Fractured: The Evidence of Broken Connection

 

At odds with their parents.

At odds with their teachers.

At odds with their faith. 

At odds with themselves. 

Meanwhile, adult caregivers clutch their pearls when the fracture finally manifests. For some young people, its quiet defiance. For others, open rebellion. Even others keep the mask on long enough to get off to college where the fracturing comes into full light. 

Drug use.

Promiscuity.

Academic probation. 

You see, there was a fracture. A place within their soul that was cracked. An internal misalignment that was never reconciled. And kids who are living under the sustained stress of knowing their parents are fighting each other are some of the most overlooked. Parents simply tuck the kids away in a corner with a tablet or iPhone. “Kids are resilient,” they tell themselves. And while the broken family attempts to look normal in their brokenness, the child continues to fracture. 

They are walking with an emotional limp.

They are numbing themselves.

They have perfected their performance so that they no longer have to fear the insecurity of upsetting their parents. 

 

In his book, The Boy Who Was Raised as a Dog, psychiatrist, Dr. Bruce D. Perry confronts our collective dismissal of fractured children. He teaches child development and neuropsychology through storytelling about traumatized children from his clinical practice. And for the average professional suburban family, it is easy to overlook the similarities between the children in this book and the children of divorcing parents. 

Divorce is traumatizing.

Separation is traumatizing.

Parents speaking ugly to one another is traumatizing. 

I must admit my own numbness to this reality. I was so focused on the surgical process of handling divorce, I rarely confronted my own clients about their kids. I recommended therapy as a trial strategy, but never interviewed the children personally. It wasn’t until I entered the world of private dispute resolution that I gained access to the children. They told me about the crummy commute every other weekend. Young adults lamented for feeling blindsided. Teenagers had become cynical. They were so exhausted of mom and dad pummeling each other, they were mildly relieved that their parents would finally call it quits and allow them a reprieve from the stress of the cold war at home. 

But they were all fractured. 

Fractured children are not always the same person. They are different with mom than with dad. They are different with their friends than with their families. They agonize for being seen,heard and understood for who they really are. They long for connection with their caregivers while still figuring out how to define themselves from a conflicted paradigm of a love-hate relationship with mom and dad.

From elementary to university, even those who are now raising families of their own, the children of my divorcing clients were left to figure this out. And although their clinical care provided them with regular structured support, their fracture remained. They just learned how to manipulate, manage, or mask it better.

I write this as an advocate, a voice for American hostages under the age of 18 who are existing in a state of chronic stress at home while their parents are actively hating each other. They are secretly slipping away. They have been pretending with their parents who provide them a sense of belonging. But they are fractured. And until we address this as a collective, we are complicit in the alienation of an entire generation. After we retire, once we embrace the inevitability of life’s sunset upon our last breath, it will be too late. Now is the time to reconnect. Today is the day to see our children in their fractured state. They need more than a therapist. They need a community that sees them. Even more, fractured children need self-aware elders who no longer expect young people to be okay when they are really not.

 

Be blessed and encouraged, 

Sherlyn “Char” Selassie, Esq.  

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