post estrangement: Living with a Broken Heart

I always follow support groups for parents that have been estranged. One reason is that only a parent who has suffered the agonies of being abandoned understands what I feel and to know that someone understands makes me feel less alone.

Secondly, I like the questions that get posted because they remind me to stay strong and focus on my quest to struggle towards healing.

The question that caught my attention recently was: "Can you live with a broken heart?"

All of us that have been estranged do in fact live with a broken heart. The deeper question is does the suffering get any easier?  

In the process of healing I have taken to doing lots of reading. Reading for me is a source of solace, and inspiration and thoughts and ideas that I can apply to my life as I strive to regroup and rebuild my life.  In the process I have come to the conclusion that;  "Yes you can live with a broken heart" but you have to work very hard to live "well" with a broken heart.

I think that typical literature on the "broken hearted" is about romantic love.  Romantic love is between two people who meet and feel a connection. They feel sorrow when that connection does not work out and they need to heal from their heart break to be ready to try again for that romantic someone special in their lives. 

This does not translate very well into the feelings of parental love.  First of all, you can't have a falling out with your child and then heal and go on to another relationship.  When a parent child bond is broken there is no replacement. 

Secondly parental love goes so much deeper and our heart strings are attached in mysterious ways to our offspring. There is a biological bond that nature created in us to nurture and love our offspring.  This biology is what ensures the survival of the species.  This is a primal love, that when we first experience it overwhelms our senses.  I will never forget the glow of love I first felt at the birth of each of my children. The intensity of that feeling took my breathe away and even now remembering that first bonding moment I can reconnect to the powerful emotion of love and desire to care for and protect and nurture.  One does not forget that feeling ever!

As our children grow up this love moves beyond simple caring for and nurturing and beyond all our fears it allows us to let them spread their wings, to learn and explore. It helps us to encourage them to become independent adults.  We go from seeing them at their most vulnerable as infants, to staunchly protecting their own points of view and rights. 

And through it all our love expands to include all of their characteristics, their flaws as well as all their good points. We love unconditionally all that our children are and everything they are not.

Estrangement changes something vital in our relationship with our adult child.  Their actions speak loudly that we are not loved in return. We are told about all of our imperfections and these become the reason for our being abandoned.  We, who accepted all their shortcomings as a testament of our love for our children, learn that their love has conditions attached. 

This hurts us unbearably and yet we want to love them in spite of the pain they cause us.  We grieve the loss of them in our lives and at the same time would gladly forgive them and take them back because they are our children. 

The early stages of grieving involve all the usual steps of dealing with grief but we become stuck sooner or later in the knowing that there is no resolution to a grief that is in essence ongoing.  You don't stop grieving for someone who is still alive.  You move through grief into acceptance and you work your way through healing and living again but that which was broken remains broken.  That connection that we thought of as enduring through all time remains enduring for us because we don't stop being parents.

We can reclaim our lives but we can't erase that being a parent has changed us. We can fill our lives with new meanings but we can't shut out all those years of loving. 

Healing from our broken heart is a very different journey than recovering from a romantic broken heart because the nature of our connection to our offspring is so different in its origin and our heartstrings will most likely always be attached to some degree to our adult children even when they treat us poorly.

So how do you heal your broken heart?  You accept that most likely you never will.  What you learn to do instead is how to live with a heart that has been broken.

The first step is making a decision that you will.  That you choose to live.

For many of us there are days when we would just as soon not live. When you go to bed at night and pray "Lord let me not wake up in the morning".  Or when you wake up in the morning and you say "Lord, why did you not take me in my sleep?"

The decision comes to us at different times that this is no way to live. Those are the days you decide that maybe living in grief is no longer an option.  In the early stages this feeling comes and goes.  Then gradually over time you have more and more days when you choose to live again.  Not because the pain is any less, but because you decide that you deserve better, that you deserve a good life even though....
I think what is different for us parents surviving estrangement is that every day we must make choices that reflect our decision to move on. We do not stop grieving but we learn to not let our grief colour every moment of our lives. 

You don't wake up one morning "all better".  You work hard toward healing.  Every day is another opportunity to heal. Every day is another day to choose to live in spite of having a broken heart.

