CALLING HOME with Whitney Goodman, LMFT - Q&A: I'm Estranged From My Parents and My Sister Has Cancer

Episode Date: March 27, 2025

This week, I'm sharing my three little epiphanies: The show Long Bright River is a great representation of what it's like to love a family member in active addiction and the different paths we can take in a family. (More on that below) Why I'm so tired of quotes like, "It's your parent's first time living too."  I saw this video about growing up in an "ask family" or a "guess family," and it's fascinating.  I also answer two caller questions. Caller 1 is estranged from her parents but wants to support her sister who has cancer. Caller 2 still feels really anxious around her family but wants to maintain a connection. This is a great episode about boundaries, difficult choices, and deciding if we can tolerate surface-level relationships. Join The Family Cyclebreakers Club: www.callinghome.co/join Whitney's Book Toxic Positivity. Have a question for Whitney? Call in and leave a voicemail for the show at 866-225-5466. Follow Whitney on Instagram: www.instagram.com/sitwithwhit Subscribe to Whitney's YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@whitneygoodmanlmft Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hello and welcome back to the Calling On podcast. I'm your host, Whitney Goodman. I am excited to be here today for a Q&A episode. We'll have two callers later on in the episode. But first I want to dive into my three little epiphanies of the week. If you're on my email newsletter, you already saw some about this, but these are three things that I saw, took note of this week that I wanted to talk about more with you. I watched the show Long Bright River. It's with Amanda Sigfried on a of Peacock. Highly recommend because I think it's a great representation of what it's like to love a family member in active addiction who's struggling with their mental health. But it's also such a great representation of the different paths we can take in a family. So there's a police officer in the show who has a sister who struggles with addiction. And there's this scene where she's sharing with a friend that 25% of her brain has always been focused on crisis. When her sister is using, she's afraid she will die. When her sister isn't using, she's afraid she will relapse.

And she has no idea what it's like to not be worried about the health of her sister or an impending crisis. And we've been focusing on this all month at Calling Home. We've been talking about the role that mental health and mental illness plays in families and how it can totally change your family dynamics. And I think this is really what it's like to love someone who has a serious. persistent mental illness or addiction. You can detach with love. You can set boundaries. You can find ways to help within your limits, which are all things that we covered this month. So if you need any help with that, you can visit callinghome.com and join the family cyclebreakers club. But that

worry is always there, simmering under the surface. And I think every single week in our groups this month, someone has brought up that constant tension between empathy and accountability and they've wrestled with ways of finding how to help and identifying when that help has become too painful. And it's so challenging to recognize when a family relationship is harming your mental health. It's even more complicated when that family member is sick or struggling. And so I think some of you may be asking yourself even like, am I a bad person if I don't help them? And that was what, you know, the latest article that I wrote for calling home was about. And in that article, I help you identify when a family relationship

is negatively impacting your mental health, understand the consequences of those relationships, decide what to do when the relationship is taking a toll on you, and learn how to release the guilt of being unable to sustain a relationship that is harming you, even if it's family. And so yesterday on Wednesday, the 26th, we had our last group about mental illness and the family. And we had such amazing groups this month. I really appreciate everyone that came and listened and participated. And we're about to move into a new topic, which I'll tell you about in a moment. But if you are somebody that is struggling with supporting a family member who has a mental health diagnosis, or if you yourself have been

blamed for ruining your family because of your mental health or your family doesn't understand your mental illness, that content, those articles, works, videos and scripts are always available on our site at callinghome.com to members of the Family Cycle Breakers Club. So please go check that out if this is something that you are struggling with. The next thing I wanted to talk about is that I am so tired of seeing these quotes. Like, it's your parents' first time living. It's your mom's first time on this planet. Like, I said this in group last week that, and I know Lindsay C. Gibson talks about this in her book as well. I have yet to meet an adult who was struggling in their relationship with their parent that didn't

have so much overwhelming empathy for their parent that it was harmful, like, to them, that it was getting in the way. And I feel like a lot of these quotes, like, it's your parents' first time alive, are really for people who are just like kind of going through a rough patch with their parent or with their family member. They just need to be like reminded to be nicer or to maybe not be as critical as them of them. And if you've seen these quotes going around or these clips, they're very popular on a few like life coachy self-help-esque podcasts right now, I want to give you permission to just say like, this is not for me. Because like I know that it's my parents first time living and I've

given them so many chances and I've cut them a lot of slack. And I just think like sometimes those reminders are maybe not for the people that listen to this podcast, but for people who just got in a little fight with their mom or were being too critical of them. I don't know. I just, I keep seeing those and they really bother me for all of you. And so let me know if you agree and if you've taken any issue with those. I also saw this video on TikTok and I linked it in my email newsletter that went out Monday. That's about growing up in an ask family or a guest family. And it was fascinating. This girl was basically talking about how in some families, you just come out and directly ask for what you want. So if you need help moving, you would just

