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The importance of chosen family for building community
I have two cousins. Two. And I didn’t even meet them until we were all adults.
So, yeah—when people talk about the support they get from big, extended families, it’s not exactly the world I know.
The importance of chosen family
You want to talk about family? Mine has never really fit the greeting-card mold. Forget the idea that blood is always thicker than water. Turns out, the people who pick up the phone, drive hours at the drop of a hat, or tell you that you’re not the crazy one? Sometimes, they’re not even related to you. Sometimes, they are a middle school friend of your mom’s.
Let’s get real: not every family is safe.
Not everyone gets the shining, warm, leave-it-to-beaver home life you see on TV.
(If you’re sitting there thinking, “well, my nuclear family is...fine?”—hold onto that. There are therapists out here with new boats thanks to all of us with tricky dynamics.)
So, what do you do when your 'people' aren’t your people?
What does it mean to build and value chosen family—for neurodivergent folks, folks on the margins, and, well, anyone who’s ever needed someone on their side when the world doesn’t play fair?
In this episode of "Different, not broken", I’m sharing real, maybe-too-honest stories about losing someone who was never 'official family' but was instrumental to my life.
About generational differences in holding onto friends, about the random soulmates and honorary aunts you collect along the way.
The secret sauce of having someone who just believes in you—often long after you stop believing in yourself.
About how you can cobble together your own safety net when the original factory settings are...suboptimal, at best.
If you’ve ever wondered where you fit, or have mourned the distance (or absence) in your 'real' family, or want practical hope that you can find your people, this one is for you.
Consider this your permission slip: family isn’t always about who shares your last name, but about who shows up, sees you, and gives you space to be exactly who you are—even if that means starting a new job at 69 or reminding you to tell the world to get lost when you need it most.
Hit play to find your new favorite survival strategy for living different—not broken.
Because you deserve more than 'good enough'—you deserve family that’s actually safe.
(And maybe a few wild stories about just how weird and wonderful that can look.)
As always, your support helps keep the podcast going, keep assessments accessible, and keep a whole lot of therapists’ kids in college. Every listen and share goes further than you think.
Let’s take down the 'real family only' myth, together.
And then be sure to get yourself signed up for all our updates!
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Transcript
I have, like, maybe two friends left from high school. Like, I don't talk to
Speaker:these people. I don't really want to talk to these people. They're not people that
Speaker:I engage with very often. Every now and then, one of them pops
Speaker:up, and I'm. I remember that. I like that person. But there's actually a
Speaker:teacher from high school who I still talk to a lot and is one of
Speaker:our group leaders at lb. But as soon as I was done with high school,
Speaker:like, I was done. What I find very bizarre, though, is
Speaker:that my mother, who obviously comes from a very different generation and
Speaker:a very different frame of mind, I mean,
Speaker:she still talks to people who she graduated high school with, like,
Speaker:literally 50 years ago, which blows my
Speaker:mind. And they, like, remember each other's lives and,
Speaker:like, have all sorts of stories to tell. And, like, I don't remember
Speaker:anything about high school. It's not like I was impaired or anything. Like,
Speaker:I just. I don't know, maybe I blocked it out. I don't know. I remember
Speaker:being a lot skinnier. That's it. That's all I remember. But anyway, she's got this,
Speaker:like, group of friends. They still talk all the time. Some of them have been
Speaker:through multiple husbands. Some of them have gotten to be, like, really close with our
Speaker:family. And so, like, literally minutes before we started
Speaker:doing this, my mom called, which is really a cause for joy.
Speaker:Usually it's a quick send to voicemail, and there's a
Speaker:whole nother episode, many episodes.
Speaker:Series of therapy sessions is really what it is. Many therapists whose
Speaker:children have been put through college by me, about why she gets
Speaker:sent a voicemail. But anyway, she text me afterward and said, you know, I
Speaker:need to talk to you. And I was on the phone, so I couldn't talk
Speaker:to her. But she did send me through a message and let me know that
Speaker:one of them passed away, I guess, at the end of last year, which we
Speaker:didn't know. And she was
Speaker:like, for everything that is
Speaker:missing in my relationship with my mother,
Speaker:she was that. And
Speaker:after my dad died, she gave me one of the
Speaker:biggest gifts I've ever gotten from anybody in
Speaker:that apparently my dad had
Speaker:confided in her about things
Speaker:about me that he had never told me.
Speaker:And I didn't have any way to know that. Why would I
Speaker:know that? And she shared them with me and things that I never
Speaker:realized in a million years that my dad ever would have thought about me. And,
Speaker:like, good stuff. I mean, like, we had a great relationship, so none of
Speaker:it was surprising. But I just didn't know that.
