An Estrangement Mystery

Summary

Proxy with Yowei Shaw — "An Estrangement Mystery"
Released: September 30, 2025

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Episode Overview

In this episode, "An Estrangement Mystery," Proxy delves into the puzzling and painful dynamic of family estrangement where "reasons go missing" in parent-adult child relationships. Host Yowei Shaw and reporter Kim Nadervane Petersa explore why, even when adult children clarify why they need distance, parents seem unable to fully hear, understand, or accept these reasons. Using case studies, expert interviews, and direct, emotionally charged conversation, the episode investigates explanations for this communication breakdown and offers insight on how (and if) the knot can be untangled.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. The "Missing Missing Reasons" Phenomenon

[06:36 – 11:50]

• Case Example: Becca Bland, a therapist specializing in family estrangement, shares a striking example: a daughter wrote "This is hell" on her wall as a child, but her mother punished her and later claimed not to understand why her daughter would distance herself ([08:52 – 09:54]).
  • Quote:
    • “She wrote something on the wall, and the mom literally disregarded it.” – Kim ([09:31])
    • “The mum kept saying to me, but I love her...I would never do anything to her that would cause her pain.” – Becca ([09:43])
• Prevalence: Becca estimates this dynamic appears in 90% of her cases.
• Community Reference: Adult children’s forums refer to the “missing missing reasons” dynamic, coined from a well-known blog and online terminology ([10:05]).

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2. Theories Explaining the Disconnect

[12:11 – 26:09]

A. "My Parents are Narcissists" Theory

[12:46 – 17:51]

• Expert Opinions: Both therapists, Becca Bland and Josh Coleman, label this explanation as “dangerous.”
  • Quote:
    • "I think it's dangerous to label anyone anything ultimately...it’s much better to identify for the purpose of improving a dynamic rather than saying you’re a narcissist." – Becca ([15:48])
    • “As soon as we label somebody...we become detachment brokers…It legitimizes an estrangement.” – Josh ([14:34])
• Why It’s Sticky: Provides a sense of validation for estranged adult children and community, but can encourage groupthink or further estrangement.

B. "Kids These Days Are Snowflakes" Theory

[17:51 – 22:07]

• Expert Opinions: Both call it “useful, accurate, and dangerous.”
  • Quote:
    • “We’ve really lowered the threshold for what we consider to be traumatizing, harmful, neglectful, abusive behavior...there’s a lot of good news in that.” – Josh ([18:57])
    • “I do think that ultimately, I think it's dangerous to say anybody is sensitive if they're bringing up, like, an issue.” – Becca ([19:57])
• Intergenerational Shift: Younger people have social legitimacy to name harm, but there’s risk of weaponizing complaints against otherwise “workable” parents.
• Family Evolution: Many estrangement patterns root in changes brought by prior generations—e.g., divorce, remarriage ([21:29]).

C. The "Brain Shuts Down" (Defensiveness/Defense Mechanisms) Theory

[22:07 – 26:09]

• Expert Opinions: Both label this theory as “accurate” and “useful.”
  • Quote:
    • “The only thing that’s going to satisfy them [adult children] is your ability to be empathic and take responsibility and show that you care, you’re sorry. And that’s no small task psychologically for any of us, but particularly for a parent.” – Josh ([23:07])
    • “You’re not taught how to parent other than by your own parents...people repeat those patterns because they copy what they know.” – Becca ([24:38])
• Social Psychology: When critiqued—especially by one’s own child—defense mechanisms inhibit true understanding, perpetuating the cycle.

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3. Breaking the Cycle: Moving Toward Repair

[27:04 – 43:42]

A. Therapist Approaches to Intervening

[27:54 – 32:19]

• Josh’s Method: Starts with a non-defensive letter of amends. Parent must acknowledge possible blind spots and express desire to understand, without justifying or explaining.
  • Quote:
    • “It’s really an exercise in empathy and responsibility.” – Josh ([28:58])
• Becca’s Method: Reaches out directly to the adult child to hear their perspective and help build a bridge to understanding, emphasizing the parent’s need to listen without gaslighting or minimizing.
  • Quote:
    • “It’s about saying the dynamic’s broken between the two of you. How do we evolve the dynamic so it feels healthier for everyone?” – Becca ([30:25])

B. Guiding Kids & Parents in Conversation

[32:19 – 34:24]

• For Adult Children: Therapists coach them to contextualize grievances in ways parents can hear, e.g., “I know that might not have been your intention...”
• Obligation to Parents: Becca says kids’ obligation is to raise concerns clearly and directly; if parents double down (“you’re wrong, this is all your problem”), further engagement isn’t required.
  • Quote:
    • “There's no obligation to keep doing that for forever. I think it's about raising the problem and seeing how the parent responds.” – Becca ([34:42])

C. Navigating Ethics for Therapists

[34:24 – 38:48]

• Josh’s Practice: Sometimes reaches out to estranged children, acknowledging controversy but emphasizing the intent to facilitate healing if both sides are willing.
• Risks in Mediation: Both therapists highlight the delicacy of their roles—balancing all parties’ needs while not inadvertently pushing for reconciliation with “truly harmful” parents.
  • Quote:
    • “It's a really fine art, ultimately, of trying to balance everyone's needs together and also trying to help everyone feel heard.” – Becca ([37:30])

D. Focus on Feelings, Not "Facts"

[38:48 – 41:05]

