Tag / Emotional Abuse

by lostdad

Karen Woodall: A Trapped Mind

karenwoodall's avatarKaren Woodall - Psychotherapist, Writer, Researcher, Trainer

I wanted to share this blog because it is written by someone who clearly knows how alienation and cults are interwoven.  When I first began work as a psychotherapist one of my first clients was escaping a cult. I was interested in how EST, the cult which became The Forum worked and how Scientology managed to influence so many when it demanded such bizarre and dramatic behaviours from people. My interest in cults lead me eventually to working with parental alienation, itself a cult of the family mindset.  I like this blog and think anyone who is interested in the psychology of alienation will too.

Source: A Trapped Mind

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by lostdad

Karen Woodall: Residence Transfer as a Treatment Route For Parental Alienation: Not The Nuclear Option

karenwoodall's avatarKaren Woodall - Psychotherapist, Writer, Researcher, Trainer

I read this week that a transfer of residence is the ‘nuclear option’ for treatment of parental alienation in the UK .  The discussion arises from a public judgement in which the child concerned was sent to live with her father.  Whilst there is a significant wrangling about the decision, based on the argument that the child had been too damaged already to be helped by a change of residence, (the judge finding that a particularly unattractive argument put forward by the mother), the words at the end of the Judgement are clear, the child will go to live with her father today.

That reality, which could just as easily read, the child will go to live with her mother today, given that fathers alienate mothers too, is one which causes too many people to become uneasy when they contemplate it.  Which is why I guess, it is called by…

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by lostdad

Just putting my tin-foil hat on – finding abuse everywhere

I have just got the school report card from my youngest (13). German law requires that I get this along with a report on how the children are doing. My ex-wife has managed to distill this down to a few legally acceptable lines, as I have reported before!

What is interesting are the marks for English and French. Just a quick reminder: I live in Germany, my Ex-wife is German, and never had any interest in speaking English, only French. Until the final break with the children, I always spoke English to them.

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by lostdad

Updated research: Adult Children of Parental Alienation

Interesting article about the ‘Adult children of PAS’ updated recently.

It details the background of how the PA came into being, but also goes into some of the research carried out on the effects when the children become adults.

This is the saddest part:

At the same time the awareness of the alienation led to a greater degree of conflict in their relationship with the alienating parent.

This statement alone should lead to an overhaul of the family law system in several countries.

Children need both parents.

via Adult Children of Parental Alienation Syndrome

by lostdad

Parental Alienation: Baiting and Bashing (includes some trains)!

Just a quick post on this pic/statement that appeared on my twitter feed today.

baiting

It is hard to believe that when one is behaving properly, correctly, in control, and holding the moral high ground of somebody that is essentially the victim, that they themselves can become the ‘aggressor’.

Let’s take a practical example out of my past experiences.

I finally got my court order changed to be able to pick up my boys and take them to Munich from Saturday to Sunday the first overnight stay for a year. Just over an hour with the direct train. But there was a problem. My Ex wanted me to go from a smaller station (Eichstätt-Stadt) that feeds into a larger mainline station (Eichstätt-Bahnhof) which would increase the journey by 40 minutes, and even longer for me because to arrive at the scheduled time I would be bound by the times of the train service to the smaller station and arrive 50 minutes before I was due to pick up the kids.

The judge agreed on the transfer point being the mainline station, which is around about the same journey time by car from their house as the other station. i.e. I was not asking them to go out of their way.

Sorry about the long-winded start, but here we go – what happens on the day?  I turn up on time at the court-ordered location – the mainline station.  She isn’t there. Knowing her now I sense what has happened and just wait. Sure enough, she turns up on the slow train from the other station that connects with the mainline service. She gets out with the children and starts raising her voice very loudly at me immediately, in front of at least three dozen other passengers and my children. I remain calm. She escalates, starts shouting and starts to look around for support. I could see the “you bastard” or similar looks in some people’s eyes. She starts talking about additional expenses of the tickets (< €4), anything to keep the situation going. The boys go off to sit and wait and I try to extricate myself, and finally manage it because I didn’t engage with her, and I certainly did not argue the toss.

So now read the graphic again please, and what have we:

  • She managed to make me the villain in the piece even though I followed the court order to the letter.
  • She made my children think that it as well.
  • She turned herself into the victim.
  • Any chance of me being believed in such a context is around zero.

It was her way of saying ‘I do not agree with you taking the kids to Munich (100km) away, you should still visit them here in Eichstätt (Pop. 14,000) and spend just a couple of hours in a coffee shop somewhere instead of quality time with your father at his home’.

There were desserts as well. On bringing them back the mainline train was a whole – wait for it – drumroll please – five minutes late. I sent her a text and she and her boyfriend were waiting. Cue scene and shouting. Demonstrably going to the timetable to see when the train should have arrived, and if I was late there would be trouble. Again the kids were witnessing all of this, as well as her ‘man’ who lamely said ‘We can check on the internet when we get home’.

