I am submitting this post in the hope that even if only one person who has defoo'd makes a call home to re-engage their family, it is worth while and hope that other parents or family members will also add messages of love and good will to their missing one's.

As Nelle has said 'Parents never really stop loving their kids' you have nothing to lose by contacting home or even just other family members.
How can you gain from getting back together and what will that feel like?
Did you really set out to hurt your family?
Where are you now and where will you be this time next year?
You might have Aunts and Uncles, sibblings or Grand Parents that can help bridge the way back.
You can leave a message on the answer 'phone.
You can send a letter.
You can send an e-mail
You can ask a friend to help.
You can ask them to come to you.
You can simply 'turn up'.
Mum and Dad are not going to be cross with you.
Mum and Dad are going to be relieved and so will you.
Will you? make that call and let the love flow and feel the goodness within.
What have you got left to lose?

Jawol(48)

Thank you for posting that Jawol(48). I second what you said. If my son walked through the door right now, I would hug him and try to find out what we could do to mend our relationship and what could be done to help him want to have a relationship with us. I would be happy with a phone call occasionally, just to know he's O.K. I hope it's not too late. I've learned a lot in the past year, mainly from LiMi, and am willing to work through any issues. I felt I was willing before, but I understand a lot more now.
I will never stop loving him or being proud of him.

Hi Waiting,
Good for you and you hold on to that belief with all your might. Use your imagination to help you through and seek as much guidance as you can. Its out there if you care to look for it. You are in good company here.
Yes, limi have been a great help to us also and faults can be remedied. You probably hold the answers to your questions but you just haven't asked yourself the right questions yet.

Regards,
Jawol (48)

Reading your post Jawol 48 made me cry, if only it would help even one of all our relations it would be marvelous. This experience has brought home the immense love and devotion I have for the young person I have lost contact with, and I know it will never leave me.

Takecare all you parents out there who are going through this, especially you dads today! Deep down inside I'm sure they stiill love us.

Hi Chaohinon,

Thank you for your thoughtful post. I am sorry if you are one who was mistreated by your parents. This is very sad and unfortunate. The mistreatment or abuse of children is never acceptable. You have my sympathy and empathy. I am also one who was treated in ways that perhaps I should not have been as a child. When I talked about this with a dear friend, I was lead to FDR. Before long, I found myself gathering courage to defoo from my father. You see, in our house my mother was often angry with us, and said things that could have been considered verbally abusive, and she spanked us. Our father was out of the house working most of the time, and though he was aware that these things happened, did not stop them from happening. My mother is no longer living, but I was told that my father was responsible for what had happened, and that I should cut ties for my emotional health. After that, I found myself cutting ties with my sister as well. I was told I was courageous when I cut those ties, because, according to what I was lead to believe, I was taking steps in breaking the cycle of abuse.

However, through much counseling I was able to discover that there were other ways to break that cycle, and I didn't have to break those ties. I could talk with them, and discuss what happened in the past. We could work through the situation together in a caring, loving manner.

I have found that approaching them and having these conversations has taken much courage and has made huge steps toward permanently healing our family.

It is difficult for parents to understand what the problems are if their children just leave without explaining and attempting to have these conversations in an open and reciprocal fashion, perhaps with the help of a caring therapist. Leaving and refusing to talk with parents ever again is not the solution. When I defoo'd, there was a part of me that missed my father and sister very much. Now that I have returned to the relationships with them, and made the effort to make sure that those relationships are healthier than they were before, life is much better for all of us in our family.

I wish you well and hope for healing and wholeness in your situation, whatever it may be.

Nelle

"common sense" is an oxymoron

But aside from that HUGE blunder, you make an excellent post, QuestEon.

- NonE

Reconciliation and peace are well worth the effort, and are far preferable to silence and estrangement.

I hope this doesn't mark me as being some sort of Molyneuvian robot, but I have to ask why the responsibility of reconciliation is heaped on the child. Sure, if they feel that's their preferred course of action, then by all means have at it. But if someone has continually been beaten down throughout their upbringing, it strikes me as a tad fucked up to wag your finger at them for not wanting to reconcile. And if said reconciliation turns out to be a resounding success, it just begs the question of why the parents couldn't have just treated the defooer fairly to begin with.

If it takes the threat of ostracism to get someone to treat you with dignity and openness, then can it be said that they truly love and respect you? That strikes me as being more of just a weird, superficial attachment to a person's presence than actual love for them as an individual.

You guys seem to be conflating one person actively hurting the other with one person simply feeling hurt. I may feel hurt that Person X doesn't want to be around me, but they're entirely within their rights to disengage (or not engage to begin with). It cannot be said that they're hurting me, since that would require action. Disengaging from a relationship is not actively hurting someone, as it's a lack of action.

As for why Stef tends to recommend separation (though, btw, he does often urge counseling and engagement. I can think of one instance off the top of my head, and I'll go digging if you really want me to), it probably comes down to the matter of unchosen obligations. This is a core libertarian/anarchist principle, that simply because some figure may demand something from you, you're obligated to give in. In the case of the corporatocracy, said figure happens to have a massive array of guns and spy technology, so giving in may be your best option, purely as a defense against worse things to come. In the case of parents, they have an arsenal of fragile emotional triggers on hand, which are equally as insidious and powerful. Giving into them may work as a short-term defense mechanism, but just as with state power grinding against the free market, familial piety hinders the growth of the individual.

[quote="Chaohinon"]

jawol(48) wrote:

Did you really set out to hurt your family?

