Becoming The Beast
“He who makes a beast of himself gets rid of the pain of being a man.”
― Samuel Johnson
The thing about creating a community of sorts for people to come together to reflect on family estrangement, is that it has the capacity to backfire.
A place which could be about resilience, strength, and healing can slide into a place of ‘poor me’, ‘bad them’ and being stuck; stuck in the past. Stuck in relationships we feel that we can’t control or change. Stuck in the belief that things can’t change and we will always be broken and full of pain, or anger, or any feeling that diminishes our experience of life.
A place which could be about compassion, peace, and building understanding becomes instead, one of blame, shame and misunderstanding.
How does this happen?
It’s complex because family is complex and people are complex and as individuals, we are complex too. It’s really important to acknowledge how difficult it can be to read about other’s struggles or to come face to face with someone else’s anger, shame, hurt or despair. But that is what a community for family estrangement invites; the sharing of emotionally loaded stories. It often seems that there are two responses.
- We can relate or understand the story because we’ve been there. Maybe not exactly there, but close enough that we feel both strangely comforted that we are not alone and yet raw, when another person’s pain comes terribly close to something we have experienced ourselves.
- We don’t relate well and feel a need to distance from someone else’s experience or feelings. This is particularly true when we hear about people’s experiences which do not mesh quite right with our own, or that we align or over identify too much with. We can find ourselves reliving our own experiences rather than being able to be present with another person’s. We disconnect.
Brene Brown talks about this phenomenon in her book, I Thought It Was Just Me (but it isn’t) (pp 9-12). Her book is a highly articulate and compassionate look at how we can learn to practice courage, compassion and connection—in a culture of fear, blame and disconnection and I heartily recommend it. Brene speaks about the commitment to live in a manner that not only builds shame resilience for ourselves but also calls us to carefully consider the actions and reactions of others. She states,
“If we are to understand shame, we must not only seek to understand [the other person's] experiences, but the reactions of those around her. We can’t simply “shift shame” to [those who are insensitive]. Shaming the [people we think are responsible for another person's suffering] would be equally as destructive. Second we have to dig deep and be honest about how we might react...”
She goes on to speak about how, if we are honest with ourselves, we may find ourselves becoming exactly what we hate. Given the necessary circumstances, we can easily find ourselves becoming judgemental, making assumptions, drawing potentially false conclusions and engaging in behaviour which can only be seen as dis-connective; blaming, shaming, shunning.
Do we do this because we are horrible people? No – we do it because we are human. As Brene says,
“.. situations like this can throw us into our own fear, anxiety, grief and sometimes, our own shame. And to allieviate these overwhelming feelings, we seek connection with others – sometimes in incredibly hurtful and destructive ways, like gossiping and excluding others.”
Again, I encourage you all to pick up a copy of Brene’s book and read on.
For myself today, I wish to make explicit how sharing our own family estrangement stories or hearing other people’s family estrangement stories has the capacity to either open our hearts, lead to compassion and self-reflection OR has the capacity to move us into a place of unskillful speech and action where we are blaming, shaming and shunning people we do not know and have never met. (Right Speech anyone?)
We may do this to better connect or align with someone we perceive as being “fragile” and in need of our support and understanding. We may also do so for more selfish reasons, such as working through our own unfinished business through someone else’s suffering.
Consider this. There are two readers of this blog who are from the same family and who are estranged. Say they are using pseudonyms. Say they are sharing their own experiences of estrangement and say we are commiserating with both, and explicitly or not, blaming the “perpetrators” of their hurts. Could it be true that we align and feel compassion toward both people and would be shocked to realize they are different sides of the same coin? Both are angry, both are suffering, both may feel entitled to their stories and their feelings.
If we truly seek our own liberation and healing, we need to see and understand how we become the very things we abhor in others. If we don’t like people who are intolerant, who are critical, who shame and shun, how can we become conscious that we do not become just like them? How do we make room for everyone’s stories, everyone’s hurts?
This is not about accepting unacceptable behaviour or minimizing harm, it’s about developing our resilience and ensuring that we do not “become the beast”.
Boundaries: Not So Black and White?
