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Letters from children of alienation
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My Story : My parents devorced when I was 17, I was the eldest child. My mother confided in me as a grown up and I always listened to what she told me. Now that I'm 40 I can see that it made me feel needed and loved. In a subtle way I was pulled more to her than to my dad. A few years ago I was very ill. When I woke from a coma I saw my dad. I will never forget the joy in his eyes and since than our contact is better then ever. Lord I've missed him. Some years ago I met a divorced man with two children, age 13 en 15. He had a good contact with his ex-wife and I could honestly say I liked her as a person as well. The children stay with us half a week and the other half with their mum and new partner. In my experience the ex-wife is very subtle in alienating the children from their dad. She kind of 'sits' on them. When they are with us she calls them 10 times a day. When they have an argument with their dad, you hear them use her words. She plans holidays with them a year in advance. Last week the eldest had an argument with her dad. The girl ran to her mum and since then she is staying with her mum. I doubt if she's coming back and I feel as if she is subtly brainwashed. Her father can't do anything good in her eyes as he can't do anything good in his ex-wife's eyes. She is in pain, my husband is in paind and the other child suffers from the tension. The only person who benefits is the ex-wife who has her daughter full time. I feel helpless. I can see the girl drifting away. I want to do something, talk to her, I don't know what. But she is 16 now, she wants to stay with her mum and she refuses contact.
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My Story : My story has current pain attached. When my parents divorced when I was 8 (I'm now 28), my mother went into shock. I took care of the family, my younger brother (now 26) and sister (now 21). Shortly thereafter my mother started claiming that my dad left because of us, that he was abusive to women, that he withheld money and that he never loved us. Is there any truth in this? Maybe with the money. However, my close relationship to my Dad testifies to the contrary. The sad part of this story is my brother, who still hates my dad. At 26, I swear he channels my mother. He says his children will never know their grandfather. I'm still hurt and confused by all of this. I love my mother. She did raise me, and there were some good times. It's just the hurt is more prominent. She still like to disparage my father and recently made me chose between her and my father's new fiance. It took my Dad 20 years to move on because he was scared of alienating us. I'll be damned if I side with her anymore- although, for the sake of my progeny, I want contact with my mother. I have full faith she will be a great grandmother. What is the solution? I want to heal my brother's pain, I want a relationship with my mom. Is any of this even possible?
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Re: My story
I'm sure I speak for all of us when I say that we truly empathize with parents' situation and probably from a wide variety of perspectives. While I can't speak to physical abuse I can speak as a child of PAS.
Children are a lot more sophisticated than we often give them credit for. They know, at least emotionally, where they are safe, where they are not and who they can trust. What they don't know always is how to make the not safe situation better so they rely, naturally, on the parents to tell them how. My mother, even 21 years after her divorce of my father, still crowns him as the greatest demon who ever lived. Hers was also to move the spotlight away from her own behavior and not take responsibility. And, yes, there was even a time when I was cornered by Social Services and poor Dad received a visit from them. At the time I hadn't reported any abuse, but Dad and I had been wrestling the night before, I fell off the chair and bruised my leg significantly. By the time I left the high school nurses office I was convinced that only a really bad man would have let that happen to me. In hindsight, I know that my mom has emotional problems too big for me to fix and
too big for her to control. I still care for her and love her, but don't really take too much of what she says seriously. My Dad and I still have a pretty close relationship. To make a short story long - hang in there - stay strong for your children and help remind them that they have specific talents and gifts that make them special, that make them worth any effort.
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My Story : Hello, my name is Y. H. and I have been a PAS survivor for the past sixteen years. My mother would be pleased to read my message after living through eleven painful years of silence from me because she never stopped hoping, calling and sending us little reminders for her love. Her devotion to us knew no limits and so to my gratitude to her and sorrow for my younger sister who remained silenced until my mother's death on August 12, 1998. "I love you mama"~
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My Story : I am a 15 year old boy, my father who abused me constantly took my mom to court accusing her of this alienation thing. What he failed to see was that he was the one alienating me by being mean to me all the time. He hit me, cussed me, withheld food from me, would not let me leave the yard to play with the kids in the neighborhood, called me a liar, called my mom bad names all the time, told me she was gonna go to jail. He wouldn't see that his behavior is why I didn't want to be with him. I hate him for what he has done to me and my mom. Now that is what I call a true alienator.