A question like this is entirely self-damning. Your child would not have cut off contact if they weren't feeling hurt themselves, whether it be from a specific event or a gradual unfolding of events.
[b]Jawol wrote[/b],
I agree Chaohinon and fully recognise where faults lay and relish a chance at reconciliation. However, to my knowledge these 'faults' for want of a better phrase, were not in the foreground of our lives until a certain website got involved and interfered with our relationships.
Chaohinon wrote,
I think it's easy to forget what a tremendous security blanket family (in most cases, anyhow) represents. And for someone - especially someone who hasn't outgrown dependency on authority figures - to flee from it takes a lot. Venturing into the world can be frightening for some, and it must have taken something infinitely more so to drive them away.
[b]Jawol wrote,[/b]
I agree once again and would cheerfully offer support to my missing relation if so desired, irrespective of what that person thinks of me.
As for being 'driven away' I believe 'enticed away' might be more appropriate but I do not wish this post to appear as if it is just for my circumstance. I am just trying to generalise here and want to encourage people to try and re-engage their family.

Chaohinon wrote

Quote:

Mum and Dad are not going to be cross with you.

You left out a piece of that statement, something that still comes across in the message.

"Mum and Dad are not going to be cross with you, this time."

By saying this, you're admitting that you know your child is fearful of their parents regarding him with some sort of condemnation or shame.
Jawol wrote
It concerns me that people may be fearful of their parents reaction to their situation, especially those that have not taken the time to investigate their particulars.,
Parents need to comprehend and acknwoledge their individual situation in order that they may understand reason, and not just 'this time' every time. A little difficult to do if nobody's taliking don't you think.

So maybe you might be thinking that re-engaging with family and friends might be worth a shot, what next? how are you going to set about it?
Well you could start by arranging a meeting on neutral ground but somewhere convenient to both parties.
You could give each other an agenda of what you would like to discuss and not discuss.
I would make the first meeting a short one, say an hour or so, just to break the ice.
I would go away from that meeting and then reflect on it, give consideration to what has been said, say for a week or so before meeting again.
Perhaps you could carry on with the above and gradually reduce the times between meetings remembering to stick to anything that is agreed.
Show each other respect and understanding.
Oh and don't forget a box of tissues, me thinks this will be an exceptoinally emotional process.

So Chahinon, with respect,assuming you have defoo'd and if you have I hope that you can find solution, how would you go about re-engaging your family and friends?.[b]

In continuing this post it is my intention to try and deliver a message of good will and faith to the defoo’d that pass this way.
It has come to my attention that a question sometimes asked of our missing relations is ‘why or how will you miss me?’ I consider this to be well worthy of a response, after all this is about ‘them’ and not ‘us’.
In order to attempt a plausible response it would be frugal to go back to the very beginning of that person’s life.
So here you are, just arrived in the world, not really knowing or caring what is going on, just relying on your basic senses. But looking at you from above are 2 very proud people, your parents. They smile at each other, hold hands and view this wonderful baby with admiration for it is theirs and theirs alone. They are responsible for its well being and have now assumed the role of parenthood. There are some precious moments to be remembered straight away. The first cuddle with little fingers open and closing, reaching out and grasping at air. You place one of your fingers into their tiny hands and they immediately grip it. You stroke the small crop of hair and wonder what colour it will be in ten years time.
So as we travel on our journey through the early years baby has to learn from us and indeed we have to learn from baby. We get to know what those different cry’s grimaces, smiles and chuckles all mean, all part of the bonding process.
Then there are the milestones along the way, the crawling, the first teeth, the first words, the first teetering steps of walking, all manner of triumphant things in which we rejoice in seeing baby do for the first time.
As baby grows into toddler what parent will forget the first days of school when for a few hours the closeness is broken and then brought back together, rushing towards you with a ‘I love you Mum/Dad’ and a hug that is meant for Mum and Dad and them alone.
Oh yes indeed, what things we as parents miss.
So the years roll by, the informative years where decent parents will do what they can to point their offspring in the right direction, to warn them of some of life’s dangers, to try and educate them as best we can. We play games in order that they may learn fair play and social skills with others. We answer endless amounts of confusing questions and in doing so have to resume our education as we realise that our child is leaving us behind educationally. What a revelation it has been for the parents of the children that have had to learn computer skills after their children have been taught them at school.
It is quite clear that in many homes it is now our children that teach us those skills.
How wonderful a world we have in which child can teach parent and parent can teach child. There are years full of memorable moments, hopefully many happy ones, birthdays, holidays and special occasions which are embedded in our memories and some captured in snap shots or on some form of recording device.
Moments that can be replayed a thousand times over in our minds or tucked away somewhere safe to be viewed in peace when time in later life permits.
We see our children mature into adults and set off into the working world, hopefully well equipped to deal with life in general. We look back and think have we done enough? Can we ever stop doing more for you so that you can have a better life than we ever did? No would be my answer as I guess a great many other parents would agree. We want to go on giving to you and when we can no longer do that we look back to the times when we could. The times when you would not reject us because we were all you had to look to in the beginning.
A time comes when the ‘Parenting’ stops, but actually being a ‘Parent’ will not cease, not at least until our final days.
Yes we have a great many things to miss, especially the laughter. A house full of laughter is a good place to be and we want that laughter and the happiness that caused it to return, and by that I mean YOU.
I know that this post could go on a lot longer and in more detail but I would like to think that my message is clear enough.
I think you can use your imagination to fill in the gaps, please feel free to do so.