Estrangement Blog January to April 2004

January-April 2004

2001-2002

2003

May to December 2004

January through May 2005
June to July 2005
On Typepad with posts archived from July 2005 to present.

Jan.-April 2004
Jan. 24: Reasons for Estrangements
March 19-21: A Lifetime Estrangement Chronology
April 6: Of Keywords & Forgiveness
April 27: Unimaginable Tragedy
April 27: Update on My Mother

Sunday, January 24, 2004: Reasons for Estrangements and the Likelihood of an Estrangement Ending.

Something I've never addressed on Estrangements previously (except in brief passing references) is that there are different reasons for estrangements and that some kinds of estrangements are more likely to be resolved than others. This may seem obvious to you, Gentle Visitor, but I have talked about my personal estrangements here without referring constantly to the reasons for them, as though they are all alike. Not all estrangements are alike. Not even the estrangements that I've experienced.

Reasons for Estrangements:

Sexual abuse. (e.g. Parent towards child, Sibling to sibling, Unrelated but trusted adult to child, Spouse to Spouse, Trusted older person to younger person, trusted Priest to child.)

Physical abuse. (Same examples as in Sexual abuse.)

Emotional abuse. (Same examples as in Sexual & Physical abuse.)

A conflict over religious, political or other beliefs. (e.g. Conservative vs. Liberal, Religious vs. Non-religious, Catholic vs. Jewish, accepting a relative's gay sexual orientation, etc.)

An argument that couldn't be resolved. (e.g. An argument over a will, a difference of opinion, an inability to apologize for words uttered in anger.)

The influence of an outside person or group who convinces someone, rightly or wrongly, that they need to cut off a relationship with someone who they once cared about. (e.g. Therapists, cults, in-laws, other religious groups, con artists, ex-spouses. Note: The influence could be one that is either right or wrong. I am not differentiatiing. I am just describing the cause of the estrangement.)

A psychological condition (or physical problem that affects the mind) that makes someone unable to continue relationships with people that they once cared about. (e.g. Clinical depression, bipolar disorder, Paranoid Delusional Disorder, Schizophrenia, Narcissistic Personality Disorder, brain damage, alcoholism, drug addiction. In these cases, the person with the condition cuts off the relationship.)

Like the previous problem, a physical or psychological condition that makes someone difficult and/or impossible to have a relationship with. (e.g. Borderline Personality Disorder, Schizophrenia, Narcissistic Personality Disorder, Bipolar Disorder, Paranoid Delusional Disorder, alcoholism, drug addiction. In these cases someone other than the person with the condition cuts off the relationship.)

The betrayal of trust. (e.g. One formerly trusted friend/parent/partner betraying the trust of another by behaving in unexpected hurtful ways or revealing another's private thoughts and feelings to others.)

Perceived abandonment, whether or not actual abandonment occurred. (e.g. Parental Alienation Syndrome may be an example of abandonment that is perceived rather than actual.)

Dislike. Sometimes a person takes a dislike to someone that they used to love. A dislike that is so intense that they cut them off. It might not be due to any other reason than that the people involved no longer like each other.

Unknown reasons for an estrangement. Frequently people are in the dark about why someone whom they loved has estranged themselves. These estrangements are open to endless speculation, involving all of the above reasons and others. Maybe in some cases the reason is a misunderstanding which can never be straightened out due to the inability to talk about it. Maybe it is due to one person just not wanting to go through the awkwardness and imagined pain of talking things out. Maybe it is due to one person needing to see themselves as right and that priority prevents them from ever talking with someone who might disagree with them, even if it was someone who they once loved and with whom they could still have a good relationship if they would only talk to them.

Some of these reasons can overlap with each other. Mental illnesses and personality disorders can be involved in all of them. If you can think of types of estrangements that I've missed, please let me know.

I've never seen anything written on the likelihood of an estrangement ending. Logically, estrangements begun due to severe abuse would be the least likely to be forgiven. Estrangement can be entirely understandable and positive for the person who makes the decision. However, paradoxically, sometimes people gravitate to those who abused them and reject those whom you would expect to be more trustworthy and safe. Logic doesn't always work in predicting what people will do.

Estrangements which are due to conditions that can't be changed are unlikely to be ended unless someone has decided that they are willing to accept things as they are. That can occur over time. Someone may decide that their son's gay orientation isn't a good reason not to talk to them again. Someone may conclude that the argument over who inherited the diamond ring from their mother's estate is not worth never speaking to their brother again. Or not.

In cases where one person feels unsafe with another, I think that having a strong support system can make a world of difference if they want to forgive them for past offences and work at having a relationship.

