January - May 2005
January-April 2004
May-December 2004
June to July 2005
On Typepad with posts archived from July 2005 to present.
Jan.-May 2005
January 19, 2005 The inexplicable kind of estrangement
January 21, 2005 "Hope ,,,"
January 24, 2005 Estrangement: An essay in others' words...
January 25, 2005 Abuse through estrangement
January 29 Estrangement and divorce
January 29 Million Dollar Baby: The Movie
February 1 Metaphorical Fish Tank
Wednesday, March 23 Too many fish tanks!
Wednesday, May 11 Imperfect perfection
Friday, May 13 Family annihilation
January 14, 2005 Friday: Press Release!
The TV program that I mentioned last summer when they were looking for people to share their stories on estrangement was aired on the Goodlife TV Network on Sunday, January 16, 2005. The show will be rebroadcast on other dates throughout 2005. Check your local TV listings and cable schedule to see if it is available in your area. Here is the press release:
American Family GoodLife TV Network Airs Program on Family Estrangement
GoodLife TV’s series American Family premiered an episode on “Healing Estrangement” on Sunday, January 16, 2005.
The one-hour show highlights the moving journeys of those who have lived through the heart-breaking situation of being estranged from a loved one. Author and inspirational speaker Carol Tuttle tells of the inner challenges she faced to make amends with her father after a rift caused divisive strains within her family; Laura Davis, author of I Thought We’d Never Speak Again, and her mother Temme share their story of personal growth and triumph as they reconciled after not speaking for several years due to a serious disagreement; and Mark Sichel, psychotherapist and author of Estranged Family: Dealing with a Family Rift, explains how some family conflicts are often better left unresolved, despite the sadness they may cause.
Includes a discussion with psychologist Dr. Julie Weiss, and Family Therapist Linda Hershman on solutions to family alienation.
The show will be rebroadcast several times throughout 2005.
The series "American Family," is produced for GoodLife Television. The host is Bettina Gregory, former ABC News correspondent and now practicing psychologist. The program's theme is to highlight contemporary family issues, then show how families work through and/or resolve them. GoodLife is a national cable company out of Washington, DC.
For more information, check out the website www.americanfamily.tv.
Wednesday, January 19, 2005 The Inexplicable Kind of Estrangement
I have been thinking about my daughter a lot lately. But as I said at the end of 2004 I don't want to make the estrangement with my daughter the focus of my blog. Dwelling on what I can't change depresses me. Almost ten years is a long time to dwell on something, even something as painful as the loss of my relationship with my daughter. I want the focus of this blog to be on what I can talk about that might help YOU who come to visit estrangements.com looking for assistance, insight, answers.
One thing I can say is that I do not have answers. I don't think anyone, no matter what they say, really has answers. But there are different ways to get through pain. I offer as many options as I can find to help visitors here find their way through the pain without crashing and burning.
Lately one issue has been mentioned several times in emails and on discussion groups. That issue is when an estrangement occurs and the one who has been cut off has no idea why the other person has cut them off because they have never been given a reason and nothing occurred that they're aware of that would explain the decision. It is a crazymaking situation because for one person or part of a family there is no explanation.
It is like being in a passive aggressive relationship where one person is indirect and avoids telling the other person what they are really thinking or feeling. So the person who is cut off tries to read the other person's mind. They speculate. They obsess. They try to imagine what occurred. They wonder if someone else's influence is involved. They wonder if the other person has a mental health issue. They wonder if someone lied about them. They wonder if there is a misunderstanding. They wonder, wonder, wonder, wonder. They lie awake at night and think. They cry. There is no one who will answer their question. They may even resort to stalking to try to find out the answer. They don't know whether to be sad, angry, guilty or what. They may feel all of those things and more.
I know that sometimes people come here who have done that ... have cut off family members and never given them a reason why. I know it has happened to me. While my daughter & I had a disagreement, nothing had occurred that would explain her not ever talking to me again. I had been a good friend as well as being a good mother prior to (and during) that disagreement. Nothing about me that I am aware of .... or that others who are close to me are aware of ..... explains this estrangement. I know how crazymaking this is.
I made sure to tell my mother what had occurred to cause me to stop talking to her. She had the option of promising not to do that again and of taking responsibility for her behavior. That didn't happen. I don't trust her to stop harrassing & denigrating me. So in that estrangement, there is a clear reason which I expressed to her for not talking to her plus a history of very bad behavior on her part for decades. But in the relationship with my daughter, there was no history of that, no explanation to me, no logical reason to cut me off for the rest of her life.
So now we get to my question. I know that people come here who have decided to estrange themselves and have never told the person and family WHY they have done that. I am asking those of you who have done that to write to me and tell me why. I will keep your information private as to who sent it to me but I WILL write up something on here in the future on the reasons why. Assuming anyone sends me any. If I quote from emails, I'll quote in such a way that no identities are revealed. I just would like to know why some of you who have never given an explanation to the other person why you have chosen to estrange them and why you haven't told them. Two questions actually:
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Why have you estranged yourself?
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Why haven't you told them why?
Please give us some insight. Send an email to the email link at the top or bottom of these pages.
Note added on January 24, 2005: Why tell me/us what you haven't told your family? Why not? I have no intention of hurting you. You don't know me. You can't hurt my feelings in the same way that you can hurt your family's. You can provide some insight ... maybe .... to that which is a mystery.
I do realize that asking this question and expecting an answer may be futile. Those who would estrange their families without giving a reason may never come here to read this blog. They may be less inclined to understand estrangement and less likely to read about it. If someone is so comfortable with estrangement that they just go ahead and estrange themselves for reasons that might not even be clear to them, why should they come here to read anything? They may have no need to understand. In fact they may be beyond that need entirely ... they may wish specifically to put the whole issue out of their minds and hearts and never think of it again.
One person did write to me last fall who stated that there was no abuse or unhappy childhood to cause the estrangement. That person has not written again. There may be no other visitors here who have done that.
But if you are one of those who have estranged your family and have never given a reason, I would appreciate it so much if you would help to provide some insight into your decision and why you have never told them.
Ginny
Note: As of March 27, 2005 no one has written to me to answer my questions and tell me their reasons.
Another Note added on June 12, 2005: In May a reader of estrangements.com who is estranged from her family did respond to my question. I appreciate her taking the time to do that. Her reason for not telling her relatives why she wasn't talking to them was that she didn't want to hurt their feelings. However, her family had treated her badly. She had reason not to speak to them. They weren't trying to talk with her to try to resolve anything.
