Episode #172

Family Estrangement & CBT

Anytime people are getting together with family and friends can bring up thoughts, feelings, and memories for those who might be estranged from a member or members of their family.

How can you know whether your estrangement is healthy?

How can you decide whether to reach out and try to reconnect with someone?

Join me, Dr Julie, as we talk about family estrangement and how you can use CBT tools to help you make healthy choices.

Click to listen now!

 
 

Full Episode Transcript

Hi, and welcome to My CBT Podcast. This is Dr. Julie. I'm a Doctor of Psychology and a licensed clinical social worker specializing in cognitive-behavioral therapy. I'm here to help you bring the power of CBT into your own life.

So as always, thanks for being with me. I want to wish all that celebrate a very happy Thanksgiving. I think it's one of those holidays you could do everywhere in the world because it's a day to be thankful and grateful and be with the people that you care about and love. And we're going to talk about that today as well. But I'm hoping you're having a nice celebration in this time of season. We're going to be talking about the holidays and however you guys celebrate. I hope you're enjoying your time together and honoring yourself. So I first wanted to share an email I received. I've been getting some incredible emails, so I just want to thank you guys again. I love when you reach out and share with me how the podcast has helped and questions and things like that.

So my first I want to share today says,

“Dear Julie Osborn, a quick message from the UK!

“Wanting to thank you for your wonderful podcast came across on Spotify. I'm a student in counseling, and I found your podcast not only helpful for my studies, but also for my own life choices and to helping clients I work with. The way you deliver the podcast from tone of voice, pace, welcoming approach is brilliant. And the many topics you cover in short podcast length is really ideal. Not too technical and totally understandable, plus the resources you point out. I have checked out other podcasts, but yours is most definitely one of the best. That's all I wanted to say. Thank you. I'm letting others know of your podcast. Keep up your amazing work.

“Kind regards, Cal, United Kingdom.”

So thank you, Cal, and thanks for taking the time to share. I'm so happy that you're sharing with other people as well, and that getting so much out of it. And it's just nice for me to hear you guys because I've always started this with, of course, my intentions to get CBT out into the world because I really believe it can help all of us be happier and live better lives. I've kept my podcast short.

I have a couple that go over my normal time limit of a half an hour, but I really find it helpful, I think, so everyone can listen to the whole podcast and learn some tools. I know for myself, when podcasts are super long, sometimes I don't find the time to listen or I get halfway through and I say I'm going to get back and I don't. I'm disappointed. So I wanted to make mine short enough so you guys can listen to all of them. So I'm glad that Cal was sharing that. That's really made a difference, and it's made a difference for him, and I hope for all of you. So again, keep reaching out, keep sending me those emails, and I will show them on my podcast coming up in the future. So I'm going to talk about a topic today that could be pretty sensitive, but I thought about it because the holidays are coming up. I have a few other podcasts on the holidays. You guys can look up for my old podcast if you want. But holidays can be really fun and joyous and exciting and hopefully fun, right? But it also can bring up a lot of stress and tension and bring to the forefront any issues you might be having in your life.

So I was going to talk about family estrangement today. I know I've talked about it a little bit here, there in the past, but I wanted to focus more on it. I want to give you some information, some interesting statistics I've read. I know that in my own practice, and others I know in my life as well, that I keep hearing more and more about estrangement in families, where people aren't talking to each other, where people hardly talk to each other and people barely see each other. And what is the underlying issues that are going on and why this is happening? It seems like more, or maybe it's just that we're talking about it more. And let me say this, I'm talking about this with no judgment. You know, I have talked to you guys a lot about having healthy boundaries, honoring yourself, right? That sometimes it is good to estrange yourself from people in your life, right? If people are abusive to you, unhealthy, toxic, and you need to separate yourself, I totally support that, right? So I'm not here saying whether it's good or bad. I just want to talk about it. So you can think about it in the way that benefits you the most, whether you're in this already, you're thinking about cutting off, you're thinking about trying to reach out and connect again, and what that would look like.

