Honestly these EC are just stuck in their never ending swirl of negativity. They see as bad or evil everyone who doesn’t agree completely with them or make them feel safe at all times. And they simply reinforce their own thought patterns over and over. They’re actually so insecure that they compensate by casting themselves as judges of everything. They blow up any perceived misdeeds of others, but don’t have the self awareness to look at their own behavior in the slightest. Someone besides them is always at fault.
I truly believe we’re beginning to see many parents moving on from this nonsense. More and more I’m reading of parents reclaiming their lives, tired of the cruelty, manipulation or stonewalling from EC, realizing it never gets better anyway. They’re not giving the grudge collectors any more energy. Ruminating about all the things someone else doesn’t like about you gets old, boring actually. These EC have made themselves so unlikeable that no one misses them anymore.
As @henrycapobianco says, it's a lose-lose situation until they decide to change perspective. Unfortunately, it's often dressed up as self-determination, emancipation and, even, victory.
My son and his wife are sad because many of the people in the family who distanced themselves from them, were not expressly cut off by them. Cousins, aunts, uncles who don't understand why he and his wife have gutted me. It's not that they have taken sides or become involved, but they don't want to be near the anger and ugliness. I guess my son and his wife hoped to have control over all the relationships and are surprised to find they shot themselves in the foot. So we all lose.
Oh yes. During COVID I took an online course in personality disorders, which used social media (mainly Quora) posts to examine the DSM traits of those who have been formally diagnosed. The handy thing was that the people who wrote the posts in a format not protected by HIPPA, they provided their diagnosis, and then they (inadvertently) illustrated it.
For example, those who identified themselves as having Borderline Personality Disorder would consistently write very articulate posts that went on for hundreds of words longer than is usual on this platform, and the content was some version of, Why is everyone always so mean to me?
Almost no one identified themselves as a narcissist, which makes sense when you understand the disorder, but there was a ton of people who claimed to be the victim of a narcissist, but they illustrated a level and persistence of vindictiveness and malice that seems well outside of normal range. They would write at length about the ideal ways to punish - with a preference for public humiliation and character assassination - the person who they said had hurt them. This was very interesting, given that the never-ending revenge fantasy is a diagnostic feature of narcissism, leaving one to wonder if the shoe is on the wrong foot.
By observation, it seems that many who describe themselves as victims of narcissistic abuse often display an intensity of vindictiveness, public shaming and moral certainty that mirrors the traits they condemn. This raises important questions about projection, unresolved trauma and the use of social media as a platform for ritualised revenge.
The demonization with the added bonus of being labeled irredeemable still blows my mind, even after 5 years of adjusting to being disconnected from my first born. His perspective about me and his family radically changed.
Thank you for your important willingness to dissect and provide a lense that has a cultural view. It makes me so sad as an unwillingly estranged parent myself. One who feels paralyzed after writing apologies, giving space, trying with every ounce of me through therapy, self work, curiosity etc., on what went so wrong as to no longer deserve dialogue to understand and repair with my once close adult child. I don’t know what to do. I have so much fear as everything is wrong it seems. And it’s a double bind as you said. And what’s the most horrible is the silence. You dont know what is right or wrong. So I remain paralyzed. This is a form of being controlled by someone whose acceptance I longed for to “belong”. I’m working through this and yet there will never be a way to fully reconcile that emotionally as a parent. It seems what they are doing is abusive. The very definition of what many are accusing their parents of being. How do they not see this? Being “cast out” is as old as time in societies to “other” someone for punishment. It’s barbaric and so hurtful as we survive as humans in community with those we love. Belonging. Belonging has been traded for- find others like yourself. Rather than the diversity of humanity and what each has to offer and learn from another and the beauty and hardship that gives us in our human journey. There is no growth in you must think and believe like me to “belong”. To be acceptable.
Hi Anna, Really appreciate you sharing this. What you’ve written cuts straight to it—the silence, the paralysis and the way love gets reinterpreted as harm. It’s exactly the trap so many parents get caught in. You’re right—this isn’t growth, it’s control. And it’s brutal. Not just the estrangement, but the way you’re left without a language to push back. That’s why I set out to write this series—to help name what’s going on so people can understand the dynamic and not feel so adrift. You’re definitely not alone.
“. Estrangement becomes a banner under which pain is converted into righteousness, where to question the script is to betray the self.”
This. So evident in the rebuttals to your article. They are so entirely locked in.
Somehow, I think that must be exhausting, and its own kind of hell. They don’t seem gleefully victorious. If they were, why the need to constantly justify their new identities and continually promote estrangement?
"The goal is not mutual understanding, but moral purification through submission. Reconciliation is thus reframed as a test of obedience, and unless the estranged parent accepts the dominant narrative in full, no dialogue is permitted—only judgment."
