SAN DIEGO — Janelle Peregoy can’t speak highly enough of Life-Giving Wounds, a nationally known ministry that offers peer-led retreats and support groups for adult children of divorced parents.
“Honestly, it is the program I wish existed when I was in my 20s,” said Peregoy, who suffered for years after the dissolution of her own parents’ marriage.
Peregoy serves as an associate director of the diocesan Office for Family Life and Spirituality, where her focus is on divorced and separated ministry.
A two-year effort to bring Life-Giving Wounds to San Diego paid off last spring, when the ministry held a retreat at the Mission San Luis Rey Retreat Center in Oceanside. The dioceses of San Diego and Orange and the Archdiocese of Los Angeles joined forces to organize the event, which was the ministry’s first-ever retreat in Southern California.
This year, the dioceses of San Diego and Orange are re-teaming to welcome Life-Giving Wounds back to the region. The upcoming retreat will be held from Friday, March 28, to Sunday, March 30, at Lestonnac Retreat Center in Tustin.
“We hear the phrase ‘Children are resilient’ all the time,” said Peregoy, “and that may be true, but a lot of those children end up addressing those wounds in therapy later on in their 20s and 30s.”
Researchers have identified divorce as an “adverse childhood experience” linked to an increased risk of substance abuse and other challenges in life.
Such childhood trauma can cause difficulties for grown children of divorce when it comes to relationships, since they “haven’t seen a thriving example” of marriage, said Peregoy. It can even warp one’s perception of God.
“The phrase ‘God the Father’ … cuts differently if you’ve had abandonment in the family,” she said.
More than 30 people attended last year’s retreat.
Among them was Veronica Gil-Garcia, 48, of St. Mary Star of the Sea Parish in Oceanside.
Born in Mexico City, her parents separated when she was 6 –– something that she likened to the dropping of an atomic bomb.
“For me, it was devastating,” said Gil-Garcia, who was “left with a hole in my heart” and “felt abandoned, alone, misunderstood, rejected, ignored.”
Fast-forward many years, she had divorced after a civil marriage and, with an annulment, remarried in the Church 18 years ago. She thought that last year’s retreat sounded perfect … for her daughter.
“I thought it would be an excellent opportunity for God to heal her from the divorce between her father and me,” she said. “But, to my surprise, she wasn’t interested in going.”
“Since I had already reserved a spot, I ended up going,” she said, describing the retreat as “immensely healing and restorative in my life.”
Janine Solano, a 32-year-old Long Beach resident, was another participant.
Her parents divorced when she was 4. The couple reconciled three years later, but separated again after two years.
Solano, who works for the Archdiocese of Los Angeles, was thinking more of her boyfriend, a fellow adult child of divorce, than of herself when she reserved two spots at the retreat.
“I wasn’t going to go if he didn’t go, because I felt like I didn’t need it,” said Solano, who became engaged after the retreat and is preparing to be married this December. “But, luckily, Jacob wanted to attend, and we went, and it changed our lives.”
The cost to attend the retreat is $425 for single occupancy, $375 for double occupancy, and $125 for commuters. Register at rcbo.org/acod. For more information, email jperegoy@sdcatholic.org.
