Welcome to the podcast. I'm your host Kelly Thomas and this is you're not the only one. Today we're going to be speaking to John Smith about parental alienation. John is a targeted parent of Parental alienation and has felt led to a calling and becoming an activist for related support knowledge awareness and reform if you're like me and had never heard of Parental alienation. It is the process and results of the psychological manipulation of a child into showing unwarranted fear disrespect hostility or emotional cut off towards a targeted parent in other words. It's a distinctive. Of psychological abuse it occurs almost exclusively in association with family separation or divorce particularly where legal action is involved John felt that it was his Divine Purpose to become a father. So when his children were dramatically taken away from him in 2015, he went on a mission for the next few years fighting the court system. That is so broken through his ordeal John has become a huge advocate for the movement chances are parental alienation is happening to someone that you know, or love maybe it's even happened to You I'm so honored that John reached out to me and wanted to address this issue on my podcast. Let's listen and go to that interview now. Hey, John glad that you're here joining us today. Thank you. I'm really looking forward to talking about this subject. I had never heard of it before but then after talking with you briefly offline discovering that it really is an epidemic and It's just so much more common than a lot of people know about and said I'm so glad that you're going to talk to us about it today and all that you've gone through a personally. So why don't you introduce yourself to our audience? Okay, great happy to be here. By the way. My name is John Smith live in Albany, Georgia. I'm a targeted parent of Parental alienation. So I speak from firsthand experience. I'm also an activist and you know try to create awareness and reform efforts. For the subject basically parental alienation is a form of domestic violence. It's when a child is manipulated to turn against an opposing parent usually is going to occur during a divorce or child custody type situation. It's psychological manipulation and basically just erases children from loving parents and vice versa. Wow, very intense. Well, you said you yourself are a targeted parent tells about your personal. Rinse with it a little bit about your story. Sure, July 17th of 2015 is basically marks the date that my world changed. Our that our family's World change. We just returned from a family vacation myself. My wife two daughters son stepson, and we haven't even unpacked our bags yet and police surrounded our house. I was issued an emergency ex parte changing custody order which is basically the family Court's approval to remove the children from the house. My children were illegally abducted relocated 500 miles away to another state a restraining order was placed against me and I was told if I tried to contact my children that I would go to jail all this occurred based on unverified false allegations. By my ex-wife which were supported by the family court system. Wow. Wow, and so how does this stuff happen? How is this even possible? Well, it stems from childhood trauma and this case my ex had some issues with her own caregivers and those issues could range from from person to person they could be abandonment issues physical abuse emotional abuse. Or sexual abuse on this person becomes an adult. They're still carrying the weight in the baggage of this childhood trauma. They start having children of their own and they develop feelings of inadequacy and they usually act out destructive to the marriage maybe it's overspending or adultery or some combination or substance abuse Suicidal Tendencies stuff like that at the time. The time that this happened I was remarried basically my ex had left the picture years ago. She just just I guess couldn't accept the responsibilities of parenting had some issues of her own, you know stemming from her own childhood trauma. And so basically she abandoned the family. I was a single father for six years. And then once I remarried that's when the ex return back into the picture with the false allegations. And started manipulating the children. Can you speak a little bit about how that that started to creep in? Sure. Yeah. Guess I'll call it brainwashing for lack of a better term. It's similar to the Stockholm effect Stockholm syndrome. There's a new movie that's out on Netflix. I think it's called Stockholm, but you know, basically it comes from a bank robbery in the 70s. Whereas the bank robber holds a teller hostage. Threatens to kill her and then she ends up falling in love with him. So it's just this mental form of coping It's A coping skill basically and that's basically what happens to the children in these types of situations. The alienating parent will fabricate a scenario. Where as the targeted parent is the villain the child becomes the victim in this fabricated scenario. So she leaves you and her small children Rose away for six years and comes back and tries to come back into their life with a force begins to start talking with the children and and getting them to see her side of things and maybe twisting the story to say that she didn't leave that was the beginning of the manipulation. Yes, I guess you could kind of say that's that was the beginnings of it when she first left. In these situations, there's a there's a false narrative and the kids are triangulated which basically is just a psychological term for involving them into adult mind games and then they're used as pawns. They're used as Court weapons and so forth. So in my case my ex was not completely out of the picture for those six years. She wasn't physically around but she was still talk to the kids. Phone and stuff like that. So I she had a presence. She had a presence. Yes, and she would still see them, you know, like during the summer or doing Christmas. She just wasn't in their daily lives. So the times that she would spend with them little little did I know at the time that she was kind of slowly brainwashing them over the period of that six years as she would have dealings with them and she would spend 100. On one time with them and just