say, hey, mom, can you help me move on Friday at this time? I would really appreciate your help. And that in a guest family, you would tiptoe around it and be like, yeah, I'm moving this weekend. It's going to be kind of stressful. And you would wait for people to offer up their help. And so there's this culture around not being able to explicitly ask for what you need. And I want you all to kind of think about that. Did you grow up in a family where you could overtly ask for help and people would be responsive to you? or did you have to kind of tipto around it and have people offer it? How is that seen in your family?

How do people label that? I think it's so fascinating. Now I want to tell you about our next topic at Calling Home before we dive in to those caller questions. Beginning on March 7th, we're going to start a new four-week deep dive on a topic. And that is going to be parenting and choosing to have children after childhood trauma. So this is the perfect month for those of you that are maybe on the fence or deciding to have children and those of you that are parenting children after experiencing childhood trauma. We really understand that many adults are considering parenthood or they're already in it after experiencing childhood trauma and they can feel really uncertain about their ability to make the right choices and create a loving environment for their children.

And it's common for adults with a traumatic childhood to experience anxiety and low self-esteem about their capability to parent. I can see how painful it is to question whether you'll end up repeating the negative patterns from your past. And we know how impactful guidance can be when you're facing those fears that are stemming from your own childhood. experiences. At calling home, we uniquely combine expert insight with a supportive community, making the journey to parenthood or deciding not to have children more accessible and manageable. Choosing to explore parenting after trauma should not only feel healing, but also empowering. And you deserve to know that this journey can lead to a nurturing family environment and dynamic,

whatever that looks like for you. So to take the next step and join us, I invite you to visit our website at callinghome.com. I'll link that in the show notes as well, join the Family Cycle Breakers Club for six months or a year, and participate in our weekly support groups, which are every Wednesday. Taking action now will help you avoid confusion and build long-lasting confidence in your parenting abilities. If you're ready to start feeling empowered and informed,

on your path to parenthood or in your role as a parent right now, we hope to see you there. Let's go ahead and dive in to that first caller question. Hi, Whitney. I was hoping you could give me a little help with a sticky situation I'm in. To give a little background, a little over a year ago, I moved across the country. There were a lot of reasons, but looming large was kind of a very difficult family situation. We were a very enmeshed family with a lot of toxic dynamics and unheeled trauma and unaddressed mental health issues. But ultimately after years of therapy and unsuccessful attempts to try to set boundaries and address issues, I determined I needed some space. and since I moved my father and I have become officially estranged and my communication with my mom

is sparse at best but after the kind of initial grief and processing my mental health is the best it's ever been my anxiety is way down my confidence is up and I just feel so much better but now kind of the the tough part my sister who still lives near and is very involved in with my parents, I got a very scary cancer diagnosis, and I'm heartbroken for her and for her son, and I want to do anything possible to support them. But I'm having a hard time figuring out how to support them without jeopardizing all of the strides I've made in my own mental health.

So I guess that's my question. Like, how can I show up for someone in a really tough time when they're still so deeply enmesh with people who have had such a detrimental effect on my mental health? so thank you for taking the time and thank you for your podcast that's really made me feel not alone through this whole journey. Thank you. Thank you so much for calling in. I'm really glad to hear that the podcast has been helpful to you. It seems like you've come a long way, probably as a result of the work that you have done on yourself and the distance you've taken. And I hear a lot of like

positive change in your story that is really rooted in like healthy distance. not necessarily avoidance, which I think is great. I am so sorry to hear about your sister. That's incredibly challenging, and I'm sorry to hear that she has a child that certainly complicates things and makes it even more difficult to know that a child is dealing with that with their parent as well. I think that anybody who is navigating a situation like this needs to get really clear on what type of help they feel like they can provide and how that help fits into their own boundaries, value, system, and limits. And so it seems like your concern here is like, how do I offer help and show up for my sister while protecting myself? And I think I'm hearing

that this person doesn't live close to the sister or the parents. And offering help from a distance is something that I would really consider to be a lot safer in this situation. So could you be an emotional support person, you know, that listens, validates, texts to check in, is there a way that you could provide some type of like logistical support or tangible support in the form of meals, arranging transportation, helping with calling doctors or understanding health care plans? I think really getting clear on some of those areas could be really helpful. And then the next piece is like, okay, how do we keep our relationships separate? from the relationship with our parents and the different relationships that we have with our parents.

