Estrangement in the Time of Coronavirus
I thought I would bring you up-to-date on the estrangement of my son who chose to delete me from his life. If you don’t want to hear about it, I don’t blame you…things are bad enough without reading about a mother whose son has told her to permanently fuck off. Frankly, I don’t want to hear about it either, but it’s my life, and writing about it and having other people read about it somehow relieves the burden I carry, at least for a while. As a result, maybe you will be more grateful for your miserable kid who is, at least, still talking to you.
In this Time of Coronavirus and our 1000 Thousand Days of Solitude, one would think a child no matter how deep the hate would be moved to ask how their mother was. According to knowledgable people in the field, his brother, he has not asked how I or his father are doing. Crickets, as they say. One hopes that even the most pathological of humans stir with familial feelings during dangerous times. If the heart is stone cold and unmoved, what does it say about that person?
Should I send him this from Buzzfeed: The Pandemic is Pushing People To Revisit Relationships That Fell Apart? Would the headline be enough to trigger his vulnerability so that he would give this estrangement some thought? Or would he use a picture of me for target practice?
I’ve spent a lot of time investigating what type of personality disorder he has but I gave up because what the fuck difference does it make? I did find this last bit in Psychology Today about child alienation. It is taken out of context but thought maybe this passage might shed some light:
“This is entirely consistent with my own understanding that inside every alienated child (i.e., an angry hostile rejecting child) is a child who feels unloved and rejected by the targeted parent. The author argues that feeling unloved is extremely painful, especially for a child. In response to parental unavailability and rejection, the child will work hard to defend against that feeling by acting as if he doesn’t care about the parent who is perceived as rejecting him. The catch is, that in families affected by alienation the belief that the parent doesn’t love the child is not reality-based.”
Did I not love him enough?! How is that possible? Like any Jewish Tiger Mom, I’d kill for him. Looking for answers is a waste of time really. Who knows what goes on in another’s mind? The slights, the crossing of invisible boundaries, the crossing of visible boundaries, the misreadings, saying stupid things and the million other parenting missteps I acknowledge I did but what punishment! I think I’d rather be burned at the stake and get it over with. This child’s torture is a constant drip reminding me daily of what a horrible person I am. Maybe I am. Several people over my lifetime have ghosted me, even recently, and I have never been able to find out why so who knows? As with my son’s estrangement, they won’t say. If you’ve got a beef with me…say it cowards!
So, no, my estranged son has not asked about me or his father. I am constantly trying to figure out how to move forward knowing I have a living child who came out of my body with remnants of him still in me: Why Does a Mother’s Body Keep Some of Her Baby’s Cells After Birth? It’s fascinating biology and only happens with male babies so I can’t quit him.
After I wrote the first piece about the estrangement and published it for anyone to read, I unexpectedly felt a tremendous burden lift off of me and miraculously found myself cloaked in a somewhat impenetrable armor. Suddenly, I was freed and I have not cried a single day since then. Okay, it’s only been a few months and I may have cried for a minute or two but somehow I have successfully(!) compartmentalized this wound as I pretend he is far far away without wifi. This quote is from one of my fellow estrangement travelers: “People often don’t understand…grievers have to re-learn how to survive every day.” I do not expect to hear from him. Ever. So so sad.