“In a perfect world everything would be either black or white, right or wrong, and everyone would know the difference. But this isn’t a perfect world. The problem is people who think it is.”
— Neal Shusterman
If you have been struggling with family estrangement issues, odds are pretty good that at some point there were some boundaries laid down, that someone didn’t agree with or didn’t respect. Maybe it was your boundaries being crossed. Maybe someone else was laying down boundaries for you, that you didn’t like or feel you could live with.
Time marches on. The boundary collision doesn’t magically resolve itself. Maybe you tried a few things to solve the problem. Maybe the other person tried too. Or maybe neither one of you tried. Maybe you kept trying the same things to solve the problems, and got more of the same results. That can be painful and frustrating. At the end of the day, one of you or both of you, cited irreconcilable differences and you walked away, or they walked away. Either way, you’re now estranged.
We take our experiences out into the wider world with us. We may have learned that setting boundaries doesn’t work. So maybe we stop trying. Maybe at the first sign of disagreement, we walk away. Maybe we set ultimatums instead of boundaries. Maybe we become ever more manipulative in an effort to get our needs met. Maybe we learn to go without having our needs met.
Boundaries aren’t as black and white as we may think, or want them to be. Sometimes we need to learn to set the boundary and then we need to learn to detach. Boundaries aren’t wars to be fought.
We will all have provocative relationships in our lives. This is a good thing. It teaches us about ourselves, and it encourages us to become more aware of our reactions and the places where we are uncomfortable. These relationships are a great opportunity for us, to explore … us. This is how we grow, heal, change, and build better relationships. It’s not comfortable. It’s not easy. If it was, we wouldn’t have anything to learn.
So we learn to set boundaries and detach. We stop trying to make people do what we want them to do, think what we want them to think, say what we want them to say. We spend our energy instead, choosing how we want to respond, and we make conscious efforts not to allow ourselves to become reactive and fall into emotional or psychological turmoil that lasts for hours, days or even longer.
We unhook from trying to control, because setting boundaries was never about controlling another person, it was about defining our own limits, so that we could make healthy decisions for ourselves.
We can learn really important things from the interplay of boundaries in our relationships. We can learn about our reactivity, our defensiveness, where we are afraid, where we’ve been hurt and where we feel we must have control.
We can learn to identify patterns and not buy into them. We can learn that we can take care of ourselves, and still love and care about others. We can learn to look after ourselves without feeling guilty.
We can learn to trust that we know what is best for us. We can learn to be assertive, and we can learn that we don’t have to be aggressive to get what we need. We can learn not to put our baggage and our problems onto other people and then call it their problem. We can learn to be better and do better.
We can learn that we don’t have to allow other people’s problems, their issues, their boundaries, their refusal to respect our boundaries, run our lives. We can learn discernment and detachment. We can learn to let go of black and white thinking.
We really can.
Before We Quit
“Recovery is about more than walking away. Sometimes it means learning to stay and deal. It’s about building and maintaining relationships that work. – Melody Beattie
If we are to create healthy relationships we must be open to working on relationships.
Seems like such a simple statement doesn’t it? It’s far from simple however, in relationships where tensions run high, tolerance is in low supply and emotions burn hot or run cold.
Some relationships cannot be worked on. Some can. Sometimes we pour everything we can into resolving problems, sometimes we put very little into working through conflicts. Before we quit relationship we need to make sure we have done what we can to not quit.
Boundaries tell us our bottom lines. They tell us where we have no further room to yield on an issue. This is very important or we can spend far too much time negotiating non-negotiables.
Yet, boundaries are “all about us” while relationships are about two people getting their needs met. We must learn to find balance between being too flexible, or too demanding; all about us, or all about them; over-staying or over-leaving. If we are to have good relationships we must learn to navigate the tension of getting what we want and need, and also ensuring we consider others.
Sometimes we are good with finding middle ground. Sometimes we are less good. I think we know the difference. Sometimes we don’t get to choose. Sometimes we do. In the situations where we can choose, let’s learn to do so.
Your Boundaries, My Problem?
