Parental Alienation
Awareness Organization

I am now 36 years old and have been doing my best to live my life in the shadow of some pretty challenging obstacles I had to overcome, live with, or act in spite of as a child and young adult.
 
To say that finding the Parental Alienation Awareness Organization (PAAO), its website and the information it contained was enlightening would be an understatement. Roughly 26 years of strong unresolved feelings are prompting my letter to you today but to try and recap a lifetime of pain, not feeling whole and complete despite my best efforts would not be practical or possible within the scope of a letter.
 
Being able to accurately put a finger on the issues that I have been dealing with and try to communicate those experiences in general would have been impossible for me to do on my own until today. Seeing all of my exact life experiences past and present before me on your website makes it easier for a dialog to begin. For the work that you have done to this point, I thank you. For the work, that I am about to do, I cannot thank you enough.
 
Please understand this is a topic I would normally avoid at all costs in passing conversation or with a therapist because I did not have the language to convey all that was going on in my life. The weight that I have been carrying has been tremendous and being able to put some of that weight down and “look around” is remarkable. 
 

First and foremost my heartfelt thanks for your website. It has been a Godsend for me to know that there is a name for what happened to me and a reason too. It lifted a 1000 pounds off my shoulders when I came to realize a few short months ago because of The Parental Alienation Awareness Organization that my problems and my guilt through all these years were not my fault and that my reactions to the abuse as a child are because of it. It has helped me begin the road to healing and forgiveness. Even with what happened to me as a child I knew something was wrong but didn’t know what it was. I always blamed myself for the most part for being such a “Difficult Child”.

I would like to let you know that the hurt, the anger, the shame and the pain would never go away. I could numb it and put it in the back of my mind but it never went away. It comes out in how I am as a mother, a spouse, a friend. In the decisions I’ve made, in almost everything I do. I fight with myself almost everyday to stop feeling worthless, not to belittle myself. I console myself by thinking any harm I have ever done to anyone was certainly not intended. Now, as I speak of this I wonder why? What makes me think these things, what makes me feel these things? For once, I would like to be able just to like myself. I don't know how that feels. Why can't I feel pride in who I am and what I've become despite the struggles, setbacks and sadly, despite my parents.

They were married in 1963, I was born 3 months later. For the first five years we lived right across the street from my maternal grand-parents. I spent time there everyday and I adored my grandma.

When I was five we moved to High Prairie, so my Dad could open a menswear store.
When I was eight my parents divorced. My mother had left my father with 3 little girls to care for. My middle sister was seven and my youngest sister was barely a year old.
She left us for the city life.

My father re-married about a year or so later to our stepmother. After their wedding our father told us that she was our new mother now and we were to call her "MOM".
I remember our stepmother telling us that our mother "The Thing" as they called her, didn't want us anymore, that she was tired of dirty diapers and kids.
We were told that "The Thing" was a stripper in Edmonton, drinking, partying and hooked on drugs. My father didn't stop her from telling us. I recall my step-mother's distorted face, as she spoke to us about "the Thing". I remember feeling very ugly.
Once my Mom came to the door to pick us up for a week-end visit. She was early so my step-mother wouldn't let her in and locked the doors. My mom busted the glass with her fist and came into the house. I remember her crying and screaming, grabbing items around the house saying they were hers and trying to take them. I remember the blood. I can't remember if we went with her that day.
Another time, my mother kidnapped my middle sister and I. She had taken us right out of school. I remember her telling us to stay down on the floor of the pick-up until we were out of town. She told us she wanted us to be with her and that our father was stealing us from her. We were eventually caught up to after a few weeks in Edmonton I believe and returned to our father.
Shortly after that from my recollection, we moved to Edmonton and my father got a new job.
My mother had returned to Grande Prairie by then. No-one spoke to us about our mother but I do remember over hearing heated discussions about a custody battle. I didn't understand.
By the Court, my father was awarded full custody with visitation rights for my mother.
A few months after we had moved, we were told we were moving again but we not told where nor could we tell anyone about it. I remember missing my Grandma so much.
We boarded a plane when I was about 10 years old. Once we were in the air we were told we were going to live in England. I had not seen my mom or grandparents nor talked to them either. I didn't get to say good-bye. I of course, did not know at the time, but my father had not told my mother we were leaving, he had illegally taken us out of the country.
We arrived in England and lived in the city of York. We were to tell no-one that our step-mother was not our real mother. I remember people telling her how young she looked for having children our age and she would just smile and say thank you. I wanted to scream.
 At first, I often questioned about my mother but was immediately stopped and punished. I did not see or hear from my mother's side of the family at all during that time. I also found out later that parcels were sent for Xmas, cards and such, all returned to Canada un-opened.
When my youngest sister was about 4 or 5 years old I remember trying to tell her that she had another mother in Canada. I got the belt from my stepmother and again from my father upon his return home from an off-shore rig job in The North Sea. It wasn't the first or the last time I was made to pull down my pants, lay on my stomach on the bed and get what I deserved. I was told something was wrong with me and sent to therapy because I would not forget about my real mother or her family. I remember many times of being hit, spanked, my ears being pulled, sent to my room, it seemed then like it was almost daily. I was the problem in the family, that is how I felt.
Within the 8 years in England we moved 5 times to different towns. To this day I have no contact with any school friends. We never stayed anywhere long enough to make life long friends. When we did move it was on the spur of the moment usually and we didn't know where we were going. Not giving up hope on my mom and her family I was constantly in trouble at home. There are so many bad memories of those years and very few good ones. I was on the outside of my own home, I was the black sheep, the traitor. My middle sister and I were in constant conflict, she was good, I was bad. Being younger she had accepted our new life, I would not.
I tried to commit suicide when I was 16. Shortly after that, I ran away and hid out in my friend's garage until the police took me home two days later. Later on I remember being told that if I wanted to move back to Canada to be with my mother I could. I said I did.
 