kind of pamper them and in the process, you know fill their heads with with Fabrications that may have had a seed of truth, but we're you know blown way out of proportion and portrayed to be something that they were not hence the Crux of what parental alienation is. Exactly. Yes Department of Family and Children Services or called a couple of times false. He's saying that our house was unfair that we were abusive that we were drug addicts you call. The police on us Child Protection Services got the school involved even animal control and it's just a horrible experience. I wouldn't wish it on anyone and it's a you know, it's a financial nightmare. It's a legal nightmare because it raises all these allegations against you have to hire attorneys to prove your innocence. Okay. So tell us a little bit about the legal part of it and how A legal system wouldn't go in there and protect you being the parent that really was the caregiver for the majority of the children's lives. Well, the thing is about the legal system is you know on the front end of that battle our attorneys and you know, unfortunately most of these attorneys are more interested in money than they are Justice, you know, you can hire an attorney and family few thousand dollars and they can fabricate documentation and do things that will give you legal. Average to take your kids away unfortunately, and in my case, this has been going on for four and a half years. We still haven't gone to court. It's it's been under a temporary order. And so that's what the attorneys do is they they create this wedge with this temporary order that they're not really doing this on purpose. They're doing it because they're getting paid to do it, but it's enabling the alienating parent that lever. Courage to remove the children from the lives of the targeted parent and therefore it gives them that leverage to for the brainwashing to occurred in my case. It's been four and a half years and you know, bother you not seeing your three children for four and a half years. No kind of the way this thing works is the oldest child leads the way because the alienating parent has the most leverage with the oldest child. Because once the child turns 14, they can make their own decisions. And when I say their own decisions, that's not really their own decisions. It's the enmeshed decisions of the alienating parent, but it's coming out of the child's mouth as if it's their own decision and then the court doesn't want to split up the children. So if you can manipulate the oldest child into, you know going with the flow, so to speak then the other children will just kind of follow suit. That's just how the law works. So to answer your question, I have not had any contact other than email which is just very minimal responses and not not very welcoming responses from my oldest daughter and she's 17. She was 13 at the time that this occurred so she'll be a legal adult by the time we even go to court but no Act like I said other than the emails I send here periodic emails because they won't give me her phone number. I have no other way of contacting her she refuses to visitation. She's been made to believe that I'm not her biological father. She's been made believe that her new stepmother is into Voodoo and has placed some kind of spell on her and just all kinds of crazy stuff. Now these types of things seem crazy to me and you but to a 13 year old. Old child when they're hearing it coming from their own parent who they loved and longed for keeping in mind in this case. My children's mother had been out of the picture for six years. Like I explained not not completely but mostly and so they long he was able to plant seeds along the way. Yeah, right, but they long to be with her. It's not that they weren't happy with me. They just miss their mom and wanted to have a closer relationship with their mom, so When Mom comes back into the picture and has fabricated this story that they're in some kind of danger. And then now Mom appears to be the hero, you know, they go with that their kids they don't that they believe their parent. They don't doubt. They don't question. They just believe it's true and they go with the flow which makes perfect sense. I understand that and so when it drags out for four and a half years and you know in my case and in other cases Aces as well. My cases is pretty typical. In fact, there's a lot of cases that are way more severe than mine, you know, basically in this type of situation the alienating parent will take a seed of Truth and then fabricate lies around it. So I could go on and on about all these like the voodoo thing there. I mean you and I are both Christians. I know that your wife is a Christian as well. She's not into Voodoo, but what like there's no seat of there's me there's See the truth that no. No that was a complete fabrication. God is weird, you know, but yeah in a lot of cases there would be a seed of Truth like one example my oldest daughter in seventh grade. She was home school now prior to this. She had been wanted to be homeschooled for years. And we you know kept saying that we weren't really ready to be home school parents, you know, because I feel you Work obligations and so forth but she had friends that were homeschooled. So we said tell you what if you still want to be homeschooled by the time you hit seventh grade because that's a turning point in home school where the child has more responsibilities that the parent has less responsibilities to be the teacher that have an online teacher and the child as a laptop and you know, it's a it's just more responsibilities are myself lead on that on their end exactly. So we kind of made a little sad deal. We said if you still want to be Homeschooled by the time you get to the seventh grade then we'll we'll try it for a year. You know, we didn't want to do all three children that way that we were willing to allow her to try it and part of that was her mother lived 500 miles away. So part of that deal and we even discussed this with her mother that if she was home-schooled she would have more flexibility to visit her mother more. She could go stay a couple of weeks at a time and long as she kept up with her school. Everything will be fine. So this was a joint decision my daughter instigated it. We all