“There are those whose primary ability is to spin wheels of manipulation. It is their second skin and without these spinning wheels, they simply do not know how to function. They are like toys on wheels of manipulation and control. If you remove one of the wheels, they’ll never be able to feel secure, be whole.” — C. JoyBell C
I’ve been spending some time lately writing about boundaries, and in particular, encouraging my readers to consider the give and take of boundary setting.
It’s interesting to me that most of us will see the boundaries we set as being perfectly reasonable, appropriate and necessary, and yet often find the boundaries set by other people to be unacceptable, unreasonable and unnecessary.
We need to think about that, don’t we?
We also need to think about how we do manage ourselves in relation to the boundaries other people set. We have to get past our own resistance and push-back to properly consider what is being asked or expected of us. This can be a HUGE task.
As human beings, we tend to be self-involved and self-protective. We’re conditioned to want what we want. We’re also conditioned to push for it. This process of exerting our wants and our will is so central to the way we move in relationships, it can be hard to see how it trips us up and gets in the way of having respectful relationships with others.
The conundrum is mutual, just as we are struggling to get what we want and need, so too is everyone else. This is happening in the healthiest of relationships and is happening mostly unconsciously. The effects of boundary collisions are very often disconnected from their causes. We very often don’t see how our behaviour, values and beliefs contribute to boundary collisions. No wonder relationships can be so mysterious and complex!
In difficult relationships, all of this is greatly amplified. When we are involved with people who are wanting to control our behaviour, what we think, what we say, or our relationship, boundaries can feel like power tripping at its finest. Consider the following:
“My mother will not respect my boundaries. When I say for instance, “I need you to respect the way I parent my kids, even if it is different than the way you parented us”, she then stops speaking to me. Down the track when we are speaking again, she will do the same things all over again, like we never had the conversation. If I raise the issue, she stops speaking and round and round we go. She is so disrespectful of the way I parent that I am honestly wondering if I can continue to have a relationship with her.”
“I have been separated from my husband for ten months. I have repeatedly asked him to talk to me about our relationship and work with me to make decisions about it. Each time I ask to have a conversation about it he goes silent, disappears, changes the subject or tells me that I am manipulating him or controlling him. I am the one being expertly controlled!”
“I am estranged from both my mother and father. I have an older sister who I do have a relationship with. She still sees our parents and has told me that if I want to have a relationship with her I can never discuss our childhood or our parents and that if I do she will break off contact with me.Telling me I can’t talk about our family or my feelings is crazy. I don’t like feeling controlled.”
The above are examples of boundary collisions: Other people setting boundaries, which may feel reasonable and necessary to them, and yet may feel manipulative or absolutely unmanageable for us. In cases like this we may feel like we are puppets on a string, being made to dance to the tune someone else is humming. In healthy relationships we negotiate boundary collisions in a timely fashion, find mutually workable compromises or solutions and we continue forward in our relationships.
In less healthy relationships we may feel held endlessly hostage to other people’s boundaries, trapped in a status quo that is uncomfortable or even dangerous to our well-being. We may find conversations and compromises do not happen and that what does happen is the use of distancing or withholding contact to force compliance.
Invariably, when there is no give or take in boundaries, we may then end up feeling that our only options become ultimatums or relationship endings. We begin to distance ourselves or close off from relationships to manage the unmanageable tension of competing interests and colliding boundaries. Obviously these issues are highly relevant to the breakdown of relationships in general and are particularly relevant to family estrangement.
Have you ever felt manipulated or controlled by someone else’s boundaries? Was this feeling part of your estrangement? Have you accused someone else of setting impossible or unmanageable boundaries? Have your boundaries ever been questioned and considered manipulative or controlling?
My Boundaries, My Problem
“Each of us has the right and the responsibility to assess the roads which lie ahead, and those over which we have travelled, and if the future road looms ominous or unpromising, and the roads back uninviting, then we need to gather our resolve and, carrying only the necessary baggage, step off that road into another direction.If the new choice is also unpalatable, without embarrassment, we must be ready to change that as well.”
