Oprah and Experts: Setting Boundaries with Toxic Family Members

Oprah, the biggest plot was in the entire family's treatment crisis while everyone is applauding her for finally discussing a strangement.

Very few look at the iron in the contradiction. Oprah was one of these strongest voices pushing the normalization of family cutoffs and not by accident. Publicly repeatedly and openly I don't feel that I contributed to the culture of a strangement in the way that you're saying. Hi everybody, I'm happy to be here with you on the Oprah podcast in gorgeous New York City. So right before Thanksgiving we did an episode about the growing number of Americans choosing to go now contact with their parent or their adult child.

And it reached over 5 million of you, thank you so much, and millions more reacted on social media. I did not fully appreciate this issue, would hit such a raw nerve, and then in the middle of Thanksgiving with my own family, my phone is blowing up with comments and articles and debates online. And I wanted to show you just a few of the most reposted moments from that no contact episode.

“So you didn't grow up in a world where you thought about, you know, removing yourself or distancing yourself from your parents, where did the idea even come from?”

I don't think there was one moment, I think it was very incremental. Do you miss the contact with them? I love my life. I'm just not being walked all over actually, so it's I know peace for the first time.

There's always been a strangement, right, forever there's been a strangement, but it's new the way we think about family.

I do understand she is my mother, however it's like we just, we don't have that relationship, you know? I thought it's just like she was never there for me. It's such a thin line between like what's appropriate and what's gone too far. Because as therapists, we do see our clients suffering. I am a strangement from my 30-year-old son by choice.

When their mother decides to go to no contact with their child, she's demonized and that's been my experience. In our generation way we grew up, you know, you love your parents no matter what. Yeah. They're not doing that no more. I just wanted to mention that this is not the world of 30 years ago.

“I think it's a very interesting thing you just said.”

The days of the role being the almighty in the relationship, because it's not about the role. It really is about the relationship.

Some of you said you felt seen and understood for the first time.

Others felt that the language and the framing of our conversation missed the mark. So I'm here today to try to unpack this and dive a bit deeper if we can. On this episode, our three experts will be back as well as more people who have chosen to cut ties with their parents and even ties between siblings, which hits a very different nerve. But first, one social post really caught my attention so much so that I responded to it.

Watch this. So now Oprah is shocked by the aftermath of a strangement after being one of the biggest voices pushing it for decades. Oprah, the biggest plot twist in the entire family's arrangement crisis.

“While everyone is applauding her for finally discussing a strangement,”

very few look at the iron in the contradiction. Oprah was one of these strongest voices pushing the normalization of family cutoffs and not by accident publicly repeatedly and openly in this started as far back as the 90s. And it continued for decades right into 2025 and look at the trail. She wasn't neutral.

She was asking questions. She amplified the very messaging that contributed to millions of parents and children walking away from one another. A strangement isn't entertainment or a trending conversation piece. It's real families, real grief.

Parents dying without hearing their child's voice. Generations are now breaking. Let's talk about what repair talks and what that means and what repair actually takes because that's part that no one teaches you and that's exactly why I'm here. Tanya, thanks for being here to talk with me.

Hi there. Hi Oprah. Hi, you believe that I and so many others have helped to promote this concept of going no contact over the years. You're right, yeah.

Now, whether it was intentional or not, Oprah speaking directly because this conversation didn't just recently start, I was one of those people that cut off my mom in the name of healing because I put you on a pedestal for so long and I was watching your episodes and I've watched you talk with Nedra which is awesome to have her here today. Where the language is about protecting your piece and having the boundaries and empowerment,

which was freeing in the moment, but there was no path to repair after that. And so when I saw this topic come up now, I was kind of like, "Hon, this isn't new." Well, I thank you for bringing that to my attention because what I thought was new certainly is new culturally in the African-American community which we're talking about. I think later on with Nedra and other people is that the idea of cutting off your parents has just

having no contact, what I felt I was doing was allowing people the opportunity to remove themselves from abusive relationships. So what I remember is all of these various shows that we did

“where people are being abused by their parent and I believe when you have to reenter a situation”

where you have suffered abuse or you have been severely mistreated in that way that divorcing that situation for many people is the best recourse. So that's what I have in my memory. But I don't feel that I contributed to the culture of a strangement in the way that you're saying. But I can hear why you feel that way. I want to say I appreciate your bringing presence

to the abuse part because my content is never about abuse. That's when distance is necessary.