The day before I was supposed to fly out my father and stepmother sat me down in the living room and told me that if I went the next day to Canada I would never be able to see my sisters or half brother again. I had to make that choice. I believed them of course and decided not to go. In the meantime my mother and her family were waiting at the Edmonton airport for me to get off the plane. When I was not there they contacted my father and he then told them that I had decided not to come. I can't imagine how they must have felt.
School was my escape. I loved playing Field hockey and was the town's Team goalie. I do not remember seeing my father at a game.
At 17 and a half years old I ran away again. I got in trouble for something earlier that day and my stepmother held me up against the wall by my hair, screaming right into my face as she banged my head against the wall and punched my arm. I can still smell her bad breath. I left that night with one small bag of clothes and no money. I stole my sister's necklace, jumped out our bedroom window at about 2 am and ran.

I was on the front pages of local newspapers reported missing. I had hitch hiked to Liverpool, sold that necklace for 5 pounds at the train station. The next day a middle aged man offered to drive me to Doncaster. He had his reasons. I was so naive; to this day I can't believe that I thought he had been so nice to me. After dropping me off I waited until he was gone and turned the other way. I hitched a ride to Scarborough, a coastal town, slept in a ditch for two nights and got a job the next day in a summer resort.

I was not found by the police and when I turned 18, I contacted my friend back in Doncaster. She asked me to come back, she said I was safe now and they could not force me to do anything I didn't want to.

I returned. I went to my house to see my family. I told them I did not want to move back in but wanted to be able to see them and be friends so to speak. My father, stepmother and middle sister were in the living room that day. My little sister and brother were not. I was told I could not talk to my sisters anymore and to stay away if I did not want to live at home. I remember calling my stepmother a bitch, my father slapping me across the face.
I was again reminded as numerous times before, that I was un-grateful for all the good things they had done for me, unappreciative for all the holidays, all the countries we got to see, the piano lessons, the good schools, the fact that my stepmother cared about how I looked and got my teeth fixed, put me on diets because she thought I was too fat. I left in tears. It's funny though, because to this day, no matter how hard I try to think back, at no time do I ever remember hearing the words "I Love You". Of course, I never heard them from my Mom either, to a child it doesn't matter why, they just don't understand.
Early in September I got a flat with my friend, got a job and tried a few times to go see my middle sister at her school. She would not talk to me.

In December I was feeling remorse so I decided to go home and try to see them. The house was empty. I went to the neighbours and asked them where my family was. She was shocked to see me...she told me they had moved back to Canada. No-one had even said good-bye. I was left behind in England. I can remember thinking that they must have hated me so much.
After two months of trying to remember names and places of my mother's family in Canada I contacted my Uncle who in turn got a hold of my Mom. Within 2 weeks my mother flew to England and brought me home.

It was a happy time for me, to be back, to be with my Mom, Grandma and the rest of the family. Everyone was there the day I came home, everyone cried.
It didn't last long though. I had questions for my Mom... why didn't she come to get us, why didn't she fight for us, where was she, didn't she care?

I wanted her to pay for something that really was not even her fault. I was so confused. I ran away from her about 6 months after I had come back to Canada. The next 4 years...well just a typical bad company, runaway life so to speak, I don't need to go there. I was on my own.
I am 45 years old now. Because I made the choice to include my mother in my life, my father and stepmother would not have a relationship with me. They live in Vancouver. My brainwashed sisters also sided with them. Even when my mom questioned me about them, I was too afraid to tell her anything hoping my father would eventually change his mind if I kept my mouth shut.
I married in 1987 in Grande Prairie. I had asked my father to come to the wedding...he wouldn't...not if my mother was going to be there; of course my sisters couldn't come either. I asked his brother, my uncle to come and give me away...he wouldn't either, for fear of upsetting my father. I had the honour of being given away by both my Grandfathers which, when I look back was the best way things could have been.

