About
The purpose of Parental Alienation Hurts (parentalalienationhurts.com) is to raise awareness and educate the general public and professionals about Parental Alienation, Parental Alienation Syndrome, and Related issues involving our children and families. Parental Alienation Hurts is organized under Write to Parent, Inc. whose purpose is to educate and encourage the public to respect and protect parental rights.
The principal author of this site is Chrissy Chrzanowski. Her bio is included below:
My name is Chrissy Chrzanowski. I was an alienated child. Today, I am a mother of two children; ages 16, and 13. I currently reside in Michigan. I currently am starting a new organization called Parental Alienation Hurts.
The response to my public stance has been staggering. Recently, I read a statistic that said more than 25 million children have been affected by Parental Alienation; yet, there are only a handful of us speaking out. Not many people can believe the amount of shame and guilt that keeps us silent. I am hoping that if I find the courage to speak out and to get involved, that many more children, teenagers, and young adults can find the support they need to vent their anger and to heal their emotional wounds.
The games some parents play on a child’s heart is emotionally crippling and I know this is true by experience. The only way for me to describe it is to say that we become pieces on a chessboard that a parent keeps moving as if we’re the pawns on the chessboard, but we never hear the words “checkmate” because we don’t even know we are part of this game and no one else speaks out about the truth of what’s going on. As a child, I was used as a weapon, to cast revenge upon my mother, a parent my father taught me was my enemy, my brother’s enemy and his enemy. I became one with his mind and his emotions until I finally thought what he thought, felt what he felt, and hated like he hated.
This is an ultimate betrayal to a child because we become warped in our mind, but we don’t know it as we know nothing else. What’s worse is that it carries into adulthood and lingers like a dark cloud. It crushes the internal spirit of trusting and innocent children and infuses them with hate and enraged anger toward the victim parent.
We don’t want this. We don’t want any of it. We never wanted it to be true. But, our survival depended on believing it. And it crushed our hearts and filled us with guilt.
It’s a punishment we don’t deserve, but we can’t escape. I was made to believe my father was the victim. He was the wounded one. It was all about him and I felt guilty for having any needs at all. I was conditioned to think of him as the hurt parent, one who would claim to committing suicide. If he did, I knew it would be my fault. And I believed the reason I had the responsibility was because my mother failed.
It is just not fair. No child should be put through this.
But, we don’t know any other way.
Eventually, I was thrown to the curb by my father when I was no longer needed or when I got too expensive to keep and yet, my brothers have never escaped. Now, I’m sure they believe the same things about me that we were taught about my mother. I have not seen my brothers since I ran away from home to create my own family, to escape the prison I was in, by marrying at a very young age — seventeen years ago. I miss my brothers and I pray every day that there is a way we can be reunited and for all of us to heal.
My case is considered “severe” and there were years of alienation before the split of my parents. Because of this, I can understand various situations through the child’s eyes ~ Because I walked in their shoes.
I hope to help create ways to pave the path for them to follow: safely, confidently, and wholly. I hope to help alienated parents understand the children they are separated from to help them understand what the children feel, but cannot say, or they, too, will be punished and rejected. I hope to help illuminate what has been kept hidden and silent, just as physical abuse was kept hidden and silent two decades ago until a few people had the courage to speak out, so that all the others could know, they are not alone.
There is hope. There is a true desire within these children to heal, to reconnect, but they are just so afraid we have a hard time believing it can really be possible. I want to help them know it IS possible. I hope I can help alienated parents be patient and to provide ways for the children to have the time and space and safety they need to be able to release all the pent up wounds they’ve suffered for so long.
I am ready and willing to help serve these children and to help heal the wounds
of Emotional Abuse caused by the tactics and behaviors of parental alienation.
Sincerely,
Chrissy M.Chrzanowski
Hi Chrissy,
How is your website doing? I have an alienation situation in my life and am looking for an organization to be involeved in.
Bob Dillinger
Great site and work chrissy,id like to get your site on our save our kids parental alienation foundation monster jeep before the d.c. rally-let me know with a email and ill put your link on to for other parents-take care kenny-www.fatherwithoutchristmas.com
My Group is called Concerned Parents about DCF,
Parents Investigatijng DCF-
If you or a loved one has been falsely accused or wronged by DCF/CPS or the court system, please contact us for information, guidance and information before doing anything, they could seroiusly hurt your family as they have done to mine.
WE are holding meeting in CT. We can give the “Parents guide to the SYSTEM”.
Do not let the strangers in your house. email: ctparent@gmail.com
Thankyou Chrissy.
I’m sending this important notice for : SAVE OUR KIDS FIRST
Invites You to Attend Our Annual, CANDLE LIGHT VIGIL,
On the North Steps of the State Capitol- Hartford, CT.
