The grief of being estranged from family
Experts say estrangement can feel like an "ambiguous loss". (Pexels)
When Jessica realised her son was withdrawing from their relationship in his early 20s, her immediate reaction was to panic.
"I said, 'I'm just terrified I'm not going to see you again,'" says Jessica, not her real name.
"It was really overwhelming to suddenly realise that I was very powerless."
When the mother of three from northern New South Wales was unable to contact her son on his birthday, she knew "the estrangement had started".
"It was a shock. I didn't know what to do," she says.
"You really question everything you've done, and think I've failed as a mother."
'I still cry about it every day'
Jessica says she loved being a mother, but the estrangement made her reflect on her parenting when her children were younger.
"I [had been] running my own business, having a super busy life and then expecting everybody just to fall into line when they needed to," she says.
"So, I'd like to be fair and say that sometimes it was difficult for all of us.
"But nothing that I would have foreseen as ending up in an estrangement."
Jessica says she found it hard to explain the situation to other family and friends, who she feared were judging her.
"I'd say to them, 'I don't actually know what I've done, but I'm very heartbroken that this is the outcome,'" she says.
"I would still cry about it every day."
Kayla Steele, a clinical psychologist at the Black Dog Institute, says estrangement goes against societal narratives of the "perfect nuclear family".
"We have these fantasies around what families should look like," Dr Steele says.
"When there are differences or non-traditional family structures or estrangement, then that can really go against that."
She says often there's a lot of judgement for the person who's doing the estranging and the person who is being estranged.
'I just needed to walk away'
Stuart, who lives in Queensland and had a very different experience with his own mother, says he mostly "grew up without her" when he was a child.
"She left when I was two or three years old. It was quite a traumatic experience back then," he says.
"I kind of grew up going, 'I've missed the mother figure.'"
But his father passed away suddenly when Stuart was a teenager, so he decided to find his mother and reconnect.
"The connection was something that I needed and she needed," he says.
It was at this stage Stuart recalls enjoying "great conversations" with his mum, who also gave him "great advice".
But as he tried to make up for lost time, Stuart says he soon found parts of their relationship difficult to navigate, including what he describes as "manipulation" and "problem gambling".
Loading..."I was working away at the time, and every time I'd come home I'd go and spend time with her, catch up," he says.
"I'd end up having to give her money because she was always owing this person this money.
"It was $1,000 here, $1,000 there, and I was just trying to be the good son."
Stuart says it took him many years to reach a point where he knew the relationship wasn't healthy.
"I realised she was never going to change who she was," he says.
"And I just had to say, 'I have no animosity towards you, I just don't think the relationship that I have with you is something that I want in my life.'"
'It's never just one thing'
Dr Steele says often a "misalignment of values" has gone on for a long time before someone decides to cut off a family member.
"It's actually a really difficult and painful decision to make, and it's often the last resort," she says.
"It's never just one thing.
"What we see is typically there's been some significant traumatic experience in the family."
Kayla Steele is a clinical psychologist at the Black Dog Institute. (Supplied: Gene Alberts)
She says the pain of estrangement can also be crushing for the person being pushed away.
"There's a sense of the person is physically alive, but emotionally or physically distant or absent," Dr Steele says.
"And that can be particularly difficult for both parties. [It] is what we might call an ambiguous loss."
Jessica says she's reached a place where she's found some peace.
"I think you have to let them go in your heart a little bit to say, 'I only want the best for you,'" she says.
"And if the best for you is being estranged, then I have accepted that."
Stuart says at times he has struggled with not having a parental figure in his life.
"It's definitely a grieving period that I had to go through," he says.
"I'm not saying what I did was right. I just had to do it for me."