I think what happened is because that language was learned and pushed so much, it started to challenge in particular, Tanya. Like the parting, the distance when you should go into contact your parents are toxic, even the terms of your parents are abusive. Now, it might not be coming directly from you, that language became so normalized, Oprah, that it's now being used for everyday hardships, not necessarily abuse. I would agree with that and that's one of the things

that I learned in this most recent show that we did that what I in all the years are doing the Oprah show saw as abuse. People feel now when somebody hurts their feelings or somebody doesn't agree with him that that is now abuse. I see abuse as it has been defined for years in the culture. Someone is sexually abusing you, emotionally abusing you, saying things on a constant basis that make you feel small and make you feel less than valued in the relationships. That's

what I see as abuse. Someone having a disagreement with you and you're not feeling like they are necessarily in your corner to me that isn't abuse. I think from my point of view what I have done is try to get to people to look at the truth of their lives. If this person is toxic to you,

“which I know is a word that's used over use now, then you need to create some distance,”

you know, in my own family relationships as you referred to, I had some toxicity and it didn't mean I completely estranged from my family because of it, but I had to set up some boundaries because of it. So I think there's a difference between setting up boundaries and having absolutely no contact. Yeah, I want to add on that because boundaries are such an important tool and that's where I

appreciated Nedro because I think boundaries are so important when someone has never had boundaries

before and knew how to say no. But what happened is boundaries is staying in relationships that aren't safe or essential and it stops the bleeding by setting these boundaries and it creates that space to breathe. Where the conversation does that again? Staying in relationships that are unsafe. I think the distance is necessary in those instances that you don't stay in the relationship when you're safety is an issue. But what happens is the conversation is stopping with boundaries

when boundaries are treated as the end goal of healing rather than the beginning steps. And that's essentially why I talk about that because managing pain through distance is not the same thing as resolving the emotional wounds underneath it. And so healing is what creates freedom. Boundaries is what creates that first line of protection. Two very different things.

Tell me, tell me, Tony, what do you think? Because I'm always interested in evolving,

“growing, making things where what do you think was missing from our episode?”

I think it was lacking the depth because obviously this conversation runs deep. And so when I say depth, I mean, it's one thing to understand your pain. But for me, when I really uncovered emotional healing, there's three stages to it. And I feel like this kind of covered stage one, which is stage one is really unpacking the wounds, bringing it to their surface, attaching your pain and your insecurities and all of that to what happened to you in your childhood and your upbringing.

But that's just stage one. Stage two is really about now. How do I reframe that? And for me, that's saying, okay, the villain in my story from stage one, I need to now rewrite their story. So that I'm no longer just holding on to the resentment and the pain that I have, but I need to be able to understand their perspective, not to justify the pain that happened to not to excuse it in any way, shape or form. But to allow you a level of compassion

to say, this wasn't about me. This was about them and their character and what they've gone through and how they've grown up that deflected that on to me. And it's not me. So that stage two, there was no conversation around that let alone stage three about how to repair. About how to repair, how to understand that they didn't mean to necessarily hurt me. By the way, there's of course some terrible people in the world that don't have that intention,

conversation and show. I think for myself and I think for the producers who brought the idea to

me in the first place, actually, the idea came because I have a friend who was going through it,

who called me up one day and said, do you know about this no contact thing? Then I mentioned the producer and then we started this whole thing and they said, oh yeah, a lot of people are going

“through this. So I think our initial intention, because we always talk about what is our intention”

before do anything, was to make people aware that this was happening in the world. Now, I know you live in a world where you're very social and you know this. But there are a lot of people that didn't know this was happening, including my best friend, Gayel, who's like, I didn't even know people could do this. So the initial show was just to let people know this is happening in the world. And I think I think you're right that we didn't delve into how to repair because we were just

trying to let people know this was actually happening. So what's the third thing you think is

the same? The third thing is now rewriting your own story. Yes. Once you've found the compassion, the understanding now you write your own story and say, okay, I'm not going to be stuck in stage one. I need to be able to work through that level of compassion and say, since I'm aware now that the triggers and the people who activated them and everything was not a direct correlation with my work and who I am and everything, it's time for me to rewrite my own. And I love that

you say this because this comes from your own experience, right? Because I read that you went no contact once yourself. I did. That's the thing is I oftentimes say it's to protect my piece. But for me, I learned that it was actually protecting my pain because as long as I wasn't around the thing that was triggering me, then I felt peaceful. But really, for me, a real peace came when I was no longer triggered, which I don't like to use that for like that term so loosely because

I feel like it's another common word now. Once I learned how to be around my mother or the person that was triggering me and still stay common grounded, that was a different level of peace. That is the real definition of peace. Okay. So Tony, I really thank you for sharing your point of view with us and giving me and all of us on this team are different perspective. We're going to move on to my other guests. But I want to make sure you had a chance to say what you wanted to. Is there some final

“thing you wanted to share with us? I think it's important to have that open dialogue and I appreciate”

you actually commenting and being open to it because sometimes we do have an effect that could create a ripple effect when our attention was not to create that. Yeah. Well, thank you so much. And you've given me ideas for at least three or four other conversations. All right. Thank you. All right. Hope to talk to you in the future. After this quick break, our listeners have a lot of questions and comments for our experts. Plus, Amy, Winning Journalist, Jamel Hill,

saw our episode and joins us next. She explains why she is ready to share her own no context

story for the first time. Stay with us. Welcome back to the overpied cast. A few months ago,

we produced a podcast on this statistical rise in family estrangement in the United States. In that episode, really struck a nerve with millions of you. So we have updates and more questions for our experts. Let's get back to it. Okay. So now I want to bring in our three experts into the conversation.

