Oprah and Experts: Setting Boundaries with Toxic Family Members

14:59Jemele Hill:But you know what's missing from our culture are the parents' stories. And parents aren't out there talking about their stories. You know why?

15:06Oprah Winfrey:Because they're terrified that if they do that, that's going to decrease the chance of their kids. Further estranged. Further estranged their kids.

15:14Jemele Hill:It's going to further estranged them. So you have this great disparity between who's kind of running the narrative here. And so people often say things like, well, you know, nobody cuts off a parent unless they have really good reasons. And, yeah, I agreed that they might not cut them off unless they have good reasons. But that reason may not be parental abuse or neglect or harm. It could be because they don't get along with the spouse that their child is married to. It could be the parent's mental illness, but could also be the adult child's mental illness or addictive issues. So there's all these different pathways to estrangement that can happen with good, decent, loving parents.

15:51Jemele Hill:And that is not enough in the media in our conversation right now.

15:56Oprah Winfrey:Nedra, what do you want to say about the reaction that you've been seeing online about this episode?

16:00Jemele Hill:I received so many messages about the title. And one of the things that I mentioned is, one, I do not label and market Oprah Winfrey's episodes, right? I had nothing to do with the title. And also, if we are being technical, a trend is something that is popular. So if you look on Twitter or threads or TikTok, they have a list of 20 or 10 trending topics. So if this happens to be a popular topic of this time, then that is what the episode was labeled. I don't think it was labeled in a manner to say that we are doing something to make it more popular or we're doing something to say that this has never been a thing, but it really is something that more and more people are talking about.

16:58Oprah Winfrey:I think the word trend made a lot of people feel marginalized. Trend was in the labeling of this episode. I never called it a trend, but I take responsibility for what it's labeled because I approve everything. And so I didn't know that that word would cause a stir or cause people to be upset. Let me just say, I apologize for many of you. That word felt insulting and it did not actually reflect the immense pain and the grief behind the decisions that you all have made. So I apologize on behalf of myself and my team. I want to say I thank you all for the correction. I stand corrected. And I think people think long and hard for many days and nights and often years before they make a decision like this.

17:47Oprah Winfrey:Long and hard. And are tormented by it for a long time. So any implication that it's anything else was certainly not intended by me. And what I wanted to talk to you about is that in the African-American community, this was unheard of. I've seen so many people in relationships in the African-American community where you at least needed to set some boundaries. But the idea of divorcing or dismissing or no longer having contact with somebody who has done severely harmful things to you was just unheard of. And now that is happening. That is happening.

18:28Jemele Hill:Yeah, and I would say in many instances, it would have been healthy to happen many years ago. We would have saved some generations from trauma. You know, to Tanya's point, the real abuse part of it, some people are suffering real abuse for years and years, particularly in the black community, because we have this. I don't want to put it out there that this person is doing that. I don't want to bring shame to my culture. I don't want to say anything and disrupt the family programming.

19:00Oprah Winfrey:So people are dealing with real abuse. I would have to say, if I, Oprah Winfrey, personally know three people who have been in abusive relationships and have now grown up and their mothers are still with those men and they feel like they have to continue a relationship in that family. If I personally know three, I know that there are at least three or four million out there who are doing the same thing.

19:29Jemele Hill:And the pedophiles in the family.

19:32Oprah Winfrey:And the pedophiles in the family, yeah.

19:34Jemele Hill:The pedophiles in the family or the verbally abusive aunts and grandparents and all sorts of things that it's just been something we've tolerated. And now that people have the education and understanding that that is actually abuse, they are taking a stand. So, Dr.

19:54Oprah Winfrey:Gibson, what's the response been like for you?

19:56Jemele Hill:Yeah, for the most part, all the responses that I've gotten have been very positive. This is coming mostly from colleagues and friends, but also people that have posted stuff as well. So it was very positive in the sense of it being experienced as a well-balanced show, something that showed the point of view of several different situations, whether it was parent-child, child-parent.