For Parent Alienation DAY,
Proclaimed by 15 Governors.
From: 7:00pm- 9:00pm. refreshments and candles provided.
For more info contact: Ken Krajewski at 860-881-6311 or John DiBiase at 203-464-8242 saveourkidsfirst@aol.com
SAVE OUR KIDS FIRST, Invites You to Attend our Annual
CANDLE LIGHT VIGIL
SAT. APRIL 25, 2009 7:00PM – 9:00pm
on the north steps of the State CAPITOL- Hartford,CT.
For Parental Alienation Awareness DAY
For more information contact Ken Krajewski at 860-881-6311
saveourkidsfirst@aol.com
Parental Alienation is alive and thriving in the UK.
My Ex of over 20 years and I divorced in 2006 after she left me for another man. We have 4 children, all teenagers.
I moved to Australia to start a new life and remarried in 2008. Life is great.
However, when I first moved to Australia, the kids were naturally upset but pleased for me. They wanted to see me heal. We spoke every day on Skype and we planned to spend 6 weeks a year together in either the UK or Australia.
Since then, things have gradually deteriorated to the extent where they now refuse to see me or speak to me. Strange thing is, I have done nothing wrong!
My parents, sisters and all of her relatives are similarly “alienated”. However, I am the father. Why should they NOT want to be with me or speak to me? The answer is PA. Her and her partner have subliminally destroyed me in the eyes of my kids. They can’t even tell me why they don’t want to see me. I’m devastated. I have not stopped loving them. My “crime” appears to have been getting remarried and having fought my Ex through the courts over the divorce settlement. She has shown details of the court case to my kids and used this to show how “mean” I was being to her and my family.
There is a lot more I can say and will say but I just wanted you to know that I fully support what you are doing and its reassuring to know that you are not the only victim. I’m right with you.
Hi Chrissy! I am a scarred mother over parental alienation. My ex moved my oldest daughter (now 19) out of CA to Iowa and literally “brainwashed” her into thinking it was ME that chose to be out of her life. We were not allowed any contact with each-other due to the step mom & dad. They lied about me. They scarred my little girl. Now she is bitter & angry at me. I recently called her & we exchanged emails. We talk on the phone once or twice a month. But she sounds like her dad. She accuses me of walking out. She says she can’t trust me and she says she wants to “forgive me but doesn’t know how”. I am quite baffled by her statements. I get upset because she doesn’t know the truth. When I try to explain – she gets mad at me. I walk on egg shells with her to avoid losing her for another 15 years. I pray and I want to have patience. I live in Florida now with my hubby and our 4 little kids. My life is great. I want Koreen to be a part of my life now. She was raised away from me and she doesn’t know me. She calls me Donna – not mom. She says her step mom is her “real mom” Even though this hurts, I need help. I don’t ask for help but I’ve never been through this before. Please help me, guide me, show me what to do. She hurts mentally and thinks I caused it all when her dad moved her away from me. All those years I cried and wrote letters but wasn’t allowed contact. I love hearing her voice but she is so angry, bitter, not trusting of me. Am I wasting my time???? I love her too much to just let her go completely. HELP
Chrissy,
I’m amazed that you found your way out of the lies.
I am the mother of six children and they hate the ground I walk on.
I wish there was something I could do. They are actually adults now and nothing has changed. Some of them even know that they made horrible, false reports against me, and still they can not wake up enough to even speak to me. It is as though I am a dead person walking. I loved and still love my children.
It is amazing…
Hi Chrissy! Thank you for your work–writing from Texas. I am adding your link to my page. I am glad to find others bringing PAS to the forefront.
Would you be interested in reviewing my new book? Your site looks great!
Janet Arango, you express the sentiment as I experience it, amazement! It is amazing that a child who has received love, support, kindness, can turn on their benefactor with a hatred that is so deep it is unfathomable. You can only believe it because it is true, and you keep testing it to make sure that it is true.
I’ve never observed a good alienating parent, yet they’re so good at alienating. Like you said about Chrissy, it is amazing she got through it, but she did not say that she was reconciled with her mother. From what I can see, the alienated parent becomes repugnant to the child, in the same way as animals desire or reject something, when they’ve been subjected to a conditioned response.
In Pavlov’s theory, ringing a bell when a dog receives food, caused the dog to have the same experience when the bell rang without food, as when food was present.
I wonder if anything, except an act of God, can overcome it. I am not aware of an alienated child having a good relationship with the parent they were alienated from.
Please let me know of any cases of successful reconciliation, and that doesn’t include “playing nice.” I’m talking about loving, freely interactive, spontaneous relationships.
