CALLING HOME with Whitney Goodman, LMFT - Therapists Analyze the Viral Estranged Parents Video

Episode Date: September 23, 2025

Whitney Goodman teams up with therapist Kate Gray (@codependencykate) to analyze a viral YouTube video from an estranged parent with over 1.2 million views. They break down common patterns of defensiveness, emotional neglect, and deflection that prevent reconciliation, offering insights for both estranged adult children and estranged parents on how these dynamics play out and what healthier approaches might look like. Whitney Goodman is a Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist (LMFT) and the founder of Calling Home, a membership community that helps people navigate complex family dynamics and break harmful cycles. Have a question for Whitney? Record a voice memo on your phone and email it to [e-mail] or leave a voicemail to 866-225-5466 Join the Family Cyclebreakers Club⁠⁠ Follow Whitney on Instagram | sitwithwhit Follow Whitney on YouTube | @whitneygoodmanlmft ⁠⁠Order Whitney’s book, Toxic Positivity⁠⁠ 00:00 Introduction and Disclaimers About Analyzing Real People 05:24 The Politics Defense and Minimizing the Daughter’s Letter 13:53 Empty Gestures vs. Real Connection 26:45 The Birthday Martyrdom and Drama Triangle 34:06 Public Betrayal 42:43 Ghosting vs. Setting Boundaries 53:54 Spiritual Bypassing and Avoiding Real Accountability Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hello everyone and welcome back to the calling on podcast. I'm your host, Whitney Goodman. I am really excited about the episode today. And I want to give a couple of like disclaimers and caveats before we dive into it. So today on the show, I am joined by Kate Bray. And you might know her as codependency Kate on TikTok and Instagram. Kate is a licensed marriage and family therapist who also does a lot of. content around estrangement, particularly adult child and parent estrangement. And we met just through our involvement in creating content in this space. And I really enjoy Kate's perspective. And I think that she has done a lot to help people dealing with this issue. So this week, we decided to watch a video of an estranged parent that was put on YouTube and kind of break down exactly what was happening in that video, what some of the meaning might have been, and different things that we would recommend as therapists in exchange for what was happening in this video. Now, I chose this video because I typically don't like to talk about real

people and analyze them because I think there is a lot of context missing, even when it's people that put themselves out there. But this is a video that's been on YouTube for quite some time, it has over 1.2 million views and has been widely shared, especially among estranged parents. I believe that this is an estranged parent and creator who is very comfortable with putting themselves out there, has wanted to do that and has been doing so for quite some time. And because this video has been so widely viewed, I felt comfortable sharing it with all of you. I don't believe that we are putting something out there that hasn't already garnered a ton of attention and maybe has already been seen by all of you. What I do want to say,

though, is that Kate and I both really try to approach this with a great deal of empathy and understanding and awareness that we do not know this parent. And with the mindset that, you know, we do have some pretty strong emotional reactions to what is going on in this video and you might as well, especially if you are an estranged adult child. The purpose of this is not to vilify this parent or shame them or make them feel like what they're doing is wrong. The purpose is to look at what are some very typical patterns that seem to come up in these types of videos or discussions between adult children and their parents and how can we look at them in a different way, learn from them, and find a new way to move forward. I think that adult children who are

estranged from a parent or considering it or in a highly dysfunctional relationship with their parent will really benefit from this episode because we break down what some of these deflections and the defensiveness means to us as therapists and what we see is happening in some of these comments that I think are really common among a certain group of estranged parents. I also think that this episode will be very helpful for parents who are estranged from their adult children or who fear that that could be a possibility in the near future or they're trying to avoid it because we offer some different perspectives and some ways that you can avoid some of the pitfalls that this parent or these parents in this video have fallen into

that I think have made it much less likely for them to reconcile. I have made the choice not to include the video of this person or tell you exactly what channel this is from. or who the parent is, I think that we can have a great analysis without including all of that. If you choose to go and find this video on your own, that's your choice. But I am not going to sort of create a map back to this. I also want to say that there should be no reason to go and attack this parent, leave any disparaging comments, or do anything of the sort. this is a learning opportunity. It's an opportunity for analysis and understanding and insight and not an

opportunity to shame or guilt or be cool to someone, no matter what we think about them and what they're doing. So with that being said, let's go ahead and get into the episode with Kate and I and we are going to break down this video of an estranged parent. The voiceovers in this video really get me. Yeah, same. It's a pretty good production. No, it really. No, and that's part of, it's part of it. It's like, this is a good, great production. Yeah, I think they, they definitely hired somebody or know how to do this. I don't know. It's above my skill level. Seriously, it's way beyond mine. All right, let's see. I really thought I could get through this without crying. 27% of American adults have cut contact with a family member lasting an average 4.5 years.

I never dreamed. I'd be part of that statistic. Dear parents, I need to speak my truth. On my life, I've been engaged in July about what I had to say. I need you to know how you're to hurt my mental spoiler. It's bad. I have my life ruined because of you. 90% of the letter was about politics and how we couldn't be in her life if we supported that guy. This kind of angry outburst from her was show out of character. We were shocked. We just didn't know what to do. I mean, I thought I was a good mom.

Not perfect, but pretty good. Honestly, I was in denial at this point because I thought this was more a thing between her and my husband, Ted. because I'm not that political at all. So I thought we could still have a relationship. So one day I responded positively to one of her Facebook posts, like normal, thinking that the letter was just some one-off thing that would blow over. But she unfriended me and followed up with a text that said something like, you don't get to stay in my life.

