The Long Road of Being an Adult Orphan
A Journey of Disownment, Survival, and Hidden Wounds
Becoming an adult orphan isn’t a concept we often discuss—at least, not in the way we think of the traditional loss of parents. Most people associate orphanhood with the death of a parent or both parents, and while this form of grief is profound, there’s another, less-visible kind of orphanhood that can haunt you throughout your life. This version is born of abandonment, disownment, and rejection by the very people who should’ve been your safety net. And that rejection doesn’t come with a clear-cut closure or the empathy of loss; instead, it lingers—pervasive and ever-present—leaving a trail of emotional and psychological scars that never quite heal.
I was a teenager when I became an adult orphan, though I wasn’t quite an adult yet. I was kicked out of my home, cast aside by the people who were supposed to care for me. I hadn’t even finished high school. I wasn’t old enough to vote or make my own decisions with any legal standing. But that didn’t matter to them. They made it clear: I wasn’t worth keeping, worth loving, worth fighting for. I was discarded as if I had no value. And with that, I was forced to navigate the world on my own—without guidance, without support, and without a home.
What no one tells you about being an adult orphan is that it’s not just about surviving that initial blow of rejection. It’s about living with the long-term, quiet ache that never quite goes away. It’s about the moments that catch you off guard—the lonely cry in the backyard after the kids have all scattered, busy playing with their Christmas presents. It’s the absence of family, the absence of anyone who should have cared enough to show up and just be there. It’s realizing that the extended family you thought you could lean on is more concerned with the pretense of rewriting history than acknowledging the truth of what happened. They’d rather uphold the façade of the "perfect family" than admit the years of pain, the toxic dynamics, the racism, homophobia, and Christian fundamentalism that shaped my childhood and continues to affect me & my children today.
The worst part? It’s not just the isolation of being alone in this. It’s the constant emotional warfare from those who claim to care the least but are most concerned with maintaining control over the narrative. They want you to keep quiet about the truth—the abuse, the hurt, the rejection. They want you to pretend everything’s fine, that there’s no reason to question their actions. Yet, these are the same people who don't show up when you need them the most, and when they do, it’s only to guilt you for revealing what they’ve done. This twisted dynamic forces you to keep your pain hidden, even when it’s clear they’ve long since stopped caring about you, your well-being, or your future.
I’ll never forget the day I learned my father—who I hadn’t seen in more than a decade, both of us trapped in poverty that precluded travel to see each other—had taken his own life. He was 59. We never got the chance to reconcile, to make sense of the mess of abandonment & gatekeeping that defined the limited relationship with him my mother had allowed. I literally broke a molar in half that day, gritting my teeth so hard, trying not to fall apart.
What made it worse was the grief I was expected to suppress. Not just grief for the father I never really had, but grief for the child I once was—the one who still needed protection, care, and support. That child never got what they needed, and no amount of pretending or rewriting history by my extended family could change that. I was the one left holding the truth of the past, and no one wanted to hear it.
Being an adult orphan is complicated. It’s not just the surface-level pain of rejection. It’s about the lifelong struggle with unresolved trauma, with the constant reminder that family can sometimes be your biggest source of pain. It’s the realization that people you grew up with—who you thought would be there for you—are the ones who continue to hurt you the most. They don’t want to face their own role in your suffering. They want to control the narrative, rewrite the history, and keep you silent. But the truth has a way of creeping out, no matter how hard they try to bury it.
The trauma of an abusive childhood, marred by racism, homophobia, and oppressive religious dogma, doesn’t just disappear because someone decides it’s time to move on or ‘voted for Obama’. You don’t get to simply forget the pain of being told you’re not good enough, not worthy, just because it’s inconvenient for others. The scars of growing up in a house where love was conditional, and safety was a luxury I couldn’t afford, stay with you. The rejection I faced from my family didn’t just impact me in the short term—it shaped my entire adult life. It built walls around my heart, walls that I’ve spent years trying to tear down.
But through all of this, I’ve learned something important: you can survive the loss of family. You can survive the trauma of disownment, even when the people who should have been there are nowhere to be found. It takes time, and it takes an incredible amount of strength, but it is possible. You learn to build your own family, one that isn’t bound by blood but by choice. You find people who love you for who you are, who see you—not as a failure, not as someone unworthy of care—but as a person deserving of love and respect. You create a family of your own, grounded in trust and support.
As much as I’ve had to let go of the idea of a traditional family, I’ve also learned to embrace the beauty of what I can create on my own. I’ve learned to live without the constant weight of disappointment, to stop expecting the people who rejected me to suddenly become the parents I once dreamed they could be. I’ve learned that I don’t need to explain my trauma to those who will never understand, and I don’t need to keep quiet about the truth because it makes others uncomfortable.
Being an adult orphan is painful. It’s something that doesn’t have easy answers, and it doesn’t get better just because time has passed. But it has taught me about resilience. It has taught me about the importance of building the family I need, not the family I was born into. And most importantly, it has shown me that I don’t need anyone’s approval or validation to be whole. The road is long, and it’s often lonely, but it’s mine to walk. And for the first time in a long time, I’m walking it on my own terms.
Today’s Assignment: Take stock. Of yourself. Of who in your life might need more support. Of who you can count on. We’re going to need all our stores of emotional resilience in the battle ahead. Remember that life is a team sport.
~AK
Thank you so much for the reminder!