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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Post Estrangement - Coping Strategies - guest author Nina Wornham

I am devoting today's blog to my fellow author Nina!  

Here is her excellent post on "Coping Strategies" 

Coping Strategies 
by Nina Wornham

In Cognitive Behavior Therapy, the process of understanding our responses to various situations is best described as a triangle of having a thought that leads to a feeling which leads to a behaviour.

Therefore how we think directly relates to how we feel and then how we respond.

It's been said that shunning and cutting off another human being is down to passive rage. But so far no one knows why.

When I began researching estrangement almost 2 years ago, there was nothing on the internet except a silent wall of shame. I noticed the occasional parent had made a veiled comment but apart from this, estrangement was a mystery. I had a hard time finding anything concrete about the topic which is why I started this group.

Parents felt it was only happening to them and because of this they felt that they'd somehow failed.

They thought if they openly revealed their situation they would be judged and made to feel worse so they said nothing and hid away suffering in silence instead.

Slowly the floodgates began to open and while the finger naturally pointed at blaming the parents originally, even the few experts that were noticing the rise in EC cutting their parents off, began to realise that it couldn't be a simple case of just blaming the parents. Something else was wrong.

Today, the internet is overflowing with parents sharing their concerns and stories about their children estranging from them. A tide has turned, the stigma has retreated and now it's out in the open appearing somewhat worryingly as a new trend.

No one knows why. No one knows what's breaking the glue that bonds a child to their parents.

Originally divorce was an issue but even the traditional married parents that have sacrificed everything are finding their children are ditching them without a backward glance.

I have a retail business and hear it regularly from my customers. Respectable, solid, upstanding people that have been devoted parents only to watch their relationship with their children fall apart over the most minor issue such as not agreeing to a request, saying no to a loan, having a different opinion or simply not being available to babysit.

It's staggering the wrath that the adult child can inflict on a non compliant parent.

The few 'experts' that there are on estrangement, (I don't think there are any), are baffled. If they don't know, we're not going to know either. The whole thing is mind boggling.

There are obvious indicators such as parental alienation, we know this is a major problem in severing a child's loyalty and affection to another parent.

But it's hard to guess what other factors are involved in encouraging our Adult Children to make such drastic decisions when they cut contact with their parents. It's tragic because not only are the parents isolated and estranged, the Adult Child is also cut off and estranged although this probably won't dawn on them until much later in life if the estrangement continues.

What can you do? Immediately, there isn't much you can do if you've tried to resolve the issue without any progress. All you can do is learn how to manage and cope with the fallout of being estranged hence the reason for (support) groups.

One thing I would advise is not to get into right fighting (I'm right no matter what!), or a power struggle to control the situation. This only polarizes the situation further. I have listened to my daughter scream abuse at me and rant many times. I have stopped defending myself or trying to reason with her. Instead I've recognized that she has an anger problem and when she vents her anger onto me, I walk away. This kills the argument.

Many EC are angry and while they may feel justified in being angry, it may not be you that's made them angry. They've simply chosen to direct their anger towards you either by shunning and ignoring you or by sending you rage filled vents in emails.

Either way, one thing you can do is refuse to be on the receiving end of their anger. You do have power in this sense.

Listen to them by all means but don't be a verbal punch bag. Staying calm, explain to them that you love them and that you want to listen and make progress but they have to communicate with you calmly and in a civil manner.

Too often we get browbeaten into a position of being submissive and because we're parents, we accept a lot, far more than others would. Our love for our children and our emotional attachment often means we allow them to treat us unfairly. This is perhaps our downfall. They get used to treating us in this way and by accepting it, it creates a pattern of how we ourselves expect to be treated. This is not a healthy relationship and we need to resist the urge to tolerate this dysfunction simply to be on speaking terms with our children.

One coping strategy is to develop a healthy expectation of what you will tolerate (within reason).

Being yelled at, blamed, threatened or held to ransom is not acceptable. If you can learn to walk away from this kind of unhealthy treatment, or at least erect a mental barrier from it, you start to move the relationship onto a new footing even if it seems you are as far away as ever from a solution.

By setting down a boundary of expecting to be spoken to and treated with the same level of fairness and civility as anyone else, you are at the start of changing things positively.

And so going back to the thought, feeling, behaviour process, ideally you could begin to manage your situation and feelings better if you start to think...'I deserve to be spoken to in a civil manner'. This should make you feel slightly more stable and able to cope. Your response would then be if you need to respond to an email containing angry comments............'I love you and I'm sorry that you're so upset. I want to resolve things but I find it difficult to reply when I receive angry comments in an email. I hope we can find a better way to communicate and understand each other soon'.

