Tragic and Bizarre

Casadena

Dear Prudence,

My daughter has suffered unimaginable tragedy in her life, including losing her 5-year-old son to a drowning accident. Her husband was supposed to watch him, but ended up falling asleep. In his grief, he took his life, and my daughter was the one who found him. My daughter lost it. She quit her job, moved a thousand miles away, and even went so far as to change her name.

She refused to visit or allow anyone to visit her. She claimed it was too painful, and I didn’t physically lay eyes on her until seven years later. Imagine my shock when my daughter introduced me to my two granddaughters at the time! My daughter refused to discuss the situation, not the past, not her having two children without telling her family, and that I would be shown the door if I brought it up.

I also wasn’t allowed to post anything on social media. My daughter claimed that her old friends had “stalked and harassed” her over the years, trying to get in touch. I was never to breathe a word about her son or her first marriage to her daughter. Her partner knows, and that is enough. I agreed because it seemed I had no choice. My oldest granddaughter is nearly 4. I still can’t wrap my head around the fact that my daughter kept her pregnancy and birth a secret from me. We were talking to each other on the phone at the time. When I got home, I was so paranoid about anyone potentially finding out the truth and trying to contact my daughter, and causing me to lose that connection—I just said that she was fine when anyone asked. I didn’t even tell my best friend because her daughter was my daughter’s best friend and bridesmaid during her first marriage. To this day, she mourns the loss of the friendship.

I feel even more alone than after the death of my grandson and son-in-law. There, I at least had a community to fall back on. I have looked into counseling, but I live on a fixed budget and can’t afford it. The plane ticket to see my daughter took me months to save up for. What do I do here? My daughter is a little more open in our phone calls, but I only get to say hi and I love you to my granddaughters before she cuts off the call. I understand grief. My own son died as a teenager in a car accident, and I lost my husband to lung cancer. I can’t understand this. Can you help?

banana468

I think you need to keep the lines of communication open.  

I'd see my own therapist.  My armchair diagnosis is that your daughter moved on from trauma by closing herself off entirely from her past and that included those who may have been a positive influence in her life as she moved on to create life 2.0.  

That isn't entirely uncommon and I've seen ways that this isn't nearly as extreme - because people who deal with tragedy can come up with ways to behave that are hard.  And if you maintain contact with people in the first life it's hard to move on because it always feels like it's going to be brought up.  I'm not saying that what she's done is right but it feels like to have a relationship with her it needs to be on her terms.  So you need to work through this and determine for yourself how you can start to cope with what she'd said. 

MyNameIsNot

There's really not anything you can do here. Yes this is an extreme reaction to a pretty horrible trauma, but you can't change the reaction and pushing will likely mean her backing away. All you can do is keep talking to her and try your best to understand that people have a variety of responses to grief. Her response to loss of child and husband is not going to be the same as yours.