I think what many of us sometimes shy away from is that fact that living with a broken heart is hard work.  On a bad day it is so easy to say "why do I have to work so hard to create joy in my life".  But there is always the knowledge that if you don't do the work you will be right back in the pit of sorrow and despair.

For me I have just passed the 6 years estranged mark.  I have come to realize, and accept, that every day I need to start with certain thoughts and reflections just to get my day going in the right direction.  I have certain rituals that I perform each day upon awaking that set the tone for my day. And on my successful days I have an almost normal day. 

There are still trigger thoughts and certain days that trigger certain memories that easily catapult me into a downward spiral.  I have contingency plans in place now, sort of a "go to manual" to build a bridge back toward equilibrium.

photo by Christine Glade

I hold my broken heart gently and try to be understanding and loving to myself when the pain resurfaces.

So what does change over time?

The times of overwhelming sorrow happen less often and the recovery times become shorter.  There is a learning curve and as the skills you use to heal become second nature, you apply them sooner and prevent the downward spiral from escalating.

You remain aware of the ache in your heart, it is never far from your thoughts, but the choices you make allow you to live a full, active and love filled life.  The challenge is to make those choices that give you that freedom. 

Renate Dundys Marrello 

2015 - 09 - 08

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Reflection on Estrangement by guest author Nina Wornham

photo by Thodoris Tzalavras

Once again I am delighted to share a wonderful article on the topic of estrangement.  Many words of wisdom here.  I especially love; 

"What will happen to our adult children in the future when they wake up and realise they have chosen to make themselves orphans 
disconnected from their roots?"

Family alienation, Estrangement & Being Cut Off
by Nina Wornham. 

Last year when I began researching the topic of estrangement, there was little out there on the internet other than a deafening silence. I may have made mistakes as a parent but I know I did my best. Being snubbed, left out of important events, discredited and cut off from both my adult children for several years, I knew I did not deserve such treatment especially after I had given money and other help along with all the sacrifices most parents make. On the occasional forum, I observed a handful of posts written by shy parents fearful of the shame of being judged if they opened up and poured their hearts out.

In only a year, how things have changed. The floodgates are open as parents who have been cut off by adult children now openly tell of the daily heartbreak and pain in which they exist. Their bonds cruelly severed after being disowned, cast out and left out in the cold by the very people they gave birth to, the ‘tribe’ to which they belong.

Greeted by only an invisible wall of silence, they are cruelly and dismally left emotionally stranded. Uninvited to all the important occasions a parent looks forward to but are made painfully aware of through social media such as Facebook, they are unable to collect their natural heritage of precious memories. 

Excluded from the essence of family life, deprived of any sense of belonging, they are denied the opportunity of being part of the family they gave birth to. 

This often includes grandchildren as the aggrieved adult children force their own children to live their grievances, deprive them of belonging to a wider family and also deprive them of knowing their own gene pool. The long term consequences of such action can only be disastrous for all concerned especially for the grandchildren who by nature will at some point want to reconnect with their own roots.

At first it’s easy to imagine that this newly emerging social ill only exists as a result of divorced families, but it’s more than apparent that estrangement affects even the most solid, nuclear married families too. Alienation and estrangement are not biased, they can arrive within seconds of any kind of dispute where the word that lands out of a loving parent’s mouth has been NO or ‘I don’t agree’.

Stories of endless sacrifice where parents often did two jobs to cover the bills, gave up careers, borrowed money to pay off their adult child’s debts, paid for them to attend university and gain degrees, free childminding service, taxi service, free banking, loans that never got paid back, undisputed accusations, character assassinations, emotional blackmail, threats, discrediting their lives and achievements when the answer was still NO and then creating a smear campaign to make the parents look wrong to cover up the adult child’s reasons for ‘unfriending’ and casting out a devoted parent or parents into an emotionally bleak existence.

After years of servitude and sacrifice, magical Christmas mornings, birthday parties, trips away, never a forgotten special moment, estranged parents in their 1,000’s now face Christmas and birthdays alone without a card or any kind of explanation.

Meanwhile, all over the internet, messages abound, ‘stay away from toxic people’, ‘walk away from negative people’, ‘don’t give a care for anyone but yourself’, ‘only YOU matter’.

It’s easy to see where the attitude of selfishness and the right to be ‘right’ lays. 