• Abandoning the “Logic Trap”: Instead of debating “what really happened,” genuine repair comes when the parent can understand and validate the adult child's feelings.
  • Quote:
    • “What matters is can you understand how they feel and validate a moment where you may have felt that too and understand that they felt that way?” – Becca ([40:42])
    • “That feels like a pretty profound shift actually, to go from the logic to the emotion.” – Kim ([40:54])

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4. When Repair Happens

[41:05 – 45:32]

• Case Outcomes: Becca describes a case where the parent, confronted by her daughter's raw emotion, was finally able to see past defenses and begin repair—a fragile process that, with continued empathy, led to relational healing, though it remains delicate.
  • Quote:
    • “Nothing is more humbling than that, in a way—like to watch the emotions of somebody that you've hurt and say, look, yes, I'm really sorry. I know that I'm responsible for that.” – Becca ([43:42])
• Josh on Mirroring: Small but consistent acts of active, non-defensive listening can be “sufficient conditions” for getting relationships “on the road to repair.”
• Central Role of Love: Returning to the need for showing up, humility, and compassion.
  • Quote:
    • “Love is showing up...I want to work on this and I’m gonna do whatever it takes to come down to a level where I can understand what I did as a human.” – Becca ([44:38])

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Notable Quotes & Moments (with Timestamps)

• “She wrote something on the wall, and the mom literally disregarded it.” — Kim ([09:31])
• “The mum kept saying...I would never do anything to her that would cause her pain.” — Becca ([09:43])
• “Therapists...have become what the sociologist Allison Pugh calls detachment brokers.” — Josh ([14:34])
• “I think it's dangerous to say anybody is sensitive if they're bringing up, like, an issue.” — Becca ([19:57])
• “If you’ve got a parent that says...this is all a snowflake problem. Then, you know, you’re not really on fertile ground to move a dynamic forward.” — Becca ([34:42])
• “You’re fighting for the truth. You’re saying all that matters is what’s right and what’s wrong...and all of that doesn’t matter, actually. What matters is can you understand how they feel...” — Becca ([40:42])
• “Nothing is more humbling than that...to watch the emotions of somebody that you’ve hurt and say, look, yes, I’m really sorry.” — Becca ([43:42])
• “Love is showing up and love is coming back and saying, look, I want to work on this...” — Becca ([44:38])

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Important Segments

| Timestamp | Segment | |------------|-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------| | 06:36–11:50| Introduction of the estrangement “mystery” and the case study | | 12:11–26:09| Theories & explanations (narcissism, “snowflakes”, brain shutdown/defense) | | 27:04–34:24| Approaches for bridging the estrangement gap | | 34:24–38:48| Therapist ethics and dilemmas | | 38:48–43:42| Effective repair: feeling over facts, and the process of emotional reconciliation | | 43:42–45:32| When and how relationships can be mended |

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Episode Tone & Language

• Thoughtful, insightful, gently challenging, and emotionally attuned.
• Emphasis on nuance, compassion, and practical advice—mirrored in both the host’s and guests’ language.
• The conversation balances open disagreement with deep mutual respect.

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Summary Takeaway

"An Estrangement Mystery" offers a rare, nuanced look at why communication collapses between estranged parents and children, even when reasons have been stated. The episode marshals professional expertise and lived experience to lay bare the emotional realities—how defense, shifting social norms, and unprocessed pain render critical messages effectively unhearable. Yet, hope is offered: empathy, vulnerability, and a focus on feelings—not logic—can make possible the beginnings of reconciliation, however fragile.

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Transcript

[A]

Hey, I'm Dr. Maya Shankar.

[B]

I host a podcast called A Slight Change of Plans that combines behavioral science and storytelling to help us navigate the big changes in our lives.

[C]

I get so choked up because I feel like your show and the conversations are what the world needs. Encouraging, empowering counter programming that acts like a lighthouse when the world feels dark.

[B]

Listen to A Slight Change of Plans.

[A]

Wherever you get your podcasts.

[B]

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[C]

Hello.

[B]

Hey, babe.

[D]

Hey.

[C]

You're on a roll.

[B]

Two weeks in a row on the pod.

[D]

Well, you know, it's fundraiser time and duty calls.

[B]

Say who you are to listeners who aren't familiar.

[D]

My name is Kyle. I am your husband. I mix the podcast and do other things like process your feelings about the podcast.

[B]

You also make spreadsheets for the show.

[D]

Seems like in whatever group endeavor, somehow I'm the least bad at spreadsheets.

[B]

Before the episode starts, can you give a quick campaign update? Where we at, baby?

[D]

I actually just took a quick peek a little while ago. Okay, we're at just under 650 I believe.

[B]

So how many more is that in the last week?

[D]

I think we got 90 more people.

[B]

That's awesome. Okay, so we're at 650 paying Patreon members. Thank you to everyone who signed up during the drive and who signed up before Kyle crunched the numbers. And with the support of some recent grants, we need to get to 1500 paying Patreon members to cover the costs of making a year two in a sustainable way so I can hire some part time production help. I was able to work with a part time producer early on with Proxy, which is how we were able to take on more ambitious reporting like the episode you're going to hear today. Plus, if you haven't heard, a generous listener has offered to give us an additional 25k if we reach our 1500 paying Patreon member goal by October 9th. You know, Kyle, I read a podcast industry newsletter the other day that said we should outlaw doing what you just did.

[D]

Oh, no, I'm just not cool anymore.

[B]

It's okay. You're new to this.

[D]

I'm new at broadcast.

[B]

Okay, so we have one week to go. I think we can do it.

[D]

I'm feeling lucky. I think if anybody can double the amount of subscribers in one week, it's this audience.