Speaker:I didn't know that he had said these things. And so
Speaker:as I was grieving him, she was giving me these like very
Speaker:powerful gifts of insight that I could
Speaker:not have had. And so she was so
Speaker:instrumental in that process. And she was also the person I could call and
Speaker:be like, my mother's nuts, right?
Speaker:And she would say, oh yes. And she's been that way her whole
Speaker:life. And she was one of the few people who
Speaker:kind of looked at life probably the way that I did, which is like,
Speaker:fuck em if they can't take a joke. She was always independent. She
Speaker:always, I think she was married like 45 times, maybe
Speaker:slightly less than that. But she got her doctorate in
Speaker:nursing when she was 69 years old and started
Speaker:practicing at 69 years old. I could call her and say like, I
Speaker:have this idea and I think I want to start a practice and I think
Speaker:I want to do it by myself and I think I want to do it
Speaker:for xyz. And she would say,
Speaker:yeah, cool. In the way that my dad always did. She believed
Speaker:in me in a way that I think maybe only he ever did. And
Speaker:so I have not fully processed this yet, obviously, because I just
Speaker:found out. And also, like, I'm hurt that this happened last year and I didn't
Speaker:know about it. But also it was a weird relationship. Like I don't know
Speaker:what your mom's middle school
Speaker:tangential friend is to you when you think you're an
Speaker:adult and you don't even know her children. But yeah, it was just
Speaker:unexpected and it was shocking and it
Speaker:obviously derailed most of my day. But I think it
Speaker:speaks to this bigger thing that is so important
Speaker:when we're building community. And it's this idea of chosen family, right? And
Speaker:I have a family and I have an involved family
Speaker:and I have a family that for the most part means well
Speaker:or you know, and certainly my dad meant well, but even in
Speaker:that somewhat strong nuclear family, like there are still people who
Speaker:aren't safe and there are still ways
Speaker:that that family has been not safe.
Speaker:And that did matter. I mean, it mattered. And
Speaker:obviously again, lots of therapists, children are going to
Speaker:college thanks to me. But to
Speaker:say that, yeah, okay, I'm never going to have
Speaker:that relationship with my mom, but I do have it with someone else.
Speaker:Like I was gifted with women who
Speaker:showed me how to be what I wanted
Speaker:to be when that is not the example that was
Speaker:set for me. And I'm not related to
Speaker:any of them. We don't have a big extended family. I mean, I think I
Speaker:have two cousins from total. I have two cousins, and I didn't meet them
Speaker:until we were all adults. And so every person who's been with me for most
Speaker:of my life, except for my actual siblings, is chosen family.
Speaker:It's also really common, I think, in Jewish families as much as Jewish families can
Speaker:be big. A lot of those families are built on
Speaker:rebuilding community after the Holocaust. And so, like,
Speaker:in general, I think a lot of Jewish families are made out
Speaker:of that uncle who's not really your uncle, but it doesn't matter and you
Speaker:wouldn't know it. So the point being, aside from the fact
Speaker:that I just need to say those things, is
Speaker:that when we talk about building community
Speaker:and how community is so incredibly instrumental
Speaker:in figuring out who you are
Speaker:and who's safe and how to
Speaker:create psychological safety for yourself,
Speaker:it may not be your parents. It may not be somebody who's
Speaker:actually related to you. My dad hasn't answered my calls in, like, eight years.
Speaker:It's rude, but it
Speaker:very well could be somebody who will still pick up the phone every
Speaker:time you call, will still jump in the car when they find out
Speaker:that you went into labor six weeks early
Speaker:and drive four hours to get there. Will still
Speaker:validate you when you, like, think all
Speaker:of the people around you are losing their goddamn minds. But, like, they seem
Speaker:fine with it, and you just want to make sure that it's not you.
Speaker:And at this stage in my life where,
Speaker:like, I'm certainly not going to pick up more parents, like, I had my
Speaker:fill of those. Those relationships are community.
Speaker:Those are the people that we can rely on. And so I just think that's
Speaker:as we talk about community building. It doesn't have to be
Speaker:a nuclear family who is not safe for you or is not interested
Speaker:in validating the things that you need validated. And you
Speaker:might get lucky like I did, and have a random
Speaker:crazy lady who's just as ambitious as you are, who happens to
Speaker:have, like, 50 years on you. No, not 50. That's probably mean. She'll smack me
Speaker:if I say that. I don't think it's 50. It's probably closer to 40. She'll
Speaker:come back from the dead and karate chop me in the neck for saying
Speaker:that. It's like 39. It's 39. But
Speaker:who's just far enough ahead of you doing life the way that you want to
Speaker:do life to show you that not only can you be, like, super
Speaker:successful and find your own way,
Speaker:but you can do it while telling
Speaker:everybody else to fuck off. And that's probably the biggest
Speaker:lesson I got from her. So, yeah, I
Speaker:think that's it for that.