20:26Oprah Winfrey:Yeah. Okay. There were so many posts I responded to, Tanya's, because that just popped into my feed. And then I realized everybody else was saying all kinds of things. I just couldn't keep up. But Jamel Hill posted this. I watched Oprah's episode about going no contact with family, and I have a personal connection that I don't feel comfortable sharing. And then someone posted something pretty rude, and Jamel clapped back, thank you, and wrote, maybe you should watch the episode before having such a strong opinion. It was a very good episode, and the point of it wasn't to say, look at this new thing happening, but to also highlight and have hard conversations about how the no contact is happening for a variety of reasons that sometimes don't include obvious abuse.

21:07Oprah Winfrey:Well, thank you, Jamel. Thank you so much. Emmy Award winning journalist, author, and the Atlantic contributor. I love the Atlantic so much and all that you say there. Great to see you. Thank you for watching and supporting us. What struck you the most watching it and caused you to have that response? Well, if you will allow me to name drop your best friend, Gail.

21:31Jemele Hill:The episode struck me so much because I have a few personal connections to it. I have two very dear friends of mine who have gone no contact with their mother. So I thought about their situation. And I was so struck and drawn to this episode that I texted Gail because I know her socially and through some other channels. And I said, listen, I know you're not Oprah's messenger or her administrative assistant, but if you could pass along to her that this episode was really one of the best that I'd ever seen in terms of addressing something that was so deep and painful for a lot of people. But I was struck by people's courage, by their vulnerability.

22:09Jemele Hill:And another part of it that I hadn't considered, because you had a woman on who had decided to go no contact with her son, because that was a part of this movement. I don't want to use the word trend either, or part of this growing awareness that isn't really covered. I think on some level, it may not totally surprise people if children decide to do that with their parents because of all sorts of different reasons, abuse, not liking a spouse or significant other, a host of things. But to hear parents saying that they decided to go no contact with their kids was especially stark.

22:44Oprah Winfrey:Yeah. Powerful because I thought her testimony was really profound saying, I've been abused for years by my own son and have taken it and have done everything. And what happens in those relationships is the other children in the family end up suffering because all the attention goes to trying to solve this problem with a child who is abusive and not getting along with the rest of the family and everybody ends up suffering. So I think the fact that people, particularly parents, come to that conclusion is an even more daring and thought out process than it is for kids in many cases. Well, in 2022, I recall it was right after the pandemic was subsiding, you released your acclaimed memoir, Uphill.

23:32Oprah Winfrey:And if you're watching or listening and you haven't read Uphill, well, let me just tell you, it's a fearless and inspiring story written in Jamel's voice. And in the book, you shared some unforgettable truths about your own family dynamics. I know it was probably hard for you to share a lot of that. Also cathartic. What do you want people to know now?

23:53Jemele Hill:Well, you know, as I alluded to in that social media post that you referenced, I said I had a personal situation that I was dealing with. And I have never disclosed this publicly because it's sort of relatively recent. But I've been no contact with my own father for almost going on three years. And it is interesting to mention my book because my book played a role in the reason why I decided to go no contact. And I didn't even know that was the language for calling it that. But my father was upset about my book. And if anyone has read my book, I certainly did not tear down my father. We had a very sort of difficult path in the sense that we were estranged for some time.

24:33Jemele Hill:We sort of came together, you know, renewed a relationship. we were estranged because my father, early on in my childhood, was addicted to heroin. Both my parents were addicts and they have thankfully recovered. And so because of that early absence, it was a lot of stops and starts in terms of how to grow our relationship. And I did the best that I could, certainly on my end. And I know my father was trying to do his best. But when this memoir came out, he took to Facebook and was upset about some of the things that I said about him in my memoir. Actually, he wasn't upset about what I said. What he told me, Oprah, was that he was upset that he wasn't in it enough.

25:11Jemele Hill:And my immediate thought was, you would have had to be into my life more to be in the memoir more. And he disparaged my mother, and he has always sort of blamed her for the fact that our relationship has been, again, stops and starts and kind of awkward. We certainly had good moments and good times. And I think it was Nedra who said this, is that when you're trying to reframe the relationship with your parent when there has been hurt there, is that maybe they're not supposed to be the parent. Maybe they're just supposed to be a really good friend. So I was trying to put him in sort of the dynamic of like, my dad can't be the dad in the way that dads are typically dads just because of the estrangement and the time lost and those kind of things.

