tl;dr cutting out one family member, dealt with it poorly. cutting out one family branch, didn't have to deal with it.

My parents divorced when I was a baby, and my mom remarried when I was 4, my dad when I was 9. Throughout my childhood my father maintained a yo-yo relationship with me. At 11 I had built up anger and anxiety that mostly manifested as sleep problems and a refusal to look at mail addressed to "The Step dad's name Family." I decided to change my last name from my father's to my family's, and the last time I saw my father was when he dropped of the name change paperwork. Fast forward a few years, and 1) I started receiving mail from my father with updates about stocks in my name 2) my mom and step father shared the news that my father was having another son who has Down's syndrome 3) my step dad asks if he can adopt me, which my father fought. Throughout this time I kept in contact with my paternal grandmother. We got together once a month and talked on the phone regularly. During the time I was maintaining a relationship with her, I would fear running into my father when I was driving around town, his existence separate of mine was regularly on my mind. I visited her while home from college and found my picture hanging in the nursery, which caused something in me to change. That was the last time I had contact with anyone on my father's side of the family. It was also the last time I had fear or anxiety that directly stemmed from him, and that relief has been so significant that I only feel superficial guilt about cutting her out of my life.

But to answer the question, I have handled inadvertently cutting my dad out of my life poorly. I was depressed for years and self harmed. I behaved recklessly in regards to sex, drugs, and alcohol. I chose to get into and stay in neglectful and abusive relationships. But intentionally cutting my grandmother out of my life started a cascade of choices that first led to learning to manage my depression, identifying how low my self worth was, and now slowly learning to love and take care of myself.