kind of agreed and it was a co-parenting situation with my ex as well. But that somehow got turned around, you know during the time that she's being homeschooled. She may be asked to take out the trash or you know, hey, can you make your brother a peanut butter sandwich or whatever the case may be, but I got Twisted into I pulled her out of School to make her like my personal Nanny my personal maid, you know, so that's not true. But you could go back to that seed of Truth into this 13 year old girl. She starts believing it, you know, and there's there's a list of other. I don't know if that's the best story to tell but there's a lot of other things like that and anyone in itself seems kind of insignificant but when you feel the kid's head with A bunch of these things they turn against and ultimately what happens they develop and in measurement the psychological and measurement with the alienating parent and so they start believing the alienating parent is basically re-enacting their own childhood trauma. And so they're fabricating the scenario and they had these delusions and the child starts believing those delusions. They form an alliance. It's called a cross-generational Alliance because it's crossing over generation instead of having the typical parental hierarchy where you have Mom and Dad at the top of the hierarchy and child at the bottom of the hierarchy instead. It gets flipped. So you have the alienating parent and the enmeshed child become they take on the role of the parents and then the targeted parent no longer has any Authority and there. Basically at the bottom of the totem pole and they're worthless according to this particular hierarchy. So as the child develops this alliance with the one parent, they develop across generational Coalition with the opposite parent and they take on the persecutory delusions persecutory meaning, you know persecution, you know, in other words, how dare you pull me out of school and make me your Nanny kind of thing, you know? Yes. Yes. Yeah, so then there becomes all this anger and the child doesn't know how to process that because by Nature they're designed to love their parent, but they're being taught to hate their parent. So in order to cope with it, they have to develop an emotional cut off an emotional cut off is what occurs to people narcissistic type of psychotic behavior patterns. These are the type of people who would you know, maybe go into the school and shoot 16 people. Or whatever you don't you're not just born with an emotional cut off a traumatic event has to cause it so that's basically what's happening is these children are being emotionally erased from their loving parent. And even though the loving parent is reaching out and reaching out reaching out, you know, we try to go through the court system. We don't have any luck. We try to go through the mental health system. We don't have any luck. We do everything we can to connect with our children and you know, we're just being in obstructed or denied or that's why it's taken four and a half years exactly. Now with the two younger kids. I understand. The oldest is probably going to be the most brainwashed in the most basically gone, but the to youngers have you been two youngest ones have you been able to you know, spend time with them sort of have them still have a relationship of any kind these last four and a half years. Yes, basically when they 14 is when they become completely erased it's hard for the alienating parent to completely erase them prior because of non-custodial visitation rights. They have to kind of play the game a little bit and allow some visitation because they're under the microscope of the Court. They still have an open case, you know, they can't be full-blown alienating the have to make the appearances though. They're trying to encourage. Age the relationship and really it's the opposite, right? So what happens is once they turn 14 basically at that point. It's like, oh well, well, they just don't want to see you anymore. You know, they don't like you they don't like your wife that and everything that comes out is basically the Viewpoint of the X naught of the actual child but itself oq visit. They know that it's that it's a visit right now is what it's been the last four well That I would call it a force visit. My my situation is a little bit more unique than most people's because most people in the situation that I'm in didn't have the luxury of being a single parent for six years. So during the six years that that I was a single parent, you know, I was also a soccer coach and you know, I participate as a chaperone on field day and I'm just very active in my children's lives. We were very active. In church, I was a youth leader, you know, just basically our whole lifestyle was family-oriented. So my children luckily, you know got to see that side of me for those six years. So there's two types of alienated children. There's you could call them A and B, if you will say Taipei believe the lies and type be just kind of goes along with them as the path of least resistance. My oldest believes the lies and my other two children basically have just kind of gone along with them as the path of least resistance. Yeah, so we do spend time together another 500 miles away from me. The opportunities are few and far between have to wait till school breaks only have about four opportunities a year. You've got spring break summer Thanksgiving and Christmas when they're on school break is about the only times I can see them. M and then I'm going to be obstructed or denied those four times. So I'm lucky if I am able to land about two of those so but I do get may come up with some excuse the mom does some excuse to keep them from those other two visits. It's just any obstacle that you could throw in the way. Okay, you know, it would be like, well, I don't know I have to check my work schedule or I don't know if you talk to legal right? Is that it like it's all she has all authority and you have right? We're under a temporary order and I had the very first Christmas in the very first spring break was built into our custody order. And then after that, I have no no actual visitation, but like I said, she'll kind of go along and allow some visitation just you know under the coaching of her