25:51Jemele Hill:But he can be my friend. And I thought we were on the pathway to that until he decided to publicly say these things when he has my number. And he could have called me if he had anything that he took issue with the book. And so between that and some other instances, and Oprah, I know you can probably relate to this, of asking me for money. And I mean, it was just like a whole thing. And so finally, I just got to a point where considering the pattern of our relationship, and I had certainly put to bed the things that did not happen in childhood. Like all that stuff was dead to me. Like I wasn't carrying that at all.

26:25I was all about, let's reframe

26:27Jemele Hill:and be onto this new relationship. But it was such a lack of accountability and awareness. and I felt like I was pouring more into it than him. And I got to that point.

26:38Oprah Winfrey:Can I say this too, since you brought this up, this is for all the people who are the first in their family or one of the only in their family to succeed, particularly when you've come from challenging circumstances, difficult backgrounds. We all become the first national bank to our families. And that's a very difficult thing to accept. And I know people think, well, you got money, you should be able to share it and give it to everybody in the family. It's a difficult thing to accept when you're not seen for being a person. You now just become a resource for them. You become the bank. You're no longer even like human to people.

27:17Oprah Winfrey:So I so get that. And I hear for a long time you were hesitant to even share this part of your story. Why is now the right time?

27:25Jemele Hill:Well, I was hesitant. And it was something that you have alluded to earlier with some of your previous guests, because we know that, especially as black women, we're carrying a different responsibility when it comes to how we speak about our community, how we represent our community. And there are so many bad... There is a black tax. Yes, there is a black tax. Correct. There is such a negative stereotype about black men and especially about black men and their presence in the home. That we hear all the tropes and all the negatives and all those kind of thing. And that they have tried to make black men the face of absenteeism and of, you know, not being the parent that is there.

28:02Jemele Hill:And so I was very hesitant to share the story because I didn't want people to then. So you're piling on. Yeah, start piling on and run with that narrative. And frankly, the other part I didn't want either, I didn't want a whole bunch of people who ain't got any degree with a PhD or anything behind their name trying to diagnose me as somebody who is, oh, you're just another bit of black woman or, oh, you got daddy issues. I'm like, trust me, I do not have daddy issues. There's been a long line of black men who may not have been my biological father. My mother was married twice. I had two good stepfathers.

28:35Jemele Hill:I had other really positive black male role models in my life. Like, trust me, that is not my issue. And so I also didn't want to have to deal with that part of the conversation. But your episode really was the one that gave me the courage to say, like, oh, there's a lot of people that are actually going through this. I'm not the only one. And it helped to, frankly, validate some of what I was feeling about why I arrived at what is, as you said, and is very true, a very difficult decision for anybody to do, especially when it comes to a parent.

29:08Oprah Winfrey:Well, thank you so much. And I hope everybody reads that memoir. It's hard to write a memoir as good as yours because one of the things that's really powerful about your story is that your story makes me think about my story. And that's what you do for everybody in that book. So thank you so much. Thank you so much for that. Thanks, Jamel. I appreciate your support. And I also thank you for sharing more of your story here with us today. And I know you speak for so many others. And after all this, I am wishing you peace. I'm wishing you peace. Okay. Time for a quick break, you all. Up next, experts answer some of the most common questions from our listeners, like why is family estrangement on the rise?

29:51Oprah Winfrey:Do therapists encourage families to go no contact? And how can generations bridge the gap? Stay with us.

29:58Jemele Hill:This episode is brought to you by Peloton. Break through the busiest time of year with the brand new Peloton Cross Training Tread Plus, powered by Peloton IQ. With real-time guidance and endless ways to move, you can personalize your workouts and train with confidence, helping you reach your goals in less time. Let yourself run, lift, sculpt, push, and go. Explore the new Peloton Cross Training Tread Plus at OnePeloton.com.

30:23Oprah Winfrey:Thanks for joining me on the Oprah Podcast. Research says that there's a rise in the number of families cutting off ties and becoming estranged. It's a sensitive and painful issue. We are exploring further because so many listeners have more questions. Let's get on it. So I read that over two out of five members of Gen Z are in some form of regular therapy. Isn't that, that is an incredible number to me, y 'all. You know why? Because when I first started the Oprah show in 1986 nationally, I remember audience members standing up and said, I will never go to therapy. I mean, I think therapy is for people who are crazy or out of their minds.

