Why I anonymously blog about estrangement...

A couple of times a week I take some time out of my daily life to connect and reflect on estrangement as an act of discipline for committing to this project of blogging about parental estrangement (one of my legacy projects), whether I end up posting about it or not. I have been an estranged parent for a couple of years now. So far, blogging has been a good thing for me along with connecting with other parents going through it too in other arenas.

As I do these missives, I take estrangement off the shelf, think about it, blog about it, and then put it back on the shelf. In the rest of my life, I have re-established a solid career post divorce and a solid group of friends, both long term and new ones. My empty nest life with my wonderful, loving husband is a good, healthy one, and I choose to live a full, healthy, happy life rather than being swallowed by grief and constantly living in trauma. I have worked too hard to go back to that. There is nothing that I can do about the estrangement, which does not mean I am powerless. I have the power to move forward and to be happy. I exercise that choice. I have started another blog under a different Gmail chronicling our adventures. 

I suppose I prefer to stay anonymous here for the same reasons that all parents who have experienced this do. We need support and a place to talk about it. We also are sensitive to the harsh, vicious backlash that is the internet and the world in general, from opening up about it. The judgement is cruel on all fronts. There is a myriad of reasons one finds themselves in this situation, outside of actual abuse, that have left us as wounded parents scratching our heads. Private groups have been formed and are exponentially growing through social media and other avenues, since most of us cannot discuss this in our families or social circle. There is a great level of stress in experiencing estrangement. I choose to put my anonymous voice out there in the world and release it.

There is a silent epidemic out there that is a reality for many of us, recent research data published by the American Research Institute for Policy Development shows:

• There are 43.5% of Americans experiencing estrangement.
• There are 39% of people estranged from one or more immediate family members
• The most frequently cited single causal factor leading to estrangement was a disagreement with the estranged relative in both nuclear and extended estrangements.
• Nuclear estrangements are estranged from fathers with the greatest frequency.
• Extended estrangements were estranged from aunts and cousins with the greatest frequency.
• The mean length of nuclear estrangements is 59.4 months; 52.8 in extended estrangements.

We are not alone. As a general information: family estrangement is defined as a communication cut-off between family members. (That definition does not convey the brutal trauma of it.) It is considered one of the family transitions, along with separation, divorce, remarriage, and adoption. Like the other transitions families undergo, estrangement might be temporary or permanent. Estrangement brings family functioning to a standstill.

If you are thinking this is not a new phenomena, it is not.

• It is mentioned in Genesis (27:43) and Job (19:13).
• It is the subject of many self help books (see my resource page for a few).
• It is often depicted in literary works and film.
• It has a not surprising presence on internet search engines. Google over 776,000 and Yahoo over 890,000 related sites.

This has been a taboo, neglected topic of long historical significance that is culturally relevant in the present because the incidence of it is exploding among cancel culture. I blog about this because I am experiencing estrangement and have moved enough through it to accept it. If my experience can help ease someone else's suffering, then the suffering that I endured will not have been for nothing.