I can understand why she was reluctant to open up a can of worms and tell her family why she was staying away from them. It's not a way to make things better in the long run although it is a good way to avoid discomfort. Been there and done that too. The thing is that people's feelings get hurt anyway, whether or not someone opens up a dialogue or shuts down communication. Opening up a dialogue has its risks. One risk being that there will be a blowout argument. However, if a dialogue is opened up, there is also the chance that things may improve. The other person, once aware of another's feelings, has the opportunity to change or to explain why change can't occur. It's scary to talk about things that are touchy subjects with people who don't seem to be understanding but talking is more likely to bring healing than estrangement will. I've found that a pretty good test of a person's character is how they respond when you tell them that something that they do bothers you. If they react as though you have just cut off their legs and tell you how terrible you are for saying something, then that is an indication that they aren't open to working on a good relationship. If they remain calm and open to a discussion on what can and can't be done to change things, then maybe things will work out and you may have begun a good new phase of a relationship.
The situation of the young woman who wrote to me to answer my questions is different from the kind of estrangement that mystifies me and causes me to ask the question. Why does someone who has not been abused by a loving family would stop speaking to them and give them no reason? One woman in that kind of estrangement wrote to me last year to tell me not to let the estrangement from my daughter bother me. This woman was distancing herself from her family. She did not want to be found. She said no one had abused her. But she never wrote to me again or gave me any explanation. I can imagine how her family might feel if they are normal people.
I have corresponded with others who have been cut off from people they love and have been given no reason. They did no abuse their relatives. They had been a family and had loved the people who refuse to speak with them. There was no act that explains the estrangement.
I have heard from adult children who have a parent who has done this and I've heard from parents who have had adult children do this. There must be many reasons, some easier to understand than others. I would like to know what some of them are.
Friday, January 21, 2005: By Emily Dickinson:
Hope is the thing with feathers-
That perches in the soul-
And sings the tune without the words-
And never stops-at all.
-Emily Dickinson
Thank you to my online friend who sent me that poem.
I've had this idea of making an "essay" by arranging a selection of quotes. Some are quotes found on estrangement. Others are quotes found through searches on keywords such as family, parenthood, hurt, regret, etc. Here is my "essay":
Estrangement: An essay in others' words...
No themes are so human as those that reflect for us, out of the confusion of life, the close connection of bliss and bale, of the things that help with the things that hurt, so dangling before us forever that bright hard medal, of so strange an alloy, one face of which is somebody's right and ease and the other somebody's pain and wrong. ––Henry James, 1843-1916. from What Maisie Knew.
The pure and simple truth is rarely pure and never simple. ––Oscar Wilde
Those whom we can love, we can hate; to others we are indifferent. ––Thoreau, Journal, Feb. 24, 1857.
To really know someone is to have loved and hated him in turn. ––Marcel Jouhandeau, from "Erotologie," Défense de l'enfer, 1935
The most fatal disease of friendship is gradual decay, or dislike hourly increased by causes too slender for complaint, and too numerous for removal. -- Those who are angry may be reconciled; those who have been injured may receive a recompense; but when the desire of pleasing and willingness to be pleased is silently diminished, the renovation of friendship is hopeless; as, when the vital powers sink into languor, there is no longer any use of the physician. ––Samuel Johnson, from The Idler essays, 1758.
The opinions which we hold of one another, our relations with friends and kinsfolk are in no sense permanent, save in appearance, but are as eternally fluid as the sea itself. ––Marcel Proust, Remembrance of Things Past: The Guermantes Way, 1913-27.
A little sincerity is a dangerous thing and a great deal of it is absolutely fatal. ––Oscar Wilde
O! many a shaft at random sent
Finds mark the archer little meant!
And many a word, at random spoken,
May soothe or wound a heart that's broken!
––Sir Walter Scott (1771-1832) from the Lord of the Isles (1815).The surest sign of the estrangement of the opinions of two persons is when they both say something ironical to each other and neither of them feels the irony. ––Nietzsche, 1878, from Human, All Too Human.
I am not a pessimist; to perceive evil where it exists is, in my opinion, a form of optimism. ––Roberto Rossellini, from Interview in Cahiers du Cinéma. 1954.
No doubt Jack the Ripper excused himself on the grounds that it was human nature. ––A.A. Milne
I have loved badly, loved the great
Too soon, withdrawn my words too late;
And eaten in an echoing hall
Alone and from a chipped plate
The words that I withdrew too late.
––Edna St. Vincent Millay, "Theme and Variations," Huntsman, What Quarry? 1939According as the man is, so must you humour him. ––Terence, The Brothers, 160 B.C.
Govern a family as you would cook a small fish – very gently. ––Chinese Proverb
Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way. ––from Anna Karenina 1875-1877. Leo Nikolaevich Tolsoi, 1828-1910.
Families break up when people take hints you didn't intend and miss hints you do intend. ––Robert Frost, interview, Writers at Work: Second Series, 1963.
The first half of life is ruined by our parents and the second half by our children. ––Clarence Darrow
I like children. If they're properly cooked. ––W. C. Fields
The secret of dealing with a child is not to be its parent. ––Mell Lazarus
Go back to reform school, you little nose-picker! ––W.C. Fields
Insanity is hereditary. You can get it from your children. ––Sam Levenson
We are given children to test us and make us more spiritual. ––George F. Will
There are times when parenthood seems nothing but feeding the mouth that bites you. ––Peter De Vries
Ingratitude, thou marble-hearted fiend,
More hideous, when thou show'st thee in a child,
Than the sea monster. ––William Shakespeare 1564-1616 (King Lear)If you pick up a starving dog and make him prosperous, he will not bite you. This is the principal difference between a dog and a man. ––Mark Twain (Samuel Langhorne Clemens) 1835-1910: from Pudd'nhead Wilson's Calendar, 1894.
Psychiatry enables us to correct our faults by confessing our parents' shortcomings. ––Laurence J. Peter
We all are born mad. Some remain so. ––Samuel Beckett: from Waiting for Godot. 1952.
When one is a stranger to oneself, then one is estranged from others too. ––Anne Morrow Lindbergh. Gift from the Sea. 1955
Everyone is a moon and has a dark side which he never shows to anybody. ––Mark Twain, from Pudd'nhead Wilson's New Calendar, 1894.
The young need old men. They need men who are not ashamed of age, not pathetic imitations of themselves ... Parents are the bones on which children sharpen their teeth. ––Peter Ustinov. from Dear Me. 1977.
The first thing to learn in intercourse with others is non-interference with their own peculiar ways of being happy, provided those ways do not assume to interfere by violence with ours. ––William James, "What Makes a Life Significant?" Talks to Teachers and to Students (1899)
When our relatives are at home, we have to think of all their good points or it would be impossible to endure them. ––George Bernard Shaw, Heartbreak House, 1929.