31:06Oprah Winfrey:So the idea that now two out of five are going to therapy. It's a case for older generations who grew up in a time when mental health treatment was absolutely taboo. at my school in South Africa that I opened in 2007, and we had, you know, three therapists on board at the time, we could get none of the girls who had been severely traumatized to even go to therapy because it had been so stigmatized. So Dr. Gibson, how do grandparents, parents, and their children bridge this gap?

31:41Jemele Hill:Yeah. I mean, because of the explosion in self-help books and self-awareness and self-development, there has been a similar increase in the interest in therapy. So that's a cultural fact now. But, you know, when older generations talk about not understanding all this therapy stuff or why it's okay now to go to therapy, or what's the importance of boundaries, or why are people making such a big deal out of this, I think that there is a real blind spot toward children and toward the younger generations that really is something that needs to change. What I mean is that I don't care what generation you are, boomer, millennial, whatever, you know what boundaries are.

32:34Jemele Hill:You don't say certain things to your boss. You don't cop certain attitudes toward authority figures. I mean, we know, we humans are a hierarchical group of beings, and we understand that there are boundaries and there is a need for tact, and there are things that we can and can't say to other people and get away with it. But somehow when it's our children, there is a sense of them being a part of us. And so we feel that it's sort of a right or an entitlement to tell them what we think.

33:14Oprah Winfrey:Not only that, but Nedra could speak to this too. In the African-American community, I remember growing up, you know, and hearing quite often, you know, I brought you in this world, I can take you out. I mean, there's this feeling of my black photographer right now. Cameraman is like laughing. Have you not heard that before? I don't know if y 'all heard that in your white families. I brought you in this world and I can take you out. But that's how we grew up. Like you are mine to do with whatever I want. You know what I'm speaking about, right, Nedra?

33:45Jemele Hill:Yeah, I'm hearing that. And I'm like, I should say that to my kids and see if they even know what that means. Yeah, I brought you in this world. I can take you out. Because that has not been a part of their black upbringing. They would be like, what? What did you just say, mom? What does that even mean? Talking about. But yeah, I heard that. And I also heard this bottomless plea to tolerate abuse, this bottomless plea to accept more from people. You know, so-and-so is that way. You just have to avoid this with that person. If so-and-so comes over, you need to stay away from them. You know, so there were also things going on that people were aware of, and it was put on the child or the victim to protect themselves.

34:32Jemele Hill:And I think that's also one of these things that we're now seeing people say, well, I don't want to be a part of the family reunion if so-and-so is going to be there. I don't want to show up for family dinner if nobody else is taking a stand with me against this thing.

34:49Oprah Winfrey:Yes. And this may not surprise you. The United States ranks as the most individualistic nation, y 'all, in the world, where personal goals outweigh collective ones. Dr. Coleman, could our American way, this individualism, thinking about your own self, empowerment for yourself, which is good in many ways, could this be contributing, do you think, Dr. Coleman, to the estrangement?

35:12Jemele Hill:I think high rates of individualism absolutely is a pathway to a stranger because there are whole continents where a stranger is considered to be a completely bizarre or foreign idea. The idea that you'd cut off your family or a parent is considered completely wrong. And, you know, I think this moment there's good news and there's bad news. The good news is that adult children now have the power to cut off truly abuse of parents. The bad news is that a lot of parents who are getting caught off today weren't necessarily bad or abusive or difficult, but they're being treated in some ways like they were.

35:47Oprah Winfrey:They haven't been abusive, but they have offended their child.

35:52Jemele Hill:They've engaged with them in a way that the adult, that the now adult child finds difficult. Here's the problem.

35:57Oprah Winfrey:Okay, so here's what I'd like to clear up and I want all of you all to speak to because I want to know for all of the people who are listening, people hearing about this for the first time, when do you as therapists feel that it is appropriate to have no contact or cut off relationships? When is it appropriate? Dr. Coleman, then I'll go to you, Nedra, and you, Dr. Gibson.

36:21Jemele Hill:Well, Oprah, I'm happy to answer that question. But I think before I answer that question, I want to stress that even when it's justified, even when I go, yeah, go ahead, you need to do that, I get it. Estrangement is a cataclysmic event in every family system. Today, if a parent is cut off, they also cut off access to the grandchildren. That's a tragedy and a trauma, not only to that grandparent, to that grandchildren. Also, siblings get cut off. It's typical, this is true in some of the guests today and last time, that one sibling is going to line up with the parents. Others are going to line up with the estranging sibling.