— Maya Angelou
I write this post knowing it may not be a popular one. You see, it is my experience that many people who deal with relationship problems in general, and especially family estrangement ones, don’t do very well with identifying, setting and especially not enforcing boundaries.
This is a very big problem. The very big problem becomes insurmountable when we also blame other people for it.
Setting boundaries is like sailing. We identify the direction we wish to go. We put up our sails, and we use all our resources to keep ourselves travelling well. Sailing requires all sorts of awareness and the ability to use a variety of resources to stay on track. A good sailor doesn’t expect everything to be calm. In fact, quite the opposite. A good sailor expects the friction and tension of wind and water.
Relationships and boundaries are like this. It is a natural, healthy part of relationship to experience “push back” when we set boundaries. Just as we want things to happen and people to behave in particular ways, so too do other people want the same of us. The tension or friction of relationship occurs when our needs, values, beliefs, expectations collide with those of another person.
Sometimes these points of tension are really worth defending. Sometimes they are not. Either way, if we have a boundary around an issue, its up to us to clearly articulate it for ourselves and for the other person or people. Edward gave a lovely example in his recent comments about a man who had great handy-man talents, who was being taken for granted in his church. Eventually, when church members continued to take advantage of him, he left the church.
Now, I don’t know this man, or all the details of his circumstances, however, I do know there are many steps to enforcing a boundary before we really need to think about abandoning relationships. We also can blame other people for not respecting our boundaries, and not doing what we think or feel that they should – and do so without ever having conversations about it, negotiating terms around it, allowing for and working with push-back and considering ways to maintain relationships even in the event that there are boundary disagreements. Maybe Edward’s handyman friend went through the steps, and if he did, he would be well ahead of many of us.
Boundaries start with identifying we are uncomfortable. Edward’s friend realizes that he is being asked to do more than he feels is reasonable, more often than he is willing to tolerate. The next step in boundary setting is clearly articulating our position. “I’m happy to provide emergency handyman help or support, however, if you need regular support I will give you my business card with my rates. Maybe we could work out an agreeable fee for my service?”
The next step in boundary setting is we see how people manage our boundary. In the first instance people may feel defensive or uncomfortable with having their behaviour challenged. They may give all sorts of reasons why they have not, or will not, accept our boundary. They may get angry. They may try to make us feel guilty or bad. They may even threaten to leave us. “At this church we all contribute our skills and talents. You know we don’t have a budget for maintaining the church. Surely you aren’t expecting the church to pay you for the little contributions you make?”
The next steps are up to us. Push-back is normal. We train each other about where our limits begin and end. Our responsibility is to continue to:
1. Consider the other person’s perspectives and evaluate if they have a fair point and reflect on whether we need to drop our boundary, modify or negotiate it, or defend it.
2. When we have decided, we need to communicate our decision, clearly and simply. “I didn’t realize that the church has no maintenance budget, however, I cannot continue to provide my time and service free of charge. Perhaps we need to look at how we can generate a maintenance budget for upkeep and repairs?”
3. We need to accept that people may not rush forward to agree with and support our boundaries, and that we will have to enforce them, sometimes many, many times. This is our responsibility. “I’m sorry to hear that the water faucet in the church kitchen is broken. Would you like me to give you a repair quote?” and then we stick with it, and go about our business and we let people sort out their expectations and needs because that is their business.
4. We give things space and time (unless of course the boundaries are ones which secure our basic safety and well being, in which case we will have much less wiggle room!) We continue to treat people well. We continue to maintain our position.
5. We evaluate the outcome. Is this person someone who will come to see and respect that we do have a boundary and that we will maintain it? Will the push-back gradually drop off, and then stop? Maybe in the case of Edward’s handyman it didn’t.
Maybe the ongoing push-back was more than he was willing to engage with and maybe that is why he left his church. On the otherhand, maybe his handyman friend didn’t understand there is a process for setting boundaries, and that a huge part of the responsibility for ensuring that our boundaries are respected, is actually about our behaviour and is our responsibility. Maybe he didn’t know that there were many other ways of dealing with enforcing his boundaries, apart from leaving.
We train people who we are in relationship with, through the consistency of our behaviour, to know that we say what we mean and we mean what we say. If we aren’t saying what we mean, and meaning what we say … that is our problem and only we can fix it.
