"When the bottom falls out of your
reality, you then pay attention to yourself, your fears,
dreams and needs in a very different manner. You have nothing
to lose in letting the smoke screens in your life fall away.
As you can learn to look at your life honestly, without
excuses and self-imposed, preconceived conditions, you will
find the levels of fear and anxiousness diminish. The
willingness to re-evaluate the current ‘you" and the
possibilities for a new "you" is what turns
limitation into opportunity and destructive, old patterning
into viable, healthy new paths of growth."
Meredith Lady Young
Language of the Soul: Applying Universal Principles for
Self-Empowerment
How does one heal and grow from an
unthinkable traumatic experience? It helps each of us when
others open their hearts and tell their stories. In this issue
and several following, personal stories illustrate how we can
move beyond staying a victim and how to use painful events to
grow spiritually. Know that the events that wounded us, whether
or not they are as severe as those in these stories, can deepen
our relationship with our Self and be used for the upliftment of
our consciousness. To raise our consciousness out of the
consensus reality of victim/victimizer consciousness, takes
tremendous courage and vigilance.
Allow these courageous people to impact you
and show you the way out of trauma. Their sharing is very
personal and each of them hopes to show you that no matter how
challenging a life situation, there are ways to grow and heal
from the experience.
Some of the best teachers and healers are the
wounded healers who have healed themselves. In the following
months you will read others. If you are drawn to write your
story, send it to me. If you missed previous stories you can
read them now:
Story number 1, Overcoming
Sexual Assault
Story number 2, Moving
Beyond Childhood Abuse
Story number 3, In
Memory of Betty Sitzer
Story number 4, A
Turning–Point in My Journey from Being Born with Spastic
Cerebral Palsy
to Leading a Productive and Fulfilling Adult Life
Story number 5, Letting
Go: My Life After My Teenage Son’s Suicide
Story number 6, Moving
Beyond Blaming Myself for My Son's Mental Illness
Story number 7, The
Silence Is NOT Golden: An Exercise In Dysfunction
Story number 8, Discarding
Toxic Tapes from Childhood
Story number 9, Murder
Visits My Family
Story number 10, September
3, 1999, the day that changed my life
After thirty-four years of marriage, two
grown children and two grandchildren, living with an estranged
daughter was the last thing on my mind. The past year has been a
horrible and wonderful experience at the same time for me.
The decision to suddenly move out of state by
my daughter and her family was a shock to me and my husband. We
were extremely close to our grandchildren but had been fighting
a touchy¯ relationship with our daughter and her husband for a
couple of years. We thought it was "okay"¯ and were
caught by surprise by the move.
Prior to them moving, we had wanted to have a
private conversation with our daughter to discuss and straighten
out what we thought was a misunderstanding. She and her husband
said it was unacceptable to ask for a private conversation and
informed us we had just severed the relationship.
That was one year ago and I have struggled
daily with a roller coaster of emotions. Having always been very
close to our daughter it was mind boggling that such a drastic
thing could have happened.
After a period of crying myself to sleep,
weekly therapy and fighting depression, I decided to start
researching how this could have happened to ME. I went though
all of the guilt of what did I do wrong, trying to address all
of the accusations that were flung at me. Was I that bad a
parent, where did I fail her in childhood?
As a Human Resources professional, behavior
patterns have always been of interest to me. I delved into every
type of behavior pattern I could find looking for some answer to
relieve my pain. I found some answers but it didn’t make the
pain go away.
One day, while trying every kind of search I
could think of, I found a wonderful book on healing from family
rifts. After reading it I felt "lifted"- I knew I was
on the right track. I joined the chat group associated with it
and found several people in the same situation with very similar
stories - I was not alone in this pain after all.
As time went on those of us with the same
type of story formed a separate chat group. I have now bonded
with a wonderful group of women, full of strength, searching,
enduring and moving on with life in spite of the deep pain and
despair we feel from the loss of the child in our lives.
The pain is still there daily, encompassing
my every move and thought. This, I know in my heart, will not
disappear until my daughter returns, which may be never. Until
then, I will continue my search for peace through my friends,
second chance family and wonderful websites such as Suzanne's.
All of these have brought a whole other dimension to my life -
through Estrangement.
If you need a shoulder or have a similar
situation, please contact me if you like at:
lostadaughter@yahoo.com or jsegalini@earthlink.net
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