How do you get over the sadness of estrangement?

Question

This is a general question and many people could benefit from an answer.

Families are far from what many Americans are used to seeing in the 50s and early 60s, mostly in sitcoms. Few families are even close to that ideal, and at best, siblings tend to grow apart after parents deaths, and at worst, there are a lot of abusive issues that can never be overcomed no matter how much professional help may one seek. In other words, you may love those people dearly, but at the same time, relationships with them are most toxic, so many resolve at moving away and never have anything to do with them, and in a way, that can be a relief. Logically, it is truly for the best. Emotionally, there is always an emotional hole that is hard to be filled unless there is a reconcilliation based on wishful thinking.

Now, how can one get over the sadness of such estrangements, as well as to stop having such wishes?

Answer 1

LittleLad is WRONG. I would like to tell you what can be done to end that estrangement.
1) Realize the toxicity is not your fault.
2) Find a book on scapgoating within families and read it from cover to cover as a way of seeing that you are not unique, which you indicate that you already know.
3) Make very good friends with people you actually get along with well and build your own family system. The old adage we can pick our friends but not our families is true. I like choice. I chose my new family and got as far away from the people I'm related to by blood only. I simply refused to continue to try to get along with dysfunctional folks because of DNA. Pleeeeeeeeeeze!
4) Make a real effort to heal, whatever it takes, religion, yoga. Choose a healthy way to proceed from this point forward and make the transition from "family" to your sanity a priority.
5) Therapy is not a bad thing if it saves your life.
6) Work toward wellness, make it your daily goal. You can do this, you're worth it!!!

Wishing you all the best. Get busy.

Answer 2

Estrangement is a choice. Many people say that word as if it were an inevitable consequence of a a dysfunctional relationship. Estrangement only happens when one or both parties make the conscious decision to pull away and never have contact again of any type. Sometimes estrangement is healthy-like when there is prior abuse. Sometimes it is a result of stubborness and emotional immaturity. In those cases, and if you are the one who is feeling hurt and empty from estrangement, it is up to you to reach out and attempt reconcilliation. But there is only so much you can do...if you make honest attempts that get shunned and ignored then you have no other choice but to hold yourself upright, with the knowlege that you did the right thing, and move forward and find other people to create healthy, balanced relationships with the fill that void. Sometimes, the best and closest and most fulfilling relationships we have come from friends, in other words-non blood related people. Surround yourself with these people and there will be no room for sadness and emptiness created by people who refuse to bridge gaps, forgive and move forward.

Answer 3

There are pains that will never go away. Being born into a lousy family is one of those pains. Reconciliation will never produce what one longs for, because those people will never be what one longs for.

All you can do is be your best to others. Form an intentional family with people who share your values and care about you. Be as devoted to those people as sitcom families are to each other.

Be your best in the family you form, help create the connectedness you wish you'd had. And be alert to sabotaging it when you do create it. So many people find it hard to watch their own kids have a better life than they had, that they actually resent their kids. That's a poisoned-mind reaction that keeps us from enjoying our second chance.

Research shows that families who put the focus on future generations have the happiest members - ie when the parents are devoted to pleasing their children, not to having the children please them, everyone in the family is happier. Pay it forward.

Get out and find the people who have 'no feet' while you are feeling sad about having 'no shoes.' Spend your hours being a big sister/big brother or working in soup kitchens. Visit shut-ins, deliver meals on wheels.

Give out love and love comes back to you. Sit waiting, hurt, scared, feeling unloved and only emptiness comes back.

When you have babies, nurse them for years as nature intended. Avoid day care, encourage the family bed. Dote on them, indulge them (but always within a framework of discipline leading to self-discipline) play with them, reveling in the joys and freedom of play. Fill your home and heart with love and the empty space left by a failed family of origin gets smaller.

Answer 4

I think you just have to find a way within yourself... I don't thnk anyone can answer that for you...