I'm keeping this number for family emergencies only. Don't contact me. Ted's sister got involved to see if she could help. But Haley immediately unfriended her, which was surprising because the two of them were politically aligned. Friends offered to step in and say something on our behalf, but after what happened to Ted's sister, we just said no. A couple weeks later, she did not wish me happy birthday for the very first time. This wound was so fresh. I couldn't even say her name when I talked about it. All right, let's pause there for a second. What are your initial thoughts here?

Well, I was taking notes. What are my initial thoughts? Well, the first one, you know, at the beginning is just that politics, you know, her saying that the letter was 90% about politics. And that's a lot of what I think is the symptom, like is the straw sometimes, is political issues. But again, I think that's symptomatic. I mean, there's so much here.

that comes up for me when I hear, I wrote down, you know, an angry outburst in the form of this letter. So a letter is an angry outburst. The, you know, this, this angry outburst is out of character. I thought I was a good mom. So I wrote down these things that stuck out to me because to me, this immediately strikes me as falling under the umbrella of, emotional neglect. I mean, let's come out the gate and just come in hot here. It's less about what is said by the mom, but more so what is not said. This daughter writes this letter, this heartfelt, you know, maybe intense letter. And she thought it would blow over. Like she doesn't listen to it, doesn't take it seriously. Like she's just like, oh, it's an angry.

outburst. Yeah. I know. So first thing, I also picked up on like the politics thing, which is something that I hear, I don't know about you, but I hear a lot from parents and I don't hear as much from adult children. And when I've done like surveys and interacted with a lot of this population, politics is rarely brought up by the adult child. It's typically, like you said, some kind of symptom, right?

That's a thing that there may be, um, the behavior is like being channeled through. And they're saying, like, I don't like how you talk about politics. I don't like the way you treat me because of politics. But it's rarely like the, the thing. Often like the straw that broke the camel's back. The timing of this video is interesting because it's like two years old. So, I guess maybe was around the time of leading up to the election based on kind of how she's talking. I also find it so fascinating when parents share their children's names publicly like this. To me, that's really symbolic, right?

of like I don't really care about protecting this and when I think about parents being like in the role of protector. I mean, that's how I see myself as a mother that like that to me just sort of speaks to a larger dynamic, right? I don't know if that brings up the same thing for you. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. I mean, again, there are so many things in this what you showed a minute of it that are striking and that carries so much weight that are kind of a great intro, I guess, to a video. But when you really sit with it, the meaning of it is so big. The name, that's a betrayal.

Oh, yeah. Well, and you know, just like zooming out of this whole thing. So the title of the video, my daughter stopped talking to me. and she's made this into a video like you know her daughter directly addressing her in a letter and the mom not addressing it back and years later however long this time has elapsed before she made this video you know then she makes a video it's so dismissive and invalidating and it's almost like the silent treatment. It's almost like this was an angry outburst. You're having a tantrum. This will blow over. You'll get over it. I was a good mom. You know, she said that too.

That's what struck out struck me was I was a good mom as opposed to we had a great relationship and we were really close and we talked about everything. You know, like not specifics about the relationship but about how her mom how this mom feels about her parenting like it's a separate thing like it's like her daughter is not a person they had a relationship kind of thing yeah yeah a hundred percent and something i always find so like interesting too is when someone says it it was a letter that was 90 percent about politics but they don't share anything to back that up like if those were parts of the letter that she had being read in that voiceover none of that was about politics it was like i think she threw in some words like

gaslighting and things like that but yeah if if that really was what it was i think you would you would share that right and what was the other 10% you know if it was 90% politics that i find that kind of to be like disingenuous sometimes i i feel like people are not telling the full story when it's presented that way a hundred percent yeah and yeah so what was actually said versus what you took away from it 90 percent i just really i really doubt that yeah i really doubt it and and if politics were referenced it was probably in the context of other things context is typically missing a lot of the times in these. And I think we'll see a theme of that as we continue.

I'm going to play a little bit more of the video. I've even had some people really close to me decide to move on from me. And that's the hardest of all. In November, I texted her that we were going to Montana to see her sister for Thanksgiving and that she was warmly invited. But if we didn't hear her back, we'd assume she wasn't interested. silence. In December, I texted Merry Christmas and told her that we loved her. Silence. So that winter, I emailed her a few times, mostly personal development stuff that I thought she'd be interested in.

More silence. Around this time, I started watching videos on estrangement to see if I could figure out what was going on. I did it intermittently because I think I was still in denial, thinking she would just come back in time. And it seemed appropriate to reach out occasionally to let her know I loved her because that's what moms are supposed to do, right? I mean, I tried to maintain contact. She shut that down. The longer this went on, the more real it began to feel. And there was just this cauldron of emotions, horrible emotions. shock and shame, anger, denial, sadness, depression, betrayal.

It was so hard to process. I joined some parental estrangement groups on Facebook to see how other parents were coping. And while it was nice to know that I wasn't alone, I could not spend too much time there because it was all the same misery that I felt. So horribly sad and depressing, there were just broken hearts. everywhere. I could not face all that pain. Sadly, at one point, I had to text her to let her know Grandpa died, Ted's dad. She'd had a good relationship with him. I was very matter of fact about it. He died. There's a memorial. Here's the Zoom link. This was still during COVID.

