When Healing Leads to Distance: Self-Worth, Boundaries, and the Grief of an Adult Child

It’s always been about my Dad.

Lately, it feels like decades of stored trauma have been releasing all at once. Maybe this is part of the great shedding everyone keeps talking about. All I know is that something deep has been unraveling.

After being stripped of everything my self-worth was once attached to — money, jobs, titles, relationships — the universe seemed to save the most important lesson for last. I’ve learned, slowly and through experience, that life has a way of guiding us toward what ultimately serves our healing, even when it’s painful.

What I now understand is that in early childhood, I was never shown how to build self-worth from within. Instead, I learned to attach my worth to how I was perceived by others. That attachment became the anchor of the abandonment wound I carried quietly for most of my life.

To heal it, I’ve had to do something radical: detach my worth from everything outside of me and begin building it from the inside out.

That process has been anything but linear. It’s been a constant oscillation between heartbreak and self-support — learning how to hold myself emotionally while also changing deeply ingrained patterns. Some days it feels overwhelming. Other days it feels like medicine.

The abandonment wound lives in the heart, right alongside self-worth. When I began detaching my worth from people and relationships, it initially left emptiness behind.

Holes.

Spaces.

I had to learn how to fill those spaces with my own care, compassion, and self-validation.

This is a positive thing — even when it doesn’t feel like it.

I remind myself of that on the days when worthlessness creeps in. I’m not falling apart; I’m being reborn. And that rebirth can only come from within.

As this healing deepened, I experienced a profound awakening — moments where past and present seemed to overlap, like old memories finally making sense in real time. I began to understand how much of my worth had been tied to my relationship with my father.

He was physically present in my life in limited ways — what I’ve come to think of as “in and out.” And without realizing it, I carried that dynamic forward into adulthood, especially in my relationships with men.

I now see how often I sought validation from partners who couldn’t truly see me or meet me emotionally. When that happened, it reinforced the same familiar pain — feeling unseen, unheard, and questioning my own reality.

I wasn’t broken. I was repeating a pattern that began long before I had language for it.

Coming to terms with this has brought clarity around the abuse I experienced in my first marriage — emotional manipulation, gaslighting, and a deep co-dependency rooted in the fear of abandonment. Seeing the full picture has been painful, but it’s also been liberating.

In recent years, I’ve been able to step away from other family relationships that felt emotionally unsafe. I did so with clarity and self-respect, and I don’t regret those decisions. My life has genuinely been more peaceful without those dynamics.

Trying to reconnect and repair my relationship with my Dad has brought its own clarity. It has helped me see that I was still seeking worth through his perception of me — hoping, perhaps unconsciously, to finally be seen in a way I never was. When that didn’t happen, it left me feeling empty again.

Hearing repeated denial of my lived experiences — being told certain things never happened or were remembered differently — has been deeply destabilizing. It’s a painful place many adult children find themselves in when they begin naming their truth.

My boundary is simple but firm: I cannot tolerate abuse, especially emotional abuse. As I continue healing complex PTSD, my body no longer has the capacity to endure what once felt unavoidable.

What hurts the most is realizing how deeply I wanted to be seen and understood — and coming to terms with the possibility that I may never be. It feels like waking up to discover I never truly had a seat at the family table. That realization brings a grief that echoes old abandonment wounds.

I don’t blame my father. I don’t blame him for who he is or for the narratives he holds. I can still acknowledge the ways he has helped me — practical acts of support, moments of generosity, shared interests, and the parts of him I appreciate.

And still, I’m left asking myself hard questions.

If I’m not valued, seen, or heard, how do I remain in a relationship simply because he is my father?

As a psychic and spiritual practitioner, I’ve witnessed something profound: when we heal ourselves, healing ripples backward through our ancestral lines. Before this work, I saw my grandmother in the afterlife as she was at the end of her life — fragile, hardened, and distant.

After setting boundaries and reclaiming my sovereignty, she began to appear differently. Youthful. Warm. Loving. Whole. It showed me something I now know to be true — when we heal ourselves, we shift more than just our own story.

My intuition has been clear: relationships that repeatedly cross my boundaries are not aligned with who I am becoming. That includes relationships I never imagined would need boundaries.

I never thought I would have to set one with my Dad.

The wisdom I’m sitting with now is this: can I accept him exactly as he is, without continuing to expose myself to harm? Can relationships exist without self-betrayal?

Perhaps connection, if it continues, must remain surface-level. Conversations about weather, history, shared interests — without offering parts of myself that won’t be received with care.

And maybe it’s also true that biology alone does not require continued access to my heart.

Being someone’s child does not mean surrendering my voice, my worth, or my seat at the table — especially now that I’ve finally claimed it for myself.

Gentle Note

This reflection is shared from lived experience and personal healing. It is not intended to diagnose or replace professional mental health care. If themes of trauma, emotional abuse, or C-PTSD feel activating, please pause and seek support from a trauma-informed therapist or trusted care provider. Healing is not linear, and you deserve support along the way.

If this piece stirred something in you and you’re feeling called to explore your own path of healing and self-worth, I offer private psychic readings and energy sessions to support clarity, grounding, and self-connection.

Learn more or book a session here: Book a Reading

Jane Garrity is a Psychic Medium, Wilderness First Responder, writer, and content creator — learning, healing, and awakening as sharing as she goes.