Parental Alienation: A War of Words
Parental Alienation is almost similar to the movie War of the Worlds except the concept seems to portray the title War of the Words. Does one child ever fully recover from the words used to bring hate and anger? Can they move past the destruction, false memories, betrayal, and systematic behavior? The alienating parent has destroyed any belief of having a mentally healthy child. The AP will not realize because in most cases they have a mental issues themselves.
A child goes through strong emotions and deals with the circumstances in various ways. A number of adolescents rebel and act out in vicious behavior while others silently suppress the issues. A parent’s first reaction is to “explain” who they really are to the child. During this time the child is trying to put pieces together of fact from fiction.
The interaction with a child/parent becomes a war of words. The parent defending their actions and bringing truth while the child has trouble understanding the factors between the parents. There is a war of words between the parents, children, and extended family.
The tool used in alienation is words and the speech patterns that impose fear into the children. Children receive praise for bad behavior towards the targeted parent. Some family units allow the children to do whatever they want so they don’t want visit or live with TP because there is rules.
The dysfunctional thinking process that the parent has influences the child to believe their side of the story. The time comes when the child’s thinking process is paralyzed and they feed off the alienating parent’s emotion. Mom/Dad is mad at me if I spend time with the other parent. Children feel the emotion and look for reactions so they know how to react.
The family unit then gets introduced to the judicial system. The targeted parent goes in thinking that they will receive justice. It is then that the war of words starts in the courtroom and we realize that there is no justice. It is an emotion that leads to losing all hope, for example if we watched a family member get murdered in front of us and we watched them get away with it and receive no punishment. This is the feeling many parents walk out of court feeling… baffled.
The war of the words damage many people but in the end the children suffer.
I think you are right. The alienating parent think they are a paragon of virtue. It seems everything they think of do for children is in the best interest. But because they are so mentally and emotionally ill, they are not the best judge of their own character.
I think that is why they HATE psychological exams and the MMPI. They can lie to your face, but their own answers on test reveal they protect their own thoughts and actions on the test and it shows. Their own dishonesty condemns them.
Thank you Chrissy for sharing your experience so candidly. I wanted to ask you if you could give advice to a mother who is being alienated from her daughter what would it be? You mnetioned being “punished for not playing by the rules. If your mom had pushed her way into your life ould it have made things hard for you or would you have felt more valued? I value you opinion because it comes from someone who has been where my daughter is now. As a mother who was alienated I can say to that mommies love their daughters and their heart breaks when they are denied access to them. It is not your fault and mommies know that too
Stand in your healing and conrtinue to speak the truth, you are valuable and of great worth to God!