She did attend to her credit. We were glad to see her there, although we didn't see her there. she didn't have her camera on and she didn't say anything she was there okay i i want to know your thoughts on her attempts to reach out we see this a lot of these attempts to reach out around um holidays and you know birthdays and that and then and that as a measure of the quality of the relationship from the parents point of view So again, it goes, I think so this is so much about what's not happening as it is, you know, what's happened. Because again, if you don't have this context, if you don't have this understanding of estrangement, if you haven't been through it, if you haven't worked with it, if you, you know, haven't sat with it or really understood it, then I think it would be really easy to say, well, she's reaching out, you know, she's reaching out. But again, it's more about what is not being said in between.

That's the neglect of it. And that word can be tough for estranged parents to hear because they think it's intentional. They're like, oh, they think of neglect as like malnourished kids. They don't understand emotional neglect. But to me, that's what strikes me is, okay, you're still in your world about this issue. You're not in your daughter's world. you have not once kind of paused to consider that. And she wrote this huge letter to you.

And again, you're sending her self-help stuff, like affirmations or just like, what are, what are you doing? You know, you're texting her happy birthday. What are you, you know, what are you doing? Like, that's, you're not sitting with what is happening, like reality, emotional reality. and it's just a process it's like the neglect of it is so heavy to me and waited because it's again not about what she's doing it's not about these kind of breadcrumbs of you know my dentist wishes me a happy birthday like i get a letter every year um it's it's it's not a gesture like it's a it's so much bigger so it's again not about those little things but so much to me

about what is not happening in between. A hundred percent. And I think that's such a perfect way of phrasing the neglect, is that it's about what isn't there. And I think that's why it's so hard for parents to understand this because they're like, look, I'm being nice. I'm sending a message. I'm doing something that's socially considered to be good.

This is what I was taught to do. It's what I'm supposed to do. and when you can't see that you're doing something, quote, unquote, bad, I think it's very hard to find, like, what's missing there. But I will say for this mother, you know, she makes it very, very clear that feeling any type of feelings is, is very difficult for her. Well, she can't do it. Yeah. Well, you mean people's negative feelings towards her or do you think her own negative feelings? Or just about an arrangement in general. Like, the way she talks about, these experiences of like being in the Facebook group. I just couldn't be there with that pain. And it's

like, oh, well, that's probably how you felt reading the letter from your daughter, having any interactions with her. Like she just wants to live up here. No, that's so true. It shows her own process with emotions and how that, you know, we know that this plays out with our children, our own inner stuff plays out with them. And it, you're, I mean, when you can take a step back and say, you know, this really, she deals with her own stuff this way. And it really goes back to, you know, you just made the point, the social part, like this is what people do. She said that in the first clip of I thought I was a good mom. And then she said in this clip, you know, I texted her happy birthday because isn't that what moms do?

there's just such a this is what you are supposed to do so I did it kind of this I say this like one dimensional like it's one dimensional it's cause and effect

like it's very a to be B to A like that's how it's a transactional I don't know but that's that seems to be her reality is is this

very self-invalidating, but invalidating intolerant, avoidant point of view. Emotionally neglectful of herself, like really just needing to be like, you know, you have to, you have to think about, I think for any parents listening to this and and even for adults who are wondering like, why does that make me feel so upset when they're doing something quote unquote nice and normal, you know, in the moment. it's it's because it's so like not in reality it's like devoid of any connection and I think when you see that you're like whoa you really don't get it because you still think that this is what I want from you or what I need and you're not connecting with me in any way and that's painful

so I can see how when you're on the receiving end of that you're like I don't even want to respond because if I do I might be validating that this is okay. okay, this is enough. And I think for parents who live in that space, that's what they're looking for. They would actually be okay with you just saying, thanks, love you, Merry Christmas, and that could be enough for them. Okay, we're good. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. No, that's so true. I did a video about this actually recently, and that was my point, what was like, you know, let's talk about the birthday cards. And if you can imagine it got a lot of different responses, because that was the thing, like when you get that happy birthday, when you get that Merry Christmas, when we get that we miss you

kind of these vague things that on the surface and in our reality, in our concrete reality, you know, words that we can hear. So like our senses, that's the struggle is it doesn't align with what we feel. It's like they're saying this to me. And it's so that it's adult children have such a journey of an inner like developing their inner world of that doesn't feel good and that's real to me that this doesn't feel good and even though I know that it should and but it doesn't and sitting with that and that being real and validating yourself and then you know putting this into context and being like this is why because it's empty and it is reflective of the neglect, like these things that should have weight don't for my own mother, for my own

parent. And it's such a grieving process every holiday, every birthday. It's like, here we go. Like, they still don't get it. Yeah. And I think, like, that sending of the birthday card or the gift and stuff is really more of an act of, like, self-soothing for the parent than it is trying to do something for their child, right?

it's like I just need to do this so I can feel good so that I can get that reassurance back from you that you took the gift or you said thank you and I think you have to get in touch with like what are my motivations for wanting to do this but if you're like totally detached from your feelings that's it's not even possible to no that's right that and that is the question is okay so you want to send a gift okay what need do you have there you know sitting with like exploring that actually considering that there's something internal for you happening here like it's sure it's like what you've learned to do but what is that about like and that's why I think a lot of this I mean this is just a bigger statement in general but this is

why I think with a lot of estrangement a lot of estranged parents you know just content like we put out there is one percent because it's going to take someone exploring it with them like going in with them and them hearing themselves say these things and actually processing this. And so even when they see someone else do that, it's not their process where they can explore themselves. So, you know, all to say that that's the that's the best. battle here yeah it's hard it's hard to to watch i think like at the end of the day everything we're saying is like with a deep level of like really i think i feel i feel sorry when i see people get

so stuck right there because it's like you know they're so afraid to go deeper like they cannot handle what's on the other side and you lose so much in the process like including your relationship with your own children oh man there's such a cost to it and growth for you know a lot of a strange adult children they you know when i say it's it takes someone exploring their parent they have taken on that role themselves as therapist as you know teacher as under you know all compassionate understanding person and it's almost like i've described it this way where like you're the patient on the operating table and you're explaining the story and you're explaining the surgery to the surgeon that's operating on you.

