I awake, drenched in sweat. A scream lodged in my throat and panic rising like burning vomit deep in my belly.

The night terrors are persistent and I can’t block out their vulgar ramblings, their prying and clawing within the depths of my subconscious; at my paralyzed soaked body. Some of us dream of knights in silver clad armor, of sunsets in the distant horizon, and the warmth of love and kittens snuggled in purrs. I don’t, and I never have. Since I can recall, the dream states of my childhood were never consoling. Like clock work, once the hallway light was clicked off and I tucked myself into a makeshift bed. They came for me. The nightly men of terror, the shadowed beings, and the demons cloaked as angels. It wasn’t until as of late, that I realized these nightmares were manifestations of my daily existence as a child. In retrospect, it was as if, my waking and sleeping states were but one continuation of a nightmare.

Needless to say, this round-the-clock dysfunction took its toil. I ponder now if I was born depressed, or if depression took its roots in my infancy. Mother was an undiagnosed postpartum, personality disordered, anxiously avoidant young adult and I was pushed out of her womb and into her emotionally disturbing world. I was her and she was me; flesh and blood melding into one, whether I wanted it or not. The roots of family dysfunction are sowed at the early stages of life and grow like a weed well into ones adulthood. Although, it has been a year since my estrangement, I can feel the tendrils of decay and rot still planted firmly in my core. It is comforting and disturbing at the same time; it is all I have known for over 30 years of this life and because of it I have suffered immensely. In the same breath, I have flourished incredibly: I am resilient.

Research shows that family dysfunction is destructive to the emotional regulation and resilience of adolescences. Self-esteem and ones sense of self is greatly compromised, so much so that it manifests into depression for some (Fontaine, 2017).  We thrive, when our lives are in balance and when our needs are being met; not just physically, but more essentially, emotionally. In a dysfunctional family, the children are the ones most at risk for becoming prone to mental and physical disturbances that can begin and thus grow across their life-span. We are NOT damaged goods, as much as I believed that as a child. What is and was damaged, was our families and how we were raised and taught to believe and feel about ourselves; at a time when we needed to feel loved, validated, and respected. The broken ones, is the system and not our essence. Once we can see clearly we have been subjected to, we can finally acknowledge the dark truths of our childhood and see that beckoning light at the end of our very long upbringing. There is still time and there is still hope, to reap the benefits of the resilient being within ourselves and let it express itself to the world.

 

Reference

Fontaine, C. (2017). The impact of emotional acknowledgement and self-esteem on resilience to family dysfunction. European Psychiatry., 41, S734.

 

 

Some of us chose to leave our families behind and for worthy reasons. We may have left because we no longer wanted to carry the pain (not that we couldn’t, because we all know we have a high tolerance for family abuse), we wanted to know what life could possibly be like, look like; taste, smell, feel! Without the toxicity of our families. So why do I and others find themselves not prancing through meadows of lavender and lilacs, but rather trudging through the trenches of deep sorrow and sudden emotional aches, that can only be described as some sort of loss…Not just of the family, but ones very own identity.

When there is a loss of a parent-child relationship, there is a loss of an identity; more specifically the loss of your identity within the family system. A sense of belonging has been key to ones survival for centuries, ones family tends to be the central way people find that belonging and is integral part of their identity as they develop over the ages (Scharp & Mclaren, 2017). When estrangement occurs one may start to question ones sense of self and the role they play in life; whether it is at work, in their community, or with other relationships (particularly their intimate ones). Research also shows that there is much angst and ambiguity around the estrangement process, in particular how others could perceive you if you have chosen to severe ties with your family (Agllias, 2017). 

So, who are we without them? Who am I, without playing the role of scape goat, the black sheep, the punching bag physically and verbally? When you grow up in a household of chaos, all you know is…Chaos. I find myself either with shields up and fists out, or seeking that sweet familiar tornado of a life; I once knew, all too well. My identity as a member of the family I was born and raised into, was a complex one. I was the one who was to keep the peace and to appease the mothers tumultuous moods. I was the one who could never do good, no matter how much I gave and gave of my physical and emotional 5-year-old body. My memories fade in and out. I have blacked out a majority of my upbringing, much like the alcohol induced black outs I came to rely on in my adolescence. I was the ‘wild child’ and the ‘too much.’ I was the one who held all the family secrets and it scared the shit out of them. Mother did everything in her power to keep me from speaking and despite it all, I played my role just enough to survive, but not enough to let her destroy my essence and the truths that laid blazing deep in the gut of my soul. My identity shifted as the years went on, I became the rebellious one and then the sick one. I fulfilled their prophecies that I would always amount to nothing and become nothing. I showed them how much I really could become damaged goods, and for a time I drowned myself in all the pain I could seek and that sought me, enough to teeter between the lines of death and the bleakness of life.