“Dr. Joshua Coleman, you will remember, is a psychologist by selling author known for his frequent”

contributions to ask a therapist column in the Washington Post. And Nedra, who you also just mentioned, Nedra Glover-Tawab, is a therapist in New York Times, bestselling author. Hey, Nedra again. And Dr. Lindsey Gibson, psychologist and also New York Times, bestselling author. Welcome back to you all, Dr. Coleman. You've seen Tanya's post and you share some of her sentiments. How so? Well, I share many of the sentiments that people are way too quick to

cut off loving decent involve parents. And they're using the language of therapy and abuse. And part of that is just the way that the threshold for what we consider to be abusive harmful and neglectful traumatizing behavior has lowered. So the generations are really talking past each other. And one of the problems that we have right now in our culture is that, you know, just about every day, there's some article about somebody who's cut themselves off from a truly abusive parent.

Where any of us could agree that it's a reasonable, understandable thing for that adult child to have done. But you know, it's missing from our culture are the parents and stories. And parents are out there talking about their stories, you know, why? Because they're terrified. That if they do that, that's going to decrease to each other or change for this stranger kids. It's going to further exchange them. So you have this great disparity between who's kind of running

the narrative here. And so people often say things like, well, you know, nobody cuts them, cuts off a parent because they have really good reasons. And yeah, I agree that they might not cut them off unless they have good reasons. But that reason may not be parental abuse or neglect or harm. It could be because they don't get along with the spouse that their child is married to.

or addictive issues. So there's all these different pathways to a strange event that can happen

with good decent, loving parents. And that is not enough in the media in our conversation right now.

“Nedja, what do you want to say about the reaction that you've been seeing online about this episode?”

So you've so many messages about the title. And one of the things that, you know, I mentioned is one, I do not label and market Oprah Winfrey's episodes, right? I had nothing to do with the title. And also, if we are being technical, a trend is something that is popular. So if you look on Twitter or threads or TikTok, they have a list of 20 or 10 trending topics. So if this happens to be a popular topic of this time, then that is what the episode was labeled. I don't think it was

labeled in a manner to say that we are doing something to make it more popular or we're doing

something to say that this has never been a thing. But it really is something that more and more

people are talking about. I think that we're trend made a lot of people feel marginalized. Trend was in the labeling of this episode. I never called it a trend, but I take responsibility for what it's labeled because I approve everything. And so I didn't know that that word would cause a stir or cause people to be upset. Let me just say, I apologize for many of you that word felt insulting and it did not actually reflect the immense pain and the grief behind

the decisions that you all have made. So I apologize on behalf of myself and my team. I want to say

“I thank you all for the correction. I stand corrected and I think people think long and hard for many”

days and nights and often years before they make a decision like this, long and hard and are tormented by it for a long time. So any implication that it's anything else was certainly not intended by me. And what I wanted to talk to you about is that in the African American community, this was unheard of. I've seen so many people in relationships in the African American community where you at least needed to set some boundaries. You at least, but the idea of divorcing or dismissing

or no longer having contact with somebody who has done severely harmful things to you was just unheard of. And now that is happening. That is happening. Yeah and I would say many instances it would have been healthy to happen many years ago. We would have saved some generations from from

“trauma, you know, to time you as point the real abuse a part of it. Some people are suffering”

real abuse for years and years particularly in the black community because we have this. I don't want to put it out there that this person is doing that. I don't want to bring shame to my culture. I don't want to say anything and disrupt the family programming. So people are dealing with what real abuse. I would have to say if I overrun free, personally, you know, three people who have been in abusive relationships and have now grown up and their mothers are still with those men.

And they feel like they have to continue a relationship in that family. If I personally know

three, I know that there are at least three or four million out there who are doing the same thing.

And that and that's the pedophiles in the family and the pedophiles in the family. The pedophiles in the family or the verbally abusive arts and grandparents and all sorts of things that it's just been something we've tolerated. And now that people have the education and understanding that that is actually abuse, they are taking a stand. So Dr. Gibson, what's the response been like for you? Yeah, for the most part, all the responses that I've gotten have been very positive.

