When Cutting Off Family Is the Healthiest Thing You Can Do
Family estrangement is more common than most people realize — and more complicated than most people admit. According to recent research, 38% of American adults are currently estranged from at least one family member. A Cornell study puts that number at 27% and rising. Yet despite how widespread it is, the topic still carries enormous stigma, judgment, and confusion.
Dr. Celeste Simmons, a family forensic psychologist who works at the intersection of mental health, family resilience, and the court system, is one of the people helping families navigate this painful terrain. Her perspective is both clinically grounded and deeply human — and it might just change the way you think about estrangement altogether.
It Starts With Psychological Harm
Dr. Simmons is clear that estrangement isn't about giving up on family. For many people, it's about survival. She regularly works with young adults whose depression and anxiety trace directly back to toxic family dynamics — situations where ongoing contact isn't just painful, it's genuinely harmful.
"If I can't function and it causes me to be in treatment and my health is not okay," she explains, "I think that would be a hard thing for people to say — you need to stick around and deal with it."
The decision to create distance, in her view, is rarely impulsive. It usually comes after years of hoping things will change, and realizing they won't.
The Grief Nobody Talks About
One of the most important things Dr. Simmons wants people to understand is that estrangement brings a very particular kind of grief — one that doesn't follow the rules we expect.
When someone dies, grief arrives in waves: birthdays, anniversaries, quiet moments. But when you are estranged from a living family member, the grief is constant. The person is still out there. The relationship still exists — just not in the way you always hoped it would. That gap between who someone is and who you need them to be never fully closes.
At the same time, estrangement often brings immediate relief. The weight lifts. The anxiety quiets. And holding both of those things — grief and relief — simultaneously is one of the hardest emotional experiences a person can have. Dr. Simmons wants people to know that both feelings are valid, and neither cancels the other out.
A Framework for the In-Between
Not every situation calls for a clean break. Dr. Simmons uses what she calls a Relationship Entitlement Framework to help people figure out where they stand. On one end of the spectrum is total entitlement — "we're family, so you deal with it." On the other is a firm boundary — "I don't care who you are, you don't get access to me if this isn't healthy."
Most of us live somewhere in the middle, trying to honor family bonds while also protecting ourselves. Her approach is to ask people what they genuinely need from relationships — reciprocity, respect, consistency — and then ask honestly whether their family member is actually providing that. The answer, she says, usually comes from within. She just helps people find it.
It's Personal. Full Stop.
Perhaps the most important thing Dr. Simmons wants listeners to take away is this: estrangement is a deeply personal decision, and no one else gets to make it for you. Whether you're the one considering distance, or a friend watching someone you love struggle with that choice, the role of a supportive person isn't to agree or disagree — it's to show up.
"We never really know what people are going through," she says. "Even if we think we do."