I’ve been listening to a couple good shows on NPR, in the car mostly, when I’ve been out and about. And at home my daughter broke the radio, Alexa won’t play my local NPR station and the wi-fi has been having some problems. So today while listening to one of those shows, I sat in my garage and didn’t go inside, listening to the topic at hand. It was what they call a “drive-way moment”, a term meaning: the show you are listening to, or music that is playing, is so good that you stay in the car to listen to it instead of getting out. The phrase is often used during fundraising time.
Sometimes when you start listening to a show in the middle you don’t have all of the facts. I was soon caught up for my own comprehension, but probably not enough to be expert on the topic enough to report it to you. But I’m not admitting to knowing all the facts, and like with so many things that people fail to admit, which it should be obvious, I will be coming from a subjective point of view when I am not stating facts.
First off all I’ll tell you the subject, and what qualifications I do have that gives me experience and knowledge enough to know something. The subject was estrangement from relatives. I have knowledge of a dysfunctional family, even more with grandparents, and uncles. Some adult children in my family have cut off contact with parents for reasons unknown to me, while others, it was absolutely known to me. And my late grandma and uncle cut off contact with most of the family, I’m guessing from my understanding, from the effects of childhood trauma and some lovely racism in there too. (I’ll have to touch on this particular subject in another post). And I personally have dealt with these issues and know that in most cases it’s not cut and dry. An example of a cut and dry situation is a person who you can remember nothing else besides the relative physically abusing you. Many situations of people choosing to separate from their family members are because of emotional, physical or sexual abuse. They may remember happy times too, which can make the decision to separate even harder. I have worked with domestic violence victims at a shelter. Even though I, and this talk on the radio was mainly referring to people in their immediate family, there were elements of getting away from an abuser in this discussion. Especially emotional abuse, because it can't be seen, and I have seen so many, usually young women, argue away emotional abuse, is hard to identify. (It’s a side note, but I just realized that Ireland has just criminalized Emotional Abuse.)
I started college as a psychology major. And having a mental illness that I have been actively getting treatment for, which including going to in- and outpatient situations I have heard the perspectives of many people, sometimes touching on this subject.
First, I should say that the show was called A1. There were two guests at first. One was a man who I think was a Psychologist or Psychiatrist. The other, a woman, who had written a memoir about the subject. I looked it up to see exactly who she was. Her name is Harriet Brown and her book on the subject is called Shadow Daughter: A Memoir of Estrangement.
After hearing both of these people speak, I related to the points Ms. Brown made much more often. I felt like the man (I’ll just call him “the man” since I don’t know his exact title and qualifications) was underestimating the importance hypothetical people’s experiences in general, as well as people who had communicated their story with the show. He said, and had a point, that in past generations what we call abuse now was not called abuse then. Yes, that’s true, but does it in any way matter? We shouldn’t have to keep relationships and deal with terrible treatment because our parents didn’t call something abuse. Its backwards thinking. It’s like marital rape used to be legal until 1993. Just because our parents’ or grandparents’ generation thought that was okay, doesn’t mean we should. And in a patriarchal society its most often the voices of the dominant group that are heard and taken seriously, and in the case I mentioned above, not the wives who it was legal to rape. It seemed to be like "the man" was pointing out that people these days are deciding to split from their families more often without trying to work things out. This is a valid point, and I agree relationships need to be worked on. There was one point I didn’t appreciate, because I felt he needed to counter it with its opposing view, to give credibility to his argument. He said sometimes adult children decide to cut off all communication with their parents (and I think it was the host of the show who mentioned the fact that more of the initiators of these estrangements are adult children of their parents) because they (the adult children) have mental health issues. First, he never approached the issue of adult children cutting their parents off because of the parent’s mental illness, which made them abusive to the children in childhood and adulthood. And he mentioned that sometimes therapists that may not understand the whole family dynamics, or all the issues, may encourage patients to distance from their parents. I find that to be unlikely, and irresponsible, for a therapist that doesn’t know a person to suggest such a thing. Knowing therapists, because I worked on counseling clients, and mainly because I have gone to a shitload over the years, I think it much more likely that the therapist would at most, after getting to know the client, after some time question the client, perhaps if they deserve that treatment from their parent, or perhaps point out that they are miserable for a week after seeing their father every time. And if the client comes to the realization to cut off their parent during therapy, it is the client, who makes the ultimate decision.