I promised myself and each of my children when they were born, that I would never raise them the way I was raised, that I would always love them for who they were and I would always let them know. I wanted a white picket fence family....I was happy for quite a long time and things were going fairly good with my Mom too, she loved her grandchildren with all her heart, she was so proud of them. I think she tried to make up for her past mistakes through them.
My marriage didn't last though, it was as if I almost expected it not too, it is almost as if I unconsciously took steps to the inevitable, to confirm my belief...that I wasn't lovable. When my youngest son was about a year and a half old I tried to commit suicide again.
I was hospitalized and treated for severe clinical depression and kept in there for almost 5 weeks. Only 2 days after I was admitted my husband filed for a divorce and custody of the children at first claiming me an un-fit mother (the same thing my father tried to claim about my mother). I have fought long and hard since then to maintain my relationships with my children. I went to counseling, took medication to get better, in my attempt to be better for their sake. I took out a student loan and went back to college in Grande Prairie. I worked part-time and drove down to Devon where we had lived, to see my children every other week-end. History all over again, although un-like my mother I had more resources and support to help. I didn't quit going to see them. I phoned them all the time, wrote to them often and ended all my letters with "I love you all so much...all the way to the Milky Way"
Now, my daughter still signs her cards to me like this and my boys in their e-mails sometimes too.

One thing I never did was say "bad things" to the kids about what their father was doing to me or what was going on in the custody hearings. We received joint custody, with my daughter residing with me and my two boys with their father. It was a very happy day for me, it wasn't over though, but it was a start. I decided to move to Rimbey so we were all closer, that was in 1998. My daughter came to live with me that summer and started grade 5 here
The effort to try to keep the closeness between my three children has been constant, reminding them of birthdays and just to call or e-mail each other. I guess they are all on facebook now, I'm glad, but I'll never check to see. I am so sorry they were separated and I am sure the day will come when I'll have to explain, but hopefully I will be ready and they will understand. My two boys are 17 and 15 now, they do live still with their Dad, but we have a good relationship, I see and talk to them regularly.

One of the saddest parts though is not about me. It is about my mother, who spent most of her adult life living in regret...angry...unapproachable and bitter for what had happened to her, she lived the life of a victim, she gave up. For the record, my mother was an epileptic, the drugs we were told she was hooked on was her medication, if she had of drank in excess or done what else we had been told about years ago it could have killed her. She re-married and divorced two more times after my father, each marriage lasting barely a year.
I contacted my father when my Mother was diagnosed with colon cancer in the late fall of 2006; they did not give her much time. I told him I was letting him know that she was dying and that I am giving him and my stepmother the choice of telling my sisters. I did not want to interfere. I thought I was doing the right thing. That was my mistake. He never told them.
My sisters were told about two months before she died by my father's brother.
When my father found out they had been told he phoned me. He accused me of telling them. I told him it was not me and he said I was lying. He did not ask me how I was...he did not ask me how his three grandchildren were...he did not say he was sorry to hear the news. The call ended quickly, I don't remember even saying good-bye and I felt very, very alone.
My mother passed away less than two years ago on March 31, 2007 at 61 years of age. I was with her at the end, my sisters were not. She was a very un-happy woman. it showed in her eyes, they were the most listless empty eyes I have ever seen. I think though, that she always lived with the hope that her two other daughters would want to see her again. She lived without them in her life for 35 years. Amongst my mother's belongings I found the two silver lockets that she had saved for my sisters all those years, she had wanted to give them to her daughters in person. I sent them in the mail along with some old pictures. They didn't even know what our Mother looked like.

My youngest sister phoned me to say thank you, she said it meant a lot to her. I never heard a word from my other sister.

My grandma also passed away two months before my mom on January 20th. She also lived without them in her life for 35 years. I truly hope they are both at peace. My maternal Grandfather is 90 years old now and has not seen his two grand-daughters for 37 years. I have three wonderful aunts and an uncle, some really great cousins who my sisters don't even know and for what?

Right now I feel that I may never speak to my father again. The funny thing is ...is that if he ever showed up on my doorstep to say he was sorry I would probably forgive him in an instant. I would love to hear him say that I did okay after all or that he was proud to have me as a daughter...I don't think I will ever hear those words.
Through the grapevine I hear he is a very unhappy man. As far as my stepmother goes I don't know her state of well being and I don't care.

My middle sister and I have spoken maybe 4 times in the last 15 years. She is 44, has divorced twice already and has two children herself. I have never met them.
My little sister is in her late 30’s has never married and never had children. I haven't seen her for over 15 years. I don't know anything about my half brother except that he is engaged.
I have lived in at least 8 different towns as an adult. About 15 towns in 45 years. I have been in both physically and mentally abusive adult relationships, but learnt to move on, pick myself up, not getting too attached to anything. I trust very few people. I have very few good friends. I cringe when I hear angry raised voices. Up until just the last few years the only thing I had strength left to battle for was my children...everyone and everything else could, for the most part disappear and it wouldn't have bothered me a bit.
It is only the last little while that the restless feeling I have for most of my life has finally started to subside, the feeling of not belonging anywhere is finally going away.
I am in a good relationship now, it's been almost 5 years. It has been a tremendous struggle for me. In some ways he is the most patient man I have ever met. He understands and has never given up on me. Even when I said it was over time and time again, he still said he loved me, he tells me if I want to leave I can, but he will always be there. He has taught me that I am not perfect but that's okay, I am still worth loving. I struggle with that, but it is getting easier. In truth, he has told me straight out that I am taking steps to destroy our relationship because it is what I expect to happen. I am protecting something I don't need to be. He is right and for telling me that, for standing by me regardless, he has taught me the meaning of real commitment.

