In

 The Problems With Emancipation

 The child welfare system is designed to take care of children up until they are 18 years old. In certain cases, they might even emancipate earlier. But what happens once they grow too old for the child welfare system?

The sad truth is that many grown-up foster children end up homeless and on the streets. The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services reports that up to 50% of former foster or probation youth end up homeless within the first year and a half of their emancipation. Foster children who also have disabilities (autism being a prevailing one) should, in theory, transfer from foster care or group homes into adult living facilities, but this does not always happen because of long waiting lists to get into such housing. They then have to find a way to survive on the street.

Even for a smart and capable former foster child, finding a job as an adult can be difficult without a proper formal education and college degree, which, unfortunately, is the case for many former foster children. A patient of mine, Amy (name changed), who was a former foster child, told me: “Something nobody mentions is that most kids, prior to emancipating from foster care and group homes, don’t graduate from school. Or, as in my case, truly the last formal schooling I had (apart from adult learning) was going to 6th grade. Neither in the foster home or group home was there much emphasis on school. Oh, technically, you are required to go, but often, kids don’t… is that their fault?”

Amy — who, regardless of being highly intelligent, pointed out that she was not given the resources she needed to get her degree while in the foster care system — eventually pursued her GED independently as an adult. She confided to me that she was never taught the importance of education or given the correct tools to help her study. Her foster parents and social workers were stuck at a base level of operation. She indicated: “I think these foster parents and group home counselors — whether earning hours or money — have a duty to get these kids educated. I mean, the odds are already stacked against them. Without an education, aren’t they just adding ammunition to what might already be a vulnerable state? Some of the smartest kids I have ever known were in the system, and sadly, like me, were never taught the value of education or quite simply how to study, and therefore, were given up on. While I did finally get my GED, it took me years to finally get up to a proper level of reading and writing. But let me tell you, I sure could have used the help in my earlier years.”

From the point of view of “the system,” there are a few things that make it hard to properly educate foster children:

• Their home lives are often inconsistent.
• They switch schools and teachers more often than most kids.
• The impact of potential trauma on their psyches can make learning more challenging than for other kids.

The Impact of Abuse and Trauma

Abuse and trauma often can have a negative impact on children. This cannot be overstated.  Whether a child experiences abuse at the hands of biological parents, the child welfare system, or simply of undergoing chronic change, long-term effects can (and often do) impact that child well into adulthood. Abuse can offer obvious repercussions in the form of broken bones and critical injuries. It can impact brain development and cause learning disabilities. And it can carry long-term affects well into adulthood. Childwelfare.gov has a laundry list of long-term consequences of child abuse and neglect based on studies that included 905,000 children reported abused in 2006 alone. Some of the more sobering consequences of child abuse include:

§       Physical health problems, including broad-spectrum issues that affect victims well into adulthood, like allergies, asthma, ulcers, arthritis, and high blood pressure

§       Emotional consequences: low self-esteem, depression, anxiety, panic attacks, suicidal tendencies, PTSD, trust issues, and attachment disorder

§       Mental health issues: a much higher risk for developing clinical psychiatric disorders

§       Detrimental behaviors: smoking, drinking, drug use, overeating, and sexual promiscuity

§       Social difficulty: a tendency toward antisocial traits and borderline personality disorders, even violent behavior

§       Juvenile delinquency

The remnants of an abusive childhood can impact an adult’s ability to function in school, work, relationships, and life in general. There is seemingly no boundary to the negative repercussions of having suffered an abusive childhood.

In my own work with adult survivors of abuse, I’ve seen examples of grown-up victims who:

• Lack motivation because they were conditioned to give up trying

§       Are so afraid of poverty and loss that they constantly overwork themselves to avoid the looming imaginary threat of homelessness

§       Subconsciously hold onto extra body weight out of a fear of not having enough to eat or to divert attention from the opposite sex

§       Were never properly taught about personal hygiene

§       Constantly re-enact their childhood relationships by remaining in abusive situations

§       Don’t feel close to anyone

§       Have extreme difficulty communicating with others

Sometimes, abuse and neglect of children can become a terrible cycle in which adults abused as children can become abusive with their own children. The negative impacts of child abuse can so grossly alter a person’s physical, psychological, and behavioral growth that it may perpetuates the cycle of child abuse and keep the foster care system “in business.”