This is, you know, coming mostly from colleagues and friends, but also people that have posted stuff as well. So it was very positive in the sense of it being experienced as a well balanced show, something that showed the point of view of several different situations, you know, whether it was parent, child, child, parent. Yeah. Okay. There were so many posts I responded to Tanya's because I just popped into my feed and then I realized everybody else was saying all kinds

of things. I just couldn't keep up. But Jamel Hill posted this. I watched Oprah's episode about

And then someone posted something pretty rude and Jamel clapped back. Thank you. And wrote,

“maybe you should watch the episode before having such a strong opinion. It was a very good episode.”

And the point of it wasn't to say, look at this new thing happening, but to also highlight and have hard conversations about how the no contact is happening for a variety of reasons that sometimes don't include obvious abuse. Well, thank you Jamel. Thank you so much. Any award-winning journalist author and the Atlantic contributor. I love the Atlantic so much. And all of that you say they're great to see you. Thank you for watching and supporting us. What struck you the most,

watching it and caused you to have that response? Well, if you will allow me to name drop the best friend Gail, the episode struck me so much because I have a few personal connections to it. I have two very dear friends of mine who have gone no contact with their mother. So I thought about their situation and I was so struck and drawn to this episode that I texted Gail because I know her socially and through some other channels. And I said, listen, I know you're not Oprah's messenger or her

administrative assistant, but if you could pass along to her that this episode was really one of the best that I've ever seen in terms of addressing something that was so deep and painful for a lot of people, but I was struck by people's courage, by their vulnerability, and another part of it that I had considered because you had a woman on who it decided to go no contact with her son because that was a part of this movement. I don't want to use the word trend either or part of this growing awareness

“that isn't really covered. I don't I think on some level it may not totally surprise people”

if children decide to do that with their parents because of all sorts of different reasons, abuse not liking a spouse or significant other host of things, but to hear parents saying that they

decided to go no contact with their kids was especially start. Yeah, powerful because I thought

her testimony was really profound saying, I've been abused for years by my own son and have taken it and have done everything. And what happens in those relationships is the other children in the family end up suffering because all the attention goes to trying to solve this problem with the child who is abusive and not getting along with the rest of the family and and everybody ends up suffering. So I think the fact that people particularly parents come to that conclusion isn't even more daring

and thought out process than it is for kids in many cases. Well in 2022 I recall it was right after the pandemic was subsiding. You released your acclaimed memoir uphill and if you're watching or listening and you haven't read uphill, let me just tell you it's a fearless and inspiring story written in Jamel's voice and in the book you shared some unforgettable truths about your own family dynamics. I know it was probably hard for you to share a lot of that also cathartic.

What do you want people to know now? Well um you know as I alluded to it in that social media

post that you referenced. I said I had a personal situation that I was dealing with and I have never

discovered disclosed this publicly because it's sort of relatively recent but I've been no contact with my own father for almost going on three years and it is interesting to mention my book because my book played a role in the reason why I decided to go no contact and I didn't even know that was the language for calling it that but my father was upset about my book and if anyone has read my book I certainly did not tear down my father we had a very sort of difficult path in the sense that we were

estranged for some time we sort of came together you know renewed a relationship we were estranged because my father early on in my childhood it was addicted to heroin when both my parents were addicts and they have thankfully recovered and so because of that early absence it was a lot of stops and starts in terms of how to grow our relationship and I did the best that I could certainly on my end and I know my father was trying to do his best but with this memoir came out he took

to Facebook and was upset about some of the things that I said about him and my memoir actually wasn't upset about what I said what he told me over was that he was upset that he wasn't in it enough and my immediate thought was you would have had to be in my life more to be in the memoir more

and so and he disparaged my mother and he has always sort of blamed her for the fact that

our relationship has been again stops and starts and kind of awkward we certainly had good moments

“and good times and I think it was Nedger who said this is that when you're trying to reframe”

the relationship with your parent when there has been hurt there is that maybe they're not supposed to be the parent maybe they're supposed to be a really good friend so I was trying to put him in

just because of the estrangement and the time lost and those kind of things but he can be my friend

“and I thought we were on the pathway to that until he decided to publicly say these things”

when he had my number and he could have called me if he had anything that he took issue with with the book and so between that and some other instances and Oprah know you can probably relate to this

of asking me for money and I mean it was just like a whole thing and so finally I just got to a

point where considering the pattern of our relationship and I had certainly put to bid the things that did not happen in childhood like all that stuff was dead to me like I wasn't carrying that at all I was all about let's reframe and beyond to this new relationship but it was such a lack of accountability and awareness and I felt like I was pouring more into it than him and I got to that point can I say this too since you brought this up this is for all the people

who are the first in their family or one of the only in their family to succeed particularly when you've come from challenging circumstances difficult backgrounds we all become the first national

bank to our families and that's a very difficult thing to accept and I know people think well

