• Banished

  • A Grandmother Alone: Surviving Alienation and Estrangement
  • By: Nancy Lee Klune
  • Narrated by: Nancy Lee Klune
  • Length: 5 hrs and 25 mins
  • 4.7 out of 5 stars (38 ratings)

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Banished  By  cover art

Banished

By: Nancy Lee Klune
Narrated by: Nancy Lee Klune
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Publisher's summary

For author Nancy Lee Klune, the nightmare began with a phone call from a stranger. The man, who identified himself as a family therapist, informed her that her son and daughter-in-law had decided that she was to have no further contact with them or their four children. This call set in motion a 10-year journey of deep pain, emotional turmoil, and personal growth as she found ways to cope with this indescribable loss.

Each inspirational chapter in Banished explores the dilemmas and challenges facing alienated parents and grandparents. Woven throughout are intensely personal accounts of the author’s own healing, along with practical advice for those who suffer from family estrangement. She shares her process of healing, discussing everything from acceptance, forgiveness, gratitude, self-love, and the importance of letting go and honoring your own life. She reveals how she found joy and happiness again, despite the vacuum created by the absence of her adult child and grandchildren.

Providing both straightforward assistance and much-needed empathy for those facing family alienation and estrangement, this book helps you move forward, while offering tools for healing and creating more love and peace in your life.

©2018 Patrice E Cosier (P)2021 Patrice E Cosier

What listeners say about Banished

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  • Overall
    3 out of 5 stars
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    3 out of 5 stars
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    3 out of 5 stars

Instead of Hope it’s a Heavy Heart

Goodness - so much to say! There is some absolutely terrific motivational advice. The problem is that in the same moment you get an affirmation or realize a positive - the lovely funeral home piano music starts and you spiral back into sadness and depression. 90+ chapters is also a stretch. One paragraph of helpful insight, followed up by some quote from a historical person does NOT make a chapter. Each chapter follows this exact pattern. Helpful insight + famous person quote + funeral home piano playing!!! Over and over again. Just when I’d get my interest peaked and be wanting more in-depth discussion - she would do a quote and then play the piano for me. There’s some great helpful advice in this book. It’s just a shame that the author didn’t spend time on the subject matter. The glossing over of things that actually could have been helpful makes me think of Celery. It’s good to eat, is mostly water and without cream cheese or some other substance smeared on it - you’re just left unfulfilled and hungry 🦋

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3 people found this helpful

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    5 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars

Best book on the subject!

This book is a lifesaver for me. You knew Nancy Klune understood the heartbreak from her own experience when you read this book. I read or listen to her book every day to get me through. I can’t tell you the comfort this brings me. Best book on the subject. Nancy includes personal experiences, good ideas how to cope and inspirational quotes. This book is the best book on estrangement on the subject. Can’t imagine a better one. I carry this everywhere. Like having a friend that understands right with me!

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3 people found this helpful

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    4 out of 5 stars
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    4 out of 5 stars
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    4 out of 5 stars

I can really relate to all of this book mostly but

I'm sorry to say this but the reading of the book was a bit too slow and dull; or monotone? It's just that the book is so long so to keep me from not falling asleep, the voice and speed could have been just a bit different; but that also is a small personal preference that probably varies per person. There was so much great personal experiences explained and discussed that were so much like my own. I wish it did not dwell mostly on just grandchildren and grandparents issues but more equally on adult children estrangement but it still all worked and was relatable for me. I loved all the wonderful quotes. I appreciate that you offered this book as an audiobook since I don't like to read books. Now, my biggest problem that really angered me and frustrated me was the music between each chapter. I really did not like it at all and it was too loud as well, but the music just played too long into the beginning and at the end. I'm sorry, just my opinion about something that bothered me.

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2 people found this helpful

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    4 out of 5 stars
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    4 out of 5 stars
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    4 out of 5 stars

Consistency of advice

I liked how the author uses her own experience and examples with honesty and courage.

