I came across a really interesting article in psychology today magazine about Courtney Love's mother. It's not so much about Courtney, although I had NO IDEA how she was, but it was more about how helpless she felt as CL's mother in that relationship, which has always been strained and there have been periods of being cut out of her life. She talks about how we have these ideas about closure and control, which are really fantasy, but we need to "live with what happens to us" and focus on what we can do with the situation. She says, "the only place where choice exists is how I deal with something that happened. I can also take steps to reduce the chances of something happening. But our culture emphasizes the idea that we have control over all sorts of things that we don't. We don't have power or control over other people's lives. When you have a child or a family member whose behavior or mental condition or life story is really painful to observe, it just exaggerates how powerless we are. There's an ultimate existential moment, which I see as a marriage counselor, where marriages really begin either to die or to get healthy. It's when two people say, "I cannot change you. Either I accept this or I get out."
Another quote: Having a child or family member that is lost to drugs or alcohol or mental illness or celebrity, or all of them, teaches you about helplessness. How do we react in the face of helplessness? Depression is one common reaction. But that's a way of not choosing—I deliberately use the word "choosing"—an active path out of it, a learned helplessness. One thing that distinguishes us as Americans is a grandiose optimism that we're in control of our lives. I drew tremendous insight from the opening line of M. Scott Peck's book The Road Less Traveled: "Life is hard." When you're dealing with an open wound in the family, you have to enrich your own life and accept the other person for who they are.
Also, she talked about how important it was to "let go of expectations". She said, "I had to let go of everything about Courtney, including whether she lived or died and how she treats people."
I thought it relates to some of our experiences with family, where it's so frustrating and it hurts. Somewhere else in the magazine, it described the article as how to deal with "mourning the living". I haven't been cut off from all of my family, but I know that's coming eventually. I need all the courage I can get to face it, but maybe I just need to let it roll off of me and let it go, like CL's mother learned to do, not allow the disappointing relationship to define me, but learning to become happy with or without these relationships, even though the temptation is very strong to become lost in depression over it all.
The entire article can be found here. http://www.psychologytoday.com/articles/pto-20060626-000003.html
Enjoy!