[B]

So, Kyle, run through the brownies. What do people get if they sign up for the patreon starting at $5 a month?

[D]

Okay, well, the first plate of brownies is of course, another season of Proxy. With the support that we can get from listeners, it means that we're going to make a better and fuller season two of Proxy possible. Brownie plate number two is that people get to be part of the Patreon community, which means bonus episodes as well as access to chats. And maybe the best prize of all is access to Kyle's Corner, where I run a gossip rag about all the comings and goings behind the scenes here at Proxy.

[B]

Okay, I just want to say we have other chats available other than Kyle's Corner. That is not the only one. We have like a book club chat where people can talk about the episodes.

[D]

And we also have a chat where you can ask your burning niche questions for upcoming guests.

[B]

And there's another brownie plate. Did you forget?

[D]

No, I would never forget about brownies. The next brownie is that anyone who is an annual member by the end of the drive will receive a custom designed magnet by none other than Yoweh Shaw.

[B]

Why would people want that? Kyle, as someone who has received one of my original magnets because it is.

[D]

A truly unparalleled artistic expression.

[B]

It's kind of like a puzz. There's like inside joke upon inside joke and usually the recipient doesn't even understand what I'm trying to say. Yeah, annual memberships are much better for us than monthly because more of your support goes directly to us than to monthly. Credit card fees, but there's another brownie.

[C]

Kyle.

[D]

Oh, yeah. So if you love emotions and you love oxy and you love gambling, we have a raffle where the next 100 people who sign up will be entered into a raffle. And we're going to pick a name out of a hat and that person gets to choose a topic for a proxy episode. In season two, you can get all.

[B]

Those brownies by going to patreon.com proxypodcast and sign up to become a member starting at $5 a month. If this show means something to you, if you've been meaning to sign up but just haven't gotten around to it, now is your moment to be a knight in shining armor. And if you're not in a position financially right now, we totally get it. We still love you. Thank you to everyone for listening, for sending messages, for sharing the show with friends and family. We feel so lucky to get to make this show for you.

[D]

Yeah. It wouldn't have been possible without all of your support so far. So thank you.

[B]

Okay. Enjoy the show. Welcome to Praxi. I'm Yoe Shah. Today we're on the emotions beat, where we investigate an emotional question that's on our mind. Last week, we heard a conversation between a mom and a daughter who were each estranged from their own families. And what we thought was really interesting is that while in a lot of ways these women were opposites, there was this one incredibly specific dynamic that showed up in both of their stories where the adult child kept telling their parent why they were estranging, and the parent kept saying, why won't you tell me why you're estranging? It was bizarre. Like words were evaporating, not making it to the other side. To make some sense of this mystery, reporter Kim Nadervane Petersa has today's story.

[C]

So recently, I talked to this woman named Becca Bland who's on the ground trying to solve this mystery every week because she's a therapist who specializes in family estrangements. And Becca told me that this dynamic where kids tell their parents why they're estranging, and then parents turn around and say, I don't understand why you won't talk to me. It shows up a lot. She says it's a factor in almost 90% of her cases. She told me about this one recent example where a mom who was 85 years old got in touch with Becca for help reconnecting with her daughter, who's in her 40s. So Becca talked to the mom to understand the Story from her perspective. And then she talked to the daughter who, it turns out, is very angry. She told Becca that she'd been trying for decades to get across to her mom that something was wrong. Starting as a kid, she had had.

[A]

A really, really difficult time in a. In a. In a home that had a lot of domestic violence. And she had written on her bedroom wall in marker pen, helc, this is hell. And she was punished, like, very heavily for writing that. And it was painted over and what she felt was never spoken about, which was a cry for help, obviously. And this parent came to me saying, I have no idea what was possibly wrong with her childhood. I've got no understanding of why she would want to distance me and why. Why she thinks I don't listen.

[C]

That's so wild. I mean, it is kind of like the most physical manifestation, basically, of the thing that we're describing. Like, she wrote something on the wall, and the mom. Yeah, the mom literally disregarded it.

[A]

The mum kept saying to me, but I love her. But I really love her. She means so much to me. I really value her. I would never do anything to her that would. That would cause her pain.

[C]

Right.

[A]

And that's where we get this interesting piece of, like, I don't understand why.

[C]

As I was researching, I actually came across this disconnect. And again and again, talking to parents, looking on forums for estranged parents and estranged kids. It turns out it's even so common that on the subreddits where estranged kids gather, they have a name for this dynamic. They call it the Missing. Missing Reasons, based on a blog that was written about it years ago. So what's going on here? Why do all of these reasons keep going missing? Why is it sometimes so hard for parents to hear their kids? I decided to get Becca Bland in a video call with this other estrangement therapist named Josh Coleman. You might remember him from the last episode. And I thought that together they might be able to shed some light on what's going on here. Both because they're really in the trenches day in, day out, working with families who are navigating these dynamics, trying to solve them, but also because they're coming at it from really important and different points of view. Becca is estranged from her own parents and then wrote about her experience and other people's experiences as a journalist. She also created a nonprofit to help people like her, and since then has become a family therapist. Josh is coming at it from the other perspective. He got into this work after estranging from his own daughter, and later Reconciling with. Since then, he's become almost like this guru to estranged parents. He writes books, has a popular newsletter, leads, Q and A's. And actually, Becca and Josh, they're often in a kind of conversation with each other. It's almost like they've become intellectual frenemies.

[E]

Yeah. I mean, I've known Becca since she first interviewed Me. Was It 10 Years Ago for your.

[A]

It's Like 14 Years Ago, Josh, so.