A grouch escapes so many annoyances that it almost pays to be one. ––Kin Hubbard
A family is but too often a commonwealth of malignants. ––Alexander Pope, Thoughts on Various Subjects, 1717.
I believe that more unhappiness comes from this source [the family] than from any other – I mean from the attempt to prolong family connections unduly and to make people hang together artificially who would never naturally do so. ––Samuel Butler, (d. 1902), "Elementary Morality," Notebooks, 1912.
One would be in less danger
From the wiles of the stranger
If one's own kin and kith
Were more fun to be with.
––Ogden Nash, "Family Court," Verses From 1929 On, 1959.Silence is the most perfect expression of scorn. ––George Bernard Shaw
The cruelest lies are often told in silence. ––Robert Louis Stevenson. 1850-1894. from Truth of Intercourse.
I have often regretted my speech, never my silence. ––Publilius Syrus. First Century B.C. Maxim 1070
Silence is the sovereign contempt. ––Charles Augistin Sainte-Beuve, 1804-1869. from Mes Poisons.
To be adult is to be alone. ––Jean Rostand
Of all man's inborn dispositions there is none more heroic than the love in him. Everything else accepts defeat and dies, but love will fight no-love every inch of the way. ––Laurens Van der Post: from Flamingo Feather, 1955.
A broken hand works but not a broken heart. ––Persian proverb
What I'd like is a lobotomy, a clean job, the top of my head neatly sawn off and designated contents removed. ––Carol Shields, from Unless, 2002.
Ah, nothing is too late,
Till the tired heart shall cease to palpitate.
––Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, 1807-1882. from Morituri Salutamus, 1875.For of all sad words of tongue or pen,
The saddest are these: "It might have been!"
––John Greenleaf Whittier, 1807-1892. from Maud Muller, 1856.
Bibliography
- 15th Annual and 25th Anniversary Edition Bartlett's Familiar Quotations. 1980. Published by Little Brown and Company.
- The International Thesaurus of Quotations, 1970, Harper & Row Publishers.
- The Portable Curmudgeon. compiled & edited by Jon Winokur. Published in 1987 by The New American Library
- Samuel Johnson Sound Bite Page: Quotes on Estrangement at http://www.samueljohnson.com/estrange.html
- Unless by Carol Shields, 2002, Fourth Estate and HarperCollins Publishers.
Tuesday, January 25, 2005: Abuse through estrangement
Is it any wonder that the Amish use the practice of shunning to keep members in line? The threat of losing family and friends is a powerful influence on anyone. Losing those we love as a consequence of actions is a good reason for many of us not to rock the boat, assert ourselves or misbehave in any culture. But then what if we haven't "misbehaved"?
Some behaviors are clear examples of actions that most would agree are reprehensible and deserving of whatever punishment a culture agrees is suitable to the crime. However humans aren't sheep and don't tend to agree on so many things in life: religion and politics to name two hot topics. Then there are all of the other things we can agree to disagree on: choice of companions, opinion on the best football team, business ethics, how to raise a child, housekeeping standards. If you've watched any episodes of the reality TV program, Wife Swapping, you have probably seen more than a few people you couldn't stand to live with in the same house. Even if you agreed with their politics or religion.
What merits estranging ourselves from others? Some people put up with levels of abuse that others would consider criminal. Others can't stand the smallest "infraction" of the rules that they've set up for who they choose to be in their circle of family and friends.
When someone estranges another, if the person estranged loved the other person very much and is a reasonably sensitive person, they feel pain at the loss of that relationship. They miss the person. They can be griefstricken. Often it doesn't matter if the estranger was abusive or not. They may still be mourned. Few people are so bad on all counts that they don't have some qualities that would be missed.
While many estrangements would make sense to most reasonable people, some estrangements are examples of abusive behavior. Becoming estranged can be very painful. Becoming estranged when a person has done nothing that is abusive to the estranger or to anyone else that would explain the estrangement can be the result of someone deciding that estrangement is an option in an argument.
There are as many reasons why someone would choose that option as there are personality styles. They may be unwilling to deal with their own feelings when faced with an uncomfortable situation. They may be afraid of the other person despite evidence that there is no need to feel fear. They may be afraid of angering a third party who isn't even part of the disagreement. They may be afraid that they will be proved wrong in an argument and unwilling to lose face. They may be unwilling to accept that there are other lifestyles and beliefs than their own.
These kinds of estrangements, begun due to one person's inability to accept that another person has a right to a different opinion, a different lifestyle, a different feeling, a different belief, a different life are the kind of estrangements that rise to the level of being called abuse. While an estranger might try to justify their decision based on moral arguments or judgements of the other person, when one person estranges another who loved them and had never abused them or anyone else, then the estrangement may be as abusive as if the estranger had beaten their former loved ones up physically. Estrangement can be emotionally abusive.
Estranging someone is a legal culturally acceptable (although morally questionable) form of abuse in the Amish culture and in our own culture. No one is going to arrest the estranger. The estranger has every right to have or not have a relationship with whomever they please. But estranging themselves from those they love without any good reason is abusive. They have the comfort of never looking the other person in the eyes and seeing their pain but the pain is there nevertheless and they have been the perpetrator. I suspect that this knowledge is what keeps many estrangements from ever being reconciled. The estranger never wants to face the fact of how much they have unfairly hurt another so they never call, never write, never take the step to end the estrangement. In their hearts they know what they've done and they feel shame.
If you are reading this and you've cut off someone else who was abusive to you and you are feeling anxious and guilty, please realize that I DO NOT MEAN YOU! This is NOT the kind of estrangement I am talking about. I am referring to estrangements where a person or a family is cut off when they've done nothing wrong by most reasonable standards. Or they've only taken action to protect themself and others from being abused so the estranger punishes them by cutting them off. Unfortunately. people who have been abused and have decided to stand up for themselves and set a boundary with their abusers are usually those who do feel guilty about taking a stand. I've been there and I do that too! I DO NOT MEAN YOU! I congratulate you on your decision and urge you to continue to take good care of yourself by not putting up with abuse.
Deciding to estrange yourself because you've been abused is a GOOD reason for cutting others off. Deciding to estrange yourself because someone told you that you can't call them any more when you are drunk is NOT a good reason to estrange yourself. An estranger cutting others off because they wouldn't lend them money is acting in a way that is manipulative and abusive. An estranger cutting others off because they've expressed concern for the estranger's health, physical or mental, is NOT making a decision that makes a lot of sense but will only hurt those who love him or her. That is the kind of estrangement that is abusive.
