Estrangements

Christopher Hitchens Article on Estrangement, Vanity Fair, 2005

The writer Christopher Hitchens has died. I've spent much of my day so far reading obituaries about him and watching videos of him on the Daily Show with Jon Stewart. Among the many words written by and about him, I found an article by Hitchens on the estrangements that occur between siblings. It is titled: "Oh Brother, Why Art Thou" and was written in 2005. He had been estranged from his brother, Peter Hitchens. They eventually reconciled.

Here is the link to the article:

"Oh Brother, Why Art Thou?" by Christopher Hitchens in Vanity Fair, May 16, 2005

and here is a link to today's post by Peter Hitchens on the death of his brother:

By Peter Hitchens, December 16, 2011: In Memoriam: Christopher Hitchens, 1949-2011

and a link to an earlier post by Peter Hitchens on the relationship with his brother and their eventual reconciliation:

"How I found God and peace with my atheist brother" by Peter Hitchens, March 11, 2010

Stories of Family Estrangement on the Experience Project

I Am Estranged From Family Members Stories and Experiences

Experience Project - a site that describes itself as the largest living collection of life's experiences.

Personal stories of loss through estrangement and death

The link below goes to a story by a son on the death of his father from whom he was estranged. They were estranged because of the father's deterioration due to Alzheimer's. It is a poignant story that is accompanied below on that page by links to the stories of others who were estranged from their fathers.

Dealing with the death of an estranged father by S. C. Kleinhans

 

Link to Comments on Today Show interview w/Coleman & Debby

What happens when children cut off their parents?

After the interview with the Debby, an estranged mom, and author and psychologist Joshua Coleman, on the Today Show on  July 6, 2010, there has been a discussion set up on the topic of the interview. The link above is to a page with the video of the interview and also a discussion of the interview.

On the Today Show, July 6, 2010: Joshua Coleman and Debby

Joshua Coleman and Debby were on this morning's Today Show on NBC. Joshua Coleman is the author of When Parents Hurt. Debby is a mother who has been estranged by her daughter for seven years. I am providing a link to the interview. I don't know how long the link will be good as the Today Show might not provide these links for permanent access. So if the link doesn't work at some point and I realize that, then I will remove it. It should remain good for a while.

What happens when children cut off their parents. Interview with Joshua Coleman and Debby.
July 6, 2010

BTW the url for the discussion group, Estranged Stories, has been changed to http://www.estrangedstories.com

The old url will still take you to the site but there is a new permanent url.

Ginny

NY Times article, May 3, 2010: When the Ties that Bind Unravel

When the Ties that Bind Unravel, May 3, 2010, by Tara Parker-Pope

As of mid-day May 6, there are 768 comments in response to this article.

Family Estrangement inspired by online philosopher

I found a startling news article online today about family estrangements that were influenced and/or inspired by the writings and podcasts of a man, Stefan Molyneux, who considers himself to be a philosopher. He has been blamed for a number of family estrangements initiated by followers of his writings and podcasts. He makes some money from subscriptions to his podcasts, from sales of his books, and from donations. His wife is reported to be expecting their first child. One wonders how that will work out in the long run, whether he will continue to vilify parents or what he might do once he becomes a parent himself.
This is the first that I had heard of him. Apparently there is a lot of information on the internet about him.
I looked around on the web and put together a collection of links on Molyneux:

1. "How a cyberphilosopher convinced followers to cut off family" by Tu Thanh Ha, Dec. 12, 2008 in the globeandmail.com
2. Comments in response to "How a cyberphilosopher convinced followers to cut off family"
3. Family and Friends of FDR-ers on Liberating Minds
4. FDR Liberated: A continuing analysis of the FreeDomainRadio Community
5. Liberating Minds Forum Discussion of FreeDomainRadio on the LiberatingMinds website.
6. FreeDomainRadio, Stefan Molyneux's site
7. FreeDomain: The Logic of Personal and Political Freedom - The FreeDomain blog
8. 'Website Led Teen to Quit Family' by Robin Powell, Sky News Online, Dec. 29, 2008
9. "A fearful mother reveals: the internet cult that stole my son" Dec. 12, 2008 by Kate Hilpern, The Daily Mail

Update Dec. 31: Stefan Molyneux and his wife are the happy parents of a baby girl with whom they are besotted. This stands in stark contrast to the grief of parents whose children have "deFOOed". DeFOO is a term meaning that they have left their familys of origin (their FOO). FOO and deFOO are terms used frequently in discussions on the Freedomainradio website.

Molyneux has uploaded 297 YouTube videos as of today's date. His latest video has had 211 views in the five hours since it was posted. His YouTube name is stefbot. On his Freedomainradio site it appears that he has over 1,000 podcasts. The numbers for the podcasts go over 1,000. I haven't checked to see if that means that there really are over 1,000 podcasts.

More links about FreeDomainRadio and Molyneux:

1. Like a moth to a flame, Nov. 18, 2008
   
2. I have been signed out from Free Domain Radio, Nov. 17, 2008
3. FDR at Sky News - video and print coverage, Dec. 30, 2008
4. My brief experience with Stefan (in four parts), Dec. 28, 2008 (The experience of someone who calls himself Dash. Scroll down in the page to where Part 1 begins.)

Article on AARP: "The Estrangement" by Jamaica Kincaid

"The Estrangement" by Jamaica Kincaid, May/June 2008
An article on a mother/daughter estrangement that was not resolved and for which the author has no regrets.
From the first paragraph:

"Three years before my mother died, I decided not to speak to her again. And why? During a conversation over the telephone, she had once again let me know that my accomplishments—becoming a responsible and independent woman—did not amount to very much, . . . "

As the link is an AARP link, after several months or perhaps a year, the link probably will end up going nowhere but it should be good for a while.

