r/EstrangedAdultChild

I sent this

Dear mom

It’s been over a year since we last spoke.

I’ve achieved things and have become a one woman army.

I advocate for myself, and do it well, I’ve even gotten people fired, I document things.

I have a credit score, it’s actually decent at 710.

Once it’s 720 I have an apartment I plan on moving into.

I just had another surgery, it was pretty intense, broken bones, a lot of metal hardware.

Doctors suspect I have an autoimmune disease I’ve been silently dealing with, I’ll explore this in the near future once my ankle is settled, at the very least I have a heart condition.

Anya is happy, well fed, snuggled with lots.

There’s rarely a day that goes by I don’t think about the past, but I think I made the right decision.

I bought that beehive plush, I don’t think you remember but you said I could keep it in the kitchen since it matched your decor. I didn’t steal anything. I was surprised you locked me out when you didn’t lock out (my dad) and he stole a lot.

I’ve gotten rid of most of my stuff, my life fits into a small room right now, helps me save on rent and plan for the future.

I pay $700 for a room and private bathroom with all utilities included, plus some storage space for all my utility aids including a wheelchair. I’ve needed one for the past year and been using that and a walker.

I plan to move states, change my name and start somewhere bright and sunny for career and weather reasons- but excited about this as it’s getting closer to happening.

I think missing y’all out on a couple scheduled things was fair as I stopped being able to use the fridge in the kitchen and that complicated things for me financially while I lived with you all.

I’m still with—-,we celebrated our one year awhile back.

I think you seem happy like you always did from your posts, I’m glad.

I don’t think I fit into the equation, house wise once (her boyfriend) moved in. Me leaving was for the best, wished you hadn’t locked me out though.

Made moving hard.

I miss the girls and the doggies a lot.

I see they’ve grown up a lot, I’m sad I missed that but I’m happier overall now, more peaceful despite having a crazy landlord haha.

I plan on going to med school. I might work for a big university hospital one day.

I don’t go by_________anymore, rarely anyone calls me that unless it’s a medical setting.

_________lived inside that room and didn’t have a credit card or felt like an adult.

I feel like one now, I don’t even game really anymore, I spend my time drawing and I’m into sewing.

Life is good for me, here I think, the air isn’t smoky during summertime.

I’m moving forward, it looks you guys have too and I’m glad. I won’t be coming back.

Love you guys,
In another life maybe things would’ve been different

-a not-so stranger, stranger

End note

I feel so stupid but I made a fb account to review a place and she came up in my suggested

She turned my room into her and her boyfriend bedroom.

I feel stupid for sending it.

I also lied, I pay more than $700 but that was the price of another place I almost moved into, it’s to prove a point because my mom expected 1400-2500 for one bedroom somewhere rural

Hey everyone! This is a continuation from my last post. Thank you all so much for the support and advice I really appreciated it. It’s nice to hear from other people that I wasn’t crazy for thinking the way I’m living isn’t normal.

After I left I moved into a friends house for a week before moving into my university accommodation. After the first 5 hours of me leaving, I was called by the police as I was listed as a missing person. But I informed them that I was 18 and didn’t want my parents knowing where I am. And after that, i had the best week of my life: i went out with my friends the same evening i left, we went Ikea and shopping to get things for university a few days after, and i hung out at my best friends house TWO days in a row guilt-free before moving out, and i finally had my first sleep over and it was a WEEK long. If i told myself 10 years ago that this was going to happen i think she would’ve cried from fear.

Anyways a week after I moved into my accommodation, my best friend came over so we could celebrate her birthday. However I was informed that my mum’s friend found me walking around with her in the city centre and SNITCHED ON ME 🙆🏿‍♀️
But nothing really happened after, my mum was just fuming and is now convinced I only ran away so that I could “hang out with my friends”. Which I mean yeah that’s a bit of the reason but she clearly doesn’t see what she and my dad have done wrong.

Furthermore, my parents have been bothering this friend and her mum ever since the day I left; my mum is still calling her mum to this day!!! I feel so bad bcuz i feel like I’ve dragged her into this. Also she shouldn’t feel guilty for hanging out with her friend for her birthday that’s so stupid. We kind of saw it coming tho, my parents had always told me that when i start university i have to cut contact with her because she’s a “distraction“ and “bad influence”, which is ridiculous btw what an odd thing to say.

It has been around 30 days since I’ve spoken to my parents. It has been extremely tough. I’ve been receiving emails from them, such as, “if you come back we won’t force you to resit your a levels and ucat anymore” or “you’ll run out of money eventually so come back to us” or “don’t be like your brother”. Speaking of which, I have been speaking to my oldest brother a lot recently, which I’m happy about because we haven’t spoken this much since before 2020, so I’m glad we’re back in contact, despite this not being the way I hoped it would be.

There have also been a lot of secrets being revealed that has kind of caused the family to start falling apart. My oldest brother and my dad had an argument last week bcuz in one of my dads emails to me, he was dragging my brothers name even though he’s been trying to help my parents cope with my disappearance. So he ended up blocking my dad again. Then he told me some things about his past that I really don’t want to share on here. Then I told him some things about my past that I also don’t want to share on here. Trauma bonding i guess.