And so I think you can even try to say this to your sibling of like, I really want to help there and be there for you. I love you and I care about you. And it's really important to me that we don't involve mom and dad in our dynamic. And so maybe that means that you don't talk about your parents. Maybe it means that you are not involved in the other types of like help or care that your parents are involved in, but making sure that you and your sister can set some healthy guardrails around that help. And of course, this is going to depend also on your sister's ability to do that. And so I think that you go into this with the mindset that, like, I want to be helpful and I also don't want to lose myself in the process. So I am going to treat this as an experiment

in a lot of ways where I get to try different things out and see the different ways that I can be helpful that work for both of us. And when somebody gets a new diagnosis, there's a lot of moving pieces. It's very stressful at the beginning. It takes some time for things to fall into place. And so just reminding yourself that none of the health that you offer is permanent or set in stone. You can always adjust as new things develop. You can only control yourself and set boundaries around your own behavior and what you will contribute. And if other people are behaving in a way that does not work for you, you can always adjust. But I think coming back to the core value here is that it sounds like you love and care about your sister and her child,

you want to be there for her and you also want to protect yourself. That can be your guiding light in all of this. Is like, how do I do that in a way that makes sense for everyone else? And so I think just trying some things is the best place to start. And I feel really confident that it is doable to maintain the type of relationship that you have with your parents and help your sister if everyone is on board with that. And they, you know, kind of stay in their lane and don't overstep. So for anyone in this situation like this, I hope that this is helpful to you. And my takeaways here would be to first identify how you can help and then just try some things out and have conversations with family members that are open to having, you know, consistent, open, respectful dialogue about this stuff.

Thank you again for calling in. Let's go ahead and get to that second voicemail. Hey, Witt. My name's Rachel. I'm in a weird place of relationship with my parents because I've done all the therapy to understand that they are emotionally mature and they had terrible childhoods and they did their best, you know, I've gone through all these conversations and now I'm at a point where I can tell that my parents are trying a little bit and like I'm trying a little bit and it's just like teetering the line of I don't, I don't want us to have this explosive relationship again. So I basically keep my relationship. with them very surface level and I can tell if I'm spending too much time with them, like

I get really, really anxious and I need to leave the situation. So it's not like I'm no contact, I'm more of like a low contact because I have siblings and nephews and I want to be a part of my family, but I also am still trying to center myself and protect my peace. I guess, I'm sorry, I don't have a question. What is the question here? Let's just say that I'm balancing the emotions of anger and resentment but also empathy and love. Do you have any advice or words of wisdom for where I met? Love the podcast. Keep going. You're doing great work. Thank you so much for calling in and for listening

to the podcast. I love this voicemail because it is a story that I have heard from so many of you. There are so many of you out there that have found a way to like tolerate and have kind of these not peaceful but manageable relationships with family members who you feel maybe are emotionally immature or don't understand you or are very different from you. And this is a good skill to hone in on in life, right? It's good to be able to have relationships with people who are different from us and who are hard to be around. I don't think we can constantly be around people that are a perfect match. That being said, when it is your parent that you have to learn how to silence yourself for how to hide parts of yourself, not bring up certain topics, kind of like

only show up as a certain version of yourself, and you notice that your anxiety gets worse the more you're around them. It's a little bit different than just like learning to tolerate different people. And I think that some people are just better at suppressing and compartmentalizing and being around family like this than others. Some people are more sensitive to it. They find it extremely disregulating to have to do that. And we all have different thresholds. And I'm not going to fault anyone for not wanting to be around people that make them feel anxious and uncomfortable. And like, it's a weird thing to pressure people to do. But that being said, at the heart of what I heard from you was like this feeling of like, I want to be around.

my family. And you kind of said, I don't really have a question, and I'm balancing the emotions of anger and resentment and empathy. And I think at the core of that is like, is this okay? Is this normal that I feel this way? Like, why can't I just relax around them or feel good or feel normal? And like, the truth is, is that some of you maybe never will. Like, tolerance and surface level might be as good as it gets. For some of these relationships. There may never be that level of closeness of being understood, of feeling heard. And like, there's something deeply sad and painful about that. And I think that they have this biological, like, just need to feel close and connected to our parents. And when you

have to give up on that, like, yeah, there's a peace in knowing, you know, okay, I understand them. I've intellectualize this till I'm blue in the face. Like I get that I'm not going to be close to them. I get that they don't have the capability. I accept that the apology isn't coming. But like, that need is still there. And so the anger is justified. The resentment is justified. The empathy is understandable. And like I think it's okay to allow yourself to feel like I have really worked myself into being able to be around people that I don't feel understood by that I don't particularly really like that much, that trigger me, that make me feel anxious. And like, this is the best I can do. And it might not get better than that. And, like, there's pain in that as well.