There were a couple guests that called in. One was a sister who had to cut off a brother because of some unknown thing they got messed up in when they were young, but said she still loved her brother. Most of this is not about love. I didn’t get a stats, but I would believe that lack of love is hardly ever the reason. Love is often the reason people don’t cut toxic people out of their lives. It would be so easy if you didn’t love someone, to turn away. While there are others who aren't choosing the estrangement, but their family members are. Another caller’s family was Jehovah’s Witness, and I think the situation was that the caller wasn’t affiliated with the religion any longer, so the family was supposed to cast him out. I have noticed in some conservative religions, when a person wants to take another path they can be cast out. This is a similar to something I experienced. My partner and I once went to an Atheists, Agnostics, and Questioning Meet-up group locally because he is an agnostic, raised Jewish, with Jewish leanings, and I am something between an agnostic, a Wiccan, and I’m attracted to some parts of Buddhism and Hinduism. We thought we could meet like-minded people. What we met was poor damaged people I felt sorry for. People who had been cast out of their families, their friend groups, and sometimes their small communities because they didn’t want to be whatever very conservative religion. These were sometimes all the people they knew. There was a person who was secretly coming to the meeting. He wanted to be able to think freely but would be disowned by his family if they knew he was going to the meetings, but the group was refreshing and helpful to him. My partner and I never went to that group again because we figured it wasn’t for us, even though we agreed with what everyone was saying. I’m a bit empathic, and I could literally feel the trauma of these poor people and it was too much for me. My partner and I had much different stories. His parents didn’t have a problem with him believing, or not believing differently, and parents who raised me Hare Krishna, then Presbyterian, my mom went on progressive protests with me, and they used to be hippies so my parents weren’t going to have a problem with what religion I was, or wasn’t. We now attend a Unitarian Universalist Church in which we can believe anything we want. (I will write about that in another post)
I’m thinking about getting Harriet Brown’s book; it sounded good. I didn’t get to hear that much from her, but as I understand it was, she who cut her mother out of her life. As far as I understood, there was a constant lack of respect, but I’m sure there was more. As I was pulling away from the downtown health-food store after getting some acidophilus and being invited to a drum circle, I heard the first part of the story, which if I remember correctly, because I was trying to make a left on a busy street, was that, I think it was Ms. Brown to whom people responded positively to this issue, when I thought people would have to be in the closet about this. Because when I have had a problem with a family member and tell an acquaintance, or not very close friend, who has met said relative, they dismiss and minimize what I am saying if they like that relative. It’s happened to me at least twice. Then driving on that busy one-way street, making a right and going past one of the town’s Universities I heard some stats about adult children cutting off contact with their parents, and it was higher than I thought. This would be something that might feel validating for people going through something like this. Brown’s mother has since passed. The subject maybe didn’t relate, but I would be interested to know if Brown had to grieve all over again after her mother passed, or if she had done most of her grieving after she stopped talking to her, because I definitely believe that there must be some sort of grieving process.
My uncle, who I'm not that close to, drove from out of town to my wedding, which I appreciated. But two things were odd. If one thing wasn’t true, I wouldn’t have thought the other so odd, and I think obvious. He is not rich, but a business owner, none the less. I thought $10 dollars, even if we were not close was pretty cheap of him. I’m not being materialistic. But he cornered me and started asking questions about his estranged son- if I knew anything about where he was, or talked to him, for me to tell him. I think my mother had found out that I had found my cousin on FB and talked to him a couple times, but I felt my cousin probably had valid reasons because his sister also cut herself off from her father. And I thought it inappropriate for my uncle to try to put me in the middle of an issue that was not my business at my wedding. It felt a little creepy.
Many families have valid reasons to disassociate with their relatives, while others need to try to work on the issues first, unless they are very abusive and dangerous. And the thing I think about, ending this, is that for most of these cases, as you see in the example above, even though one person is pursuing the goal of basic estrangement, it can affect many others in the family as well.
The art I did here are examples of this subject.
First off all I’ll tell you the subject, and what qualifications I do have that gives me experience and knowledge enough to know something. The subject was estrangement from relatives. I have knowledge of a dysfunctional family, even more with grandparents, and uncles. Some adult children in my family have cut off contact with parents for reasons unknown to me, while others, it was absolutely known to me. And my late grandma and uncle cut off contact with most of the family, I’m guessing from my understanding, from the effects of childhood trauma and some lovely racism in there too. (I’ll have to touch on this particular subject in another post). And I personally have dealt with these issues and know that in most cases it’s not cut and dry. An example of a cut and dry situation is a person who you can remember nothing else besides the relative physically abusing you. Many situations of people choosing to separate from their family members are because of emotional, physical or sexual abuse. They may remember happy times too, which can make the decision to separate even harder. I have worked with domestic violence victims at a shelter. Even though I, and this talk on the radio was mainly referring to people in their immediate family, there were elements of getting away from an abuser in this discussion. Especially emotional abuse, because it can't be seen, and I have seen so many, usually young women, argue away emotional abuse, is hard to identify. (It’s a side note, but I just realized that Ireland has just criminalized Emotional Abuse.)
First, I should say that the show was called A1. There were two guests at first. One was a man who I think was a Psychologist or Psychiatrist. The other, a woman, who had written a memoir about the subject. I looked it up to see exactly who she was. Her name is Harriet Brown and her book on the subject is called Shadow Daughter: A Memoir of Estrangement.