[E]

14 Years Ago. Oh, my gosh. Wow.

[C]

And how would you describe your relationship?

[A]

We're pitted against each other all the time, so we're not afraid to disagree. And, like, I think it just shows that generational difference in many ways.

[C]

Okay. So as I was researching, it was clear to me that people were finding their own ways to explain this mystery. They're the reasons that estranged kids tend to use, reasons estranged parents rely on. So I wanted to run these explanations past Josh and Becca, see what they thought, and throw a third one in the mix. A potential explanation from social psychology that I thought might be useful here. For each of these theories, I asked them, what do they think? Accurate, useful, or dangerous?

[E]

These are on three separate pieces of paper?

[C]

Yes, three separate pieces of paper.

[A]

Okay.

[C]

Okay, great. So theory number one. My parents are narcissists. So this is the one that I see estranged kids use a lot. If you remember the girl who painted this is hell on her wall, and then the mom who painted over it and said years later, I don't think anything was wrong when you were growing up. According to the first theory, her mom is a narcissist. It's not that she doesn't hear her daughter. It's that she's too focused on herself for the information to really sink in. In. Hold up your answer. What do you think about this theory?

[E]

It's. It says dangerous. Yeah.

[C]

Okay. And, Becca, what did you say?

[A]

I think it's dangerous.

[C]

I want to start with you, Becca, since this is the most popular explanation among kids. Why did you say dangerous?

[A]

Well, yeah, I. First of all, I wanted to, like, decode that word narcissistic and narcissist a little bit, if that's all right. So I think there's a big difference between people having narcissistic traits and someone having a pathological narcissistic personality disorder. And no one's child can diagnose then with a pathological narcissistic personality disorder, they can probably identify narcissistic traits and just to kind of show some compassion for that. Like, narcissistic traits are present in all of us to different degrees because it enables our survival if we can be Machiavellian, if we can be, you know, self aggrandizing powerful, if we can fake it until we make it, we often do in our world. So in a sense, it's how we've been taught to survive and how we've been taught to succeed.

[C]

That's so interesting. Yeah, we're like a narcissistic society.

[A]

Oh, absolutely, absolutely.

[E]

I mean, my problem with that and many other diagnoses is that it legitimizes an estrangement. I'll sometimes see letters from the adult child that, well, my therapist said my mother's a narcissist, so it won't do any good to do family therapy with her because she can't change. So it's a kind of a green light or legitimization of an estrangement. And therapists, maybe we'll talk about this, have become what the sociologist Allison Pugh calls detachment brokers. And I think that we become detachment brokers as soon as we label somebody, whether it's a parent or an adult child. You know, diagnoses are very, it's a very fraught enterprise even amongst so called professionals, because they're not really, there's not really deeply understood. There's not a strong genetic basis to most of them. There's been billions of dollars spent on trying to, you know, a genetic and neurological basis to the lot of these. And it's mostly a group of professionals sitting in a room and deciding that these symptoms should cluster in this way. And they have utility. They have utility in terms of. So other professionals can speak in a general way about, you know, what somebody's psychology is or for insurance companies. But if you go to five different therapists, you may come out with five different diagnoses and five different treatment plans.

[A]

What I would like to say is that, you know, I think that it's dangerous to label anyone anything ultimately, because although it does give you a language to describe something, then it's much better, I think, to identify for the purpose of improving a dynamic rather than saying you're a narcissist, like say, look, there's some behaviors here that I feel are really, really difficult. Whenever I try and say something, you find it really hard to take responsibility. And I feel hurt in response to that.

[C]

Okay, so you both said that this theory is dangerous and yet it comes up all the time on estranged kids forums. Now maybe that's because, you know, these kids have narcissistic parents and they're all gathering in one place. Or maybe, maybe it's for another reason. Like, why do you think this explanation has proven to be so useful to people? It seems to be very sticky. Why?

[A]

I would say it provides a framework for healing. I think that people are able to identify certain traits that are common within the narcissistic framework, and then they can come together and share experience that breaks down isolation that ultimately then leads to their healing.

[E]

Well, a can, but it can also coalesce into a group think in support of cutting off more workable parents who are wrongly diagnosed that way.

[A]

Yeah, of course. But I think that there's often this myth that goes around that those groups or, you know, TikTok causes estrangement. Like, I've seen so many articles like this now. And like, I don't think for a minute that, like, people who genuinely have been through something like really, really traumatic in their family life are going to those forums looking for permission to cut off their parents. Ultimately, I think that's something the media have contrived as a. As a nice way of thinking. This is why it's happened. If anyone wants to send me a paper, I will read it and I will eat it and I will eat my words with it. So, yeah, I would just love to speak from fact often, because we can make theories, which is lovely, but let's look at what drives people here and what drives them is their pain.

[C]

Okay. This actually is an excellent segue into theory number two. Theory number two, Kids these days are snowflakes. So in Becca's story where the kid painted the wall with a cry for help and then the mom painted over it, and now years later, her child doesn't want to talk to her. A common explanation from the mom's perspective is that she did her best. She gave her daughter everything she needed for a childhood that was actually perfectly fine. And now her daughter says that she's ending their relationship, but the reasons feel too small to the mom because she would have never cut off her parents for anything like that. Kids have just gotten way too sensitive. Okay, hold up your answer. Useful, accurate, or dangerous?

[E]

It's all three.

[C]

Both of you guys held up all three. Okay. I think Becca started last time. So, Josh, now you can begin. Why did you hold up all three?

