Why My Children Rejected Me

Parental estrangement, a formal, stuffy-sounding term, conceals the deep pain it hides. When adult children decide to ghost a parent, it is one of the most debilitating experiences a parent could ever face.

Parental Estrangment

Losing a child who has passed is devastating, something one can never fully recover from. But when a living child is as unreachable as one no longer in this realm, the grief is the same, except the confusion over how it happened heightens the grief. Added to this is the shamefully undeserved shame society spews at them. Yet still, hope keeps them going, but soon becomes a barrier to being able to grieve and pick up the pieces of their lives.

This was where I found myself, confused, utterly desolate, and, having lost everything, facing an onslaught from the very people who connived to break what I once thought was an unbreakable bond. They had weakened me. Severely. And many times, I almost gave up.

But I didn’t, and I’m still standing. So I share my story in the hope that someone out there in similar circumstances will draw a pearl of inspiration, just enough to be able to look at themselves in the mirror again, and even quietly acknowledge that they didn’t deserve what they got, and that they find a path to the better life that lies on the other side of the parental estrangement mountain.

How my children rejected me

Fierce, brutal, take no prisoners. There are all the things I was called. And I was a mother tiger. Nothing was ever too much for my children, and any attack on them, perceived or otherwise, was met with me on a white horse armed to the teeth, willing and eager to fight my children's battles.

In hindsight, I realized that the pain I carried from my relationship with my mother translated into my transformation into my children’s personal saviour, going to war at any sign that that same pain may be inflicted on them. Perhaps it was partly my fight for my inner child, that little girl who had been traumatized for so many years.

Yet, I built a happy, thriving little family. We laughed a lot, and I put my heart and soul into making a happy home, one I fiercely protected. But, in doing so, I now know, my children were never exposed to the kind of character-building hardships that would have served them well. They simply had no insight into the bad people of the world- that didn’t matter, because mom was always there to deal with that stuff.

She did- until mom became overwhelmed and distracted with issues that are humanly impossible to deal with single-handedly. When my father fell ill with cancer, my narcissistic mother and psychopathic sister saw this as an opportunity to exploit him. I loved my father dearly, and given my intrinsic fighting spirit —my inner Joan of Arc that always wanted to save the world —I turned my attention to fighting his battles.

Despite being diagnosed with stage 4 cancer, my dad fought. I inherited those genes, so I knew, and always knew, that giving up is never an option. Given 2 to 3 months to live, didn't deter him, but the next two years that he and I fought- his cancer and his family, were too much. And the battle continued after his death.

I had good kids. I knew this, and I knew I was taking my eye off the ball as far as my family was concerned while I fought my father's battles, but we loved each other, my kids and I, and they had each other-something I had instilled in them from the start. I had always stood by them through thick and thin- that’s just how we lived, so what could go wrong? Well, a lot, it turns out.

Piece by piece, my mother, my sister, and my son's girlfriend, whom I had taken into my home at my son's request and looked after for years, despite her making no contribution other than a sulky face and a nasty, entitled attitude, dismantled my life. And I didn't even notice. Until it was too late.

Various things happened over a long period. It was a perfect storm, created by the witches three. By the time they had taken everything, I was too weakened to do anything about it. Me, the fiercest, strongest person I have ever known, was brought to their knees, and they weren’t finished with me- they wanted to destroy me completely.

My mother died along the way, but not before apologising and acknowledging her role to some extent two weeks before she died, something the other two had not factored into their war plans. The response was to deepen the chasm they had already created between my children and me, because they were smart enough to know that the only way to destroy me was through the children I had fiercely protected their whole lives.

After my mother’s death, the remaining two embarked on a feeding frenzy of epic proportions, grasping and grabbing everything they possibly could. And I could do little but stand by and watch as my life disintegrated before my eyes. Both my children simply ignored me, too weak to fight, too controlled to say anything that was not a scripted response, and without the skills to identify bad people.

And so, I lost my beloved children, the two people I loved more than anything in the world, whom I had built a life and an identity around. It was all gone. All that was left was nothingness, day in and day out, and sporadic attacks from the two who thought there was still something they could squeeze out. They had completely dehumanized me.

My son married his girlfriend in the meantime, but before he did, he realized that he had made a mistake. During a conversation we had, he told me what was happening and the bridezilla-on-steroids she had become. I knew that he was an adult, and it was long past the time for him to make adult decisions, so I elected not to interfere. Instead, I sent him an email about marrying for love and about how important love really is.

Unfortunately, his girlfriend opened the mail, and all hell broke loose - she turned her fury on me. Who knew that love could inspire such deep hatred? But it did, and I had handed her the opportunity she had been seeking for many years. She had always said that when they have children one day, she wouldn't allow me to have anything to do with them unless I was nice to her, which, in her language, meant bowing and scraping before her, as my son did, and still does.