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    5 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars

Awesome guide to finding, loving, and validating yourself!

This was an awesome guide on what you may going through; telling of her own experience with disassociation of your adult children and grandchildren. She gives so much insight and suggestions of how you can build yourself up and come to acceptance and move on as best you can.

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  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
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    4 out of 5 stars

Letting go

I liked the book. Give you hope to having a good life even without you children and grandchildren.

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  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars

If you have been banished from your adult child’s life and the grandchildren this book is for you

I found this author so helpful and thoughtful in every single word that she spoke.It’s a emotional,painful and heartbreaking journey to be on when you are alienated from your grandchildren and your adult child is allowing it to happen.This author understands that immense sadness and grief and confusion that goes with it .Do you beg to see the grandchildren,?do you just walk around your home crying all day from the pain of it all ? How can you survive it if you’re not able to fix it or beg for reconciliation? Do you even want reconciliation if you have been treated so poorly for years and years ? So many emotions and this author talks about every single one.She has a great speaking voice so she was very easy to understand and listen to .I found this book gave me peace and comfort and for that I’m very grateful.Sorry to all and to the author who is going through this difficult time of heart shattering devastation,it’s something I wouldn’t wish on my worst enemy.May we all find healing and peace

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  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars

Down into the Abyss

Never in a million years would I have fathomed that my husband and I would find ourselves banished and discarded by our oldest adult daughter. Blindsided would be an understatement. Thank goodness for this book, however, with its purposeful insight and words of wisdom and encouragement. It has been the hardest thing I have had to endure and has caused me unimaginable heartache but somehow I find myself able to put one foot ahead of the other and take this one day at a time. I purchased the hard copy of the book as well so that I can use it as a helpful reference. My heart goes out to all who have been exiled and discarded. No one deserves this kind of abuse.

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  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
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    3 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars

I needed this book!

Though our stories aren't the same, there was enough to feel like I had written chunks of it myself. What I so desperately needed in the other books I read was this writing style and not 100 more pages on each "chapter". I definitely needed how she was cool the whole book through and was not being snide or sarcastic. i needed how she described in detail how this tears you apart. I needed her to not be flippant and act like it's easy to move on and shrug it off. How i need to find a new identity other than mom and just not try. I don't care that so many boys do this to their moms, my boys were so loved and therefore not supposed to, right? I don't want to hear that stuff.

I have three sons who all stopped talking to me a few years ago. They've gas lighted and abused me. They remember things that just aren't true or too twisted to fit their narrative. I'm 99% certain this was caused by parent (and other close adults) alienation. Now my oldest has decided he's withholding his daughter as she grows. I was a day away from dying in November and one son didn't even call. One came and cried with me, but since I lived, he's abandoned me again. One was trying to get military leave from Africa, but I lived. Now he says he just didn't think anyone should die alone and he doesn't care now (I don't know what I did to get that comment). I believe I disappointed everyone because I didn't die, myself included. I often feel like I don't have a reason to stay.

As for this Audible, like others I struggled with the style choice to play music and the narration. It could have been an even shorter book because the quotes were excessive!

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  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
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    4 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars

Helpful for the grief period

I really enjoyed hearing this book (the music not so much).

It really was inspirational for the grieving process.

After nine years, I have been through the whole cycle and am really surprised to have made it through.

Every day they are still in my thoughts and prayers.

Unfortunately, I am at a point of indifference to my son and his wife and also sadly realize that I no longer know these children I loved so much since birth.

I’d like to say I haven’t lost hope to ever be in their lives one day, but that is how I now feel (if even only to protect my heart).

I am working hard on the forgiveness part, but for now, I am not at that point.

I did appreciate the book and quotes and helpful advice for going through this awful process!

I have now purchased the actual book to place in the bin I keep for my grandchildren…..just in case “one day” comes.

Thank you for this book.

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