36:56Jemele Hill:But my ask also is that people don't do it forever. You know, maybe you need to go no contact as a way to settle in. Maybe you do it for six months. Maybe you do it for a year. But what about after that period of time coming back and telling the parent, look, I need things to be really different with you if we're going to have a relationship. Either you need to get into therapy or we need to get into family therapy or I can't be in a relationship with you. Okay.

37:23Oprah Winfrey:Nedra, what do you say?

37:24Jemele Hill:With adults, the only time that I have talked about someone estranging from a parent and or sibling is when there is an active physical or sexual abuse issue or if there is a physical or sexual safety concern. And those things for therapists are reportable by law. Now, outside of that, our clients are typically coming to us with this idea on their own, or they have spoken about it so much that they make this decision and I may support them in it. I don't direct that path for them, though. I don't say, have you ever thought about cutting your mom off? Would you stop talking to her? How long are you going to tolerate this?

38:10Jemele Hill:I don't say things like that because I truly believe they have to live with the consequences, which is guilt, which is other family cutoffs, which is, you know, feeling shame and all sorts of things. So I don't want to direct that path for you, but I will listen. I will support if that's what you choose. But it's never a thing that I need to present to a person for their life. Dr.

38:36Oprah Winfrey:Gibson.

38:36Jemele Hill:Yeah, I totally agree with Nedra. I mean, that is my position as well. However, I just want to add here that more often than not, people are coming to that conclusion themselves as we're going through the process of therapy and self-awareness and self-growth. They end up feeling like they need some space, some separation in order to get their feet back under them to, you know, see where they stand with things before maybe reentering the relationship with the parent or even knowing what it is that they want to ask for from the parent to get clear about that. But yeah, I don't bring up estrangement as a solution to anybody's problem.

39:30Jemele Hill:But as Nedra said, they often come to that or they come into the therapy session with that on their mind.

39:39Oprah Winfrey:But having written the book on adult children of emotionally immature parents, do you recommend them trying to come to some understanding of what it means to come from an emotionally immature parent? Yeah.

39:51Jemele Hill:I mean, if you look at my book, I have at least one chapter on trying to understand what happened to these parents and what has made them so defensive. Yeah, you do the what happened to, yes. Yeah. And then I also have an extensive chapter in there about how to deal with them in a way that you protect yourself and you have boundaries and you maintain that connection with yourself instead of giving everything over to the parents' opinion.

40:20Oprah Winfrey:Got it. I wanted to bring Tanya back. Tanya, thanks for joining us again, because you expressed earlier that you had separated, no contact because you were looking for peace, but it only ended up causing you more pain. I want to know, how did you get to a place of reconciliation and how long did it take?

40:38Jemele Hill:I mean, I was estranged for two years. Myself, I was estranged for two years. So when it really came to my estrangement, what helped me is learning. First, I want to say that I had a therapist too, by the way. And they're right when they're saying we come to that decision ourselves. When I was talking to a therapist, it was very uncovering everything that happened. You know, okay, so tell me what happened. How did that make you feel? So I was building this villain image around my mother in particular. And it compounded. So when I cut her off, I was my unhealthiest, though. I had chronic anxiety, insomnia.

41:12Jemele Hill:I was trying to deal with all of it, and I was obviously blaming it on her. Until I really understood, like they talked about stage two and three of my healing journey, it really came when I rewrote my mother's story, Oprah. That's what happened. I said, okay, she was the youngest daughter, the 15th out of 16 kids. Her dad died when she was three. Her mother definitely neglected her in unintentional ways. And so when I rewrote that and I started to have more compassion, I said, okay, to her, even though she failed my emotional needs and needs in a lot of ways, she did literally the best that she could.

41:41Jemele Hill:And that's not to say that, you know, everyone is doing the best and we can use that as an excuse. But for me, when I really understood that, I said, I cannot expect her to be this incredibly emotionally mature person when she never had the tools that I'm now presented with at her age.