The influence to be ‘your own individual and ignore everyone who dares to offend you’ is mind blowingly clear. Yet human beings rarely succeed as individuals on their own. They always operate better when they feel connected within a group.

But things are changing. A new voice is emerging and it’s an angry voice. It’s the voice of a responsible public, many are parents who have given their best only to find themselves rejected when they can no longer live up to the expectation of their adult children. They want to know what happened to loyalty, compassion, tolerance, discussion, and most of all, they want to know why?

No longer are the experts laying the blame at the door of the parents. There are too many of us. Something else in our modern world is blatantly wrong.
Why does the word ‘rights’ not equate to responsibility? Why is the word ‘entitlement’ one sided?

Why is estrangement a secret? Who wins from being estranged? What will happen to our adult children in the future when they wake up and realise they have chosen to make themselves orphans disconnected from their roots?

The parents will and are coping by coming together in their masses to share their stories and support each other. We’ve all been through loss and chaos before, we have coping strategies. We know how to survive the curved balls life has so often thrown at us. We’re surviving now.

But we’re not even concerned with ourselves. Our hearts still look out for our children. Their behaviour is guaranteed to bring them nothing but failure in future years. Estrangement is failure. 

While they may believe their actions are justified in their 20’s and 30’s, what happens when they meet life in their 40’s and 50’s? They've trashed their family connections, blown up their bridges, burned their parents in anger and rage because of some perceived injustice that they just can’t get over and ripped the family apart till it no longer exists.

What then for our adult children?

Written by Nina Wornham. Copyright 2014.

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Post Estrangement: Dealing with the "secret"

Walking the solitary path 

As so often happens I read something posted by another parent in distress and it triggers thoughts within me.

Today's post started with this statement: 

"Someone should study the effects of estrangement / alienation on the parents, 

especially the toll on physical and mental health."

There seems to be so very very little on this topic.

We parents that have been abandoned flounder around looking for help to deal with this trauma. As often as not we are blamed and shamed for being in this predicament.

There is tons of stuff for children that have been abused, spouses that have been abused, people that have been bullied, etc.

• But where is stuff on the parent that is abused by their adult children?
• How do we deal with the narcissistic adult offspring that bullies us?
• Where do we turn for help with our trauma?

We form secret support groups because we live in fear not only of the offspring that abuse us but also of the social repercussions from others who always seem to assume that we must have done something wrong as a parent.

Sometimes I feel that this lack of support is almost as detrimental to my mental health as the actual estrangement itself.  To a degree I live with a constant nagging fear in the back of my mind. Who to tell? or How much do I tell?   Surly I have enough self-doubt and self-blame I don't need others adding to the burden.  

And so, other than here in my blog, I rarely talk about "IT".  The big "secret" in my life.  And yet 

• "IT" is always in the room with me.  
• "IT" is always present in my life, 
• "IT casts a shadow over all the other wonderful things I do.  

Why?  Because "IT"  happened and nothing I do, or think or say changes the fact that "IT" is a reality in my life. "IT" is a burden that I bear much as we bear any other burden in life.

But there is a huge difference!

Most burdens we ease by sharing with a friend. We commiserate as we share our sorrows.  In the act of confiding in a friend we find solace and sympathy and understanding.  And we take up our burden and move forward.

When estranged, all of that changes.  Who do I trust? Who can I trust? And can I withstand being once more rejected and put down by yet one more person who decided they have the moral right to blame me?

In the case of being estrangement by an adult child we face the following truths:

• our offspring blame and shame us
• many of our friends disbelieve our innocence
• hardly anyone in the psychiatric world recognizes our predicament
• we are outcast and vulnerable and hurting and ALONE

Some days I think that this "aloneness" is as debilitating as the estrangement itself.

We end up trolling all kinds of self-help forums trying to understand the personalities of our offspring, why they behave the way they do, to try to get some kind of closure for a situation that really has no closure.

Many of us have all kinds of symptoms, our health is affected, we acquire fears and phobias, we end up trying to self-diagnose, because when we reach out for help we are often shut down or told we are to blame.

Most of us end up resorting to self-treatment because of the lack of compassion and awareness around us. When even councilors have been known to turn to us and say "it must have been your fault" where do you turn?

