, they may have been the people that were most readily available.

When you distance yourself from or completely cut off contact with your family, this may understandably prompt a unique type of grief. While a part of you may know you need to do this to protect your mental (and physical) health, another part of you may hold onto your family because so much of who you are/were was tied to who your family is/was. For example, you may think to yourself, “I wouldn’t be as grateful, hard-working, or empathetic if it weren’t for all the things I was told…if it weren’t for all the ways I was [mis]treated.”

These types of thoughts and emotions may also show up in your relationships outside of your family as well. You may have learned through your family relationship dynamics that your worth is tied to your productivity/your sacrifices. You may find yourself thinking things like, “People only stick around when I’m able to do something for them, even if it means sacrificing my own needs/well-being.” It can be hard to trust that others will truly be there for you if you do not continuously give to them. It can be hard to know if people will there for you if you truly let them in.

What’s Next

It’s clear that family estrangement doesn’t just come out of nowhere and that it can have far-reaching effects on your emotions, thoughts, identity, relationships, and life overall.

Since it can have so many different triggers and impacts, it’s critical that you give yourself the time to reflect on your needs/wants, your boundaries/capacity, and your fullest/truest self—what it looks like to stay true to yourself, while still being in relationship with others. For a broader understanding of estrangement across different types of relationships, you can read more in my other blog post here.