My children and I are going to be just fine. There is no other option in my eyes. They are doing well, they are healthy, enjoy work, school and most importantly they know I love them. I tell them how proud I am of them, I tell them they are responsible for their own actions, I tell them I will always be there for them, I tell them to save their money, I tell them to be polite to all people and to say thank you for gifts. I tell them to phone their paternal grandmother and other family members just to say hello. I tell them I love them....all the way to the Milky Way. I tell them all the time...over and over. I tell them all the things I don't remember being told, in hopes of making their lives a little easier, a little better and a little happier.
 
Parental Alienation and Hostile Aggressive Parenting destroys lives...All children have the right to be loved and the right to return that love. No-one, I don’t care who they are, has the right to take that away. Times are changing, 1000's of children in our schools come from split families, 1000's of children are at risk. Children need both parents. Please take the time to find out more. For parents, grandparents and their families, take the time to listen, take the time to learn. Cases involving other third parties, the Courts, our legal system also play their part in aiding this abuse... such as the jealous stepparent... such as the Courts allowing one parent to move with a child 100's of miles away from the other parent and his or her family. Like all things there are exceptions, but in most cases, this is NOT in the best interest of the child. The resources out there like the PAAO and other agencies can help us learn how to help these children through awareness and education.

Children don't get over it, as some would like to say. They don't always grow up to see it for what it really is and even if they do, they have still been harmed in the process.
If you know some-one who has been un-justly alienated from their child or children tell them not to ever give up the fight to be a part of their lives. If you know someone who is trying to alienate their child or children, plead with them as to why it must stop. At a child's expense, it can and will backfire. I am here on behalf of my mother and grandmother, for their loss. For the two little girls they didn't see grow up, I am here for them; their minds have never really been their own.

Hello and I'd like to share my story because until last week, I'd never heard of this syndrome before. After reading all about it, it has really lifted my heart and literally released me of so much pain and life long guilt/anger. Since I am new to this, I'm not exactly sure where to go from here but I'm going to keep reading everything I can and I WILL find a way!
 
I am 41 and all of my life, I've suffered panic disorder, with the first attack at age 16. They always say to look back and identify what was going on in your life during that period. For years I said, "Awww nothing, really. Same old thing". And to me, it really did feel like it was nothing, that it was the same old thing BECAUSE it was! The only memories of my childhood I had were those of my parents fighting. My father was an alcoholic and I'd come home from school to him laying on the floor, just sobbing.  I always thought my father was one of those "mean drunks" because of the screaming that would take place between he and my mother. I alwasys remember the night my mother packed my sister and I up and we moved in with my grandparents. And the half truths, full lies, manipulations started ....
 
After we moved in with my grandparents, my mother began to tell me how she afraid my father was going to kidnap me. She forbid me to see him and after a long and painful custody case, the courts told me I had to go on Sundays. I remember sitting on the porch in complete fear as I waited for him to pick me up. My mother sat there with my grandparents, pointing out just how dangerous and sick he was. When I did start to visit him, I'll admit it, he was no saint. He drank and would sometimes put my mother down. But he also bought me things and did things with me.  I'd go home and my mother would tell me how he bought me things just to make my sister jealous. (She is my half sister and he was not her natural father, thus somehow the custody case was different).
 
And so a couple years passed. I was always told to fear him, he was told to stay away from me and everyone seemed to try to overcompensate for his desire to "see me and not my sister" by telling her how wonderful she was and giving me the message that I was a burden. My mother told me many times she wished she had had an abortion.
 
Finally, my father just stopped trying. My mother had notified the police, the shcool,all our friends, etc. She told them all my life was in danger. And so he stopped trying to be my father. Again, the years passed. I never felt like anyone's daughter. My mother would always have a health issue going on and she would volunteer at every function she could find. She worked on her own values and her own image. In a nutshell, the attention had to be on HER and only her. She would not discipline my sister when she would steal from me or beat me. She'd let my grandparents raise us, only they didn't really want that job.
 
When I was in High School, I came home one day and she and my father were in her bedroom. I was shocked and .... well, shocked! I had not seen him and had written letters to courts, the whole nine yards to avoid him and there she was in bed with him! I asked her if they were getting back together and she said "no".  It was surreal.
 
I went on to college and lived away from my family. I hated my family. I hated the fighting. I hated how nothing was ever resolved. We were suppose to forget things and move on. My panic attacks continued and my boyfriend literally took care of me. My mother would not even take me to a doctor for years while I was having them.
 
There is too much that went on during my life to document everything but it is safe to say, I was miserable. I was diagnosed with Agoraphobia and spent my life literally trying to cope.  Then 11 years ago, I was diagnosed with Multiple Sclerosis.
 
