Google’s definition of estrangement is “the fact of no longer being on friendly terms or part of a social group.” It is losing all your friends in 6th grade because you teased someone or told a lie or wore the wrong color sneakers. It is also what happens in a family when there is a profound breech of trust that makes people feel unsafe with each other.
It is the way a family group or a society deals ultimately with a member who simply cannot or will not meet the standard of behavior that is required by the group. It is: Shunning. Othering. Exiling. Ostracizing. Humiliating. Excluding. Rejecting. Shaming.
It is all the things that activate a primordial sense that we are going to die. We cannot survive the elements on our own. When we wake up to the reality that we are estranged from someone we love or a group we once relied on, our nervous system takes over and informs our pre-frontal cortex that there is no hope for us. If we are reject-able, nature itself has to annihilate us. Dispose of us. Remove us from the gene pool. Punish us for being defective. Abandon us to Gehenna because we are unworthy of interaction with society; survival of the fittest and all. The experience of being ultimately discarded from members of our family or social group is worse than death. It is a living death. It is a wishing for the relief of death. It is disorienting. It is demoralizing and it is devastating, especially if we do not know why it is happening.
We are genetically engineered to be in social groups. Human brains are wired for connection and depend on an imperceptible force that flows between us and those that accept us into their pack. Together, we signal safety and trust to each other through body language and facial expressions. We learn from our earliest care givers that we are welcome in this world, and safe. The light in the eyes of parents who have fallen in love with their newborn child communicates to the child that they are important and valued. Mom and Dad, Grandma and Grandpa and other cherished people gather around a baby to coo and smile at her. Their vocal prosody turns sing-songy in a mid-tone pitch meant to signal protection and calm. Even the normal booming voice of the father is softened to communicate there is no threat. You are safe here.
This message is communicated over and over when a child is born into a good enough home. The child learns to rely on taller people for guidance and assistance as needed. There is enough stress and push back for the child to develop resilience and competence as they acquire new skills. As they grow, the relationships around them grow as well and the child senses that there is a network of people he can turn to when they need to feel safe and welcome in the world. Even when there are minor scuffles and disagreements, the breech and repair cycle teaches that the bonds are strong enough to match adversity. When the child grows up and joins another human from another family system, the bonds from both sides link together to create an even stronger network. And on and on it goes, when things go well.
But when things don’t go according to plan, as happens for myriad reasons, how do we recover our sense of self when it has to be done outside the context of our group? When our nervous system is screaming at us that we are going to die and we deserve it, how do we find our way back to life? Even if it has to be without those we deeply love, but are no longer in our lives?
As I mentioned in the article, “Good Grieve” this is the lonely and at times terrifying road I have found myself on. It was not my choice and I don’t fully understand why it has happened, but I have found myself reluctantly inducted into a new tribe. The strange tribe of estranged. Now what do I do?
I process things through writing. It helps me to clarify what my emotions are trying to tell me and I have often been told that my journey has been encouraging to others as they recognize themselves in my story. It turns out that family estrangement is actually rather common these days. It is difficult to find reliable statistics, but it doesn’t require my master’s degree in Humanities to see that we are living in contentious times. I personally, know very few families that have not been touched by this kind of disenfranchisement. The pandemic of family feuds is as disturbing as any of the things happening in society because family is the foundation on which society is built. When that crumbles, what is left of the infrastructure that connects us to each other? Because estrangement is filled with heart-crushing shame, we seldom find each other in the dark night of the soul, even as we go stumbling around, stepping on each other’s toes. We especially can feel this weight because social media would lead us to believe that everyone else is connected and content. The tragedy of disconnect and discard is crushing to the one targeted by the behavior, but it also punctures a hole in the heart of the one perpetrating it. Everyone one loses if only one can win the top position. As devastating as the experience has been for me, it is hard to imagine what the fall out will be for society in the coming decades since this family dynamic is so pervasive.
My next few articles will discuss life after relational death. I will focus on what to do with the pain of estrangement and its aftermath. We will also explore some very unexpected benefits of being at the very bottom, looking up. As bad as this experience is, it can be a tremendous opportunity for personal growth and reorientation. We will lean into the pain in order to start to resolve it. Like a badly knotted muscle, we can learn how to massage the lump in our throat until it gives way to hope. Together, we will learn to be ok, even if the relationship is never restored.
This journey is for those of us who are badly broken and are trying to breathe again. I welcome comments or insights as well as messages. Hopefully people that need this will find their way here. If you write on this platform and find my work helpful, feel free to share it.
