Children who are suffering from induced psychological splitting in the post divorce and separation landscape are today given signals all over the world that their families love them.
The bubbles blown, around the globe, carry the hope of their parents and grandparents, their wider family and friends, that their children know that they are there, waiting for them to return.
Parental Alienation Awareness day is today and whilst the world is locked down against Covid 19, those who have been in lock down from their children for days, weeks, months and too many years, remember their children, still living.
It is nothing short of tragic that these children, who suffer a recognised defence mechanism but who do not get the help they need, remain unrecognised.
Children are the people who carry the ultimate punishment for the adult failures to address the conditions which allow alienation after divorce and separation to flourish.
Men and women meet, they have children, they part. Those children should not be forced to live with the negative outcomes of that. And yet they are. And in the extremity of that, those children are left with a lifetime of dealing with defensive splitting, which separates them from their healthy selves and which causes them to have to adapt their behaviours for decades, sometimes forever.
This isn’t just about the loss of a relationship with a parent, this isn’t just about parental experiences, this isn’t about adults using theories to continue to abuse each other, it isn’t about ideology, it isn’t about women’s rights or men’s rights or anyone’s rights at all.
This is about children’s lives. Their childhoods. The very building blocks of their existence.
This is about child abuse, hidden in plain sight, argued and fought over by ideologues in order to fog the issue and cause everyone to look in the other direction.
The only antidote to that is love. And love is at the heart of hope.
And hope keeps us going in the direction of a cure for this ghastly problem which plagues the landscape of divorce and separation.
At the heart of hope is love.
Love is the right of all children everywhere.
Who are, after all, the future of this world.
Karen Woodall 
Hi Karen,
At the heart of hope is love, indeed.
I wanted to share with you that after nearly 6 years I have been reunited with one of my two alienated children. She is 19. Five weeks ago, she called me at 10:15pm, using the housekeeper’s phone and asked if I could come pick her up. I said “yes, are you ok?” She responded with “ yes, how soon can you get here?” “Fifteen minutes,” I replied. “Look for me down the street,” she said. I found her sitting on the curb, down the street from my old home in pajamas, with a backpack and a rolling suitcase. She placed her things in the backseat, got into the front seat and said that the stress of the virus was too much to bear in the household with her older sister, her father (my wuz-bund), his new wife, their toddler and our housekeeper. Within, 2 minutes of being on the road, she said, “ this has not been parental alienation” and went on tell me how I screwed up and that her father was screwed up too.
I listened.
It’s been 36 days of being together, listening, cooking, cleaning, eating, laughing, catching up, looking at photo albums, singing to music, etc. I’m fully prepared that at any moment she may say, she’s returning to her father’s. I am treasuring every minute with her.
I am practicing presence with her.
What I need to share with you and Nick and the readers of this blog is that you can never, never, ever give up. The most valuable piece of information I received, from you and from Skype sessions with Nick is to “ Be the lighthouse. “ That perspective literally kept me from dying, from giving up hope, from slipping into the abyss of my broken heart.
Again and again I thank you and Nick for the VERY VALUABLE work you do. It is lifesaving. Thank you for your bravery. Thank you for your resilience. Thank you for being my lighthouse. I will be in touch for more Skype sessions with Nick and wisdom on how to proceed. Love to you both.
LOVE always.
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Bless you Clarisa for your steadfastness and for your love and for your capacity to keep on being there. We know that all children in these circumstances need their healthy parent to be there when they can break free. She doesn’t need to hear the words parental alienation, she does need a parent who understands that this is a defence of psychological splitting who knows how to be there with her to help her to recover – and she can, with your help. Sending you our love, thank you for posting, it gives others the hope that they need and it gives us the certainty that what we are doing is the right thing for children and their families around the world . K
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Soooo happy for you and your daughter Clarisa. Enjoy your very special time together – you both deserve it.
Stay happy and stay well.
From a Mother in a similar position – still waiting, five and a half years now. Reading your post has given me some hope.
Take care x
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I have always embraced the lighthouse metaphor. Even when their backs are turned on the light, it will cast their shadow in front of them where they will need to see themselves in the glow of the light. One day they will turn towards it, that I trust in.
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So lovely to read this . I’m sure I am one of many it’s given real hope to. This article has clearly reached into my emotions as it left me extremely tearful!. I have become so used to being ‘rejected’ and seeminly ignored that I didn’t think I could cry any more!…..I would love to know Kren what you and Nick feel about sharing this article with our children?…Should we ?…or not?….On the one hand it feels right to somehow open their eys, but if they’re not receptive and I’m not there to guage their response or answer any questions, or simply give them a hug and a smile, it could well very much be the wrong thing to do.
It’s hard to keep going and keep hoping, but I do. I’ll never give up. Stories like these are a true reminder and evidence of your and Nick’s amazing and incredibly valuable work. A huge thanks. Polly.xx
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I don’t think you should share this Polly but email me, you have my address and we can think through what might be possible as things stand with your children right now xxx
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