On Estrangement
“I miss you and I am here when you’re ready to work on this”
Is all I can say in the rare texts I am sending these days. Sometimes our love is not enough. Sometimes our folks that we care about just choose to sit elsewhere. Sometimes they make it our fault that they are making that choice. Sometimes they need stories that make us the villain so that they can keep making the same choices.
I am in my villain era in many of my relationships right now. I am experiencing long term estrangement for the first time. And it feels like sitting on a cold bench all alone with nothing but the layers you chose before you knew how cold it was outside.
Maybe if I am kind enough. Maybe if I am smart enough. Maybe if I am more direct. Maybe if I am more clear. Maybe if I play their game and act how they want me to. All sentiments I have run over and over in my mind.
But we keep getting hurt. We keep telling them we are hurt. And we keep getting hurt.
We may start to ask ourselves, “what is wrong with me?”
On childhood wounding:
A critical parent’s voice, becomes a shaming and jugemental inner critic to the child that endures it. When a parent abuses or neglects a child, the child doesn’t hate the parent, they hate themselves. This is an adaptive coping skill that helps the child survive the dynamics of their family of origin. If the child is blaming themselves, they get to feel a sense of control and live with the idea that their parents are good.
Parents and caregivers serve as a microcosm for the world to the child. Therefore, if my parents are good, the world is safe.
If I am bad, I have some control over that. If it’s me that’s bad, I can find a way to be good.
This turns into an adult that is forever pleasing. This adult may hide parts of themselves, experiences they have had, interests they pursue, plans and goals they have for themselves, that their parents (and therefore the world) would find displeasing in some wayl. This creates adults that find themselves in codependent or abusive relationships trying to correct the blueprint that was handed to them.
What happens when the people pleasing child becomes the resentful adult? What happens when this adult wakes up to the ways in which others have hurt them? What happens when this adult begins to set boundaries in the hopes that their parent or former caregiver will try to love them in a better way? Only to have the parent choose to continue the abuse/negelct that was perpetuated in childhood?
What choice does this person have?
“In a 2023 study of parent and adult child estrangement published in the Journal of Marriage and Family, researchers looked at a nationally representative sample of parents, which included 8,495 mothers and 8,119 fathers, to determine estrangement rates according to gender, race, and sexuality. The study found that 6% of respondents reported an estrangement from their mother, while 26% reported an estrangement from their father.”
Source: https://www.apa.org/monitor/2024/04/healing-pain-estrangement
When I speak to clients and people in my personal life about estrangement, there are several things I hear over and over:
I have tried everything I know to do
I sent letters, text messages, emails, trying to explain what I needed
There has been a complete denial of my experience
They think and have expressed to me that I am crazy and that what I experienced did not happen to me
There is no accountability OR
There is apology but no changed behavior
I used to think my childhood wasn’t that bad compared to others, but I keep finding myself in the same situations
It’s not about the past, its about how they treat me now
This is not an exhaustive list but it does include a lot of the themes of my work with folks on dealing with their family of origin trauma. Estrangement is not the easy solution to these issues. In fact, most adults that are estranged from a family member feel tremendous pain in the separation.
Grieving someone who is still alive is no easy task. Saying no to any potential support or benefit of the relationship in service of self love is very very difficult. Sitting alone on the bench is uncomfortable, cold, lonely, and dark at times.
There is no way to take away the pain that an adult child feels at the loss of a parental relationship, but there is a way to integrate that reality. During times of no contact, it is important to work on healing the wounds that were created in childhood and perpetuated in adulthood. This can shift how we see ourselves, our experiences and our current relationships.