After hearing both of these people speak, I related to the points Ms. Brown made much more often. I felt like the man (I’ll just call him “the man” since I don’t know his exact title and qualifications) was underestimating the importance hypothetical people’s experiences in general, as well as people who had communicated their story with the show. He said, and had a point, that in past generations what we call abuse now was not called abuse then. Yes, that’s true, but does it in any way matter? We shouldn’t have to keep relationships and deal with terrible treatment because our parents didn’t call something abuse. Its backwards thinking. It’s like marital rape used to be legal until 1993. Just because our parents’ or grandparents’ generation thought that was okay, doesn’t mean we should. And in a patriarchal society its most often the voices of the dominant group that are heard and taken seriously, and in the case I mentioned above, not the wives who it was legal to rape. It seemed to be like "the man" was pointing out that people these days are deciding to split from their families more often without trying to work things out. This is a valid point, and I agree relationships need to be worked on. There was one point I didn’t appreciate, because I felt he needed to counter it with its opposing view, to give credibility to his argument. He said sometimes adult children decide to cut off all communication with their parents (and I think it was the host of the show who mentioned the fact that more of the initiators of these estrangements are adult children of their parents) because they (the adult children) have mental health issues. First, he never approached the issue of adult children cutting their parents off because of the parent’s mental illness, which made them abusive to the children in childhood and adulthood. And he mentioned that sometimes therapists that may not understand the whole family dynamics, or all the issues, may encourage patients to distance from their parents. I find that to be unlikely, and irresponsible, for a therapist that doesn’t know a person to suggest such a thing. Knowing therapists, because I worked on counseling clients, and mainly because I have gone to a shitload over the years, I think it much more likely that the therapist would at most, after getting to know the client, after some time question the client, perhaps if they deserve that treatment from their parent, or perhaps point out that they are miserable for a week after seeing their father every time. And if the client comes to the realization to cut off their parent during therapy, it is the client, who makes the ultimate decision.
There were a couple guests that called in. One was a sister who had to cut off a brother because of some unknown thing they got messed up in when they were young, but said she still loved her brother. Most of this is not about love. I didn’t get a stats, but I would believe that lack of love is hardly ever the reason. Love is often the reason people don’t cut toxic people out of their lives. It would be so easy if you didn’t love someone, to turn away. While there are others who aren't choosing the estrangement, but their family members are. Another caller’s family was Jehovah’s Witness, and I think the situation was that the caller wasn’t affiliated with the religion any longer, so the family was supposed to cast him out. I have noticed in some conservative religions, when a person wants to take another path they can be cast out. This is a similar to something I experienced. My partner and I once went to an Atheists, Agnostics, and Questioning Meet-up group locally because he is an agnostic, raised Jewish, with Jewish leanings, and I am something between an agnostic, a Wiccan, and I’m attracted to some parts of Buddhism and Hinduism. We thought we could meet like-minded people. What we met was poor damaged people I felt sorry for. People who had been cast out of their families, their friend groups, and sometimes their small communities because they didn’t want to be whatever very conservative religion. These were sometimes all the people they knew. There was a person who was secretly coming to the meeting. He wanted to be able to think freely but would be disowned by his family if they knew he was going to the meetings, but the group was refreshing and helpful to him. My partner and I never went to that group again because we figured it wasn’t for us, even though we agreed with what everyone was saying. I’m a bit empathic, and I could literally feel the trauma of these poor people and it was too much for me. My partner and I had much different stories. His parents didn’t have a problem with him believing, or not believing differently, and parents who raised me Hare Krishna, then Presbyterian, my mom went on progressive protests with me, and they used to be hippies so my parents weren’t going to have a problem with what religion I was, or wasn’t. We now attend a Unitarian Universalist Church in which we can believe anything we want. (I will write about that in another post)
I’m thinking about getting Harriet Brown’s book; it sounded good. I didn’t get to hear that much from her, but as I understand it was, she who cut her mother out of her life. As far as I understood, there was a constant lack of respect, but I’m sure there was more. As I was pulling away from the downtown health-food store after getting some acidophilus and being invited to a drum circle, I heard the first part of the story, which if I remember correctly, because I was trying to make a left on a busy street, was that, I think it was Ms. Brown to whom people responded positively to this issue, when I thought people would have to be in the closet about this. Because when I have had a problem with a family member and tell an acquaintance, or not very close friend, who has met said relative, they dismiss and minimize what I am saying if they like that relative. It’s happened to me at least twice. Then driving on that busy one-way street, making a right and going past one of the town’s Universities I heard some stats about adult children cutting off contact with their parents, and it was higher than I thought. This would be something that might feel validating for people going through something like this. Brown’s mother has since passed. The subject maybe didn’t relate, but I would be interested to know if Brown had to grieve all over again after her mother passed, or if she had done most of her grieving after she stopped talking to her, because I definitely believe that there must be some sort of grieving process.
My uncle, who I'm not that close to, drove from out of town to my wedding, which I appreciated. But two things were odd. If one thing wasn’t true, I wouldn’t have thought the other so odd, and I think obvious. He is not rich, but a business owner, none the less. I thought $10 dollars, even if we were not close was pretty cheap of him. I’m not being materialistic. But he cornered me and started asking questions about his estranged son- if I knew anything about where he was, or talked to him, for me to tell him. I think my mother had found out that I had found my cousin on FB and talked to him a couple times, but I felt my cousin probably had valid reasons because his sister also cut herself off from her father. And I thought it inappropriate for my uncle to try to put me in the middle of an issue that was not my business at my wedding. It felt a little creepy.
The art I did here are examples of this subject.
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