• There is a lack of professional awareness of our predicament.  
• There is a lack of social awareness of our fate. 

And so we struggle with so many more issues that just being estranged.  And as time passes I realize that the fact of the estrangement itself has less effect upon me than the social ostracization.   The burden I still carry, even as I heal, is this feeling of not really belonging, of being on the outside looking in.

Every time I watch "families" interact I am made aware of what I don't have and that I "don't belong".  That if I told my "secret" I would be shunned yet again.

This always holding in is not healthy.  Emotions build up inside without a release valve.  And where do they go?  If not careful they turn inward and you end up with another bout of self-blame and you suffer a setback on to your journey toward healing.

No wonder healing takes so very very long.

My hope is that the time will come that society recognizes that parent abuse via the act of estrangement and alienation is as real as any of the other abuses that have been brought into the light of social consciousness.

Renate Dundys Marrello 

2015 - 08 - 14

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Post Estrangement - Filling the Emptiness

Today I saw a statement on the support group page:

“Sometimes the inner loneliness and 

the emptiness feels too great to handle.”

This resonated with me,  I well remember that feeling and I realize that this is something we all share, this empty space inside.

• Our past has been invalidated
• Our usefulness has been derided
• Our value as a person has been denigrated
• Our role as parent has been negated
• Our love has been rejected
• Our connection with grandchildren destroyed
• Our emotional selves have been emptied by lies and gossip

When so much has been stolen from us by the estrangers, we are left feeling like an empty vessel.  There is a vast empty hole inside as we face life after estrangement.

• We deal with the emotions of grieving, knowing at the same time that there is no closure.
  
• We learn things we never expected to learn
  
• We handle situations we never expected to face
  
• We survive what at the time feels un-survivable.

• We struggle through each day just barely managing the overwhelming emotions that are released with each thought and each memory and even actions in the present that remind us of what has been destroyed.

And then there comes the day when we realize that there is a huge hole right in the middle of our being that has been left vacant by all that has been stolen from us.

• That numbness that comes with accepting that things can never go back to how they were.
• That knowledge that the love we thought would fill us and sustain us into old age is gone
• The acceptance that reconciliation is highly unlikely and even if it is possible, so much has changed that it can never be what it was.

That is when we come face to face with “the emptiness” or what I have learned to call the sense of “loss of purpose”

• The challenge is to take proactive steps to fill that empty space with new and different things. 
  
• The predicament is to find a way to find a new purpose, at a time in life when we did not expect to have to start all over again.
  
• The conundrum is that who we are now is so wrapped up in our role as parent that the “who else are we” eludes us.
  
• The quandary is finding ourselves again, the "who we were before we became parents"
  
• The dilemma is where to find the energy to start a process we never expected to need to take when our emotional resources are at an all-time low and the very people we anticipated support from have abandoned us.

This restructuring of our lives requires effort on our part which sometimes seems to take more emotional energy than we have.  

The good news is that every time you take a baby step to fill that emptiness with something you love and enjoy you heal a tiny bit more.

• Pick up that old hobby you used to love,
• Get a pet
• Do volunteer work
• Allow new friendships into your life,
• Read positive self-help books
• Study and learn new things

These are all little things that change us from the empty space outward.

We learn that it is in what we choose to do for ourselves that re-ignites the passion within. 

These are all options that are open to us as long as we are willing to try.  

These are things we do to honour ourselves and rebuild. 

In the process we slowly heal, the emptiness gets smaller and we are rewarded with the knowledge that we have more strength and more power than we imagined.

Finding the purpose in your life post estrangement is the road you travel to fill the emptiness.   It is not an easy road to travel but the rewards are well worth the struggle. 

Renate Dundys Marrello

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Post Estrangement - What Happens When We Take Back Our Power?

Change is just around the corner....
Photoart by Renate Dundys Marrello 

The terms for renewing a relationship change the longer the estrangement lasts.  

In the beginning, we would be willing to do almost anything even grovel and beg for a morsel of connection with our estranging adult offspring.

Then as we heal we learn that we should not be expected to grovel. 

Renewed self-respect teaches us that to grovel is to be subjugated and powerless.  

No relationship between equals 

is meant to be so unequal.  

So what happens when we take our power back?  