Of course I objected- strenuously. My mother had always used me as a pawn to get what she wanted from my father; few people know as intimately as I do just how damaging it is to the child to be used as a pawn. But my son, without having been taught the skills to stand up to a nasty bully himself, and having been protected from manipulative people by his mother, capitulated to her demands. And so she now owns him, and continues to fill his mind with propaganda. She became the cruel kinkeeper as a foil to the love I had put into managing my family.

My daughter was also dragged into their war. Bringing my children up with the firm intention of them having a good relationship with each other, the bond between my children was strong enough to break the bond with me. With her, it's more complicated- she suffered a traumatic experience, trauma that her brother and his owner could have prevented. Yet, that pain, which was hidden from me for years, eventually bubbled over into behavioural problems. And the blame, under the direction of others who used my daughter's pain to control her, was pointed at me, with a mountain of propaganda-inspired hate.

I still blame myself for not being there when my daughter needed me. I probably always will. When she dumped all her teenage emo on me, I did not realize what was happening in the background- the hate factory that was working day and night to destroy me through my children. I was in a battle for my life, and I didn't know it- I was too busy battling for my children's happiness, despite being regularly felled by well-placed blows sent via my daughter.

But before I could do anything, they were gone — and in refusing to have any contact with me for fear of being caught, not following the script of their respective owners, they have never been willing to sit down and have a conversation, like the decent people I brought them up to be.

For years, I tried to figure out why my children rejected me. It took a very long time, and a sea of tears, to realize that I never deserved to lose my children. And only when I was able to acknowledge that I deserved a better life could I start to build one.

Why my children rejected me

Parents whose adult children have gone no contact well understand the ceaseless void of confusion, self-blame, and debilitating pain. Arguably, one of the hardest things to face is blame. But this comes from a place of anger, and, ironically, anger is often an indication that you are starting to heal.

But blame is pretty pointless. Both made mistakes, spoke words in anger, and, for whatever reason that was prevailing at the time, probably didn't handle situations as well as they could have.

In hindsight. Because it's in retrospect that clarity sometimes emerges. From this perspective, I came to understand that my children had destroyed me, by acting at the will of others, and had neither the good sense nor the backbone to fight back- it was simply the path of least resistance. It probably didn't matter because they were well aware of the depth of my unconditional love for them. They knew I was always going to forgive them.

So what started out as small lies, despite the intense honesty rule that I have always lived by and tried to teach them, snowballed into extensive narratives that destroyed my life. At some point, I do not doubt that they had regrets, but they had painted themselves into a corner, with no way back. It was a path their mother had driven them back from in the past, but her GPS skills were no longer available to them. I had become their emotional punchbag.

Many, many times, I have beaten myself up: that I didn't equip them for the cruelty they may experience as adults, that I was distracted from focusing on their interests for a while, that I let this happen. But I didn't let it happen. Things worked out in the worst possible way for both me and them.

I have seen photos of my kids; those are not the smiling faces I once knew. The sparkling eyes have darkened. Life without me —the person to blame for their supposed misery —looks like it's a lot more miserable without me. And that breaks my heart all over.

Rebuilding my life

I started on a path to rebuild my life after many years of nothingness. Forgiveness, meditation, prayer, and especially the love and support of those around me got me through the worst of times. They were there, they were always there, and they knew who I was and what had happened. And still, they believed in me. But it took me a very long time to start believing in myself again.

Read: Rebuilding Your Life After Kids Go No Comtact

Yet, after over-analysing everything to death, I realized I had a lot to offer the world. Yes, I worry about my children all the time, but I accept that they are adults and they must live their own lives as they see fit. They same way I must live my life. And for the first time in years, I am finally living, not just waiting out an existence, and I see a future- a future I deserve.

And every single day, I am grateful to have survived, grateful for the vast amount of blessings I have in my life. I focus on what’s left, not what left, and every single day, I make small steps to build a better, brighter future. For myself.

Because, dear estranged parent reader, just like you, I did not deserve what I got. But nobody promised us life would be fair. We are given a life- at some point, we need to live it. Because despite the pain, we survived, and the difficulties we found ways to overcome have put us in a better place to take stock of the myriad of things we have to offer the world.

And maybe one day, when my children are not just adults, but when they are grown up, we can meet on very different terms, as very different people from the way we remember each other. They won't be the same people I remember, and neither will I be the mother they once knew.

But perhaps we can build a new, healthy relationship, built on love, respect, and trust. In the meantime, I will be living my life, but my door will forever remain open, although I am no longer sitting and waiting for them to knock - I have too many things, too much love, to give to the world. And myself.

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