CLOSER NEWS REPORT
With one in five UK families experiencing estrangement, Closer investigates what’s behind the growing phenomenon of children ending relationships with loved ones…
Every day, Georgia Latham* deals with grief over the loss of her parents. But they haven’t died. In fact, they live just a two-hour drive away – but she has cut all contact.
Georgia, 40, a hairdresser from Preston, made the heartbreaking decision after suffering years of emotional abuse, particularly from her mother. She says, “My abusive parents are getting on with their lives, but for me, it’s like they’re six-feet-under. Cutting them out and no longer contacting them has been the most painful decision of my life, but I’ll never let them back in.”
INTRUSIVE
The mum-of-three says that becoming a mother herself was the catalyst for her decision. She says, “I felt unconditional love for my children and realised I’d never had that. Instead, I’d been emotionally abused, gaslighted and isolated by my parents.”
Georgia isn’t alone. In the UK, one in five families experiences estrangement, with 10 per cent cutting contact with their mothers and one in 20 cutting off their dads.
On TikTok, there are five million videos with the hashtag #goingnocontact, and 3.3 million with #parentalestrangement, while book sales of guides on this topic, narcissistic mothers, toxic parents and dealing with lifelong trauma are growing.
Navit Schechter, CBT therapist and founder of consciousandcalm. com, tells Closer, “Family estrangement is complex and especially painful when it involves a parent. It can cause a sense of abandonment, rejection sadness, grief, guilt and shame.
“Losing a parent this way can feel overwhelming and all-consuming. It’s comparable to a real-life death and can be more complex. Not only are you grieving a loss, but also the relationship you never had and will never have.”
Georgia cut contact with her parents six months ago. She says, “My mother is a narcissist. She lacked boundaries and criticised, pressured, or put me down savagely for being different to her – my hair, likes or clothes. I wasn’t allowed to ever curl my hair because she would mock me, and any time I wore a colourful dress she said I looked like a clown.
“She always had a criticism to make about the way I parented, my house, career, life and relationships. She harassed me 24/7. I felt like I had a stalker.
“She talked about moving closer to me, but I begged her not to. Behind my back she bought a house two doors down, and only told me once they’d exchanged contracts and the process was done. I was so angry at how deceitful and intrusive they’d been.
