Table of Contents
- COVID-19 is a magnifying glass.
- Major life matters may test the boundaries of our family estrangements.
- But in certain times and with certain events, the dull ache becomes an acute pain again, triggered vividly back to the top of our mind.
- Signs You May Be Carrying Relational Trauma
- We may begin to wonder any and all iterations of the question:
- Major life matters may also trigger your experience of estrangement in other ways.
- Learning what others are doing to stay connected to families that seem to be more functional, close, and connected than yours can feel so hard, so triggering.
- If you’re navigating family strain and estrangement through COVID-19, consider this.
- Wrapping up.
- Navigating Crisis and Estrangement Through Boundary-Affirming Therapy
- Additional Resources
COVID-19 is a magnifying glass.
In so many ways and with so many subjects, it’s forced our focused attention to issues that, in life BC (before COVID) we may normally have pushed aside, the content we could postpone and ignore with the day-to-day movement and vigor of activity that life allowed.
Family Estrangement
Family estrangement refers to a state of distance, reduced contact, or complete cutoff from one or more family members, typically stemming from a history of harm, dysfunction, or irreparable conflict. Contrary to popular perception, research suggests that estrangement is most often initiated by adult children who experienced childhood abuse, neglect, or ongoing harmful behavior from parents or siblings—and that it is typically a carefully considered last resort rather than an impulsive decision.
SUMMARY
Crises have a way of making estrangement feel urgent and even selfish—suddenly you’re wondering if you should reach out to a family member you’ve deliberately distanced from, if you’re being cold, if life is too short for this kind of distance. This post helps you think through that question with clarity rather than crisis-driven reactivity, distinguishing between genuine readiness and fear-based impulse, and offering a grounded framework for making a decision you can stand behind.
COVID-19 has forced our attention to matters big and small. From big, penultimate issues like making meaning of our lives and facing our mortality. To “smaller” issues such as how robust our emergency savings accounts are. Or ways in which we’ve neglected or tended well to our health. Or family estrangement, and whether we need to reach back out to our families of origin.
This has, as far as I can tell, felt collectively hard for most of us.
And for some, in addition to all the other hard issues COVID-19 has brought to the forefront, there may also be a heightened awareness of another hard issue typically on the back burner of the mind: the family strain or estrangement you live with and the looming question of how and what to do with those relationships and the situation given the times.
Moving through the times of COVID-19 is a complex, multifaceted experience.
And if one facet of your experience has included feeling triggered by being estranged from (or strained with) your family and confused as to how to proceed, today’s post is meant to speak to you.
To support you, to see you, to provide you with tools, inquiries, and some words of comfort.
Major life matters may test the boundaries of our family estrangements.
COVID-19, much like other big and challenging life matters, brings our reality of family estrangement vividly back into our awareness.
Often, those who have estranged themselves from a parent, a sibling, a grandparent, or other family members, can go about their lives aware, of course, of the dull ache of the estrangement, but with the experience relatively normalized.
It hurts, yes, but, with time, there’s a certain acclimation to the hurt.
Normalcy to it, again, over time.
After the acute pain of the estrangement has passed, you get up, go to work, hang out with friends and your SO, cook dinner, watch Netflix, scroll through Instagram and fall asleep.
Getting up the next morning to do it all over again.
It’s not like your awareness of the strain and estrangement with your family of origin (or in-laws) escapes you, it’s not like you forget, but it’s also not at the very forefront of your attention as you move through everyday life.
But in certain times and with certain events, the dull ache becomes an acute pain again, triggered vividly back to the top of our mind.
I’ve written about this before but, in my personal and professional experience, many concrete and also abstract events can catalyze this: weddings, family-centered holidays, anniversaries, birthdays, funerals, new babies into the family.
These external, calendric and life stage events can force the reality of our situation back into our awareness, the dull ache becoming acute or at least more of a throb.
Abstract events, too, can force this same kind of shift in our awareness: aging, illness, catastrophes, and crises big and small, whether this happens to you or the other person, these more abstract events can likewise bring the family strain and estrangement we live with back into our attention.
Signs You May Be Carrying Relational Trauma
Take this 5-minute, 25-question quiz to find out — and learn what to do next if you do.
Moreover, these concrete and abstract life events can also challenge the boundaries we’ve set to not have contact with certain people in our lives.
The boundary that once set when someone was, perhaps, healthier, more resourced, more equipped, now can be tested if we discover the person is more vulnerable, more exposed.