So there's lots of things to consider. And so I'm just sharing with you guys all different perspectives that I hope will be helpful where you are today, maybe going forward and feeling comfortable with the decisions you're making and how you're handling the relationships in your life. And We, me, want to say family is, I believe, who you bring into your life. I have met some people that, for good reasons, do not talk to anyone in their family and has created a family outside with friends, community, support groups that they're in, whatever it looks like for you. I think family is not just blood relations, but people that are close to you that you do love and you trust, and you know they have your back and you have their back and you can go to them and they can come to you. So I look at family as a very broad word. And just because someone is related to by blood, I personally don't have the belief that you to have that person in your life because people are, Oh, but they're family. Okay, but if they're abusive to you, you can't trust them, whatever the issues are, it's best for you to make the decision that they're not in your life.

Again, it's a personal decision. Sometimes it's good to go to therapy and talk through this because it's a big deal, which I'm going to talk about in just a second. Even if you do make this decision, it doesn't mean you're you're okay, and you wash your hands free, and it doesn't weigh on you, right? Why is it difficult? Why does it weigh on you? Because you're loving, you're caring, you really probably wish things were different. And it's an important part of your life and it's important to make the best decision for you. That's why it is heavy, because you do have feelings about it. So without me going on, you can tell I have a lot to say about this, but the real suffering is often hidden within the relationship loss that people really aren't talking about. And again, as I was saying earlier, it is far more common than you would think. And the statistics say that it affects approximately 67 million Americans. I don't have the stats for worldwide, I apologize, but I can just tell you that's a lot just with families here in America. And it represents one of the most challenging and under-recognized issues that come into therapist's office.

It's really not something that a lot of people come to, the therapy, bringing it up at first until it comes up later on in discussion. I always ask, when I'm going to do your individual assessment and get to know you, I always ask about family relationships. Who's in your life? Who isn't? Why aren't Okay. And I've had some clients that are like, I'm not ready to talk about that. It's too painful. I'm like, Okay. And it will reveal itself as time goes on. But it's one of the most challenging and under-recognized issues. I just wanted to repeat that. That comes into therapy. So let me just give you a few reasons why estrangement even happens. Why don't you talk to your family members? What happened? So one of the first one, there's a lot of research and I'll mention some names as we go on, but one of the researchers said, The long arm of the past, which means early trauma, abuse, or severe dysfunction, creates a foundation for a future cutoff. Legacy of divorce. Parental divorce weakens family bonds and can lead to long-term estrangement. Problematic in laws. Loyalty conflicts between the family of origin and marriage can fracture relationships.

Money and inheritance. I hear that one a lot. Financial disputes, particularly around wills, frequently triggers rifts. Unmet expectations. When family members fail to meet expectations, or obligations, you might call, such as caregiving for a parent, estrangement can result from this. I've met a lot of people where one person is really taking on the load and other siblings are like, Oh, if you need something, I can do a little bit, but they're not stepping up as much as the other sibling would like, and those expectations are not met. And then the last one is value differences. So fundamental disagreements about lifestyle, religion, or core beliefs can lead to permanent cut offs. So these are the six areas that research has found, why does this estrangement happen? So I wanted to start with that. So you can think about if this is something in your life, where do I fall What were the issues regarding why I made that decision that I don't talk to family or I do? Or is this part of my decision making right now? If I'm trying to figure out how to maneuver these relationships I'm not feeling that good about and I don't know if I want to continue them or if I do want to reach back out and reconnect, how can I work through these issues that got me to where I am today?

