Nameless and Faceless: Am I Estranged?

 

 

 

“Would you consider somehow acknowledging that some of us who are estranged, that it is not with our birth family?”

~ Blog Reader

Dear Reader,

Thank you for your question. I sure am willing to acknowledge that family estrangement comes in all shapes and sizes!

Families are increasingly complex and varied. It doesn’t matter a bit whether your family is classified as “normal” and “nuclear” (maintaining relatively tight ties amongst extended blood members) , conjugal ( less tied to extended family) or one of the many other sorts of families; biological, adopted, blended, single parent, same sex, multi-generational, kinship, or tribal – to name a still limiting sampling of family form possibilities. Family is complicated – and the reliance we have on examining family ties through the bog standard, predominately Western, “nuclear, biological” lens, is not indicative of what is real for many families, the majority of them even, in the year 2010.

Let’s use my story as a bit of an example. Mine is a story of mostly unspoken, inter-generational estrangement. It occurred in multiple derivatives on my mother’s family’s side as a result of both my grandpa’s and granny’s various estrangements across their extended families, long before I was even born. (I cannot speak to my paternal family’s record with estrangement as we were estranged!) My grandmother divorced, spent time as a single parent and then remarried. The story becomes one of my granny’s attempts to accommodate or resolve estrangement in her family of origin, while also participating in or co-creating a rift between her girls, their father and their paternal family. My mother and her sister had varying degrees of success in remaining in contact with their father and paternal family and also varying degrees of connection with their step-father and extended step-family.  How could the impact these circumstances had on their lives – not significantly impact  on my half sister and I, and the sorts and quality of family relationship we had access to as we grew up?

My mother was divorced from my birth father/family when I was a very young child. I never got to know my father or his extended family, which includes aunts, uncles, 3 brothers, grandparents etc. My mother remarried to my half sister’s father. They divorced a few years later. I lost my step father and all his extended family, which I had come to think of as mine. Add a variety of other people who functioned as ‘extended family’ through out my childhood who invariably also left or got left behind. A third marriage for my mother, with a man who was not formally estranged from his family, but certainly struggled to maintain relationships with them.  All this estrangement before I hit adulthood and became fully immersed in the recurrent estrangement that dissects over and again across entire family systems, and has become a part of my own life experience as adult.

We’ve had  nuclear family estrangement, single parent family estrangement, blended family estrangement, multi-generational estrangement and inter-generational family estrangement in my family. Still do. I use this snapshot of my family’s experiences as a very brief, example of how many different levels and layers of estrangement it is possible to experience in a ‘single’ family system.

If you feel separated and isolated from people who you consider your family – that’s good enough for me. Let it be good enough for you too.

~* ~

Defining Estrangement

 

* estrange, alienate, disaffect
These verbs refer to disruption of a bond of love, friendship, or loyalty.

~ American Heritage Dictionary

One of the first things I notice when I start talking about estrangement is that the word means different things to different people. This difference is not only related to meaning, but also how estrangement looks and feels in context to people’s experience of it. For some, estrangement can happen while sitting in the same room with a ‘disconnected’ family member. For others, estrangement can occur as a result of divorce and involves the removal of relationship, as well as increased physical separation.  Other people speak of the estrangement, which has occurred in their families as a result of issues such as mental health problems, addiction, abuse or crises of tolerance.  Adoption can also be viewed as a profound source of family estrangement. Family estrangement may be physical (actual distance) as well as emotional, or both. For many people, estrangement is a complete break of relationship, which is akin to a living death with a family member(s). “My mother is out there. I have her address. Her phone number. But she is dead as dead to me.”

The objective of E-strangement as a research project is to explore collective understanding of family estrangement: As such, we need to accept that there will be a range of definitions and experiences of the word ‘estrangement’ and will be perceived differently from person to person. Rather than choosing to see this variation as a communication ‘problem’ – I propose it be viewed as a tremendous opportunity and as a ‘jumping in’ point. We can begin discussions by describing our own definitions and experiences of estrangement and listen to those of others. Taking this step clarifies our own ‘personal location’ (what the issue looks like from where we sit) and is also a means to understanding how it may look from someone else’s perspective.

Therefore, all definitions (and experiences) of family estrangement are legitimate taken within their individual contexts and experience.

It is useful to know, for instance, that when I use the words ‘family estrangement’ in my own life – it refers to my biological family AND also refers to the step family (s) I ‘lost’ when my mother ended relationships or divorced. I can extend my experience of estrangement to include the loss of my in-laws and extended family after my own divorce – and scope it out even further to include my fear of potential estrangement from my children. Estrangement in my family and life is inter-generational, spans across birth and extended family, is both historical and current and continues to have a pervasive impact on my life and that of my immediate family.

We don’t need to limit our use of the word ‘estrangement’ to dictionary definitions. It is however, helpful to ensure we’re clear about what we mean when we are using the word. Taking time to establish this clarity of meaning is something we need to do for ourselves and also allows us to effectively communicate with others.

~ Things to think about ~

1- Considering the above, write your own definition of estrangement.

2 – Look up the word estrangement in a dictionary. How does it fit with your definition?

3 – Are there other words you use, or would prefer to be used to describe the disconnection in your family relationships?