So true. And so you have to be both patient and advocate, and that's the split that happens inside you is, and that's what prevents us from, like, fully resting in ourselves is, like, having to always be hypervigilant and explain and to protect. So that's the damage that's caused by this whole, I mean, part of the damage that's part of this. All right, let's see more of what his mom has to say here. I sent her a text wishing her happy birthday and telling her I loved her. Silence. I was so sad on her birthday. This is a very special day for me too. It's the day I first became a mother. I guess that's my way of saying

I still love you. I still think about you, but I don't want to intrude in your space. And instead of buying her a present for her birthday every year. This is probably going to sound stupid, but I buy myself a present for Haley's birthday every year. It's like a consolation prize. Mother's Day, 2021, also passed in silence for the very first time. By now, I had moved from shock and shame into feeling this kind of low-level anger, definitely resentment.

And, yeah, betrayal. My husband may have texted her once or twice that summer, but I did not. On the one-year anniversary of her angry letter, I emailed my sad letter response. I started off with a story about the time I saved her from choking to death on a candy wrapper when she was a baby, which was probably the worst way to start. but I didn't know. Then I went into the, I don't know everything, but I did the best I could, reasoning. Then I went on to calmly address some of the points in her letter.

I apologized for not being the parent she needed, but I also expressed dismay at her level of intolerance, which I probably shouldn't have done, but I wanted to be honest and basically just wished her the best of everything in life. my birthday passed in silence once again, which is sad because she was the one who always remembered everybody's birthdays in the family, even my dad's, who she hardly knew. Around this time, we discovered her TikTok, which I have to confess was strange and difficult to digest because she does a lot of exotic cosplay. And I couldn't help myself. I binge watched a bunch of them, then cones through all the comments looking for any mention of us.

I'm pretty annoyed at being relegated to the status of random internet viewer, but I was glad that I could see her. In November, my husband and I caught the super nasty Delta version of COVID. It was truly awful for me, but way, way worse for Ted. We're talking hospitals, paramedics. It got so bad, I texted her. I told her that she should call Daddy-Oh because he had COVID and he wasn't doing one. at all. He was really struggling and it was scary. She did call, which was a miracle. But apparently she was almost like an automaton, dead inside. I don't know, kind of like a robot. I mean,

Ted really appreciated the call. Don't get me wrong. Really appreciated that call. It meant so much to him. But it was also like she wasn't all there. It was very strange. Ted texted her after he recovered to thank her for calling, but she didn't respond. My dad died on Christmas Day, but I didn't bother to tell Haley because she didn't really know him. He was a sweet guy, but kind of an odd duck living in his own world. But he was my dad, and it was really hard to watch him die. Okay. I have so many thoughts. Wait, you start. You start. Of the video, oh my gosh, the birthday thing, really the first time I listened to this, my jaw like dropped at that part because I really think it's such a good example of sort of like self-victimization in a way of like now her

birthday is my birthday and it's so sad for me and I need to get myself a gift. And I don't know. I was just like, wow, you really cannot put yourself in your child's shoes. And it sort of gave me this insight into maybe what it would feel like to have a person who thought that way as a mother a little bit like, oh, it's my day too. And like I'm pregnant with my third child. Like I have given birth. I understand like it's a big day, but it's also, it's my kid's birthday, you know, and like, it's not, it's not mine. I don't know. What did you feel when you saw that?

It's like, the, the mother part of me felt so like, oh, I don't know. Yeah. Well, I will say in the middle of that, I like kind of caught myself dissociating about it. And then when I kind of, I mean, you know, just for a second or two. And then when I realized I was and I like was looking at her, I was like, this feels like an S&L skit or like a parody of what you would think in a strange parent looks like because it's so it's like that, that selfish. It's so selfish.

We can go, you know, again, we can talk for an entire episode about this one part to me. but yeah a consolation prize mother's day um she she's very into like symbols you know she writing that letter back on the anniversary of the letter like what um also did you notice her framing was my letter was sad and her letter was angry so yes um fascinating that's the main thing I got from this was the mischaracterization of her daughter's intentions and state and that it's like negative it's always negative it's an angry outburst it is oh she's a robot which was strange you know like so judgmental so judgmental the opposite of being curious the opposite of of giving her the benefit of the doubt the

opposite of love to me. That's the opposite of love to me is love to me is giving the benefit of the doubt. It's like, oh, they must really be hurting. They must really feel self-protective. Like, they must really, what is the goodness here? And to me, that's what a mother is. Like, that's, you know, we hear this unconditional love from a mother. Your child could do anything in the world and you would be there for them. And that's because you see the heart, of things and you see the goodness in them they're your child you see you you just um but back to what you're saying about mother's day and giving birth and then you know i i have my i had my first child last year and you know with my friends it was like oh my gosh how was the birth for you

you know that experience of you know giving birth for the first time and i got so much support and validation from my friends about that experience for me, you know, and family support system, whatever. But I would never think that my child would be, that would be her role to celebrate me in that way. You know, because, but I, you know, I don't want to, I'm so curious about the inside of just what's happening in this woman's head about this from a non-judgmental place of like you've clearly been so invalidated your whole life about your experiences and have this whole set of beliefs around self and selfish what's selfish and what's selfless and all this stuff that there just are so many barriers even anybody sitting in front of you

