When You Lose Your Parents While They’re Still Alive

Ex Jehovah's Witnesses feel a kind of grief that doesn’t make sense to most people.

It’s not death or distance. It's not even a fight you can point to and explain.

It’s losing your parents while they’re still here.

If you’ve been shunned after leaving a high-control environment like Jehovah's Witnesses, you know exactly what I mean. One day you have a family, and the next day it feels like you’ve been erased from it.

And that hurts in a way that’s hard to put into words.

After I first left the organization, I found myself in a long-term relationship with someone who had a hard time controlling his anger. I had no contact with my parents at the time, and I honestly thought I was handling it pretty well.

But reality always caught up to me in moments of deep sadness or fear. In that relationship I would shrink back when violent behavior and screaming was happening. I would run away from the moment and find myself crying and saying to myself: "I want my mom".

My mom wasn't my biggest support system by any means, so you would think that I wouldn't crave that connection when I was at my lowest.

But I did.

I say all of this to show that humans have an ingrained desire for parental connection. It's in our DNA to want a loving relationship with our parents.

It can be very difficult to accept it when that relationship just doesn't exist anymore.

They Think They’re Doing the Right Thing

This is the part that makes it even more confusing.

Your parents probably don’t see themselves as cruel or heartless. They see themselves as obedient, faithful and doing what they believe is required to protect their relationship with God (and maybe even to “help” you come back).

They’ve been taught that:

• staying close to you could put their own salvation at risk.

• distancing themselves might encourage you to return.

• loyalty to God has to come before everything else, even family.

So in their minds, this isn’t abandonment of their children, but it is a sacrifice for the greater good of the family.

Don't forget that they are being taught that you will literally be destroyed in Armageddon if you don't follow the doctrine. That is a scary thought for a parent.

Be careful to not place the entire blame on your parents, because at its core, it is the Organization that is pushing these beliefs onto them.

And that’s what makes this so complicated.

Because you can understand why they’re doing it, and still be completely shattered by it.

Understanding It Doesn’t Make It Okay

You’re allowed to hold both truths at the same time:

• They believe they’re doing the right thing.

• And it is still deeply wrong for a parent to cut off their child.

Understanding their reasoning doesn’t mean you have to accept the outcome as healthy or justified, because at the end of the day, love shouldn’t be conditional on belief.

Connection shouldn’t disappear because you asked questions or because you believe something different than they do.

And family shouldn’t feel like something you can lose for thinking differently.

What you’re experiencing isn’t a normal boundary.

It’s loss, at a very painful and confusing level.

This Is Real Grief

You didn’t just lose contact.

You lost:

• support

• familiarity

• shared history

• the feeling of having somewhere to go

You might catch yourself wanting to text or call them, to tell them something small that happened in your day.

And then you remember… you can’t.

Or you could, but it wouldn’t be received the same way.

That kind of grief comes in waves:

• anger

• sadness

• confusion

• longing

• even guilt

Sometimes all in the same day. And there’s nothing wrong with you for feeling that.

It Was Never Supposed to Be This Way

You were supposed to grow, change, figure out who you are, and still have your parents in your life. That’s the natural order of things.

What happened to you isn’t natural, but it’s something taught, reinforced, and normalized within a specific system. That system makes it so that you’re the one left carrying the emotional weight of everything.

It's important to remember that it is not a reflection of your worth.

You Didn’t Cause This

It’s easy to fall into the trap of thinking:

• “If I just stayed…”

• “If I didn’t say anything…”

• “If I believed harder…”

But the truth is, the relationship was made conditional long before you ever questioned anything. You didn’t create the rules and you sure as hell didn’t design the system or choose for love to be tied to belief.

You chose to be honest with yourself.

That’s not something to feel ashamed of, because it's a quality that people everywhere have a hard time finding in themselves. It's something you should absolutely feel proud of.

What You Do With This Now

Nothing replaces your parents. Let’s be real about that.

But your life doesn’t end here either.

Over time, you can build new connections, create a support system that isn’t conditional, and experience relationships where you’re accepted as you are.

It won’t happen overnight and it won’t erase the loss, but it will give you something real to stand on again.

You’re Not Alone in This

There are so many people who understand this exact kind of pain, even if it feels like no one around you does. People who have gone through the same silence, the same confusion and the same heartbreak.

These are people who have slowly, painfully, built a life beyond it.

It might surprise you once you realize how many people walking around in your daily life have experienced something you can relate to, even if its not specific to JW's.

To Sum It All Up

You can still love your parents and you can still understand them. You can also recognize that what happened to you wasn’t right.

Those things can exist at the same time.

If you’re in the middle of this right now, I want you to hear this clearly:

You didn’t deserve to lose your family for being honest about who you are.

And even if it feels like it right now…

your life is not over.

There is still connection, love, and stability ahead of you, just in a different form than you expected.

Let yourself feel all of it. It's okay to be sad, it's okay to really angry. Just make sure those feelings are treated like visitors and sent on their way. The pain and anger will help you get through the phases of this grief as long as you don't hold onto it forever.

I promise you, though, that at the end of all the pain is the most genuine and authentic love you've ever experienced. You're going to make it through and you're going to be okay.

You've got this.