Living with Estrangement

For many of us, our family and close friends are our most immediate community.  What happens when this tie is disrupted by estrangement?  How do we process the loss of connection?  How do we rebuild the everyday structure of our lives?  These questions are crucial whether or not we initiated the estrangement.

Topics explored can include the following and any other topics participants want to look at:

• grief and loss
• loneliness
• toxicity
• relief
• guilt and shame
• generational impact
• holidays
• disruption
• feeling silenced
• blaming and feeling blamed
• survival
• hope
• letting go
• acceptance
• sense of self – who am I now that I have lost this connection?
• uncertainty
• reconciliation
• finding clarity – understanding causes, issues, negative patterns
• well-meaning advice by relatives and friends
• feeling caught in the middle
• partial (incomplete) estrangement
• learning how to set boundaries
• positive impacts – what might a successful estrangement look like?
• growing forward