When it comes to the money inheritance, I have heard so many stories. I've had people come in saying, I never, ever thought my family would have issues like this and not talk. Or one of the children were the executor. They didn't ask to be executor. They literally follow out with their parents ask in the will, but the other siblings don't like it, they stop talking to them. I've just heard a million stories. I've heard some what I think are crazy stories like, What are you talking about? And it's really sad because you think, especially if you lost both your parents and now you just have your siblings and now you lost them because they don't like that you followed what your parents wanted them to do. It's a lot. It's a lot. And again, if you haven't dealt with early childhood trauma, abuse, a lot of dysfunction, and you're grappling with that. That can have you make a decision about, do you really want to have these people in your life? That can be anyone in your family. I mean, it's not just parents that are abusing, siblings abuse each other, aunts uncles. I've met a lot of people that they were abused by an aunt or uncle, and the rest of the family still invites that person to the holidays.

And they're like, I'm not showing up. You're not going to honor me. You knew this happened. So again, there's lots and lots of different stories. So I just wanted to give you, again, an idea of how does this even start? Because I know there's some people, families are great, which is fantastic. And they're like, I can't believe there's families that don't talk to each other, but it's a real thing. And why is that? So I wanted to give some things to think about. So let's talk a little bit about who this affects again. So the research shows that the most commonly affected, which is about 10 % of families, is between parents and child. And sibling relationships affect about 8 % of adults. Estrangement extends throughout the family system, though, right? So you want to think about grandparents getting cut off from grandchildren, cousins who never even met each other, and extend that family networks are really torn in two. So it's It's not just this clear cut like, Oh, we're not going to talk to this person. It has a ripple effect when you have other people that are in your family. So the psychological impact of estrangement can be really unique.

Unlike other forms of loss, estrangement creates what researchers call the four threats, which can negatively affect your mental health. So the first one is chronic stress. So estrangement functions as an ongoing stressor that never truly resolves because it's just laying out there in your world. And the uncertainty and the pain of cutting off family creates this persistent state of distress. So a lot of clients that I'll talk to talk about having really negative thoughts, difficulty sleep, physical symptoms, stemming really from this unrelenting emotional burden. And the broken attachment is a separate threat to mental health, meaning the end of life long attachment bonds often triggers profound grief. And even when the relationship was troubled, the loss of connection to someone who was an attachment figure creates a real deep insecurity. And this can last for decades and decades. And it's harder than I think someone dying because it's like, okay, they're not here and I'm grieving them. Now I'm grieving somebody that's actually out there, but I'm not having contact with them or they're not having contact with me. And I have no control over it and I can't make them talk to me. That is some heavy grief.

One of the other four threats they talk about is social rejection because estrangement represents this targeted intentional rejection that is really damaging. And the shame and self-doubt, the result, can affect all your other relationships and contribute to depression and anxiety. And they say that the most challenging is the uncertainty of ambiguous loss, which is what I was talking about, right? Unlike death, having an estrangement just leaves you in this limbo. The stress still exists. It's deliberately inaccessible if someone is cutting you off. And it puts you in the state of whether, should I hope that things will get better or do I grieve? I'm not not sure how to handle this. And they talk about that many of the streamings begin with this volcanic event, a single event that seems to precipitate the cutoff, but actually represents a culmination of years of issues. Another really interesting aspect to know about, is that, as I was saying, is it happening more often or we're just talking more about it? Because they say that an increasingly number of younger generations use this as a way of handling what seems to be a broad in a way of being dissatisfied.

So beyond the abuse and direct harm, they said that a lot of young adults cite unmet emotional needs, violated boundaries, and lack of emotional support and other issues that they decide to estrange themselves from their family. And, back in, generationally and culturally, those are things to look at also. I think before, really, all we had the social media and phones and all these other distractions. Maybe if you're younger and listening in my age, then there really was more of this community growing up where neighbors knew each other more. They were looking out for each other. There was more of this feeling of family bonding and connecting. And a lot of people live near their families. Now we're really separated a lot by states and other countries. People are really around. Usually a lot of families live together and the grandparents live nearby and the cousins live nearby and everybody knew each other and hung out with each other. I know people, I know my husband's family. Every weekend, the cousins were together. I didn't have any of that just because how my family was. It was a really different growing up environment and more of this connectedness where now, again, people are more separate.