In cases where someone has been rejected unfairly due to a third person's influence on their loved one, there is the hope that the third person's influence may end some day. Or that the unfair assessment may change over time as their loved one grows in strength and maturity.

Some psychological conditions that result in people estranging themselves unfairly from others can be treated. Conditions such as schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, and clinical depression are treatable, if the person with the condition will go for treatment.

It's impossible for me to predict whether an estrangement will end or not. Why some end and others don't ....... I don't know. Demi Moore was estranged from her alcoholic mother. When her mother was terminally ill, Demi ended the estrangement. There is something about that kind of "resolution" that doesn't appeal to me personally. But it's probably one of the more common reasons why an estrangement ends.

Some just seem to end ..... almost by chance. A woman estranged from her mother for 10 years finds her mother's website and decides to write to her and they reforge their relationship. Subsequently, the reunited mother and daughter also ended an estrangement with the mother's mother. The reasons for the original estrangements weren't stated. Drew Barrymore and her mom, Jaid, made up.

In general it is probably true that estrangements due to severe abuse and/or betrayal are less likely to end and that is probably best for those who were abused. Even if the victims can forgive the abusers, it might be best if they remain distant. Although some forgive and then write novels ..... like author Pat Conroy. (Or maybe he wrote the novels and THEN forgave?)

Friday, March 19-21, 2004

A Lifetime Estrangement Chronology

I've been thinking about the estrangements in my life. I haven't seen myself as an unfriendly person. Not the sort of person who goes from relationship to relationship with each ending in a fireworks display of conflict. I have been a reserved person. I am shy. It is hard for me to trust other people. I have chosen friends at times because I thought I could be helpful to them or because we had common interests. I no longer choose people based on ability to be helpful to them because that path to friendship is paved with inevitable disappointment. Good friendships go two ways, not just one. But that path of choosing needy people as friends was one that I took repeatedly until recently.

I have been the type who tolerated things I didn't like about friends and relatives without saying anything out of fear of hurting others' feelings or rocking the boat. I never did like conflict. I went to a therapist back in 1981. He asked me what my goal was in therapy. My goal was to be able to ask for what I wanted. What I wanted at that time was a divorce. In retrospect, what I wanted was a divorce without hurting or disappointing anyone. I wanted an impossibility. I did manage to ask for and get a divorce although I wasn't able to do that without others being hurt and disappointed.

The Chronology of Estrangements:

I was 35 years old in 1981. I had experienced one serious estrangement prior to 1981. It was a 3 year estrangement from my mother at her instigation. That is the first estrangement in my chronology. I'll list them and the dates of the estrangements and then talk about what I learned from each estrangement. This chronicle ended up being long enough that I'll include links in the event that you want to jump down to different parts of it.

I have been estranged from:

My mother: estranged from 1978-1981 and 2002-present

Ex-husband: estranged from 1985-present

Friend (Brandy) from college (going back to 1966): estranged since 1987

Friend (Linda): estranged from 1995-present

Business acquaintance/friend (Julia): estranged from 1991-1995 and 2000- present.

Daughter: estranged since 1995

Friend (Bob) from high school, Class of 1964: estranged since 2000

April 27: Update on My mother:

The 3 year estrangement from my mother back in 1978 started during a phone conversation that turned into an argument. Much later she claimed that she had been drinking. During the phone call I had told her that she couldn't hang out in my store all day as she had been doing. She erupted in anger and told me that she never wanted to speak to me again. I said, "Fine." We didn't speak or see each other for 3 years.

Up till then I had been convinced that my mother literally could not remain alive without being in touch with me. I considered myself responsible for her life. Why? My mother had threatened and attempted suicide many times. So many that I don't know the number. She had been doing this since I was 12 years old. As a child I tried very hard never to upset her.

Other relatives also went out of their way to put up with whatever she did without voicing their feelings rather than risk causing her to make another suicide attempt. I grew up feeling as though I could kill my mother by upsetting her. The estrangement, initiated by her, was a relief to me. At her behest, I didn't have to talk to her. Putting up with her chaotic behavior, listening to one crisis after another, getting multiple phone calls day and night and long messages left on my answering machine had been torture.

The estrangement felt like a gift from heaven and she had given it to me! I learned that my mother truly could survive without me!Since 1981 when our first estrangement ended, the relationship with my mother continued to be difficult but manageable for me for 10 years by following the advice of a therapist. He had suggested that I ignore what I didn't like and praise what I liked. This worked well to my amazement. It didn't make my mother happy or stop her from doing many foolish things but it did help me to detach from the crisis that was her life.