From Boundary Setting To Power Tripping
“After all, it is sometimes rather enjoyable to feel insulted, is it not? For the person knows that no one has insulted him, and that he himself has thought up the insult and told lies as an ornament, has exaggerated in order to create a certain impression, has seized on a word and made a mountain out of a molehill …”
- Fyodor Dostoyevsky
You would think with all the boundary issues that are part and parcel of family tensions and estrangements, we’d be on our toes not only to ensure we learn to set and enforce healthy boundaries, but also, to make certain we are not making mountains of molehills.
Whilst it is good and necessary to have healthy boundaries, it is also possible to go to extremes. When every issue becomes one you are willing to fight over, or end relationships over, there is a problem. How many people have you closed off relationship with because they “just didn’t respect your limits”?
Sometimes over reactive boundary setting is part of learning. When we have not been good at managing our boundaries, sometimes we swing to the opposite extreme and become boundary setting maniacs! We set boundaries and then we zealously insist others respect them. If people question our boundaries, or ask to have discussion about them, we may become defensive, rigid, unwilling to budge an inch, to critically reflect, or to make compromises or changes.
Sometimes we have been badly injured or abused in a relationship and as a result have developed all sorts of boundaries to prevent that hurt from ever happening again. We may have been unable to protect ourselves from one ill-intentioned person, now we safeguard against all people.
When your boundaries become the means to exert power and control in your relationships, people are not going to respond positively. Only you will know when you are crossing the line from boundary setting to power tripping, but you will know. Elevating every difference of opinion, or competing interest or need, to relationship shattering proportion won’t serve you or your relationships well. Giving in on issues that are really important is unhealthy. Making mountains of molehills … also unhealthy.
Can you tell the difference?
Thinking About Boundaries
“There is a limit to the amount of misery and disarray you will put up with, for love, just as there is a limit to the amount of mess you can stand around a house. You can’t know the limit beforehand, but you will know when you’ve reached it. “
— Alice Munro
The thing about boundaries is everyone has them. We all have places where we are defensively maintaining ‘something’, whether that ‘something’ is simple, or very complex. It can be we are safeguarding our time, our resources, our physical or emotional well-being or any number of other things. While we are busy doing this, so is everyone else. We cannot help but bump up against other people’s boundaries, just as surely as they will bump up against ours. It is the nature of relationship that we will, from time to time, have competing needs or interests.
So how come some relationships and some people seem to navigate this tension better than others? How come sometimes we are able to assess the point of friction between our boundaries and that of another person, and come up with solutions that leave both parties winners; yet other times, there seems to be no place for give or take? These are a really important set of questions in the scheme of family estrangement. Many times the reasons people give for estrangement come down to issues of navigating boundaries; identifying them, setting them, enforcing them, respecting them.
It makes sense that we would spend some time considering our values and beliefs about boundaries. For instance, do you believe that all people are equally as entitled to boundaries? Do you believe some people deserve to have their boundaries respected over other people? This is often a cultural or age related belief. It can also be about power and control. Do some boundaries trump others? Do you believe yours trump other people’s? Do you believe other people should just ‘know’ your boundaries… that you shouldn’t have to explain them or make them explicit?
It makes sense that we think carefully about how we go about identifying our boundaries, setting our boundaries and enforcing them with others. How do we know a boundary needs to be set? How far will we allow ourselves to be pushed before setting a limit? Do we believe that ‘nice’ people don’t set boundaries? Do we have a strong investment in being perceived as “nice”or “giving”or “forgiving”? When is enough enough? Is it sooner …. or later …. or much much later? Are our boundaries overly self protective? Not protective enough? Can we enforce our boundaries respectfully? Do we have any ideas abut how we will respond when our boundaries aren’t respected?
We also need to take a look at how we respond when we bump up against other people’s boundaries. Are we respectful? Do we treat other people’s boundaries the way we would like ours treated? Why or why not? Sometimes we use boundaries as a means to control others. Sometimes others use them as a means to control us. Can you tell the difference between a reasonable boundary and one which is in effect to manipulate or control?