***Comment from Parental Alienation Awareness
If a parent's behavior is truly as stated in this story, then this is not an example of Parental Alienation Syndrome, but, rather, a situation where the parent themselves, is self-alienating. When a parent has been shown to be abusive or neglectful, they should not be the caretakers of the child. True PAS occurs when the "accused" parent is, in actuality, a loving and involved parent, with no history of abuse or neglect. The "reality" of a situation such as denigration of a loving parent by the child, is seen only in the eyes of the child who has been "taught" to believe such. That, then, would be a true example of PAS.
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My Story : My mom grew up, herself, the daughter of an abusive father, who basically targeted her mom and brothers, not so much her, but I've always thought her behavior came from that. Anyways, her thing was that she would always explain to my sister and I that my father had not sent any child support money, and this was usually when she was angry at us or on a tyrade and would kind of make it seem like it was our fault b/c she needed the money to support us and that therefore we were a lot of trouble. The other thing she would do would be when she was mad at us or we were in a fight, she would say, "well just go live with your father then, why don't you." This was usually after she had made it clear that he really didn't want our family, and so was suggesting that we go live with someone who didn't want us. A lot of times she would have a snide comment to make about him. She liked it when we said negative things about our visit w/ him. She was perceptively defensive when we would say we had a good time or anything positive. Or she might say "good, I'm glad you had a good time, but we knew that wasn't really the truth. I am 35 yo, and to this day, it is the same way. For the most part, I have learned to forgive my father for his part in their divorce. My mom, I don't think is even aware or would really even admit fault in her behavior as she practices denial a lot. I guess I feel sorry for her for what she has gone through and witnessed as a child growing up; she has never recieved counseling for her childhood. I know that is off the subject, but I think if she had been less-mentally-scarred as a child, she probably could have been a better parent. Don't get me wrong--I am really sorry for what my sister and I endured under her authority, and in fact, I wonder and hope that it will not effect me as I raise my two young children ( I am married). Sometimes I feel very hostile toward my oldest, and I don't know where the hostility comes from, b/c that is not the way I want to be.
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My Story : When I was about 8 my parents decided to get a divorce. We were living in the US but my mother was originally from England and she wanted to be close to her family so my sister, mother and I moved to England while my dad stayed in America. As time went by my mother would tell me a number of things like that daddy wanted a divorce because we were getting in the way of his work. I was also told that my mother thought he had been having an affair and that he made us move to England so he wouldnt have to pay as much child support or have to see us as often. She had her ways of making me hate my dad, i felt like he didnt want or love me ... and if he didnt then who ever would? i became very hostile towards my father and, although i wanted to see him, i didnt because i had been told what an awful person he was. To think that one of your own parents hates you can deeply hurt a child, and when I was about 13 I started hurting myself to relieve the emotional pain i was feeling inside. after a while of visiting my dad and his new family and seeing how loving they all were, and at peace with each other, i realized that there was something wrong. my father couldnt be the person my mother described to me, it just wasnt possible. so one summer while i was on vacation with my dad i confronted him with all the things my mother had been saying. He was horrified; and i realized that to put myself back in the position i was in with my mother could completely destroy me. So i decided to move in with my dad. My mother hated me for that, she told me i was being selfish and stupid. Since moving in with my dad i am actually happy ... i was never happy at my mothers house because when she was mad i was the worst child onthe planet, but when i was good i was an angel. It had been a situation i couldnt deal with. but its amazing how much i have changed (for the better) since i have been living with my dad. My mother has turned her family against me which is difficult but i know i have people who love and care about me and i am finally happy.