I was able to remain in communication with her and not take it all so personally. In 1991 my mother apologized to me for things that had occurred in my childhood that resulted in my witnessing abuse and being treated abusively by her and others in the family. After that apology her behavior towards me changed for the better.

For the first time in my life, and I was 45 years old then, my mother acted towards me as you might expect a mother to act: lovingly. While she continued to act towards others in the family in the same weird critical, judgemental, unreasonable and ungrateful, even nasty, way, she let up on me. This improvement continued for 10 years until 2000. Then, in 2000, she hung up the phone on my husband for no reason. She apologized a week later. Months went by.

I felt as though I had been put on alert. Eventually, after a series of events where she became angry at other relatives without apparent justification, she began subtly to direct her criticism at me again. This reached a head in 2001 when she called me on the phone, sobbing because her brother refused to buy her a car. Christmas was approaching, I was missing my daughter, and I failed to be sympathetic. In fact I was short and angry with her and reacted by pointing out in no uncertain terms that she was choosing to be miserable. She considered my statement to be as bad as if I'd sworn at her and she proceeded, in the next few days, to leave 13 furious infuriating demanding and insulting messages on my answering machine, 5 of them on Christmas day. This almost ended the relationship for me then.

After Christmas I wrote her a letter and told her that she could not do that any more or I would not be having much of anything to do with her. She made a brief apology that had no sincerity to it. I only communicated with her through written letters for most of 2002 as I didn't want to hear her voice. I was that angry. Nine months after the Christmas fiasco, just 2 weeks after I did speak with her on the phone when we had a reserved but civil conversation (and I was thinking that maybe I could manage more communication with her), she wrote to me in response to a letter from me asking her about a choice of a birthday gift to her.

As an addendum to her letter she wrote, "Not everyone has such a dumb daughter as I have. You must get your stupidity from your father's side of the family as you certainly didn't get it from mine."That statement was the final straw. It wasn't just the insult. It is all that went before and also all that I could see in the future. I didn't deserve that. I could see nothing better ever occurring. I wrote to her and told her that she couldn't do that and that I was not going to talk to her any more.

It took probably 6 months for that to sink in and for her to realize that I really was that offended and that I meant it. She still hasn't acknowledged that she said anything inappropriate. What have I learned from this second estrangement from my mother? I'm still learning but one thing is that, as much as there is pain and discomfort from being estranged from even an abusive relative, there can be more pain and discomfort in being in an ongoing relationship with someone who just can't control themselves.

We each deserve to be able to live our lives with an expectation of some enjoyment and pleasure. To have a relationship with someone who regards others living a pleasurable life as though it takes something away from them and who acts as though they have the right to behave without regard for the feelings of others, as though the only one with feelings is themselves, is an exercise in masochism.

I can't change my mother. My mother doesn't want to change. She thinks she's fine. I don't think she's fine. She's had most of my life to drive me nuts. I've had some peace for the last two years. I don't think this is a bad thing for me, this peace. I sometimes wish I hadn't reacted to the phone call about my uncle and the car but then I accept that I'm not a saint and don't wish to be a martyr. Martyrdom is not on my wish list today!

My ex-husband:

The estrangement from my ex-husband began before our divorce was final. Initially he had said that he wanted to remain friends. I was in agreement with that. We spoke on the phone occasionally after I moved to another state. However, we weren't really close. He had done some things in the splitting up of our possessions and in his failure to keep to our agreements that made me angry. Then he wouldn't locate and return some books that I had owned from childhood. The books represented something more than paper, cardboard, and ink to me.

I loved books from when I was very young. One of the books was my favorite book of classic fables and stories when I had been a child. The other was an old book of traditional Swedish recipes that had belonged to my mother and that she'd given me. They were of no value to anyone but me. I flew into a rage and wrote him a very angry letter in which I insulted him, swore, and told him how low I thought he was. Since I sent that letter in 1985, he has refused to speak to me.

What have I learned from that? First of all ..... don't send a letter that you've written while in a rage unless you are prepared to accept the consequences. While I don't miss the relationship with my ex, I do regret that we ended up estranged because I believe that the estrangement contributed to my daughter's estranging herself from me. It would have been so much easier on her if we had been able to be on civil terms. Bitter divorces ending up in estrangements are more likely to result in children, even adult children, feeling as though there are two sides and that they need to align themselves with one side more than the other.

From going through a divorce and the estrangement with my ex, I learned how little I knew him and how little I knew myself. Initially I was confused about why the marriage wasn't working and why I was unhappy in it. I was convinced in a shortsighted way that if I just went through the right motions, whatever the right motions were, and if I wasn't being abused in an obvious way that I should be happy and that the marriage should work even if we had nothing in common and had different personality styles.