Hargrove, I don’t know of successful reconciliation, but I do, personally, know a father & daughter (my husband & stepdaughter) who survived alienation attempts throughout her childhood. I’m thinking it was just a lucky confluence, though, of:
1) a father who patiently continued to love his daughter, fight for time with her (where he simply was a good, kind father which rebutted mom’s stories to the contrary) and never ‘fought back’ on her level, always respected his daughter’s relationship with her mother, no matter how messed up mom’s attitude was towards him.
2) a child who was strong, intelligent, resourceful & loving
3) a mother who wasn’t quite crafty enough to win at the manipulation game
The victim, in the end, was mom & daughter’s relationship, unfortunately. I’m still hoping that they figure out a way to repair that some day.
I was a child of parental alienation. Unfortunately, when I eagerly sought out my father, he lived up to every negative perception that was cast on him. I tried from ages 18-33 to have a consistent relationship with him but it has not worked. I am one of eleven children he sired and has a broken relationship with all of us in which he puts forth no effort to repair. He even married a woman with five children and has been of no more support to them than he has to his bio children. This man is broken sadly. If when I found him, he was in better shape and made a genuine effort to bond w/ me, I would have clung to him and been able to leave my man-hating, manipulating, abusive mother. Just this year w/ the help of counsel and some deep soul searching I have decided that I must release him; I owe him nothing. I have tried and I am no longer obligated to keep reaching out to someone who is only a taker and emotional vampire. Now I am married w/ two boys. We have a daughter that lives w/ her bio mom and stepfather and we have not seen her for six years. This too is a severe case of alienation. And it’s also intergenerational. Her mother and grandmother were also alienated from their bio fathers. We have been through the courts, tried “playing” by the mother’s rules, going through family members…any and everyone that we thought could and would help us just to maintain contact w/ our daughter. And we have been crushed by this. I feel like it’s a nightmare that I can’t wake up from. We are currently in therapy, marital and individual sessions are required for us. We have come to understand that when you have a severe case of alienation on your hands that you MUST find creative ways to show your love and support to your child. Even if means that the child may not see it right then and there. One MUST take very good care of themselves so when your child finds you, they will find more than just years of broken and bitterness. This type of parenting is called CULT PARENTHOOD. One way I find relief is to read and research as much material as I can realistically withstand. This September we tried once again to make contact with her. We left a card w/ pics in it at her school. She called us immediately after leaving school that day. It was surreal and a short conversation but she finally called. Since then, she and her father exchanged phone numbers and have been texting messages here and there. It’s more than we’ve had for so long. She did express to her father that she desires to see us. BUT we can not overlook the facts. That she lives w/ her bio mom and her mother’s family all support the mother’s decision to keep my husband at bay. They have made up in their minds that it’s my husband who chooses to stay away. The reality is he refuses to allow his daughter to be used to carry out the mother’s endless vindictiveness. Our daughter has been programmed just like an animal of the wild. She wants to see my husband destroyed by this situation…but that’s not an option. We have maintained our silence w/ anyone on that side except w/ our daughter. And we must face the sad reality that she may be very damaged when we finally reunite w/ her. Her and father, at least, will need to enter counseling. PA is CHILD ABUSE. And it’s so rampant that women (and to also state that women are alienated too not just men) often brag about the fact that they are the ones “who allow” the father to see the children. Parents that do this are sick. Mentally ill. They consider themselves the “savior” parent or superior parent who can make and break the rules as they see fit. And for alot of them there is no rehabilitation. Remember, this is usually intergenerational. So they have a whole support system to back up their belief that they are protecting these children from the bad parent. My husband is my hero. He has a great relationship w/ our boys and it helps him to overcome so much of the hurt and guilt. Our daughter has no choice (or at least she feels) but to stick w/ her bio mom. They have made her financially dependent on them and have tried to sever all ties to her father. We have nothing to say to them…ever. I pray that one day our daughter realize how she was manipulated but I know the devastation that comes w/ realizing that you were used to carry your parent’s hatred and bitterness for the other parent. Right now, my mother is still in denial and believes she was the victim. She is bitter and sad and so far in denial that there is no rehabilitating her either. I’m in therapy for me and my children because when I realize how dysfunctional both my parents were and still are, I know that it’s nothing short of a miracle that I survived this. I refuse to pass this curse onto my children. My mother kept me from my father yet she abused me on a daily basis and allowed me to be abused by others. My bio father is so engulfed in himself that there’s no rehabilitating him either. I am having to reach out find both mother and father role models that I can give that love to. Alienating children do want to know the other half of their families. And they will seek the truth. My children deserve both their parents; it’s THEIR right not mine. I pray that my husband and I grow old together BUT if not, he’s still their DAD not mine and they have every right to have complete access to him anytime they so desire. The best thing I could do for them in that situation is support everyone involved and make sure I am building a loving and long lasting relationship w/ them so they too can become loving parents one day if they desire to. NEVER GIVE UP ON YOUR CHILDREN!