The Great Disconnect
Every estranged person has two worlds: Estrangement World and Everything Else
The idea for this newsletter came to me while I laid strapped to a board with my head in a c-spine brace, in the trauma unit of the county hospital.
Hours earlier, a drunk driver slammed head-on into my husband’s car while I was in the passenger seat. We were on on our way to pick up our daughter from an audition. Had we not been in a Honda, and had we not had airbags, or seatbelts, I’m convinced we would have died, without a will nor any designated guardian for our child. With Husband’s family in the midwest and me estranged from just about everyone on my side, we could have left my daughter, devastated, alone, and without advocacy.
After all the confusion, and the shock, the ambulances, and me yelling at anyone who would listen to find my child and get her safely home, after we were whisked away in separate ambulances, our clothes cut off of us, and after I arrived in the trauma intake room, and the nurse finished asking me questions, things finally became quiet.
I thought: I wonder what my siblings would think and how they would feel if they knew this was happening to me?
Peggy Sue would call it karma and find “evidence” in the astrological charts of everyone that she keeps on her computer.
Carla would feel confused and have a drink.
Mervin would scratch his head, unable to comprehend the news, and assume I was exaggerating. He would call someone up, and ask, what’s this about Lia getting in an accident?
Tiffany would wonder if this meant she would get my share of the inheritance.
Honestly, Mervin probably would too.
Jack, sweet Jack—thank goodness for Giacomo Jr.—he would surely care. He would put aside our recent disagreement, feeling lucky he didn’t lose me, and would finally be able to reciprocate some of the emotional support I had been giving him for the past few years. (Wrong as I was about that one, I’m glad I didn’t know it then.)
After that little reverie on the gurney, I thought, Jesus, that’s dark.
But it was the first time I had laughed since the ordeal began.
This would be a great Substack.
* * *
Within each estranged person is two worlds; the distorted world you are estranged from, that still lives on in your head; and, the regular world.
In the regular world, people often respect, love, admire and support us. If you are from a toxic family that dismissed, disrespected, ignored, mocked and abused you, it’s quite likely that the distorted world that lives on in your head feels more real and regular than the regular world.
This causes us all sorts of problems in the regular world when the people there rightly try to love us: we don’t believe the compliments, because we are waiting for the ugly punchline. We don’t accept the love, which harms and alienates those who truly love us, because it is inconsistent with our distorted self-concept as fundamentally unlovable. We have the audacity to argue with people who compliment us, even in this hectic, tear-down-everyone world we live in, where conducting the emotional labor to compliment each other is neither necessary nor expected.
By the time Husband and I got in that accident, I had done enough work in therapy and processing on my own that I saw the two distinct worlds.
In the quiet of that hospital moment, I acknowledged that my family was not there for me. That they are so accustomed to putting me down that they are just not capable of being there for me in my time of need, because then they would have to acknowledge I had need, and for that to happen, I’d have to be a real person to them. If I were a real person to them, they would lose an integral and valuable coping mechanism that has yet to be replaced: using me as a punching bag and a punch line in order to feel better about themselves.
Scapegoating: the gift that keeps on giving.
I don’t think they are capable of, or willing to change their idea of me because of their ages and access to mental health treatment. Jack did try for awhile, but his support was withdrawn over a conflict over my father’s ashes, of all things.
But my community? Whoa.
The first hurdle was overcoming my desire to not ask for help. That was pretty easy, because when I first got out of the totaled car, seeing stars, and ran around to Husband’s side to make sure he got out before the car exploded (it did not; I’ve just seen too many movies) I was forced to ask for help, and to keep asking. I asked a dude to call 911. I asked a pregnant woman to root through the car (once I knew it wasn’t exploding) for my phone. I asked the cops, the paramedics, the bystanders, and anyone who would listen to call my daughter, who didn’t know where we were, and get her picked up. I asked for water, I asked for scans. I asked my son’s girlfriend to spend the night with my kid. When we got out of the hospital, we had to ask her to pick us up.
I had to ask other parents at the middle school to watch over my daughter, Baby Tiny, who is neither a baby nor tiny; as she started her first week of middle school during this mess. I asked the school for a counselor for her. I wrote to the city, asking them to review the intersection where we were hit.
I pinned a picture of the totaled car on on Facebook and asked friends to help us. That was tough. I had to battle internal voices (who sounded a lot like my siblings) that shouted, who do you think you are? Wuss. Stop being dramatic. I was in an accident driving backwards in the snow both ways uphill without shoes and I never asked for help.
The regular world and all the wonderful, loving people in it, delivered. My busy BFF mobilized a Meal Train from Tacoma. People from every stage of my life, every corner of the Regular World came forth. I got Door Dash cards from people all over the country.
And the locals! The neighbors!
They brought us homemade lasagne and enchilada casseroles. Middle school children waited at the corner for Baby Tiny so they could walk together. Folks visited. They drove, sometimes for miles in rush hour, to bring us dinner and banter with Baby Tiny. They walked our dog. They told jokes and tsk tsk ed at our bruises and injuries. They brought compression socks and Door Dash cards; dog toys and flat whites; PE clothes for Baby Tiny and news from the regular world, they let us force Ted Lasso on them, they lent us fancy body-icing machines, and they gave us all sorts of cheer that doesn’t come in “packages, boxes, or bags” and yes, I do think my heart grew three sizes those days.
I was corresponding with Uncle Pasta in the early days after the accident, after I had attempted to apologize for my part in our conflicts, and talk more with him about my father.
He asked me if he could tell people in the Cazzata family about the accident, but I put him off. I had images of relatives popping up unannounced, demanding to be received, all of them in a rush to appear to one another like the most helpful one, the one that brought Lia, smashed up and in need, back into the fold. Or worse: I pictured them not caring, thinking I made it up, or that I was exaggerating. I couldn’t bear to find out.
And here arrives my point: Embrace the Regular World. Believe the compliments healthy people give. The people who are your people will not be deterred by your estrangement story. Oftentimes total strangers can see into the goodness of your soul far better than the people you are estranged from, who are invested in shit-colored glasses when it comes to viewing you.
It doesn’t happen in a day, that shift from believing Toxic World over Regular World, but incrementally, as you let people in, bit by bit, each bit a representation of the joy that is your birthright.