Unfortunately, I don't think that those who estrange others for reasons that make little sense come here looking for how to cope with their estrangement. I think that they've already settled the matter in their minds and are out there living their lives while thinking as little as possible about those who loved them. On the off chance that someone does come here who knows on what flimsy grounds they've begun an estrangement, please contact your family and begin the process of reconciling.
Years ago I bought a t-shirt that said, "Do whatever terrifies you! Everything else is boring!" I bought it because I was afraid of doing so many things and wanted to encourage myself to take risks. If the only thing that is stopping you from reconciling with the people who love you is fear and shame about your own responsibility for having caused them pain, please put aside your fear and shame and contact them. If you aren't at the level of being able to feel fear and shame, but they've never hurt you and they love you, contact them anyway. If there is no good reason to cause pain, why contribute to it? There's enough pain in the world without adding to it by hurting people who love you.
Saturday, January 29 Estrangement & Divorce: More ways for people to abuse each other.
Since I decided to write less about the specifics of my own estrangements, I have noticed that I am drawn to writing in a way that is more judgemental and opinionated than I had previously. In past writings I hadn't wanted to turn anyone off to visiting Estrangements.com. I didn't want to anger anyone.
I've wanted this site to be a source of information, not a source of opinions and advice. Unsolicited advice has ticked me off so many times in my life that I haven't wanted to offer any. Yet in my January 25 entry on estrangement as a way of abusing people I offer an opinion and advice. This is a change for me. I will add to my previous statements on estrangement as abuse that whatever advice or opinions I offer, take what you like and leave the rest. That is what is said at the end of 12 step meetings. I don't know what is right for you. Everyone does have to make their own decisions. However, that being said, I have decided that I need to say some things that I believe in my heart.
Another belief I hold is that parents who separate and divorce and involve their children, underage or adult, in the hostilities between them are doing a disservice to their children and an evil to their former partner. Some parents do deserve the consequence of never seeing their children again. Some parents do deserve estrangement from their children. Parents who molest their children, who hurt their children physically, who are cruel to their children deserve being estranged. Most parents in a divorce, while imperfect, don't deserve that fate. Yet one spouse is often so angry at the other spouse that they go out of their way to vent their bitterness and hostility towards the other parent in front of their kids. Sometimes both parents do this.
The anger and hurt felt by parents who are divorcing each other is often intense. Too often parents use their children as weapons of revenge. They feel a sense of smug satisfaction if their children take sides and stop speaking to the other spouse. The fact of a side being taken might not even be admitted by the children. They distance themselves and detach from a formerly loved parent, never even acknowledging to themselves that they have been pressured by one parent at the expense of the other. The parent who has been estranged is left out in the cold. The children may blame the estranged parent for not trying harder while at the same time rebuffing all attempts at staying in touch by that same parent.
Some people have given a label to this kind of estrangement. They call it Parental Alienation Syndrome (PAS). PAS has been used in the courts to change custody arrangements. People have wondered whether PAS exists and suspected that men invented PAS to avoid alimony or to get custody of children who they have abused and will continue to abuse. For these reasons I would prefer not to call estrangement-by-parent PAS. I will just call it the successful result of one parent's desire to revenge themself on their ex-spouse. It can work on both very young children and on adult children. Children are human and are subject to the influence of their parents, even if the influence is unfair and colored with the strong bias of anger caused by a bitter parting. Children, young or adult, are NOT objective about their parents. They can't be. They're human.
The weight of responsibility for maintaining relationships between parents and children after a divorce falls mainly on the parents. Not that it's easy to shut up and keep all that rage contained, especially around family members. Yet part of the responsibility of being a parent is to enhance the mental health of our children, to encourage them to have relationships with both of their parents unless there is some danger to our children's physical and mental selves. If a divorcing parent believes that a danger exists to their children, they need to be aware of their own biases in assessing that risk and not jump to conclusions that their spouse's failures as a marital partner equate to being a bad and dangerous parent.
Revenge is so tempting when partners break up. The higher ground to take is the one that puts children first, not the parent. We're ALL imperfect. Few of us can say that we are really clearly better than our ex-spouse. We did marry the person for some reason years ago and had found some good qualities in them. Our children can benefit from a relationship with even imperfect parents. They can benefit from acknowledging that a parent is imperfect and still loveable. They can benefit from the good points of both parents. They can benefit from the greater harmony that can exist by not having longstanding divisions. If relationships are continued with both parents, they can live with the sense of a more complete family, even if not in the same form that it once was.
The desire to break the bonds of our children's relationships with their other parent is a temptation that needs to be resisted. If we had never thought of ourselves as having abused our spouse while we were married to them, we turn ourselves into abusers if we work to break the bonds between our children and our ex's. If we do this, then we might as well be truthful and acknowledge that we have been abusive and have done something wrong. We are ignoring the longterm consequences for our children. We are forgetting that we are going to heal from our divorce and go on with our lives and find happiness, possibly remarriage, while our children don't have the option of replacing that other parent with someone new.
Most of us only have one person who acted as a father, one who acted as a mother. Even those of us who were adopted would generally consider that there was one person who took responsibility for acting as their mother and one person who took responsibility for acting as their father. When children grow to be adults, they may form new relationships with people who can act in the place of family but most of us would prefer to have longterm relationships with both of our parents, even our imperfect parents, if given the chance.
When we allow ourselves to celebrate breaking our children's bonds with their other parent, we have taken the low road. We have been small minded, ungenerous, unloving, a bad parent, and a small human being. Only serious forms of child abuse by the other parent can warrant influencing our children to cut off their relationship with their other parent.
As for children, whether young or adult, who have fallen under the influence of a bitter parent, I would ask that you take another look at the parent who you've left behind. Consider how you would judge them if they were a friend rather than your parent. Think about the circumstances of their life. Think what you might have done if you had been in their shoes. Think about what it would be like to walk in their shoes. Think about your own imperfections and how you would rank as a parent.
If you don't have children, think about how a child might rate you as a parent. Think about your choices in life and compare them to the parent that you estranged. Think about what was available to that parent at times in their life. If you knew your grandparents or knew of them, think about what it might have been like for your parent to grow up with those grandparents as parents. Think about it! What would you have done? Would you have survived? What kind of mistakes might you have made? What choices would you have made? What was it like when you came along as a son or daughter? What was your parent's life like then? Think about what it feels like when you lose something that you feel passionately about. Think about what it feels like when you lose someone you dearly love.