In part one of this series, I introduced the paradox of the foster care system — a system that is designed to support abused and neglected children, but on the other hand may end up causing additional harm in some cases.

The “Safety” of Foster Care

Once placed in foster care, a child is not always guaranteed to be safe from abuse. In fact, Liftingtheveil.org cites a troubling statistic from one study, claiming that over 28% of children in state care are abused while in “the system.” However, former foster children I’ve worked with state that the incidents of in-foster-care abuse are much higher. Amy (name altered), an adult client who spent over seven years in the foster care system, told me that roughly nine out of ten fellow foster children she crossed paths with claimed that they had been abused by their foster parents.

She also expressed that foster children are often taught by their circumstances not to speak up and are conditioned to think abuse is “normal.” Additionally, Amy felt that it was not in their best interests to report abuse and risk being relocated, where they might be subject to yet more “unknown” abuse… and also have to endure another drastic change.  She explained, “A foster child is already taught that you don’t speak up. It’s dangerous. And don’t forget that mom/dad already gave you up, so best to shut your mouth, or you could end up moving again.”  While it seems like further studies of foster parent abuse are needed to gain more accurate statistics, the bottom line is that abuse happens too often.

In one recent (2010) and widely publicized case, an ex-foster child took his previous foster parent to court on sexual abuse charges and was awarded $30 million in damages. The abuse reportedly happened while he was in the California foster care system for five years in the ’90s. The accused foster parent had been allowed to foster multiple kids despite criminal records of abuse, drug use, and drunk driving incidents. He was eventually convicted of “nine counts of lewd or lascivious acts on a child by force, violence, duress, menace, and fear, and seven counts of lewd or lascivious acts on a child under 14.” He was given a 220-year prison sentence. The private foster family agency responsible for awarding this man’s foster license shouldered some of the blame for negligent vetting and monitoring of the home. (Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Child_Protective_Services#cite_note-18)

 A Compromised System

During my own time working foster care agencies and in group homes, I often witnessed our agency staff become overwhelmed with the number of children they were required to monitor —not to mention the pressure of completing mountains of paperwork. The paperwork would often trump the actual visits in priority because it was required in order to keep the agency funded and our jobs intact. There seem to be incentives in place to keep children with foster families they are assigned to, which sometimes led to lenience when evaluating conditions. (Foster agencies receive money for each placement. If a child is removed from a placement, the agency can lose the commission. Although foster agencies and social workers usually have the child’s best interests at heart, these factors may contribute to a less than efficient system of properly monitoring foster homes.)

Many of the caseworkers (like myself) were fairly young, inexperienced recent graduates of psychology school putting in their time to accumulate enough hours to get their state licensing. Having little experience, we did not always know how to detect abuse or handle the enormous emotional volatility that is inherent in such a job. Other caseworkers were older adults with years of exposure to the failures of “the system” and defeatist attitudes that did not help them in their jobs. Ex-foster children I’ve spoken with reported jaded caseworkers who always seemed to “turn a blind eye,” never asking probing questions or visiting the sleeping areas of their charges.

Making things even trickier, there are statutes of limitations and other restrictions in place to prevent prosecution of perpetrators or state agencies too long after-the-fact. In Pennsylvania, for instance: “…the statute of limitations in most civil assault cases is two years from the date of the injury. If the injured victim is under the age of eighteen (18), the victim must file suit before they reach the age of twenty (20).” (According to the law firm Andreozzi & Associates, who specialize in foster care abuse claims.  However, there are sometimes ways around these restrictions. They say that “One exception to the statute of limitations for sexual abuse and molestation in Pennsylvania surrounds what is known as the common law ‘discovery rule.’ The application of this rule allows victims to file suit within two years of the time: (1) they discover the injury; and (2) they discover the source of the injury. However, it is important to note that Pennsylvania, unlike many other states, has rejected the repressed memory theory as a tool to apply the discovery rule.”

Group Homes

While issues with foster care placements in family homes are one thing, state-run group homes are a whole other matter. But, as you might expect, group homes are not always the safe havens that they should be either.