A lot of people in the younger generation have just had a really different experience than, I think, a few decades ago and generations ago that people grew up with. So there's a way of life that's really gone missing that was never there for a lot of young people today. And the researchers said that what's disappeared, he observed, are more or less specified roles and responsibilities of adults against where you can measure your conduct in some way. So what's replaced them are individualized norms in which the imperative is to optimize yourself to be all you can be. So It's very more me-focused in a lot of different ways based on the research. Just sharing what I have learned. And it's just a different way of looking at family and the expectations. So there's definitely not a perfect family out there. And families have always been marked by periods of distance and estrangement, comes and goes. But again, the struggle here, and I am going to talk about how CBT can help us through all of this, is that it never brings you any peace of mind. I think a lot of us assume that the parent-child relationship is going to be lifelong and always emotionally close.

But the reality we're learning is that many families experience periods of emotional distance with little contact. And again, some more studies are showing and have analyzed data from large samples that show the broader population, how common family estrangement is. So As I was saying, the United States, it was what, 67 million? I do have a little information, if you're in Germany, that a study found that 20% of adults reported being estranged from their father and 9% from their mother. Then in the US, regarding this, 6% of adults reported estranged from their father and 6% from their mother. That's interesting regarding which parent. But it also said the US study also found that most estranged adult children eventually reconnected. They said 81% with their moms and 69% with their fathers. It said that the study showed that estrangement is often temporary rather than permanent. That's some hope if you're looking to reconnect. And again, I just want to reiterate that there's no normal or typical parent-child relationship in adulthood. It's very individual. Again, from decades and decades ago, divorce is much more common today. Families are split up. One parent might move away, have a new family.

There's a lot of factors that play into if we're connected with each other, not if we choose to be connected. If you're someone that really have that close family, you're really fortunate, which is really great. But you can't assume that that's true for everyone. And I think, and I've talked to some people that they thought everybody's family was like my family because that's all they knew, right? And you got to remember that our outsider is really know your full story and your family dynamics because it's just what you show and just what you share. And people just don't have any idea. And they just assume based on who you are, they sometimes maybe even come up with their own story like, Oh, they must have a supportive family, or I bet who's close to everybody. And some families even may appear close and doing great from the outside when privately they're experiencing a lot of conflict. And that's where, again, why I thought I talk about this now because the holidays bring this up. Who's invited Where? Who's going to go where? Do you have to split your time between family members? Because some family members aren't talking to each other.

What does it look like? You might get through this during the year. It's not so bad. But then the holidays come. It's like, oh, we got to deal with this. How are we going to handle this? I don't want to upset anybody. I don't want to make things worse. Are we going to go here this year? Again, split our time. What are we going to do? So just because things look great from the outside, we want to be sensitive to those in our lives and maybe check in with them and say, how are the holidays Do you have somewhere to go? What does that look like? Are you looking forward to it? Just because you have somewhere to go, you might not be looking forward to it because you might know there's some stress in the air, or you're going to have to see someone you haven't seen in a while. There's so many scenarios that could come up, but it's something I want you to think about and be aware of. And I was mentioning also earlier that, is it more common now or is that people are more openly talking about it? And people are feeling more comfortable these days discussing what was once and still often is a real source of shame, where people would be, Oh, yeah, I talk to my kids, when they really don't talk to their kids.

Or people, Oh, yeah, I see my parents, we talk all the time, maybe they really don't do that. Because the narrative can really create a lot of judgment, and so people aren't going to be open and share what they're going through. Because it can be very painful for all those involved. And it's rare that the result comes from really quick decision, but from years and years of pain and struggle. I also wanted to share with you that I thought was interesting, what parents say about adult children versus what adult children say regarding this stuff. So they did a study in the UK, the US, and Australia, and they wanted to know what parents thought What regarding adult children and what adult children thought of parents. So adult children, I'll start off with, awfully attribute estrangement from their parents because of parental abuse and neglect in the past or the present. Authoritarian parenting in the past or the present, marked by harsh criticism, many demands and emotional volatility. Conditional parental affection with parents showing love only when the children meet expectations and parental rejection of their sexual orientation and/or gender identity. So this is what adult children are saying why they're not in touch with their parents or put space.

