Welcome to Just Break Up, the podcast about love, heartbreak, and all the relationship advice you don't want to hear.

My name is Sierra Dmolder.

And I'm Sam Blackwell.

And today we're going to answer a letter from somebody who's wondering if they should renew contact with their estranged father.

But before we begin, we just want to give you our Surgeon General's warning, which is that Sierra and I are not licensed mental health practitioners.

No, we are not. We are not professionals. We are not trained in any of this. So please take our advice as you see fit.

We're only here to offer our humble musings. So hopefully shed some understanding and maybe some laughs about the incredibly rewarding but mostly confusing experience that is love.

All right.

Today's letter is coming to us from the mayor, whose pronouns are she and they, who is writing to us from Daddy Issueville, USA.

Content warning for parental abuse, overdose, and terminal illness.

Dear Salmon, Sierra, long-time listener, first-time question asker.

I have been listening since 2019.

Your musings have brought me peace and insight each week, and I have used your advice frequently

and my daily practices be a better human.

Now I'm hoping you can provide some musings for a long-term issue that I simply cannot work

through in my tangled, messy little brain. I female non-binary 29 have a delicate,

estranged relationship with my dad. I have not seen him since I was 14 years old. He was mentally and

physically abusive to both my older sister and I. He was in and out of jail for domestic

violence. Our whole childhood threatened our mother and us often put us in unhealthy living

situations. Dot, dot, dot. I could write a long list. So we simply stopped going to his house

one day, which he didn't fight because

he had so many warrants for his arrest that going to court over custody time was just not an option

...