[E]

I mean, the utility of it is that that parents, most parents, I find, actually don't understand why their children are cutting them off. And I think this goes back to Nick Haslam's paper about concept creep, that in the past three or four decades, we've really lowered the threshold for what we consider to be traumatizing, harmful, neglectful, abusive behavior. And the good news of that, and that's why I also held up the accurate and useful sign, is that today younger generations or anybody has kind of the social legitimacy to talk about things that prior generations would have been excluded from talking about. And there's a lot of good news in that. The bad news is that we're preoccupied with trauma and with psychological diagnoses. And it can can weaponize complaints or weaponize the capacity to a stranger parent who might be much more workable than they're being led to believe.

[C]

Hmm. Becca?

[A]

Yeah, I agree with things Josh has said there. Like, I do think that ultimately, I think it's dangerous to say anybody is sensitive if they're bringing up, like, an issue.

[E]

Right.

[A]

Because actually, you know, we're all entitled to our feelings, and our feelings matter, each of us individually. And where I think it gets dangerous is to kind of say that, yeah, that this generation are becoming more, I suppose, snowflakey sensitive about abuse. Because I think a lot of what has been written about, for example, ostracization, physical punishment, things like that, we've got tons of papers now to show that it's got a very negative impact on people's health and wellbeing. So I think this generation isn't just kind of lowering the threshold, let's say, around abuse for no reason. It's not unevidenced. So we have to look at how science evolves before we kind of say, look, they're just taking things more sensitively. But what I kind of want to finish with there, like on that generational piece, is that if we look at the evidence on family estrangement, if we look at where it comes from, a lot of it is around divorce, and a lot of it is around new family forms coming back together in different ways and lots of conflict around that. And who brought that in. Like, those changes were brought in by the baby boomer generation themselves. So, you know, they've evolved family in their own way. And in many senses, what that taught them was that there are acceptable and non acceptable behaviors in marriage. And that has now led to this kind of place where we're at, where we're kind of saying, well, look, if they're in marriage, if that's wrong, if someone hitting me in marriage is wrong, why is it not wrong in family? And that's where I think this argument is becoming unpicked, is like, well, why do I have to take it if I Don't need to take it in a marriage, and I can divorce there. Why do I have to take it from my father? Why do I have to take it from my brother? You know, if a domestic violence helpline would tell me to get out of that family home, if I was being given some of these behaviors from a spouse, then why is it different?

[C]

Finally, theory number three, Brain shuts down. Okay, so when the daughter paints her wall with this is hell, and then her mom punishes her for it rather than hearing what she's trying to get across, according to this theory, it's too hard for her mom to hear what her daughter has to say. Now, this explanation I came across in social psychology, not specifically about estrangement, but just more general. And it's based on this research that says that when all of us get critiqued, our brains, they kind of fritz out. They shut down. We experience all these really intense defense mechanisms that just keep us from hearing each other. And I started to wonder if those defense mechanisms might be especially strong when parents get critiqued by their kids. Useful, accurate, dangerous. What do you think?

[E]

Useful and accurate.

[A]

Accurate.

[C]

Accurate. Okay, great. Who wants to go first?

[E]

Oh, I can go. I think one of the hardest things for any parent to face is the way that they failed. Hurt, neglected, or even traumatized their child. And, you know, we have this sort of pat saying in psychology that hurt people, hurt people. So often the parents who are the worst or the most traumatizing or the most damaging to the children are the ones who've been hurt and most damaged and traumatizing themselves. And many of them do a better job than their own parents did and so come into a parenting feel like, I'm not gonna put my kid through what I did. I got beaten up. I didn't beat my kids. But maybe they emotionally abused them. You know, maybe they shame them, humiliated, but they feel like because they didn't beat their child, then they did a better job. So then to be faced with, no, you actually failed me in your most important job in life. You know, it's hard for any parent to hear, but somebody who's already carrying a great degree of trauma. Trauma into their adulthood has no immunity to that. They're already walking around feeling like they're. They're terrible, awful people who are deserving terrible things that happen to them. And so the worst reaction that adult children often get from their parents is a defense against that feeling. It's a way to push that away. Go, no, no, no, you have it wrong. And parents will often want to explain why they did what they did. And I always tell parents, there is no real explanation that's going to satisfy your child. The only thing that's going to satisfy them is your ability to be empathic and take responsibility and show that you care, you're sorry. And that's. That's no small task psychologically for any of us, but particularly for a parent.

[A]

Yeah, I agree with things Josh has said there. Like, I do think that, you know, you're not taught how to parent other than by your own parents. So ultimately, like, people repeat those patterns because they copy what they know. And however many parenting books you read, there are moments that are so exhausting in parenting that you're going to use your instincts, and sometimes those instincts are wrong. People are going to lose their rag. Sometimes people are going to make mistakes. So I think it involves, with adult children in reconciliation, generosity. Like, there has to be a generosity of spirit that this was a hard thing to do and that people probably, on the whole, tried their best. But if you've got a narcissistic system happening, you're going to have people that will then just like, push away and say, I'm perfect. I'm not. Again saying everyone's a narcissist. But those systems are harder to get through. Those systems are harder to get people to take responsibility for.

[C]

Becca, this explanation where parents brains are shutting down when they get critiqued is part of how she explains what happened with the girl who painted this is hell on the wall and a mom who kept saying, I didn't think anything was wrong growing up, Becca told me that when she and the mom first talked, the mother actually never even mentioned that there had been domestic violence in the house. The way that she saw the story, she had given her children a good home to live in, as in they had all the material things that they needed. To the mom, the domestic violence, it just wasn't relevant.