“you got money you should be able to share it and give it to everybody in the family it's a difficult”

thing to accept when you're not seen for being a person you now just become a resource for them you become the bank you no longer even like human to people so I so get that and I hear for a long time you were hesitant to even share this part of your story why is now the right time? Well I was hesitant and it was something that you have alluded to earlier with some of your previous guests because we know that especially as black women we're tearing the different

responsibility when it comes to how we speak about our community how we represent our community and there are so many black acts yes there is black tags correct there is such a negative stereotype about black men and especially about black men and their presence in the home that we hear all the tropes and all the negatives and all those kind of thing and that they have tried to make black men the face of absenteeism and of you know not being the pair that is there and so I was

very hesitant to share the story because I didn't want people to then tell your pilot on yeah start piloting on and run with that narrative and frankly the other part I didn't want either I didn't want a whole bunch of people who ain't got any degree with a PhD or anything behind a name trying to diagnose me as somebody who is oh you just another bit of black woman or oh you got that issue so I'm like I just mean I do not have that issue there's been a long line of black

men who had made not have been my biological father my mother was married twice I had two good step fathers had other really positive black male role models in my life like trust me that is not my issue and so I also didn't want to have to deal with that part of the conversation but your episode really was the one that gave me the courage to say like oh there's a lot of people that are actually going through this I'm not the only one and it helped to frankly validate some of what

I was feeling about why I arrived at what is as you said and it's very true a very difficult decision for anybody to do especially when it comes to a parent well thank you so much and I hope everybody reads that that memoir it's hard to write a memoir is good as yours because

one of the things it's really powerful about your story is that your story makes me think about my

“story and that's what you do for everybody in that book so thank you so much thank you so much”

for that thanks Jamel I appreciate your support and I also thank you for sharing more of your story here with us today and I know you speak for so many others and after all this I'm wishing you peace I'm wishing you and peace okay time for a quick break you all up next experts answer some of the most common questions from our listeners like why is family astrangement on the rise do therapists encourage families to go no contact and how can generations bridge the gap stay with us

or did I get to look yet cost no else will be in thanks for joining me on the opera podcast research says that there's a rise in the number of families cutting off ties and becoming estranged it's a sensitive and painful issue we are exploring further because so many listeners have more questions let's get on it so I read that over two out of five members of Jinzi are in some form

because when I first started the over show uh 1986 nationally I remember audience members standing

“up and said I will never go to therapy I mean I I mean I think therapy is for like people who are”

crazy are out of their minds so the idea that now two out of five are going to therapy it's a case for older generations who grew up in a time when mental health treatment was absolutely taboo at my school in South Africa that I opened in 2007 and we had you know three therapists on board at the time we could get none of the girls who had been severely traumatized to even go to therapy because it had been so stigmatized so Dr. Gibson how do grandparents parents and their

children bridge this gap yeah I mean because of the explosion and self-help books and self-awareness

and self-development there has been a similar increase in the interest in therapy so that that's a cultural fact now but you know when when older generations talk about not understanding all this therapy stuff or why it's okay now to go to therapy or what's the importance of boundaries or

“why are people making such a big deal out of this I think that there is a real blind spot”

toward children and toward the younger generations that really is something that needs to change what I mean is that I don't care what generation you are boomer millennial whatever you know what boundaries

are you don't say certain things to your boss you don't cop certain attitudes toward authority figures

I mean we know we we humans are a hierarchical group of beings and we understand that there are boundaries and there is a need for tact and there are things that we can and can't say to other people and get away with it but somehow when it's our children there is a sense of them being a part of us and so we feel that it's sort of a right or entitlement to tell them what we think or not only that but Nedra could speak to this too in the African American community I remember growing up you know

and hearing quite often you know I brought you in this world I can take you out I mean there is this feeling of my uh black photographer right now cameraman is like a laughing have you not heard that before I don't know if y'all heard that in your white families I brought you in this world I

“can take you out but that's how we grew up like you are mine to do with whatever I want you know”

what I'm speaking about right Nedra yeah I'm I'm hearing that I'm like I should say that to my kids and see if they even know what that means yeah I brought you in this world and take you out part of their black upbringing they would be like what what did you say mom what does that even mean thinking about but yeah I heard that and I also heard this bottomless plea to tolerate abuse this bottomless plea to accept more from people you know so and so is that way you just have to

avoid this with that person if so and so comes over you need to stay away from them you know so there are also things going on that people were aware of and it was put on the child or the victim to protect themselves and I think that's also one of these things that we're now seeing people say well I don't want to be a part of the the the family union if so and so is not to be there I don't want to show up for family dinner if nobody else is taken a stand with me against this thing