The boundary may be tested, too, if we are more vulnerable, more exposed.
We may begin to wonder any and all iterations of the question:
“Should I get back in touch with them?”
“Is it worth it?”
“Do I keep my distance? Do I still stay no contact?”
“They don’t have anyone else, shouldn’t I be of support? I don’t want to be in touch but I feel like I should…”
“What would [my other family member] say if they knew I was getting in touch with them?”
“Dad’s estranged from Grandpa. What’s he going to do or say if I order grocery delivery for Grandpa now?”
“Mom has no one else. It’s just me. No siblings. Am I going to be responsible for her estate? Her funeral? How do I know?”
“What if they die and I didn’t say goodbye?…”
“What if I die without being back in touch with her? Do I really want to do that?”
“How do I know what to do?”
Have any of these questions been up for you as a result of COVID-19?
Has this global pandemic pressure tested any of your boundaries and caused you to question and revisit them?
Has this been an aspect, a facet of your experience we move through this world event?
Major life matters may also trigger your experience of estrangement in other ways.
There’s another piece, too, another facet that COVID-19 may be bringing to your unique experience in addition to pressure testing and challenging any boundaries you’ve established: feeling further isolated within an isolation experience and jealous of those who have different experiences.
Feeling alone and isolated is a common experience for those who have experienced family estrangements and strained relationships.
When you couple this everyday experience with the actual isolation that COVID-19 is imposing, it’s possible that you’re more acutely aware of your loneliness than before.
And, what’s more, you might feel terribly sad and jealous as you watch or hear about other people and their families making efforts to bridge the physical distance divide: Sunday evening family Zoom hangouts, gathering to sing to Grandma outside her nursing home for her birthday, virtual birthday parties, Facetime storybook readings to the grandkids, committing as a group to playing WOW or Animal Crossing on Saturday afternoons.
Learning what others are doing to stay connected to families that seem to be more functional, close, and connected than yours can feel so hard, so triggering.
And if you reside inside a marriage where your partner is estranged from family (or really strained with them), you may have all of the questions COVID-19 raises (“Shouldn’t we be in touch with them now?”) but in a double bind reckoning with your partner’s wishes, possibly upset with them, upset at the whole messy, family experience you married into and inherited.
To live with family strain and estrangement at the best of everyday times is one thing.
To live with it through an unprecedented global pandemic may feel harder.
If this is you, if in any way your boundaries are feeling challenged or if you’re feeling extra triggered and sad, I want you to know that I get it. I get what you’re going through. I see you.
This IS hard. This is sad. This is complex.
What you live with because of your family strain and estrangement will always add a different facet to your experience of most major life events in the way that someone who is close and connected to a relatively functional family won’t have to contend with.
So what is there to do if you, like so many of us, likewise have to contend with this facet of the experience along with all the other facets that COVID-19 is bringing to the world?
I have some thoughts.
If you’re navigating family strain and estrangement through COVID-19, consider this.
If you are navigating family strain and estrangement through COVID-19, I want you to consider caring for yourself and your experience in even more radically-supportive ways as you would if your hard context was being triggered by family-centric holidays or other triggering events.
I want you to practice exceptionally good and kind self-care, of course, but I want you, too, to see what elements you long for but don’t exactly have that you could recreate in the social sphere and environment you have.
Put plainly, in the same way I talk so often about the criticality of re-parenting yourself or cultivating a second-chance-family-of-choice, I want you to imagine leaning on non-triggering social supports and getting creative about how you can meet your emotional needs.
If no relationships can easily provide that for you, I want you to, at least, put yourself in contact with those who may be able to relate to your uniquely faceted experience: folks who get what it is to be estranged from their families at this time.
Wrapping up.
More than anything else, please give yourself grace and compassion for how doubly hard this experience of COVID-19 may feel for you if dealing with being estranged from your family or strained with your family.
Take all the wonderful self-care and self-compassion advice that’s being offered on the internet and double down on it.
You live with hard at the best of times. And this is clearly not the best of times.
COVID-19 is shaping up to be a marathon, not a sprint, which is a pace those of us who live with family dysfunction know so well: it’s long. And it can feel hard.
Here’s to healing relational trauma and creating thriving lives on solid foundations.
