I remember after I had children hearing about and witnessing on TV parents who had lost their children to a school shooting. Never when I was young before children (BC) did I stop to think deeply about how devastating that would be. However, after becoming a mother and realizing how much love I had for them, the news blaring and describing, “the horrific aftermath these parents faced after losing their children” made me think What would I do? How would I move on?
Nearly the same thing eventually did happen to me. It wasn’t from a shoot out, a murder or an illness, but from something known as parental alienation. What exactly is this you might ask? I didn’t know it existed either until it happened to me, to us, my eldest daughter and I.
I had heard of being estranged. I knew several people who chose to no longer speak to a family member–specifically siblings– when they became adults, but I had not heard of children not speaking to their parents. The day I realized my daughter was not only rabidly angry with me, so much so she wouldn’t speak to me or let me contact her, I thought I WAS GOING TO DIE!
It took years to accept that that intense hatred wasn’t going to end any time soon and it frightfully may never end. As each excruciating day, week, month, holiday and year passed, the pain really didn’t let up much, if at all. Instead, I called it an invisible backpack.
This backpack could not been seen by others, but it carried the weight of an elephant. I smiled when I wanted to run and grieve. When others who knew me before divorce asked, “How are your two daughters?” I had to answer based on what I had learned through the grapevine from my youngest daughter, former neighbors and people who still had contact with both my ex husband and me.
My husband said nothing. Reported nothing. Told me nothing regarding her health, her mental health, her grades, her college applications, her school events. I heard absolutely nothing that had to do with my/our eldest daughter. That is also when I learned 50/50 custody really doesn’t mean much especially when the “children” are teenagers because by the courts’ eyes, adolescents are old enough to figure out what is best for themselves. Additionally, if that teen makes a choice to remain with one parent there’s “a good reason.”
A good reason isn’t necessarily good, nor healthy. Neither is an adolescent who doesn’t know both sides of a narrative, is conditioned to accept only narrative and have access to only one as well. The despair I felt lead me deeper into therapy, self-help and understanding of what parental alienation truly is. It isn’t simply an easy decision made by the child; there is help to nurture that decision.
Once I began writing my memoir, I came to see parental alienation/estrangement as a Living Death. No texts, no emails, no words, nothing. There is a silence that likens the same as death. One would think it would feel better because with life there remains hope. Unfortunately, I learned that hope can also be the one thing that keeps you incapable of grieving fully and moving forward with your life.
Hope kept me waiting and as the years ticked by I created my own narrative–when I am on my deathbed at 96 maybe then she’ll come back into my life wanting to know why I divorced with an open heart to hear another side to what she had been told. Hope I learned isn’t helpful it can be hurtful when it comes to an estrangement.
As I mentioned earlier, when I heard about parents who lost their children to death, I thought to myself, If I have my other daughter remaining then that would be the one thing that could keep me going–keep me alive. And it did! But as I healed, I realized even that could change. I could lose my other daughter too either to estrangement or to death.
One day I realized that even if I had no children left to live for I only get one shot at living this life that I have been given. One shot to experience all I can and all that can make me happy. I lost years in grief, but there came a point when I accepted estrangement as something I had no control over. It was then that I thought, What about me? Maybe I should live for me!
I ask you to consider thinking the same, Maybe you should live for you! Our lives weren’t given to us to live for others and to have others live for us. We have been given the miracle of life for ourselves to live it out for our own selves, no one else.
No matter how in pain you are now, try to come to a place of knowing that time on this planet is finite. It will not last even though the grieving for your estranged child or family member will seem that it will be eternal. Therefore, why not make the most of the time you have remaining. You’ve done the grieving. You’ve done enough grieving!
Now it’s time to live! So, if you had a magic wand, what experiences would you like to have? Start experiencing them. Don’t keep wasting precious years.
Hugs!