Parental Alienation: The Elephant in the Room

It is 3:00 a.m. again. Another night without REM. “When will this self-flagellation stop?” Not until he speaks to me again. “Why can’t you just be happy?” Because I gave birth to two children and only one speaks to me. I don’t deserve this. “Just go to sleep.” I can’t, this pain is too much. I’m taking another Xanax. “Watch that movie Violet with Olivia Munn again.” That’s a good idea, her self-deprecating inner voice keeps ripping her a part; makes me feel right at home.

These are the conversations I have with myself. They have been going on for years. Ever since my ex-husband turned my beautiful little boy against me. I didn’t know what it was called back then. I only learned more recently that it is something called Parental Alienation. It is a common occurrence in families where one of the parent’s has a personality disorder. They really need to teach this in school: “Don’t marry a narcissist, it will come back to haunt you.” So, guess what happened? I married a narcissist. Then, when I couldn’t take the loneliness and emotional abuse anymore I left. I always thought kids were resilient. Boy, was I wrong. There’s this little thing about Parental Alienation that no one tells you, it’s passed down through the generations. I I was also alienated from my dad by my maternal grandmother. The research shows that my son has a 50% chance of running into this same brick wall. I didn’t even know this was a thing until it happened to me. Although I have had a lot of schooling, I was blindsided. They didn’t teach this in graduate school.

Enough is Enough

So, over the last seven years I have beaten myself up better then any boxer could ever do. I have pulverized and sliced and diced my self-esteem up into a million little pieces. I have belittled and degraded myself more than my ex ever did. I kept doing it over and over again until the pain was just too much to handle. The one thing I kept avoiding all these years was how angry I was. I would minimize my anger and re-direct it inward causing depression and a fawning response, the deer in headlights. Once I was able to explore how angry I was at my ex and also at my son for how I had been treated, and how I had been cut off, then I was finally able to let go of the pain. When the pain started to subside, I was then able to start thinking about how I wanted to live my life. Who was I without my son in my life. What kinds of things do I like that bring me happiness and joy? I started thinking about me for the first time in a long time. I started to allow myself to think about what I was grateful for, not to only think about was lacking. So, what I stumbled upon was my love of writing. Now, that I wanted to write, what would I write about? Well, turns out I’m an expert at Parental Alienation. Not something anyone ever wants to be an expert at. I decided if I could help one person, just one, to feel less alone, less confused or less worthless, then my writing would be all worth it.

So, here’s what I want to share:

“This is bigger than you. You could not have stopped this runaway train. Stop beating yourself up. It’s not your fault.” OK, now that I have given you permission to let yourself off the hook, what do we do about the situation we find ourselves in?

Using an ancient Indian parable of how blind men describe an elephant may hold some answers for us.

John Godfrey Saxe’s poem written in 1876 is such a perfect analogy for what we are going through.

“The Blind Man And The Elephant”

It was six men of Indostan, to learning much inclined,

who went to see the elephant (Though all of them were blind), that each by observation, might satisfy his mind.

The first approached the elephant, and, happening to fall, against his broad and sturdy side, at once began to bawl: “God bless me! but the elephant, is nothing but a wall!”

The second feeling of the tusk, cried: “Ho! what have we here, so very round and smooth and sharp? To me tis mighty clear, this wonder of an elephant, is very like a spear!”

The third approached the animal, and, happening to take, the squirming trunk within his hands, “I see,” quoth he, the elephant is very like a snake!”

The fourth reached out his eager hand, and felt about the knee: “What most this wondrous beast is like, is mighty plain,” quoth he; “Tis clear enough the elephant is very like a tree.”

The fifth, who chanced to touch the ear, Said; “E’en the blindest man can tell what this resembles most; Deny the fact who can,

This marvel of an elephant, is very like a fan!”

The sixth no sooner had begun, about the beast to grope, than, seizing on the swinging tail, that fell within his scope, “I see,” quothe he, “the elephant is very like a rope!”

And so these men of Indostan, disputed loud and long,

each in his own opinion, exceeding stiff and strong,

Though each was partly in the right, and all were in the wrong!