Within the group home system, children are moved around to facilities with varying levels of security and structure depending on their behavior and psychological/emotional growth. A change in level often means a child is immersed in yet another strange new environment. Each time a child is moved to another level, he or she gets new teachers, new therapists, new classmates, new roommates, and a new life. Foster children who have moved multiple times often develop detachment disorder: they become unable to attach to others as a defense mechanism. Sadly, this often results in a child who is not able to form normal long-lasting relationships that are crucial to success later in life.

The occurrence of child abuse in group homes is not uncommon either, even though staff there are trained and educated to help children. In the New York Times article “Learning to Cope With a Mind’s Taunting Voices,” Joe Holt describes a church-sponsored residential facility he grew up in called Childhaven, in Alabama:

“There were regular beatings, sometimes with a board, sometimes with a Ping-Pong paddle, sometimes with a razor strap,” Mr. Holt said. “You had to memorize a portion of the Bible, and if you didn’t, you’d get a beating. Once I got beaten so badly I thought I was going to pass out.”

According to the New York Times article, at least two staff members at Childhaven eventually pleaded guilty to child abuse, and the staff has “long since turned over,” but have other facilities like Childhaven instituted similar safeguards?

The Phenomenon of Emotional Detachment

Foster or group home children generally lack the childhood experiences that teach other children to trust authority figures.  What can seem like a lack of emotion or attachment ability in these kids may often be a veiled protection mechanism: they may remain reserved within relationships in order to protect themselves from further hurt. They might innately be aware of the sad truth that they are viewed by caseworkers and foster parents as potentially “troublesome,” and that — unlike most children — they must prove themselves to be trustworthy before they will be fully loved. This can seem like an overwhelming task for an already overly stressed child with compromised coping mechanisms. One former foster care client expressed: “What one has to consider is that foster kids are taught to not trust… so while it seems that we are detached, the truth is, often we know full well what is going on. But yes, we do have to protect ourselves, and hence, what seems like detachment to the clinical eye is simply what a “normal” individual would call “reserved.”

In Part 3 of this series, I’ll talk about the costs of a compromised system.

What happens when someone finds out a child has been abused?

In most cases, that “someone” is a mandated reporter who sees bruises or other signs of physical or emotional abuse. Mandated reporters are those who work with children such as teachers, church leaders, daycare owners, Boy and Girl Scout leaders, therapists, and doctors. Other calls are made from “non-mandated reporters” such as neighbors and relatives. In all of these cases, when a call is made, Child Protective Services (CPS) is brought in.

Except for extreme cases where criminal charges are pressed, CPS’s first goal is to reunite children with their parents. However, when a case of abuse becomes too severe or the caretaker does not comply with the reunification plan, the child is removed from the family. First, CPS tries to find other family members who are willing to take care of the child. If this is not possible, the child is then placed in an emergency shelter, a group home, or with a certified foster family.

How does the Foster Care System work?

The difficult journey that leads a child to foster care is almost always a traumatic one. State-run agencies such as Child Protective Services (CPS) assess the safety of each child they handle and decide whether or not the evidence indicates an abusive or neglectful situation and whether it calls for intervention.  Before a child is removed from a family, each case must be presented before a judge, and that judge must agree that the state is within its legal rights to remove the child. In emergency cases where criminal charges have been filed against a child’s parent(s) or caregiver(s), an exception is made and the child can be immediately taken from the home.

Always, the initial intent is to keep a child with his or her biological family. To this end, CPS first offers support services to families such as parenting classes, family therapy, and supervised visits. When these measures fail, a child is made a ward of the state. “Foster care” is the term used for the state-run system in which a minor who has been made a ward is placed in the private home of a state-certified caregiver. To cite a staggering statistic, Fostercaremonth.org claims that 78,278 children were in the foster care system in California alone in July of 2006.

 The Trauma of Change

During my early days as a psychotherapist I worked with group homes and foster care agencies in California. In my experience, children in “the system” had a horrifying laundry list of abuse and neglect on their records before they were actually taken from their families and placed in state care.