41:57Oprah Winfrey:Got it. So you rewrote her story and in rewriting her story, it ended up rewriting your story or your narrative with her. Exactly. Exactly. Thank you. Thank you for that. After the break, a woman who has gone no contact with her sister and how estrangement is different for siblings. And a couple estranged from their parents asked them to watch our episode. And they share how that changed or didn't change anything. That's next. Eczema is unpredictable. But you can flare less with EpGliss, a once-monthly treatment for moderate to severe eczema.

42:34Jemele Hill:After an initial four-month or longer dosing phase, about four in ten people taking EBCLIS achieved itch relief and clear or almost clear skin at 16 weeks. And most of those people maintain skin that's still more clear at one year with monthly dosing. EBCLIS, LibriKizumab LBKZ, a 250 milligram per two milliliter injection, is a prescription medicine used to treat adults and children 12 years of age and older who weigh at least 88 pounds or 40 kilograms with moderate to severe eczema. Also called atopic dermatitis that is not well controlled with prescription therapies used on the skin or topicals or who cannot use topical therapies.

43:03Jemele Hill:EBCLIS can be used with or without topical corticosteroids. Don't use if you're allergic to EBCLIS. Allergic reactions can occur that can be severe. Eye problems can occur. Tell your doctor if you have new or worsening eye problems. You should not receive a live vaccine when treated with EBCLIS. Before starting EBCLIS, tell your doctor if you have a parasitic infection. Ask your doctor about EBCLIS and visit EBCLIS.lily.com or call 1-800-LILY-RX or 1-800-545-5979.

43:26Oprah Winfrey:Welcome back. Our experts have advice for anybody wrestling with distance, boundaries, or estrangement with family. If you know someone who may need to hear this, please don't hesitate to share this link to this episode. Here's more. All right, we're moving on to other guests. Tricia's joining us. She hasn't talked to her sister in nearly a year. Tricia, thanks for being here. What's going on?

43:47Jemele Hill:Thank you. This isn't something I ever saw myself talking about so publicly, but I feel it's really important. So thank you for this. We grew up in a household where it was very controlled and religious. Our father was a preacher and family roles were very clearly defined. And as preachers kids, there's kind of like a spotlight on you and people look at you. And our parents wanted us to model outward perfection.

44:15Oprah Winfrey:Yeah. Be perfect. Yeah.

44:16Jemele Hill:And my sister, she's the firstborn. She's the oldest. So that came easy to her. That was right in her field. She was the responsible one. She was the one we modeled ourselves after. I'm the middle child. I'm a little more emotional. I'm the peacekeeper in the family. I handle everyone's emotions. And then my brother is the youngest and he's the baby. He kind of got attention only for being the only boy. And as we got older, those roles just followed us into adulthood. And we had a lot of layered family trauma happened to us. So there was a lot of change in our family system. The roles, the dynamics, there was confusion.

44:56Jemele Hill:I'm estranged from my sister and her and I haven't talked in a year, but I still have a relationship with my brother.

45:02Oprah Winfrey:Okay. Do you have a question for one of our experts?

45:05Jemele Hill:I do for Ms. Gibson. When choosing emotional safety, because that's what I did, when choosing emotional safety, I had to grieve a version of myself that was always accommodating to people and always available to people. How would you tell people to honor that grief without shame or without self-doubt?

45:26Oprah Winfrey:Good question. Yeah.

45:29Jemele Hill:That part of you, the part of you that wants to be accommodating and collaborative and wants to do nice things for people, that is a precious part of your personality. That's kind of the open, joyous child part of you. Now, that may have been commandeered to become sort of a pleaser of your parents or of your family members. And in that way, it may feel like it's something that you need to get rid of, but it's really your superpower. Because who do people like to work with? Who do people like to be around? Who do people feel energized by? They're people that have those characteristics of being, you know, receptive to other people and being accommodating and so forth.

46:17Jemele Hill:So that's not something that we want to get rid of. We want to celebrate that in you and also raise it like a precious child of yours that, you know, honey, I know you want to please them or give into them or agree with them, but maybe that's not going to be the best thing for us this time. So just hang back and let me handle this. You can do that kind of different part of yourself work where you don't have to get rid of or lose that lovely part of yourself, but you also don't have to let it drive the car, so to speak. You as an adult get to do that.

47:00Oprah Winfrey:I love that. Thank you, yeah. I love that. And also rewriting, as Tanya was saying earlier, rewriting that part of your story, rewriting that narrative for yourself. You get to write another story about yourself. Yeah, you do. Thank you, Tricia. Erica and her husband David are joining us, and I hear you watch this episode together. How did it impact each of you?

