Parental Alienation: Today's Invisible Abuse

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    It may be the most common kind of child abuse — and the most challenging to deal with. But psychological abuse, or emotional abuse, rarely gets the kind of attention that sexual or physical abuse receives.  

              -- "Psychological Abuse: More Common, as Harmful as Other Child Maltreatment,"

                 by  Laura Blue, TIME,  July 30, 2012

When I first realized my girls and I were victims of parental alienation I went on a wild search across the internet to find out all I could about this problem — this abuse. And what I found is that it's a mixed bag out there: a bag that contains almost as much misinformation on the topic as it does reliable and credible information. And it's not because parental alienation isn't a problem. Far from it. It's because it's a problem that stays hidden, ignored, mysterious, and even silenced for lots of different reasons.

Living on a Fault Line: The Warning Signs of Parental Alienation Part II

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The city of Eugene, Oregon sits near a major fault line, which can be thought of as an extension of California's San Andreas Fault. Which, in turn, can be thought of as a sliding boundary between the Pacific plate and the North American plate that slices California in two – at least according to Wikipedia. 

All of which sounds fairly dangerous and a little bit unfathomable. And is. 

Living on a Fault Line: The Warning Signs of Parental Alienation Part I

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"We were never the aggressors; we only defended our lands, women and children."   – Sitting Bull.

(The way some parents describe their positions in custody battles.)

None of us realized we were living on a fault line of seismic activity that could easily crack open and tear our family apart. None of us saw this; neither the girls nor I.  I especially didn't see what our post-divorce situation had come to. But looking back, I now realize I should have heeded the warnings that my ex's ceaseless attempts to take my children away provided me.

Family Court and Parental Alienation

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An insidious morass of redundancies and allegiances to a host of personal agendas least of which are those of the children.

                 – My description of family court 

As a victim of parent alienation – that is, after experiencing first-hand the alienating behaviors of a parent whose sole purpose seems to be to destroy my relationship with my children – actions that have caused two of my daughters to be consumed by what Richard Warshak calls the irrational rejection of a parent, I've had plenty of time to think about the warlike tactics and insidious poisoning that make up parental alienation and to reflect on how this behavior may have gotten its start.

Who Thinks Like This Part II

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There are more similarities between parental alienation, abduction, and cults then there are between parental alienation and anything else, especially divorce. In fact I don't like to see the word "divorce" associated with PAS because it muddies the issue and fills in a story in peoples' minds before they have a chance hear the real story – your story.

Who Thinks Like This Part I

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That's a good question. It's the question I asked at the end of my last post and it's the question I'm going to try to answer in this post. But maybe a better question is why some divorced parents try so hard — as if on a mission — to deny their children a life with their other parent? What's wrong with these people? Why do they act like this? And are we even talking about divorce anymore?

The Independent Thinker and the Science and Sins of Memory

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I Can Think for Myself - An Imaginary Dialog

"How does my dad know what I'm thinking? He doesn't know. No one knows but me."

"Right."

"He reads all these books on parental alienation, or whatever it's called, and then he thinks this is why I don't want to see him anymore. If you ask me it's all a bunch of bunk. Other people say so too. Parental ‘whatever’ isn't even a real problem."

"Oh?"

The Road Home

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Can you see by your lonely light of day

Is this road really the only way

Can this road be taken, taken at all

                                                                                  — Graham Nash

When I say it's been nearly three years since I've seen Mary and Grace, what I mean is that I haven't had a relationship with them for that long. I've seen them though, here and there, around town mostly, and usually always from a distance.

Never Got to Say Goodbye

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It was a late summer day. Goldenrod and asters were coloring the hill. The days were growing short, the birds were gathering in flocks, and there was a feeling in the air that school would be starting soon.

                                                — From Betsy-Tacy by Maud Hart Lovelace 

Grace with flowers

When you tell a child her father is evil and that she should hate him you're telling her that everything she once thought to be true about a person she loves more than anyone, was wrong, and that she was wrong. And in a short period of time, the bond she once had with her father will be severed, the effects of this will negatively affect her the rest of her life, and in the end, she'll hate herself.

Mary Calls Me from the Hospital

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Later on, during the summer of 2011, I got another call from Mary. This time she called me from a hospital where she had been taken after a car ran into her while she was riding her bike. She said she was crossing the street and didn't see the car coming and it slammed into her and sent her sailing across the pavement. Luckily she survived. It was the first I'd heard about her accident. Her mom hadn't called to tell me about it even though Mary was living with her at that time. I guess she didn't want me to know anything about Mary, even something like this.

Round Robin Reprimands — September 17, 2008

Besides being upset with me, Mary's workers were becoming more and more upset with her and blamed most of the problems she was having on her. They would often reprimand her when she came to the court house for her 60-day hearings. I hated this. Not that I didn't think Mary was partially responsible for the problems she was experiencing. She was. But then we all bore some responsibility for this placement gone terribly wrong, and I hated that no one would admit this. None of us were free from blame for what was happening to her, but her workers continued to blame her (or me) and took no responsibility themselves for the mess she was in. I hate it when we blame children for everything. Part of their behavior is due to our behavior — a lot of it actually — and we can't expect them to take responsibility for their actions if we don't model this by taking responsibility for ours.

Crazy Christmas

By Christmas of that year, my daughter Grace seemed to be following Mary's example and was starting to withdraw from me as well. Like with Mary, I had always had a very close relationship with Grace. And also like with Mary, I was never told why my relationship with Grace was now ending. She had stopped coming over to my house altogether and was now staying at her mom's house exclusively. We still talked on the phone, occasionally, and she would talk to me if I walked over to her mom's house to see her. But she was returning fewer and fewer of my calls and making less and less time available to be with me. But even worse, she would no longer hug me or tell me she loved me and I didn't know why.