A relative of one child made about fifty CPS calls before that child was placed in a group home. Prior to his placement, he was duct-taped and shoved in a closet while his mother worked as a prostitute. The concerned relative was initially willing to take him into her home, but by the time he was finally removed from his mother’s care, he had Post Traumatic Stress Syndrome (PTSD), was severely emotionally disturbed, had uncontrollable behavior issues, and had destroyed property and tortured animals. At this point, he needed trained professional care and constant supervision to ensure his (and others’) safety in addition to several psychiatric medications prescribed by a psychiatrist.

This is not an isolated case. While the successful removal of a child from an abusive situation is arguably a healthy step, it’s important to note that children can also experience additional trauma as a result of this drastic change. When they are removed from their families, they are often separated from siblings due to overcrowding at group homes and limited housing options. They leave behind pets, belongings, and familiar surroundings. They lose friends as they are relocated to new areas. Even when the relocation is a positive step, it can come with an emotional price.

In part II I will talk about a flawed foster care system.

For the roughly hundred people who wake up each day during surgery, this has been a nightmare come true. A 2003 article in USA Today1 divulged that a study conducted that year exposed this high number of surgical “wake-ups.” “Anesthesia failure that allows a patient to wake up during surgery, paralyzed and unable to cry for help” is an understandably terrifying and traumatizing risk of even minor surgery. It can indeed lead to Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD).

Aside from anesthesia mishaps, trauma can occasionally result from a wide variety of other medical incidents including surgery (in general), high fevers, dental procedures, and prolonged immobilization as a result of injury.

Additionally, intense medical situations can further exacerbate an existing condition or trigger an acute episode. According to Primary Psychiatry, “Anxiety disorders, depression, bipolar disorder, schizophrenia, and personality disorders may all flare up during the post-operative period, leading to psychiatric consultation.”

Primary Psychiatry also says that: “Posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is also common after surgery, particularly after traumatic injuries, but is underrecognized and undertreated. Previous research has evaluated these and other issues in surgical patients.” As you might expect, Medical PTSD is most common in patients who underwent emergency surgery as a result of a traumatic event such as a car accident, a fire, or an assault. Therefore, it can be difficult to ascertain whether the PTSD came about as a result of the original traumatic incident, the medical procedure, or both.

Now for the good news, at least on the anesthesia front: in recent years the Food and Drug Administration has approved and begun to advocate the use of a device called a BIS monitor, which translates a patient’s brainwaves into an indicator of how sedated they are at any moment during surgery. This device can be used to indicate when a patient is truly sedated and unable to consciously experience the procedure.

Citations:

1.     http://www.usatoday.com/news/health/2003-10-12-surgery-usat_x.htm

2.     http://www.primarypsychiatry.com/aspx/articledetail.aspx?articleid=1067

Recently, I had the profound fortune of attending a lecture with Dr. Bessel van der Kolk on trauma, during which he compared the impact of 9/11 to Hurricane Katrina. Dr. van der Kolk is one of the world’s leading research experts in the field of PTSD. He is particularly known for his work with the consequences of trauma and stress – both from a neurological standpoint and a psychological one – and has written numerous books on this topic.

Dr. van der Kolk was showing us a photograph of people on the Brooklyn Bridge on that fateful day in 2001. The burning twin towers were in the backgrounds, and all of these people were running away from them, toward their homes in Brooklyn. He pointed out that naturally, they were running in the direction of the places they perceived as safe: their own neighborhoods, where they had family, friends, and community to comfort them. We all remember 9/11 vividly. Three-quarters of Americans donated to the 9/11relief effort. Our country rallied together to support those affected by this horrible tragedy. As the media described, community and municipal departments acted quickly to provide healing resources to 9/11 survivors post-event.

In 2003 – two years after 9/11 happened – New York Magazine reported that “probably half the city’s firefighters have gone into therapy-6,100 uniformed people have received counseling through the department. The department now has 60 full-time counselors instead of the 9 it employed before September 11.” Victims of Katrina, in contrast, tended to be low-income and minority civilians without access to supportive counseling and other such resources as they tried to psychologically cope with the epic disaster they had witnessed. Governmental and FEMA resources were focused on crowd control, housing, and tangible issues.