47:23Jemele Hill:Well, for me, yeah, it was very validating. We felt very seen, similar to what other people had shared. Since even though it's becoming more aware and obvious to other people, it still feels very lonely within our own communities and with our friendships. So it was nice to have some contacts outside of ourselves.

47:45Oprah Winfrey:And this is because you have been estranged from or no contact with whom?

47:51Jemele Hill:My own father and now my mother and my sister. and then David's family as well.

47:58Oprah Winfrey:Really? And my own mother. You both are no contact, yes.

48:00Jemele Hill:Yes. But the episode really impacted me directly because it talked about how there can be some room for the future and reconciliation and moving forward. The father, I think his name was Aaron, talked about a lot of the self-reflection meant a lot. And after watching the episode, I actually forwarded it to my own father. who we are still in contact with him, but then he shared it with our other family members that we're not necessarily in contact with and they didn't even want to take the time to listen. And that's what really kind of hurts us a lot is that we're not being heard. We're not getting listened to.

48:42Oprah Winfrey:I know, which is one of the most important, I think, experiences that everybody needs to have is to know that you were heard and that you were seen and that what you had to say mattered. And so if you're going to be just dismissed, I hear you would both like to begin, as you just said, to repair the estrangement. So let's ask our experts. What's the advice on what to do? Beginning with you, Dr. Coleman.

49:06Jemele Hill:Well, first of all, I pledge your effort to try to give your family a way to work towards reconciliation. and I sort of wish a lot more adult children who were estranged would do that, whether it's by giving them my book or somebody else's book or some other pathway to reconciliation. So the task, I think, it's very, very hard. And I can say this as a parent whose daughter had cut him off and we eventually did reconcile. It's incredibly hard for a parent to hear the ways that they'd failed their child. We're gonna get defensive. We're gonna feel hurt and we may respond with anger we may try to shut you down and we're shutting you down because of the ways that we feel hurt or ashamed or embarrassed or humiliated we feel like we're failing at our most very important task and so i think the more if your goal is reconciliation with your parent to really let them know that your goal in raising these topics isn't to shame them to hurt them to criticize them to make them feel bad about themselves it's really an expression of love and it's really an expression of a desire to feel closer.

50:11Oprah Winfrey:Do they know why you're estranged?

50:13Jemele Hill:Yes. I've had many conversations and even my dad has relayed the same information of how he wants to support. And I think his most recent comment was even just sit down and listen to him and get up and don't even say anything. And unfortunately, my mother doesn't want to even do that. She can't listen. And it always has to be a tit for tat or what about you type of situation that makes it really hard to reconcile because there's just no self-awareness. There's no self-reflection of what did I do to this situation or what am I contributing to this problem? Yeah. In reality, some parents just don't have that capacity and some adult children don't have the capacity to communicate.

50:57Oprah Winfrey:I think capacity is a really powerful word because if the person doesn't have the capacity, it's like, you know, rolling a boulder up a hill. You never get it there. You just never get it there. And at some point you have to accept or resolve within yourself that I've done everything that I can do and there's nothing more to be done. I don't know when you reach that point. Nedra, do you have some thoughts on that? And Dr. Gibson?

51:22Jemele Hill:Yeah, what I'm thinking about here is it sounds like someone has to concede. Yes. Because if your mother is unwilling to hear any other way, I think there has to be some acceptance on your end that some of your needs may not be met. And you will have to tolerate this to the extent that you can. I don't think this sounds like a situation where you go back into it and all parties leave happy with what they're bringing to the table. So there will be some concessions in this situation. And you'll have to sit with yourself and say, you know, if I am in this relationship, how can I manage it differently?

52:03Jemele Hill:You know, and you don't want to leave it. It sounds like you really want to be in it, but it does sound like something that needs to be managed in a different way this time.

52:12Oprah Winfrey:May I just say to you all, Erica and David, that Dr. Coleman's use of the word capacity struck me. And I'm always struck by that word because years ago I read a memoir in which somebody was talking about their family relationship. And they realized that their family member didn't have the capacity to fulfill the needs that they had as a child nor as adult. And when I read that, it was just so eye-opening to me because I realized, oh, all this time I've been pushing uphill and struggling and resisting and resisting what is in my face with my own family relationships. Oh, the person doesn't have the capacity.

