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Reply to "Estrangement Doesn't Just Happen to "Bad" Moms—It Happened to Me Too"

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]I’m part of the Raised by Borderlines group on Reddit. That group is enormously helpful.

I remember reading this article when it came out, and recognized the personality-disordered parent language/thinking immediately. [/quote]

Yeah, the grocery store incident and the sports comment read very borderline to me.[/quote]

Yep. The author straight up mentioned abandonment. Classic borderline. [/quote]

Buzz words with zero context.  Everyone loves to use the borderline catch all term. It's an epidemic in usage,  but not in practice.  No one uses the immaturity term, and most of the time that is what it is,  on the part of the adult child. [/quote]

Yeah but this lady wrote a book about the estrangement and took her show on the road, from the sound of it. Magazine interviews, a Facebook group, etc…this isn’t a normal way to act if you value the relationship with your estranged child.  This is desperate attention-seeking behavior and a cry for validation.[/quote]

No,  actually child estrangement is one of the deep dark secrets in families. Parents don't often talk about it because they don't want to further exacerbate the problem, they are embarrassed,  they need to talk about personal things. Generational soft rules about not airing family laundry, feae of being judged, etc. Just like other things that have come to light in this generation, out of the cloak of stigma- mental illness,disability, relationship issues, addiction, adoption, there are people who helped move this into the arena by writing, listeserves, Reddit type platforms,  support groups.  Just like everything, there's a platform for it. You can't now decide it proves that either party is the narcissist if you don't do that for any other airing of closeted issues. It's almost counter intuitive.  You also can't be tribal because you have an experience on either side. It doesn't help your cause to cherry pick  out of context examples to prove something you know nothing about just because it fuels your agenda with your parent or your child. All you do is dilute the experience.

This family really isn't an example of any one thing.  She was honest. She behaved in a very typical way, yes, including the grocery store, out of fear. It's probably  very frightening  to be afraid  if saying or doing anything that could make it worse. You will see the kid found a way back- he found some testifies,  and it's pretty clear where the issue was. I have a friend who lost contact with her daughter due to a very mentally ill son in law. It was the most painful thing all of us ever saw and she and her husband were in enormous pain and in therapy for years.  It affected their health.12 years later, the daughter left what she calls an abusive marriage ( which we all saw) and claims she was in a trauma  bond. She's in therapy working out how to deal which a controlling narcissistic co parent and it consumes her life and wallet...lawyers cost $$. Therapist and lawyers both have questioned her reasons for ever being with him to begin with, the stories are mind boggling and frightening. Worse than anyone saw on the surface,  and that surface was pretty bad. Estrangement,  isolation from her friends and family...he was at work right from the wedding. 
No, it's not always the parent. [/quote]

Of course a child can be mentally ill, but that is not this situation. A parent talking about a mentally ill child sounds very different than this, [b]and does not at all sound like the story you are telling about your friend.[/b] In this case, you are cherry picking examples like the one about the grocery store. The not saying anything out of fear is not why people bring up that incident. After the mother fails to contact the son, she sends him an aggressive message, trying to send him on a guilt trip (when she failed equally) and then retells the story to the general public for sympathy. None of that is normal. The mother probably is truly frightened and sad (that is part of being borderline, feeling these types of emotions strongly), but most people would be kinder about reaching out or, at the very least, feel some type of remorse for sending a jerk message to their child (not include the story in a book aimed at garnering sympathy). [/quote]

I mean to say that the story you are telling about your friend is different than the author's story. [/quote]

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