Warmly,
Annie
Navigating Crisis and Estrangement Through Boundary-Affirming Therapy
When you arrive at therapy during crisis questioning every boundary you’ve set—wondering if pandemic changes the calculus of no-contact, feeling guilty about not checking on vulnerable family members who once harmed you—your therapist helps you understand that expecting emotional support from people who’ve never provided it is like continuing to go to the hardware store for milk, and that crisis doesn’t magically transform dysfunctional relationships into supportive ones. They validate how much harder it is to maintain boundaries when the whole world seems to be pulling families together while yours remains unsafe.
The therapeutic work involves distinguishing between crisis-triggered guilt and genuine desire for reconnection. Your therapist helps you examine whether fundamental dynamics have changed or just circumstances—is your mother less narcissistic or just more isolated? Is your father actually taking accountability or just frightened and alone?
Together, you explore how emergency situations can create false urgency around reconciliation, making you feel responsible for others’ wellbeing even when they never took responsibility for yours.
Your therapist holds space for the unique grief of watching others have pandemic family Zooms while you’re doubly isolated—isolated by isolation and by family estrangement. They help you recognize that jealousy toward functional families isn’t petty but informative, pointing toward legitimate needs for connection that require creative solutions.
Together, you explore how to build pandemic pods with chosen family, create virtual gatherings with friends, or find online communities of others navigating estrangement during crisis.
Through this work, you learn that maintaining boundaries during crisis isn’t cruel but necessary self-preservation. Your therapist helps you develop responses to both internal guilt and external pressure, creating scripts for well-meaning friends who don’t understand why you won’t “just call your mom” during pandemic.
Most importantly, they affirm that living with estrangement during global crisis is genuinely doubly difficult—you’re not being dramatic or self-pitying but accurately assessing the additional burden of managing collective trauma without family support, deserving of doubled self-compassion and radical self-care.
Additional Resources
- A grounding and nourishing meditation. (spoken by me, for you)
- A recipe for robust mental health: 13 ingredients. (one of my articles)
- A pep talk for those times when you’re struggling. (one of my blog posts)
- A few words of comfort on very hard days. (one of my blog posts)
- When life feels impossible. A note from me to you. (one of my blog posts)
- 101 self-care suggestions when it all feels like too much. (one of my blog posts)
- 101 reasons why it will all be okay. (one of my blog posts)
- 99 Uplifting quotes to spark your soul and see you through hard times. (one of my blog posts)
- Adulting’s not always easy. And humaning can be hard. (one of my blog posts)
Related Reading
- What does it mean to be an ambitious, upwardly mobile woman from a relational trauma background?
- Attachment Trauma: How Early Relationships Shape Your Adult Connections
- Trauma and Relationships: When Your Professional Strengths Become Your Relationship Blindspots
Frequently Asked Questions
Is it okay to stay estranged from family during a crisis?
Yes. A crisis—even a severe one like a pandemic—does not automatically obligate you to resume contact with someone from whom you are estranged for legitimate reasons. The circumstances that led to the estrangement are still real. Genuine care for someone does not require putting yourself back in harmful contact.
How do I know if I want to reach out from genuine connection or from fear and guilt?
Ask yourself: If I reach out and it goes exactly as it usually does, will I be glad I did, or will I regret it? Am I reaching out because I want to, or because I’m afraid of something—their mortality, my own guilt, judgment from others? Fear and guilt are not the same as readiness. Genuine desire to reconnect has a different quality than compulsive reaching-out driven by crisis anxiety.
What if my estranged family member is sick or dying?
This is genuinely one of the hardest situations, and there is no universal right answer. Some people find that a limited, structured form of contact or communication feels right even with someone who caused harm—often for their own peace of mind rather than the relationship. Others find that their history makes any contact harmful to themselves. Both can be true and valid.
What if I regret my estrangement later?
Some people do, and that grief is real. But regret is not always a sign that a decision was wrong—sometimes we can regret the loss while also knowing the distance was necessary. And the fear of future regret alone is rarely a sufficient reason to reenter a relationship that was harmful.
How do I handle pressure from other family members to reconcile?
Firmly and briefly. You do not owe others a detailed explanation of your choices about your own relationships. ‘This is a decision I’ve made carefully and it’s not up for discussion’ is a complete answer. If pressure continues, that itself is information about whether those relationships are serving you.
DISCLAIMER: The content of this post is for psychoeducational and informational purposes only and does not constitute therapy, clinical advice, or a therapist-client relationship. For full details, please read our Medical Disclaimer. If you are in crisis, please call or text 988 (Suicide & Crisis Lifeline) or text HOME to 741741 (Crisis Text Line).
You deserve a life that feels as good as it looks. Let’s work on that together.