[A]

So that was a very interesting point. You know, like, to what point are we disassociated from the reality of what's happening in our family life? Because we have to do a certain amount of things to survive those dynamics at the time and to raise children and to survive in a household where there's obviously a lot of aggression and unhealthy dynamics going on in the marriage? Because actually, some truths are really, really difficult to internalize. And they're going to trigger a whole process of that person, like having to explore their own pain and actually go there and take away a lot of defense mechanisms that they may have built for themselves to cope with their own family situation. Because we kind of want to think everything's okay because that's easier. Much, much easier.

[C]

So if a central cause of the communication breakdown is that there is nothing more challenging for a parent than hearing the feedback that they've done a bad job or raising their kid, how does anybody get through? That's after the break. So let's say that a parent comes in to Josh or Becca and they are hopelessly lost in the mystery of the missing missing reasons their kid told them why they're estranging. The parent doesn't get it. What do Josh and Becca do next? Josh says that he starts with something that he calls a letter of amends.

[E]

First step, typically is to start with something like, I'm writing to see if it's possible to open up a dialogue with you. I know you wouldn't have cut off contact with me unless you felt like it was the healthiest thing for you to do. If they don't understand it, then they should set. That said, I don't completely understand and would like to. It's clear that I have said significant blind spots as a parent and as a person. And perhaps you've told me and I wasn't able to hear it, but I would like to hear it now. I promise to read it or listen purely from the perspective of learning and listening and not in any way to defend myself. Now, if the adult child has given them reasons that maybe they feel are completely wrong or somewhat wrong, I say you still have to find the kernel, if not the bushel of truth in that. So an adult child might say, well, you were always gone or you were narcissistic or you were so self centered or you were so critical. Are you emotionally abusive? If they can think of examples where that was true, it's much more compelling to the adult child for the parent to say, yeah, I have some memories of that. I could see why that would have been really hurtful to you. And maybe I can even see why that would have made you feel like it's better for your mental health or well being to not be in contact with me. Those are things that I feel like I can work on in my own therapy or I'm willing to work on with you in family therapy. So the letters, they have no defensiveness, they're not explanatory. They're not saying, well, because it was the divorce or it was because you had ADD or you know, or I didn't have any money so I had to work Two jobs or, you know, your parent poisoned you against me. It's really an exercise in empathy and responsibility, taking to see if the adult child will open up the door.

[C]

Right.

[E]

If that doesn't work, then I'll reach out to the adult child and see if they'll talk to me. And, you know, probably 60% of the time they. They'll respond to me. Maybe of that 60%, you know, 30% will actually speak to me.

[A]

So I think in my process, it's always a bit different. Actually, most of the time I really feel that, like a lot of the adult children, I approach really want to be heard and they want to be heard from a safe perspective. So they really want to, like, talk to someone that's not going to gaslight them or tell them that they're wrong, tell them that they're being sensitive, tell them they've got mental health issues. So I would reach out to the child almost straight away, and what I would ask for from the child is to help me out. Really? Will you share your perspective so that I can best help your parent understand what's going on here?

[C]

Yeah.

[A]

And then we kind of get to the point where she speak to both parties, where you kind of understand the dynamic and that's what we need to work with. It's not about shaming any of the other parties. It's about saying the dynamic's broken between the two of you. How do we evolve the dynamic so it feels healthier for everyone? But most of the time, the most of the children that I've worked with that have retreated into silence and not really said anything is because they just lack trust in. In the parents ability to really hold their story. Or they're young, they're really young. They're like 20 to 28. And like, who at 20 to 28 has the really good life skill to kind of go up to a position of power because their parents do have a position of power in their lives and say, look, I really need to talk to you about the fact that I feel that my childhood had elements of abuse in it. So I think that we have to kind of give the younger generation a bit of understanding. There is that, like, it's actually a very hard thing to do to bring something up directly.

[C]

I also imagine that there's kind of an art to confrontation and that as a child who's bringing something, you know, difficult and painful to your parents, how can they also bring those things up so that their parent can hear them? Are there, like, techniques so that it maybe lowers the Parent's defenses, that it's easier for them to be heard.

[A]

Yeah, I think he's. Certain phrases like, I know that might not have been your intention, or I understand parenting is difficult, or I understood that you were doing your best and circumstances were not, you know, as ideal as you might have wanted them to be. Like, I think it's about saying you understand that this. This is quite hard, and you did your best because most, as I say, most parents, unless they're incredibly neglectful, did do their best.

[C]

When I was about 25, I had, like, a big confrontation with my dad after many years of issues. And I was actually in conversation with a therapist at the time who I think really counseled me to be thoughtful about how I brought up my issues, and I think it was very helpful. And basically what he suggested also was like, this larger context of, dad, I want to have this conversation because I feel like we've become distant, and I'm afraid of that continuing. And I want to work through these things because I want to be close to you. That's actually where this is coming from.

[A]

Yes. I mean, being really clear about your process is really helpful. So, you know, when. When you're, like, feeling like you want to back away and run away or, like, pull out, then it's like, well, what could I do to stop myself from doing that? How can I stay in relationship here? And the vast majority of the time to be able to do that, you just speak and say what's on your heart.

[C]

Do either of you guys end up prepping the parents so that they can, you know, understand the missing. Missing reasons that their kids might be talking about?

