As with John's story ,it is unfortunately not uncommon for people to abuse a
position of power to block family members from appropriately getting support
from and giving support to other family members.
I know of several cases where mothers have hidden letters from fathers to their
children for years. The fathers then think the children don't want to answer
them and the children think their fathers have forgotten them. In this way the
mothers concerned avoid dealing with a number of difficult issues including
feelings of guilt. they also may be taking revenge on the father or mistakenly
believe they are protecting the child. Possible motivations are multifarious,
confused & confusing.
I personally believe that no-one has the right to block other family members
relationships. So a sibling has the right to a sibling relationship regardless
of a parent's opinion or desire. Of course if Dan's client took this path he
would have to be prepared to take the consequences as John had to with his
family when he broke the family rule.
I think Dan did the right thing asking his client the questions he did to help
him get in touch with his heart's desire. Maybe his client wants a clear answer
about the rightness of breaking his mother's embargo on contacting other family
members. I believe he should be given a clear answer that he has a natural (if
not legal) right, but he has to decide whether it is worth the risk to pursue
it. The acknowledgement of that natural right , if done skilfully, would cause
some fundamental healing in the client on its own.
hasta la vista
Chris Walsh
An Australian Constellation Website:
www.constellationflow.com
----- Original Message -----
From: Family Constellations
To: ConstellationTalk@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Sent: Saturday, 28 January 2006 7:38 PM
Subject: Re: [ConstellationTalk] Adoption Question
Dan Said:
He asked me whether he should accept his mother's request to have no further
contact. I sat with the question overnight. My response was to ask him a
series of questions: What will you do when you read her obituary in the local
newspaper? Do you go to the funeral? After she dies, can you respectfully
contact your siblings? If yes, must you wait until she dies before doing so?
I do not have good answers for these questions. One concern is that to the
siblings, he is the excluded one. It would not surprise me if one of them is
suffering on his behalf.
Dear Dan,
I've had many adoptees through my workshops if late, things seems to go
through themes, Adoption has been a recent one. Without knowing your client and
havin not witnessed his constellation, it is a little difficult to give a full
or totally appropriate answer for him specifically. In some cases, the adopted
child needs to accept that he has been 'given up forever' othwerwise his entire
life could be held hostage to the dream that his mother may one day take him
back. On the other hand, he represents a family secret which we all know will
more than likely have an impact not only on his siblings, but possibly on their
children too as he becomes the 'secret uncle'.
Recently, a client of mine did meet her biological mother, the meeting did
not go well. The mother started calling her every day, making demands etc. One
of her demands was that my client did not contact her brother or her
grandmother, so she came to me to ask me what she should do, so we set up a
constellation. Both the brother and the grandmother were clearly moved by her
presence. We set up the constellation not informing any of the representatives
what the topic was. Her mother continued to call her, some of the calls,
according to my client, were of a threatening nature, telling her that she
would cause great damage if she saw her grandmother, brother, and now also an
uncle, so my client asked again, 'what should I do'. My simple answer was that
not only did she have the right to a grandmother, but she also her grandmother
had the right to a granddaughter. We had a long convesation about this and my
client was very clear that her motivation was not out of 'revenge' or a need to
'punish' her mother by exposing the secret. There is another twist to this
story. My client is Afrikaans, but has been through the process of converting
to Judaism. Neither her adoptive parents nor her biological mother are Jewish,
all Afrikaans, and she had a burning desire to also find out why she had always
felt Jewish. My client also happens to be bi-polar.
Anyway, to cut a long story short, she has since met her grandmother and her
brother, and the reunion was good and now her mother has refused to have
anything to do with her, is essence, nothinng has changed, her mother did give
her up. My client said that she felt a little guilty for upsetting the apple
cart in her family, but pointed out that there was nothing for her to feel
guilty about, her brother and grandmother were happy and that she must
respectfully leave her other with the consequences of her actions.
She broached the Jewish question with her grandmother, at which point she
reports that her grandmother 'clammed up'. We did a futher constellation in
which my client 'bowed to the secret'. The only thing we do know is that her
mother once lived on a kibbutz in Israel, but long before my client was born.
In essence, I do not believe that your clients mother can speak for your
clients other siblings, that is a matter between siblings. It would though be
wise I believe to check with him what his motivation may be. Does he wish to
shame his mother through contacting his siblings, or does he really want to
have brothers and sisters?
I am also accutely aware that this kind of story is very close to my heart.
My grandmother's existence was kept a secret for many years, in fact I was
told that she died in the war and discovered just by pure chance in a
conversation in a pub with a complete stranger, that my grandmother was alive
and well. I discovered that I had three uncles and and aunt that I never knew
about. Exposing this secret cost me a lot, my mother threatened to disown me
and he whole story made me the 'black sheep' for several years. I do know first
hand that secrets are very damaging. My own constellations have shown that both
myself and both my brothers, on of whom has bi-polar , have been very entangled
with our grandmother, her other children etc. Like my client above, my eldest
brother mysteriously converted to Judaism some years ago, and I too have been
strongly attracted to Judaism. In the unravelling of the family secret, it
turns out that my grandmother was in a refugee camp during the war, and that
the father of her other children was a Jewish man.
When I met my uncles and aunt, against my mother's wishes, they were
delighted to see me, many tears flowed and my aunt in particular reported
feeling 'included'. It was a long time ago, but her words were something like
"finally, someone sees as" and "I always prayed that someone from your side of
the family would come one day'. With regards to my own motivation, I simply had
a burning desire to know what this woman, my grandmother, had done in order to
suffer the fate of being declared dead. I was 18 yrs old when this all
happened. I carried a photo of my grandmother in my wallet for many years,
until I finally gave it to my mother just one year before she died suddenly in
April 2004. It was relief to give her the photo, I finally felt that I no
longer 'carry the story'. It was a very moving moment and my mother embraced me
and kissed me on that day for the first time in many years.
John
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The South African Institute for Family Constellations
Tel: 011 614 0821
www.familyconstellations.net
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