A recurring theme among those of us trying to cope and heal on this estrangement journey is identity.
But let’s back up a bit.
Perhaps you’ve heard the word “codependent” before. I have a bit of an uneasy relationship with the word myself, as it originated in self-help books in the 1980s. It’s not a diagnosis. I feel that better descriptions of relationship systems are available in the attachment model.
Furthermore, I’ve found that people are rather quick to describe themselves as codependent, sometimes even before sitting down for their first session.
But for the sake of this discussion, let’s indulge the codependent framework. For starters, to be codependent basically means to have excessive emotional reliance on a partner. Many people who describe themselves as codependent report feeling lost or struggling to have their own identity sans partner.
This is also common among parents and grandparents living with estrangement. And to be clear, it makes sense that a person would identify as a parent primarily, right?
But not as a parent solely. Parenting is, in no small part, teaching, nurturing, and keeping offspring in your home safe so that they can grow to adulthood and have their own homes, independent lives, and perhaps children of their own.
The mission was always to help the bird leave the nest, was it not?
The plan almost certainly did not account for the possibility of the life change including no contact between child and parent, however.
If estrangement has left you at loose ends regarding your identity, a similar predicament may have been ahead for you during the normal course of that child leaving home.
You are someone still. You have values and beliefs. You participate in things other than parenting. The influence you’ve had on your children, and that they further influence others with, is not exclusive to parent-child. Irvin Yalom called this “rippling.” Your positive behaviors influence those around you, and those in turn influence others.
Your value, your influence, your “person-ness,” remains.
You may not have wanted or foreseen the obstacle that your current estrangement circumstance is, but you are here nevertheless.
“The obstacle,” as Ryan Holiday wrote, “is the way.”
That is, as difficult as this situation is, it presents opportunities nevertheless.
One opportunity can be described using the words of philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche: “Become who you are. Do what only you can do. Be the master and sculptor of yourself.”
