Early Deprivation: Is It A Good Idea For An Abusive Parent To Contact Their Estranged Adult Child?

At this point in time, a parent who didn’t treat their adult child very well throughout their early years may want to get back in touch with them and have a relationship with them. What this can show is that they haven’t spoken to them for weeks, months or even years.

When they last spoke, they might have had an argument, and their adult child might have made it clear that they don’t want to talk to them anymore. Since then, they might have thought about how they miss their adult child and want them in their life.

Another Reason
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Then again, it could be because they are feeling lonely or are unwell and want their support. But, while their need to reach out to them will be strong, they might wonder if this would be the right thing for them to do.

If they were to speak to a family member or friend, they could be told that, as life is short, they should reach out to them. They could also be told that there is nothing wrong with trying, and if they don’t, they will regret it.

Another Scenario

Alternatively, after speaking to a family member or friend, they could be asked to think about why it is that they want to reach out to them. This person could ask them if they want to listen to what their adult child has to say and try to make things better, or if it is because they simply want to meet their own needs.

After this, they could say that, regardless of what they think about what their adult child says about their childhood, this is their experience. As a result, if they are not willing to empathise with them, show compassion or change their behaviour, reaching out to them is likely to make things worse.

Another Element

What this illustrates is that, in addition to how they behaved, there will also be how they behave. Their child will have been wounded early on, and if they behave in a similar way now, they will wound them again.

If they didn’t listen to what their adult child said and invalidated their experiences, they would have wounded them before. Their adult child would then have been dealing with the impact of being greatly deprived and deeply wounded as a child, and continued to be deprived and wounded by them as an adult, which would have given them the need to cut their ties with them.

Endless Ruptures

Taking all this into account, it will be as if they cut their adult child many times as a child and continued to cut them as an adult, and in both cases, didn’t attend to these wounds. As a result, they can’t expect their adult child to want to simply welcome them with open arms.

If they were to reach out to them, their adult child is unlikely to have a positive experience. They will be reminded of what happened to them as a child and what they have been through as an adult; they will then keep their distance to protect themselves, not to harm their parent.

Part of life

And, as their adult child is a separate individual, they can’t force them to do anything that they don’t want to do. There is a chance that, if they were to work on their inner wounds, assuming that they aren’t, they might reach out to them at some point.

For example, they might send them a letter or a message, and this could lead to them having a relationship. At the same time, they might just want them to answer a few questions.

One Approach

Until this happens, and it might not, they could reflect on their own behaviour, with this being a time when they can look into why they behave and have behaved as they did. If they were to do this, they might gradually see that they were also greatly deprived and deeply wounded as a child.

But although one or both of their parents mistreated them and they had a challenging relationship with them, they didn’t stop talking to them. This can be because they didn’t feel as though they were allowed to do this.

Generational Abuse

Anyway, if they can see that this is the case, they can end up not only feeling guilty and ashamed, but also experience a lot of pain. They can wonder why they treated their child as they did, given that they themselves had been treated in a way that was very similar to how they treated their child.

Yet, as confusing as this will be, it is likely to largely be because of how they adapted as a child. To handle being greatly deprived and deeply wounded, their brain would have repressed a number of their needs and the pain that they were in.

Self-Alienation

The outcome of this is that they would have lost touch with their embodied, connected, and fully feeling true self. In its place would have been the creation of a disembodied, disconnected, and not fully feeling false self.

So, as the years passed and the time came for them to have a child, their ability to attune to their child’s needs and feelings would have been undermined, and they would have unconsciously projected the parent or parents that they had into them. Due to this, they wouldn’t have been in a position to give them what they needed, and they would have punished their child for what their parent or parents did to them.

One Generation to Another

Assuming that this is what took place, they would have passed on what was done to them or something that was very similar. There is a chance that this is what has been taking place in their family for many, many generations.

As their adult child is not talking to them and is facing the pain that they experienced and the needs that were not met, or will engage in this process in the future, they will be taking the steps to end this pattern. Their adult child will then be doing something that has needed to happen for a very long time.
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Final Thoughts

With this in mind, while they will have passed on what was done to them or something that was very similar, at least it will have come to an end. They won’t have consciously chosen to harm their child, but they will have harmed them nevertheless.

Part of their journey can then be for them to face and resolve what they were unable to face and resolve as a child, and to forgive themselves for how they behaved. As for what takes place with their adult child, this is something that is largely out of their control.