When a family member rejects your disabled or medically complex child, whether through subtle distancing or outright exclusion, it creates a kind of hurt that’s difficult to shake.

In this episode, Madeline and Alyssa talk through the many ways that rejection shows up in families: minimizing your child’s needs, ignoring their diagnosis, designing gatherings your family can’t access, ghosting you because emotionally engaging is too hard, or outright excluding or belittling your child.

Drawing from hundreds of community responses, we explore the emotional impact of these experiences—the isolation, the grief, the disappointment, and the shift in how we see these family bonds once these hurtful patterns emerge. We also touch on the clarity that can come from moments like this: boundaries that become necessary, expectations that change, and the people who rise to the occasion when others don’t.

If you’ve ever felt this kind of hurt from the people closest to you, we hope you feel seen and understood after this episode.

And a big thanks to our sponsor for this episode, the makers of the incredible documentary, The Zebra & The Bear!

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