Ripple Effects, Disenfranchised Grief and the Myth of Healing

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“Grief is how human beings come to terms with irrevocable loss” — Laurence Heller, PhD

Grief and the loneliness of family estrangement often surfaces in discussions among those of us experiencing it. There are many levels and nuance to both that it makes it nearly impossible to describe to those who have not had to make that devastating decision to sever the relationship with a family member.

Add to that the fact that often, the decision to go no contact with one family member — often a parent — can ultimately end up extending to more, if not all, of the immediate family and sometimes even beyond.

Those are the ripple effects of estrangement.

The necessary act of severing the unchangingly dysfunctional relationship with one family member can lead to fractured relationships or secondary estrangement with other family members. This can be not only a byproduct of the systemic family dysfunction that led to the need to estrange in the first place — a revealing of the ingrained patterns of harmful behaviors within the family at large — but also a reflection of the societal injunction that is levied by those members against the one doing the estranging.

It’s the “how dare you do that to mom, why can’t you let bygones be bygones with dad, that has never been my experience with them, you are selfish for doing this to the family.” It compounds the personal cost to have had to make that devastating but necessary initial decision — and compounds the grief as well.

Outside of the family — if the topic is broached — it is the typical, “it’s your mom/dad/sister/brother” sentiment on endless repeat along with the ignorant dictate of “no one is perfect, you need to forgive, and move on. You will regret cutting them out.”

Even within one's own support structures of family of choice/creation, there can be sympathy, understanding, full agreement of the necessity for the estrangement along with unwavering support yet an inability to fully grasp the depth of pain involved. The weight and continuity of it.

It feels isolating.

It is incongruous to most that a voluntary act that is so deeply painful can also be not only unresolvable but absolutely imperative for the person who initiated it to maintain, even while continuing to experience the pain of it. It doesn’t fully register that what was necessary through estrangement was simply much belated triage to an open wound that had long been bleeding. A wound that can only be cared for via the severance, but the nature of which means it still remains open and painful to some degree and likely always will be.

Those who have not experienced this believe there is an end state to healing — a closure of the wound. Particularly for having done the unthinkable in the name of one’s own wellbeing.

There is a denial of the grief that comes with that decision — grief that has a specific term: disenfranchised grief.

It is where the “reality of the loss itself is not socially validated.” Where someone “experiences a loss, but the resulting grief is unrecognized by others. The person has no socially accorded right to grieve that loss or to mourn it in [socially traditional] ways.” (Kenneth Doka, Disenfranchised Grief)

Traditionally, when a family relationship is lost, that person has died. There is an announcement. A notice carefully crafted and published in the local newspaper. A commemorative post on social media that this beloved person has passed on. There are outpourings of condolences. Remembrances of that person. Expressions of support for the bereaved.

There is a funeral. A ceremony of acknowledgement of the person, the impact of the relationship, the significance of the loss, an outlet for expression and the receiving of support. It is a ritual for the benefit of the living person experiencing the loss, not for the one who is gone.

But when the person is still living? Or was at the time of the estrangement? And the person experiencing the loss made the choice voluntarily? When the person  —  or persons as in extended estrangement  —  “lost” is supposed to be an unquestionably beloved figure in the grieved person’s life but in fact inflicted significant harm upon them that society doesn’t want to acknowledge occurs as prevalently as it does?

There are no observances. There are no rituals. There is no communal act of holding space for the grief of the bereaved.

“The social aspect of grief is often neglected. Although the individual grieves, others do not acknowledge that the individual has a right to grieve. The person is not offered the ‘rights’ or the ‘grieving role’ that would lay claim to social sympathy and support.” (Doka)

The fact that there is a social stigma around estrangement has long been known and part of the discourse. It is primarily framed around both the presumed permanence and nourishing value of family relationships — especially that between parent and child — and the expectations of unwavering loyalty and obligation particularly by adult children towards their parents.

What isn’t typically discussed is the impact of estrangement on the social observances of grief.

“Every society has norms that frame grieving. They govern what losses one grieves, how one grieves them, who legitimately can grieve the loss, and how and to whom others respond with sympathy and support.”(Doka)

Grief is the scarlet letter of estrangement. It isn’t accepted to be seen because it isn’t accepted to be valid. And those that see it don’t know what to do with it. Even if they wanted to.

For those that want to shame and blame the adult child who initiated the estrangement, the narrative tends to move to “if you made the decision to estrange and are still in pain, it must have been the wrong decision. It is you who are in the wrong. Estrangement must not have been the answer to achieve healing.”

These are societal strangleholds. The collective assumption is that there is an end point to healing where the pain evaporates and if you don’t achieve it within a certain amount of time after engaging in the forbidden act of severing that familial relationship, you identify yourself as the villain in the story.

It is cultural DARVO — the abusive blame shifting tactic that many of us have experienced as part of the dysfunction from which we needed to escape. (DARVO stands for Deny, Attack, Reverse Victim and Offender.)

The reality is that such a mindset is part of a collective refusal to examine the depth of pain and dysfunction that it takes to get to the point of severing a family relationship. It is a refusal to acknowledge the devastating impact of dysfunctional families in inflicting sustained wounds that never fully heal nor to recognize the strength of those who can withstand the familial and societal ripple effects of severing what is deemed unseverable.

For those of us who have made the decision to estrange and question when those feelings of grief will fade, the answer is it probably won’t. And that changes nothing about the rightness of having made the decision.

Just as there is a cultural fallacy that it is necessary for the person harmed to forgive their transgressor in order to heal, it is likewise a fallacy that grief fades over time.

In the “growing around grief” model that was developed by grief counselor Lois Tonkin, those painful feelings remain present and do not truly subside. However, through new experiences such as finding community with others, developing and tending to one’s own family of choice and creation in the ways we needed to have received for ourselves, and simply living one's own life in estrangement, life expands around the grief.

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When the estrangement is new, the decision recently made and the boundaries newly enforced, grief can seem overwhelming and all encompassing. Over time, that grief does not in fact diminish — that pain is real and deep and enduring. And that is okay. It doesn’t mean the decision was the wrong one to have been made. It doesn’t mean there is no healing - there absolutely is.

Through the distance achieved through the estrangement, there is clarity gained around the depth of family dysfunction. There is recognition of the levels and types of abuse and neglect that was experienced. There is relief in the safety of the relationships maintained and those intentionally cultivated with hard won understanding of what nourishing bonds require.

Time does not in fact heal all wounds. And it doesn’t need to. New experiences and personal growth around the pain and grief brings relief and expansion beyond the focal point of the loss.

There is no healing to be had in the spaces where harm occurred and continues. There is little opportunity to expand and find relief within what was keeping you small and wounded. No matter the necessity to do so, there is deep and enduring grief in having to remove ourselves from those spaces.

Society may not acknowledge our right to grieve, but we already know such acknowledgment was unlikely to be granted. It comes with the territory of going against what is socially acceptable.

We the estranged can honor ourselves and each other in the grieving process. We can honor our own strength and that of our community in facing that disenfranchised grief and we can hold space for each other in the experience of it. We can reflect back to ourselves and each other acknowledgement of the positive ripple effect of our own expansions as cycle breakers.

We can continue our growth journeys such that the experience of grief — while ever present — is but a component that informs and lives beside all that we have expanded ourselves into.

And just like a ripple, that expansion continues.

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[Please note: The educational series columnist is not a licensed mental health professional. The articles under this series are written from a peer to peer perspective.]