When people break off contact with their parents, it is often a quiet farewell. There are often no angry phone calls, no crockery flying around the home or slamming front doors. Instead: silence. No more response to phone calls, text messages, emails or letters.

There are many reasons for this - but at least one thing is clear: «Families put up with a lot so that they don't fall apart,» says therapist Claudia Haarmann . «Children are highly indulgent towards their parents until the pressure becomes too much for them. Breaking off contact is one possible way of dealing with a stressful family situation.»

In a previous article, we let an affected mother have her say. She has had no contact with her 16-year-old son for some time and tells us how unbelievable this is for her. In this article, we now give the children the floor - daughters and sons who are now adults and between 20 and 35 years old. They confided in therapist and author Claudia Haarmann.

A perfect world, but only in appearance

There is the 34-year-old woman who, as a child, found no support or security in her family. She was only able to understand the lack of contact in her family as an adult. She says of the family visits: "I always go to my mum with extreme reluctance. We have nothing to say to each other. She doesn't even look at me, but goes to do her washing when I arrive.

And at the same time, there is such a longing in the family that it should be nice, but nobody knows how to do it. At Christmas, for example, you have nothing to say to each other, and then you sit with the candles and all you can do is say again and again: cosiness is conjured up. You act like a happy family, and my family thinks that if you act like that, then that's the way it is. But the atmosphere is awful and unbearable and only now do I realise: it's never been like this before!"

Not a good foundation: emotional imbalance

The feeling of not having been recognised and valued as a whole person in childhood forms the «foundation of our house of life», says Claudia Haarmann. The base of this house should be stable and aligned so that everything else can stand securely on this well-anchored foundation. If this is not the case, if the foundation walls are crooked, everything that is built on top of them will try to compensate for the deficit or become unstable.

For Haarmann, it is therefore clear that you have to take a good look at the foundations, the basement. According to Haarmann, there are almost always two issues in families with serious break-ups: «Firstly, it has not been possible to create a consistent bonding experience of safety, support and security, and secondly, it has not been possible to fulfil essential basic emotional needs in these families.»

For the child, family primarily means a secure hold. The contact that provides security. If this framework is missing, if a child has not experienced adequate protection in the sense of reassurance, then it lacks support and trust in the world, the family. «Then the world is not experienced as a safe place where you can lean back like in a hammock.» Instead, the experience is one of tension and uncertainty, which we also refer to as stress. «Stress makes the soul narrow and closed, and a closed soul prevents contact - and loneliness takes its place,» says Claudia Haarmann.

Another young woman describes this inner loneliness: «For many years, I always travelled to my parents with the wish that it would be a nice, friendly, fun day. My mum's first comment was: "How are you walking around again?» Or even more derogatory: «What do you look like?» That was actually enough.

Again and again the hope

Then my father would say: «When are you finally going to finish your studies, or are you going to continue to be a burden on us?» At the latest when my father commented on my statements with: «Shut up, you have no idea, don't talk so stupidly!» I left in a hurry, cried with heartache on the way home or raged with anger.

And after three months, I still went back again with the wish that it would finally be a nice, friendly, maybe even fun day. My longing for recognition - I'm not even talking about love - made me go back again and again, only to flee in frustration. At some point, I realised that I didn't feel loved by my parents and there was no way I could talk to them about it. They wouldn't have understood."

It is not only a lack of security, emotional coldness, lack of love or neglect that causes young adults to doubt their original family and slam the family door shut, but also the opposite. For a few years now, Claudia Haarmann has been observing a new family scenario in her practice: these are families with excessive closeness that are being torn apart.

How did this excessive closeness come about? In most cases, parents brought up their children in an authoritarian manner, emphasising discipline, conscientiousness and self-control. In this commanding household, children were not allowed to get dirty, had to be subordinate, were often reprimanded and sometimes even beaten.

Yes, my parents always mean well, but this «well-meaning» is too much for me!

Break contact to find yourself

This generation vowed to do things differently as parents, to bring up their children without violence and discipline. The focus is on closeness, security, self-strengthening and partnership without hierarchies. You show the children unreservedly that you love them and how much you love them. And tell them: «We were like friends, told each other everything and went shopping together» or: «My child was closer to me than anyone else.»

For some children, however, this love and care is too much. They experience it as «over-loving» and «over-protecting», which overwhelms them. There is certainly no doubt that life together was very harmonious back then when the children were still small, they were close. But now, as adults, these daughters and sons are turning away. The relationship is too close for them, they don't feel recognised as a person, they break off contact in order to find themselves. They then say: «Yes, my parents always mean well, but this «well» is too much for me! It's too close to me. Their constant love is like being watched all the time and it gets me down.»

«As if I were a first grader»

A 20-year-old man says: «Their love and attention is too much. If there was a global parental control app, no price would be too high for my parents ... Total control! But they don't understand what I'm talking about when I explain to them that I need some space, or when I tell them that they should just leave me alone or listen to me. My request is promptly followed by the objection: «But child, we only mean well, we're doing this out of care, we love you so much.» Their «well-meaning» is too much for me, and their «But child ...» shows that they don't understand anything. They always know what's good for me, as if I were a first-grader in life.»

One 34-year-old woman says: «My mum and her partner have big wishes for me, and my mum is always talking about our family happiness. But her idea of happiness makes me unhappy. She has always protected me, and if she could, she would still do so today, even though I have a partner and my own job and life. I don't know what to do anymore, I can only get out of it by brute force, because I don't just experience it as an appropriation, I feel incorporated by them.»

No more contact because of too much closeness

According to Haarmann, what is missing here, what parents do not see, is what ideally constitutes love: Closeness and autonomy are of equal value: «Closeness provides security and support, autonomy reinforces independence and inner freedom. Human development takes place between the needs for closeness and autonomy.»

These children then break off contact with their parents precisely because it is too close, as they do not feel recognised as a person with all their needs. They need to break off contact in order to take a deep breath and find themselves. «Young adults withdraw from close contact with their mother and/or father because they want to be themselves. This can be painful for their parents because they feel abandoned.»

So it's not just too little closeness and security that plays a role, but also too much closeness - from too little self-experienced care to overprotection. According to Haarmann, the «healthy centre» is missing. The tragedy is: «Overprotection, giving everything, being completely close to the child is again not about the child. This overprotection overlooks something essential to the child's needs; it is more about the parents' fear, their fear of losing this love again.»