As a Bravo newbie catching up on some past seasons of Summer House, I was completely thrown at the beginning of season five when I had to turn off the show after Carl Radke lost his brother. I was not prepared for how closely his description of his brother’s challenges with mental health and substance use, his experience with family estrangement, and his enduring love for him would mirror my own relationship with my brother. You don’t usually expect reality tv to hit that close to home, but I found myself overwhelmed to hear another sibling put into words this shared experience of estrangement.

I am 27 now, and though my brother has been in and out of my life since I was 9, our estrangement really started when I was 22. There are so many different ways to navigate loving someone with mental health and substance use challenges, but there are very few ways to help someone who doesn’t want to be helped. Accepting that fact is even harder. 

Many of us are familiar with the feeling of romantic heartbreak, but I’ve learned that the heartbreak of family estrangement is both a unique and shared experience. The catalyst event or final straw is usually one of many final straws, and it might seem big or small in comparison to all of the other experiences you’ve had with your loved one. Mine was both dramatic and traumatic— after not knowing where my brother was for over a year, I quite literally walked into him on the street five weeks after moving halfway across the country. He was homeless and in the midst of psychosis. I desperately tried to make him understand who I was, repeating over and over, “I’m your sister, please just look at me!”. He chose not to and walked away. I was experiencing my last straw moment, the final shift on the scale from hope to defeat, coupled by the very real experience of heartbreak. 

Every member of my family has experienced and navigated this distance from my brother in their own way and in their own time. It is nearly impossible to not feel guilty for distancing yourself from a loved one who struggles with mental health or substance use challenges. The norms of family support, especially in hard times, are embedded in our society, our media and our cultures— but what if your family member doesn’t want your support? How hard do you keep trying? For how long? 

You may have heard before that grief is love with nowhere to go, and wrapping your head around that grief for a person who is still living is so hard to justify to yourself. It’s hard to explain to new friends or new partners, when they ask about your family or siblings. We don’t talk enough about family estrangement in our society; it feels like a shameful secret, a burden we don’t want to put onto others, a debate we don’t want to have to defend ourselves in. It’s not necessarily easier, but usually simpler not to talk about it, and to carry that complex mixture of pain and love alone. 

Therapy and sharing with trusted family and friends, in my own time and on my own terms, has shown me that family estrangement and the mixed emotions associated with it are a lot more common than people think. It’s often not about an absence of love or care for someone, but about acceptance of a situation one cannot change. I’ve learned that acceptance of my brother’s situation and his choices is not the same as resignation to things never changing, or the absence of hope. I will always and forever channel all my love for him into hope for a better future, one that includes a relationship for us. 

Though time eases the initial pain and trauma of family estrangement, it never truly leaves you. It’s okay to break down 5 years later when a reality show (known for partying and frivolity) catches you off guard by unexpectedly sharing something real. It’s okay to experience all the conflicting feelings, and to still know that you’re making the best, and perhaps only, choice you can for yourself. It is complicated and challenging, but despite its name, estrangement really isn’t that strange at all.