One third of Americans over age 18 report being estranged or going no contact with friends or family this holiday season, and 25% of us are estranged from a parent.

They call it a silent pandemic, but it's not really so silent anymore.

There are whole movements on TikTok and Instagram celebrating the choice to cut off your family.

The hashtag toxic family reached 2 billion this year on TikTok. It's some of the saddest Christmas

season coverage I've ever seen. We could call it the no-contact Christmas crisis.

It's deeply personal and acutely painful because almost everyone is or knows someone who is

estranged from family members. Families have always been a pain point, precisely because family

has to do with our roots and our identity.

Estrangement has, in ages past, been seen as a tragedy and a failure on the part of one or

both parties.

Granted, abuse and trauma are urgent reasons why going no contact can be the healthiest thing to

do.

But as clinical psychologist and author of Rules

of Estrangement Joshua Coleman notes, the bar for qualifying as trauma today is much lower. He has

seen adult children cut off parents for negative comments about sexuality or partners, for failing

to accept certain boundaries or increasingly,

even for political differences.

I didn't lose my father to illness or an accident.

I lost him to red pill.

What went wrong?

Did half of America suddenly become toxic?

Did American parents spend the last 35 years developing acute

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