attorney and an appearance that she's trying to do right? She does cooperate with some visitation is just few and far between us like pulling teeth to make it a reality. So this is such a sad sad thing because now it's four and a half years later that you've missed out on the day-to-day with your children. They've been brainwashed. And so this is like we can't rewind we can't redo right? We can't get those years back. So how in the world is this even possible? Like I said the beginning like in America, it just seems so Wrong like how is this how is this able to happen? I know you said that attorneys, you know money and all that kind of stuff, but why don't people know more about this. Is this something that happens like is this a big thing that's going on that people don't know about. I mean, yes, it's a major epidemic. There's over 22 million cases in the United States alone. There's probably more than that. Those are just known and when you say 22 million cases, you're talking about 22 million families that It consists of two parents and two point four children or whatever the national average is. So, you know, you're looking at a massive amount. It's somebody that you know, it's somebody that you go to church with it's happening all around. We just don't see it. And if we do see it, we don't acknowledge it for what it is because we're believing the lies it's based on fabrication. So if there's a and it's not in my case. There's a female that's doing the alienating and I'm a male and a lot of you know, there's there's a father's rights movements and stuff like that. I don't really subscribe to that type of thing because I don't believe that we should segregate the father's from the mother because I could go into more detail, but you know, basically there's four types of parent-child relationships. You have mother-son mother-daughter father-son father-daughter and one is not any more important than the other. So, although it may be a little bit more. Or common for the female to be doing the alienating there's tons of cases where the male is doing the alienating as well. So it could go either way. So rather than screaming father's rights ice cream parental rights. I think that's really good and coming from the right place because it's a human problem. It's an issue with unresolved childhood trauma. Really? It's a person that never got to figure out their own. The issues the reason such a widespread epidemic is because of the multiplication principle of it being passed from generation to generation. For example, you know, we have an ex-wife who has some caregiver issues. Let's say well if we were to dig, you know a little bit backwards we would see that a lot of that had to do with her mother, you know, we could just continue following it throughout the family tree when it's happening to you you feel like You're on a Jerry Springer episode, but when you sit back and observe it you can look at other people's cases, for example, and you go. Ah, it's so clear. I see what's going on. I see the sickness that this alienating parent have I have you no empathy for them. I want to help them but I can't because I've been made the enemy, you know, and then you can see how the court system thrives on it. These cases make up about 90% of the income for the family courts. So it's a big big business billions of dollars. There's a there's a Netflix documentary called Divorce Court cor P that talks about it actually a friend of mine Wendy think she was windy Archer at the time. She had a different last name. She's one of the people that they kind of follow her story and so forth and she's a big activist out in Texas right now and and getting a lot of great things done for reform. But anyways, yeah, it happens all around. It's happening to people that you know, but it's under disguise. This is the wolf in sheep's clothing. It's it's in camouflage. It appears to be something that it's not so if you were to look at my case, you know, you have two attorneys that are kind of going back and forth and you have this judge just kind of sitting in the middle and so the judge goes away we're gonna Appoint a guardian ad litem to the case to be a neutral third party intermediary. So to speak on behalf of the children that adds a few thousand dollars to the equation and it drags your case out for a couple of more years for evaluations. And basically the guardian asked your children, you know, do you have food in the fridge at Mom's house? Do you have clean uniforms to wear to school, you know go down a little checklist and then that Guardian will Ermine, well, everything seems okay to me, you know, they're not looking at the psychological aspect of the child being brainwashed course not our our country is now just discussed just giving credence to mental health issues with all the shootings right? It's just now coming to the Forefront. So this yeah, this is a surprise and it would be interesting every time I see something like that on the news. My first thought is I wonder what this person's child life was like yeah, did they come from us? At home, you know where they alienated from a loving parent because how does it is someone like that develop such an emotional cut off. How could you be so none empathetic to do something like that. There had to have been something traumatic happened to these people that caused this mental state and you know, I'm not saying a hundred percent of the time it's perlite a nation, but that would be the first place I would look. Yeah, you're now seeing with new eyes with like just discovering like wow, and and I wanted to kind of slide in here and say, you know so much about this. I understand because you're passionate, you know, in and of itself because it's happened to you personally, but you seem very knowledgeable on it. So how do you know so much like the legal terms all of that like well her second when this first happened to me or to my family I should A you know, I was in complete shock and I didn't know what to do and I didn't know where to turn and so, you know, your first instinct is to hire an attorney and then you realize you start getting into this and you start realizing there's really no justice here. The system is stacked against, you know, it's not innocent until proven guilty and family