there's just so many layers of judgment shame whatever it is to really connect with someone else Yeah. Whenever, and I don't want what I'm about to say to be applied to this person because I don't know them or their marriage. But whenever I hear especially women talking about motherhood in this way and sort of putting it on their children to celebrate them, I'm always very curious about like what was your partnership like and were you celebrated as like in that mother role by your partner or by your friends or your family? Because when you don't. have that sometimes that's when you direct it back to the child and sort of feel like maybe when you were celebrating your birthday with your daughter she was also celebrating you and now you don't have that anymore and that's that's very hard and I think for parents who don't have that in another in another adult peer to peer relationship it's it can get like be slippery slope to do that with your kid. 100% yeah well and she said it in this part I think like how mother's day was the hardest you know she for the first time ever wasn't wished to happy mother's day and i you know

being a family systems person like you you know zooming out and looking at this issue in context i mean i think majority of the time i i like to say always like i because i think going from a 100% point of view can really make you look. But I 100% of the time think it's a marital thing. I mean, or a peer thing. There is an issue in your own family system. There's an issue in your own marriage and friendship, your own systems with other adults that this is something you're not getting. And she actually said this in the first clip. And she didn't ever elaborate on it. I wrote it down. She said that she had lost some other people in her life at the same time. And so I was wondering if she was just talking about politics related things or what. But

anyway, that was just interesting. Yeah, she also refers to her father like intermittently. And it sounds like they didn't have a relationship. It sounds like she was estranged from her father. I don't know if she called it that or if he didn't have relationship with her. But she says, few times that her daughter didn't even know her dad. So he was not involved. And I do see that a lot where there will be a parent who doesn't have contact with someone in their family, but they sort of characterize it definitely. Designate that a valid reason. Yeah. Yeah, you know, but not for their child. The other thing I wanted to point out before we play more, I think you posted about the drama triangle recently. Was that you? So it was reminding me of that.

when she talked about the types of letters that I view sort of like, if you're angry, you're the perpetrator, right? And then I'm sad. So I get to be the victim. And I think especially when we're talking about women, that's such, like, distinct knowledge to be like, you're angry and I'm sad. Like we tend to want to comfort the sad woman more than the angry one. Yes.

Yeah. And, well, and what you're saying is she does seem to. go in the three roles, like she's persecutor, you know, expressing dismay at her intolerance. Like, wow, that's very ironic, considering that your daughter wrote you an entire letter that you didn't respond to until a year later. And your daughter is the one that's intolerant. She talked about the story of saving her from choking is the way. she started it which is very like hero-like it's it's so interesting rescuer role yeah then

persecutor role the you know then sadness victim role oh you know we associate those emotions with those three roles yeah yeah totally that was like a perfect example of of moving through that oh and just uh you know thinking about this from an adult just the glimpses we're getting into this woman's process and just, man, I feel so much for her daughter. Oh, man. Yeah. And I also can't. I always think about what it would be like to watch this from your parent, knowing

it's on the internet and it's being consumed, you know, by the time we're reviewing this video, you know, over a million people have seen it. And that's kind of why I feel comfortable talking about it. It's like, obviously, it was meant. you know, to be seen and it's been seen. But I think that's got to be such a hard feeling. I cannot imagine that. The level of betrayal. Well, but I have, you know, it's probably so normal to her at the same time. Like I'm sure. Yeah. You know, and these experiences, I've heard a lot from a strange adult children. Like, yeah, it was like, you know, it's like a light, bold moment when they realize,

oh yeah your mom talking about you to other people is not supposed to happen and yeah especially strangers especially you know like a public diary like that's well and um i think that's why you know i've thought i've made a video kind of directed to estranged parents before like your kids love therapists because their secrets are safe with us like not because we're holier than now because we have confidentiality laws but that feels very safe to them And that is a new experience for them. Yeah, that's very true. All right.

I think it gets even more interesting after this part. So let's keep going. And the one gift that you get out of that typically is that it makes you realize how short and precious life is. And I'm older. I'm in my 50s. I mean, mortality is right there. When you're a kid, you look at your parents like this big, all-knowing people. And then when you get to be an adult, you realize, oh, my God, they're flawed.

there's a breakaway period where you break away and you're like get away from me and then usually there's a period where they come back and hopefully they will at some point but just in case they don't they'll have some videos to watch about who was mom and what did she worry about and what does she think about and I don't know maybe nobody cares so I was grieving for dad that winter but also for Haley who didn't seem to care I texted her happy birthday and told her that I loved her, which was my only attempt at contact that entire year. Silence. So, of course, I had to pick at TikTok.

I read all her birthday comments, and she seemed to have a lot of fans sending her presents. We have been replaced by fans. I ordered Joshua Common's book, Rules of Estrangement, scanned a couple of chapters out of order, including the Ammins Letters, section, which I could not stomach because it required far too much contrition. Like, it's all the parents' fault. We had no contact. I threw myself into a new YouTube channel and took a month-long camping trip around the U.S. After my dad dying and losing Haley, I just needed to get out and start living my own dreams

now before it's too late. I brought the Coleman book with me on this adventure, but I didn't read it. I was still low-level bitter and resentful over being ghosted. On my birthday, which passed again in silence, I went for a hike. And two years later, she's still not talking to me. Can't make her love me. I can't make her want to talk to me. I can't make her call.

