I have a health condition for which I received treatment in November 2005. Recently I met with my doctor and asked him when the treatment would have full effect. He told me that no one knows because each person’s body reacts in their own individual way. The condition of estrangement is like that. <\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
There is no one-size-fits-all answer to its course. No one has all
\nthe answers. No one can know for sure what will resolve someone else’s
\nestrangement or whether it makes sense to resolve the estrangement.
\nSometimes resolution is not a good idea even though others might think
\nit is the way that things should go.\n<\/p>\n
People who visit my website and blog are each in different stages of
\nestrangement. At the beginning the feelings can be the strongest,
\nespecially for those who didn’t want an estrangement and who miss the
\nother person. In the beginning of an estrangement feelings can be all
\nover the place. All sorts of feelings come up: anger, denial, guilt,
\nfear, depression (clinical depression particularly which can be
\ntriggered by any loss), rage, obsession, grief. Over time, which can be
\nyears, the feelings become more manageable. Some people never go
\nthrough this process and seem to be able to handle estrangements with
\nmore equanimity. Women seem to be more likely to verbalize their
\nfeelings than men.<\/p>\n
I don’t see as many men agonizing about their estrangements online
\nas women. While I have heard from many women by email in five years, I
\nhave heard from only one man. I think that more women than men have
\nwritten books on the topic, usually inspired by their own estrangement.
\nIt may be that men just aren’t used to expressing themselves verbally
\nin the way that women are. Consequently, there is the appearance that
\nestrangements bother women more than men but it may not be the reality.<\/p>\n
If the estrangement can’t be resolved, it is possible to accept the
\nsituation and go on and enjoy life. In the early stages of being
\nestranged, this idea doesn’t feel like an acceptable option. However,
\nafter all losses, whatever the cause, life does go on and it makes
\nsense to go on and get back to living life with enjoyment.<\/p>\n
While I am never comfortable with giving advice on what will work
\nfor everyone, I can offer general guidelines on what to do to maximize
\nyour own ability to go on with your life, regardless of whether your
\nestrangement ends or not. They are pretty much common sense things to
\ndo but worth mentioning anyway. It is easy to lose our common sense
\nwhen we are estranged.<\/p>\n
So here are some guidelines:<\/p>\n
1. Get involved in something you enjoy. <\/p>\n
2. If you can’t enjoy anything, get involved in something anyway. If
\nit is a non-profit organization, you will be doing something productive
\nand helping other people too. This is good stuff all around. It can
\nhelp you take your mind off of your own problems.<\/p>\n
3. If your personal sun fails to shine and all of life has taken on
\nthe deep gray of depression, see a mental health professional and get
\ntreatment. There are several options for treatment and some do work.<\/p>\n
4. Respect the boundaries of the person from whom you are estranged. This goes for both estrangers and estrangees.<\/p>\n
5. Do not verbally or physically abuse anyone, not the person from
\nwhom you are estranged or anyone else. Calling someone names, telling
\nthem why they did this or that, beating someone up, sending police to
\ntheir house to find out how they are, damaging their property, lying
\nabout them and to them, acting as though non-abusive people are abusive
\n— that is all abusive. Don’t do it. If you can’t stop acting in a
\nmanner that is abusive to others, then see a professional to get help
\nfor yourself so that you can stop doing this. If you are this kind of
\nabusive and can’t control it, then you are doing the other person a
\nfavor by estranging yourself … even if they don’t recognize the favor
\nright away.<\/p>\n
6. Mind your own business. This doesn’t mean that you can’t know
\nanything about the person who is lost to you. Relatives and friends may
\nshare news with you and it is understandable that you would be
\ninterested in how a lost loved one is doing. That is not a problem. <\/p>\n
What minding your own business means here is that you recognize that
\nwhat they are doing in their life is their own decision. If they are
\nchoosing to deal with estrangement by going hang gliding, then that is
\ntheir choice. If they choose to write a book, interview 400 people,
\ndraw cartoons, see a mental health professional, write on the internet
\non message boards, that is their choice. If they choose not to get
\ntreatment for an obvious mental health problem, that is their choice,
\nas unfortunate as that choice may seem. As adults we are all free to
\nlead our individual lives and deal with our problems in our own way. <\/p>\n
The exception to the guideline of minding our own business is if you
\nknow that someone is going to harm someone else’s person or property.
\nThen we are obligated to notify authorities to protect ourselves or
\nwhomever is at risk of being harmed. <\/p>\n
7. The more you involve yourself in productive activities that you
\nenjoy and especially activities that help others, the less you will
\nobsess about the person who is gone from your life. <\/p>\n
8. Do something healthy to express the most painful feelings. Talk
\nto someone about them. Write them down in a journal. Beat up a pillow.
\nFind some place to scream where you won’t scare anyone and scream.
\nWrite letters with all your feelings and your worst most unacceptable
\nthoughts in them and DON’T send them. Choose something ceremonial to do
\nwith the letters but DON’T send them. Release your feelings in a way
\nthat hurts no one. <\/p>\n
9. Think about the quality of the relationship if you had one with
\nthe other person. If there is no possibility of a loving caring
\nrelationship, think about that and the implications of having a
\nrelationship of that sort in your life. Think about finding other
\nrelationships instead.<\/p>\n
10. Work on the relationships in your life where you are valued for
\nwho you are. Spend time with people who care about you, who you are
\ninterested in, who are in good places mentally, who are honest, who are
\ninterested in you. If you don’t have anyone like that in your life, go
\nout and get involved in productive projects and find these
\nrelationships. <\/p>\n
11. Work on being the mentally healthiest person that you can
\npersonally be, do the best that you can, be kind to people, gentle with
\nyourself, and get involved with other people in ways that better the
\nworld. Eventually whatever stage of estrangement you are in, the
\nsituation will become more bearable. You will find other people to
\nappreciate who appreciate you. You will gain a different perspective.
\nYou may always feel pain over the losses but the pain can make you a
\nbetter person in a relationship with others. It all takes time.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
I have a health condition for which I received treatment in November 2005. Recently I met with my doctor and asked him when the treatment would have full effect. He told me that no one knows because each person’s body reacts in their own individual way. The condition of estrangement is like that.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,69],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-244","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-for-parents","category-weblogs"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/estrangements.com\/theblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/244","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/estrangements.com\/theblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/estrangements.com\/theblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/estrangements.com\/theblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/estrangements.com\/theblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=244"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/estrangements.com\/theblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/244\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/estrangements.com\/theblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=244"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/estrangements.com\/theblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=244"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/estrangements.com\/theblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=244"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}