Honestly these EC are just stuck in their never ending swirl of negativity. They see as bad or evil everyone who doesn’t agree completely with them or make them feel safe at all times. And they simply reinforce their own thought patterns over and over. They’re actually so insecure that they compensate by casting themselves as judges of everything. They blow up any perceived misdeeds of others, but don’t have the self awareness to look at their own behavior in the slightest. Someone besides them is always at fault.
I truly believe we’re beginning to see many parents moving on from this nonsense. More and more I’m reading of parents reclaiming their lives, tired of the cruelty, manipulation or stonewalling from EC, realizing it never gets better anyway. They’re not giving the grudge collectors any more energy. Ruminating about all the things someone else doesn’t like about you gets old, boring actually. These EC have made themselves so unlikeable that no one misses them anymore.
As @henrycapobianco says, it's a lose-lose situation until they decide to change perspective. Unfortunately, it's often dressed up as self-determination, emancipation and, even, victory.
My son and his wife are sad because many of the people in the family who distanced themselves from them, were not expressly cut off by them. Cousins, aunts, uncles who don't understand why he and his wife have gutted me. It's not that they have taken sides or become involved, but they don't want to be near the anger and ugliness. I guess my son and his wife hoped to have control over all the relationships and are surprised to find they shot themselves in the foot. So we all lose.
Oh yes. During COVID I took an online course in personality disorders, which used social media (mainly Quora) posts to examine the DSM traits of those who have been formally diagnosed. The handy thing was that the people who wrote the posts in a format not protected by HIPPA, they provided their diagnosis, and then they (inadvertently) illustrated it.
For example, those who identified themselves as having Borderline Personality Disorder would consistently write very articulate posts that went on for hundreds of words longer than is usual on this platform, and the content was some version of, Why is everyone always so mean to me?
Almost no one identified themselves as a narcissist, which makes sense when you understand the disorder, but there was a ton of people who claimed to be the victim of a narcissist, but they illustrated a level and persistence of vindictiveness and malice that seems well outside of normal range. They would write at length about the ideal ways to punish - with a preference for public humiliation and character assassination - the person who they said had hurt them. This was very interesting, given that the never-ending revenge fantasy is a diagnostic feature of narcissism, leaving one to wonder if the shoe is on the wrong foot.
By observation, it seems that many who describe themselves as victims of narcissistic abuse often display an intensity of vindictiveness, public shaming and moral certainty that mirrors the traits they condemn. This raises important questions about projection, unresolved trauma and the use of social media as a platform for ritualised revenge.
The demonization with the added bonus of being labeled irredeemable still blows my mind, even after 5 years of adjusting to being disconnected from my first born. His perspective about me and his family radically changed.
Thank you for your important willingness to dissect and provide a lense that has a cultural view. It makes me so sad as an unwillingly estranged parent myself. One who feels paralyzed after writing apologies, giving space, trying with every ounce of me through therapy, self work, curiosity etc., on what went so wrong as to no longer deserve dialogue to understand and repair with my once close adult child. I don’t know what to do. I have so much fear as everything is wrong it seems. And it’s a double bind as you said. And what’s the most horrible is the silence. You dont know what is right or wrong. So I remain paralyzed. This is a form of being controlled by someone whose acceptance I longed for to “belong”. I’m working through this and yet there will never be a way to fully reconcile that emotionally as a parent. It seems what they are doing is abusive. The very definition of what many are accusing their parents of being. How do they not see this? Being “cast out” is as old as time in societies to “other” someone for punishment. It’s barbaric and so hurtful as we survive as humans in community with those we love. Belonging. Belonging has been traded for- find others like yourself. Rather than the diversity of humanity and what each has to offer and learn from another and the beauty and hardship that gives us in our human journey. There is no growth in you must think and believe like me to “belong”. To be acceptable.
Hi Anna, Really appreciate you sharing this. What you’ve written cuts straight to it—the silence, the paralysis and the way love gets reinterpreted as harm. It’s exactly the trap so many parents get caught in. You’re right—this isn’t growth, it’s control. And it’s brutal. Not just the estrangement, but the way you’re left without a language to push back. That’s why I set out to write this series—to help name what’s going on so people can understand the dynamic and not feel so adrift. You’re definitely not alone.
Please continue your writing. Its cathartic. Its needed. Its perspective and insightful.
Hi, Steven, the PDF download gave an error code. I’d be interested in reading
That's weird, seem to be a bug in the Substack file download system. Best to jump to the discussion under the articles itself, if you are keen to review the whole thread. https://thestyxian.substack.com/p/estrangement-ideology-part-20-the/comments
“. Estrangement becomes a banner under which pain is converted into righteousness, where to question the script is to betray the self.”
This. So evident in the rebuttals to your article. They are so entirely locked in.
Somehow, I think that must be exhausting, and its own kind of hell. They don’t seem gleefully victorious. If they were, why the need to constantly justify their new identities and continually promote estrangement?
Yes, exactly.
"The goal is not mutual understanding, but moral purification through submission. Reconciliation is thus reframed as a test of obedience, and unless the estranged parent accepts the dominant narrative in full, no dialogue is permitted—only judgment."
Well said.