The English language is full of idioms about the significance of family: Blood is thicker than water. He’s like a brother to me.
But for people who are estranged from one or more relatives, this focus on familial ties can make opening up about personal life more challenging.
In this special episode from Embodied, host Anita Rao talks with writer Raksha Vasudevan and marketing manager Tiffany Scott about their experiences with estrangement. Vasudevan cut off contact with her father and has superficial contact with her mom and brother, as she wrote in a piece for Harper’s Bazaar. Scott’s father left their family and stopped speaking with her in 2016, when she was 33. She blogs about her experience on "Good Dad, Gone Dad."
Siblings Fern Schumer Chapman and Scott Schumer also join the conversation to talk about their 40-year estrangement and what led to their reconciliation eight years ago. Chapman is the author of “Brothers, Sisters, Strangers: Sibling Estrangement and the Road to Reconciliation.”
Understanding Estrangement
What is estrangement?
“I think the word ‘strange’ in estrangement is really key. I think in relationships where I do feel this sense of estrangement, I feel almost a stranger to myself … because I feel sort of unseen.”
— Raksha Vasudevan
What leads to estrangement?
“I had a really, really bad relationship with my father. And I was in total fear of him…I just was so happy to get out of that, of the relationship at home between my sister, my father, my mother, and it built from there. I went off on a different path.”
— Scott Schumer
How do you process the feelings of being estranged?
“If this were a dating relationship, and if I was being ghosted, I would just have to come to terms with the fact that … for whatever reason, [that relationship]’s not there now. And that's kind of how I see my relationship with my dad.”
— Tiffany Scott
Is it possible to reconcile an estranged relationship?
“It's important that people ask themselves very crucial questions before they go back and try to reconcile. If they're gonna find themselves lapsing back into these old regressive patterns, it's probably not a good idea to go there again.”
— Fern Schumer Chapman