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My Story : When I was 5 and being told that my mother didn't want me...I had no idea that I was being alienated from my mother. All I knew was I loved her and I missed her and she was gone. When I was 6 and told that my daddy was a no good bum and didn't want me...I really had no idea what parental alienation was. When I was 7 and had been adopted and moved far away from my mother, I was told that she doesn't come see you cause she doesn't want you, I had no idea I was being alienated or what it meant. All I knew was I missed her and wanted to see her. When I was 8 and settled into a new life, I really had no idea what had taken place, I just knew that my mother was gone and I thought she didn't love me anymore...after all the people that were taking care of me told me this...so why wouldn't I believe them.
When I was 9 and my adopted daddy was so good to me...I tried real hard not to think about my mother and how much I missed her. I was happy with my new daddy and my grandmother, so I had no idea that alienation had taken place or even what it meant. I just knew that my mother was gone and I had no daddy...and these two people had took me with them...they changed my name and made me call them...Mommie/Momma and Daddy When I was 10 my adopted daddy died...he left me in this world all alone...but I sill had no idea what parental alienation was. All I knew was I was 10 and lost my mother, and now the only daddy I had even known was dead and I was being blamed for it. YES, my grandmother blamed me for his death. She said I took up so much of his time, that I had killed him. Try living with that.
In the beginning When I was 2 my grandfather died and left me with my grandmother. When I was 6 I was adopted by this grandmother and her new husband. So I had a new mommie and daddy. I was forced to call my grandmother mommie, but I refused...the only thing I could muster up to say was momma. The mommie belonged to my mother and even at 6 I could not be forced into calling my grandmother mommie. I received spanking after spanking...trying to make me call her mommie, but I would not, so she finally settled for Momma. When I was 11 I was moved back to the town where my mother lived. I was able to see her once in a while, but it was not easy. My grandmother/momma could not stand for me to call my mother mommie. I got my tail tore up more times than I can court for calling my mother mommie, but I didn't care...I called her mommie anyway and just took the spankings. When I was 15 I ran away from home. I went over 500 miles from where I lived with my grandmother/momma to Georgia which is where I live today.
This story of mine is very painful and has caused my life to be one turmoil after the other, however it has also made me who and what I am. I have lived my whole life trying to figure out what was wrong with me that made my parents not want me, and at the same time try to figure out why my grandmother would steal me from her own daughter. I finally reconnected with my mother and also found my daddy. My daddy was dead when I found him, but I have been to his grave in Kentucky. I stood at the foot of his grave that is marked only by a aluminum marker and has the name Dutton printed on it. I have never felt so lost and empty when I stood at his grave. This man I had looked for my entire life, and I finally found him. He lived in a house of dirt and could not answer my questions. WHY did he not want me, what was so wrong with me that I was not worth fighting for.
My mother on the other hand...we had a very heated life together after we wound up in the same town. I wanted her to feel the pain I had felt all my life. I wanted her to cry and cry and cry...because she didn't understand why she wasn't wanted. I wanted her to know the pain she had caused me. Well, I got the shock of my life...she wanted that too. My mother excepted ALL the bad things I said to her. She agreed that she had done me wrong. She NEVER...not once tried to make excuses for what had happened to me. She was truly a mother to me...she let me get all my anger out and continued to love me...she listened to everything I had to say to and about her...she was more of a mother to me at that time then I had ever had in my whole life.
We had 12 years together before she died...at the young age of 53. We spent many hours telling each other all the things that had taken place in each of our lives when we were apart. I learned that the information I grew up with...was all lies.
I learned how much she loved me and how I was taken from her. I learned how she worked in the fields on a tractor...and how she would look toward the sky and play peep-eye with me...she said she would always see me peeking out from behind a cloud and she would blow me a kiss and tell me how much she loved me...and ask God to please watch over me. My mother called me her little angel behind the clouds...and as part of my story to help others understand what you do to a child when you alienate them from their being...I have written a book about my and my mother's life and how I am reliving the past with my son and his children. I would like for all to know...that on Feb 17, 1983 my mother took her last breath with her head laid on my shoulder and my arms tightly wrapped around her. She brought me into this world and I had prayed for 12 years for God to please allow me to be with her when she had to leave it...he granted that wish to me and her.