My mother drove out to "take care of me". She used my diagnosis to tell everyone and to gain sympathy for herself. I asked her many times to "not tell anyone". I was 30 and in deep shock. My life was spinning out of control and I was embarrassed. She found support groups to attend for herself and even had an affair with a married man (his wife had advanced MS) and he and my mother "supported each other". It was disgusting to me.  As I started the process of recovering from that attack and educating myself on MS, I felt nothing but anger toward her. And I resented her. Then I looked into the safety of having a child. I asked doctors and visted them (from all over the country) about whether or not I could have a child. My husband and I decided to try. I had a son, who is now age 9.
 
My mother would not speak to me during my entire pregnancy. She was upset because my husband and I had "offended her". I don't even know what we did, the bottom line is we took attention away from her and I think she resented me for it. So, no shower,nothing.  And then the baby was born and she was RIGHT THERE AGAIN.
 
She became a grandmother! She would come over for a couple of hours everyday to watch the baby while I slept. I thought it was really nice until I found out she was telling everyone what a burden it was.
 
I dont know if it was the stress of me getting MS, my family, my lack of coping skills, etc, but I was divorced when my son was 3. My mother supported my ex husband and bought him gifts, etc. Meanwhile, she was her nasty, sarcastic self with me. She tired to co-parent my son with me and tried to take full control. During one of my MS attacks, she actually told me all I do is "think about myself".
 
Four years ago, I met a wonderful and supportive man. I married him last year. I didn't let my son even meet him until I felt confident in our relation ship. I'm very protective of my son's emotional state .... maybe the guilt of having MS or the knowledge of having a bad childhood. Anyway, we are a happy family now and everyone gets along great. My son goes with his dad every weekend and he lives with me and his step dad during the week. I've been very careful not to bad mouth his dad to him, even when his dad has been rotten to me. I don't lay down and take it, but I try to handle it in a mature way that won't put my son in the middle or cause him anxiety.  Divorce is never a walk in the park for kids but it is possible (I think) for it to be handled in a way that does not traumatize the child, either. But then there is my mother ....
 
She has been making my life impossible! And the stress makes the MS feel worse. But she has told my son things like I steal from him, etc. She tells him he has dark circles under his eyes and I don't feed him well ... things like that. Things to alienate ME from HIM. I've tried to talk with her and email her and she replied back with a 3 page email that outlined everything I've "done to her" since that age of 10. My new husband thinks I should totally cut her out of our lives. My son has no other relatives (his dad has parents but they are not close). I worry about him and I need to find out if cutting HIM off from her is healthy for him or he is going to grow to resent me.
 
I hope this has helped the data or research you are doing and if you have any ideas about how grandchild fit into this whole dynamic, I'd really appreciate it. I'm lost as to what to do!
 
Thank you,
LOST

 

My Story : I am now 44 years old and I was a child of divorce. I have 4 siblings and my parents divorced when I was about 10 yrs old. I was alienated from my father in the 70's as the result of their divorce. Visits with my father tapered off from every Sunday to just holidays, and then I lost any kind of relationship I should have had with my father. I did not begin to develop a relationship with my father until after my mother passed away, 20 years later. Along with the alienation, came spiritual abuse because one parent decided to become a born again christian/catholic and the other walked away from catholicism. Each parent continually attacking the other. Although I believe that my father did not have the best parenting skills, my mother lacked the ability to do the job as a single parent. I just recently married for the first time and hopefully only time. Thanks.

My Story : first, let me say thank you.thank you for for all that your doing to help facilitate relationships between parents and their children.i'm a 37 year old man who has experienced this issue(still being affected)becouse as im writting this i,m sobbing after seeing mr baldwins interview on the view. the pain inflicted on the childern involved follows them their whole lives, my parents divorced and my mother won cusidyu of me and my newly born sister, my father had visitation ever other weekend and a month in the summers, my mother never to us childern ever made it apparent tha we wouldnt be allowed to see our father, but looking back she didnt make it anevent that was easy or pleasent for anybody concerned. and the sometimes very clever and subtle ways she influenced our ideas about our dad and his life, made her job of still trying to hurt , punnish him for the disicentergration of their marrage alot easier. and at times it wasnt subtle or clever out right condimnation of him and the choices he made. bolth remarried and things got worse, me and my sister were completly seperated by an ocean for years. it became apperant to me that this issue was what it was when i came to my mother and told her that her husband (present) had been molesting me and it had been going on for years. her responce to me was your lying your father has put you up to this to get cusdutity your you kids. i coulnt belive my ears their i was coming to my mother and comming clean but what had been happing to right undre her nose, and it was about her and the fight with my father not that her child had been taken advantage of and that her daughter (6 now) could possible be in danger. back to court we go will this endless nightmare push pull manupliate, decive, ever end/ as a childit hurts confusses, and tears at their soul, and the lessons it teachs are not the oned childern should ever have to learn especial at the hands of their parents, or the courts a place tht we are taught to a good and safe and fair place, come to find out all they are is a tool used by who ever can afford to hire lawers who will ensure angry people can drag things out lng enough to completly destroy lives of all concerned, i never got to really know my fater, he has passed way1991, and the time we did have ws spent trying to undue dammage done for years, there was a breif period of time ( a year or so befor his passing that we started to finialy connect and he was gone. thru years of all kinds of self abuse and therpy and spirtual joury, ive been able to confront my mother about the actual truth that i could now understand and on some level forgive her, (SHE DID WHAT SHE HAD TO FOR HER AT THAT TIME REGARDLESS ) , for myself i had to clear the air so i could somehow move on with my life. I KNOW ALL CASES ARE INDIVIDUAL, AND CIRCUMSTANCES DIFFER, BUT THE PAIN FOR THE PEOPLE INVOLVED EATS AT YOU FOR THE REST OF YOUR LIFE, AND THAT I'M SURE IS THE SAME WHETHER YOUR THE PARENT OR CHILD. so i would like to offer my story to you and all who will listen, you can use this for anypourpose you see fit to help the childern and the parents alienated, i'm willing to speak and tell my storyto any media or legal venue that might furture help the lives of people concerned, thank you once again,