What changes when we refuse to be emotionally manipulated anymore?  

What happens when they discover we no longer are willing to grovel and beg for their affection?

I believe that this change in us; more than any of the original grudges or complaints from the past, continues to keep them away.

How can they come back to a relationship where they are no longer in control?  After all the reason so many of them estrange us in the first place is to exert control over us.  

• Their words and / or actions said "do things the way I demand or else".  
• How many of us were given an "ultimatum"  to follow their rules?  
• How many of us were told what we HAD TO DO to meet the criterion for being accepted into their lives?  
• How many of us were left feeling that we are being punished for going against something they wanted, expected, assumed was their right?  
• How many of us have felt that we were being co-erced / blackmailed into giving them something they wanted in exchange for the "privileged" of being allowed into their lives? 

So by being estranged we are suffering the consequences of their punishment.  Their control over us is emotionally punishing us for not giving them what they demanded.  And this control lasts until we recognize that this is not right!

When we say no that is not how a mature relationship is managed we change!  

When we say out loud and vocally, no this is not how I will allow myself to be treated, they have a new excuse to stay away. Now we are a threat to their power balance. Now their new excuse to continue the estrangement is "you have changed".  And we have!   

Because of their actions, we have been to hell and back again!  

• That process, the grief and the healing, both change who we are.  
• The process teaches us about boundaries that protect our well-being and our emotional health. 
• The process teaches us about personality types and character disturbances and other emotional manipulators. 
• The process toughens us up (what does not kill you makes you stronger.

This journey forces us, out of necessity, to grow and change. And the biggest, most changing thing we learn is that we can't allow ourselves to be emotionally abused and blackmailed and maintain our integrity and self-respect!  We have to choose.  And when we choose personal integrity and self respect the dynamics change! 

How can a bully, used to manipulating and controlling through emotional blackmail, come back to a relationship where they no longer get to be the bully?  How can they come back where they no longer have the power of fear over us?

I think this healing transformation angers those who use the threat of shunning and rejection to estrange and control us. I think that as we heal they start to see us as a threat to their power over us.  

• As we get stronger their ability to control and manipulate us diminishes. 
• As we take back our power and our right to a good life with good friends and good interactions they lose the power of punishing us by controlling our sorrow. 
• As we no longer allow bullying and emotional abuse to affect us they can no longer cause us pain. 

Their strength lies in the amount of pain they can inflict upon our lives.  

When we heal to the point where their actions no longer leave us curled up in emotional agony they have no more power over us. When we cut the emotional strings they use to manipulate and control our feelings we are no longer their puppet and we become free. 

I have reached that point.  It is liberating!  Her actions no longer cause me pain!  In fact her latest act of rejection made me laugh because it was so transparent and pathetic.  Now that I see so clearly the intent of the action for what it is, an attempt to inflict pain, it no longer has that effect!  Here she was hoping to cause me pain and instead I laughed at her pathetic effort to try to emotionally manipulate me yet again.  

• Learning has taught me to understand and how to interpret these actions of emotional abuse. 
• Knowledge of how manipulative people use these various tactics to hurt others no longer has the hurtful impact upon me that they used to have! 
• Now that these actions and behaviours have been revealed to me as tools used to inflict confusion and pain upon others, they no longer have the same power they once had to hurt me.
• The Emperor is not wearing any clothes! 

And as I laugh I am able to feel compassion for a person that feels the need to play such games to bolster their ego.  Even as I acknowledge that what is being done is morally wrong I can feel sorry for the person that is reduced to taking those kinds of actions to bandage an un-meet need in their lives.

Knowledge is indeed power.
Knowledge has set me free. 

Renate Dundys Marrello 

2015 - 08 - 02 

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Is there a Gossip behind your Estrangement?

I think that for most of my life I was too naïve, to my detriment, I am sad to report.  I had no idea the evil that can be perpetrated by those who use gossip as their tool for control and manipulation.  I thought, erroneously, that since I would never spread vicious lies about others in the form of gossip that others would be equally conscientious. How wrong I was!

I personally now believe that gossip is evil, and that there are people who use gossip as a tool to destroy lives.  And even if you don’t believe that there are people with evil intentions, you do know the gossip has evil consequences.