May God grant you the same peace that day brought my mother and me...for even though she had to leave me...we were as close as mother and daughter could possibly be...and she left me with a love in my heart and a fight in my gut that I never fully understood until I began to help my son battle the UN-family courts in Georgia and Alabama. NOTHING is more important than family...blood...birthright...NOTHING! |
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My Story : Are you a child of an alienating parent who now realizes what happened to them? Have you been effected by alienation? Yes, Yes and Then some..... Read my families story here: http://www.robertbrantley.com/special/struggle My mother (as I discover as life goes on) alienated me from my father and has now alienated me from my children. Help.
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I am now 40 years old, but I still can hardly believe that I can have access to my father without the extreme emotional extortion I suffered as a child of divorce. My father was no saint as a husband, but he was a devoted and loving father. He paid all his support even when he couldn't put food on his own table. He took every moment he could with us, though he was a long haul trucker and "home" was a rarety. My mother had custody of us kids. She had many unresolved issues from her own childhood and she carried her grudges around like badges of honor. She asked for the divorce and then was bitter when my father did not fight her. He got the debt, she got the house, the kids, and the "good" car. She got child support and the full mortage payment. Not long after the divorce, my father started dating. Something seemed to snap in her. She seemed to spew more venom than a diamond back rattler.
It became clear that I was expected to join her in her mission to hurt my father, or suffer the consequences of her wrath turned on me instead of him. She used to throw things at him.... and then at any of us who did not agree with her. She beat up my little sister once for asking when Daddy was coming home. I refused to attend my father's wedding, though it broke his heart. I had to stay home and keep my mother from that suicide attempt she always threatened. She had tried suicide 3 times that I know of. I did what I had to to survive in her care. I felt responsible for keeping my siblings safe and going along enough to satisfy Mom. I never stopped loving my father, but I acted abomidibly to him for several years, finally taking a college scholarship clear across the country from my mother and her influence. I was the poster child for fatherless daughters. I drank and smoked and tried a little pot, and was promiscuous and got pregnant out of wedlock -- all before age 18. My grades didn't suffer, but that was because school was my haven from the toxic atmosphere at home. My relationship with my father inproved when my mother died. We have worked hard for many years to undo the damage to our relationship.
My father only recently came to fully understand the mental games and physical abuse I and my siblings went through. It broke his heart all over again, and in so doing, broke mine for what I had put him through by not staying strong against my mother's manipulations. I always thought that my father knew what my mother was doing and that he either would not or could not rescue us from the situation. It left me thinking he was an "ineffective little man". I now know that he did not know, but he insists he could have changed it -- would have changed it -- if he had been told sooner. That knowledge was very healing to me. Alienation is such a powerful tool because of the misinformation given by one parent to persons too young and inexperienced in life to understand that even parents can lie and twist things for their own ends. If you keep the kids from the other parent long enough, the kids begin to believe it is because the other parent does not love them enough to rescue them from the emotional onslaught.
Instead of thriving, they learn to survive. Survival mode is a hard thing to outgrow and it still haunts my responses to the people around me. It has cost me more than one job, and many relationships. I cannot stress enough that Parental Alientation and other conflictive destructive behaviors harm the children more than the other parent. What fit loving parent would want to throw the kids under the revenge train just to derail their Ex? That's right, NONE.