Dr. van der Kolk talked about how, as a result of Hurricane Katrina, victims were forced to flee their homes, some of them permanently. Refugees from New Orleans numbered in the thousands. Many were displaced to other cities and even states as everything they perceived as familiar was eaten alive by the hurricane and its aftermath. And this was only if they could get out. During Katrina, those who did not or could not escape fast enough were trapped in a drowning city, without the ability to run for refuge. Their fight/flight/freeze responses were presumably on high alert for a prolonged period of time. Emergency airlifts strapped down many trapped New Orleans residents and carried them out of the city, stacking them like cordwood to fly them to safety in new and unfamiliar places. In many cases, victims never saw their homes and communities again. Additionally, while those who experienced 9/11 in New York were painted as national heroes in the press, the victims of Hurricane Katrina were labeled as just that: victims. (Of course, one has to consider the fact that one situation was a terrorist attack, the other, a natural disaster.)

Not everyone who experiences trauma will go on to suffer from PTSD. There are many factors that determine whether a trauma victim will develop PTSD, including their level of coping skills, resiliency, exposure, and the severity of any prior trauma. However, what has not been much talked about is the importance of community support in an individual’s mental recovery from a natural disaster or terrorist event. Access to external resources, the support of others -both moral and logistical – and the media portrayal of a situation are all components on the road to healing. We rely not just on our loved ones and our immediate family, but our entire community and culture, when recovering from a major traumatic social event. The likelihood of a survivor experiencing PTSD as a result of a trigger event depends not just on the event itself, but on the ensuing circumstances and the cultural reaction to the event.

I recently attended a 9/11 memorial ceremony here in California. As an imported 65-pound piece of the Twin Towers was put in place in front of our own fire department, the message “We are standing here as a unit” was the predominant theme. Survivors were remembered, and their pain was acknowledged, sending the message to all of the victims that they were are are not alone. I thought of the endless stories of my own clients who only wanted — despite their personal trauma — to have their emotional pain acknowledged. What if our community acknowledged and felt that it was a part of the solution? What if we had more such ceremonies and gave the message “you are not alone”?
Citations:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bessel_van_der_Kolk

http://nymag.com/nymetro/news/sept11/2003/n_9189/index1.html

This is not to say that we in the psychology field are proponents of trauma, or that we would ever wish a traumatic experience on anyone. The saying “What doesn’t kill us only makes us stronger” is an oversimplified and glorified belief. What doesn’t kill us can sometimes eat away at us for years and decades of our lives, ultimately affecting us on a deep psychological level. Sometimes people also say, “That experience made me a better person.” However, the truth is that adults who were abused as children don’t know who they would have become without their negative experience. Only the ones who experienced trauma later in life really have the opportunity to compare themselves to how they were before and after the trauma.

However, as stories and literature often reveal, it is possible not only to recover from trauma, but to actually grow from it and flourish. Suffering has long been romanticized in literature, art, and folklore as transformative and empowering. There is an element of truth to this concept. But it needs to be looked at more closely. Simply experiencing suffering and trauma does not guarantee that you will become a better, stronger person for it. This attitude is a trite and irresponsible one that men for centuries have used as an excuse to abuse their children in the name of “toughening them up.”

As doctors Richard G. Tedeschi, Ph.D., and Lawrence Calhoun, Ph.D. stated in their 2004 paper “Posttraumatic Growth: A New Perspective on Psychotraumatology” in Psychiatric Times: “…the widespread assumption that trauma will often result in disorder should not be replaced with expectations that growth is an inevitable result. Instead, continuing personal distress and growth often coexist.”

Their paper is devoted to the study of growth after trauma, and the researchers did find that, in their words, “Reports of growth experiences in the aftermath of traumatic events far outnumber reports of psychiatric disorders.” They listed “improved relationships, new possibilities for one’s life, a greater appreciation for life, a greater sense of personal strength and spiritual development” as some of the ways that traumatic experiences could actually enhance the psychological qualities of life of the survivor.

Adam Jackson’s book Flipside gathered multiple stories of people who turned their trauma from tragic accidents, cancer, and even rape and abuse into “trauma growth”. Additionally, many celebrities such as Oprah Winfrey, Tyler Perry, Cheryl Burke, and Ashley Judd have revealed that they turned their lives around after a childhood of abuse, perhaps showing us that there is hope.