My Story : I am an adult survivor of childhood parental alienation. My parents were not divorced, but together about 45 years until my mother died almost ten years ago. Their marriage for my whole life was not good. My mother yelled shrilly at my father nearly every day, and cut him down verbally. My father would explode or belittle her. Sometimes people would yell and be physical with each other. Sometimes my father would be away for weeks. It was like living in an emotional war-zone. I realize now that both parents loved me as a child and did the best they could, and that parenting is tough and comes with no manual. I also realize that my parents overcame a lot in their lives, and that I'd be hard-pressed to be as good or a better parent as they were to me. Still, it has, and still is, taken and taking years for me to sort this out. I realized 20 years ago or more that my parents should have divorced. I was angry with my father for the things my mother told me that he did to her and how he neglected us. When I was twelve or so I remember him saying to my mother that she was 'turning' me 'against' him. At the time I couldn't even comprehend what he was saying. I didn't think there was anything to even be against. I thought and believed that my father was absolutely wrong, my mother was absolutely right, and that we shared victim-hood: she surviving emotional, verbal and physical abuse, and neglect, and me just being neglected by him emotionally. My father was loyal and provided well for me, and put a lot of pressure on me. I'm trying hard now to realize that this is how he could show me love. He even said he loved me, and after picking on me, he would hug me. He enjoys reconciling. It was hard to accept then and I didn't. And I'm trying to be powerful enough to accept his love now. I am lucky he is still alive to experience this. By the time I graduated high school I became very angry with my mother for sharing so many of her personal problems with me regarding my father. I didn't need to hear those things as a youngster. It was a lot to handle. She said that she was in fear of my father and wanted to move far away, to Alaska. I had nightmares about living in an igloo! In retrospect, she should have shared her feelings and thoughts with adults, like friends, relatives, a therapist. She did see a therapist for a while, and felt 'cured' and grateful to him. She sent me to see him, too. That's weird. She and he should have found a different therapist. Even though she was supposed to be cured, she'd sometimes see him after I saw him. It made me feel weird and insecure in the waiting room. Then I became mad at my father for not trying to be closer to me. If he saw that my mother was turning me against him, why didn't he spend more time with me? Why not be interested in my life, my friends, what I'm learning... Why not offer listening or advice, rather than pressure? For many years, I had no plans to marry and even fewer to have children. I was addicted to drugs and sex, and used women like booze. I'm sober after 15 years of daily use. Now I'm in my forties, and am trying to make a relationship work. It is a lot for us. I know I'm not easy and I have trust issues, and I realize that I'd be far from a 'perfect parent.' I'm also trying out a new field, something creative. I had some bad experiences at jobs in the past, feeling like a victim, and then being victimized. I'm trying to get beyond right and wrong. That victims are always right. I'm trying to get to relating to people in a sustained way that emphasizes getting along and cooperating fairly, and getting beyond winning and losing. I'm trying to be powerful and realize that love is about work and communication and listening and investing and will. I'm trying to be strong enough to love and be loved by my father without feeling insulted or violated or dis-empowered.

For years I told my friends that my mother was dead, but Of course she was very much alive. Convinced by what my father and his wife had told me I was estrange from her."Your mother's illness makes her crazy and if youʼre not careful you'll grow up just like her". I was 11 years old.

My mother never gave up and for years she sent cards, letter and even gifts. After my father gave us over to foster care his control over me diminished and I wanted to reach out to my mother.

I finally called her and it felt as though a short time had passed since we spoken. Although the call was short meany would follow. Our last conversation before she died was in August of 1998 and ended as the first one began, "I love you".

 

Never let go, they need you.