My ex's behavior during the separation and divorce and our subsequent estrangement shocked me into realizing how different my ex was from whom I had thought he was. I ended up realizing that I wasn't the only one responsible for why the marriage wasn't working, that I could know someone for 17 years and not really know him, and that I could have gone to a zillion years of therapy and not been able to make the marriage any better.

Brandy:

In 1987 I wrote to an old college friend, Brandy, who was in the profession of examining eyes and writing prescriptions for contact lenses and glasses. Previously she had given me a prescription for contact lenses when I lived closer and had visited her. I wrote to her to get a new pair of lenses. In retrospect I realize that long distance contact lens dispensing is not a good idea but at the time it didn't occur to me. She didn't respond to my letter. I called and couldn't get in touch with her. I wrote again. No response. I sent the letter by registered mail. No response.

I had no idea why she wouldn't respond. I was hurt and angry. I considered writing her an angry letter saying, "Fuck you!" but restrained myself. I suspected that she was uncomfortable with sending me a new pair of contacts without seeing me in person for an appointment but I didn't understand why she wouldn't tell me that. As far as I had known, we had been on good terms but we didn't have the kind of friendship where we talked often or saw each other frequently.

The time when we had been the closest was when we were in college and we had hit it off instantly. What I had valued and remembered from college days was that we had always seemed to be able to pick up where we left off. I think that two things ended our friendship: One was that she wasn't comfortable telling me something that she thought I wouldn't like so preferred to opt out of communicating at all. The second was that what I had called a friendship wasn't really a friendship. We hadn't spent much time together. We didn't write or communicate much. We had been on different wavelengths for years. She had a very different value system from mine.

I had liked Brandy's seemingly extroverted style compared to my reserved nature but I wasn't into her lifestyle. It was a relationship that wasn't really a friendship any more. I think she recognized it before I did. Maybe she thought I was using her to get contact lenses? Maybe I was. But I wish she had called me on it.

What did I learn? To focus more on the quality of relationships. I had failed to notice the small important details of how we were as friends. This may be similar to what I missed in my first marriage.

I had a shortsighted way of thinking that if we paid lip service to being friends or being married and nothing overt happened to say otherwise, then we MUST be okay to remain married or remain friends ..... right up until one person is thinking or yelling, "Fuck you!" at the other one. In other words I am sometimes oblivious. Clueless. Dense. But not hopelessly so!

Julia:

Another estrangement I had from a friend occurred in 1991. Julia stopped having anything to do with me after she heard that I was seen speaking to a man she disliked and distrusted. She never discussed this with me. She just stopped having much of anything to do with me. In this case you're probably wondering about my choice of friends. I wonder about that too! In 1995 she apologized to me. She blamed her behavior on a boyfriend who had hated the man I had been seen speaking to and I forgave her.

We were friends again for a couple of years. Then she slipped on a wet floor in a store and fell down. Shortly after the fall she began to have problems with her neck. She sued the store. She refused to do work that she had previously done or to be seen working. She didn't want to jeopardize her chances of winning the suit. This smacked of dishonesty to me. I lost respect for her and stopped having anything to do with her.

Eventually she won a small amount of money but not the large amount that she had envisioned. This was after years of staying home, accumulating debt, and not working as much as she might have. Now she is out in view working again. I am not interested in being friends with her. What did I learn? Character is important to me. I don't want to be friends with people who don't have it. I am comfortable with that decision.

Bob:

The fourth estrangement I had with a friend was from a high school friend. Bob is a musician. I found his email address on the internet and I sent him an email. I hadn't seen or talked with him since 1983 (when we met in New York and then had a raging 4 hour fight about whether he was sexist or not.) I was happy to have found him again, despite our previous fight, and, after he responded with an email where he sounded happy to hear from me, I wrote with details of my life, including my marriage and the estrangements from my ex, my daughter, and Brandy whom he had met and had liked. He didn't respond. Does this sound familiar? I emailed again asking for an explanation. He said he didn't want to talk to me. I got angry and asked why. He swore at me. I swore back. End of relationship.

In that case, like with Brandy, I had to take a look at the quality of the relationship. Quality of the relationship? I was deluding myself. We hardly had had any relationship since high school. We had had very different lifestyles and viewpoints of life. He didn't like my current husband who hadn't liked him at all. I had to ask myself why I even cared. I think I was fortunate that I never was involved with him as more than a platonic friend. I later learned that he had physically abused one of the women who had lived with him.

Friendships that we make when we're young don't always last a lifetime and that is not necessarily a bad thing. Why had I contacted Bob? I had a remnant of that fantasy that he had lived a life that was so much more fun and rewarding than mine. That he had taken so many more chances than I had. That I could vicariously experience all that adventure through him.

