Wednesday, February 17, 2010

Dealing with Alienation and Keeping your Sanity

I was sitting in the waiting room of my doctor's office reading an article is some magazine that I normally would not have been reading. An article caught my eye in which the author was making the observation that the half dozen men he was writing about in the article - all very successful - shared one common characteristic: none were cynical. Being an occasional cynic myself, this troubled me. Then I began to think of all of the Parental Alienated parents with whom I have known for all of these years, and it occurred to me that those who somehow found success in the mine field of parental alienation in fact did not appear to be cynical. Maybe this guy was right. Then I thought about how difficult it would be to not become cynical after being told that you are hated by your children, that you must pay for all sorts of services that never seem to make things better, and that the people who are charged with finding the truth and acting in the best interest of (your) children do not really seem to be acting that way at all.

Related to this, I recently spoke with a father who had clearly been the target of parental alienation. He had three children, all of whom have become alienated from the mild to the moderate to the severe levels. His eyes were wide open to the fact that those appointed by the court seemed to get what was going on, but would not step up and do what was necessary to fix it. He approached this like a problem to be solved more than the overwhelming and even hopeless tidal wave that it can so easily and often feel like. He somehow never became cynical about it. At any rate, when I spoke with him on the phone I asked him how things were going, and he replied that it was both good and bad. He had good days with his kids and bad days with them. As an example, he pointed out that as I was speaking with him at that moment that he was standing in a lift line with his children and that they were skiing. By contrast, he pointed out that one of these same children had called the police on him the week before. He said that, "its good today," so I am thankful of that. He added, "last week was last week'" and laughed.

I had an anthropology professor in graduate school who had lived for many years with pre-literate peoples, in New Guinea as well as in the Arctic. In both of these cultures, life was very tough and tragedy was potentially close at hand at any moment. One of the things this professor would lecture and write about was the remarkable world view and philosophy of these people in these very difficult situations. They knew from their earliest moments that life was not fair and that bad things very often do happen to good people, and that this is just the way it was. I am not sure why that seems significant here, but it does. I guess cynicism results from feeling victimized. From what I recall from my professor, these primitive peoples who lived in these harsh and difficult environments never seemed to feel that way. It is just the way that life worked...they would say.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

It is so mentally draining to deal with this. My first marriage ended in the early 90's. I spent a great deal of time, effort and energy in maintaining my contact with my child. I went as far changing my career anytime the mother would move, I would take a job in the area where they moved to. In doing so I knew that the mother would attempt to continue with her behavior of trying to alienate my child. When my little girl was 2 years old, I was forced to take action in the courts by asking that the mother be held in contempt for denying visitation. She replied a day after receiving notice o fthe hearing with an accusation that I had been inappropriate with my daughter. The ensuing investigation cleared me of any wrong doing. What will forever stick out from that incident was my little girl voluntarily told the interviewer "...but my mommy does say alot of bad things about my daddy." That ended the investigation and I continued my battle for visitation.

My child also said at that time that any time she would cry for me while she was with her mom, her mom would lock her in a closet until she stopped crying for me.
My child was living in Salt Lake City in the mid to late 90's. When her mother informed her that they would be moving to California, she told her that they were moving so that she coudl be closer to her dad. When my child realized that was not true, she was upset for two weeks and cried every day. I know this because the teacher told me this is what was happening at school.

Fast forward to today, my child is now 17 and has been completely poisoned against me.

I remarried 12 years later and had a child from that marriage. Subsequently, that marriage ended and the first ex-wife made a point to try and assist the 2nd ex-wife in her smear campaign against me. After 5 years, I finally was awarded sole custody of my little girl but my older daughter wants nothing to do with me. The second ex-wife is allowed supervised visits twice a week.

The 2nd ex-wife began a smear campaign against me by posting content on public social networks and I have filed for a civil harassment restraining order against her and her husband. The first ex-wife continues to siphon false information to the 2nd ex-wife and she then sits back and watches the turmoil she causes.

What else can a person do to fight this? I am hoping that the RO is granted against the ex-wife which should be a good start.

Ron said...

I have three adult children who suffer from severe PAS. I notice that Doctor Bone says that veterans of war are not experts on war, but I can tell you one thing I am an expert on, and it doesn't take much higher level education. I know when a former wife who is a nurse at a VA Hospital has taken the time to use the anger I expressed against me when I came home from combat. If you haven't been there then I don't see how anyone else can understand it. What I have never understood is that I did my best after I came home, but recovering bodies and identifying them can have a terrible affect on ones soul. What I do understand is that a wife can go one of two ways and mine decided that I should not get to see my kids at all. It has pretty much worked out that way for the last twenty years. My daughter hardly knows me, and has told me to leave her alone. My oldest son is pretty much the same way. My middle son tried to make contact with me and wanted me to be a part of his daughters life and when my former spouse found out she used her money, and lured him into working for his stepfather and then has told him how to live his life since then. That included not letting me see my grandaughter. There are no answers as far as I am concerned.
By the way I have never been in court in my life, never been in any trouble, and raised two step children who dearly love me. There are no answers except then your time is up on this earth, then I guess one won't have to worry anymore and be in constant emotional pain.