yes and this may not surprise you the United States ranks as the most individualistic nation y'all in the world where personal goals outweigh collective one doctor Coleman could our American way this individualism thinking about your own self empowerment for yourself which is good in many ways could this be contributing do you think doctor Coleman to the estrangement I think a high rates of individualism absolutely is a pathway to astrangement because our whole continents

where astrangement is considered to be a completely bizarre or foreign idea the idea that you could off your family or a parent is considered completely wrong and you know I think this moment there's good news and there's bad news the good news is that adult children now the power to cut off truly abuse of parents the bad news is that a lot of parents were getting cut off today weren't necessarily bad or abusive or difficult if they're being treated in some ways like they weren't

in a way that the adult if they're now adult child thanks difficult shares the problem

okay so here here here here's what I'd like to clear up and I want all of you all to speak to

because I want to know for all of the people we're listening people hearing about this with the first time when do you as therapists feel that it is appropriate to have no contact or cut off relationships when is it appropriate Dr Coleman then I'll go to the u-netra and you Dr Gibson well I'm happy to answer that question but I think before I answer that question I want

“to have stressed that even when it's justified even when I go yeah I go ahead you need to do that”

I get um estrogen is a cataclysmic event in every family system today if a parent is cut off they also cut off access to the grandchildren that's a tragedy in a trauma and I don't want to that grandparents that grandchildren also siblings get cut off it's typical this is true that some of that guests today in last time that one siblings gonna line up with a parent's mother's gonna line up with the estranging sibling but my ask also is that people don't do it forever you know

maybe you need to go no contact because of way to settle in maybe you do it for six months maybe you do it for a year what about after that period of time coming back and telling the parent look I need things to be really different with you if we're gonna have a relationship

“either you need to get into therapy or we need to get into family therapy or I can't be in”

relationship with you okay Nedger what do you say with adults the only time that I have talked about someone estranging from a parent or and/or sibling is when there is an active physical or sexual abuse issue or if there is a physical or sexual safety concern and those things for therapists are reportable by law outside of that our clients are typically coming to us with this ideal on their own or they have spoken about it so much that they make this decision

and I may support them in it I don't direct that path for them though I don't say have you ever thought about cutting your mom off would you stop talking to her how long are you gonna tolerate this I don't say things like that because I truly believe they have to live with the consequences which is guilt which is other family cutoffs which is you know feeling shame and all sorts of things

“so I don't want to direct that path for you but I will listen I will support if that's what”

you choose but it's never a thing that I need to present to a person for their life Dr. Gibson

yeah I totally agree with Nedger I mean that is my position as well however I just want to add here that more often than not people are coming to that conclusion themselves as we're going through the process of therapy and self-awareness and self-growth they end up feeling like they need some space some separation in order to get their feet back under them to see where they stand with things before maybe re-entering the relationship with the parent or even knowing what it is that they want

to ask for from the parent to get clearer about that but yeah I don't I don't bring up a strangement as a solution to anybody's problem but as Nedger said they often come to that or they come into the therapy session with that on their mind but having written the book on adult children of emotionally immature parents do you recommend them trying to come to some understanding of what it means to come from an emotionally immature parent yeah I mean if you look in my book I have at least one

chapter on trying to understand what happened to these parents and what has made them so defensive yeah that's what happened yeah you do what happened to yeah and then I also have an extensive chapter and they're about how to deal with them in a way that you protect yourself and you have boundaries and you maintain that connection with yourself instead of giving everything over to you know the parents opinion got it I wanted to bring Tanya back Tanya thanks for joining us again because

you expressed earlier that you had separated no contact because you were looking for peace but it only ended up causing you more pain I want to know how did you get to a place of reconciliation and how long did it take I mean I was at strange for two years myself I was strange for two

years so when it really came to my estrangement what helped me is learning first I want to say

decision ourselves when I was talking to a therapist it was very uncovering everything that happened you know okay so tell me what happened how did that make you feel so I was building this villain image around my mother in particular and it compounded so I when I cut her off I was my unhealthiest though I had chronic anxiety and saw me I was trying to deal with all of it and I was obviously blaming it on her until I really understood like they talked about stage two and three of my healing

“journey it really came when I rewrote my mother's story opera that's what happened I said okay”

she was the youngest daughter the 15th out of 16 kids her dad died when she was three her mother definitely neglected her in unintentional ways and so when I rewrote that and I started to have more compassion I said okay to her even though she failed my emotional needs and needs in a lot of ways she did literally the best that she could and I'm that's not to say that you know everyone is doing the bathroom it can use that as an excuse but for me when I really understood that I said