How old was your parent when they married? What is it like to be that age? How old were they when you were born? What is it like to be the age that they were then? What tribulations did they experience? What did they overcome? What were their strengths? If you feel hurt by them, what were the hurts and were they forgiveable? Would you forgive a friend if they had done the same thing? Have others forgiven you for hurts that you have done?
How much weight do you expect others to put on your imperfections? How hard are you on your parent? Have you been cruel? How do you feel about the possibility of being cruel? How comfortable are you with that? Is it necessary? Could your life possibly be fuller? Richer? Warmer? If you allowed that even your parent can be imperfect too, as imperfect as your friends, as imperfect as you, as imperfect as your children are or will be? Are you kinder to your pets than you've been to your parent? Why is that? How much of your estrangement with a parent exists because your parents became estranged from each other? Are you annoyed with just the thought of it? Can you say that you would have rejected your parent even if there had never been a divorce? Are you clear on WHY you have rejected your parent? If not, give it some thought.
Abuse comes in all forms. Even under the guise of some kind of self justification when there isn't any. Abuse is sometimes what ordinary people do when they just think that they're being ordinary.
If someone does try to reestablish a relationship that was ended unfairly, the relationship will be different than how it might have been. Yet maybe something can be salvaged that is worthwhile if a reconciliation occurs. I don't know the answer to that myself. Accepting the fact that the relationship will be different is one step. Then taking the step of reconnecting is another.
Million Dollar Baby: The Movie
Today I saw the movie Million Dollar Baby. I am adding it to the list of movies on estrangement on the site's reference page.
I won't talk much about it because the movie just came out. I don't want to tell you all about it before you've seen it. I might write about it at length at some future date.
I left the movie thinking about how much agony people put themselves through trying to get the love of people who don't love them. My daughter's name is Robin but it might as well be Katie. My mother isn't as bad as Maggie's mother although I have had the experience of giving her presents and then hearing complaints. I have had the feeling of never being good enough no matter how hard I tried. I don't know what I'd do if asked to do what Frankie is asked to do. I brought tissues as I had a clue how sad I would feel. Bring tissues!
When I came home I baked a pan of brownies for my husband. Just because .... Just because it makes sense to be nice to the people who love you rather than spend a lot of time crying over the people who don't.
Tuesday, February 1, 2005 The Metaphorical Fish Tank
I've been thinking on various topics to write about. I made some false starts and quit. I haven't settled on a topic that feels right. Some topics that occurred to me are: Self Esteem & Estrangement, The Effects of Estrangement. I can't get going on anything right now. My last paragraph of my January entry means more to me than its simple surface meaning. It DOES make sense to spend time doing things for those who appreciate you and love you. It DOESN'T make sense to spend time and energy and feeling on those who don't appreciate and love you .... or me. Why do we beat ourselves up, analyze, grieve, and mourn? Or who do we CONTINUE to do so? There is a time for grief and eventually there comes a time to move on ... to do things that we enjoy, spend time with people who love us and who we love.
What can I tell you today? The things that I do that do not involve my estrangement? They are silly little things that may make you smile and they might not make much sense. Sunday I spent several hours cleaning my fish tank. I have a 45 gallon fish tank with two fish in it. One is a big striped catfish and I've had him for many years. He's grown a lot in that time. He is a big fat fish! The other fish is a small Harlequin Tetra (if I remember right?) All the other Harlequin Tetras died. Even the ones that I bought to replace them. This one tetra just keeps on going, like an Energizer bunny! So I have a fat fish and a little fish.
Sometimes I don't get around to cleaning the tank for a very long time. Algae grows on the glass. The fragments of the Java fern clog up the strainer parts of the filters. The water flow slows down. I feel guilty. Every day I feel like a fish abuser! I tell myself I don't have the time although I do have time to sit down here at the computer and type about the dead relationship with my daughter. Or read a discussion board about estrangement. While the fish sit in their neglected fish tank and make me feel guilty. I begin to wonder if the fish tank is a metaphor for my daughter. I will have my revenge through neglecting the fish tank? I will fail to take care of things and people that I care about because someone that I cared about has failed me so miserably?
On Sunday, I thought, "Enough! Enough of delaying the cleaning of the tank! The fish don't deserve this abuse! You can't take revenge on your absent daughter by abusing your fish! Nothing is accomplished by neglecting the fish! Clean the tank! Don't write about estrangement! Clean the blasted tank!" So I cleaned the tank! Which has the side of effect of helping me feel better about myself. I am no longer an abuser of fish! My fish look much happier. Not that anyone else could really see that! They don't smile or wag their tails. The little one is swimming about with more enthusiasm.
Estrangement can have odd side effects that cause us to do things or not do things that we might have done if we hadn't been so absorbed in this mystery of estrangement. We need to look around and see what we're neglecting and make sure that we are not letting estrangement negatively affect our other relationships. How sad that would be if we allowed estrangement to damage relationships that are good because we have allowed estrangement to take over all our thoughts and feelings! Sometimes we need to wrench our minds and hearts back and go ahead and live life as we really want to live life, regardless of losses.
Life is too short and there are too few people who are close to us to let estrangement take everything over. That would be a tragic result, to let the grief of being estranged cause more losses. Be aware of how you are living life and what you are NOT doing that you normally would do. Don't let estrangement destroy what you do have. Take time out to do kind things for yourself and for those who are close to you. Even small things can make a difference. Your self esteem will improve as will the quality of your life and relationships. Go clean that metaphorical fish tank! You must have something that compares to that! I know that I have a TON of metaphorical fish tanks which all await my time and attention!
Wednesday, March 23, 2005 Too Many Fish Tanks!
Almost two months since I last wrote here! Time flies! Not long after I last wrote, my husband and I learned that his father was experiencing symptoms of dementia. This came as a big shock. His father is a very intelligent man, highly skilled in math, who worked with computers back in the early days of computers in the fifties. He worked with companies that bought computers that were the size of buildings. He was one of the people who showed them what they could do with their computers. Dementia would be the last thing we'd have expected to afflict him. When he retired, he retired from a job at the Pentagon.
My mother-in-law didn't realize what was happening at first. She was frightened and in some denial about the implications of the symptoms. She called 911 twice when she thought he was dying. He wasn't dying but he was having symptoms of a very serious condition which is called Lewy Body Dementia. This is a strange condition which has some of the characteristics of Alzheimer's but also some of those of Parkinson's. One of its characteristics is its fluctuating nature. One day the person may seem normal or almost normal. The next they are like another person entirely if they are even responsive. They may be entirely nonresponsive or they may be hallucinating and paranoid. They must not be given drugs like Haldol and Ativan and other standard antipsychotics as these drugs affect them adversely. Which is what happened after he went to the hospital due to the second 911 call. He got up in the night in the hospital, walked around, and refused to take medication. So they gave him Haldol and Ativan to try to control him. The result was two days of almost total nonresponsiveness. We traveled to see him and found him in the hospital like this. To keep the nurses from giving him more medication and worsening his condition, we stayed all night in the hospital to keep him from being agitated.