I can't make her do anything. So I'm just trying to cope. I never in a million years imagined that I would have to be. a daughter who would just cut me out of her life. We did the best we could. We poured a lot of love and resources and time and energy. And she rejected me. And it's hard not to hold a grudge. Admitting that I was angry and holding a grudge was really hard because that's not who I am. I binged on our TikTok again and found some references to us, including a video dedicated to what she'd learned going no contact with her parents. I sat down with Ted and we watched together.

You know, I think the thing that I guess irks me, that whole love with strings attached thing, I just, I don't get that. I don't know where that comes from. I don't want to be with people like that. They love you for who you are, not for who they want you to be. She was tactful, but the comments supporting her decision to dump us were really hard to take. We also learned that she's been diagnosed with ADHD and high-functioning autism, which was news to us. You know, maybe that explains some of her behavior. We never knew. If we had seen it, we would have taken her to doctors, but we didn't see it.

She seemed like a normal kid to us. She doesn't even care if how we feel. She doesn't care if we're struggling with this issue. She doesn't care if we're alive or dead. I mean, she doesn't really know. I don't hear any, I'm really sorry. There's nothing there. There's just, I had a mental problem.

Sorry. She didn't care. She doesn't care still. I'm sorry. I'm just very upset. I really thought we did our best. Okay. There's a lot there.

I'm becoming very much. intolerant to the birthday references. I'm like, okay, we get it. We get it about your birthday. Yeah. Yeah. The first thing I want to say is that any parent listening to this, if you received a letter detailing why your adult child is upset with you, they did not ghost you. If they're choosing not to respond to subsequent contact that doesn't address anything that was in that letter, that's not ghosting. I think that there's this thing of like, she sent the letter. We're not going to respond to the letter, but then because she didn't respond or we're not going to respond to any of the contents of the letter, but because she's now not responding

to like, happy birthday, we've now been ghosted. And that's not accurate. Right. Yeah, so much to say. So, I mean, I wrote so much down. I was like, oh, my gosh, this keeps going. Like, it keeps going, every sentence, again, is so weighted. Okay, so here's the theme of that clip. She doesn't care how we feel. She doesn't care if we're alive or dead. She doesn't care. She doesn't care.

Yeah. And again, a total lack of putting themselves in her shoes, demonizing her intentions. I mean, something else. So I don't know if you want to add to that, but there was something else that really struck me about what the mom said. She said it was really hard for me to admit that I was angry and that I held a grudge because that's not who I am. And I think that is a huge difference, like a huge disparity in estranged parents and a strange adult children is this belief in understanding about emotions. And there's so much identity in it for this woman. I am not an angry person.

Like, I feel anger. I'm holding a grudge. And so that's who I am. I'm that person. As opposed to emotions being this free flowing thing, you know, data that's supposed to tell you about your environment and yourself and the meaning you make of things. And it's just this like wealth of gold, gold mine of information to connect. to connect to the people around you and your environment.

And so that was really striking to me because that's so much of an educational piece of working with adult children is the value of anger. And to me, it also shows going back to this woman's like, you know, when it comes to her own relationships and her marriage, in her family of origin and her friendships, anger being so invalidated, dismissed, and thus suppressed, you know, so that that gets passed down, you know, it just makes me think of Haley and her, I don't even want to say her name because I don't want to like further betray, you know, add to this. But her upbringing with anger and how gaslit and, you know, just the

invalidating her environment was. It must have, yeah, just created so much internal conflict. Yeah. I totally agree with you. And I think she also, she may. mentioned the mother mentioned her father and described him in such an interesting way right like he was kind of just an odd bird in his own world which to me is like code for emotional neglect when you say that your parent lived in their own world they were very aloof like I think those are old descriptors of that behavior at least generationally it does not seem like they had a close relationship And I find that that can be such a barrier that for these parents, in order to address what is going on with their own child, they have to just, they have to look at and feel what happened between them and their parent. And they're so unwilling to do that because it's so painful that they'd rather just be like, oh, he was kind of weird and aloof whether they're not like you to have a parent like that, who clearly never met your children.

who lived in his own world like I imagine that was very hard for this woman it seemed like she was grieving him but not really in the same way that she spoke about her father and law's death at all well I was going to ask you this question because that goes to what she said after that which was I realized you know you grow up and you you you're mad at your parents and then you go then you realize they're not perfect and you realize they're flawed I've heard that from so many estranged parents online we hear that i mean that's resoundingly like even if you point out something so clearly it's that reflexive well we're not perfect well my parents did way worse or it's um and so i'm curious what you make of that this is that real for them this process they've gone through

of thinking their parents are gods in a way because that's what kids do and then you grow up and then you realize they're flawed so then you kind of have a new tolerance for them And kids these days just don't go through that process or they, you know, what, what's your point of view on that specific phrase that they say? Yeah, I, so something else, I guess, that stood out to me to tie into that piece was that she said, like, you pull away and then you come back. And I'm curious if that's what she did. I find that when a lot of parents who have a strange adult children say that, it's

because they often had these realizations but then decided, I'm not going to ask anything of my parent. I'm going to go back and be close to them because that's what good daughters do. That's what good sons do. Like you're supposed to just respect your parents or have a relationship with them no matter what. And so it can be, I think, shocking to people like that to look now at the next generation and say, oh, wait, we had a choice. Like, I didn't have to do that. Or I expected you to just do what I did, especially if you see your children as, you know, extensions of you and not as their own people. But it does seem like she had a fixed, like, internal belief of, like, that's what you do with your parents. That is the life cycle. And her daughter did not follow the path.