Nina
(shared with her permission and acknowledgement) 

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About the author:

Nina Wornham is a life coach and is currently studying CBT.  She writes from experience as an estranged parent. She is a published author of "Darker Side of the Sun" available on Amazon.

Nina's Coaching Page 

Nina's Author Page 

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Post Estrangement: a turning point.

hope blooms amidst the dreams unfulfilled 

The process of grieving in an estranged relationship has so many levels and variables to come to terms with.

Your child, the one you loved and nurtured from the moment they were conceived and born, until the moment they told you they wanted nothing more to do with you has cast you out of their present and their future.  

This child, now an adult, has chosen to withhold their time, their energy their affection and love and even their offspring from you.  You still love them. They are still a part of your heart, after all once a parent always a parent, but you are also very much alone.  You suffer rejection. You face abandonment.  Your worst fear faces you, loneliness in old age.

Gone are the hopes and the ideals of what you though would be.  Replaced with the irrefutable knowledge that it can never go back to what it was.

So you grieve the loss of relationship,

You grieve the loss of innocent belief in the future.

You grieve the words spoken and the words unsaid.

You grieve for the stranger who now inhabits your child’s mind and body and spirit.

You grieve the loss of your hopes and dreams.

Your child lives but so much else has died.

Some days you even fear that love itself has also died, especially on those days when your heart is numb because it can’t bear any more pain.

Inevitably in the process of grieving you grow and you change.

Change at first was forced upon you by your offspring.  The lonely days filled with unanswered questions, the self-examination and guilt and self-recrimination inevitably they change you.   They leave you feeling vulnerable, exposed raw and unsure.  These changes force you to take action lest they destroy your spirit and will to live.

Then in the course of healing you address and face unresolved issues from your own past.  You heal your own inner child that you shut the door on as you yourself became an adult.  You face those unresolved fears and self-doubts that lingered in the dark recesses of your mind.  You face abandonment and rejection issues, confidence issues, fear of doing wrong or not doing good enough and you even learn to face your own mortality. 

And everything you learn deepens your appreciation of life and the precious nature of those days that are given to us.

Then to try to make sense of it all you learn about psychology and character traits and personality quirks that make people do things the way they do.  And in the process of learning things you never thought you needed to know you start to understand things that you never expected needing to understand. 

You start to see your child through the eyes of this knowledge and you start to feel sorry for them and that in some way they have become stunted in their growth toward maturity. 

Somewhere within all the hurt you feel, a compassion starts to blossom.  Not an excusing of inexcusable behaviour, but rather a feeling that they have somehow lost their way. 

Whether or not they will ever learn or find a way back is not the point, rather the point is that you let them go, you give them their own future and their own regrets that will come as life teaches them lessons they never thought they needed to learn.

All of this happens slowly and gradually amidst tears and grief and anger and sorrow and desperation and all the other emotions that grab you on any given day as you struggle to come to terms with the loss. 

In between you start to build new aspirations.  You start to awaken old dreams that were put away so you could devote more of yourself to you children.  You start to dream again of a different future and you find a new purpose in life.

As you fill each day with these new experiences you start to experience joy and happiness again.  You start to feel content that even though you don’t have what you had hoped for, what you do have is, while not perfect, not bad either.

Then one day you awake to realized that you have put the dreams of what could have been aside.  Your grief for what you don’t have diminishes.  You realize that those dreams are not a part of your future and that holding on to them would be holding you back from healing and moving forward.  You realize that while they were good dreams, they were only your dreams and not your reality.

And that day you realize that you have healed a lot more than you ever hoped could be possible on that long ago day when your world disintegrated around you, when you first looked despair in the face and said “I don’t think I can make it through another day”

I had such a day recently, when I woke up and felt joy at being alive, and gratitude that I can do the things that I now love to do.

Will I still regret the loss of all that could have been?  Without a doubt.

Will I still sorrow for the relationship that was broken?  Indubitably.

Will I still wish things could have been different?  Most definitely.

Will I continue to miss my old dreams?  Assuredly.

Will grief linger in the recesses of my heart?  Oh yes!

Will I miss what could have been? Always.

But regret is not a place to live.  In that direction lies the lingering death of waiting for the shell of a body to die while life passes you by.

Life is embracing what is and making the most of it.

Life is reaching out and touching and growing and learning.

Life is going beyond sorrow to learn to love and trust again.

Life is letting go of the past a creating a different future.

Life is connecting with joy and contentment and gratitude and a different kind of happiness.

I find that I have reached that turning point.

I choose life.

Renate Dundys Marrello

2015 – 07 - 09

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