I cannot expect her to be this incredibly emotionally mature person when she never had the tools

that I'm now presented with her age got it so you rewrote her story and then rewrote her story it ended up rewriting your story or your narrative with her exactly exactly thank you thank you for that after the break a woman who has gone no contact with her sister and how estrangement is different for siblings and a couple of strange from their parents asked them to watch our episode and they share how that change or didn't change anything that's next welcome back

our experts have advice for anybody wrestling with distance boundaries or estrangement with family if you know someone who may need to hear this please don't hesitate to share this link to this episode here's more all right we're moving on to other guests trisha's joining as she hasn't talked to her sister in nearly a year trisha thanks for being here what's going on thank you this isn't something I ever saw myself talking about so publicly but I feel it really important so thank you

for this we grew up in a household where it was very controlled and religious our father was a preacher and family roles were very clearly defined and as preachers kids there's kind of like a spotlight on you and people look at you and our parents wanted us to model our perfection

yeah it'd be perfect yeah and my sister she's the first born she's the oldest so that came

either her that was right in her field she was the responsible one she was the one we modeled ourselves after I'm the middle child I'm a little more emotional I'm the peep keeper in the family I handle everyone's emotions and then my brother with the youngest and he's the baby he kind of about attention only for being the only boy and as we got older those roles just followed us into a adulthood and we had a lot of layered family trauma happened to us so there was a lot of change

in our family system the roles the dynamics there was confusion I'm a strange from my sister and her and I haven't talked in a year but I still have a relationship with my brother okay do you have a question for one of our experts I do for uh miss Gibson when choosing a emotional safety because

“that's what I did when choosing a emotional safety I had to grieve a version of myself that”

was always accommodating for people and always available to people how would you tell people to

honor that grief without shame or without self doubt hmm good question yeah that part of you the part of you that wants to be accommodating and collaborative and wants to do nice things for people that is a precious part of your personality that's kind of the the open joyous child part of you that may have been common deered to become sort of a pleaser of your parents or of your family members and in that way it may feel like it's something that you need to get rid of but it's

really your superpower because who do people like to work with who do people like to be around who do people feel energized by there are people that have those characteristics of being you know receptive to other people and being accommodating and so forth so that's not something that we want to get rid of we want to celebrate that in you and also raise it like a precious child of yours that you know honey I know you want to please them or give into them or agree with them

“but maybe that's not going to be the best thing for us this time yeah so just hang back and let me”

handle this you can do that kind of different part of yourself work where you don't have to get rid of

you as they don't get to do that I love that I love that and also rewriting as Tongue was

only rewriting that part of your story rewriting that narrative for yourself you get to write another story about you yeah you do thank you Trisha Erica and her husband David are joining us and I hear you watch this episode together how did it impact each of you well for me yeah it was very validating we felt very seen similar to what other people had shared since even though it's becoming more aware and obvious to other people it still feels very lonely within our own

communities and with our friendships so it was nice to have some context outside of ourselves and this is because you have been estranged from or no contact with whom my own father and now my mother and my sister and then David's family as well really and you both are no contact yes yes but the episode really impacted me directly because it talked about how there can be some room for the future and reconciliation and moving forward the father I think his name was Aaron

he talked about a lot of the self reflection meant a lot and after watching the episode actually forwarded it to my own father who I we are still in contact with him but then he shared it with our other family members that were not necessarily in contact with and they didn't even want to take the time to listen and that's a really kind of hurts us a lot is that we're not being heard we're not we're not getting listened to I know which is one of the the most

“important I think experiences that everybody needs to have is to know that you were heard”

and that you were seen and that what you had to say mattered and so if you're going to be just dismissed I hear you would both like to begin as you just said to repair the strangements so let's ask our experts what's the advice on what to do beginning with you Dr. Coleman

well first of all a pleasure I have for you to try to give your family a way to work towards reconciliation

and I sort of wish a lot more adults children who were strange would do that whether it's by giving them you know my book or somebody else's book or some other some other pathway to reconciliation so the task I think you know it's very very hard and I can say this is a grant who whose daughter had cut him off and we eventually did reconcile it's incredibly hard for parent to hear the ways that they've failed their child we're going to get defense so you know

we're going to feel hurt and we may respond with anger we may try to shut you down and we're shutting you down because of the ways that we feel hurt or ashamed or embarrassed or humiliated

“we feel like we're failing at our most very important task and so I think the more if you're”

goal is where I can show the issue with your parent to really let them know that your goal in raising these topics isn't to shame them to hurt them to criticize them to make them feel bad about themselves it's really an expression of love it's really an expression of a desire to feel closer do they know why you're estranged? Yes I've had many conversations and even my dad has really the same information about he wants to support and I think his most recent comment was even just

sit down and listen to him and get up and don't even say anything and and unfortunately my mother

doesn't want to do that um she can't listen it always has to be a

tit for tat or what about you type of situation that makes it really hard to reconcile because there's just no self-awareness there's no self-reflection of what did I do to this situation or what am I contributing to this problem? Yeah in reality some parents just don't have that capacity in the center of children don't have the capacity to communicate with them. I think capacities are really powerful word because of the person doesn't have the capacity it's like you know rolling a

bolder up a hill you you you you never get it there you just never get it there and at some point