That’s a lot to think about.
What Does It Mean?
“People who exist at the margins of society are very much like Alice in Wonderland. They are not required to make the tough decision to risk their lives by embarking on an adventure of self-discovery. They have already been thrust beyond the city’s walls that keep ordinary people at a safe distance from the unknown.”
— Jamake Highwater
I have been thinking over the last week about the information, which is disseminated and shared about family estrangement in the media, through professionals who work with individuals and families and through the stories of people who are experiencing estrangement. In some respects it is always a simpler thing to keep the sharing personal – with people only laying claim to their own experiences or understandings than it is to make sweeping statements that encapsulate all experiences of estrangement. It seems to me as soon as we start to issue definitive statements about what estrangement is and is not, we invariably deny the experiences and realities of people who do not fit within that definition.
So what, you say?
If we look at marginalisation as the social process of becoming or being made marginal or relegated to the fringe of society then it is relatively easy to see that family estrangement has the potential to be infinitely marginalizing. People who are estranged from family members are very often seen not to ‘fit’ with the social ideals or constructions of “family”. Their personhood is often questioned … “what kind of person refuses to speak to their father?”… “She must be a terrible mother since her children do not speak to her.” “He must have been very abusive as his entire family have cut off.” We have all sorts of ideas about those people who both choose to estrange and those who have been estranged from.
If we are estranged from family members, whether by choice or not, we may also have all sorts of baggage we carry around with us. “What does it mean about me that my mother doesn’t love me?” … “What does it mean about me that I celebrate every family holiday alone because I can’t stand to be with my family?” … “What sort of daughter am I to refuse to care for or see my ailing father?” … “What sort of sister can’t apologize and have a cordial relationship?” and on and on it goes.
So we do this thing to ourselves, this marginalizing of self and of family, and we also have it done TO us, by the media, often well meaning and intentioned professionals, our friends and our other family members. Often times, this process is happening below our concious awareness. We may not know why we suddenly feel bad, shamed, angry … we just know that we do.
Let me give you an example I recently stumbled upon.
I get regular email updates from Dr Joshua Coleman, a highly regarded family estrangement “expert”. Sometimes I agree with his positions, and sometimes I don’t. I am always however, interested in his descriptions of estrangement and his solutions. Recently he sent round an email which said:
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It all sounds great doesn’t it? How can we feel anything other than agreeable … grandparents matter, children benefit by having them around – and we do a disservice to our families to perpetuate grandparent estrangement. Yet, I am well aware that many people will read this and they will not feel agreeable and they will find that this information, taken out of context of their realities, will leave them feeling angry, hurt, defensive, shamed, powerless, helpless etc. Why?
Because not all families have grandparents who choose to be involved with their children or grandchildren. Some grandparents are downright toxic. Many of us will have had direct experiences where relationships with grandparents certainly are not in the best interests of our children, or of us. Conversely, we may also be grandparents – who are unable for any number of reasons to connect or participate in our children and grandchildren’s lives, no matter how much we would love to.
Dr Coleman’s sweeping generalization about the value of grandparents can do nothing but further marginalize families and people for whom this experience of “grandparent” does not fit. For those of us where it doesn’t fit – we can be left feeling guilty, shamed, angry, powerless, helpless etc, because often, we don’t get to choose. We can’t make family relationships bend around statistics – no matter how powerful and compelling those statistics might be. We can’t command an end to estrangement, just because we suddenly realize it might not be in our kids’ best interests. We can’t suddenly force our adult children to let us into their lives, just because Federal Families, Housing and Community Services Minister Jenny Macklin, The Growing Up In Australia report, or Dr Coleman tell us we/they should.
Okay – in some families, grandparents are a great and positive support system for grown children and grandchildren. In some families they are not. In some families, grandparents are welcomed members, in others they are not.
The take- away message for me is that we have to REALLY consider the inclusivity of our language. We have to be really AWARE of how our ideas and beliefs about estrangement may value one set of experience while devaluing another. We need to be aware that our values, beliefs, opinions etc. may be great for us – may even be great for a whole bunch of other people — but may also be patently untrue, or unhelpful for another person or group of people and may thus exclude them.