To his credit Bob had talent and ambition to do his own thing that I will always admire. But his life has had its downsides and for me to compare my life and my choices so negatively is not realistic or even fair ... to me. If I take anything away from knowing Bob and accepting that our friendship was long over, long before our short email communication, it is that my life is worth something too and that I can make my own adventure in my own way without having to live vicariously through the adventures of others. Bob did me a favor.

Linda:

My friendship with Linda had begun after we met at a 12 step meeting for Adult Children of Alcoholics. We both had an interest in photography and art. Our relationship ended after she left an angry message on my answering machine. I ended the relationship.

During the time that I knew Linda, she was in a series of relationships with emotionally abusive and manipulative men. I had been listening to her complaints about the men and about her family. She didn't take responsibility for her own choices in the relationships. She saw the things that occurred as misfortunes being perpetrated on her and that she had no role in what was happening. That it was always someone else's fault. It got to the point where I could be having a wonderful day and then she would call and I would feel obligated to listen to one more sobbing story of how someone had pissed her off and had let her down. In an email I pointed out that she had a choice in the matter. This made her angry and she left a very angry message on my answering machine. The message and Linda's behavior reminded me much too much of my mother. I wanted to get away from her. I told her I didn't want to be friends any more. There was no more pleasure in the relationship. I liked her. I loved her. But I didn't want to be around her.

Of the relationships that ended with friends, this one caused me the most sadness. Linda was a nice person in many ways. But she was so full of anger so much of the time and the anger seemed misdirected. She never saw that she had choices. I didn't see any possibility of change. I decided that I had to choose friends who were less angry and more aware of their ability to choose different paths. That I wasn't and couldn't be anyone's therapist. That I needed to choose people to be friends who were able to stand on their own two feet and not look to me for therapy. I could provide a certain amount of emotional support but not to the extent of being anyone's therapist. Therapists get paid for their time. They have no obligation to listen to others day and night. They get to choose the time that they will listen. Friends who try to use friends as therapists are not very good friends. I felt used in that way. I had felt used in that way by Julia too. I didn't want to have to be anyone's therapist.

Since ending the relationships with Julia and Linda, I have become more aware of other people's style of relating to others when I meet them and think about whether I want to be friends or not. I've decided that time is valuable and that I want to spend it with people who I like a lot and who are capable of reciprocal relationships.

I don't regret deciding to end any relationships that I decided to end. With the exception of the relationship with my daughter, I don't miss any of the relationships where others have ended relationships with me.

My reaction to having been rejected by others was anger and hurt at the time of being rejected but I got over it. In thinking about each relationship that ended, again with the exception of the one with my daughter, I came to the realization that the relationships no longer deserved to be called friendships. That it made sense for us to go our separate ways. That Brandy and Bob and my ex-husband may have been more in touch with reality at those points than I was. They were no longer willing to act like we had a friendship. If we had continued to be on speaking terms, chances are that we wouldn't have had a whole lot to talk about. I was kidding myself that we even had friendships any more. My pride was hurt. My illusions were devastated. I had to concede the reality and that can hurt.

What did I learn from estrangements from friends? That my life is okay too and that it is maybe more than okay. That I chose friendships in the past for reasons that don't work for longlasting relationships. That I chose people as friends with whom I had little in common and that we've all grown away from each other. I learned that some things end and that ending is a natural part of life, that not all endings are bad.

My daughter:

In 1995 I began to be aware that my daughter, Robin, wasn't in touch with me as much as she had been. In the years before 1995 we had spent many hours on the phone, just talking. She was 29 years old in 1995. We lived too far apart to visit often although I did resent the fact that she chose to be with her father and his relatives on holidays rather than choose to travel to be with me. However, I had had a part to play in those circumstances since I had not insisted that she move with me to another state years earlier.

It may seem odd to you and others but I had had the idea that her father's Italian family and their sense of family and tradition was an important thing for her and that it would be better for her to be near them and that sense of family than it would be to be closer to me. I put little importance on myself in her life. I was a goony bird!

I had a horror of being like my mother but I found myself feeling resentful that I wasn't hearing from Robin very often. I felt unloved. I felt unappreciated. I felt mystified as to what to do. I felt confused. I felt afraid of antagonizing her and making her angry but I also felt hurt and wanted things to be better between us. I wanted to spend more time together. I wanted her to call me more often and to be more thoughtful but I didn't want to act like my mother. I didn't want to sound like a nag, like a critic. I didn't want to be annoying ... like my mother and like the jokes about mothers. I didn't want to drive Robin away. I knew my own reaction to being criticized by my mother for not calling her and I didn't want Robin to feel or act as I had felt or acted.