“you have to accept or resolve within yourself that I've done everything that I can do”

and there's nothing more to be done I don't know when you reach that point Nedard do you have some thoughts on that and Dr. Gibson? Yeah what I'm thinking about here is it sounds like someone has to concede because if your mother is unwilling to hear any other way I think there has to be some acceptance on your in that some of your your needs may not be met and you will have to tolerate this to the extent that you can't I don't think this sounds like

a situation where you go back into it and all parties leave happy with what they're bringing to the

you know if I am in this relationship how can I manage it differently you know and you don't

“want to leave it it sounds like you really want to be in it but it does sound like something that”

needs to be managed in a different way this time. I mean I just say to you all Eric and David that

Dr. Coleman's use of the word capacity struck me and I'm always struck by that word because

years ago I read a memoir in which somebody was talking about their family relationship and they realized that their family member didn't have the capacity to fulfill the needs they they had as a child nor as adult and when I read that it was just so eye-opening to me because I realized oh all this time I've been pushing uphill and struggling and resisting and resisting what is in my face with my own family relationships all the person doesn't have the capacity and when I

recognized that particular word you know struck me and opened me in such a way that I really oh

“I'm never gonna win this I'm never gonna be able to convince somebody who doesn't have the”

capacity to receive it that's when I was able to find peace within myself and have the boundaries

or set up what I needed you know to best survive in that relationship when you realize that the person doesn't have the capacity that's a huge huge place to get to in terms of acceptance I just wanted to share that how profound an impact that word has had on my own life and my own relationships when you're dealing with somebody who doesn't have the capacity it's hard yeah and that's been our experience as well and I appreciate you sharing that because it took us a while to get to that

point to be able to accept where their limitations were and that did give us more I guess freedom

might be the word yeah but also we could stand firm and why we had set the boundaries the way that we

did that we're good meet for our family and our own needs not demanding anything of them that wasn't realistic we've just offered resources or attempt set solutions like through mediation and they have just shown no interest in that so but I will just say you're coming to terms is Nedra was saying you're coming to terms and accepting accepting that they don't have the capacity brings you peace so that you're not in resistance to still pushing and hoping and wishing and

trying and giving and not receiving it's it's the acceptance that they don't have the capacity Dr. Gibson what do you want to say yeah along those lines I'm reminded of a client I had who just couldn't seem to grasp that her mother was as superficial as she was and it drove her crazy that her mother seemed to oversimplify everything so you didn't like and why you couldn't reason with her because of that very limited perspective and we talked a lot about her mother's

limited complexity that her mother just didn't have the tolerance for ambiguity she didn't have a complex enough personality structure to really take things in and think about them deeply and what if she thought of her mom as someone who saw the world in 2D where she sees it in 3D could she still relate to her mom at some level across some common ground in the 2D world where her mother lived and that was very helpful to her and the other thing that I would mention is you know along with

the acceptance comes a different form of goal for the relationship that is instead of trying to have an intimate relationship between two people who are capable of a complex relationship right how I just trying to relate to them as people who are very different I mean humanly different from you in terms of what they can tolerate and what they can think about what they can reflect on and if your goal is to have you know a pleasant enough interaction or or to relate to them in that

way that may be much more achievable than trying to have this relationship where they are understood you know where they feel understood by the parent because that may not be able to happen

“like and I think some many times too we're holding on to this idea of what we think the relationship”

should be well I mean they seem like they should be able to do that yeah it seems like you should but you're not going to have that you're wise about some things it's like they should be able to do it but it gets back to that point about the acceptance that is not the reality not the reality Eric and David thank you and I and listen it makes us all who work here on the

actually impacted you in a way that made you think about doing things differently thank you so much and

“we wish you the best thank you bringing light to the matter it's something that's hard to talk about”

but much needed yeah let's keep talking about it thank you all so much and thank you to all my

guests thank you Jamal Hill and your beautiful memoir uphill thank you Tanya and Trisha thank you

“thank you Tanya for that post thanks to these experts all of you all three of our experts for”

returning to this conversation Dr. Coleman's book is rules of his arrangement Dr. Gibson

has an upcoming book on how to raise an emotionally mature child that comes out in April and

“Nedra Glover to Wobbs book is a balancing act creating healthy dependency and connection”

without losing yourself it's in stores right now and I hope this conversation has opened up even more space for a little compassion some understanding for yourself or maybe someone you love who's going through this we'll keep talking go out everybody see you next time you can subscribe to the upper podcast on YouTube and follow us on Spotify Apple podcasts or wherever you listen I'll see you next week thanks everybody