One person’s story of family estrangement, from permission to acceptance

A few weeks ago, I lost my mother.  I hadn’t spoken to her in 16 years.

I thought I was prepared, but our hearts do not always do what our minds expect.

Writing is one of the ways I process dark things.  This time, I’ve written a lot, but struggled with what to share.  Maybe the answer is nothing, but I don’t believe that.  

We find meaning and connection in shared experience.  Writing can be a gift to someone else.  One of hope that there’s a step forward – any step – that can make the path ahead easier to navigate.

The struggle

My mother suffered from mental illness for most of her life.  I finally have the insight and empathy that goes with that knowledge.

She lived life as if she was the protagonist of a book, and everyone around her had a part to play.  Like any child, I was figuring out who I was, but it certainly wasn’t a fictional character.

I wasn’t a bad kid, just independent and outspoken.  Since it didn’t align to my mother’s narrative, she used tools like manipulation and gaslighting to try and keep me in the role she designed.

The world saw her as a loving mother with a terrible daughter.  For a long time, I did too.  Now I can see that she was a woman who struggled to love herself, to show love unconditionally, and receive the love I had to give.

Creating boundaries

As I moved into adulthood, it became easier to create the space I needed to engage with my mother.  Distance was easier than trying to fight the false fiction she fought so hard to pull me into.

Eventually, it proved impossible.  When she couldn’t use family as a way to rope me in, she attempted to recruit my co-workers.  I considered a restraining order for the first time.  It wouldn’t be the last.

I struggled with the persona of the “bad daughter” and society’s views that I should have a relationship with the woman that gave birth to me.  Thankfully, I had a mentor with a similar story.  He was estranged from his mother, and it was the first time I heard that was possible.

The day he shared his story, he gave me permission to see myself as a good person AND someone who could not have a relationship with her mother.

Eventually, to protect my mental and emotional health, I created a life without her.  And now she’s gone.  

Ironically, I was struggling with a reckoning the last two years.  I moved down south, within a day’s drive of her.  I knew her health was failing, and we only had so much time to reconcile.  When I heard she was going to the hospital, I told my brother I should go.  She died on the way.

Grief and acceptance

When I walked into her apartment, the grief was overwhelming.  The first thing I saw were photos of me and my brother.  They brought me to my knees.  I found my birth bracelet, art from grade school…signs of a loving mother.

And she was.  Not in a way she could express, or that I could receive.  But in the only way she could manage, with her own broken heart.

While we couldn’t have a relationship in life, we are in death.

Had she been healthy, there is much we could have shared.  She was a wonderful artist, which I always admired.  But she was also a writer.  I grew up hearing I wasn’t creative, but I am.  I got that from my mother.

Recently, I saw a quote “In order to love who you are, you cannot hate the experiences that shaped you.”  I believe that in the depths of my being.  I have to love the struggle if I am to love myself.  Because the struggle made me.

With that acceptance, I have release, and the space to hold her close.

The gift of stories

If you feel as though a close relationship is putting your sanity, safety, and peace at risk, my story is for you.  You have permission to create boundaries.  To sever the relationship.  You don’t need approval from me or anyone else, but maybe you need to hear it.  I did.

It can feel difficult.  There will be those that will judge.  Tell you what “good” children, parents, or friends do and don’t do.  Whatever their judgement…it’s not true.

You are allowed to set boundaries for yourself.  To protect your emotional, mental, and physical well-being.  There is no requirement for you to compromise your value for someone else’s – even a loved one’s – comfort, dysfunction, or whim.

The journey can feel isolating, but for anyone experiencing the struggle of estrangement, you’re not alone.