A Poem of Involuntary Isolation

Caution: Be advised that this post is about family estrangement. It might be triggering for some.

Dear Reader,

Sometimes (more often than I care to admit), I use this blog as therapy. I do so to the point where I’m startled to discover that someone else has read it. This will probably be one of those times.

But sharing your personal pain can often comfort others who are going through something similar, especially if they are struggling to put their pain into words, so I choose to put it out there for all to see. I apologize, in advance, for exposing my soft white underbelly in this fashion. I know it isn’t pretty.

I find it more than a bit ironic that I’m writing about isolation on this, my blog’s 13^th anniversary. (I’ve written approximately 2,100,000 words, and this is my 3,791st post!) This blog was born at a time when I was feeling pretty isolated and in desperate need of a way to be heard, even if it were only by the vast empty void of cyberspace. Little did I know how many friends it would bring into my life, and how many people I would be able to touch with the bottled messages I cast out to the digital sea. Perhaps things turn out exactly the way they’re supposed to after all. Here’s hoping.

And before anyone asks, there’s no danger of this poem upsetting the person I’m writing about and driving the final nail into our coffin of estrangement. She has made it clear that she has no interest in reading my blog. (Ouch.) Because of this, I felt the therapeutic value to me outweighed any such risk. She knows I’m willing to talk, and if we ever do, we’ll have a heck of a lot more to work out than a mere poem.

Namaste.

-Barb

Surviving the Obituaries

I checked them yet again today.
Just for some peace of mind.
It's not my favorite thing to do, but
it's the only way I'll ever come to know what's true.
I'm still here, but she killed me long ago.

The silent treatment is an abusive vine
that tangles around our family tree,
declaring, “You are so beneath contempt,
your existence is withdrawn.
Disagree and you are dead to me."

She said she could stop worrying
now that I had a husband.
What's this I hear? Life choice validation?
But, no. It was her eulogy for me. Just parting words.
Her code for, “Now I can be done with you.”

We were never close. How could we be?
Too many vines creep between our branches. Planted generations ago.
Ensnaring the past and blocking all discussion.
My thoughts don't always fall in step with hers,
but that's enough for her to cut me off? Just that?

The vine's sound, as it snaked toward me, again,
gave me one final chance to stop its growth.
Because we're way too old to play this game,
and it will likely be our very last.
So I refuse to give it fertile ground.
 
I said, "This silence will be one-sided.
I will always speak to you
because you are my sister, after all.
I have a voice, and so do you.
Speak to me any time you choose."

Yet off she went, in angry silence.
God knows where, into her ailing 70’s.
Each year must take more energy
to fuel the crawling tendrils of that hostile isolation.
One holds a lot while choked with one's withholding. 

The vindictive vine ensnares her. 
Even as she tends it carefully.
She even tells her friends they can't respond
when storm waters surge and, since my number's blocked,
I can't ask her myself if she's been washed away.

There’s so much I long to say in the short time we have left.
If only she were predisposed to hear.
But if my family had a coat of arms, 
It's motto would be No One Has Your Back,
and You Will Never Be Accepted As You Are.

So, every now and then I get to open the old wounds
Search for her name with grief already felt.
But this bond weakens with each day that's tossed away.
I'd really hate to reach the point where all hope is gone, 
but when does the sheer weight of her silence finally bury me for good?

No news. Nothing. So I can't rest in peace. 
Maybe someday she can, at least. All things do end.
At any rate, she chooses to be gone, and I fear the next reveal
will be glowing on a cold, unfeeling screen.
Final proof that someone who doesn't love me cannot ever change her mind.

2 responses to “A Poem of Involuntary Isolation”

Angiportus LIbrarysaver

Dec 6, 2025 at 7:14 pm

I never had siblings, but I had a friend who slowly during a crisis of mine totally misunderstood something I said to her answering machine and went clear off the rails. I sort of got her calmed down but everything was still pfffttt, it would never be the same, and I realized that she had been drifting away for a long time. I wish she had warned me about that before it started, but she might not have been aware of it herself. I didn’t and still don’t have a lot of friends to spare, and recently 2 died in as many years. I myself cut ties with a job-developer who kept flinging that autism crap at me. But I wish I had found the guts to tell her just why.
Ever been to the Great Lakes? If so, I’d like to see what you found there. –If I had a nickel for every time someone didn’t have my back when they bloody well should have, I could afford to go there myself.

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1. The View from a Drawbridge
  
  Dec 8, 2025 at 10:44 pm
  
  I’ve been to Chicago, Toronto, and Niagara Falls, but that’s the extent of my Great Lakes experience.
  I’m in the same boat regarding friends. And I think a lot of the ghosting could be easily avoided if neurotypicals understood how to say what they mean and mean what they say. But of course that our problem. People suck. (Sorry. You’ve caught me in a mood.)
  
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The View from a Drawbridge

The random musings of an autistic bridgetender with entirely too much time on her hands.