Name : L
 
My Story : I guess my story started about 12 years ago when my parents first seperated. I was 11 years old and my dad moved out for the first time I remember resenting my dad somewhat because he was leaving and I felt like he had problems and needed to be away from us. I remember wanting my parents to get a divorce so that the fighting would stop. Through the first years my mom took me to counslers, many different counslers and she would often participate in the sessions, my dad was never allowed to participate in the sessions, even though his health insurance paid for it. I started to resent my mom because I was not allowed to have my own person to talk to, all the counslers were very open about my sessions with my mom even when she was not there. during the next 4 years I stopped eating, I was diagnosed with anorexia and only stopped because my mom was so sad and I wanted her to be happy. I guess thats when it started, everytime I would spend time with my dad, my mom would say somthing to make me feel guilty for spending time with him. Also right before I left she would tell me somthing else about the divorce like someone he alledgedly cheated on her with or a lie he told. So the whole time I was with my dad I would wonder "is he lying about this, what else did he do to my mom" I began to resent him even more, added to this my counslers began telling me that my dad was a bad person and the depression and anxiety I was feeling was a result of my realization that my father was not a good man, or someone I should spend time with. I began to see my dad less and less, and unknown to me at the time my mom began writing "annonymous" letters to my dads co-workers also disclosing to them things he had done and how she felt he was a danger to children and women. As I began to recover from anorexia I began to suffer from extreme panic attacks, I refused to leave the house for fear of one, and was in desperate need of medication, however i was only 16 so I could not get it on my own. Looking back on it now this is what saved my relationship with my father. I rarely saw my father because my mothers letters to his coworkers had forced him to move 2 hours away and my mom said that he was causing my panic attacks, and that I could not get medication for them because they were my dads fault and all in my head and if I took medication for the easy way out I was allowing him to have the easy way out of his responsibility. In other words if I stopped having panic attacks he would not longer feel guilty about what he had done. However after 6 years of hearing negative things about my dad I began to get over my anger and realize that my mom was brainwashing me. I knew my panic attacks were not my dads fault and all I wanted was some relief. I began failing my classes at school adn losing my friends because I refused to leave the house, but my mom still refused to sign for my medication. It was terrible I wasn't seeing my dad I wasn't leaving the house I was depressed I didn't even care what my dad did anymore I just wanted a parent who could help me. I got the medication when i turned 18 and became a completely different person, I moved 3000 miles away for school and made new friends and felt wonderful, however I still had a strained relationship with my dad. I began working hard to spend time with my dad and his side of the family however every time I would visit them or my dad would visit me I would be harassed with phone calls from my mother yelling at me for betraying her and taking sides and talking about her behind her back. Fortunately my relationship with my dad is much improved now, however I am still constantly attacked by my mother, I have had to live with her for the past year because of finnacial reasons, and I am moving out in 5 months but even now 12 years later I am forced to deal with her hatred towards my father, to the point where my mother has said she will not attend my wedding if my father is there. Its one of the most upseting things in my life, and constantly sends me back into depression when I have to deal with it. It has gottent to the point where my mothers alienation of my father has had the opposite effect, I don't want to be around my mom or her anger anymore and should I get married or have kids one day I don't want that anger around them. It is my own decission about my relationship with my father and whether or not I want one, no one should be forced to choose one parent over the other, it not only hurts the other parent it hurts the child or children involved, more than anyone would know

My Story : My parents separated when I was about 4. When the exact time of divorce happened is irrelevant. I lived in a trailer on my paternal grandmother's land with my father and my brother. My mother left my father, and possessions were all my father's, so she left with very little. This is where my story is different from most. It was not my mother, but my father, who was awarded custody. It's painful to think of, not just because of my own grief, but because of my mother's that I never knew she had. After my mother left, there was a huge war with her and my father's family. Mostly told by my grandmother, but supported by my father, we were told that our mother gave us up. She didn't want us. That she never fought for us, and if she loved us, she would have. I was told this for so long, and I believed it because I knew of nothing else. When my mother left, she didn't leave my father, she left us, too--that's what we were told. After an abusive relationship my father had, we "escaped" to FL. I was relieved to see my grandmother, because she put herself in a position where she was my mother figure. We were never told anything positive about my mother, ever, aside from the fact that she was "book smart." We weren't encouraged to speak to her, write to her, see her, or talk about her. We were told she could fly everywhere but never see us, and that she never paid child support. That my father (really my grandmother) supported us entirely because they wanted us and loved us. I would get angry at my mother for things that they told me, and I never gave her a chance to explain anything. Even if she did, I wouldn't have believed her. Over the years, it got intensively worse. My father was in jail (outstanding warrant), and my grandmother blamed this on my mother. It was her fault he was there and now she was going to take us away. She instilled fear in me. My brother was always more easy-going while I was always more fervent in my beliefs that my mother didn't really love me...want me...or anything. It hurts to this day that I have been so robbed of knowing my mother, and what she is like. The melting point was when I was sixteen and I attempt suicide. I was depressed because my father was in an abusive relationship and a drug addict, and because I didn't have a mother who wanted me. It was the most depressing time for me, to think neither of my parents wanted me. My grandmother fed onto this, affirming me that she did love me, even if no one else did. She was too constricting (even my therapist was disturbed by things I told him), so much so that I wanted to take my chances with my mother, despite what a horrible person I "perceived" her to be. We had many difficult times, and she wanted to give me space, which I saw as her not caring. It took us years to work through problems we have had, and to see what was done to me. But when I left, I left my brother, too. I later learned that my mother was cited for abandonment a few weeks after the separation--as which time my father said he needed space, and she relented. I also discovered my mother did want us, she did go to court, and she did fight for us. She, however, wasn't in the situation my father was because my grandmother afforded him a lawyer. She just represented herself because that was all she could do. Being told things are very different than reading court documents. Looking back on it, my mother did a lot of things for me that I couldn't notice. She sent us boxes full of things, letters, always holiday and birthday cards, and her big motto through it all was "things are never what they seem." And they weren't. I was always made to choose by my father's side. Between my father or my mother. Since then, I was seen as a betrayer and getting in contact with my brother is difficult. They are afraid I will poison his mind. I am very much in a similar position as my mother was (and still is) when it comes to him. It is so bad that when I called my grandmother to tell her of my engagement, she refuses to attend my wedding because my mother would be there, and that there was little chance my father OR brother would be. Her hatred for my mother far outweighs her love for me. I realize life will always be like this with them...they will always split me in two when I want to be just one. Some people can't see past their own pain or hang-ups, and feel the need to punish the other partner through their kids--and inadvertently punish their own children.

