An amazing source of help

My counsellor called it "haunting". The events of my past relationship with that man are almost always on my mind in varying degrees. Usually typing up a post about a particular event helps rid me of that event to some extent; this is why some of the posts in this blog are so dramatic or heartfelt or upset, because I write them at the moments I'm experiencing the memory or the trauma. This is why sometimes I say extreme things, for example that I'm going to end the blog. That man exerted control over me in so many ways, and by saying I'm going to end the blog, I think I'm taking back control and deciding whether I will continue to talk about these things or not, on my own terms in my own time.

Usually the traumatic memories float around in my head until I find a way to make sense of them or understand them, or even just name them. To discover "Covert Incest" (which is quite a strong term but what else can we call it?) has been a revelation. Naming something gives me so much power and helps me to further understand the Parental Alienation - and even the reasons for my mother's actions. She pretty much kidnapped my sister and me and for decades I was angry about it. However, as information starts to creep out, and as I've been making sense of things over the last 3 years, as I've read about PA and now Covert Incest, I'm beginning to see that it's entirely possible she was escaping with us in order to keep us safe from him. I'm not sure she would ever have been able to name what he was doing anymore than I could until I found the CI website, but I know for damn sure his behaviour made her uncomfortable. Other people noticed his behaviour too - and thought it was creepy (they said he was obsessed with me, had a strange fascination with me). So if she was seeing Covert Incest, and if she was afraid that it would lead to actual abuse, I would have done what she did too. I would have left him and left everything behind.

Insomnia is making me incredibly miserable at the moment. I'm trying to go to bed at a reasonable time but I'm unconciously avoiding sleep. I'm actually afraid of sleeping, but I don't remember any dreams at the moment, so I don't know what's going on. I'm so tired that my memory is going and I don't even have the energy for much housework. I'm sleeping in my clothes and all I want to do is read books. So ... displacement much?

And yet I can't put my finger on what's wrong. I feel so alone - but that's normal. I only have my children. I was afraid I'd seen the male parent last week. I saw someone driving the opposite direction who looked just like him in a car just like his, but my startled expression didn't cause any reaction whatsoever from the man. I'm fairly sure it wasn't him. He just looked at me blankly with no recognition at all. It terrified me though, and reminded me that he's a creep and wouldn't think twice about driving three hours up here to spy on us. I'd bet money that he has already.

So, on to this amazing source of help. This brought tears to my eyes and caught my breath. It's from here: http://covertincest.proboards22.com/index.cgi?board=general&action=display&thread=2

It's all about Flashbacks, and I think it's worth reading and then re-reading by all of us, not just those who were affected by CI. Parental Alienation is a form of child abuse, just like CI, and therefore we have suffered harm from it. PA especially means that at some level we were emotionally neglected by one or both of our parents - and that means that some part of us is still a child. A counsellor once told me some of the things in this list and I failed to remember one that I felt was so important at the time: that self-care is vital, especially for the child in us that has stunted (because if your childhood wasn't normal, then you didn't grow properly in all areas), and that even self-parenting may be important. I need to remember that and read this list over. I might even print it off and put it up in my room because I'm so forgetful. I need to be the adult and parent myself - take care of myself the way my parents should have, and be affectionate, treat, arrange cuddles from somewhere (I have a child who is always happy to oblige, and a cat that is occasionally happy to deign to oblige), feed properly, exercise properly, ensure quiet time and rowdy time, and proper bedtimes - even if I don't sleep because then at least I'm resting. I also need to remind myself that I'm doing a GREAT job with my kids, and that I'm achieving good things in my life.

WHAT ARE THEY?

Flashbacks are memories of past traumas. They may take the form of pictures, sounds, smells, body sensations, feelings or lack of them (numbness). Many times there is no actual visual or auditory memory. One may have the sense of panic, being trapped, feeling powerless with no memory stimulating it. These experiences can also happen in dreams.As a child or adolescent, we have to insulate ourselves from the emotional and physical horrors of the trauma. In order to survive, that child remained isolated, unable to express the feelings and thoughts at that time. It is as though we put that part into a time capsule until it comes out in the present.When that part comes out, the LITTLE ONE inside of us is experiencing the past as if it was happening today. As the flashback occurs, it is as if we forget that we have an ADULT part available to us for reassurance, protection and grounding. The intense feelings and body sensations occurring are so frightening because the feelings/sensations are not related to the reality of the present and many times seem to come from out of nowhere.We begin to think we are crazy and are afraid of telling anyone (including our therapist) of these experiences. We feel out of control and at the mercy of our experiences. We begin to avoid situations and stimuli that we think triggered it. Many times, flashbacks occur during any form of sexual intimacy. It may occur with a person who has similar characteristics as the perpetrator. It may be any situation today that stirs up similar trapped feelings.If you are feeling small... you are experiencing a flashback. If you are experiencing stronger feelings than are called for in the present situation... you are experiencing a flashback.

