Where Did My Loving Child Go?
Understanding sudden shifts in behavior
It’s not unusual for me to read correspondence from a now-estranged child who, not that long ago, wrote to tell their parent how grateful they were and how positively they contributed to that child’s life.
Then, almost overnight, they ghosted the parent, or began to communicate in ways that were hostile, critical or rejecting.
Parents are often told that estrangement is about “setting boundaries” and acknowledging the parent’s harmful behavior. However valuable that endeavor, boundaries don’t usually require a wholesale reinterpretation of childhood.
What many parents experience instead is something more sweeping:
A childhood once described as mostly good becomes fundamentally abusive
Ordinary parental mistakes are reframed as evidence of pathology
Complex relationships are reduced to a single explanatory label
Context disappears; intent no longer matters
This doesn’t mean the adult child is lying.
But it does mean their story has changed—sometimes dramatically.
And stories shape identity.
Therapy as an Accelerator of Identity Change
Therapy can be lifesaving. It can also, unintentionally, become a meaning-making engine that reorganizes a person’s sense of self and history.
In some therapeutic frameworks, distress is explored primarily through the lens of injury, harm, and victimization. When this happens:
Emotional pain becomes retroactively assigned a cause
Ambiguous memories are re-interpreted to confirm a theory of why the adult child is struggling currently or has in the past
Distance from parents is framed as acts of healing, self-care or self-advocacy
Doubt about the narrative is treated as resistance or denial
For an adult child already dealing with anxiety, depression, or other mental health struggles, this can provide clarity, moral coherence and an understanding of their identities that directs shame away from the self.
Identity Movements and the Pull of Moral Certainty
Many adult children come of age in a cultural moment that places enormous emphasis on identity, self-definition, and moral clarity.
Within this framework:
Relationships are evaluated primarily by how they make one feel
Discomfort is often equated with harm
Power dynamics are assumed rather than examined
Separation is framed as empowerment
For some adult children, redefining themselves requires redefining their parents—not just as flawed, but as obstacles to becoming who they are meant to be; their true, authentic selves.
Estrangement then becomes not merely a relational decision, but an identity statement:
This is who I am now—and who I am not.
Parental Alienation Doesn’t End in Childhood
Parental alienation is usually discussed in the context of divorce and custody disputes. But alienation dynamics can occur well into adulthood with other actors.
Sometimes the alienating force is:
A romantic partner
A peer group
An online community
A therapist with a singular framework
A family member with unresolved grievances such as an aunt, uncle, sibling, even grandparent.
When an adult child is repeatedly exposed to a one-sided narrative about a parent—especially during a vulnerable period—their perceptions can shift rapidly.
This is not brainwashing in the dramatic sense.
It is relational gravity.
The more one narrative is reinforced, the harder it becomes to hold competing truths.
Why This Feels Like a Loss Without Closure
Estrangement is not just separation. It is what psychologist Pauline Boss called an ambiguous loss.
Your child is alive—but psychologically absent.
The relationship has ended—but the bond has not.
And because the story of what happened has been rewritten, parents are often left grieving not only the relationship, but the version of reality they shared with their child.
This is why advice like “just respect their boundaries” can feel so inadequate. It ignores the existential shock of realizing that the person who once knew you intimately now seems to know you only through a distorted lens.
A Final Word to Parents
If you find yourself asking Where did my loving child go?, know this:
You are not imagining the change.
You are not alone in your confusion.
And you are not required to abandon your own reality in order to remain loving.
Hopefully they’ll one day remember all of the ways that you contributed to their life. But, sometimes the bravest work is not fixing the narrative, defending yourself, or persuading someone to see you differently. It is holding your self-respect and self-compassion as a parent with steadiness and restraint—and remembering that the loving parent your child once knew was not a fabrication, but an expression of a deeper truth about your character, your care, and the values you lived by.
Thank you Josh. Apparently I made my child feel great as a parent since they articulated that often in words written and spoken. But then, silence…with no explanation…I often wonder should I send the letters I received when they were a young adult in college and in younger years and ask if these words still hold true? And if not, how did I become erased of who you said I was - what changed? And where did you go? How were you hiding someone other than who you showed me to be and why? Somehow, I missed who you might have been otherwise, is that the issue? I feel haunted by a ghost of someone I still love but have no idea where they have gone.
Thank you Dr Coleman. This describes exactly how I feel. I am mourning the loss of my adult child. The person I knew is gone.