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I'm only 15, i live with my mom and i visit my dad every other weekends and Thursdays (it's complicated, dont ask!). Ever since i was little, he would say stuff.. you know, bad things about my mom. subtly, of course, but he brainwashed me to hate my mom. deep down i knew i loved her--i guess i was smart, i was always a smart child--and i knew i didn't want to hurt her, so i would ignore her. i didnt want to "break her heart" when she realized that i wanted to live with my dad. litle did i know that she already did know. i was in fact hurting her more by not showing her love.
i wanted to know why my dad did this to me. my mom told me too look up "Parental Alienation" on the web (which i did yesterday). when i read it, even though i pretty much knew that he wanted custody of me so he wouldn't have to pay child support, i read specifically, that the parent brainwashes the child against the other parent. i read it and i just couldnt move. i started crying.it was like is was "more real" or someting.
my mom says to stand up for myself, you know, when he says bad stuff about her (especially my step-mother, she is sooooo mean!) but i'm so scared. there are times when i dont want to go over to his house. i dont even miss him when i'm away. he has hurt my mom (and me) so much i cant stand it.
i'm scared. i am just really scared. i am mean to people around me (mainly my little sister)i think i got his mean genes. if i never see my dad again, it will phase me little. i feel he has changed my life-- like i have stopped growing psycologicly (however that is spelled).
i am just scared, i feel like i am not normal.
i am just so scared.
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Having been a victim of PAS as a child, and now again as a father of 2 sons (yes, history does repeat itself!!), I appreciate the work you are doing in identifying "Hostile Aggressive Parenting". Only by identifying the targeting parent's behavior as the abusive action it is, can programs and laws be developed and implemented to protect future generations of children from this form of abuse and exploitation. Elsewise, as I have already learned first-hand, history
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I am a child of divorce. My parents divorce became finalized in 1969 when I was six years old. My mother was granted custody and my father never fought it.
I am here today because I wish to see change. Change in a system that helped to alter my relationship with my father for the duration of our lives. Our lives when he being 600 miles
away at 54 years old seems all too short.
We started out fairly normal. I remember watching a football game with him, the smell of my mother's pot roast in the air. Being carried around on his shoulder, waiting for him to
come home from work. A father-daughter relationship firmly rooted for growth.
As months went by the climate of our house became more tense. I felt impending doom. Finally erupting, and then, a deathly lull settled as a tiny 6 year old followed her father
around the house as he packed his suitcases, taking the personal belongings my mother would let him have, which did not include me. So I begged him to stay, he held me for along time, finally he pulled me away as he left our house.
And so began my father's weekend visits, who in his absence became a stranger, a curiosity to me. No more leisurely afternoons in front of the T.V. We now embarked on the most
exciting trips appropriate for our age he could think of.
Bowling alleys, movies, malls and toy stores. I never came home empty handed. Then back to his Holiday Inn motel room, his new living quarters, to sit and spend time with him until he
dropped us off at home, never sure I would see him next weekend.
A new set of rules imposed on our house. My mother took a job and went to school. My sister became my mother, cooking, cleaning and disciplining me. My brother, the eldest, became the
man of the house, who also disciplined me but offered no affection. My father was spoke of very little, I only heard his name as he was being chastised for not visiting or blamed for a
check that never arrived or came late.
Several times I would burst into tears, overwhelmed by his absence and feeling a great sense of loss. Each time I was scolded, told to be strong, to wise up and quit feeling sorry for
myself. I was certainly not to shed tears in front of my father. How ironic that I was not to display my grief while I was also told by my mother what a lousy father I had.
At this point our relationship had changed considerably. The man who came to pick me up on weekends was no longer the strong, stable father I had known. I now sensed panic,
helplessness and guilt emanating from my father. I feared him now, being the object of his panic, resented him for leaving, promising to return on various days and never showing. Pitying him for his guilt and helplessness, loving and idolizing him intensely, my daddy who would come home and defend himself to my mother and siblings and be strong again. All these perceptions
from a 6 year old.
For the next four years my father and I were unable to spend any quality time together. The brief times I did see him were very damaging to me.
I remember writing letter to my father in care of the Macomb County Jail. I would seal them up and include messages to the sheriff, because I was told they would open and censor my letters, in letter I wrote to my father, telling him how I missed him and forgave him for not paying our child support. Until I was 16 I believed the manufacturers stamps on my Dad's shirtails were shirts he had worn in jail.
He lost a few jobs during that time. He was constantly served and arrested at work because he was unable to meet the payments. His visits became much more sporadic, he was avoiding us so as not to let my mother know where he was, maybe he could hold down a job that way.