Parents, on their part commonly attribute estrangement to the child choosing to maintain a relationship with the partner's ex, the child's other parent, or the ex's newer partner over and above maintaining relationship with them. Some parents feel that their children were manipulated or pressured into making such choices by the other parent or the parents' partner. That's a really sad one, but I know that happens. Also, parents say that a child's mental health problem, anxiety, depression, personality disorders, or substance abuse problem can be part of the reason. Also, difference in values and behaviors such as differences in parenting styles, cleanliness, politics, or religion leading to strange interactions in which parents feel they have to walk on eggshells to avoid conflict, and the child's punishing them for perceived past wrong, such as not providing financial support leaving the family due to domestic violence or being emotionally unavailable during childhood. So it might appear that the parents attribute the estrangement to the relationships that children have with their exes or their ex's spouse, while children attribute estrangement to their parents' treatment of them, which is very interesting to think about, right? I mean, that's where the CBT I'm going to talk about is what your thoughts are, your perceptions, your experiences.

You can see how these are really different coming from the parent as well coming from the child. But they do say that estrangement is more common in families where parents have divorced or a parent has died. And then there's also cultural tensions that can also strain the family dynamics. Families in which closest depends on sameness may not tolerate a member's differing lifestyle or political views, as I mentioned earlier, sexual orientation, a way for an individual to maintain their sense of self, may be why they have to separate so they can be who they are. And again, in our society today, which is wonderful, people are more comfortable with their sexual identities. People are more vocal with their political views. When it comes to religion, people do a lot of... There's more inter faith. People change their religion. People leave their religion. All of these issues can cause estrangement. So it's really broad. That's why I'm taking the time to share this with you guys to really think about why does this even happen? Because whether it's a good decision for you or it's not a good decision or someone made that decision for you, there's still a level of sadness, I think, because there's a loss involved, right?

Even good choices can be difficult. You can feel like I'm doing the... You can not even feel, I know I'm doing the right thing for me. I can still feel sad about it. Because estrangement doesn't erase the love. It conceals it under layers of hurt and misunderstanding. So you want to remember that. It's a lot to unravel. So let's talk a little more specifically how CBT can help with the family estrangement, right? So because it's so complex, it brings the multiple layers I talked about, about grief, anger, guilt, confusion, relief, loyalty conflicts, and identity questions. And CBT doesn't try to force reconciliation or cut offs, but it focuses on how your thoughts shape your emotional experience so then you can respond in ways that support your mental health. I want to talk about some unhelpful thought patterns that estrangement often triggers. You might be thinking, A good daughter's son wouldn't let Let this happen. Another thought. These are all hot thoughts, right? It's all my fault. My family will never change, so I'm broken, too. If I don't have a family, I'm alone forever. These are all hot thoughts. And any of you new, joining me, a Hot Thought is a thought that's not 100% untrue.

So all of these thoughts is having catastrophic thinking, black and white thinking, personalizing it, should statements, right? Should statements, I should fix it even if it harms me. That's a hot thought. Personalizing it. I caused everything. Another hot thought. The black and white thinking might be that we're either close or I'm a failure. And having catastrophic thinking is this means my whole life will be ruined. So you can see there's many, many hot thoughts that we can identify here that aren't 100% true. As I was saying earlier, it's usually a long pattern of behavior, not a single event. We know that CBT helps us look at facts versus emotional conclusions, we can call them. So you always want to ask yourself, what's the evidence to support the idea that I'm responsible for the whole estrangement? Or is it true that reconciliation is the only way to be okay? And what does the pattern of past interactions say about whether closeness was safe or healthy. So this stuff often can give people really strong emotions and some of relief because it breaks the I caused it loop. So you want to ask yourself those questions I just with you if you're taking on all the responsibility and feeling the burden of that.