Let’s not push out, or marginalize people, families, that are already living on the edge.
~* ~
It’s Your Party, And I’ll Come If I Want To …
“My invite must have gotten lost in the mail,” she said venomously. “But I don’t mind crashing this party.
— James Patterson
Last week, in my post, You’re Uninvited, I started writing about family events and estrangement. I wrote this in part, to a number of emails speaking about the inevitable tensions of knowing an important family event is about to occur and trying to make the decision about whether we should be involved (attend or invite).
In the follow up comments there was a fair bit of confusion about why we even worry about this issue when we are estranged. I mean, estrangement in and of itself should make this issue a no brainer, right? We’re estranged, that means we’re not in relationship and that means that we not only shouldn’t want to attend these sorts of events or invite estranged members to them – it also should mean we have no emotional conundrums about them.
Other people found this position offensive and short sighted. They spoke about the tension of wanting family and to belong, or wanting connection with some people in their family, even tho they were disinterested in other relationships within their family. They wrote, often very eloquently, about the way such dilemmas took up a substantial amount of emotional and thinking energy and how they struggled within the confines of estrangement to be “good” people, making considered and fair choices.
It’s not easy. It’s not simple. Sometimes it’s down right messy! One off solutions will never cover the range of complexity inherent in these situations.
Two pieces of information came my way this week that I thought might be worth sharing. The first is from a reader who shared a bit of her story with me about attending her father’s funeral, even tho she had been estranged from him for many years, and consequently with many other people in her family too. She wrote about her vast ambivalence about attending the funeral, and also about her fear that she would not be able to find any closure with her relationship to her father if she did not attend the funeral. The story did not have a positive ending. The family event was marked by vehement in-fighting, blaming and anger. In her own words, “I didn’t find the closure I was looking for, but I found enough hurt to fuel even more estrangement.”
The other bit of information I stumbled upon was from an advice column, Ask Annie wherein a reader asks how she should manage family events where people she did not want to be in relationship with, would be present. Dear Annie’s solution? Attend but follow “etiquette”and feel free to snub the offending family members, whilst building on the other relationships in her family. This is a tricky one as it involves “snubbing” the spouses of certain people, while having “nice” interactions with their partners. It goes without saying, I did not agree with Dear Annie’s advice.
Clearly the business of attending family events or inviting others to your family events where estrangement issues are alive and well, is fraught. I’d like to propose some things you can think about in these situations. They aren’t advice per se, just points for your consideration. Remember, your estrangement situation is yours, and no one, including me, will have the answers for you.
1. Check your motives. Think about why you want to attend the family event or invite an estranged family member. Often we are triggered around family events to reach out and connect with family members, even though it may not be in our (or the other person’s) best interests. Consider whether by sending an invite or choosing to attend, if you are opening a door that you’d really rather stayed shut. Consider what you feel.Consider how the other person might feel. Is attending/inviting informed by guilt? By shame? By obligation?
2. Consider your resilience. Think of the best/worst case scenarios. Consider whether you have the reserves and resilience to deal with them. If you extend yourself and make an overture and it is rejected, how are you going to feel? Can you attend or invite without having any expectations? This is not about being negative or thinking of the worst, it’s about choosing from the heart and ensuring you can look after yourself if it goes sideways.
3. Yes, do think of the children! Family estrangement is grown up business. If it is possible to leave children out of it – please do. Something as simple as a card can make the difference between another generation learning to cope through distance and one which understands that difficulty in one relationship is not an excuse to obliterate all other connections too. Think really carefully about this one.
4. Don’t fake it. If your family is not inviting or attending you or your children to important family events, it hurts. It hurts them and it hurts you too. This is a BIG family estrangement owie – as the implications are enormous. We can live with knowing we will not have access to family, but it may break our hearts that our kids will grow up marinating in disconnection and distance.
Any time there is a special occasion involving children, we can find ourselves feeling very badly indeed for our kids, as well as for ourselves. This extends outward to extended family who do not feel able to connect with children or young people whom they love and care about, because they are estranged from their adults.