Her 29th birthday came. I sent a bunch of presents. She thanked me in an email. I said I was glad that she liked them and asked her to remember my birthday. I am ashamed of having asked that. I wish I hadn't. I hadn't thought of anything more creative or honest to do. But that began a downward spiral that ended with our estrangement. Robin reacted to my request with irritation.

Everything transpired through email. She told me how she didn't like that I had sent her AOL disks for free AOL time. She didn't like my having sent her clothes that I wasn't wearing any more. She didn't like the brand of jeans I bought her as a teenager. She didn't like that I would ask, "What's new?" in every phone call. She accused me of thinking that the things that she did were stupid and then, when I denied that accusation and reminded her of how supportive I had been of her, she claimed that I always said that. I'd never said that before nor did I see anything wrong in having been supportive of her. Being supportive is not something that is usually cause for criticism. She told me to go to hell.

I was at a loss as to why Robin was so angry at me. I then committed my next serious mistake. I suggested that we take a 6 month vacation from each other and start afresh the following May. I just was at such a loss. I thought that maybe a break would help. I was wrong. However, she agreed at the time that a "vacation" might be a good idea.

Then I made my third mistake. I wrote Robin a letter. Therapist-style I tried to list the things that she had said to me back to her so that she might see them in a new light. Big mistake! I later found out, from her, that the letter infuriated her.

During our "vacation" from each other, Christmas came and went. I received a Christmas present from her which I interpreted as an angry gesture. The items in the package didn't appear to have been chosen or packaged with any thoughtfulness. Some were broken. I later learned that my son-in-law had packaged them.

I saw the package as indicating more anger. I wrote a letter to Robin in which I expressed my concern that she was angry and I suggested that we go to a therapist together to resolve things. Robin wrote to me in response that I wasn't worth the ink it took to write and that there was nothing wrong with her and that I could go to a therapist if I wanted but that she wanted nothing more to do with me. That was in the winter of 1996.

I have tried repeatedly to contact her since then but she won't respond to me with the exception of two letters. In one letter she let me know how angry my letter (where I listed what she had said to me) had made her. In another letter (in 1997) she let me know how angry she was that my mother had tried to get her to reconcile with me and that if my mother hadn't contacted her, she might have ended the estrangement.

The estrangement with Robin was the motivation for my establishing estrangements.com. After 4 years of grief and pain over the loss of the relationship with Robin I began to feel better. I obsessed about her less. I was able to wake up in the mornings without thinking of the estrangement first. I cried less. I began to accept the situation as being something that I could not control. I accepted the fact that I was powerless. That reconciliation, if it ever occurred, was not something that I could make happen. That understanding of its underpinnings of the estrangement might never come as I might never have enough information to help me understand. That all I could do was possibly help others understand and cope with their own estrangements by providing information about estrangements. I've learned to pay attention to what my heart is telling me more and to be more honest myself in my closest relationships.

I've learned to be less critical of others and less judgemental. Before 1995 I tended to think that parents who were estranged from their children had done something to deserve being estranged. I thought that where there was smoke, there was always a fire. I used to think that being a good enough parent resulted inevitably in good relationships between parents and adult children. I thought that charges of abuse by parents were 99.9% true. I thought that Robin would NEVER do anything like that to me, never tell a lie about me. After all, I had thought, I had always been on her side, her biggest fan, and that we were friends as well as being a loveable mother and a loveable daughter. I thought that Robin would never say anything about me that was untrue or reject me .... because there was no reason for her to do that. I had felt fortunate to have a daughter and to be on such good terms with her. I've learned how unaware and oblivious to some truths I can be. I've learned that my daughter has lied about me and to me.

I still feel fortunate to have had a daughter. I now also feel so very sorry and sad that we don't have a relationship. If there was something I wish I had been better at, it would be that I had known earlier that there was something wrong between us and that I would have known what to do to save our relationship. Some things just seem to come up and hit you in the face and then it is already to late to stop what is already in motion.

I have learned how wrong I am in so many things in life and how powerless I am. I have learned that it is possible to experience great pain and go on with living a rewarding life. I have learned that there is hope through it all and I do hope that maybe there is some miracle reconciliation some day and that I will understand everything and that it will all make sense.

Tuesday, April 6, 2004: Of Keywords & Forgiveness

I look up the statistics sometimes for how often Estrangements.com is visited and what keywords are used in searches to find the site. The most frequently used keyword is estrangement. The second most frequently used keyword is aniston. The most frequently used query is "nancy aniston estrange". I don't know how they differentiate keywords from queries. The fifth most frequently used query is "nancy aniston book". And the twelfth most frequently used query is "jennifer aniston relationship with mother". Interesting! It appears that the site is accessed more often in searches on Jennifer Aniston's relationship with her mother than it is in searches on the more general issue of estrangement.

