Estrangement isn’t the disease, but it can be the medicine
(this is a long one...7+ minute read)
A couple of weeks ago I wrote about the assumptions made about adult daughters who go no contact, and what's more likely to be true. Today I am answering a question from a mother who's adult daughters have estranged themselves from her, but before I get to that, I want to acknowledge that I do not see this as a matter of "sides" or "mother vs. adult daughter" and that there are mothers who do vulnerable, soul-searching work and still their adult daughters will not re-establish contact. So what else is possible?
Question: Both my adult daughters have gone no contact. One struggles with mental illness and Narcissistic Personality Disorder. The other is married with three children. I grew up in a hypercritical, shaming, and un-nurturing family and have struggled for years with my own trauma. I tried going no contact, I tried having boundaries, but now I only see them on holidays. I didn't want this for my daughters and did everything the opposite. I loved them and over-indulged them, but that didn’t work. I feel guilty and ashamed and like a huge failure because I didn’t do enough to prevent it. I’m no longer chasing a relationship with them but hoping one day they’ll change their minds. I am very sad about it. I am also sad about not being a grandma. What would help at this point?
Dear Adult Daughter...Dear Mama:
I am guessing that by asking, "what would help at this point?" you're asking, "what would help bring my daughters back to me?" That's not the question I am going to answer. I will share what I believe will help, with the understanding that I can't know what's best for you, and what's safe for you. There may be something for you here, there may not.
#1 Grieve. Accept.
And when I say grieve, I mean, give yourself permission to experience "...knee-buckling, chest-cracking, tear-streaming sorrow." ~ Sophie Sabbage.
Be a safe person for and with yourself. That may mean asking for support in grieving.
More from Sophie: "That kind of sorrow does not feature in the Grief Cycle at all. Denial is not grief, it's denial. It's a refusal. Anger is not grief, its anger. It insists that loss is not right, not fair and should not have happened. Bargaining is not grief. It's bargaining. Depression is not grief, it's when anger and bargaining collapse with exhaustion. This is the Resist-Grief-With-All-Your-Might Cycle. And acceptance isn't the end, the closure. It's where we begin to let grief have it's way with us."
Accept (rather than resist) what is.
Acceptance = "My daughters are estranged from me right now and I feel sad."
Resistance = "My daughters shouldn't be estranged from me" or "I'm a bad person because they don't talk to me" or "They are bad daughters" or "There is something wrong with me/them" or "This shouldn't be happening."
Grieve some more. Accept some more.
Then...
#2 Question why you need it to "work."
What does it "working" look like? What it would mean about you if it was working?
Journal on these questions or have a friend, therapist, or some other trusted person listen (without interrupting you) as you tell them.
Go back to #1 as needed.
#3 Ask yourself why you want your daughters to change their minds.
That might seem like a no-brainer question to answer, but dig deep and get to the core of it. It might look like this:
I want them to change their minds because I miss them.
I want them to change their minds because when I miss them I feel empty inside.
I want them to change their minds because I don't like feeling empty inside.
I want them to change their minds because if they're not in contact that might mean that there's something wrong with me...I did something wrong.
I want them to change their minds because I don't want other people to think I was a bad mother.
Keep going.
And then tend to the part of you that misses them, that feels empty inside, that feels guilt, that is experiencing shame, and so on...get support with that.
Go back to #1 as needed.
#4 Unshame yourself.
Underlying a desire to do "everything the opposite" of the way your mother did it might be the fear of being seen by others as a bad mother...and the shame that would accompany that.
So if you don't do it the opposite, how do you do it? How do you break the cycle and not hand that ish to your daughters?
By stepping out of the fear- and shame-based paradigm of good/bad/right/wrong. For YOU. I am making a generalization here, but consider that our mothers are/were they way they are/were because they're operating from deeply embedded fear and shame, not love.
This isn't because they were bad people doing bad things on purpose, but because of their own trauma and shame, they were often unsafe people. Of course it wasn’t their intention, but we didn't experience their intentions. We experienced their nervous systems.
"Love, as an intention, when not embodied, becomes fear, and this is what the child experiences.” ~ Ally Wise
Unshaming is noticing when you're criticizing, dismissing, judging, fixing/correcting, controlling, should-ing/shouldn’t-ing, denying, gaslighting, blaming, and condemning yourself, and/or when you have contempt, disdain, or disgust for yourself.
In those moments, place your hands over your heart and ask to be shown "the truth about yourself, no matter how beautiful it is." ~ Macrina Wiederkehr.
Then engage wonder, listening, humanizing, exploring, welcoming, freeing, accepting, believing, validating, and compassion.
Go back to #1 as needed.
#5 Cultivate and tend to your authenticity and aliveness.
Who are you when you're in the zone of you-ness, when you're in the vortex of your elemental power? When you're allowing yourself to move towards what fascinates you and to move away from what doesn't? How do you protect this aliveness?
Journal on these questions or have a friend, therapist, or some other trusted person listen (without interrupting you) as you tell them.
#6 Understand what the real problem is.
Despite thousands of years of conditioning and socialization to the contrary, a woman's purpose isn't only to take care of others, her contentment isn't only dependent on what her adult children do or don't do, and what makes her authentic and alive isn't ever defined by someone else.
I know you know this.
Because the problem isn't your daughters, or you, or your mother, or her mother.
The problem isn't even estrangement.
The problem is an oppressive system that women (and other oppressed groups) had no role in creating and which robs us of our authenticity and aliveness.
And over those thousands of years we have internalized the oppression. We have taken on the methods and messages of the dominating, oppressive system, and we have used it against ourselves, each other, and our daughters.
Not because we're terrible people, but because we couldn't see it for what it was. We thought it was just the way things are.
This where estrangement can be the medicine.
Even if re-establishing contact isn't guaranteed or likely, there is so much that can be done – if not for the micro (the mother and daughter who are estranged) – but for the macro: dismantling the system that created the problem. And the best way I know to do that is to start inside of you, with the steps I have outlined here.
This is what it looks like to do your part in breaking the cycle and making the future a healthier place for your daughters, whether they know it or not, whether they speak to you or not.
Much, much love,
Karen
Benevolent Double-Agent :-)
"The most profound gift we can offer our children (and those we love and those who love us) is our own healing." ~ Anne Lamott
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