Monday 12 November 2007

How the alienated child feels - mocking the target parent

I did lots of that. I said terrible things to and about her for years and years and years. I laughed at her, made fun of her, treated her like she was stupid, picked fault with her, criticized her, belittled her, ignored her, took every word from her mouth as negative. The male parent said she rejected me. Now I know different. When my offspring is in a mood, I walk off, leave the room, disappear until it's over. I withdraw. That's what she did. She continuously withdrew emotionally because that's the kind of person she was, though as I got older the arguments blazed, until I think she just gave up on me when I was in my late teens. She probably had no energy left. I've felt like that about somebody I loved: I loved them a lot but they were such hard work and caused so much heartache, after a few years, I didn't have any energy left to give them.

She did argue back as I got older (ie teenage years), which didn't help matters one bit. She became as vicious as me, sometimes. I got so angry that I hated her, though I never said that once. I was proud of that. I can still feel the anger towards her in me now, though it was misguided and even sometimes just normal teenage fury. She made me FURIOUS and because I believed that this anger towards me was because she didn't love me, it made my heart break too. It reinforced everything the male parent aka the alienator told me about her.

Everytime she yelled at me, no matter which one of us was right or wrong, it supported the alienator's lies. It was agony. And we all know what some people do when they're hurt? They act out with anger. It was AWFUL. My teenage years were especially traumatic because neither of us realised that that scumbag male parent of mine had driven an almighty wedge between us. At that point, he had well and truly succeeded. He had got what he wanted. He revved things up during those years, telling me her actions were all about control and trying to keep me down and not allowing me to by myself and because she didn't love me or care about me in anyway.

He also liked the other angle: he'd never treat me like that. If I lived with him, life would be great because he was a much better parent than her. He cooked better ("Let me make you a fried egg without all those burned bits on it like when mummy cooks it"), cleaned better ("I know a special trick with a broom that no one else knows"), treated me better ("I've always treated you like you were a couple of years older. She just treats you like a child"), life in his town was better - better schools, near the beach, near the roads to holiday destinations, not in a city in a smaller house ("You live in a slum").

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