I took Nancy Aniston's book off the shelf after discovering the above information. I wanted to refresh my memory about the relationship and estrangement of Jennifer and Nancy Aniston. Skimming the last few pages of the book, I wondered what Jennifer's side of the story would be if she told it. I suspect from reading Nancy's account that Jennifer would tell a story of feeling that her mother was too caught up in Jennifer's life. That Jennifer was uncomfortable with how much her mother wanted to be part of that life. That Jennifer resented her mother's opinions of her friends and advisors in her professional life. I am reading between the lines. It is interesting to me that there apparently is a lot of interest in their estrangement. I am wondering what it would take for Jennifer to forgive her mother.

So far, to my knowledge, Jennifer Aniston has not forgiven her mother and they remain estranged.

This week on the Anderson Cooper show on TV is a series on Forgiveness. I missed tonight's segment. The first segment on Monday featured people who had forgiven the unforgiveable. People who had forgiven those who had murdered their children. My husband and I discussed what forgiveness is and which of us is more likely to forgive others. My husband says that it would make him sick to forgive a murderer. In general I agree but I think that there might be circumstances where someone could forgive another for a heinous crime.

Also we discussed whether forgiveness is defined by actions or by the feeling we have inside. Can a person behave as though they have forgiven someone by having a relationship with them but not ever really forgiving them in their heart? Conversely, can a person refuse to have a relationship with someone even though they have forgiven them? Have they truly forgiven them?

My interest in the topic of forgiveness is not about crimes and forgiveness of crimes. My interest is in forgiveness of the less heinous transgressions in life that people make towards each other: the betrayals, the disappointments, the lies, the human errors. Some people are saints and will forgive almost anything. Others look less kindly on transgressions. Some people forgive nothing.

I haven't made up my mind on how I stand on forgiveness other than deciding that there are transgressions too minor to be rigid about. What makes some transgressions minor and others unforgiveable is an individual decision. Some of us may want to be "Christlike" about the sins of others and believe that forgiveness is the only way.

I would like to be forgiven for whatever it is that my daughter thinks is so terrible that she won't talk to me. I would like that. I don't know why she won't forgive me. I am unclear on what my transgression is and what it is that I would need to do to have her forgive me. Maybe there is nothing that I can do. I suspect that is the truth. I suspect that it is me that she doesn't like ... possibly with the able assistance of her father ... who doesn't like me for having left him ... so there is no winning forgiveness from him ... and maybe from her too. I would like to be forgiven but not at all cost.

As for my mother, I can forgive her for being the way that she is. Forgiveness of my mother doesn't mean that I want to try working on a relationship with her again. I can forgive her, feel compassion for her, but feel unwilling to subject myself to any more anger and insults from her. I don't know if others believe that forgiveness necessitates having a relationship with the person? I know that I can stop feeling angry and can feel sadness and compassion for another yet still not want to be in their presence. I can feel PARTICULARLY sad for someone else exactly for that reason. I have felt that way about other people I once knew ... that I didn't want to have a relationship with them and felt sad about it and felt sad to think of their sadness too ... but still didn't want to have a relationship with them. Even while forgiving them for having let me down.

Does true forgiveness require having a relationship with the person forgiven? I don't know. But then I think of a poem that I first encountered when I took a therapeutic workshop. The poem is by Portia Nelson:

Autobiography in Five Short Chapters

by Portia Nelson

I

I walk, down the street.
There is a deep hole in the sidewalk.
I fall in
I am lost .... I am helpless
It isn't my fault.
It takes forever to find a way out.

II

I walk down the same street.
There is a deep hole i the sidewalk.
I pretend that I don't see it.
I fall in again.
I can't believe I am in the same place.
but it isn't my fault.
It still takes a long time to get out.

III

I walk down the street
There is a deep hole in the sidewalk.
I see it is there.
I still fall in ... it's a habit.
my eyes are open.
I know where I am.

It is my fault.
I get out immediately.

IV

I walk down the same street.
There is a deep hole in the sidewalk.
I walk around it.

V

I walk down another street.

