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

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

trust

“We’re never so vulnerable than when we trust someone—but paradoxically, if we cannot trust, neither can we find love or joy.” — Walter Anderson

Merriam Webster dictionary defines trust as the “assured reliance on the character, ability, strength, or truth of someone or something” and “one in which confidence is placed.”

But unfortunately, trust can be broken in many ways. We may have been betrayed, mistreated, lied to or hurt by someone such as a partner, family, friend or colleague.

Instead of developing mistrust only for the person who hurt us, we often begin to be suspicious of every person from that point on. Out of protection to avoid getting hurt again, we carry our unpleasant memories of that original person with us and displace the distrust onto other relationships. Sometimes it only takes one person to determine that nobody is in fact trustworthy due to past trauma. In the process, we often lose trust in ourselves—simply because our judgment of the person or circumstance was incorrect—and we then wonder how we can believe our own judgment. As a result, we might close our hearts, repress our emotions, and walk around numb or suspicious in relationships.

The problem is, we need to be able to trust in order allow ourselves to fall in love and to feel loved. Yes, we can live our life by carrying our hurt everywhere we go… but not without consequences. The consequences of not trusting (and therefore not feeling) may hurt others who were not responsible for our pain and may deprive us of feeling loved, and emotional wellness. This eventually leads to loneliness, depression, and relationship difficulties.

The first step to recovering our sense of trust is to learn to trust our own judgment and feelings again. The following is a somatic exercise to learn increase trust in yourself:

• Sit or lie down so that you are comfortable and are in a safe place.
• Now, how can you make it even more comfortable? Get a blanket, a pillow, whatever will make you feel relaxed and content.
• Once you are settled, ask yourself: “How do I know this is comfortable?” This might appear to be a silly question, and perhaps even confusing. However, it is an important one in increasing your skills of building trust.
• Continue to explore what sensation you feel that you recognize as comfort. For example, you might think, “I do not feel any pain,” “I breath easily,” or “I feel relaxed.”

You might be anticipating that this feeling won’t last, which is true. We can’t control or grasp to this pleasurable feeling. It’s only important that you are in the present moment right now, not drifting into thoughts of the future or the past. Thinking of the future can create anxiety; thinking of the past can create depression.

This is an awareness exercise so that you learn to trust what you are feeling right now. Remain aware of any sounds, the temperature, the light, and your physical sensations. Can you let yourself simply enjoy the moment?

You can practice this exercise for as long as you prefer and as time allows you. Just keep checking in with your level of comfort. What feelings indicate that you are comfortable? With time, you may start to trust your feelings again.

When you start to say to yourself; “I trust myself,” you begin to restore faith in your judgment of others and situations, and as a result, you open your heart to love, joy and feeling safe again.