Well, do you think it's real? Like, do you think that they grow up, they're mad at their, you know, this woman, for example, grow, grow, she grows up. She's mad at her parents, but then she goes away. and then she comes back, do you think that's, and do you think their relationship is better? Or what do you think her relationship with her, say, dad is like after she goes away and comes back? So this is totally just an assumption on my part, but I am sort of assuming that her father was more of the avoidant type of parent and did not like text her and stuff the way. that she is doing with her own child. I'm wondering if her version of coming back into that relationship actually had quite a bit more distance. It seems like it did. And I've worked with a lot of adults who have parents who, they don't fight the estrangement. They don't try to fix things.

They let it stay distant. And that can be a really different experience. I also want to point out here that this is a situation where you've got two parents that are very aligned on how they feel about the estrangement and that is even harder. If you have a situation where you have one parent that's kind of like with it and they get what you're saying and they're trying to bring the other one along, much easier to deal with. But these two are like very much both angry, aligned in their beliefs and that's hard as a kid to feel like you don't even have one. Right. Right. She also never, has she mentioned her mother once? No, not once.

Yeah, that was interesting. Yeah. Yeah. All right. We have like four minutes left. I'll see if I can make it. So let's see. See where it goes.

Throughout this whole ordeal, I've continued my daily meditation practice. And afterwards, I usually spend a few minutes reading from some inspirational book. At one point, I was reading about living a compassionate life. And when I got to the chapter on forgiveness, wow. Lately, I've been thinking about forgiveness. Forgiving her, but forgiveness for myself too, and Ted. But mostly myself. Because you can't help but blame yourself when something,

something like this happens for the child that you raised and poured all your love and energy and everything you know we just came for the best of everything we could letting go of our anger is a way of being compassionate towards ourselves anger keeps us stuck in the past obsessing over what has already happened forgiveness does not ignore the harm or justify a person's misdeeds, but it releases the pain and anger connected to them. I debated texting happy birthday, but did not. Today is my daughter's birthday.

She is 29, and she hasn't spoken. with us for two and a half years now. And that has been very difficult to deal with. But I'm learning to accept it because that's all I can do. The last text I sent was happy birthday last year. So she is lost to us now at this point. And this was not something we ever, ever. envisioned for our lives oh god i'm going to cry i thought i was going to make it through this

without crying but i can't it's like she's dead but she's not and i'm grateful that she's not and i am grateful that she's on social media somewhere if i feel the need to go see her i can see her So, happy birthday, Haley. I wish you all the best and what you're doing. I admire that you're following your dreams and you're doing what you believe is right. And I hope you are loved and surrounded by people who truly love you, not for some persona that you may be online,

but for who you truly are as a person. And I know you're a kind soul. with a really big heart with so much love to give and so I hope you find a place to express that love and find someone someone's

who appreciate that love and reflect it back to you I wish you health and your happiness to just live your best life too good in the world just know that I still love you no matter what you say or don't say about me

you can't change that I won't fucking love you forever like it or not because I'm a mom and moms are like that Okay, it's so hard to hide. It's so hard to, for me, emotionally right now, not react to this. I'm smiling, you know, but I'm not happy. I'm not laughing at her.

I'm not taking pleasure in any of this. It just, it's so much. so much it is i i found myself like um again i don't know why it's such a like stronger reaction almost to that like last minute and a half of the video and it's probably because she's so visibly emotional and um i think there's this feeling sometimes like in this space of like you have to pick sides or one person is right and one person is wrong. And really what I see here is like a mother who is in undeniable amount of pain, but is getting in her own way so much and is like upset about the wrong things and the things that she's upset about are not

driving her to make the right choices. I just keep thinking about like the time and money that you invested in making this video could have been spent on, you know, therapy, um, you could have been, yeah, she didn't even read the book on her camping trip, you know, like there's, no, no, that struck me too was just the amount of contrition that was required and it was all the parents' faults, which Joshua Coleman's work is very much sympathetic to the parent. I think more than pretty much anyone's on this topic. A lot of estranged parents really like his book. So that is surprising to me that even that was hard.

You know, and going back to what you just said about how she's getting in her own way, it makes me so curious about her, the relationships she's in with other people, other parents. I've had a couple comments recently that struck me that are like, Because I work with adult children that are actively parenting about how breaking cycles and, you know, you've inherited some of the stuff. Let's fix it. I've heard so much, you know, from these parents that are estranged from their parents that they're like, it's so easy to get sympathy when you're a parent and you do something wrong. Like and you are talking about, yeah, I've been yelling at my kids. Like someone commented and they were like, even my therapist was like, it's okay. We all, you know, yell sometimes. You know, in attempts to validate, they validate the invalid, you know, yelling at your kids. And so I'm curious about this woman's relationships because, you know, it's there in my world, in my belief system, it's people around you's responsibility to sit with you and be truthful to you.