[E]

Yeah. For me, I think prep is incredibly important, particularly for the parent, because I want them to know this isn't like marriage therapy, where you're going to have an equal claim on. On your own feel, you know, be able to talk about your own feelings or how hurt you feel or how misunderstood you feel, or give your own version of things. It's much more like somebody's left the marriage and they're willing to give you another chance. It's going to be on their terms. So your role is really to deeply understand and empathize and not to defend and not to expl. And I'd say that to the adult child as well, particularly if it's somebody who's considering doing reconciliation therapy but is very mistrustful or fearful. I'll say, really, the purpose of the therapy is to help your parent understand why you feel like it's better for you to be estranged. So to that end, my goal is really there as your advocate, to help you develop your narrative and help your parent understand that. And your parent knows that, knows that as well.

[C]

What do you think is kids obligation to their parents? Is there an obligation? Like, at what point is it reasonable for a child to cut off their parents?

[A]

Well, I think if you raise the difficulties, and that's the obligation I feel is to raise the difficulties. Just give people a chance to understand what's wrong and do it in a very clear and direct way, compassionate way, a way that will help them understand the situation as best you can. I think that's the obligation. Like there's no obligation to keep doing that for forever. I think it's about raising the problem and seeing how the parent responds. And if you've got a parent that says you're wrong, it's all your problem. I don't want to talk about it. There's no way I'm going to counseling with you. This is all a snowflake problem. Then, you know, you're not. You're not really on fertile ground to move a dynamic forward. You're not being respected. So why would you keep putting yourself back in a. In a place where you're being disrespected?

[C]

Yeah, I mean, I think you're pointing towards something. I think you're both pointing towards something, which is that being a therapist, stepping into these dynamics, it's risky. It's risky in multiple ways. Right. You're stepping into family dynamics that you're kind of new to and obviously have a lot of difficulty to them. And I also imagine that it must ethically feel like a difficult job sometimes. And I want to bring up something that I've come across online a little bit, Josh. Online, there's this critique that estranged kids have written about you, which is that you reach out to estranged kids after they've requested not being in contact with their parents anymore. And I'm curious how you perceive that decision to reach out after it feels like they've set this hard boundary. Yeah. How do you make sense of that?

[E]

Well, it's true that some don't like it. There's no ethical violation there. It may. They may not. They may find it irritating or annoying or intrusive. But I think to Becca's point, a certain percentage of adult children are like, great. I mean, yes, I'm no contact with my parent, but I would love to tell you why I feel the way that I do. And I think Becca and I both work similarly, that when we have the estranged adult child in the room with us. Are, you know, the role is to really be empathic to them and help be a, you know, a good arbiter of their. Their perspective. So, yeah, there are. There are some that treat it as intrusive or a violation of their boundaries. But if a parent comes to me and they're in enormous pain and suffering and their child is no contact, and they're not really giving them any way to reconcile. And sometimes it works for me to reach out to them and I'm. To me, it's a legitimate. It's a legitimate process.

[A]

Yeah. I mean, also, like, it's really interesting, isn't it? Because, like, that aspect of, you know, what is ethical, it's really hard working with multiple parties. You have to be incredibly careful. And it's a really fine art, ultimately, of trying to balance everyone's needs together and also trying to help everyone feel heard. And it doesn't always work.

[C]

Are you ever afraid that in your job that you're trying to reconcile a child with somebody who is truly harmful?

[E]

Well, if I'm doing family therapy, I'm going to comment on that in the session. And I have, you know, if I feel like a parent is refusing to accept their adult child's very reasonable limits or they continue to communicate with their child in a way that I see as clearly destructive and hurtful, I will say to the parent, I can't really endorse your adult child ending their estrangement if you can't recognize the basic reasonable nature of their complaints and boundaries and limits. Parents still have an enormous capacity to hurt the adult child with their. Their words or their opinions or whatever. So I'm very conscientious about kind of holding the line around those things.

[C]

Yeah. I wanna raise one of the situations that came up in the first episode that we did where the mom who has now been cut off by her kids, the thing that really got between them, I'm vague because she keeps it a little vague because she wants to protect their privacy. But basically they raise these issues. She doesn't believe that that happened. And so she doesn't wanna validate their version of events. And so then she doesn't want to apologize for something that she doesn't believe is true. And that's kind of where things stopped. Like they. They really weren't able to. To reconcile once they got to that point.

[A]

I suppose the way I would work with that is kind of from a very compassionate angle of like, no parenting is perfect. What mistakes do you Think you made like this is normal. It would be abnormal to not make any mistakes. I would be a bit concerned about someone that came and said they felt that they were the perfect parent and made no mistakes.

[C]

Right.

[A]

It's about self worth and thinking, how do I let go of this idea of that I'm perfect because everyone makes mistakes in relationships, in friendships, in work relationships, in family relationships, Everybody makes mistakes. So how can I admit that to myself that I'm not the perfect human, if there is such a thing, then how can I be compassionate with myself about the mistakes that I made and take responsibility then for those and get away from the story? This is why, this is what did this. This is the detail and get to the feeling they felt unheard, they felt unseen, they felt like they couldn't ultimately be themselves.

[C]

That's interesting because you're almost saying, like, let's not get stuck in, you know, like the logic.

[A]

You're fighting for the truth. You're saying all that matters is what's right and what's wrong. And I need to like, make sure that I end up out of this process as the one that's right.

[C]

Yeah.

[A]

When all of that doesn't matter, actually. What matters is can you understand how they feel and validate a moment where you may have felt that too and understand that they felt that way?

[C]

That feels like a pretty profound shift actually, to go from the logic to the emotion.

[A]

And you know, there's going to be an absolute road to nowhere if they basically don't allow that.