court. It's guilty until proven innocent. Yeah, so I hate to say this. Us but anybody could make a false accusation against somebody for child abuse and create this scenario and it could drag out for you know tens of thousands of I know people have spent hundreds of thousands of dollars on fighting this kind of thing. Basically. It depends on how much you make as to how much it's going to cost you. Wow, because they ask for your financial statements up front. You know, I'm not saying that that's a particular plot, but at the same time They are asking for your financial statements and they basically milk you for all they can just drags out and drags out. But anyways, once I started realizing this and then I just started researching it and it's one of those things where I just I couldn't get off my mind. I couldn't sleep at night had to do something about it. And so I needed to become more aware because our Ultimate Enemy here is ignorance, and I don't mean that in a degrading way. I'm just me. In it in the lack of knowledge if the enemy is lack of knowledge. Then you fight it with knowledge, you know, so I got to realizing that as I would talk to people in the mental health profession. They didn't know anything about this as I would talk to attorneys. They didn't know anything about this or maybe they'd heard of it, but they're not going to jump on the train and fight for you and I've gone through multiple attorneys ultimately end up in a self representation. Situation because you just can't afford to pay $200 an hour for an attorney to be on your case for four or five years. It's just it's not affordable. So in the process, I just self-educated off the internet. There is a psychiatrist by the name of dr. Craig Childress CH I LD ress and he's out of California and making tremendous Leaps and Bounds progress. To the psychological remedy, you know providing a cell psychological solution and he's also instrumental with I mentioned windy earlier. Her last name is Perry Wendy Perry. I believe she was previously windy Archer, but they do a lot of work together and they have created a pilot program for the court systems. There's only one of its kind right now and that's in Houston, Texas, but there is a movement for this and there's a lot of Efforts being made and if somebody's listening to this right now and they feel feel alone. I mean, there's Facebook Facebook groups. There's all kinds of support out there. I'm sorry if I get a little emotional but no, please but their support and so I started realizing that you know, hey, I'm not alone here which kind of ties into your podcast and And then I started realizing wow. This is happening all around me. I know people I literally go to church with people I go to lunch with people who are experiencing the same thing, but they don't express it because it's kind of embarrassing your you're being accused of being a child abuser or a drug addict or an alcoholic or adulteress or whatever it is that you're being accused of and it's not true but it's embarrassing, you know. Yeah, and your kids have been taken away and So then the public how exactly like well you must have did something bad if your kids were taken away, you know, you know, you don't have a relationship with her. You must be a inadequate parent, you know, and so and then you get tired of having to explain it to everybody. You know, when you see somebody the grocery store. How's the kids? You know, you just say, oh, they're fine and you just keep going because you don't want to have to get into a two-hour conversation every time. So basically what happened with me is I felt like, you know part of my primary Divine Purpose was to be a father to my children and then I just felt robbed of that purpose and restricted. So I had to kind of shift my energies to be in an advocate for awareness and reformed and it gave me another purpose. It was the way I dealt with it. A lot of parents will turn to a targeted parents like myself. Will become manically depressed suffer PTSD type symptoms a lot of them turned to drugs and alcohol or maybe both some of them are suicidal. I'm in all these different Facebook groups and it's so common. It's so sad because I know when Father's Day comes somebody's going to commit suicide or Christmas or Thanksgiving you're going to read about it. And you going to say, oh so-and-so just took his own life because he couldn't and I'm just saying him it could be a Could be a female and male and I've seen murder-suicides to where the say the targeted parent might have actually prevailed in court and there's one particular case where the mom was the alienating parent and she ended up losing custody because Justice was actually served in one of those rare cases and she killed her child and killed herself. Oh gosh, don't you know if If if I can't control this then nobody will kind of thing, you know, and it's just so sad because it's your it's basically an emotional prison for the alienating parent, but it's also an emotional prison for the targeted parent the child. It extends to the grandparents the aunts the uncles cousins of the neighbors. It affects everybody, you know, you go from having one particular lifestyle. That's Involved with your family to the next day, they're erased and you know, it's kind of like you're mourning the loss of a loved one, but they're still alive. So it's it's a real awkward situation to be in my mom passed a Cancer and I miss her and I love her and I think about her all the time, but I know that she passed a cancer. I know she's gone. You know, I know I can't pick up the phone and All her because she's not alive anymore. And I know that I'll be reunited with her at some point, but my children are different. There's there like 500 miles away. I could literally jump in the car and in eight hours I could be there but I don't have any access to them. Now. I do have my middle to Children's phone number and I text them pretty regularly. I call them pretty regularly I send them. Pictures pretty regularly constantly reaching out and they're receiving them. They're just not responding and part of that too is I'm sure that you know being monitored. Yeah, that would be my that would be my hunch. Well, the great thing is that you have the Lord and even though the painful painful thing to