Trauma does not always have to continue to linger as a negative impact. Dr. Viktor Frankl, who was one of the few people who survived the Holocaust, said; “Life holds potential meaning under any conditions, even the most miserable ones.” Personally, I have seen many people in my practice who have excelled despite their past experiences. And knowing that it is possible to find the flipside in life can perhaps bring hope to those who are in the midst of their pain, and also to those who help them.

So what is the key factor that would allow a trauma victim to be eligible for personal growth as a result of — and not despite — their experiences?  Here are the keys:

§       Learning to overcome helplessness

§       Finding a meaning in life

§       Learning new perspectives

§       Optimism

§       A social network

Martin E.P. Seligman, Ph.D. of The Positive Psychology Center explains that we have to overcome learned helplessness, otherwise we might not find the flipside in life. In other words, one needs to keep trying even when times are difficult.

Viktor Franks points out that we need a reason to look forward to our future, such as health, family, happiness, professional abilities, fortune, or position in society.

Adam Jackson writes that our attitude far exceeds our outcome and found that optimism is one of the ingredients necessary to turn traumatic experiences around. Optimism is not always easy to come by, but people expecting a positive outcome are nevertheless more likely to experience a better outcome. For example, the placebo effect works on 60-90 percent of all diseases, according to Harvard University, where they found that people who have the expectation of a good outcome often do. To find optimism and turn our lives around, we may need to learn new perspectives and behaviors.

This all sounds so obvious and easy. But how do you actually overcome helplessness, find meaning in life, gain optimism, and learn new perspectives? I can not write in one blog how to do this, nor can I tell you one exercise that works for everyone, but here are a few suggestions that are worth trying.

Exercise:

Write a list of all the things that you like and enjoy doing. This helps create the awareness of what is already present in your life that works and is good. It is important to recognize what you value in your life and make sure (if appropriate) to incorporate it as often as possible. Bessel van der Kolk mentioned in one of his lectures that trauma creates helplessness, and since the opposite of helplessness is action, he suggests to do the things that simply make one feel good.

Once you have completed the first list, next write down all the things you would like to achieve, have, or be. Creating this list can be overwhelming or difficult, but see if you can take one or two things at a time, or explore them with a friend or therapist. This list might help give you a goal, and the combined lists together might reorient you toward a meaning in your life.

Victor Frankl, an Austrian neurologist and psychiatrist who survived the Holocaust, writes about “the tension between what one has already achieved and what one still ought to accomplish, or the gap between what one is and what one should become. Such tension is inherent in the human being and therefore is indispensable to mental well-being.”

Finally, write down the steps that are necessary to get to your goals, including what perceptions of people, yourself, and the world you will need to change. Then, do one mini step at a time, just as the book One Small Step Can Change Your Life: The Kaizen Way by Robert Maurer describes. The smaller the steps moving forward, the more likely you will be successful.

There are many avenues to self-growth — spiritual, academic, psychological — but finding an experienced and attuned therapist is a wise step to address your trauma, learn new perspectives, and gain optimism. In truth, recovery and growth from trauma may take hard work, deep resources, and/or a bit of good fortune. The promise of growth in the face of adversity must be balanced with a realistic, patient approach to therapy and a dedication to positive change.

Citations:

Pieces of this article were based on the article “Posttraumatic Growth: A New Perspective on Psychotraumatology” By Richard G. Tedeschi, Ph.D., and Lawrence Calhoun, Ph.D. Psychiatric Times. Vol. 21 No. 4 April 1, 2004

Positive Change Following Trauma and Adversity: A Review By P. Alex Linley and Stephen Joseph, Journal of Traumatic Stress, Volume 17, Number 1, 11-21, DOI: 10.1023/B:JOTS.0000014671.27856.7e

Books mentioned and referenced:

§       Flipside by Adam J Jackson

§       Man’s Search for Meaning by Viktor Frankl

§       One Small Step Can Change Your Life: The Kaizen Way by Robert Maurer

However, most of the time when my clients have attempted to talk about their abuse with the abuser, the abuser has denied their actions and the reconciliation failed. Rarely has the abuser recognized or admitted what they did and apologized. Although an apology is not always the golden key to reunification, without one it is nearly impossible for two people to come back together.