So using the cognitive reframing, which is a great tool, it doesn't mean that we're pretending like things are fine, but we're finding more balanced and self supportive thoughts. I'm going to give you some examples. From saying, I abandon my family, to, I set boundaries because the relationship harmed me. From, I should try harder Two, I can't control their behavior, only how I respond. From saying, I don't have a family anymore, to, My support system can include chosen family. So these are really great ways to start reframing the ha thoughts and the guilt and shame that you might be carrying with you. As I said earlier, you can carry two truths. I care about them, I I can't be in contact right now. And using your tools is going to help you identify your emotions. Is this guilt or is this sadness? Am I fearful or am I grieving? It can help reduce the self-blame that you might be putting on yourself. These are all really important things to identify and use your tools. And again, starting to use some boundaries. I'm going to give you some examples here with that, too. So trying a low stake boundary at first, because you might be a little nervous.

I need to pull back, I'm not sure. So that might be just not answering a message right away. And then say, How do I feel right now that I'm not answering the message? You want to practice your assertive skills. I have a podcast on that you can look up. You can say to someone, I'm just not available to discuss that right now. And you always want to create scripts for predicting triggers. And I do talk about this in one of my older holiday podcasts, where if you're going to see someone and you know that they may asking you intrusive questions, like just two nosy of an aunt or somebody, what am I going to say to them when they come up to me? That's going to really reduce my anxiety. And then you want to evaluate the outcomes. Did the feared catastrophic thing happen? Did I cope better than I expected? So these experiments you can do can really help you trust your ability to protect yourself and to handle situations well. And you really want to process grief, and you can use your CB tools to do that. As I said earlier, estrangement is often a living grief.

Cbt can help by identifying your thoughts about grief. Maybe it's a half-out that I'll never get the relationship I hoped for. Connecting those thoughts to how I'm feeling, my behaviors, reducing what I call secondary guilt, which is I shouldn't feel this sad if I chose it. I chose it so I should be okay. No, that's not true. Again, you want to process that because you are grieving. I'm sorry, any loss is a grief, any type of loss in your life. So your cognitive behavioral therapy tools don't minimize the loss, but it can structure it better for you. So you can manage it and come up with more balanced, alternatives thoughts. You want to make some really value-based decision-making. So estrangement brings big decisions, reconciliation, partial contact, structured contact, or no contact. Those are pretty much the choices that you're going to be making and deciding on. So your CBT can help you ask yourself these questions. What are my core values and relationships? Which choice aligns with the person I want it to be? I want to be. What is within my control? All of this can help you shift your decisions away from feeling fearful, guilty, or pressure and towards living an intentional in life, which is what you deserve in a way to honor yourself.

One last thing I wanted to share about CBT is it can do a lot of this self-identity work, can be a term we use. A surprising amount of CBT for estrangement involves your identity. Who am I apart from my family role? What relationships am I choosing to go going forward? And what support do I want in my life? So your CBT can help you reshape your internal your internal story from the problem family member, if that's what you tell yourself, or maybe you've been identified, to a person making thoughtful decisions. Wouldn't that be beautiful, right? Reshape your internal story that I'm the problem family member to a person making thoughtful decisions. So that's regarding yourself, right? If you're feeling maybe you've been the scapegoat or people are always focused on you or saying, you just need to call mom and dad and make things okay. You just need to reach out to your sister and brother. Why can't you just do that to make things okay? We know that people hear these messages from family and for you to be able to really think about who you are apart from that role in your family.

