yes. venting helps. (((BIG HUG))) Arfie

(((((Arfie)))))
Here with you with lots of support. There’s a lot of estrangement in my family & it’s all so confusing & painful too.

I hope you can vent as much as you need, & it can hopefully help a little
Gentle hug <3

thank you mel. big hug back at ya.

missy,
in my own family tree, i believe estrangement is the only family tradition we have. we keep breeding like rabbits, but the rabbit warrens keep feuding like religious denominators.

a dream i had decades ago still haunts me on a near daily basis. the end of the dream was a classic hollywood sky with a voice booming from the rays of the sun behind a cloud, saying, "parting the red sea was child's play next to the miricle of parting the bloody fields between estranged family members."

prayers and encouragement both needed and appreciated.

There is estrangement in mine as well..... Sending you a big hug of peace and support... xo

thank you, suncloud.

is there a mask to help slow down the estrangement pandemic?

Arfie, as you know I’ve been estranged from my own biological family since 2010. Before that, two adulterous partners led me to divorces and to take care not to become a parent with either or them. Then before that again, a partner who was about to make me a parent aborted the fetus without telling me until after the fact.

The topic of parenthood, then, is one that’s fraught with emotional pain in my own personal instance. For you physical pain is added in as you mention how becoming a parent for the first time nearly killed you in childbirth.

I admire you immensely, then, for how you have gone on as a grandparent to raise your grandkids. Sending you support from the bottom of my heart.

Arfie sending you hugs and support! My mom can not have anything to do with my brother because of how violent and cruel he is to us all. She is terrified of him. I stay away as well, he is not welcome on the property that Mom and my fiance and i live on (seperate houses by quite a bit of fields but close enough if we need the other) Also my birth almost killed both mom and I and several times before I came. Now days full placenta Previa is not as serious but in the 80s it was and they had to have mom sign who to save if they only could save one of us. She spent a total of 5 or 6 weeks admitted, a month of it before i was born becuase they had to keep giving her meds to stop her hemmoraging because i was trying to come out.

Sorry not trying to make it about me just trying to relate the best I can. There is a lot of so called family that we have nothing to do with, my fiance is the same way, but those few who we are close to and the friends who become family are very speical, i hope you have that part as well. You are a blessing to the grandchildren you are raising, they are very lucky to have you!

thank you, guys.

on the subject of raising my grandchildren, the still escalating pandemic of family estrangement makes it problematic to introduce myself as their grandmother. the plethora of family estrangement lawsuits forces schools, doctors, etc., to protect parental rights above long outdated stereotypes.

official matters progress far more smoothly when i introduce myself as their foster mother with full, state mandated custodial obligations. i always carry the relative court documents, just in case. . .

i sure wish stereotypes updated as quickly and completely as smart phones, complete with updated user agreements. just wishing. . .

onward through the ever stranger realities. . .

mujicaptsd
in your tales of family estrangement, i identify most strongly with your mother. my hopes of being forgiven by my son are ? ? ? in league with your mother's vain hopes?

it seems unlikely i will ever again celebrate his birthday. today i wish i could forget the 44thh anniversary of my first childbirth.

ouch. . .

arfie, I hope you and your son can be reconciled for sure. I was estranged from my mom as an adult son for 8 years once, and then I gave it another shot but she went and put me in physical danger all over again. That's something you'd never do. If you ever get that second chance you'll make the most of it, that I do know about you as you say "ouch" here showing how sensitive you are. Sending you all of my support, my friend.

i wish i shared your confidence in what i would or would not ever do with a second chance. perhaps if my son were an employable hospital chaplain, i really could be the mother you are dreaming of. perhaps. i think it highly unlikely we will be able to test that theory.

my middle aged son is a homeless crackhead with not so much as a high school diploma to his credit and an addict's certainty that he is qualified to run the world. if i catch him looking cracked at one of his nieces or nephew, i ain't making no promises i won't be meaner than your mama is physically capable of. i might even remember my formal combat training.

when i was screened for protective custody of these children, keeping that convicted felon at a safe social distance was a clearly stated condition of the custody agreement.

arfie, you're right that I don't really know any more than I really know about myself, to be honest. I'm really sorry to hear about the shape your middle aged son is in at this point. I criticize both of my own mentally ill parents for trying the geographical cure rather than facing their need for therapy head on.


However, I do have to give them credit for one thing achieved by moving us 5,000 miles away from their families of origin in the USA. When I grew up and went back to the States to live as an adult I found out that both sides of the family were ruined by alcohol and drug abuse. All of my cousins, even the ones who got rich, had ruined families into which Social Services stepped in to remove kids from their dangerous homes. For the rich cousins it was cocaine, for the white trash cousins it was meth.


There's no guarantee that I would have gone down that road, too, but it would have been much more of an option than it was for me growing up in Uruguay. I've had to face how my father's untreated disorder was just as bad in Uruguay as it had been in the USA. I've had to face how my mother's untreated borderline personality disorder was even worse in South America and got her arrested for laundering drug money through a church


I've had to admit, though, that by the time I met my cousins when I went to the States and they offered me drugs I was old enough and distanced enough from them emotionally to turn them down and not be manipulated into letting them turn me on. Unlike them, I did have to deal with combat trauma as a kid. I count myself lucky to have had that to confront, though, instead of what appears to be a very seductive substance abuse problem.


Your simply being here on DSPTSD is a support to me in that you, too, had a hard childhood and yet you haven’t gone down that addiction road yourself, either, even though given your past you could excuse it just like I could. To see loved ones go down that path is plenty bad enough. It still counts for something not to go ahead and do it one’s own self, though, it really does. I admire you for that and draw strength from it. Bless you.


I’ll never understand why after already working through so much you wound up having to lose your son and his wife and raise their kids. I’ll never understand the latest that’s happened in your family now. I do know, though, that I’ve found you back here day after day opening up about it to us here and so I figure if you can today then I can today, too, even when I don’t feel like it or feel like it’s fair. Again, bless you, truly.

i often wonder if i SHOULD be opening up here, mujicaptsd. mentally ill mothers, such as myself, are a major trigger for many here. we deserve no forgiveness for the havoc we wreak on child development and i am frequently reminded of that harsh fact of life by the posts here.

but? ? ? here i am again, doing my honest best with what is available to work with. works in progress to find a better fit for my therapy support needs. i may never fully recover from the residuals of child sex trafficking, but i can keep hope alive.

leaving all that mystery be. . . the powers that be sent me an actual birthday to celebrate here on this strange and mournful day. one of big sis's best friends turns 8 today and her parents are too busy to throw her a party.

it's party time. . .

You certainly do your honest best with what's available to work with, arfie, that's for sure, and it spurs me on to do the same myself day by day. What with you and the residuals of child sex trafficking, what with me and the residuals of being a child combat veteran, we're keeping hope alive.

Enjoy the party time! :-)