As a person who has voluntarily estranged yourself from another, you might still feel a loss — sometimes as if the person has actually died. An abuser often has different faces that not everyone will see. Therefore, when one decides to estrange from their abuser, others might not understand or be supportive, which often causes further estrangement from relatives and community.

For the person who has been estranged from another, this dynamic can be just as challenging.

If you have been involuntarily estranged from another, your best coping mechanism is to try to understand that the person doing the distancing is making this decision in order to “let go of what they cannot change” or cope with. This might cause you, as the estranged person, to feel angry, hurt, or at the very least, confused — but it’s important for you to remember that you cannot change another person’s feelings or triggers.

If you are a person who has experienced estrangement at the hands of another, consider whether you need to take a look at your own potential for abuse or addiction. But if you truly believe you are healthy, then your only recourse is to allow the other person to proceed in the way they feel is appropriate — even if you do not agree or understand. Can you love without being loved back or without having contact? You can try to make amends, but if that does not work you must simply live your own life, even if it seems hard, painful, and empty.

Whether the estranger or the estranged, forgiveness is the first step to freeing ourselves from the emotional prison of the past.

It can feel counterintuitive —especially to victims of abuse — and sometimes unsafe, to consider forgiving someone who has caused us great harm. We feel that holding on to our resentment and hatred keeps us protected from future abuse. We are afraid that if we let it go, and soften into forgiveness, that we’ll open ourselves up to becoming victims once again.

The first step to forgiveness happens inside your own heart, and does not require any re-connection with the person who hurt you. That reconnection may (but doesn’t have to) come later. Laura Davis draws a line between forgiveness and reconciliation and explains that it is possible to forgive a person without forgiving their previous actions. Fred Luskin, author of Forgive For Good, who launched the Stanford Forgiveness Project, adds that forgiving has medical as well as emotional benefits. Consider seeking therapy to deal with the grief and heal, educate yourself, and seek out support groups.

And if you decide to take the step of estranging yourself from someone, or if you have been estranged from someone else, consider whether you might need to take a look at your own underlying issues within the help of a psychotherapist.

Citations:

http://www.harpercollins.com/books/Thought-Wed-Never-Speak-Again-Laura-Davis/?isbn=9780060957025

From childhood’s hour I have not been

As others were — I have not seen

As others saw — I could not bring

My passions from a common spring —

From the same source I have not taken

My sorrow — I could not awaken

My heart to joy at the same tone —

And all I lov’d — I lov’d alone —

Then — in my childhood — in the dawn

Of a most stormy life — was drawn

From ev’ry depth of good and ill

The mystery which binds me still —

From the torrent, or the fountain —

From the red cliff of the mountain —

From the sun that ’round me roll’d

In its autumn tint of gold —

From the lightning in the sky

As it pass’d me flying by —

From the thunder, and the storm —

And the cloud that took the form

(When the rest of Heaven was blue)

Of a demon in my view —

United Family

Just as Laura Davis describes in her book I Thought We’d Never Speak Again , I have seen different outcomes of estrangements in my practice as well. I have worked with adult children of abusers who gained closeness with their abusive relatives and resolved their history together. However, most of the time when they attempted to talk about their abuse, the abuser denied their actions and the reconciliation failed. Rarely has the abuser recognized or admitted what they did and apologized. Although an apology is not always the golden key to reunification, without one, it is nearly impossible for two people to come back together. In the most successful cases, a new perception, a new level of expectation, and setting ground rules have all helped to re-establish healthy relationships.

If you have voluntarily estranged yourself from another, you might still feel a loss, even as if the person has died. An abuser often has different faces that not everyone will see. Therefore, when one decides to estrange from their abuser, others might not understand or be supportive, which often causes further estrangement from relatives and community.

For the person who has been estranged, this dynamic can also be very hard. Their best coping mechanism is to try to understand that the person is estranging them so they can “let go of what they cannot change” or cope with. This can cause the estranged person to feel angry or hurt, or at the very least, confused, but it’s important for this person to remember that they cannot change another person’s feelings or triggers. If you are a person who has experienced estrangement at the hands of another, consider whether you need to take a look at your own potential for abuse or addiction. But if you believe you are healthy, then your only recourse is to allow the other person to proceed in the way they feel is appropriate — even if you do not agree or understand. Can you love without being loved back or without having contact? You can try to make amends, but if that does not work you must simply live your own life, even if it seems hard, painful, and empty.