So, oft in theologic wars, the disputants, I ween,

tread on in utter ignorance, of what each other mean, and prate about the elephant, not one of them has seen!”

Seeing the Forest Through the Trees

The parable’s lesson is when we have limited data to understand a complex situation, our knowledge will be incomplete and inaccurate. In this example, Parental Alienation is our elephant. We cannot see the whole elephant and we don’t even know how the elephant got here. We are each desperately trying to crawl our way out of a hole we did not dig for ourselves.

When I touch the side of my elephant, I hit a brick wall. I cannot reach my son. He has cut off from me and I have no control over this situation. When I touch the elephant’s tusk the opinions of others who devalued my value as a mother pierce at my heart and soul. When I take the elephant’s trunk into my hands I am reminded of what a snake my ex-husband was and how he hurt me by weaponizing my son against me. When I feel the elephant’s knee, I know that Parental Alienation, like a tree, has a life of its own. When I brush up against the elephant’s ear, I realize the unresolved traumas have fanned out to envelope my family and suffocate us. When I grab the elephant’s swinging tail I realize I was hanging myself with this rope.

I left my marriage to regain control of my life and to find myself again. I didn’t realize that my actions would set off a domino effect which would force my relationship with my son into hibernation.

No One is Watching the Boiling Pot

Putting a frog in tepid water and slowly turning up the heat is a powerful metaphor for Parental Alienation; a complicated dynamic which left untreated results in devastating consequences for the targeted parent and the child(ren) who are caught in the middle.

I separated from my ex when my son was nine years old. My son aligned with his father and started treating me the way his father had, with disdain. As he entered adolescents, he treated me like a doormat. I was constantly on the receiving end of a firing squad of one. My ex’ hatred of me and his need for revenge turned my child into a weapon against me. We all make mistakes but nothing rose to the level of deserving this type of pain. My son rejected me without justification.

When a securely attached child is systematically ripped away from you by your ex during a antagonistic divorce your whole world is turned upside down. In the end, my son’s secure attachment style with me shifted into an avoidant-dismissive attachment style. I strongly believe that an unconscious defense mechanism called Projective Identification had a hand in this dynamic.

In my case this is how this defense mechanism worked: My ex unconsciously disowned a part of himself that he found unacceptable, mainly his hate towards me. Then he projected that hatred outward towards my son. Then because of his alliance with his father, my son started acting in ways that were induced by his father’s projections; he was always hostile and demeaning towards me. I always thought it was just a difficult adolescents, but as the future unfolded, it turned out to be much more serious.

Fast forward to now and I have not heard from my 24 year-old son in over nine months. He has cut me off and I do not know when I will talk to him or see him again.

Chronic Grief

When Parental Alienation happens you question your identity, you grieve the loss of your child, and when it drags on year after year, you develop chronic grief. We can’t be diagnosed with Prolonged Grief Disorder because no one has died. Even though it appears grim, there is hope and light at the end of the tunnel. I was frozen in depression for years, waiting for my child to return, but I finally realized I needed to make a change. Once the pain exceeded the seven-year mark, I made a choice to start living my life again. I had to overcome some of my irrational beliefs such as, “You are a horrible mother if you think about yourself first,” and “You can’t enjoy yourself while he is still not talking to you.”

Parental Alienation is like an iceberg. The top of the iceberg is everything we can see and currently know about Parental Alienation from the current experts in the field such as Amy Baker.

The Part of the Iceberg We Cannot See

However, there is still the underside of the iceberg, which has yet to be excavated as Parental Alienation is still in its infancy. Until Parental Alienation is accepted into one of the future Diagnostic Statistical Manual (DSM) versions, we are a community who suffers in silence. We do not have the support of the mental health community. They won’t even put Parental Alienation into the DSM. In my opinion, the closest we get to a psychological diagnosis is “Psychological Abuse by a Nonspouse,” [Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, 2012 (DSM-5-TR) p. 828] or we are considered a “Parent-Child Relational Problem,” (DSM-5- TR, 2012, p. 829) or it is considered child abuse. We also suffer without the support of the family court system. There are judges who won’t lift a finger to enforce the child custody orders. As a result, the court system is letting our exes with personality disorders steal our children.

