When Instinct Isn't Enough: Navigating Parental Alienation for Parents and Clinicians 

As a parent and professional found this extremely helpful.

In the 90s in a small town of Soldotna Alaska is when I am the childrens father began our divorce and custody battles that eventually became 8 volumns full in what our adult children and others who got themselves involved would call it a high conflict court battle. Truth is absolutely what is said in this video. I the mother was at home as caregiver if five children and a great mother and wife. I even received an "A" in child development and had 5 children in every child development stage. Their father owned and operated a heavy equipment construction business and was often working out of town. When he came home the abuse was bad. But very deep and analytical is the red flags that were flaring up for me was something like you would see in the stolkhome syndrome or a cult style family system. He started when my children were very young in which he minimized me constantly in front of them. He mocked me and laughed at me. He made me the blunt of his jokes and plaid crazy games that questioned my own reality in which I could go into detail. Eventually I started what was is called REACTIVE ABUSE. Example is we go out and I had a dress on. He lifted up my dress showing everyone my bare bottom. He was very disrespectful to me. Upon arriving home I laid into him and that part of the story is what he has endlessly told my children about me. One more example is something that horrified me and was the last straw. I came home from a night class early and he didn't hear me. I heard him talking to someone about me accusing I was screwing some young man at the college in which he did from the day I met him. Every male friend I had. So I walk into the kitchen and I was shocked. He had my 3 yr old, 5 yr old, 7 yr old, 9 yr old and 16 yr old gathered at the table telling my children these things. The story tells many things but he threatened me often, he reminded me they were his children. He would throw trash bags at me and said I could put my clothes in those bags and leave for I'm not taking his kids. So our case eventually was 8 volumns full and eventually the judge ordered psychological exams and his cake out NARCISSIST. But he had a lot of money. I tried everything Marriage counseling the counselor confirmed the abuse cycle. I tried week on week off so kids could go back and forth and that didn't work as he would drive by my place with the kids and point out my friend Teresa's car and tell them that's a man I took home from the bar for sex. My friend owned a hair salon and I was studying for finals. He was telling my kids this. So I went to Anchorage and I got followed by private investigators and on and on. It's a storybook. I contentiously begged the Judge in Soldotna to see what was going on. Although he was diagnosed a Narcissist and there were police reports, etc he was financially better off and I was struggling and on the third court battle he got awarded living custody the Judge said to try something new. We flipped it where now I had every other weekend and summers. I went through horrible grief and lose and started drinking. I couldn't cope any more. And as I had known he would he immediately controlled me through the kids. He violated all my visitation rights and he started playing the GATEKEEPER for my youngest two children and brainwashing my youngest daughter against me. Today as she is an adult, married and has 4 kids she lives next to him and gets all financial rewards. Shes the executor of his "WILL" and this weekend she's coming here to see my other daughter who has her first child that's her first birthday party. She's coming with her father and they will all spend time running around together and I'm just lucky I still get to go to the Birthday Party here in Washington. Back then the oldest two daughters in Anchorage became ward of the state over turning the Judges order in Soldotna. And I remember in that order the judge said it's obvious the children love their mother and she loves them but since mom struggles financially let's try something new. That something new lost me overtime my relationship with my kids. I have been the targeted healthier parent by and from Narcissistic Abuse and his family dynamics for decades. He did everything to financially destroy me and my relationships with my kids. I wasn't perfect all the time as the targeted parent as I was hurt and afraid. Over the years he had jobs for them in which they've made good money working in his business. They've traveled to other Countries with him. He offers them material opportunities and uses all positions of power financially to control it all. Everything I knew he would do. Not only that but since I've been down here I've learned that he was also giving my mother financial advice from the day her husband died. And I had nothing left for me as inheritance. I'm 63 yrs old no w and this is a story for a Book seriously but I love this video. There's only parts of it that applied for me and my story but I often wonder if my oldest two daughters remember the physical and verbal abuse they went through by their father. He is the hero today as he has had lots of money.

Interesting that you should bring that up about letters because as I remember is I dealt with a cpl letters. My oldest son's father had an old high school friend of mine write a letter. I was shocked and hurt when I saw it cause I hadn't seen her for years. I actually blew it off as completely incredible. The other sad one is I had gone down to California and one of my daughters took me drinking and then went back to Alaska and wrote a letter for her Dad that said I was drinking and shouldnt let the youngest two come down for my visitation. When they had come down the summer before, the first summer, they came with their father and that wasn't ok. No order said that was appropriate. But I was working 2 jobs and quit one while they were down to spend time with them. There was no sign of me doing anything that put my children at risk. It was crazy. But to know my daughter did that was very sad cause she was doing something worse that I wasn't aware of until it got bad and today she is doing amazing as she's free from a serious heroin abuse. It's in despicable to me looking back on things that still it has always been more important for the children's father to dig up any dirt he could on me and I'm doing so completely over looking and not dealing with his two daughters heroin addiction that was growing at the time. One daughter we almost lost to a heroin overdose. But this is exactly the reason why back then the state took custody over riding the judge decision because he refused to acknowledge how all this was affecting them one with depression and one with anxiety. His main obsession to destroy me was more important than the Best Interest of the kids.

In this video you discuss small children and parental alienation on a different level that involves substance abuse and bad situations such as what my daughter here is going through with her boyfriends 2 kids in which their mother is a meth addict and has shot two ppl. Over the years as my story unfolded I would say to my children you would think I was a crack mom the way I've been treated. After loosing custody I lost it and started drinking with no kids at home and I went into treatment in which the treatment judge and the state judge had the entire file and when I graduated the team sat with me and said he is a Narcissist who uses the children to see you suffer. He is not going to change and this is not going to change and we hope we gave you the coping skills to keep going. Children have become grandkids and the family dynamics have grown as I feared it was beginning years ago. I am a math class away from dbl majors in Psychology and Criminal Justice and I have tried to stay strong over the years but there's been a set back or two as I'm so disrespected. Devalued, dismissed, laughed at, told I'm crazy and the abuse goes on but today I'm strong. Children learn what they are taught. I am the parent who started PTAs on the Kenai Peninsula. Asked to run for school board. Went to Church and taught Sunday school. Coached sports and was on the Dean's List in Elementary Education program I started while I was still married. Narcissistic Abuse, Parental Alienation, and Stockholm syndrome in family cult-like dynamics, in which I accuse his extended family dynamics of is real and it's horribly debilitating. Anyone married into his family the Smiths were treated terribly in the beginning of joining the family. I was raised in California and they were raised in Alaska and me just wearing a dress alienated me. I was a city girl but not q vamp lol. They were construction workers and women who hunted with the men.

Hello, do you have a list of therapists familiar with these concepts that you can recommend, or a resource that identifies these therapists?

But also thank you, it is helpful a lot. 🎉

I am sorry you have to live this to understand it. The alienated parent doesn’t need therapy, it’s the alienator.

We all already know how the dynamics are,and could be helpfully exactly to learn whitch steps I can need to do with alienated parent and my child. Since 4 Years no contact with child, but contact with parent. And my child ist 15.