But, that was years ago and I am one of those, who has chosen to remove themselves from the family system. I was never really one of them and I never was the identity they beat me into. They never broke me, as much as they tried.

References

Agllias, K. (2017). Missing family: The adult child’s experience of parental estrangement. Journal of Social Work Practice, 32(1), 59-72. doi:10.1080/02650533.2017.1326471

Scharp, K. M., & Mclaren, R. M. (2017). Uncertainty issues and management in adult children’s stories of their estrangement with their parents. Journal of Social and Personal Relationships,35(6), 811-830. doi:10.1177/0265407517699097

 

 

Who determines what it means to be estranged, especially in the context of family? A classic definition of estrangement revolving family, states that it results in a discontinuation of a relationship amongst members of a family and/or a disturbance of the day-to-day normal and ‘healthy’ functioning of the family.

 

Throughout the 2000’s various researchers in the field of psychology have attempted to define and redefine what it means to be estranged. Some argue that it is simply a breakage between a parent and a child, while others in later years give it more weight, by utilizing words such as conflict/avoidance and relational dissatisfaction (Scharp & Mclaren, 2017).

 

Dysfunctional; is not a pretty term. Dysfunction seems to go hand-in-hand when discussing families who have experienced estrangement. Many individuals who have described their family systems use the word dysfunctional as the main indication as to why they chose to become estranged. This description is intelligible for most others to understand and can be accepted within society as a simple way to state one’s reasonings for severing a family relationship. What happens though, if someone were to try to articulate that family estrangement can be functional/dysfunctional? That is, despite a dysfunctional family, one can still thrive and grow up within and outside that system, functioning: They can and do persevere despite all the professional research idealizing that only healthy and functioning families rear healthy and functioning children.

 

I ask myself and others to speculate on and be aware of how ‘functional family’ is utilized in our social, academic, and professional realms. Families are not natural per say, rather they are a construct of our world and passed down from one generation to the next. Each is unique in how they function/dysfunction and it is important to honor and try to understand your own complexly individualized family system. There are similarities across the board on estrangement that can help us to feel understood by and connect to others who have become estranged, but we must also acknowledge the intricacies of such a tumultuous and delicate situation and not try to pigeonhole one another in what we ‘believe’ it really means to be estranged.

 

Reference

Scharp, K. M., & Mclaren, R. M. (2017). Uncertainty issues and management in adult children’s stories of their estrangement with their parents. Journal of Social and Personal Relationships,35(6), 811-830. doi:10.1177/0265407517699097

Sadly, the research on family estrangement is limited. The scholars who study family systems and more specifically the relationships between children and parents, seem to focus on the ideals more than the reality of how complicated and toxic the families we were raised in can be.

What prompts some of us to finally say No! and attempt to put an end to the madness we call our family? What are some of the reasons that children of these dysfunctional relationships, stomp their adult feet down and decide to walk away (even after decades of remaining in the system)? I cannot speak for all, but I know that my day came over 30 years after I was born, when I finally was ready to walk the path of estrangement and it was nothing like I had ever imagined…

From the scarce research, we can find valid reasons for why one chooses to end a parent-child relationship or the family as a whole. Researchers have mostly sought specific circumstances for these estrangements rather than allowing for more unrestricted reasonings (Carr, Holman, Abetz, Kellas, & Vagnoni, 2015).

The day I finally spoke, I uttered the awful truths of my haunting past as a child; one who grew up in a horror show of one dysfunction after another. Was it the sexual abuse from a stepfather or the personality disordered mother who finally broke the camel’s back of my soul? I knew from the day I was born, that something was inherently wrong; it was easier to blame myself than the one who gave me life. I was evil. A child not worth loving. The devil coming to take me back to where I belonged with every assault (whether it was physical or verbal).

It’s a long story, as we all know; those of us who have become estranged. It is my hopes that this blog will be a place for others to find solace, in knowing that they are not alone, even when estrangement can make you feel like you are walking through this existence…So very lonely.

Reference
Carr, K., Holman, A., Abetz, J., Kellas, J. K., & Vagnoni, E. (2015). Giving Voice to the Silence of Family Estrangement: Comparing Reasons of Estranged Parents and Adult Children in a Nonmatched Sample. Journal of Family Communication, 15(2), 130-140. doi:10.1080/15267431.2015.1013106

You know what’s sad? I thought you either had cancer and were afraid to tell us. Then I thought maybe you were pregnant. Silly me to worry and care like that ~Mother