‘Blind spots’ for Estranged Parents or Grandparents.
Estrangement is traumatic for all parties involved.
It's a very emotionally charged topic because so much is at risk.
Estrangement is often cumulative. It's betrayals over time, which remain unresolved, that result in a severing of the relationship.
This information may be hard to hear. It may feel uncomfortable, accusatory and potentially exposing.
I advise you not to become defensive or sink into shame, but rather to approach the content with a curious stance such as “I wonder if this could be what’s hurting the relationship” and “What can we do about it?” (solutions).
-“A willingness to stay at the table is the most powerful invitation of them all”.
Blind spot #1
You might not know how you affect your child and those around you.
You might not know that people may experience you as being negative or potentially miserable/moody or portraying yourself as a victim.
You might not know that you've reversed roles. That you might seek emotional support and comfort from your children but struggle to give it to them. You might make things about you versus being available to them.
You might be reactive and not know that you say or express or do certain things without thinking about how those things will land. Reactivity can also come in the form of being spiteful, antagonising, hurtful or demonstrating no empathy about things.
The blind spot here is you might have stories that are ‘louder’ than understanding what you're really like in the moment around others and your children.
Example 1
As a parent you might have a story that ‘no one in the family helps me', or ‘people don’t help me enough’. This story might be your ‘absolute truth’ and you might not realise how much you communicate this in a very passive-aggressive way by sighing, being moody, stomping around or using sarcasm.
Example 2
Perhaps you’re emotionally triggered by your child’s spouse. You might feel persecuted or uncomfortable with them in some way. It could be a legitimate concern, or it could just be a story you’re telling yourself, an assumption. Either way, you become dramatic, or reactive anytime their name comes up in conversation. You might shoot off some intense texts to your child about the spouse or you might act strange or cold around them. You might people-please around them or feel like they’re ‘after you’. You believe all of this to be the ‘absolute truth’ without knowing how your energy, actions and words affects your child, their spouse or their children.
Example 3
You might think of yourself as “a good listener, empathic, a supportive parent” and this ‘absolute truth’ prevents you from wanting to understand the real impact your words or behaviours are having on your child.
The disconnect.
The disconnect is that adult children often feel invisible around a parent who doesn't know (or care to know) how their reactivity, their emotions or their general vibe affects their children and others around them.
This could be related to your own upbringing.
We can become very self-consumed when we are emotionally triggered and lose-track of space and time and behave in reactive ways. Your pain or discomfort is ‘so big’ that it gets in the way of your relationships.
You may have grown up in a family where the members had no idea how they affected each other because certain members are seen but not heard or no one talks about real things. A type of ‘bubble’ where “real” “honest” emotions and thoughts are not exchanged and there’s no real closeness.
You may have been raised by parents who were very reactive or ‘shut down’ or even dramatic themselves.
How to work on this?
Not knowing how we affect people could be getting in the way of our relationships. Seek out therapy and explore this.
Ask the people who are close to you – “what am I like to be around, honestly”? Don't ask from the place of “I'm not like this, right?” because people are inclined to take care of your feelings and not be real. Be prepared that it's likely going to be painful to hear feedback about what you might be like - that's hard for anyone.
Your behaviours could point to your own childhood, where it may have been tough as a kid to grow up in the family you grew up in.
Don’t ‘defend’ yourself (justifying why or what you did). You’re more interested about the ‘impact’ it had on your child (empathy) and what you can learn about doing things differently to support the relationship moving forward (solutions).
This article will be extended in the coming days.