go through we know that throughout the Bible the people that are highlighted have gone through some of the most painful These situations and I believe as you said to that you want of your purposes in this life is to bring awareness to this issue and it's sad when it when something like this has to come out as pain but some of the biggest and best movements come out of pain. Yes, you know, what's coming to my mind right now is what is it moms Against Drunk Driving or something like that right mad. Matt yeah, and you know that woman I think lost I don't know the story but I'm thinking you know this mom original person must have lost someone that she loved dearly exactly comes from, you know, sometimes the pit of pain. Yeah, and it reminds me of the Bible verse that says, you know all things for good and yes, I will work all things for good and when I think of that you know the word All just really jumps out because it doesn't say some things for good or just like, you know a few things for good. It says all things for good. So if you hang onto that belief, then you have to believe that there's good that's going to come, you know from this pain from the suffering and I believe it wholeheartedly and I know that there's going to be a day that I'm reunited with my oldest daughter and I'm just so fortunate that I was able to maintain some degree. Yeah relationship with my other two children. I just saw them over the summer. I was able to see them. I saw my son for like 5 days and then I was able to take my youngest daughter for two weeks and we spent two weeks together and we did all kinds of fun things and took a lot of pictures and made a lot of memories and you know, we'll continue to do that type of thing. It's just going to be few and far between When I'm not around they refer to me as John, you know, when I'm around they referred to me as Dad but in their mother's presence they refer to me as John instead of dad, you know, so it's a weird awkwardness whenever there's an exchange. They won't be affectionate, you know in front of their mother if I'm picking them up or whatever, but then whenever we get off on her own, it's just like we just picked up where we left off. Its. So I'm very fortunate. There's other targeted parents who are completely erased from the children for years and years and their children grow up and become adults and they're still erased, you know, they never reconcile. You know, those are like the more extreme cases, but they exist. They're very common. I know tons of people through these Facebook support. Port groups and stuff that are in that exact situation and so I'm just trying to be an advocate for the for the movement of reform in general. I'm so glad that you brought awareness, you know anybody out there that's going through this. I'm going to have John give us websites and names of people or books that you can reference sure friend. Also if you're a Praying person if you're a Christian, this is something to really come together as a community. Unity really as a nation as the world, you know to pray for this to pray over this because hidden under all kinds of legal stuff and it's an epidemic but it's under disguise. So it's not what it appears to be. Yes, and it's so evil. It just feels like there's just evil at me, you know, very core of it and also for anybody else that may be going through this, you know, we perceive our X as being evil because they're the prosecutor on the other end. And they're the ones that are creating this terrible scenario, and that's the way I used to feel about my ex. But I had to come to terms with the fact that she's sick and I had to turn that anger into empathy. Yes, and that's the only way that you can really make a difference in terms of intercessory prayer on their behalf because they don't Necessarily realize that they're sick. They're not going to go to the doctor or to the psychiatrist and say hey, I've got borderline personality disorder are I'm narcissistic or I'm not in pathetic or I have an emotional cut off. They're not going to announce that instead, you know, they're living this behind this facade and it appears as though they're just a normal person working a normal job struggling to be a single parent. Parent doing the best they can for their children. They appear to be good on the surface and they really are good but they have this sickness and so you have to acknowledge that so, you know, somebody's going through this and they're carrying that anger that anger man. It can eat you up and so you have to let it go and the only way I was able to let it go as to pray for my ex and that was like A very hard thing for me to do but it's it's it's the only way I was able to experience Freedom. Yes for yourself. Absolutely. It's just like Jesus with his prosecutors on the cross and you know, and he says forgive them for they know not what they do. It's unfortunate because you assume when somebody does such a heinous act that they know what they're doing and hand. And to some degree they do I mean I'm not trying to make excuses for their behavior. But at the same time they're they're coming from a different state of mind and they're not reasoning the way a normal person would reason and they've been traumatized and it affects the way they they perceive life. So they're literally living in a delusional state. So you have to understand that and trying to communicate with them and work with them. And so you just have to Try to make the best of what you've got to work with and try to minimize the conflict and maximize the opportunities to create memories with your children or whatever the case may be. I mean there is hope and prayer is powerful. Yes. It's cute. So wrapping up. Can you leave us with some websites recommendations reference books anything that someone could get ahold of sure. There's any way that if people wanted to ask you questions, would you be opposed to You having people contact you that is fun. My email address is Parental alienation scar. That's P AR ENT a l a l IE n a tion s Kar the scar stands for support knowledge awareness and reform. So that's kind of what I perceived the the phases when this happens to you you first need support. Art, and then you need some knowledge and then you need to jump on the bandwagon and help