Surviving the Holidays as an Estranged Person
You may struggle over the holidays if you’re estranged from your family, but you are not alone.
by Sandy Ernest Allen
Nowadays, people learning I am estranged from my family of origin often assume it’s because I am trans. I am quick to correct them. Sure, many trans folks and queer folks face painful estrangement over their identity. In my case: My estrangement long preceded my coming out. I’m estranged for reasons people don’t want to have me explain to them on the fly, believe me, the whole story being too long and an utter bummer, not one I go around telling outside of therapist’s offices.
In general, I tend to use what shorthands I can, terms like ‘domestic abuse’, like ‘alcoholism’ and ‘violence.’ When strangers question why I’m estranged, I try to give them enough they will leave me alone and not ask for further evidence or to have me tell stories about how bad my childhood was.
Because for someone like me: Becoming estranged is one of my life’s greatest achievements, to date. This doesn’t mean it hasn’t been painful, becoming independent of my family and staying that way — it has been. It’s been painful, hard, and lonely. A therapist whose work I admire often says: ‘life is a choice between what hurts and what hurts worse.’ I often consider this all that way: My choice to estrange myself hurts, but to live still proximate to them hurt way worse.
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In my mind’s eye, my being out as trans now is like a chair holding shut a door of my prior estrangement. I haven’t heard from them regarding how they feel about my being a man now — if they’ve gathered from my website and/or work, or gossip in my tiny hometown. I can guess how they might feel about my being trans, whether they’d use my correct name or pronouns. (One relative did see my posting about my legal name change years back and flipped out.)
Otherwise I officially “came out” to a total of two biological relatives total. One was a distant cousin who’s very kind and was indeed, very kind. The second was my grandmother. She responded, in a hand-written card, that my having had top surgery — which I’d done a year prior — made her “sad.” I had made clear in my long message coming out to her that this surgery had been no short of life saving, for me. I burned her card, and I cried a ton.
As lots of us learn the hard way: Some family would rather mourn a lie about who you were than get to know the real you.
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The truth is: It sucks and it’s hard, being estranged, speaking for myself at least. Being alone around the holidays, it’s shitty as hell. I am still not used to it, even though I’m more used to it than I was at eighteen, etc. And I chose this path. I started saving my change and imagining running away starting in first grade. Finally in college, I’d resist flying home for whatever holidays I could. I had gone to school 3000 miles away from home quite intentionally. So I would, as often as possible, instead tag along with some friend and go to their family’s celebrations. I became sort of used to being this random person at other peoples’ celebrations. Or, I got used to being alone, on holidays themselves.
Still, it always hurts, some, perhaps like a long ago injury that leaves some indelible scar. I miss the idea of what it might have been like to have a nice time with my family, around the holidays.
For me, the truth is: It was never a nice time for me, as a kid. The holidays were a particularly dark and stressful season, for reasons I won’t get into. But over time I have perhaps gotten sort of more accustomed to it, the sadness, loneliness, and other hard feelings that this time of year can bring. And: The relief. That I don’t have to be around them. I don’t have to suck it up, to pretend—what bliss.
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I solicited stories about being estranged and how others survive the holidays in particular. “I generally don't look forward to any holiday,” one person wrote me. Respondents, especially many queer and trans people, talked about their contexts — their families and why they have committed themselves to estrangement. Many discussed the disrespectful-to-abusive ways they’d been treated by their relatives, prior to making this decision.
“As for how I get through the holidays, I seek out joy and togetherness on my own terms,” one person wrote. “I have a handful of confidants that I love with all my heart and that's plenty for me.” I similarly these days try to surround myself — as much as possible — with individuals who do accept me as I am, who love me for who I am. Especially during the hard times, I try to lean on my most trusted friends and other supportive people.
As people wrote in sharing their various stories of estrangement and holiday survival: I was reminded, as ever, how many of us have had to walk such paths, alone. I felt togetherness with us all. I appreciated hearing from others and this itself buoyed my spirit. These were sentiments others echoed, one writing: “Please hold on to your strength, even if it comes from dark places; every spark of resilient joy we can hold on to after what we've been through helps us and others find our way through the dark.”
Myself: I try to take it easy this time of year, as possible. I try to treat myself with kindness and lean into comfort. I do what self-care I can manage. If you have a therapist or friend, I encourage you to seek out the extra support if it’ll help you get through these darkest nights.
To anyone who needs to hear it: You aren’t wrong for wanting to create boundaries from abusive or disrespectful people. My guess is you’re picking the least bad of two bad options.
Sandy Ernest Allen is an author, essayist and journalist whose work focuses on mental health and gender from a human rights perspective.