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My Story : I am now a twenty six year old woman, and I just found this site over the previous evening. I have not yet gone to bed and the sun has long since risen. There were so many times where I gasped and dropped my jaw. I never realized how severely emotionally exploited and abused I really was. As a child, I always secretly hated my mother, but always felt deeply guilty for not loving her, because I felt she was always "sacrificing" everything for me. She would call me selfish, slap me, throw things, scream, bare her teeth, tear the glasses off my face and tell me "why don't you go live with your father?" MY WHOLE LIFE. Then I would start crying because of what she said, and she would yell at me for crying, and say that I was the one "showing" her I didn't wanna live there. I finally stood up to that when I was sixteen. I said, "Do you know how much that hurts me, mom?" That was one of the last times she said it, but her behavior otherwise absolutely did not change. Little did I realize that my mother was doing everything in her power to hurt me and manipulate me, separate me from my Dad, who loved me very very much. She would scream at me for even smiling about going to see my father. Sometimes she would even smile when telling me that I could not hang out with my friends when I was in high school. I wanted to have a job as a teenager, but she would not allow it. I made a bunch of money babysitting, and one time she just took it from me, and acted really mean when I objected. As if it was hers anyway. We became deeply involved with an exclusive religious organization that prevented my father from buying me presents for my birthday or christmas, or celebrating anything with him. My father just told me recently that when I was little, that my mother gave my school specific instructions to never come visit me at school or release any information to him about how I was doing. I NEVER KNEW THIS! I was always led to believe that my father was just a deadbeat and didn't really love me. My youth was very painful, confusing, LONELY. After I got past a certain age, I sensed that my dad sort of gave up emotionally, and got remarried when I was about 13. He just didn't know how to talk to me, I was so poisoned against him. In defense of my mom, ALL the women on my mother's side of the family are NOTORIOUS for child neglect, and allowing abuse of all kinds. My dad was only dating my mom for a couple months before she became pregnant with me, and it was not too fun from then on. He did not want to continue the relationship with my mom, but had very much fallen in love with his baby daughter. I don't think my mom ever got over that rejection. She continued on an emotional downward spiral from there, having more children from subsequent relationships. We stayed over at countless babysitter's, one instance where I was sexually abused for several months. I told my mother about it, and she never said a word to comfort me. I was nine years old at the time, and never received any counseling until I RAN AWAY to college! I put myself in therapy. I was so lonely then, in emotional agony. I felt so deceived, but just did not know BY WHOM at that time. I felt no trust for any of the adults in my life up to that point. I have loan debt, but no amount of money was worth my sanity at that point. I believe that I received most of my mother's disdain out of all the children, because my father really did want me I think. So I was severely cut off from him. The relationship between my mother and I is a lot better now, mostly because I don't live in the same state anymore and she never visits me, except for when I got married. Sadly, my daddy didn't get invited to the wedding because I thought he was this awful person. That really really hurt his feelings. But we talked about it, and he forgives me, because he just wants his daughter back. So I have more control over when I have to deal with her unpredictable, spiteful moods and jealousy. I just don't have any idea if she's REALLY being kind to me, or just manipulating, or doing it for show? I know my mom loves me but she has hurt me so so much and to this day does not really grasp what she has put her children through. Just kind of rather pretend all that stuff "wasn't that bad". I have confronted my mom on MANY occasions about how I feel, and she just ends up screaming at me and trying to make me feel guilty by crying. Of course as an adult, I'm not so easily manipulated. But people have different ways of coping I guess. I just rather be open and sincerely try to communicate my feelings to anyone who shows real love for me, like my dear, dear wonderful husband, my dad, my loving little sister, my brothers, my best friends...the list goes on. I am STRONG and now I know that I ALWAYS WAS, no matter how weak the emotional abuser made me FEEL. Otherwise how could I endure so much stress from birth???

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.

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?

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.

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"~

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.

 

 

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.

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. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------

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!

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.

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.

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
will continue to repeat itself.

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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