Since then I have been reading about Lewy Body Dementia and talking with my mother-in-law by phone to give her emotional support. She is 78 years old. Life is so rough on people. Our system is not set up for helping people when dementia strikes in a family. There is no 911 call that will give you help in curing your dementia afflicted relative. You get to be 78 and then find out that you suddenly must be a nurse to your loved one who is acting like a stranger! Like being 78 isn't hard enough? With its own set of aches and pains and osteoporosis and fatigue. It seems a time when you might expect to retire and sit back and watch the clouds drift by. But instead you might have a significant other who is now peering at you around corners, turning on your lights at night while you try to sleep, waving bed sheets in the hallway in some strange ritual caused by acting out a dream or telling you to get out of the house and leave. You try to give him the medication but he spits it out. One day he seems normal, the next he's not. You're hopeful on the good days that it is all a bad dream and tomorrow will be good too but then tomorrow comes and it is not good.
This is worse than estrangement. The person is present but it is as though you are estranged from the person with whom you live every day but neither of you would ever move out. No one comes to your rescue. Long term care is outrageously expensive and painful to contemplate if it is possible to afford. Our system is not set up to assist us much when a relative suffers from a dementia or other illness that ends up requiring long term care. All this is happening to my mother-in-law. She feels trapped after having had a lifetme of freedom. They have been married for 59 years. It will be 60 years in August. I am surprised by her honesty when she tells me how she feels. She loves her husband. She cares about him very much. But she feels trapped. She feels as though she is living with a stranger when he has a bad day. The bad days are every other day or more. She feels overwhelmed and wonders if she can cope. She thinks of leaving. As though leaving your home and husband is any kind of option when you are 78 years old.
My in-laws have had some experience with estrangement. My father-in-law was estranged from his family from many years ago. His parents have since died. He has 7 brothers and sisters. Undoubtedly he has nieces and nephews. He has had no contact with his family in over 45 years. This was an estrangement on which both of my in-laws agreed. They both felt as though his family was just trouble and only wanted money from him. Not that he was wealthy. He wasn't. He worked hard for what he earned. I think he thought that his family didn't want to work for money. They just wanted someone to give it to them. They were gamblers.
I think maybe 10 years ago or so my father-in-law thought about looking for some of them but then decided against it. When we see the last name in the news .... it is a common name .... we often wonder if the person might be a relative.
My father-in-law's dementia has been so sudden, so shocking, so sad. Worrying about my in-laws has taken up all of my spare mental energy, first with worrying about the doctors coming up with an accurate diagnosis and medicating him properly and now with how my mother-in-law is going to cope with this change in her life and the stress. I feel towards them as though they are the parents I never had. They've always been kind to me. Like everyone, they are not perfect but they are kind people. My mother-in-law is an artist and very creative. She's been an inspiration to me ever since I first knew her. I think I might never have tried some things as an artist myself if I had not known my mother-in-law. I am very sad that this is happening to her and to my father-in-law.
Lately I've given little thought to the estrangements from my daughter, Robin, or my mother, Elsie. My in-laws' problems have taken a top priority as have other issues like earning a living and helping a nonprofit organization where I am a board member and vice president. Worrying about people who are difficult to get along with has become less of a concern. There is only so much time in life. Only so much energy. Only 24 hours in a day. We can spend our time and energy on trying to get along with people who are difficult or impossible to get along with or we can spend it on relationships with others who want our help, need our help, maybe appreciate our help, and who actually CAN be helped. Some problems are irresolvable while others have solutions.
When we can assist in resolving problems, with reducing pain, with achieving progress, our time is well spent. Then we're not banging our heads on a door that is nailed shut. If we choose our priorities well, we may find the satisfaction of having accomplished something. If we choose other priorities like continuing to work at making people happy who are never happy, we may end up perpetuating our own suffering. Eventually in any effort to change something, we need to decide which way it's going and how we want to live our life. Do we want our life to mean something? Or do we want to be a martyr to some futile effort that will accomplish little even if the person deigns to speak to us again?
I care about my daughter and my mother. I wish them both well. I hope that my daughter's new work is rewarding to her. I hope her life is good, that she is happy. I was delighted to be a mother and to be a part of her growing up. That delight in having had her in my life will never change. As for my mother, I hope that my mother has some peace in her turbulent emotional life and that her health is good ... although I expect that she's having problems since she ALWAYS has problems, no matter what her age is. I'm not spending a lot of time worrying about the estrangement from each of them. Maybe it's because I'm taking an antidepressant now that my attitude is changing.
When I learned of my father-in-law's condition, I felt overwhelmed. So much bad news nationally, globally and personally. I let it all get to me too much. When I began to feel hostile towards others and obsess about petty rudenesses, I realized that I wasn't going to be able to function to help anyone if I didn't accept some medical help. I am on an antidepressant. It's working. I feel better. I can enjoy my days. I'm not sure if it's the perfect medication for me as I tend to get a side effect of sleepiness but the side effect isn 't too bad. I can always try something else if the sleepiness gets in the way of things I need to do. I do feel better and that's a relief!
In my improved state I think more clearly and obsess less. Right now I am more aware of the priorities of life and which ones we choose and why and what makes sense in the long run and what's really important and what is petty and what isn't and how we can waste our lives and make ourselves miserable and how it's not really necessary. And how good I am at run-on sentences!
My priority is to help my mother-in-law cope with this mental tsunami that has overwhelmed her husband. Another priority is to help my husband make a living. We've always been a team in our work. Lately making a living has become a challenge. It takes two of us and even the two of us seem not to be enough in this last year. I need to do more to help. A third priority is giving back to the community through my work for a nonprofit organization. This nonprofit needs a lot of help. There are too few people who are willing to work or contribute money. Yet it is an important nonprofit that contributes to the community. It is the oldest nonprofit in this county that does the kind of work it does. It is struggling to maintain itself and to prosper.
I have been a significant part of this organization for the last year and a half. I feel very good about the work that I do there. I know I make a difference. This has become more important to me than figuring out how to end the estrangements that I've experienced. If someone doesn't want to talk to me, then so be it! It's their choice. It's their life. I have better things to do than mourn their bad opinion and refusal to talk to me for year after year after year after year. I will always miss my daughter and I miss having had a mother who was "normal" but there are other things in life besides relationships with relatives. I am going forward with what I do have in my life rather than thinking so much about what I don't have.
