(Author’s note: Dan and Laura are real people going through this situation right now; their names were changed to protect privacy.)

A frail, 85-year-old cancer survivor sits in his living room obsessively dialing a number on his landline phone.  Day after day he waits to hear a voice despite knowing that his call will never go through because his number is blocked.  He frantically redials.  It’s a ritual Dan performs every day, hoping to hear his daughter’s voice if only for one last time.

In the bedroom his wife Laura lies motionless in bed staring at the ceiling.  This is where she spends most of her time despite the fact that her doctor has doubled her antidepressants.  The couple require daily nursing assistance, arranged for by a son who lives 15 minutes away but never visits.  It’s a depressing scene.

If you spend any amount of time with them, they’ll tell you about their daughter, Tina.  They had three boys but their fourth child was a girl they called their “miracle baby.” Ever since Laura was young, she wanted a little girl, but she knew that for medical reasons the fourth baby would be her last.  Dan tells the story of how Laura cried tears of joy when their baby girl arrived, and even had all the nurses crying.  But where is Tina now?

Tina and her brothers stare back at you from pictures hung around the house.  They all married and had their own children: happy families mugging for the camera in group pictures – yet this elderly couple can’t remember the last time they’ve seen one of them.

It’s a problem happening in families nationwide.  Some call it a silent epidemic of estrangement, others glibly refer to it as going “no contact” like it’s some prophylactic necessity.  But the truth of the matter is Dan and Laura have been completely canceled — trimmed off and discarded like fat from a piece of meat.

Their cancellation began when their daughter Tina who, when she couldn’t get a definitive diagnosis for her headaches, was persuaded by a friend to visit a psychiatrist. The psychiatrist told her she would get better if she stopped all contact with her parents and siblings based on uncovered childhood memories. The fallout broke family bonds.

Manipulated Memories

Meanwhile, Tina’s family is convinced that she is the victim of “manipulated memories,” similar to the Recovered Memory Therapy disgrace that made headlines in the 1990’s.

That decade saw therapists using dubious therapies which instead of reconstructing childhood memories implanted false memories, hurt patients’ mental health, and destroyed lives.

In short, the notion that people repress traumatic memories that can be recovered in therapy has been discredited, but nobody’s paying attention.

Clinical psychologist David Ley, Ph.D., explains that the myth of repressed memories is still being used to treat patients today; despite the fact that they result in “countless [legal] actions and malpractice lawsuits” against therapists who use them.”

Everybody’s Doing It — The “Toxic” Family

But family estrangements go far beyond questionable mental health therapy: they’re becoming downright fashionable.

Psychology Today reports that at least one in four people experience familial estrangement, with one in ten choosing to sever the parent/child bond.

The worst part is that it’s turned into quite the fad.  You can find thousands of #nocontact videos on YouTube or TikTok reflecting the disturbing nature of the problem, including people who refuse to visit their dying parents.  That’s no isolated incident when you consider the 18,000 comments under this video from self-identifying “no contact children” who openly show contempt instead of compassion for that most sacred transition from life to death.

Consider also the work of Dr. Patrick Teahan; the licensed social worker who’s found great success on social media churning out countless videos encouraging people to cancel “toxic” family members, especially parents.  Mr. Teahan has developed his own “Toxic family test” to help people determine if they need to sever ties.  If your toxicity score proves you need to cut ties — which it’s very likely to do unless you were born into the (nonexistent) perfect family — then Teahan can help you.

He offers a $69.99 a month membership in his “Healing Community” which offers such perks as webinars and journaling prompts for your inner child.  Not everyone’s buying into his program however, as one person commented that Teahan is “gleefully exploiting and monetizing the ever-widening field of “mental health.”  Reflecting other posts on social media, the commenter concludes Teahan’s business is a “self-reinforcing narrative with a cult of personality at its center.”

The Ever-Expanding Definition of Trauma

Consider also that the definition of “trauma” has become an umbrella term encompassing an ever-increasing number of conditions.

When Nick Haslam, a psychology professor at the University of Melbourne, published a paper in 2020 questioning the unchecked growth of what classifies as “trauma” and “abuse” — he received a huge amount of backlash.

He argued that trauma used to be more narrowly defined, including such things as rape, torture, and military combat; whereas in recent years it’s grown to include things like marital conflict, chronic illness, bereavement and bullying.

Even as Haslam warns that “the words we use to describe and make sense of human experience have consequences,” we need only look as far as social media to find words like “trauma,” “abuse,” and “toxic” being used as weapons in the culture war.

Goodbye Just Because

Many websites recommend forever canceling your family member via email or text and recommend not giving a reason.  In one of Teahan’s webinars, he tells his followers to make their cancellation message, “Short, to the point.  Don’t tell them why.  ‘You’re toxic’ is all you need to say.”

The New York Times looked at the issue of “cutting off” family last July, reporting that many canceled parents are finding their way to Joshua Coleman, author of “Rules of Estrangement: Why Adult Children Cut Ties and How to Heal the Conflict.”

Coleman said parents often don’t know why they’re being canceled, and even when given a reason, they’re stupefied.  He tells us: “Younger generations who are in therapy … are coming to their parents saying they were traumatized, abused, neglected — and the parents are like, ‘What the hell are you talking about?’”

Not surprisingly, groups are popping up to help parents deal with the grief of child estrangement, like PACE, who says it’s been overwhelmed with parents seeking help.

These days the reasons to cancel family members keep growing … disagreements on the COVID jab, politics, or the burgeoning field of trans issues.

Whatever the reasons, canceling family members is unraveling the fabric of American culture that has historically kept our great country closely knit and strong.  

While there are many people who may have to cut off family members for very good reasons, it should be the exception, not the rule.  It shouldn’t be a cop-out from dealing with conflict or a creative way to inflict pain.

Meanwhile, Dan and Laura will likely die sad and alone; tortured souls unforgiven for whatever they may or may not have done — as the result of “no contact” rules that seem more like damnable revenge than practical self-help.

Image: Free image, Pixabay license.