Whether the estranger or the estranged, forgiveness is the first step to freeing ourselves from the emotional prison of the past. It can feel counterintuitive, especially to victims of abuse, and sometimes unsafe, to consider forgiving someone who has caused us great harm. We feel that holding on to our resentment and hatred keeps us protected from future abuse. We are afraid that if we let it go, and soften into forgiveness, that we’ll open ourselves up to becoming victims once again.

The first step to forgiveness happens inside your own heart, and does not require any re-connection with the person who hurt you. That reconnection may (but doesn’t have to) come later. Laura Davis draws a line between forgiveness and reconciliation and explains that it is possible to forgive a person without forgiving their previous actions. Fred Luskin, author of Forgive For Good, who launched the Stanford Forgiveness Project, adds that forgiving has medical as well as emotional benefits. Consider seeking therapy to deal with the grief and heal, educate yourself, and seek out support groups.

Citations:

¹ http://www.harpercollins.com/books/Thought-Wed-Never-Speak-Again-Laura-Davis/?isbn=9780060957025

Fragmented Families

In my psychotherapy practice I’ve seen how traumatic relationships and serious mental disorders can lead to patterns of emotional cutoffs or estrangements.

Emotional cutoff — a term coined by American psychiatrist Murray Bowen,¹ is described as “people managing their unresolved emotional issues with parents, siblings, and other family members by reducing or totally cutting off emotional contact with them” in order to reduce their anxiety. ² This type of distancing can happen on a physical level — literally moving far away from an abusive member of one’s past or simply refusing to see them, or on a more interactive level —avoiding sensitive topics of conversation or otherwise closely “managing” the relationship through one’s behavior and communication style.

According to Bowen Theory, those who use emotional cutoff as a coping mechanism ironically often end up trying to replicate their prior relationships in their new ones in order to fill an emotional hole or make things “different this time.” This can result in a lot of stress on family, friends, or colleagues—and can also, in some cases, lead to the repetition of abusive patterns.

Estrangement from one’s family is a common phenomenon. Aside from Angelina Jolie, other celebrities such as Jennifer Aniston, Drew Barrymore, Kim Basinger, Roseanne, Halle Barre, Tom Cruise, Jodie Foster, and Demi Moore have all claimed to be estranged from close family members. http://www.estrangements.com/linkspage.html And it’s not uncommon for other people either.

When someone has an estranged relationship with their family, the question is often whether the distance they place between themselves and their family members is due to healthy boundaries (it is certainly true that some relationships are toxic and that one is better served to end them), or instead due to an unprocessed emotional detachment.

When a relationship with a family member is not healthy — meaning it is emotionally, physically, or financially abusive and causing suffering—the victim has every right to stop interacting with that person. You should not have to tolerate any unacceptable behavior just because someone is related to you.  It is more important to stay safe than to be in contact with family member. Angelina Jolie, who was estranged many years from her father Jon Voight, said: “I don’t believe that somebody’s family becomes their blood… families are earned.”

Some people choose to cut off a family member not because of abuse but because of religious belief, conflict, betrayal, addiction, mental illness, and criminal or unhealthy behaviors. Unless the unhealthy-acting person is willing to be treated and there are visible changes happening, there often seems to be nothing one can do except disconnect, or risk drowning along with this person. Sometimes willful estrangement is a necessary step a person must take to protect themselves. However, it’s important to note that estrangement can also happen because of a lack of skills to resolve common conflicts.

If there are “common conflicts” in the relationship that caused the disconnect, the first step to healing might be for the person who initiated the estrangement to work on their triggers and try to excavate what is behind their reactions. Taking the time to heal is also a valuable step. For someone who has been estranged from a family member, taking the space to work out issues before reuniting can be a healthy and crucial tactic.

Citations:

¹ http://www.thebowencenter.org/pages/conceptec.html

² http://www.harpercollins.com/books/Thought-Wed-Never-Speak-Again-Laura-Davis/?isbn=9780060957025