[C]

So just to just to close this. Can you guys tell me about a time when you saw somebody suddenly see the missing. Missing reasons? Have you been in cases where it went from somebody not understanding to suddenly then somebody was able to see, how did that happen?

[A]

Well, I think just following the story of the case I was talking about, then I think the mother realized that she'd been in an incredibly difficult domestic violence situation that she had not let herself feel or understand and had not really realized until quite later in her life that she probably should have left. And I think she then began to understand more about how neglected her adult child had felt in that situation. And yeah, she did understand through listening and I think through seeing the emotion, the daughter got incredibly, incredibly upset in the session. You know, it was visceral how upset she got because how unheard and unseen she felt. And those things matter. Actually, seeing someone's authentic response and holding that and seeing someone's pain in front of you is very powerful in opposition to feeling their silence. Because Then you can really feel, in a very visceral way, goodness me, like, this person is really hurt. And it's not a joke, it's not, you know, a game. This is actually somebody that's really suffering because of something that they feel I've done. And like, nothing is more humbling than that, in a way. Like to watch the. Watch the emotions of somebody that you've hurt and say, look, yes, I'm really sorry. I know that I'm responsible for that. And wow, what. What other thing in life can bring us more richness than being able to say, look, I was wrong?

[C]

What did that ultimately do to the relationship?

[A]

Yeah, the relationship repaired. It was very fragile. Like, very, very fragile. And yeah, in a way, I kind of see these mediation sessions as like having stabilizers. Right. People are learning to ride a bike again. And like, you know, I'm there, I'm the stabilizers. And often I don't hear what happens after. So it's hard to know sometimes what really happens. Yeah, Like, I help people draft a million letters, really. Like, I've helped people draft so many communications, no idea what happens after they've gone. So, like, it's really interesting, like, you know, you just get one part of the story, really, as a professional in this way.

[C]

Josh, how about you?

[E]

You know, in active listening, we have this technique called mirroring, where you just basically repeat what the other one said, but you have to repeat it in a non defensive way where you actually are really repeating what they said. And you know, if a parent says, yeah, you felt completely hurt by me, or you felt really abandoned by me when I did that, or I didn't do that, that felt like real neglect to you or that felt traumatizing to you, and I'm really sorry. It's not necessarily like one intervention is necessarily going to turn the tide off, and it's quite a few of those. But that willingness to go there, that openness is really unnecessary and sometimes a sufficient condition for things to be on the road, to repair.

[A]

I think we ultimately come back to the important word, which is love. Right. And like love is showing up. Love. Someone said that, right? Josh didn't say that.

[E]

I can't remember. I can't remember who it was.

[A]

But yeah, some really big psychologists said that.

[E]

Exactly. Yeah, that's right.

[A]

And love is what you need, isn't it? Love is showing up and love is like coming back and love is saying, look, I want to work on this and I'm gonna do whatever it takes to come down to like a level where I can understand what I did as a human and to know our effects on the world and to know our effect on people and how to move that forward and change that is really important and powerful part of becoming a more rounded whole human. So I kind of say to parents in this practice, this will be incredible for your self development. Like that's a really important part of being able to progress as someone that's relational.

[C]

Well, thank you guys so much. Yeah, I feel like we got somewhere actually on the Case of the Missing Missing Reasons. It's been a pleasure to hear you both disagree and actually agree maybe a lot more than I expected to.

[E]

I think we probably agree more than we disagree, don't you Becca?

[A]

No, I think the media make it out that we disagree a lot and we actually agree way more.

[E]

I know.

[B]

That was reporter Kim Nadervane Petersa. Thank you to Becca Bland and Josh Coleman for talking to us. You can find out more about Becca's work with [e-mail]. one of the things she does is facilitate support groups that bring people together who are surviving estrangement. And you can find out more about Josh's work and his thinking on estrangement by reading his book Rules of Estrangement. And he also has a newsletter called Family troubles@joshuacoleman. PhD.substack.com we'll have those links in our show notes. We'll be back on Tuesday, October 7th with our final episode in our membership campaign. Not our last episode for the year, Just for the Drive. Proxy is an independent podcast and we have one week left to get to 1500 paying Patreon members by October 9th so we can get an additional 25k from a generous listener and cover the costs of making a Year two of the show. We just need to double our members by October 9th. I know we can do it. If only a tiny fraction of our listeners signed up, we would make our goal. As of this recording, we are at 651 paying Patreon members, which is amazing. So if you want to hear a Year two of praxi, if you believe in emotional investigative journalism, if you've been meaning to become a Patreon member but haven't gotten around to it, now is the time to make your support really count. For just $5 a month, you'll get exclusive premium episodes and access to the chat. What a bargain. Sign [e-mail] ProxyPodcast that's patreon.com ProxyPodcast.

[C]

This.

[B]

Episode was edited by Tim Howard, mixed by Kyle Pulley and produced by me, Yohei Shaw with help from Charlie Klein. Music in this episode by Tim Howard and our theme music is by Breakmaster Cylinder. Special thanks to Julia Muldavin, Kim Allen, Nadia Chandan and Sindhu nyanasambandan. Praxi is a proud member of Radiotopia from prx, a network of independent, creator owned, listener supported podcasts. Audrey Martovich is the Executive Producer of Radiotopia. Yurilla Zordo is the Director of Operations, Discover Audio Vision Radiotopia FM. As always, you can follow us on Instagram, ProxyPodcast and I'm oueshaw. Get in [e-mail] thanks for listening everyone. See you next Tuesday.

[C]

Radiotopia from prx.