I was in a virtual get together and within the coffee-klatch type gathering, someone brought up about being estranged (hers, a child taken by father) and I am reminded of how many women I have run into lately, who are, for one reason or another, estranged from a child/children, (some of those children, adults). There was a great deal of commonality.
It is stunning, and not in a good way, that someone who adored , fed, washed, kept safe, adored, took to sports, took to dance, was absolutely in love with, a child, that that child would eventually turn their back away from a parent/parents, but, it is so common to happen. Yes, we all have made parenting mistakes//every one of us. Yes, we were doing what we knew to do when we did it. Yes, sometimes the mistakes were small, sometimes huge, but, God knows, we were trying. Our family was broken. I left the family with as many kids as I could and gained full custody of the four little ones, and, the teenagers were shared custody because one was finished school and away, and the second and third were still in high school and wanted to stay with their dad to finish school. I left to save us. My third child was truly broken because she was old enough to know what she did not need to know as people chose stones and threw them. All involved have their part to play in the comings and goings of my oldest daughter until, finally, she had her own broken home and slowly drifted away. Multiple attempts happened as I tried to help draw her back in but a diagnosis for her came when it was found that she always had to hate at least one person and that target changed at her will. I got to be her scapegoat for life. I finally had to allow her to fly free. She has not returned. It has left a hole in our family as they all experience her anger, one by one, and again and again. I know she is safe. I know her partner and her children love hr. She is ok. I am ok.
If the child/children are adults, they need respect and honoring for their decisions even if it hurts us. It is surely hard for a mother to do this. We are such ‘fixers’. We have to have our boundaries as much as they do. We respect their choice but we also need our boundaries respected too. I am tired, so often, of being her own personal voodoo doll she pokes needles in to. I have had to tough love myself and simply allow it to be what it is. No false hopes any more. I allow her to say and do as she pleases about me. I am the mother who left is her story… never why, never why. I will continue to be her horrible person, her evil mother, her hapless idiot, her disturbed person, her pathetic person, There is a why to everything and hers is that she has to hate someone, one by one, and then starting over again, all the time. It is best it is me because it keeps her from hating others in the family for longer periods of time. We have all had our many turns and they are always intermittent. We are estranged.
Mothers do not walk away from hearth, heart for no reason, or because the relationship was healthy. There are serious reasons but the whole story never gets fully told. Some things are best left to their own devices. At some point, you can refuse to be a victim to your adult child. Allow it just to be and live your life with those you an and who love and respect you back. When children are adults, they have their own choices. If they do not choose you, then walk away and save yourself. It is all you can do.
It hurts like a deep festering wound, sometimes, but, eventually, you accept that that child is not a child and making choices for whatever reason to use you as a scapegoat. Out of respect for self and the child, let it be. Just let it be. To not, is to make everything worse, and for sure, yourself.
©Carol Desjarlais 1.20.21
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