Despite all the pain and anger this may stir up, we need to be honest with our kids. Age appropriate honest. We don’t make excuses and lie for people. We also don’t demonize them. We need to let kids know that they may not get acknowledgment or invites from certain people ie. grandparents, the way that their friends do, but that it doesn’t meanthey aren’t important or loved. That’s right, we take the high moral ground around our children. We explain that there is pain, hurt feelings and disconnection AND that it doesn’t mean the missing family members don’t love and care for them. We give them an alternate story, that is capacity building and life enhancing. We give them a chance to break the legacy of estrangement.
5. Graciousness and gratitude. If someone you are estranged from sends you an invitation, consider the spirit it is offered in. Even if you do not desire any connection whatsoever, think about whether refusing the invitation is a means of self-care, or a means of punishing the other person? Do the right thing. You’ll feel better for it.
6. Consider speaking to the person who is holding the event before you attend. Try to be even handed and honest about your concerns. Use the conversation to inform the decision you are making. If you let the person know you are worried about attending and don’t want to escalate existing family hurts or dramas, yet would also like to be present, you give an opportunity to brainstorm and discuss the best way to be present, or conversely to make a better informed decision about not attending. Consider doing the same before you invite someone who is estranged to attend one of your events. Don’t be naive. People who are estranged from their families have feelings about it, regardless of the importance of the occasion.
Once Upon A Me
“Give me strength, not to be better than my enemies, but to defeat my greatest enemy, the doubts within myself.
~P.C Cast
I often speak of the stories we tell ourselves and each other about our circumstances and relationships with others; the stories we tell about other people, and the stories we tell of ourselves. Today I want to take a moment to speak about the stories we tell about ourselves. This post is especially for people who have grown up under a hostile barrage of words, intentional or not, that have eroded and diminished their self worth and self esteem.
We grow up underneath the weight of stories other people tell about us. When we live in an environment that is oppressive and/or abusive we frequently are bombarded with stories about who we are, which are demeaning and diminishing. Consequently we sometimes lose authorship of our personal stories and of our lives. We aren’t taught or shown that we can construct the means for our own healing and liberation, just as powerfully as we can construct our continued dis-empowerment and shame.
As story making creatures, all events we experience are filtered through the story we then tell about it. These stories are always revealing if we are able to gain conscious awareness of them, but no where are these stories more compelling of our attention than those we tell which keep us firmly entrenched in our self-loathing, shame and grievious sadness, for these are the shackles of our oppression, and we are the keeper of the key.
Your mother doesn’t wish to speak to you, so you have a story that says you are unworthy and unlovable. Your adult-child has closed off contact with you, so you make up a story that says you are an evil, horrible person and a bad parent. Your partner doesn’t show up and participate in a relationship so you make up a story that says (s)he doesn’t love you … because as everyone knows … you are not lovable.
Stop. Stop, stop stop!
You can name the action of an event, without assigning meaning to it, or at least, without assigning negative, personal, all about you, meaning to it. Everything is not about you and your worth and value. Some things in fact, are about other people; what other people think, feel , say and do. Some things are about other people’s self worth (or lack thereof) and aren’t about you in the least.
Maybe your mother doesn’t talk to you because she is sick or broken herself and incapable of feeling love. Maybe your adult-child has disconnected because they are immature and behaving in a selfish and uncaring manner. Maybe your partner has some serious personal issues that interfere with their capacity to be present and loving. There are a lot of maybe’s …. and the biggest maybe of all …. maybe we will never know why people do or say the things that they do.
So if you are going to author stories, how about you choose some story lines where you are worthy, loveable, deserving of respect and caring. How about you author some stories where your co-stars value you, love you, care about you and want to be with you. How about you author some stories where not only is it okay that you shine, but where your sparkle is actually your birth right and it is expected that you will radiate your person-hood in all of its infinite manifestations.
Remember, just like everyone else, you are many stories. You also have a right to happy endings.
Toxic relationships push us into shame. Freeing ourselves of shame sometimes means freeing ourselves from toxic relationships.
And that is a story line worth exploring.
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