Brooklyn author's new book looks at navigating family estrangement

Over a decade ago, Brooklyn author Eamon Dolan broke up with his mother after years of physical and emotional abuse.

He initially felt guilt and grief over his decision. But after about a year, he began to feel he had made the right choice.

"I started to feel that not only I had done the right thing, the necessary thing, but that I had done a brave thing and a thing that other people in my life might take as an example," he said, in a recent interview with WNYC's Alison Stewart.

He said that when his mother died years later, he felt joy and "a freedom I hadn't even felt" even during their estrangement.

His story is the focus of his debut book, The Power of Parting: Finding Peace and Freedom Through Family Estrangement. It's part memoir, part research on estrangement, and it examines the root causes of emotional abuse and why people decide to stay in abusive relationships or to leave.

Dolan acknowledges that estrangement – still a taboo topic for many – is not easy, even if it might be a healthy choice for some.

"It's very hard for a lot of people," he said. "I spend a lot of time in the book talking about how to handle that over the course of time."

Dolan, who is also a vice president and executive editor at Simon & Schuster, spoke to Stewart about his estrangement from his mother and how people can put boundaries around toxic relationships in their own lives. Below is an edited version of their conversation.

Alison Stewart: From your research, how do you know when exiting a toxic relationship with a parent is right for you?

Eamon Dolan: I think the most important thing to ask yourself when you're considering whether to break ties with somebody is how they treat you in comparison to how everyone else treats you, particularly your friends. That question can really focus your attention. When you think that question through, that also helps you figure out what they would need to do to have a better relationship with you.

Then you can tell them – you can call them rules, requests – "These are new standards for our relationship."

Then you can determine whether or not they can follow those standards. If they can't, and many people who abuse their relatives cannot, then you should consider stepping away.

How did you enforce your rules in your relationship with your mom?

I had several rules, three big ones. One, she couldn't say anything mean [or] cruel in my presence. Another one was no tirades. As many abusers do, she had a habit of 45-minute harangues about my siblings’ and my various shortcomings. Three, she couldn't play the mother card. Anytime she did one of those three things, I would say gently but firmly, "As we've discussed, that is a line you cannot cross. If you continue to do that, I'm going to have to put some distance between us." Consistency is really important. I did that again and again and again for two years.

Those lines were crossed?

Yes, those lines were crossed a lot. She would get better at it briefly, for a week or two at most. Then she would cross a line again. I would point that out to her, and she'd try to hold off. Often, she would get aggressive about it. She would cross further. As I say, it took me two years and several hundred iterations, but a moment came when I said, "That's it."

When did the guilt start to subside?

Hard to put a specific date on it. I would say probably about a year after the estrangement. I started to feel that not only I had done the right thing, the necessary thing, but that I had done a brave thing and a thing that other people in my life might take as an example.

Your siblings, for example?

Yes, my sister, relatives who she also mistreated – not as badly as she did myself and my sister, but that she also unfurled her rage at or her disdain.

Did you experience grief?

Yes, I did. It was a different kind of grief than the one I was at that point more familiar with, and that most people are more familiar with. Grief, as you know, is usually about mourning someone you loved or cared about, that you've lost one way or another. This kind of grief is different. This is a grief for something you never had.

Our society is so good at grief, I think. We sit shiva, we have Facebook pages, we have obituaries, we have rollicking wakes. We have all sorts of ways to mark the passing of those we love. We have nothing like that for this kind of grief. In fact, I would argue there's not enough sympathy for it. Not only are there no rituals for it, but there is not enough instinct towards sympathy.

What did you want to add to the conversation around estrangement with your book?

Among other things, I want to change how we think about family. We have this ingrained notion – supported by everything from religion, to the law, to pop psychology, to TV shows – that tells us blood is thicker than water, that we need to stick with our family under all circumstances, and that somehow the genetic relationship is a special one. I strongly believe not only that that's not the case, but that we should choose our families.

When we reach adulthood, our genetic relatives can be in our family. My sister is one of my closest friends. I'm so lucky to have her. She's in my family because she treats me with respect, with love, with empathy. We, as a species, have a remarkable capacity to make family out of strangers. If you think of the phrase “band of brothers” in the military or monasteries and convents or fraternities, sports teams, kibbutzim – so many institutions that weave family out of total strangers – we can do this. Anybody can do this and should do it.

You write about therapy and how it has its blind spots, often offering reconciliation as an outcome. First of all, why do you think that is?

I think that psychology and psychiatry and related professions have a couple of hopes that are impossible to fulfill. One is that they are hard sciences, that they're like biology or physics, and you can measure stuff and put it in categories and boxes and deal with it that way.

The other is they're kind of hidebound. There are fads and trends, but change happens very slowly. This isn't just me saying it either. Judith Herman, who wrote the book "Trauma and Recovery," is one of the outstanding experts in this field. She made this point 30 years ago in that marvelous book that old texts in the psychiatric and psychological realms read like they're brand new. It's partially because the people who write them are so smart, but partially because the ideas get buried and then crop up again decades later. Judith Herman's book reads like it was written two years ago, and it's 30-something years old.

You suggest that individuals who are in your situation take some time and write down the transgressions that have happened. What are some things that people might find useful from this exercise?

First of all, it'll help focus them on the need for change. We often forget things. One of the little-understood effects of child abuse is how it harms your memory. We often have to do some work on our own with a therapist or just taking time, journaling is really good for this, to call up exactly what happened to us, exactly what was done to us. That can give us some really useful energy that we're going to need for the task of saving ourselves.

One of the psychologists you talk about said, "During this process, you may start to feel anxious or guilty, so you will need to refer back to your reasons on a regular basis to stay focused and avoid emotional reasoning." Why is it important to avoid emotional reasoning?

Our emotions can betray us in these circumstances. Our abusers know how to push our buttons because they installed the buttons. Emotions, particularly guilt and grief, can cloud our understanding of the truth of our situation and hamper us from doing the thinking and ultimately the feeling that we need to do to save ourselves.

We had a caller asking, if you get estranged from your family when you're younger, they may see it as a way to resolve a complicated issue rather than deal with it. How would you respond to that?

That's a possibility, I will grant. It is one of the reasons that a myth I seek to explode in the book, that estrangement automatically equals no contact, which is the hashtag you see nowadays. It can. It did for me, and I was very happy about that, but estrangement is on a spectrum. The main thing that characterizes estrangement, in my opinion, is that you're doing what you need to do to take care of yourself. If you see them once a year, if you text them only, restrict yourself to texts, however you choose to do it.

The other thing about estrangement is if they change, you can change. If they mend their ways, you can come back. That does happen. It doesn't happen often, but there's nothing wrong. If my mother had ever sent me a note saying, "I'm sorry. Let's talk," I would have, but she didn't.

Where does forgiveness fall in this equation?

I believe everyone has the right to do whatever they want in this regard. I do believe that forgiveness in our society is a cudgel that is held over people who estrange. So many times I've heard from well-meaning people, basically, "Can't you just forgive and forget? Can't you just let it be in the past?"

I believe that forgiveness, when it's applied that way, is a tool of oppression. Why aren't they saying to the abuser, "What can you do to earn the survivor's forgiveness?" That doesn't really come up. My dad did not abuse us directly. He was an enabler. He essentially absented himself. I have for him what I would call partial forgiveness and compassion because I know he was abused as well.

Thank you for sharing your story and sharing your research with us, and congratulations on the book.

My pleasure. It was an honor to talk with you.