For more information on Lewy Body Dementia on the internet, click on Lewy Body Dementia Organization
Wednesday, May 11, 2005 Imperfect Perfection
In the news today, among the too-many murders, mayhem, suicide bombings, terrorist alerts, burglaries, and other crimes, is the story of an apparent murder-suicide in California. The 44 year old husband, father, investigator for a district attorney's office has been found shot to death inside his home, a gun lying near his body, and his 3 children, wife, and mother shot to death in their beds. No sign of a break-in. No robbery. Every indication that he killed his family and then himself. This is some sort of ultimate interior estrangement where a man who had a life, a family, some sort of success by many people's standards perpetrated a crime that is the opposite of all that he stood for. He kills those who thought that he loved and cared for them. This has to be an intense personal estrangement where a person disconnects himself from his feelings of love enough to point a gun at his child and fire it. I say this without knowing the man. He was an investigator for a district attorney. He had been charged with investigating crimes and assisting with bringing criminals to justice. He was someone who had worked on the side of "good". What happened? Could anyone have stopped him? Could it have been predicted and prevented?
This kind of disconnect between who people appear to be and what they do is something that intrigues me and scares me. I am sure it affects many people the same way. It turns life upsidedown. How do any of us know for sure that our loved ones are who they seem to be? How safe is anyone? What are the warnings signs? What must be taken seriously and what can be ignored? How can anyone believe, even if there is a warning sign, that someone whom we love can do something like this? We would rather believe that it can happen to anyone but us.
I think about what this man did. How he must have drugged his family so that the gun shots wouldn't wake them up. How he had to have planned this ahead. How he went from room to room, killing his children, his wife, his mother in their sleep. How no one had a chance to escape the fate he created for them. I think about how an investigator who worked to solve crimes would plan a crime. How an investigator would reconcile killing his family with his past professional goals in life. How an intelligent person who found themselves thinking of doing such a thing would not make an appointment with a psychiatrist? Especially that. How can an intelligent person not get help? But that is the nature of being mentally ill. It takes over the mechanism by which we make decisions. I have to believe that this man was mentally ill and no one realized it. Or if they did, they didn't realize how serious it was.
In the past I've tried to imagine how someone is thinking and feeling when they've done something horrific. I've failed to understand what they're thinking. I can't find empathy. I know of two instances where women killed their children. I had met both women but didn't know them well. I knew others in their families. I know that they were loved. I know that no one had a clue that this could happen. I know that they killed those whom they loved and who loved them. One of the women is in prison, awaiting trial for the murder of her boys. She suffered from postpartum depression. The other woman killed herself after killing her son. Like the man who was an investigator for the district attorney's office, she shot her son as he slept at night. She had been a teacher in a Catholic school. At the time of the murder she was separated from her husband who had left her. In the afternoon prior to the night when she killed her son, she had inquired with concern in a telephone conversation as to how someone was doing. She was known to be a sweet caring loving woman and mother. Yet she shot her 13 year old son to death as he slept and then she shot herself. Both of these women when I had met them years ago had impressed me with their sweetness. Yet how does sweetness kill? How does a district attorney investigator kill? What went on in their minds?
Maybe to know the answer to that question is to know things I'd rather not know. Maybe the only way to know is to be that ill?
What does this have to do with estrangement? Maybe nothing but maybe it has something to do with the fact that people do all kinds of things that we'd never expect from having known them. Maybe it just has to do with the difficulty of knowing another's heart and that few of us have the power to heal what is wrong with another. Maybe it is a wake up call to be alert to the tiny clues of what is going on in the lives of our friends and loved ones and to do our best to help when we can?
Friday, May 13-15, 2005 Family Annihilation
I've kept thinking about David McGowan, the man who killed his family. Reports in the news are that he had no financial, marital, job or other apparent problems. He was said to love his wife, his children, and his mother. He has a surviving adult son who was stationed in Iraq. It is as though real life for one night turned into a science fiction movie where an alien comes to earth and inhabits the body of a normal human being and makes him do horrific things. There is a name for this kind of murder that I found in news reports and then on the internet: Family Annihilation. Usually the perpetrator is a man and often he adores his family. Often he has been a good provider. Often he suffers from depression and from a misfortune that makes it difficult for him to continue to provide for his family in the same way that he had. So far, there have been no reports of any such circumstances in the case of David McGowan.
McGowan's life seemed perfect to everyone who spoke about him and his family this past week. That makes some sense to me although not because it should make sense. Years ago I had thought that perfection was a worthy goal in life. I thought that it was achievable. I've known people I thought were perfect and who had perfect families. I envied them and wanted to be like them. I thought there were people who had everything all together and that I was somehow the flawed one who never figured out how to do things just right. I had the messed up nutty out of control family and never could figure out how to get to that point where things just worked out all the time. Then, years ago, the people I had thought were so perfect started falling apart. The perfect marriages fell apart in messy ways. Perfect people lost large amounts of money due to bad decisions. Perfect kids had problems. Perfect people were on medication and going to therapists. None of my models for how to live a perfect life were living perfect lives. Those who seemed the most perfect were the ones most likely to go through breakups. When I realized eventually (I can be quite slow) that no one is perfect and that being imperfect is part of being normal I began to grow up. That was in my early thirties. Eventually I made it a goal to stop trying to do everything right. (I was still a little slow.) After being in a therapy group, I even gave myself an "error quota" which was the number of errors that I was supposed to make in a day!
Perfection is dangerous. The pursuit of perfection is dangerous. Perfection may be good in the hands of a brain surgeon or the maker of a computer chip but in human relationships the expectation of perfection is dangerous and hurtful. In reading about Family Annihilation on the internet I read about a family in England where the father methodically killed the family that he loved. He had no gun so he bludgeoned them all to death and then hung himself. He was in financial trouble and would not have been able to continue to support his family in the manner in which he had previously. The relationship with his wife was not as good as it seemed. He had been seeing a prostitute. His wife had had an affair but it isn't clear that he knew about it. A movie, Cutting Edge: Behind Closed Doors was made about Robert Mochrie's family annihilation. (Note: if you visit the link, scroll down to read about Mochrie and then about a story on a single mother with 4 autistic children.)
Did Mochrie think that the disappointment of a reduced standard of living would be the worst thing that could happen to them? What goes through people's minds? Does it occur to them to ask, "Hey there, darling? Would you prefer to live in a small apartment and buy your clothes at Target or die?" They give their families no choice in the matter. They are going to make the decision. They must think they are doing their family a favor. Afterward their surviving relatives and friends say, "He was the most wonderful considerate man. He adored his wife and family." The most wonderful man becomes a murderer and people are left wondering whether to mourn him with compassion for his inability to endure the pain of disappointing someone or to vilify him for his final acts. I read that in England a Family Annihilation occurs every 6 to 8 weeks.