Alice Walker & Rebecca Walker

"She writes that she has been my mother for thirty years and is no longer interested in the job."
Rebecca Walker in 2007 about her mother Alice Walker, author of The Color Purple

Holidays & Estrangement ~ Why I am estranged from my mother.

Here come the holidays, heading straight for us as sure as sure can be. This time of year is a hard one for many, especially those of us who know that our holidays are far from the ideal of the delightful sleigh ride in the snow, jingle bells jingling as we travel to grandmother's house bearing brightly wrapped gifts with love, laughter and warmth like a wool blanket protecting us from the frigid breath of winter. So here we are, holidays approaching like a train with us on the train tracks once again, hoping for the best.

A reminiscence on mental illness in the family and on having had my mother as a mother.

I wrote this piece to offer on another site which was soliciting writing on the topic of mothers and how they shaped our lives. How do we celebrate our mothers? I wrote this piece I offer below and then realized that it wasn't the right kind of response to that solicitation as well as being too long.  I can't call it a celebration. I wrote some more and decided to include it here. Here is my story of my mother and what I remember that was positive and some that is negative about her being my mother:

Sisters: Estrangement & Reconciliation

October has been a busy month for me. No time to read books. Although I find time to sit at the computer and read and write. It takes a conscious effort to pick up a book to read rather than go online and browse through the vast tomes of the internet. I have several books waiting for my attention. One being My Mother's Daughter: a memoir by Rona Maynard.

What it's like the rest of the time ...

I lead an ordinary sort of life. Most of the time I am a happy camper. Not literally a happy camper. Just a reasonably happy sort of person who occasionally has had bouts of clinical depression. The clinical depression hasn't returned since I received treatment for Graves' Disease. Maybe my thyroid was doing a number on me for years?

What it's like ...

One day you wake up angry and in tears because you realize that someone whom you love thinks that you are a bank robber. Someone whom you thought knew you believes that you are a bank robber and they want nothing more to do with you. There is nothing that you can do about this. They are convinced. They are self righteous. They believe what they believe. They don't love you. They tell you and others repeatedly how they don't love you and how awful you are because you are a bank robber.

You have never robbed a bank and you never would rob a bank.

That is kind of what it is like. Just substitute the words "a bank robber" with the words "lying, controlling, abusive, and not a nice person". And substitute "someone" with the words "your child".

I will no longer spend time defending myself. We all make our choices. She has a right to her choice and she can believe whatever she wants to believe.

I have a lot to be grateful for in my life. Things might have been different but everyone has their personal tragedies and we all go on.

Ginny

How it feels ...

The Ontario Blogger "M", the writer, editor, artist, and mother

This is a longshot. I am writing this post in the hope that some stranger on the internet will find it and know who this woman is who wrote a blogspot blog called The End of Strife. She wrote the blog for nine days in October 2005 and then stopped. She has written nothing since October 18, 2005. I am hoping that either someone knows her and will write to me to tell me she is okay or that someone will write to me and tell me that they know who she is and they are wondering where she is too.

John Nash of "A Beautiful Mind" was estranged from one son.

I found this online article written in 2001 in the archives of Slate.com on the brilliant and troubled mathematician who was the subject of the movie, A Beautiful Mind.

A Real Number: A Beautiful Mind's John Nash is nowhere near as complicated as the real one. By Chris Suellentrop, Posted Friday, Dec. 21, 2001, at 8:27 AM ET Quoting from the article: "After a 17-year estrangement, John Stier and Nash met again. Nash criticized Stier's decision to become a nurse and urged him to go to medical school. He told Stier that it would be beneficial for his other son John (who also developed schizophrenia) to know his "less intelligent older brother."

What I like about being estranged:

1. I don't have to spend time with people who insult me, call me names, and think I am a horrible rotten worthless person.

2. I don't have to spend time with people who dislike me.

3. I don't have to spend time with people who are bored when they spend time with me.

4. When there are holidays, I can spend them with people whose company I enjoy and who enjoy my company.

Art, Websites, Criticism, Unsolicited Advice, Decisions

I am an artist. In real life I am an artist. I create stuff that people look at. I usually work in a medium that is other than what you are looking at right now. But I have created a few websites. This is one of them. The others are commercial or for a nonprofit or for fun.

If you visit Estrangements.com, you are visiting something that is created for you, the visitor, to look at, read, gather information, interpret, compare with your own experience, and do whatever you personally need to do with it. You came here for a reason. When you leave, you remember your experience and it registers with you in your own unique way.

Open letter to some unknown person out there on the internet

Hello Out There On The Internet,

Somewhere out there you exist. I don't know who you are. I only know that you emailed my ex-daughter to let her know about Estrangements.com. You, of course, know who you are.

I have wondered about your motivations and whether I know you and you know me. Or maybe you are talented at figuring out who people are on the internet. I have wondered if you had good intentions or malevolent ones. You must have thought that you were doing the right thing. I believe you did this very recently.

The dream I had last night ...

Last night I dreamt about Ed. He was a high school friend to whom I once felt very close. The relationship was always a platonic one because I kept it that way. Ed would have liked it if I had been interested in something more. But I was always wary of that.

Ed was a talented musician and entertainer. Brilliant and sharp but with a cutting sense of savage black humor that spared no one although it was a long time before he ever used it on me. He used drugs sometimes. Was in many relationships with women. Was married several times but I don't know how many. Verbally abused the one wife that I knew and physically abused at least one girlfriend according to the artist fellow who is now married to her. I witnessed his treatment of a band member one night where he screamed at her at length to tell her what a bad job he thought she'd done in their gig that night.