I have heard hundreds of stories now from estranged parents and I am convinced that in every story, if you scratch the surface just a bit, you discover a “Gossip.”  In every story there is someone who takes a kernel of truth and twists it and distorts it and wraps it up in well-meaning and sympathetic phrases to convince the listener that their target (the victim) is a horrible, demented, emotionally disturbed individual. And heaven forbid the victim respond with anger to the slanderous things being said about them behind their back and in such a way that they never have a chance to defend themselves.  That righteous anger is now used as proof of their unbalanced personality.

In my own story, my daughter and I never had any major problems in our lives that could not be solved by talking it out until this person came into our lives that changed the easy going dynamic that we had.  With a smile on her face, and rational explanations she convinced my daughter that I was emotionally disturbed, unbalanced, unhinged, incapable of making choices and decisions, unable to do my job, and even a disaster as a parent.  She shaped my daughter’s view point to such a degree that the end result was estrangement.  In my heart I am convinced that without the interference of this evil person my daughter and I would still have a strong and close relationship.

For me it took working with a therapist to recognize the evil that had been perpetrated against me.   When I thought that maybe I was as “crazy’ as they told me I was; I needed the help of my therapist to learn that no, I wasn’t crazy.  I felt the way I did because of what was done to me.  The clever tactics to undermine my perception of reality (gaslighting) and the shunning were two of the most obvious.

I also learned about character disturbed people, and that they enjoy causing others pain and yes they know what they are doing!   But that is another blog topic.

I firmly believe that most problems; under normal situations, can be talked through and worked through.  But the gossip is so intent upon being right that they make it impossible for communication to take place.  They convince others to not give the victim an opportunity to clear their name.  That is why the silent treatment is used.  It prevents communication from happening.  Communication implies hearing the other side of the story and that implies that the lies might be revealed!  As long as there is no communication the lies are safe!  The gossip makes sure to say whatever they must to convince their target to not give you the chance to explain your side of the story.  You must be kept out of the loop at all costs.  Just look at the family and friends that now join in shunning you.  What have they been told to keep them from asking your point of view? And notice how the ones who do hear your side of the story are now suddenly shunned also!

Is there a Gossip behind your Estrangement?

So now, with your eyes wide open, look at your own story.  Is it your child that, as an adult, has become the gossip, spreading lies and half-truths dressed up as damning evidence as to why you can’t be in their lives?

Or is the gossip someone close to your adult child, like an ex-spouse, a daughter or son in law, a mother or father in law, a friend of the family, an acquaintance, a work associate? 

Take a look.  Who is spreading the stories and the lies behind your back and serving it up as the truth?   Who is convincing your child to believe all the worst about you?  

Renate Dundys Marrello 

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Post Estrangement - How Can One Learn to Laugh Again?

Today there was a question in my inbox from a reader.  She asks, “I want to know how one can learn to laugh again?”

I sat with the question for a while, because I have walked that path and had to learn to find joy again.  But because the journey is such a personal one and such a difficult one I also did not want to create a false illusion about the nature of that journey.  Here is the answer I finally sent.

There is no short cut is the best advice I can give you.  It is a deliberate step by step choice you make each and every day to heal.

You have to work through each emotion, each feeling and resolve each one for yourself.

I found joining a PTSD support web page very beneficial for me.  There were always tips and advice about how to take a trauma and change and heal after trauma.  Actions to take now, to not let the trauma define the rest of my life.

I found meditation and gratitude to be helpful

I found resources that helped me to work on my self-confidence and self-esteem helpful.

I found dealing with co-dependent issues helpful

I found dealing with past issues in my life that I just sort of swept under the carpet because "things were okay" to be helpful.

Basically you make your own future by the choices you make each and every day.

I have been on a "healing rampage" for almost 2 years now.

Am I there yet?  NO.

Am I closer than I was 2 years ago?  FOR SURE!

Do I laugh now!   Yes I do have joy in my life.

Am I finished with the sorrow!  No there are still days when I feel the need to rant and cry and scream, "why is this happening to me?"

Is there hope that my new purpose in life will sustain me?

Definitely.

Will I ever be completely free of the effects of the trauma?

Unlikely, it is a part of who I am now.

I hope this helps you on your own healing journey quest.

Renate Dundys Marrello

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