Most stories about family abuse end with distance or estrangement. Emmy-winning filmmaker Gayle Kirschenbaum chose a different, far more complicated path: forgiveness.
That decision didn’t just heal her; it transformed an entire relationship.
Photo credit: Gayle Kirschenbaum
Kirschenbaum grew up dealing with relentless abuse from her mother, Mildred, enduring years of criticism, control issues, and psychological harm. The common advice would have been to walk away. Instead, Kirschenbaum chose the far more difficult route to connect with her mother, to understand, to repair.
Of course, there were boundaries, accountability, and years of hard inner work. But today, Kirschenbaum and her mother, Mildred, are close. They travel together. They speak together. They even write together. And Mildred, now 102, is an unlikely social media star.
Kirschenbaum’s new memoir, Bullied to Besties: A Daughter’s Journey to Forgiveness, goes far beyond the viral headline. It reveals what forgiveness actually looks like over decades, not as a tidy resolution, but as a lived, imperfect process that reshaped Kirschenbaum’s mental health, identity, and family life. The book builds on her award-winning documentary, Look At Us Now, Mother!, and tells the full story of what came after the cameras stopped rolling.
This isn’t a feel-good reunion story. It offers a rare alternative to the growing “cut them off” narrative and speaks to people who are trying to heal family wounds without losing themselves.
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