I came across a very interesting post on another forum, where the poster wrote about the negative side effects of being shunned by their family. It prompted me to think about those negative side effects on my own life, which makes me very sad.

My father's side of the family who live in the same city as us (cousins, aunt, b/c uncle has died) have shunned my immediately family since his death 20 years ago. On my dad's death bed, his brother promised him that he would help my mother with my dad's life insurance policy since he was a lawyer. My uncle never followed through on that promise.

When my dad was alive, my family was very close to my dad's brother and his wife and their children (my cousins). We went to the same lake for two weeks every summer, renting a cabin near theirs; every holiday, birthday or recital was attended by both families; we even socialized outside of those times, just for fun. But that all stopped, once my dad died. I could understand it, if they all lived in other states. But the same city? It's very painful to be Facebook friends with cousins who shun me, my mother and my other two siblings.

After 20 years of missing out on my cousins' lives offline, I feel strongly that shunning is akin to a form psychological abuse. Missing out on those familial connections which is what helps a person to develop and grow, makes me sad when I think about it. I've reached out in the past on Facebook, with social invites only to be rejected with the "too busy" excuse all of the time.

Every day that my cousins choose to shun me, means that every day they choose to hurt me. Being shunned is not an internal personality trait. It's a very deliberate action that has negative consequences. A deliberate action designed to hurt a person, to convince them, that they are worthless, and unlovable because you are not worthy of someone else's time.

This is how I feel about seeing my cousins' active on Facebook, commenting on my Facebook posts, but never accepting my social invites to get together. I added a few back after having them deleted for a few years, with the understanding that a familial bond was being renewed. But I was mistaken.

My siblings don't seem to be bothered by their shunning as much as I am. But then, I'm estranged from one of my siblings for self-preservation reasons and the other sibling and I never discuss our cousins with each other. So that feels distancing to me as well.