For information on Portia Nelson, click here: CABARET HOTLINE BREAKING NEWS: Portia Nelson Passes at Age 80

Tuesday, April 27, 2004: Unimaginable Tragedy

Last week a tragedy happened to the family of a man I know. His daughter killed her two children and tried to kill herself. I met her years ago. A beautiful young woman. Her father has spoken of her many times with pride. I didn't know about the second grandchild until I saw the story in the newspaper but I had heard him speak of the first grandson with such love in his voice. The older boy was 2 1/2 years old. The younger one was only 4 months. Apparently, their mother was suffering from postpartum depression. She had left her husband and was living with her parents.

She is in jail now, charged with murder. I can't imagine killing a child. I've experienced depression but never so severe that I could think of killing a child. I looked up postpartum depression online. Bipolar disorder is the kind of illness in which the risk of killing a child is higher. I feel so sad for the whole family.

Meghan is the second mother I've met who killed her children. In 2001 a woman killed her 13 year old son and then herself. I didn't know her well. I'd only met her a couple of times. Rosemary was the sweetest person. She taught in a Catholic school. Earlier in the day that the murder and suicide occurred, she had expressed concern for someone's personal problems in a phone call. No one who knew her would have expected her to be able to kill her son or even to think of killing her son. I can only ask, "How could she do it?" The problem in her life at that time was that her husband had left her.

No one who knew either of these women would have predicted these events. They were the sort of women I would have thought would be the LAST women who could have ever killed their children.

This has nothing to do with estrangement other than that I felt fortunate not to have had this happen to anyone in my family. My estrangements seem like minor losses in comparison to the nightmares of suicide and murder of children. I am so struck by the terrible tragedies that happen to people. The stories that I've been told are the stuff of Shakespearian tragedy. People walk around with such broken hearts. I am amazed that humans have so much resiliency that they can get up in the morning and get on with their lives after experiencing some of the most gut wrenching losses and events. Somehow we manage to get to the point where we can tell a joke again and can laugh and enjoy another sunrise.

I did an online search using Meghan's full name to see what came up. I found one entry on a site where she was credited with doing a book review on a book about herbal nutrition. She was described as being a "brand spanking new mom". That would have been right after her first son was born. How she went from being a "brand spanking new mom" to murdering her sons is a mystery and a tragedy that is beyond my comprehension. How does anyone who survives manage to live with the memory of what they've done? Even if it was due to illness? Or does Nature have mercy and erase the memory?

April 27: Update on my mother

My mother is in a nursing home. She finally signed herself into a home after her psychiatrist had her taken forcibly to the psychiatric ward of a hospital. The previous week she had decided to stop taking all of her medications. That decision is what made her psychiatrist send two men to her apartment to take her to the hospital.

I know about these events because my mother's brother called me. The hospital had wanted him to sign her into a nursing home but he didn't want to do it. He had always felt badly about his mother going into a psychiatric facility long long ago and didn't want to be responsible for signing his sister into anything. He seemed to think her problems were caused by her living alone. He said, "She talks to walls because she is living alone." I told him that he was in denial and that she was crazy. He went to see her in the hospital and she screamed at him so much that he said that it sounded like he was beating on her. He said that she sounded as though she hated him. Later she signed herself into a healthcare facility. I am guessing that she is hoping that it is temporary because her apartment is still full of her things and she didn't give it up. She wrote a letter of apology to her brother.

Last week I got a call from an emergency room doctor asking for permission to treat her for internal bleeding. She had been taken there from the home. When they asked her why she was there in the emergency room, she said, "Because the electricity went off."

I gave the doctor the permission he needed.

My uncle told me an odd story that he remembered from when he was 11 years old. My mother, who is 6 years older, would take him to the grounds of the state psychiatric hospital to watch the patients. He remembers a patient who had clocks all over him. So many clocks that they would fall off. My mother thought this was funny ... the antics of the psychiatric patients. Watching them was a recreational activity for her. She brought her younger brother to watch too. He thought this was strange.

This was the same hospital where many years later my mother was institutionalized for 3 years straight and for many other shorter visits as a patient herself. My uncle thought she liked it there. It's possible.

This was the first conversation that I'd had with my uncle in many years. I'm glad to have spoken with him. I haven't been in close contact with most of my relatives for a long time. My uncle has always been a practical joker who enjoyed teasing people, especially women. He has a bit of a crude sense of humor. When I was a young woman, he would say and do things that were not appropriate for an uncle to say and do. I eventually kept my distance. However, this conversation that I had with him two weeks ago was good.

I've always imagined that my relatives must think that I am a terrible person because I keep such a distance from my mother but it doesn't sound as though that is true. I think they've all suffered the slings and arrows of my mother's tongue. I don't know what they think of me but it's probably not as bad as I had thought. My uncle wanted me to go out and drink beer with him! I don't even drink! And apparently he has stopped drinking in recent years and his invite was just in jest.

Blog May to December 2004