I speak from my own excruciating experience as a mother cut off ruthlessly from her son. My core belief about this Elephant in the Room is everyone in this family dynamic is experiencing pain. Mine is the chronic grief of having my loving relationship with my son ripped away from me. My ex-husband’s pain was his inability to transition from an intact marriage to a different family unit because of his own narcissistic abuse as a child. As a result, he inflicted pain on all of us. The dynamic created an alignment with with my son in a cross-generational coalition against me.

Through projection my ex was able to force my son into feeling like he was the victim and I was the abuser. My son indicated that if I married my long-time boyfriend he would move out. When I did get married again, eight years after leaving his father, he felt I had chosen my boyfriend over him. Through projective identification my son took on the role of the victim and then my ex’ became his protector. My son has been psychologically abused.

Children were Not Meant to Choose One Parent Over the Other

No child should have to choose which parent to love. The attachment to parents is innate. Children are hard wired to love both parents. When that attachment is disrupted the long-term consequences can be disastrous. My son’s attachment style has shifted from a secure attachment with me to an avoidant-dismissive attachment style. My son’s ability to have healthy intimate relationships is at stake.

My son was grieving the loss of his connection with me as well. But from his perspective his grief was misplaced. Instead of grieving and feeling sad, he was angry and came to believe that he was the victim due to my actions which his father had reinforced. In essence he saw himself as the victim (i.e., exactly what my ex wanted) and then my ex became his protector. When my son moved out, he told me that he felt more stable living with his dad. Probably because his dad’s anxiety had calmed down.

Blaming Myself

My son is not the only one who experienced projective identification. I did too. I have been beating myself up for over seven years. My son’s adolescents was very difficult. I introjected all of the anger that was coming at me and blamed myself. In essence, I was introjecting my ex’ projected hostilities.

I cannot alone fix my relationship with my son.

Can This Parent-Child Relationship Be Saved?

If my son and I are ever to have a relationship again, part of the healing will be for him to reconnect with his misplaced grief surrounding the loss of our relationship. I do not know if he will ever get there. Few adults, let alone young adults want to rip open that scab. This is one of the reasons why reconciliation is so difficult. My adult child will have to come to his own decision about whether he wants to ever speak to me again or have a relationship with me. This is his path to walk. I have no control over whether he faces his unresolved and unhealed issues with me or his father.

The only thing I have control over is myself and doing everything in my power to become the healthier parent. So, if and when he is ready, I will be ready too. When that time comes I will greet him with open and loving arms so we can pick up where we left off.

Living Life with Gratitude

I am now on a path to live life in a way that brings me joy. I have found meaning in researching and writing about Parental Alienation. With each article I read or video I watch, another layer of the onion is pealed back. The one positive thing I’ve learned is that I must take care of myself. This is a marathon against time. I have become stronger by re-establishing my connection with myself, focusing on my self-worth, and becoming more gentle with myself.

By educating others about my experience with this treacherous disease, and explaining the underlying dynamics of this hidden iceberg in common sense language, maybe I can push this learning curve forward. So, my job now is to get a good night’s sleep and be the best I can be. I am still waiting for his return, but until then, I am and will always be Jacob’s mom.

About Dr. Deborah Cutter, Psy.D.

Dr. Deborah Cutter, Psy.D. has been a Licensed Clinical Psychologist for 19 years. She is an expert in the field of Autism Spectrum Disorders and co-owns Creative Behavioral Consultants, Inc., an Applied Behavior Analysis agency in Calabasas, CA. She graduated from UCLA with a BA in Psychology. She received her MA degree from Phillips Graduate Institute. Her Doctorate in Clinical Psychology was obtained from Ryokan College in 2000. She also has personal experience having dealt with Parental Alienation for the last 13 years. The chronic grief a targeted parent suffers from is one of the most painful things a parent can endure. She is hopeful that some day her relationship with her son will come out of hibernation and they can get to know each other again.