This was the first time in over a year of lawyers and judges to be able to get the children to visit me in Munich. We had a great time, the memory of which was destroyed in seconds – coincidence?

An exchange of lawyers letters ensued and she yet again managed to circumvent a court order causing me to get a train an hour early just to be at the smaller station in time and causing the children an extra half an hour travelling to Munich. It also meant reducing the time with the children by an hour on the return journey. The effect being not only extending the journey time unnecessarily, but also laying the seeds for it being tedious to go and visit Daddy every time, and the journey is so long and boring, and there are better things to do with your time …

Learning to raise your voice can sometimes have the desired effect regardless of content – unfortunately.

Sorry about all the railway talk (takes off anorak sheepishly).

© 2017 lostdad – all rights reserved

by lostdad

Unbelievable story from Austria with a Happy End

Unbelievable story from Austria.

A mother kidnaps her daughter and takes her to her native Poland in December 2013, but the father manages to bring her back to Austria. He gets full custody for the daughter.

In October 2014 the partner of the father is attacked with pepper spray as she brings the daughter to the Kindergarten. She obviously brings her daughter to the grandmother in Polen and then after an international arrest order is issued the mother hands herself into the police. Leaving her daughter in Poland with the grandmother.

She is given a three-year jail sentence, which she is then able to serve out in Poland, where she is released on bail after a short while.

After following her they manage to find out where the daughter has been hidden (one of three hiding places in the time). They manage to free the daughter from the hiding place that is only rudimentary.

What on earth was this parent thinking of? The girl has not been to school in this time. Probably not even been to the doctors!

Luckily the alienation between the father and the daughter was able to be broken down a little after a couple of visits.

And after all this, the father still believes that when the dust has settled his daughter should see her mother.

Every child needs both their parents.

via Kritik an Behörden – Doppelentführung – Kind Lara gefunden! | Familie & Familienrecht

by lostdad

Parental Alienation is more than just child abuse

Last week the chair of Fathers for Justice published an excellent post entitled Parental Alienation is Child Abuse. I say excellent because it provided an understandable overview of what exactly parental alienation is and also how it should be classed as child abuse.

Children are alienated through the abusive conduct of the primary carer who deliberately and cynically attempts to alienate the child in order to deny the other parent contact.

Additionally, the article detailed how in the past actually mentioning or even alluding to ‘parental alienation’ caused that parent to be ‘shot down’ in the courts. Luckily this is now starting to change with the first debate in parliament on parental alienation led by Simon Danczuk on the 15th March this year. Though as Mr Danczuk has been banned for standing under the Labour party banner in the general election this year let’s see if this was a one-shot wonder.

These are all positive developments, PA is starting to become recognised both in the legal system – importantly in the lower courts, and is also becoming known to larger parts of the general public. But I would like to go further.

Parental Alienation is not only child abuse – it is the abuse of the absent parent.

Let’s take a simple case. I was walking through Munich city centre at the weekend with my new wife and my eight-year-old step-son. I passed the Apple store just off Marienplatz, and then it happened as these things always do – I started to think about my children who loved going to the Apple store, or the ‘Daddy Toy Store’ as they called it.  I didn’t cry or have a breakdown, but I did ‘zone out’. I started to think about the children I cannot see, that do not want to see me because of PA. I thought of the good times, what they might be doing now, the memories came flooding back. My wife knows when this happens as I invariably become very quiet, and she gives me a big hug to bring me out. In today’s parlance, I believe what happened is that I was triggered.  I get over it, and I carry on with my new life.

What my ex-partner has done, the situation she has created is abuse – she is emotionally abusing me, and using my only blood relatives as weapons. What she has done has had a profoundly negative effect on not just the life of my children now and in the future, but on my current and future life. This is not right, and for this crime, she will not have to serve time, or even be fined – it is all passively sanctioned by the state.

It is time this type of abuse was recognised, and that steps are taken to stop it.

I am one of the ‘lucky’ ones – I have built up a new life, with new loved ones. But what about those that unfortunately cannot for whatever reason? They are destined to live in a semi-permanent state of being abused, where for some there may only be the ultimate exit.

I still keep hoping that these problems will become known and that they will eventually be addressed. More has happened this year than in any other, and perhaps there will be a time where PA and abuse to children and absent parents will be regarded as what it should be – morally repugnant and simply not done in a civilised society.

Here is the original article – please take the time to have a read.

 

© 2017 lostdad – all rights reserved

 

by lostdad

Karen Woodall on PA Awareness Day 2017

Another Parental Alienation Awareness Day rolls around and I am thinking of all the children missing out on their parent’s love and all the parents who are thinking of their children and wondering how they are today. Because today is Parental Alienation Awareness Day, the emphasis being upon the word awareness, I thought it might be […]

via Parental Alienation Awareness Day 2017 – What Alienated Parents Don’t Know and What Alienating Parents Won’t Tell Them (and Why They Won’t Tell Them) — Karen Woodall