create awareness and that leads to reform. So that's the only way we're going to really deal with this as a as a team and getting stuff done. But anybody's welcome to email me at parental alienation scar at gmail.com. I would be glad to you know, correspond from their exchange phone numbers Facebook or whatever, you know, but that could be a good way to instigate a Nation with me and the most reliable source of information on the internet. I would personally say is dr. Craig Childress and you can just Google his name. He's got YouTube videos. He's got a website that he does blog. He's got Facebook groups and he has been the source of the majority of my knowledge been studying his works for a few years. Now. There are other people that are involved in this reform effort as well. Wendy Perry P. ER why she is a targeted parent and she's in Houston, Texas and she's been alienated from her daughter. Now I think for like 10 years and she's become an advocate for reform and she's been very instrumental in getting things done. And in fact, a lot of people are kind of following in her footsteps and trying to duplicate in other cities what she's done in Houston and there's some people in the industry that don't necessarily see eye to eye originally in the 70s. This was referred to as Pas which was parental alienation syndrome and earlier mention Stockholm syndrome and basically they were comparing this to Stockholm syndrome. And yes, it's it's totally worthy of comparison. But in coining that term parental alienation syndrome, it kind of made it appear as though it was like some kind of legit diagnosis and so Savvy attorneys were able to debunk that concept. Because it's not in the mental health medical book, which is called the DSM and they have the latest edition is the fifth edition. So the DSM-5 there's no such thing as parental alienation syndrome according to a DSM-5 diagnosis. So that's just a term that was kind of made up but it was used against, you know, people like myself who are trying to create awareness trying to make us look like idiots by saying there's no such thing as Pas show me in the you know, the DSM-5 where you can be diagnosed. East of Pas there is no such thing, you know, right so that was part of what works to our disadvantage in the court system. But dr. Childress is changing that instead of calling it Pas which is something that really doesn't necessarily exist. You know, he's looking at it as psychological child abuse. Basically without going into detail. He has a system of diagnosing and treating this so there there is a solution. The only problem is is the targeted parent doesn't have access. To getting their child to therapy or to getting to the other parent the therapy and on the opposite end of that. It's never going to occur voluntarily. So but anyways, there's there's two aspects. There's the Richard Garner is is the is the one who developed the Pas, you know, a parental alienation syndrome concept, but he's passed away and he his research was in the 70s. You have some people that kind of lean more towards his view of things and then Have some people that kind of lean more towards. Dr. Craig children's view things are both fighting for the same thing. They're just they just have a slightly different view on what the solution is and you know how to remedy and if you really want to dig deep there's like Munich in Boeing there's all these psychiatrist way back from decades ago that studied family system hierarchies and attachment disorders and stuff. And that's all this is so it's nothing new, you know, it's just been under disguise. Guys for so long, you know anytime. I hear somebody say something about. Oh, well, you know, this child's father is not in the picture. He's a loser or you know, he doesn't have anything to do with his daughter or whatever. I'm just making that up then my mind automatically thinks I wonder what the other side of that story is, you know, because exactly now I'm not saying that people don't abandon their children, but I'm just saying that I could not ever personally abandon my children. Children and I don't see how anybody would do that voluntarily without something interfering causing that happen. Whether it be their own childhood trauma their own feelings of inadequacy, or maybe an alienating parent. There's all kinds of different examples, you know, bottom line is is children are being brainwashed and relationally removed from loved ones is what it all boils down to so crazy. Yeah. I'm so thankful that you came and talked to me about this. This is so huge and that you're not the only one. I mean totally because it's happened as to everyone I think honestly, yeah find some level if just a little bit too just like massive. I mean even like I said, if you're still living with both parents in the house that can happen with both parents being married and I know a person that grew up in a family where the mom would seek out the younger child to manipulate and say keep this secret and then talk to the older child and say, you know Don't say this to your younger sibling, you know, it's like it was weird. Like there was no reason for it. It was just right manipulation. Yeah and of here parents like we went to lunch with a divorced friend of ours from church and and her child was pouting and she said that's your daddy face put on your mommy face, you know, and just a little comments like that really bother me. She didn't really mean anything to buy it. She's not alienating her. A child but at the same time there's a degree of brainwashing there, you know to associate your bad habits with your father your good habits came from your mother. Yeah, whenever you do talk bad about your child's other parent, you have to understand that's half of their root system. So you're really degrading the child. You might not intend to you might be mad at the other parent for cheating on you or whatever the case may be that caused your divorce or whatever and you might be Eating and you might not mean anything by it. But whenever you say, you know, your other parent is a piece of crap or whatever really what you're saying to the child is half of your root system came from a piece of crap. So therefore you're partially a piece of crap, you know, yeah, that's the way that the child hears