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Dragged Through Hell by Estrangement: Finding Strength in Every Scar

  • Writer: Crystal McDaniel
    Crystal McDaniel
  • 6 days ago
  • 3 min read
Person with a scar on their back
Person with a scar on their back

Dragged Through Hell by Estrangement: Finding Strength in Every Scar


I never imagined that one day I would be sitting here, writing about the pain of being estranged from my own child. But here I am — not broken, but rebuilt. Not untouched, but scarred. And those scars? They are sacred.


Estrangement is a kind of hell no one prepares you for. It drags you through fire, strips away your identity, your confidence, your sleep, and your peace. It leaves you questioning every decision you ever made and grieving someone who is still very much alive. It is a death without a funeral. A wound that doesn’t clot.


And yet… I am still here.


Dropping the Sword & Listening Hard


There were days I begged God for clarity. Nights I screamed into my pillow, heart throbbing with the weight of silence. And still, I walked through it. Some days limping. Some days crawling. But never quitting.


A turning point came during family therapy. In order to heal, I had to do something that terrified me: drop my own sword and run into the pain of another. No defenses. No shield. Just vulnerability. My children — the ones who are not estranged — needed us to hear them. So my husband and I listened, truly listened, as they spoke hard truths about their own hurts and hopes. We learned that our pain doesn’t cancel out theirs. Love requires room for every voice.


And I would rather face the pain of the sword than run from it. Even though my scars are still tender and some days I teeter on the very edge of panic — the kind that makes me feel like I need to be hospitalized — I choose to stand in the pain. I choose truth. I choose connection. I choose healing, even when it hurts like hell.


We Were Good Parents — Imperfect, but Good


I remind myself often: we were good parents. We didn’t cave to every whim or hand out trophies for breathing. We used discipline when it was needed, and we raised wonderfully kind, smart, capable young adults. Were we perfect? Absolutely not. We are flawed humans, carrying our own unhealed childhood wounds, traumas never named, daily struggles we couldn’t always hide. But we showed up, we loved, we tried. That still matters.


Scars Meet Scars in Italy


Right now I’m in Italy, rehearsing and performing amidst vineyards and centuries-old stone walls. Beside me is a singer friend from Iran who is watching her homeland being bombed, powerless to stop it. And still, she lifts her voice. These two weeks of music are anything but easy: long rehearsals, emotional fatigue, homesickness, and for her, the terror of war flashing across her phone screen. Yet every night we stand shoulder-to-shoulder on that stage, proof that broken hearts can keep singing.


And still, there are days I feel deeply lonely. Surrounded by all these wonderful colleagues, I ate lunch alone today. It stings a bit. I could have taken responsibility and asked to sit with them as they happily chatted away. Do you ever wish someone would just choose you? Rejection by my estranged child amplifies that ache inside me. So I repeat to myself, “It isn’t personal, it isn’t personal, it isn’t personal.” I lay the sword down, feel the feelings that wash over me, and remind my trembling heart that I am never truly alone. This moment will pass. They are still my friends, my colleagues, my tribe.


Her courage and my loneliness sit side-by-side in this old Italian villa — proof that scars come in many shapes, but resilience sounds like harmony.


Stronger, Softer, Still Standing


Estrangement tried to convince me I was unworthy of love, but I found love in unexpected places: in my other children’s laughter, in my dogs’ devotion, in my husband’s steady hand, in the hush of worship when I could barely pray. One day I looked at myself and realized: I survived. I’m not flawless, but I am fierce — stronger, wiser, kinder to my own soul. I love from a deeper place, even if that love must now include letting go.


If you’re walking through your own fire, keep going. Your scars are becoming someone else’s roadmap. As Paul writes in 2 Corinthians 4:8-9:

“We are hard pressed on every side, but not crushed; perplexed, but not in despair; persecuted, but not abandoned; struck down, but not destroyed.”

Hell couldn’t keep me. Estrangement didn’t destroy me. And I’m still standing — stronger, softer, and covered in holy scars.


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