52:53And when I recognized that particular word, you know, struck me and opened me in such a way that I realized, oh, I'm never going to win this.

53:03Oprah Winfrey:I'm never going to be able to convince somebody who doesn't have the capacity to receive it. That's when I was able to find peace within myself and have the boundaries or set up what I needed, you know, to best survive in that relationship. When you realize that the person doesn't have the capacity, that's a huge, huge place to get to in terms of acceptance. I just wanted to share that, how profound an impact that word has had on my own life and my own relationships. when you're dealing with somebody who doesn't have the capacity, it's hard.

53:36Jemele Hill:Yeah. And that's been our experience as well. And I appreciate you sharing that because it took us a while to get to that point to be able to accept where their limitations were. And that did give us more, I guess, freedom might be the word. But also we could stand firm in why we had set the boundaries the way that we did, that were good meat for our family and our own needs, not demanding anything of them that wasn't realistic. We've just offered resources or attempts at solutions, like through mediation, and they have just shown no interest in that.

54:11Oprah Winfrey:But I will just say, you're coming to terms, as Nedra was saying, you're coming to terms and accepting, accepting that they don't have the capacity brings you peace so that you're not in resistance to still pushing and hoping and wishing and trying and giving and not receiving. It's the acceptance that they don't have the capacity. Dr. Gibson, what do you want to say?

54:37Jemele Hill:Yeah, along those lines, I'm reminded of a client I had who just couldn't seem to grasp that her mother was as superficial as she was, and it drove her crazy that her mother seemed to oversimplify everything, see it in black and white. You couldn't reason with her because of that very limited perspective. And we talked a lot about her mother's limited complexity, that her mother just didn't have the tolerance for ambiguity. She didn't have a complex enough personality structure to really take things in and think about them deeply. And what if she thought of her mom as someone who saw the world in 2D, where she sees it in 3D, could she still relate to her mom at some level across some common ground in the 2D world where her mother lived?

55:35Jemele Hill:And that was very helpful to her. And the other thing that I would mention is, you know, along with the acceptance comes a different form of goal for the relationship. That is, instead of trying to have an intimate relationship between two people who are capable of a complex relationship, how about just trying to relate to them as people who are very different, I mean, humanly different from you in terms of what they can tolerate and what they can think about, what they can reflect on. And if your goal is to have, you know, a pleasant enough interaction or to relate to them in that way, that may be much more achievable than trying to have this relationship where they feel understood by the parent, because that may not be able to happen.

56:28Oprah Winfrey:And I think many times, too, we're holding on to this idea of what we think the relationship should be.

56:34Jemele Hill:Well, I mean, they seem like they should be able to do that. Yeah, it seems like you should, but you're not going to have that. They're wise about some things. It seems like they should be able to do it. But it gets back to that point about the acceptance. That is not the reality.

56:48Oprah Winfrey:Not the reality. Eric and David, thank you. And listen, it makes us all who work here on the Oprah podcast feel really good that you watched it and shared it with other family members and that it actually impacted you in a way that made you think about doing things differently. Thank you so much. And we wish you the best. Thank you. Thank you so much.

57:06Jemele Hill:Bringing light to the matter. It's something that's hard to talk about, but much needed.

57:11Oprah Winfrey:Yeah. Let's keep talking about it. Thank you all so much. And thank you to all my guests. Thank you, Jamel Hill and your beautiful memoir, Uphill. Thank you, Tanya and Tricia. Thank you. Thank you, Tanya, for that post. Thanks to these experts, all of you, all three of our experts for returning to this conversation. Dr. Coleman's book is Rules of Estrangement. Dr. Gibson has an upcoming book on how to raise an emotionally mature child that comes out in April. And Nedra Glover-Tawwab's book is The Balancing Act, creating healthy dependency and connection without losing yourself. It's in stores right now.

57:48Oprah Winfrey:And I hope this conversation has opened up even more space for a little compassion, some understanding for yourself or maybe someone you love who's going through this. We'll keep talking. Go well, everybody. See you next time. You can subscribe to The Oprah Podcast on YouTube and follow us on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen. I'll see you next week. Thanks, everybody.