Mark Sichel - Healing from Family Rifts: Ten Steps to Finding Peace After Being Cut Off from a Family Member

Copyright 2004 by Mark Sichel. All rights reserved. Except as permitted under the United States Copyright Act of 1976, no part of this publication may be reproduced or distributed in any form or by any means, or stored in a database or retrieval system, without the prior written permission of the publisher.

ISBN: 978-0-07-176753-8
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I am deeply grateful to my wife and best friend, Cindy Kasovitz Sichel, who never ceases to amaze and inspire me. Her encouragement, support, and generosity have made this book possible. I am thankful to her as well for serving as a model to our children, Steven and Kenneth Sichel, Jeanne and Ross Kasovitz; they are all truly a gift that never stops giving.

My deepest appreciation goes also to Guy Blake Kettelhack, my editorial collaborator and wise writing mentor; Stephanie Von Hirschberg, my literary agent who had the courage and wisdom to support this project; and to Judith McCarthy, my editor at McGraw-Hill whose clarity and vision provided me with the structure to complete this work.

I owe a deep debt to the many clients who entrusted me to collaborate in their efforts to make sense out of their experiences, and whose struggles and triumphs continue to deepen my understanding of life, love, and family.

Last, I want to thank the members of my second-chance family, whose influence and support have been life sustaining, especially Tess Rosenfeld, Lisa and Lloyd Zeiderman, Cheryl, Randall, and Amanda Rothenberg, and my friend and brother Thomas Glasser and all the other heroes who gave their lives on September 11, 2001, so that we may continue to live in freedom and dignity.

Thats it. Ive had it. I never want to see or hear from you again.

These words are terrible, whoever says them. But when they come from your mother, father, son, daughter, sister, brother, or spouseor when you find yourself saying them yourself to a family memberyou know, for the moment, what hell is like.

Maybe not right off. Maybe you even feel relief, a rush of justifiable anger armoring you against the assault youve just received or given. Angry banishments dont come from nowhere. They usually erupt out of years of backed-up resentments, long-held grudges. They may follow intolerable mental, emotional or physical abuse. In fact, at least in the short term, sometimes they can mark a much-needed release and relief (Thank God I dont have to deal with him anymore ).

But soon, however justified or inevitable the explosion may have seemed, however determinedly resigned you may have tried to be about a family cutoff, feelings almost always start to change. Bad dreams may haunt you. Toxic resentments and regrets increase with a sickening resurgence (How could he? How could she? or How could I have said that to her [or to him]?); now they really wont let you go. Guilt flips to vengeful fantasy, self-righteous indignation to shame, rage to depression and back again. However shaky your familys bonds may have been to begin with, however little or much love you may have felt toward or from them over the years, the idea that those bonds have been eradicated almost always wreaks a terrible havoc.

When we deal with family, we deal with some of our most deeply entrenched fears and yearnings. The parent/child relationship in particular is mightily charged. Losing a mother or father or child or sibling as the result of family exile can be as traumatic as losing them to death. Sometimes a good deal more, because death, at least, is usually not seen as anyones fault. Whatever we may say that we feel or think or believe about our families, almost inevitablydeep downwe yearn for connection to them.

If youve picked up this book, its likely you know this already. Youve already had a taste of the despair of feeling severed from ties that onceperhaps very long ago, perhaps not so long agoyou probably never believed could break as irreparably as they may appear to have broken now.

Maybe the worst part is the secrecythe feeling that you couldnt possibly tell anyone what youre going through. A family is supposed to mean love, not hate. How could you admit to anyone what youve seen and heard your family do and say?