Again, what relationships am I choosing going forward and what support do I want in my life? These are all really great questions to ask yourself, and using your CBT tools can help you get there, which I love. If you're looking to reconciliation, think about it that it's not this single conversation, but it's ongoing. And think about this perspective also that many parents grew up in homes where feelings were not discussed and obedience was the number one thing. Today, adult children interpret their childhoods through the lens of therapy, trauma awareness, and a broader definition mission of what neglect and abuse is. It's really changing. So to be able to look forward and say, Do I want to reconciliation? Especially on the parents' side, you really are going to have to be more open and look through the lens of your children and how they experienced growing up. And instead of being defensive, you want to be open to hear what they say. It doesn't even mean you need to agree, but you just have to say, I can understand how that affected you in that way. It would be an example. I've worked with some parents working on how to communicate with their kids when their kids start to bring up some of the issues that happen in their life.

And fathers tend to struggle more than mothers because I hate to sound sexist, but fathers tend to not be as emotional. Or a lot of times with divorce, the kids are with the mom, the dad doesn't have as much contact, and they can get estranged or the dad may just give up. If the mom isn't supporting that relationship, that's a problem. When the kids start getting older in their teens, they're like, I'm busy, dad. I got things going on. So the weekends together aren't there. So the fathers really have to make a real effort if you're not the primary caretaker in a divorced home, to be connected. But for any situation, if you want to reconcile, if you want to repair things on any level, you're going to have to be open to what the other person says. I think whether you're the adult or the child in the relationship. So although estrangement is one of the most painful realities of modern family life, I do want to say that the requirements are clear, which is nice. Let's have some clarity, which is we need to have humility, we have to have patience, we have to have emotional flexibility, and a willingness, again, to see the world through your child's eyes, if you're the parent, even when that view feels unfair.

It's really important to take that in. And this is hard stuff, you This is hard stuff. I'm not expecting for me to share this with you. You're like, Oh, okay, that's how we do this. It's really difficult. And I even say as a child that understanding your parents and why they were the way they were can also help if you're wanting to reconcile or wanting to get some closeness. It's not just them understanding you, you also have to understand them. And my podcast on forgiveness talks a lot about that, understanding each other. Because it's not just one person saying, Okay, okay, I'll do what you want to do in my life. We want to improve the relationship if that is what you're working towards. So I feel like I'm just touching on so many things here. I know I've shared a lot of information. I hope I've had some clarity with you guys. I hope you've been able to follow me. It's a big issue, estrangement. And again, sometimes it's necessary, sometimes it isn't necessary. Sometimes we want to find Find a way to meet in the middle. But it's whatever is important to you.

Again, no judgment. You need to assess. And I think if you're struggling, I really would go talk to a therapist, get somebody who is bias, doesn't know your family, and sharing your story, and they can give you maybe a perspective on how to walk through this difficult journey and help you make a good decision for yourself and however you're going to handle it to do it in a healthy way. Not based on how you feel, but what is best for you. So that's it for today. I hope this was helpful. I hope you'll share with those that you feel may benefit. Maybe if you're struggling with family, it'd be a podcast to listen to together and then talk about.

You guys know where you can find me at my website, mycognitivebehavioraltherapy.com.

You can also find me on Instagram under My CBT Podcast and Dr. Julie Osborn on Facebook.

Please keep sharing your thoughts, your concerns, your questions. I love hearing from you and getting your feedback.

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As I've shared earlier, my website, I do have a store called mycbt.store. Right now, I'm having just a little fun for the holidays. I'm having a little sale on my mugs, and there's 30% off. And then there's just some other fun merchandise you can get for yourself or as a gift for someone. I have people sharing with me. They're buying mugs and sending them to their kids and family and friends. And there's just some fun stuff on there if you want to check it out.

I have a lot of other good resources on my website as well.

So again, happy holidays. Please take good care of yourself, honor yourself, reach out to your friends and family that you want to have in your life, and remember to always make decisions based on what's best for you, not how you feel.

One last thing I do want to mention, I forgot that I just want to give credit where credit is due, is a lot of the research and the statistics today, I read from the last Psychology Today magazine, the issue is from December 2025 called healing family split. So if you want to read more about that, you can always look that up, but all the researchers are in there and the information that I found out today, and I wanted to give credit to those researchers.

Thank you.