The Search and Struggle to Communicate with an Adult Child

After I wrote my post, A Love Letter to My Adult Child, I received many comments and saw the search words that others used to find it. I wrote that letter from my heart and I am glad that other parents found comfort in finding a way to speak to their adult children. We are proud of them, and for them, and appreciate their success from a distance.

Yet, I also saw the search words and phrases that people sought about the lack of feeling, appreciation, estrangement, and difficulty in communicating. Sadly, I heard from someone whose mother did not speak or acknowledge that individual for ten years.

Love denied turns into anger for some people. Misplaced as it is, it comes from a hole deep inside their soul that does not feel complete. That emptiness looks for something, or someone, to blame for feeling that way. Deep down there is insecurity and it cannot be filled with another’s love. The healing must come from the source of the pain within us. It is not an easy task and may take many years, or decades, to view the situation in another, more healing, compassionate and compromising way. It may take a lifetime to hear the apologies. The public lashing out and seeking validation for the pain does not resolve it, it just gives it an audience.

I know that I love and bless those close to me, and am sad for their pain, and mine. I pray that we can find a way to communicate, or at best, I spiritually send them my love and pray for their wellness. Blaming the easy target is a defense response and an expression of pain. Sadly, it grows and builds walls of anger around it, and in denying the source of the pain, builds it into a bigger and broader structure of disallowing. How sad. I cannot embrace all of the things that people do, but it does not prevent me from caring about them and wanting for their best life. Since I cannot know what that is, in the span of time, I send up my prayer to the Universe and hope that it is heard. I hope that the spiritual guardians that protect us all, and are unique to each person, keep them safe. The angry hurtful comments are meant to cause pain, they are a way of saying: See you rejected me, but as others laugh at you, I am renewed and encouraged in my anger and resistance.

The attempts at communication and understanding are undermined, ignored, and rejected in deliberate denial and hurt feelings. You are a child of the Universe. You are a child to all of those who know you, and care for you, as the person you have become. It is sad that there will be no communication, because in silence, distrust and regret grow. You are loved, but you would rather fight against it than acknowledge the truth and compromise that understanding takes. As it is not the love you wanted or deserved, you deepen the chasm within and fill it with all manner of anger, pain, refusal, lack, foreign thoughts and feelings. You create a break and seek to lash out rather than resolve in peace.

Family relationships can become so difficult and complicated. So much time spent in pain and anger; what a waste. When life is so short, and the power of love is so strong, why seek out electronic support rather than speaking directly to the human being who shares your DNA?