Then I start getting texts from my two brothers at home (I blocked them on WhatsApp but text them through other apps so we’re still in contact without my parents knowing) saying that my oldest brother is “evil” and “a bad guy” and he’s manipulating me. I’m guessing in the argument last week, my oldest brother mentioned things that nobody knows about my dad’s past so my dad assumed he was going to tell me about them and thought he might as well make himself look like the good guy to my other two brothers at home before they find out the truth too (I’m trying so hard not to make this confusing sorry😢) and it clearly worked bcuz now they’re telling me to come back home since my parents said “they aren’t angry at me”. Yeah right. As if the same brothers didn’t just tell me my mum was flipping out a few days before bro. did they get their memory wiped or something??? 😭😭

So after all this, and feeling like kms on top of that, i thought maybe i should get therapy. So I’m finally getting therapy some time this month. I really should’ve gotten it sooner but i only found out like a month ago that the life im living isn’t normal at all. Like i genuinely thought the stuff im going through wasn’t a big enough issue to be addressed you get what i mean??

But yeah that’s the first update! Not entirely free from family drama yet but we’re getting there. Thanks for tuning in 🙋🏿‍♀️

I've been estranged from my parents since early June 2025. The last visit broke the camel's back. I've come a long way from the day I drove them to the airport, literally counting down the minutes until I could drop them off, low gas indicator be damned.

It took me until November 2025 to accept that my words couldn't reach my dad. He is structurally incapable of understanding my position given his own - a kind and well-meaning man of almost 70, married 35 years to a woman with a devastating personality disorder (undiagnosed, but textbook BPD with narcissistic traits). At this age, he is like a chained elephant who believes he is safest staying with his captor. It is truly depressing.

But along the road from parentified child to emotionally healthy (and finally liberated) adult - through the estrangement itself, EMDR, low-dose anti-anxiety medication, support from my husband and friends, books like Toxic Parents and Rules of Estrangement, and a lot of self-reflection - I finally understood: I cannot heal for him. Only he can decide to heal himself, and he is not in a position to do so. Not after childhood trauma at his own mother's hands, 50 years of alcohol dependence, and decades of what amounts to Stockholm syndrome.

So here's the point I want to share: you will be OK, as long as you accept this one truth. You can only heal yourself. Spend your time and energy there, and you're on the right path. Be compassionate with yourself. Take care of you - nobody else in this story is going to do it for you.

I don’t really know how to explain this without making it ridiculously long, but basically, my sister phoned me crying and said that our father SA’D her son . She didn’t want to report it because she couldn’t bring herself to do that to our father and was afraid of what would happen to the family.
I tried to convince my mum and sister that they needed to do something, but they kept asking me to give them time. Eventually they stopped talking to me and started making it seem like I was the problem.
When my uncle eventually asked what happened between you and your mom , I told him everything. He confronted them about it, but they denied it and made me out to be someone who hated my father and wanted to destroy the family.
Almost a year later, my uncle came back and apologised after learning that I hadn’t been lying. Apparently my mum eventually admitted that what I’d told him was true and that she and my sister had chosen to protect the family.
By that point, I’d already spent months questioning myself and wondering if I’d somehow overreacted or I’m being delusional . I became completely isolated, deleted almost everyone from my phone and eventually left my job. My mental health has deteriorated badly since then.
The part I can’t get over is that they carried on with their lives while I was left alone dealing with the consequences. I wasn’t trying to destroy my family. I genuinely thought I was trying to do what was right, and somehow I ended up losing almost everything.

Just as the heading says, about 2 weeks ago, I (29F) made the call and decided to go LC with my family. I truly thought it over for months, but it's been a thought in the back of my mind for years now. I cried over it, I thought about what it meant for me and my family, my life, and so on. I cried it over with my husband who is fully supportive in whatever decision I make. I still have support from him, my friends, and in-laws, the people that actually attempt to make themselves a part of my existence.

No more me initiating every conversation, hangout, holiday plans, etc, etc, etc. No more of me basically begging to have a relationship with my family, if you guys don't care to see me, that's fine by me.

The straw that ended up breaking the camels back was my siblings' birthdays about a month ago. For weeks prior, I asked my mom several times over and over again if there were going to be any plans - as I always do since we're celebrating multiple birthdays, it's always been easier to just ask her since she has always coordinated their birthday dinners. They are also 3.5 hours away, so it's unfortunately not just a drive down the road to see them, and it can be very difficult to get a housesitter very last second. I've embarrassingly had to ask friends to help out in the past and I truly hate even doing that.

I even texted her asking again Thursday morning, after their birthdays had already passed, "Did you ever plan anything?" "No, nothing yet." "Ok, let me know ASAP please!" Then the next night, she texts me while I'm already in bed, late at night, while my husband is already asleep,

"Are you doing anything tomorrow?"

"Maybe hanging out with with some friends. What's up?"

"[Sibling] is coming over, I was just curious if you'd want to."

No mention of other siblings coming over or other plans, she never gave me any details. I simply told her to keep me posted on any additional plans and I never got any. And my plans fell through with my friends, too, so I just ended up spending time with my husband anyways lol.

And then... I saw pictures on Facebook. All of my siblings, their spouses, my mom, her boyfriend, some of his family, and some of ours went. Apparently they had a huge birthday dinner. And no one cared to invite me, outside of a brief mention of one of my siblings visiting her. I'm sure she told them I was invited, but none of them have reached out to me. It hurt. A lot. And I started really stewing over whether or not this was all really worth it.

They already spent the summer making plans and never inviting me to any of those either. I guess I shouldn't be surprised. I just got so tired of being hurt. I'm worthy of having people in my life that truly care about me and respect me.

And since then? I haven't made a text, or phone call, or Snapchat, or even sent a silly TikTok to any of my family. And neither have they. It's been quiet. It's been a lot less stressful. It's been nice. If I hear anything about the holidays, I might go, but I'm not asking. We have a family group chat where they're free to discuss. Normally I'm the one that structures the whole holiday plan together so I guess.. good luck with that? Not my problem anymore. I'm so relieved haha