it and and I hear things going on just in normal society where these kind of comments are made and they're not extreme cases. Of Parental alienation like what we're talking about, but still it bothers me because there's some psychological manipulation there and that's just such an evil seed to plant in someone's head. You know? Yes, it is. Therein lies why people are insecure about who they are and their very identity. That's why we need to put our entire identity in Jesus. Exactly. Yeah, you know because we do that then we come from Perfection, you know, but, you know, not everybody knows. Yeah. About Jesus and I love your buddy. You know, I mean even Christians, I mean I can say that I really started seeking out my identity in the last year in my identity in Christ because my identity and my parents and in myself was so flawed and that's what I just kept going back to and wondering why I'm so depressed or wondering why I was so, you know insecure about going for my dreams and it's like well because you're putting your all of your faith and trust in yourself and not in the into the one who created you has the purpose lined up for you. It can help you on that walk. So exactly. Yeah. Well, thank you so much John for joining us today, and I am so excited to get this out there and make awareness to everybody on this subject because it's very important. Yes. Thank you so much for placing the spotlight on it. Absolutely. Good luck with everything and God bless you. Thank you sunshine. I'm driving. Will Smith and I left you in the rearview if you enjoyed today's episode and you'd like to leave a comment you can do so by using our voice message link simply click on the link and talk away. I would love to hear from you. Let me know how today's episode impacted you and if you have any ideas for future episodes that you'd like to hear talked about. Please leave those comments as well. My heart is to help you feel seen and heard especially in times where you feel overwhelmingly alone and isolated. It in your situation or circumstance. I want to speak life into you and hopefully the stories and situations brought about on this podcast will reframe your own way of thinking. That's what people did for me in my lowest moments and I want to pass that wisdom along fear and doubt are from the pit of Hell. I always say I have wasted plenty of years worrying and doubting about my life. I started this podcast to help you not make the same mistakes. Thank you for your listenership and please subscribe. It really helps. My message have a further reach. He was a Priceless nugget that was given to me long ago Matthew 6:33, but seek ye first the kingdom of God and his righteousness and all these things shall be added unto you God bless you and remember Jesus loves you so much more than you could ever believe.
Could you or someone you know be a victim or a perpetrator of parental alienation? In this episode I interview Jon Smith. He is a targeted parent of parental alienation. In 2015, he had his 3 children dramatically taken from his home. Ever since that day he has tried to make sense of his world being flipped upside down by his estranged ex-wife. Fighting to have equal rights to his children, the judicial system in these cases; have failed him and millions of other families over the decades. Jon now advocates for this movement and is working hard to get the laws changed. Parental alienation is a form of spousal domestic violence, whereas innocent children are used as pawns in a relationally destructive adult mind game through pathogenic parenting techniques. Parental alienation begins with a psychologically distressed parent having severe feelings of inadequacy and relational dysfunctions stemming from their own childhood trauma pertaining to a caregiver This typically results in the development of a personality disorder such as NPD (Narcissistic Personality Disorder) and/or BPD (Borderline Personality Disorder) whereas the individual develops an emotional cutoff to normal range empathy. They retaliate against their inner demons by acting out in ways which are destructive themselves as well as to the family unit, such as excessive overspending, substance abuse, adultery and/or psychotic behavior which often leads to divorce. They are then unable to process the psychological mourning surrounding divorce and project their inadequacies on to their ex, who becomes the targeted parent. The targeted parent is slandered and persecuted by their ex as a form of emotional restitution through the re-enactment of the NPD/BPD parent’s childhood scenario. In this fantasy role play, the targeted parent must become the presumed villain and the children must become the presumed victim in order for the personality disordered parent to play the restitutional role of the hero that they never had. The children become trapped in this vicious cycle and are either obstructed or completely erased from having normal range relationship dynamics with their otherwise loving, targeted parent. This pathogenic style of parenting is a form of psychological child abuse and the related trauma hinders the child’s emotional development. Pathogenically parented alienated children are more likely to develop their own life long attachment based disorder as this psychological sickness is passed onward to the next generation and becomes a further breeding grown for non empathetic, widespread relational destruction of family values. Targeted parents additionally suffer from PTSD type symptoms including depression and anxiety which often leads to physical health issues, substance abuse or even suicide. Parental alienation is literally a mental health care crisis estimated to affect over 22 million families in the United States alone. Furthermore, our current family judicial system is incompetent to assess the reality of these scenarios and frequently makes relationally devastating child custody gate keeping decisions based on the unverified allegations of the alienating parent, which are often supported by the persecutory delusions of the psychologically enmeshed child. “And we know that ALL THINGS work together for good to those who love God, to those who are the called according to His purpose.” Romans 8:28 “ALL THINGS FOR GOOD”, even the ugliness of Parental Alienation. 