Like, hey, let's just take a look at this. like let's take a look and going further than that there's so much she's such a passive parent she's so passive about it like you know when my daughter's struggling I just kind of you know I meditate every day and then I read an inspirational book so it's like but you're not learning anything like you said like you're not taking all this time and energy to actually educate yourself about parenting in general. There's something you can find something that where you made a mistake or, you know, if you're so not, if you're admitting that I'm, you know, I'm not perfect. We weren't perfect parents, which I don't

know if that was even said because she said so much. We did the best we could. But there's, okay, so you're not perfect. Okay. So what was it then? You know, let's follow that. Again, that's why it's like with these estranged parents, you have to have someone sitting with them that's a friend or a minister, like whoever and is helping you actually explore this. That's non-judgmental, but that's truthful. Like, no, let's really go into it. Because I believe you that your intentions were good. I believe you that you tried so hard and cared so much and did, I believe you. And what else happened? And I don't want to talk too much on this bit, but why talk so much about this on my page is spiritual bypass and to emotional ignorance. That's what

like struck me with her stuff was like an ignorance about the concreteness of emotions. Like what they're there. They're not just like whatever emotions, you know, just let them pass or whatever. Like they're real and their information and there's something to learn from them and they're, you know, go into. And so there's that. missing with her. And then two, there's this spiritual bypass aspect of this like forgiveness as such is like this abstract thing. And it's just something in your heart. And when I talk so much about with, you know, adult children, because especially, you know, they struggle with things in their marriages, you know, it's like they've inherited some of these beliefs. Why can't

I just forgive my husband because he cheated? Like forgiveness is a choice type thing. I'm, I'm a bad person for holding on to this anger. And I'm like, no, no, no. You know, accountability proceeds forgiveness because accountability is real. Like, we're on earth here. Like, we're experiencing life in a concrete way, in a 3D way. And words and behavior and, you know, all of this stuff matters. It's not just like blindly accepts people and forgive them and, you know, meditate.

it's such a passive way of engaging in life it's not engaging really yeah you're absolutely right and i think that that's something that any any parent i think that's having an issue with their child in any way you have to think about like am i just doing things to make myself feel okay like i make myself feel good i think that's what people think like coping skills and working on their mental health is, I think that's exactly what she's doing, right? Of like, I imagine that when she meditates, it's to experience like a better mental state. She's not thinking about bad negative things or hurtful things. And reading inspirational books is very much, that's great. But you have to get in the mud. Like, you have to kind of hurt to get through to the other side.

And I think that's what's so hard for these adult kids. Like, when you talk to. about them being on the operating table and telling the surgeon what to do. It's like they're kind of saying like, I'm laying here with like all my shit exposed. I'm in pain. I'm going through all of this and like you don't even want to get in the room. You don't even want to have a conversation about what you might need to work on. And it's really hard to be in relationships with people that just want to stay up here all the time when you don't live like that anymore. It's, I feel like that as a therapist even sometimes I'm like all my work is so like deep that sometimes it's hard for me to be around people that just like aren't taking care of their shit because it's just

so obvious to me and I'm like oh my God it's draining to be around someone like that when you've done the work on yourself well and going back to what you're saying about like getting in the mud this woman seems very isolated like she's not engaging in the Facebook groups because it's too painful. She's not even reading books like that involve other people's experiences. She, you know, she went on a month long kind of solo camping thing by herself. You know, we're looking at her. I'm, that's the stuckness too is like you're stuck in your own mind and you don't have, you're not getting stimulated or exposed by anything outside of you that can help you. Like you need help. Like you're doing this alone, but like you don't need to do it alone. And

That's, I think, so what adult children, I just, it's such an amazing thing when they can ask for help, when they go to therapy and get a diagnosis because they were not, they were emotionally abandoned in that way. Like, you know, emotions are just something you got to deal with and not like, oh, no, they actually mean real change needs to happen and that there's underneath there, there's needs and there's desires and there's so much of information about yourself to learn. and so that you can connect so you can feel connected feel supported feel validated and it's not just like forgive like you have to choose to forgive like it's so um you know just hearing about her daughter going back to that hearing her daughter getting a an ADHD diagnosis just like go girl you're really doing it yeah and i i think even the way that was described you know like I use that example a lot with how parents can handle these things differently is like if you everybody misses things about their kids.

Like it just happens in life and some people are way more negligent than others. But I think like it's possible that 20 years ago we didn't have as much education about these things. We didn't know as much. And you can still say, I'm sorry that I didn't see that. I wish I could have like known and got. you the help that you need like what can I do for you now how can I be there for you I want to learn more about what could be helpful to you that I think they get so stuck in the shame of like

I missed that and now I'm in trouble that you can't move past it and there's a I mean there's a lot of parents that didn't get their kids the right treatment for things or didn't get a diagnosis and they still have relationships with them it's not that those parents were perfect it's never about that never about that yeah yeah um Yeah. Well, and so it makes me think they're fighting, their anger is against the shame. I've said, I've like come to realize this before. Like their anger is against the shame. Because I, I've talked to someone recently who was like, you know, 30 years ago as a new parent. It's just like such an invalidating environment. It's all about the baby. All your friend, everybody's asking about the baby. No one cares about your experience. If you have any feeling any negative feelings, about motherhood in general, they're shut down, dismissed. You're judged so severely. And you don't have an out because you don't have all of this information and awareness, like, easily accessible via social media. And so what you're fighting against now is what you were fighting,

what you suppressed then. And so your fight is against the shame, but that's not from your kid your the shame was from everyone else in your life before and so the emotion themselves the anger itself is never wrong like it's it's fixed it's you know you feel angry sure but you're the meaning you're making of it is what is holding you back yeah i so agree well kate i could talk to you about this for there's a hundred hours to talk about i know right like there's still so much more we could say about this, but I hope that this was helpful for everyone that's maybe trying to understand what some of this means or any estranged parents that might be listening and wondering, you know, how some of this is going to land or how a therapist interprets it.

I hope that this was helpful to you. And thank you so much. Any time. I think what you're doing is amazing. And I really admire all the work and success you've had. Thank you. The Calling Home podcast is not engaged in providing therapy service. 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 Collingholm or Whitney Goodman. For more information on this, please see Calling Holmes Terms of Service linked in the show notes below.