Because I think that people who feel like they've done the work to understand and to intellectualize and to accept and, you know, do all the radical acceptance. Our therapists of our family estrangement group, Stephanie, recorded a video about this the other day, you know, that they were talking about this in our family estrangement group that you do all this stuff and then you're like, why is the pain still there? Why is the need still there? Why do I still want that from them if I know that it's not coming? And I think it's just because like, you're always going to have that part of you, right? You're always going to be, have that inner child and that need and that desire. But like, it doesn't have to be in the driver's seed. It doesn't have to be the loudest part of you. And I think

there are people who think that they've totally shut that off and like they're kind of lying to themselves, right? It's just we all have different ways of coping with life and with the ways that we've been let down and the pain that we feel. And sometimes we do that by saying, I don't need that. Totally good without ever getting that from my parents. But then you notice these people looking for love and admiration and accolades in other areas of life. And so I think someone's don't go way. You just get better at managing them and everybody deserves and needs and attentive and engaged parent and some people don't get them. And so I think you have to cut yourself some slack that like you've done all this work and you still feel the anxiety coming up and

you still feel this pull of like I want to be around my family and I want to be engaged with my family. And so sometimes that is your choice. You have to either lose all of that or you have to like feel some anxiety and have limits when you're around your family. It's a shitty position to be in, right? For those to be your two choices, I don't think anybody wants that to be their choices. And some people are going to make the choice to feel a little anxious and have a surface level relationship with their parents and just kind of call it a day. And some people are going to say, I don't want to live like that. I want to be fully authentic, be myself. I'm like, screw them. I don't want to be around them if that's how I have to be.

And so I have deep empathy and understanding for people who make either one of those choices. And I think that they're both deeply justified across a variety of situations. And so I know you don't really have a full question. But I think you did. I think that your question, again, was like, is this okay? Is it normal? Am I making the right choice? Am I allowed to feel this way?

And the answer to all of that is yes. It's just like I feel like life is constantly a serious. of deciding what am I going to give up and what am I going to get? And some of those times we don't really have a lot of control over the choices or the choices all are terrible. And we also sometimes don't know what life is going to be like on the other side. There will be people sometimes who will constantly choose surface level, anxiety provoking, unfulfilling relationships, even from their family or partners because they're just too afraid to see what's on the other side and the other side could be better, it could be worse. And all you really know are the choices that you

have made and what you've experienced. And I think all those choices have validity. So I appreciate you calling in. I know that I didn't really give you a full answer of what to do. As I often say, there really are new answers to a lot of these questions. It's more just you deciding what's the best choice for me out of a set of sometimes really shitty choices, right? Thank you all, as always, for calling in to the podcast. I just want to remind you that next month we are starting a new topic at Calling Home, which is going to be about choosing to have children and being a parent after childhood trauma. And I hope that you will join me. You will get a new article, video worksheet and guide or script every single Monday delivered to your inbox to help you with

either deciding to become a parent or deciding not to have children after childhood trauma, as well as parenting after experiencing childhood trauma. You can come to groups every Wednesday with other people who are making this choice or trying to be the best parent that they can be after childhood trauma. It would be a great place for those of you that are deciding to have children to learn from other parents in the group, kind of see what they're going through, what they're struggling with, and also maybe have them help you understand some of the joys and benefits that they have found from being a parent after experiencing trauma in their own childhood. You can visit Callinghome.com.

to join the Family Cycle Breakers Club. And I hope to see some of you in a group this month. I will link all of that in the show notes as well. Thank you again for calling in and I hope to see you all soon. Thank you so much to everyone that called in this week and asked questions. I love being able to help you with these family situations and hopefully help you find a way to better navigate with your adult family relationships. You can always call and leave me a voicemail and I may pick your question for an upcoming Thursday episode of the Calling Home podcast. Just call 866-225-5-4-66 and leave me a voicemail.

I do these episodes every Thursday and I love being able to get to help each and every one of you with your family relationships. If you're ready to work on your adult family relationships outside of this podcast and take what you've learned to the next level. We do have the calling home community. You can join us for weekly groups and watch videos, take courses, get access to worksheets and more, and those groups are run by me so we can actually meet. And you just need to go to www.callinghome.com and join the Family Cycle Breakers Club. Thanks, and I will see you all on Tuesday for another episode.

The Calling Home podcast is not engaged in providing therapy services, mental health advice, or other medical advice or services. It is not a substitute for advice from a qualified health care provider and does not create any therapist, patient, or other treatment relationship between you and Colling Home or Whitney Goodman. For more information on this, please see Calling Home's terms of service linked in the show notes below.