Next to a computer in his house David McGowan left the lyrics to a song titled "Heaven" by Los Lonely Boys to which he added the note: "Woe is me. I look forward to meeting you in the next life." (Robert Mochrie left a post-it note.) Unlike the Mochrie family in England, the McGowan family seemed to have no impending financial disaster or pattern of marital infidelity nor an unbearable burden. If someone does know of a motive, they're not yet talking.
If there is a God, I don't think he would send the murderers of families to heaven, no matter how much they loved their families. If there is a Heaven, I don't think David McGowan is there.
This may leave the rest of us who have been feeling angst over our imperfect lives, our dust bunnies, our extra weight, our aches and pains, the alcoholics in our closets, our estranged children and parents, our social inadequacies, our unrealized dreams feeling grateful that we don't have the bogeyman of "Perfection" hiding in the bowels of our untidy basements waiting to jump out some day and attack us while wearing the face of someone we love. We may wish we had more illusion in our lives and less painful honesty but it is those who are afraid of admitting their imperfections and who wear the mask of illusion who are more likely to feel the pain of the Perfection Bogeyman.
Do you remember the children's story of The Velveteen Rabbit who wanted to be loved? That fear of being unloved may be what drives a Perfect Person to do the most perfect wrong. Maybe they fear estrangement? From all whom they loved? Maybe they feared seeing a sad face, an angry face, tears if they let people down by not being able to be all that they think that they are expected to be? The possibilities are endless for what the truth might be in each case. A secret love affair? Financial ruin? A bribe taken? Sexual identity issues? Private dissatisfaction with a career? Witnessing crimes that make someone question the worth of humanity? The pain and stress of taking care of an elderly parent with dementia? (David McGowan's 75 year old mother had moved in with his family within the last year. I don't know if she had dementia. But if she did, is that a reason to kill a family? My mind boggles at the thought.) Being threatened with blackmail and having a secret exposed? Severe depression? A brain tumor? The affair of a spouse? The constant struggle to maintain a certain lifestyle?
McGowan has left the world with questions unanswered that he might never have thought would be asked. Am I being unfair to David McGowan? Is it possible to be unfair to David McGowan? How can I sympathize with a "nice guy" who killed his family? What would have happened if one of his children had been woken by the gunshots and had tried to hide? Would he have hunted him or her down? What a thought! But would he? It is unlikely that after going that far that he would have let anyone go. Like Andrea Yates who chased after her son and took him to the waiting bathtub? Is Family Annihilation the male equivalent of Psychotic Postpartum Depression? He shot his wife twice, the others once. Did that second shot have a significance beyond wanting to be sure that she was dead?
I don't want to sympathize with a man who wipes out his family but I would like to know why. I would like to know that some day someone might be able to stop someone from doing this to their trusting family.
From an article in The Desert Sun: "Tony Velasquez, a longtime friend, said that in his mind, the McGowans lived in harmony without the dysfunction of the typical family. He posted, 'The love that they all shared was a vision of beauty and contentment.'"
In the same article Velasquez was quoted as saying, "We were going to go up there Sunday and spend the night just to see their kitchen remodel they'd been bragging about for the past three months," and "When I had talked to him that Friday, it didn't sound like the same David who jokes around and pulls your chain. He told me it wasn't a good time. He had things going on with his mom. There was something going on, but I couldn't put a finger on it."
When I hear of such tragic events, I am tempted to apply logic. I think, "but if only he or she had thought this or that, then he or she would have realized that killing themselves or their family wouldn't solve their problem." When they do these things, obviously they are not thinking logically or they chose to ignore logic. Logic has left the scene.
David McGowan's crime is shocking and tragic. I feel sorrow for his remaining family and for his wife's family. What I find shocking also is how ... so far .... everyone had thought they were perfect. I read that he was upbeat and seemed happy. No problems, no problems, no problems. Other than his intriguing reference to a "bad time" in the phone conversation with his friend Tony Velasquez. Yet obvously there was a problem. A serious problem! No one who has no problems gets up in the night and shoots their family to death and then commits suicide (although after killing your family I think that killing yourself is about the only thing left to do because how would anyone live with themself after that?) Could it be that a problem arising in a family with no problems is too much to bear? That he had never been tested before and something occurred that was beyond his ability to bear? That with all that he had seen in police work that he had never had serious problems of his own and thus had no mental calluses equipped to deal with the stress? That he had dealt with observing the pain of people every day in his work but he was not prepared to deal with family pain at home? This occurs to me but I have a hard time believing that even in a family that seemed perfect that there weren't the usual kinds of problems that there are in most normal families.
Could McGowan have gone through his life away from work troublefree until one day a certain problem or set of problems came up and he could not cope? Did his mother have dementia? Did his wife find her mother-in-law living there too difficult? Could it be that he couldn't deal with the stress of resolving the problem? So he killed them both and then the children too? Having a father-in-law with dementia, I know that this illness can result in some tremendous stress and hard decisions. Could that be it? Not that it makes sense to kill your family for that reason but if you are the one who feels the most responsible for everybody and you can't resolve the problem, then maybe that would be enough stress to put someone over the edge?
I don't know if this has anything to do with estrangement although I think that killing those you love is an ultimate form of estrangement. I won't tell you to be happy to be estranged from someone you loved. I'm not happy to be estranged. I won't tell you to compare yourself to others and to be grateful that things aren't worse. I'm not grateful for estrangements. I'm suggesting that we all learn to accept what we can't change and to go forward with our lives, finding ways to achieve our goals and leave the world some day better than we found it. Even if we don't succeed at that, the journey of working at leaving the world a better place is more important than whether you manage to do it.
Accept your imperfections and limitations. They make you who you are. Stop criticizing yourself and everyone else for being less than perfect. Embrace your imperfections. Embrace those who are willing to be honest with you. Be honest in return. Count your blessings and especially the blessings of imperfections! Your imperfections make you human. Your acceptance of your humanity makes you a more loving person to yourself and to others.
Being more loving is one way of making this a better world. You don't have to hug everyone. Just learn about acceptance. Accepting people, yourself and others, for who they are is one way of expressing love. The person who failed to accept something, some unknown unacceptable to him fact of life, the most was David McGowan. By failing that he failed himself and everyone who loved him. He may have achieved release from pain but he did not achieve Heaven nor even peace. Nothingness is not the same as peace.