Forum

This blog and Joshua’s book were a godsend to me and a pivotal place for me to begin my healing process while my son was estranged from us. It was that place to read and sort things out during the dark hours -the ones we all experience. The blog was safe place to put it all out there. We all had shades of the same problem. It was comforting but it didn’t really challenge me to change my behavior.
When I slowly began to share my family situation with friends and coworkers, I found people who were quite compassionate. I tried not to become overly focused on my problems and let the estrangement define me. As a result so many people opened up to me about similar situations. Some people gave me great support and encouragement. Others gave me blunt advice-not always easy to hear. Actually, they turned out to be the most helpful because they made me change. In the end, I also learned how to be a better friend and a better listener myself. I guess what I am trying to say is that reaching out on a website is good and reaching out in person also good. A little bit of both gives balance.


You may remember my plight from my various posts about two years ago: I have been very happily married to a wonderful man for 30 years. We had a daughter, 27 years ago. She was the light of our lives, our only child and we loved her dearly. We did not spoil her, though, and she was a sweet little girl.
She had some emotional problems (night terrors, hallucinatory migraines) and we tried to get her through those awful times.
She was very bright and extremely creative, but kind of slacking off as a student. I was pretty tough on her about that, as I knew her choices would be limited if she didn’t get serious, and my husband and i didn’t want to see her flipping burgers when we knew she could be capable of much more. She was in the Gifted classes from third grade on….but, we didn’t know just HOW gifted she was. I mention this because it is important to the story. We tried out best to support her talents–even as a little girl, sitting and drawing with her, encouraging her to “create”, write poetry and stories, read her stories every night or made up stories to tell her before bedtime, until she could read to her self…and sent her to Duke Young Writer’s Camp twice…and, I even remember watching Sesame St. and Mr. Rogers with her on my lap–actually “discussing” the alphabet or issues at hand.
She eventually got serious, ended up with decent High School grades and very good SATs–good enough to get her into Emerson College in Boston. She did very well, there. We were so proud of her accomplishments. 
During High School, we had a lot of “Mother/Daughter” head butting. Our hormones were acting up at the same time….and, I did not let her “get away” with anything. She wanted to wear torn clothes to school and boys combat boots, and many times rolled out of bed and into her clothes–looking like a real slob.
My husband and I did not allow her to leave the house that way. Months later, we found out that she stuffed her “rags” into her knapsack and changed into them at school. She even wanted to go to her Prom, dressed as a Clown. We wouldn’t allow it. I suppose that some will say that we stifled her creativity and self expression. I know that’s exactly what she and her friends/peers NOW think we did–but, as parents, we could not justify letting our child go off to High School in torn, tattered clothing and looking disgraceful. Even though we ae now being punished by her for “parenting”, I would do nothing different.
Back to College. We got along well throughout her Emerson years and I was so glad that she seemed to mature, take education seriously, develop a work ethic –even though she was miles away. We live in the South.
But, something dreadful happened after Emerson and during the next year–the year prior to Grad School. She was working as a teacher and living on her own with roommates in Boston. She had met a fellow and was also getting involved with a program called “Beyond IQ”–where she would lecture to “The Gifted” at various Conferences, run by an older guy who is apparently gifted and thinks the world of himself and other brilliant people….only.
She had been accepted to Harvard Grad School of Education. We were so thrilled for her and knew that she would get a great education, there. We also knew that it would be terribly expensive, and offered to help her out, financially, with what little we had. We had just lost our business and our investments, and we were supporting, on our own, my husband’s Mother who had Early Dementia and my brother who is Mentally Retarded. (She was getting a scholarship, a loan and we would pay the remaining third.)
So, we flew up to Boston to see her and give her a check. But, she was just awful to me–giving me “looks”, smart mouthing me, and refused to pose for one picture with me in front of Harvard. Oh well. But, after one or two days had passed with her ugly attitude, the worst was yet to come early on the second evening.
Outside of Cambridge Sq., somewhere near Harvard, and in front of a million people waiting for various buses–my daughter laid me out flat. Completely unprovoked, she told me what a horrible mother and parent I had been to her her whole life, that I was just the worst person on earth and how she now had a Surrogate Family. (My husband was so shocked at her venomous words, that he was unable to speak). I was crying and gasping. she continued screaming hideous verbal barbs at me and then sneered, “Where’s my check for Harvard?” I said: Let your Surrogate family pay for it….and I walked away.
My husband and I flew home and haven’t seen her since.
After several months, I got up my nerve and called her, after writing several unanswered letters. During the phone call, she refused to talk to me, but told my husband that she never wanted to see us again. And, she changed her Cell phone so that we could not call her, changed her email so that we could not write to her and had moved, leaving us without an address. 
My heart was aching, naturally. I didn’t know if she was dead or alive…how she was doing, etc. I couldn’t understand her attitude, her rejection, her completely cutting us off. What had happened?
My husband and I tried to contact a few of her Boston friends and colleagues, with no luck. I searched out that Beyond IQ Gifted Conference Fellow, and actually spoke with him. He spoke down to me because I did not raise my “very gifted” child with kid gloves, make sure that she was treated differently than all other children and that I had done the unthinkable–used traditional parenting methods…didn’t I know better?
Two days after speaking with this man, my husband and I received Restraining Orders from our daughter, banning us from my daughter’s Harvard Graduation, banning us from attending the Gifted Conference (which is open to the public) and banning us from Boston–literally! 
Well, after THAT tore us apart, emotionally and physically (my husband will NEVER be the same man–he was so humiliated)–that’s when I first posted on this page. 
My heart has not stopped bleeding and now it is even worse: In September (we have now been estranged for over 3 years), our daughter’s dog, whom she left in our care 8 years ago, got very ill (kidney failure, Cushing’s Syndrome, etc.) and was dying.
I decided to bite the bullet and call my daughter. I had only one number–the first school that she taught at. She was no longer there, but they kindly provided me the next school–something more elegant with tons of rich, brilliant girls.
I called her and although she was silent, I told her that her dog was dying. She called me the next day to see how the dog was. The dog had died. Two nights later, our daughter called and talked to my husband and me, on her dime, for over two hours–as if nothing had happened between us….the conversation was amiable but not overly friendly. I didn’t trust it. I didn’t trust that she “was back”.
She seemed very concerned about her father who was having surgery in two days. She called several times to see how he was, and she called to attend the dog’s burial, during which we all said special goodbye’s to our fur child.
Our daughter gave us two phone numbers, two emails and promised to keep in touch, and my husband said that he was sending her attachments of photos of our dog’s last days.
Over 3 1/2 weeks, two emails with attachments went out–unanswered…prompting two phone call messages, unanswered.
So, I called her school, during a lunch hour and just left my name and number with the receptionist. One half hour later, the phone rang and this is what I heard: i HAVE BEEN STRUGGLING WITH WHETHER OR NOT I SHOULD ALLOW YOU AND DAD BACK INTO MY LIFE. BUT YOU RUINED IT BY CALLING MY SCHOOL. YOU ARE WORTHLESS AND IF YOU EVER CALL ME AGAIN, I WILL SEND YOU ANOTHER RESTRAINING ORDER!
I have been crying, again, ever since that call. I knew not to trust her recent “friendly” communications with us.
Does it seem to any of you that she has a Borderline Personality Disorder–that she is being adversely influenced by this “Gifted Conference Planner or her peers? Or, all of the above?
Please let me hear what any of you have to say. We love our daughter immensely,and our hearts are ripped open, but how much can a parent take? We truthfully did nothing to deserve this punishment.


Judith