Estranged and Deranged

Some losses do not come with funerals. They come with silence, blocked numbers, and birthdays you only hear about afterward. In this episode, Candy and Chris talk about the particular heartbreak of being a grandparent in an estranged family system, where access to the kids becomes leverage and love gets treated like something that can be revoked. They name the ache that sits in the body when you are left wondering how they are doing, what they have been told, and whether they will remember you the way you remember them.With honesty, dark humor, and a whole lot of lived experience, they explore the emotional whiplash of seeing your grandchild in passing, the impossible pressure of wanting to protect the child from adult conflict while also refusing to disappear quietly, and the anger that rises when boundaries are used as a shield for cruelty. This is not a conversation about winning or being right. It is about the reality that there are no winners here, especially when the smallest people in the story do not get a vote.If you have ever felt the grief of being erased from a child’s life you deeply love, this episode will feel like someone finally said the quiet part out loud.

In the first episode of Estranged and Deranged, Chris and Candi finally hit record and share the story behind the show. Connected by family and by deep loss, they talk about how grief and parental estrangement intersect, why so many parents feel silenced, and what they are building through their growing online community and weekly support group. This podcast is not about bashing adult children. It is about giving parents a voice, making space for the layers, and helping people move forward with identity, joy, and support.

In this episode of Estranged and Deranged, the conversation tackles how labels like toxic, narcissistic, and abusive are being flattened into slogans and shortcuts. Using a viral “toxic parent bingo card” as the lens, the hosts examine perception versus reality, sarcasm as a coping tool, and how validation culture can replace real dialogue. The episode creates space for estranged parents to question narratives, laugh where appropriate, and feel less alone while navigating a deeply personal and often misunderstood experience.

Episode two breaks down the common reasons adult children become estranged and the different ways estrangement can show up inside a family. Candy and Chris talk through the layers that often get ignored, including unresolved childhood pain, adult conflict that hits a breaking point, the influence of therapy culture and social media, peer validation, and mental health factors. They also explain the most common “types” of estrangement, from one-parent cutoffs to whole-family splits, silent ghosting, and on again off again cycles. Along the way, they address the hate comments, the misconceptions, and why their focus stays on support, honesty, and helping estranged parents move forward with their lives.