I had taken to reading the obituaries every night, looking for his name. I did not know if he dead or alive. We spent a couple of Christmas's without him. One Christmas he did show up, at 5:00 in the morning. Oh, to hug my father again, the smell of his aftershave and cigarettes long lost to my senses, he looked so sad. And then he was gone, he had timed his visit carefully while my mother was still asleep to avoid her.
My sister caught me lying to a playmate and scolded me. The playmate had asked me where my father was, not knowing myself I said he was always on business trips.
My dad eventually moved to Indiana. Michigan held too many bad memories for him. He remarried and we began to spend summers with him. This helped but by now there was so much damage to our relationship that we shared only shreds of normalcy.
From 8 to 18 I was a very cynical, negative and aggressive individual. Having been a normal, vulnerable child, only to be laid open and cut a few times, true to my family's constant messages to me, I did wise up! I learned to mother the child within me who still missed and grieved for her father, calming my own fears. Wiping tears I did not dare shed in front of my family.
Yes, the feeling of alienation and abandonment brought on by the lengthy absence of my father and my family's lack of communication, to explain it ended my sweet, normal childhood. Darwin's survival of the fittest should only be learned in a science class, yet I practiced it at 8.
Between 16 and 17 I underwent a year of therapy prompted by my sudden bouts of depression, an unending feeling of loneliness. It was here I learned that my boyfriend provided me with needs normally supplied by one's father, as I supplied the needs he sought from his deceased mother. We were a pair of 17 year old walking neurotics, both heavy substance abusers that also helped fill the great void within me.
My father and I have lost so much time. Ordinarily routine moments that will never occur again. Moments a father and a child both share a right to, things a father should be able to see and share with his offspring.
Today when I see my father we follow a pattern of behavior dictated by those lost moments. We feel awkward with one another, groveling for words and giving clumsy hugs. We then try to get close again, claim some of our time that we can both demand now.
I will travel by plane for an hour to see him. Each time I visit with Dad it occurs to me that we have much catching up to do. He will tell stories of my antics as a baby, his face aglow with fatherly pride as he laughs and grins. And then a far-a-way look, an emptiness will envelop him as he falls silent and gazes out the window. I will ask him what is wrong, he will smile, be strong and say nothing. But I know what he is thinking, the silence speaks a thousand words. I have heard these stories over and over. Yet he refers to them because those are the few memories he has shared with me. Then he will ask me about my job, my husband, and offer me fatherly advice about my present life.
How did we get from my baby stories to my job and husband? This is more than the flow of conversation. It is a significant fact that we both find painful to acknowledge. As I get older and prepare myself to start a career and family, it is increasingly harder for me to see him. He remains geographically distant and our relationship will remain a shell.
I can always tell who is a child of divorce. They are sharp kids who exhibit aggressive, manipulative attitudes, a hardness. Yet if you press hard enough they are hiding a deep well of pain that eats at them, that makes them survivors, very much aware of the moves and rules of a chess game that was once their family unit.
I am a shrewd chess player, ready to knock any family opponents pieces off the board and move in for the kill, if I have to. At 21 I am still the grieving child of 6 who aches for her father. I am the mother who emotionally nurtured that child to a functioning adult. An adult that bears the scars and festering wounds of divorce and separation.
I am a survivor who feels that the only permanent thing in my life is myself. I grew up in a dark, frigid hell. You will never understand unless you've been there. It has aged me beyond my years and robbed me of time with my father necessary to a normal childhood.
Although I have healed myself there are some that never will.
I do not offer specific problems and solutions for you today. I am only articulating what children caught in today's divorce process are experiencing and cannot voice themselves.
To the fathers who are present here today, this is not chess, I am not your pawn. I AM YOUR CHILD WHO LOVES YOU AND NEEDS YOU! FIGHT FOR ME!
And to the legal system, I stand before you today, a product of what you believed is a system that benefits me. Children begin life unaware of sexism. Why teach it to them like this!
Thank You
Maria |
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