FLASHBACKS ARE NORMAL

Vietnam vets have normalized this experience and have coined the term as posttraumatic stress syndrome. Even the diagnostic category book for psychiatry defines posttraumatic stress syndrome as the normal reaction of all people experiencing an event that is outside the range of normal human experience.Flashbacks feel crazy because the little one doesn't know that there is an adult survivor inside to help.

WHAT HELPS

1. TELL YOURSELF THAT YOU ARE HAVING A FLASHBACK.
2. REMIND YOURSELF THAT THE WORST IS OVER. The feeling and sensations you are experiencing are memories of the past. The actual event took place long ago when you were little and YOU SURVIVED. Now it is time to let out that terror, rage, hurt, and/or panic.
3. GET GROUNDED. This may mean stamping your feet on the ground so that the little one knows that you have feet and, if you need to, you can get away. As a child, you couldn't get away... now you can.
4. BREATHE. When we get scared, we stop normal breathing. As a result, our body begins to panic from lack of oxygen. Lack of oxygen in itself causes a great deal of panic feeling: pounding in the head, tightness, sweating, feeling faint, shakiness, and dizziness. When we breathe deeply, a lot of the panic feeling can decrease. Breathing deeply means putting your hand on your diaphragm and breathing fully so that your diaphragm pushes out against your hand and then exhaling so that the diaphragm goes in.
5. REORIENT TO THE PRESENT. Begin to use your five senses in the present. Look around and see the colors in the room, the shapes of things, the people near, etc. Listen to the sounds in the room, your breathing, traffic, birds, people, cars, etc. Feel your body and what is touching it: your clothes, your own arms and hands, the chair or floor supporting you.
6. SPEAK TO THE LITTLE ONE AND REASSURE HER/HIM. It is very healing to get your adult in the picture so your little one knows that he/she is not alone. Say: "You are not in danger now," "You can tell me about it," "It's OK to feel, I won't hurt you." The child needs to know that it's safe to experience the feelings and let go of the past.
7. GET IN TOUCH WITH YOUR NEED FOR BOUNDARIES. Sometimes when we are having a flashback, we lose the sense of where we leave off and the world begins; as if we do not have skin. Wrap yourself in a blanket, hold a pillow or stuffed animal, go to bed, sit in a closet... any way that you can feel yourself truly protected from the outside.
8. GET SUPPORT. Depending on your situation, you may need to be alone or may want someone near you. In either case, it is important that your support people know about flashbacks so they can help with the process... this may mean letting you be yourself or by being there in a way that is safe for you.
9. TAKE THE TIME TO RECOVER. Sometimes flashbacks are very powerful. Give yourself the time to make the transition from this powerful experience. Don't expect yourself to jump into adult activities right away. Take a nap, or a warm bath, or some quiet time. Be kind and gentle with yourself. Appreciate how much your little one went through as a child.
10. HONOR YOUR EXPERIENCE. Appreciate yourself for having survived that horrible time as a child. Respect your body's need to experience those feelings of long ago. Keep a journal as a testimony of your healing.
11. BE PATIENT. It takes time to heal the past. It takes time to learn appropriate ways of taking care of self, of being an adult who has feelings, and of developing effective ways of coping.
12. FIND A COMPETENT THERAPIST. Look for a therapist who understands the process of healing from incest.
13. KNOW YOU ARE NOT CRAZY... YOU ARE HEALING!

The person I used to be

I realised yesterday just how different I am today from the alienated person I used to be.

Within myself I am immeasurably more self-confident - not arrogant, but more self-aware and sure of who I am (the Asperger's notwithstanding).

I used to be very different. The alienated Me was tense all the time, stressed, frightened. I felt permanently stupid because I had been brainwashed into thinking I didn't know anything (again, the Asperger's notwithstanding - it's an issue that does merge occasionally with the effects of alienation but I (hopefully) am well able to separate the two). He always put my opinions down and calmly explained to me why I was wrong about EVERYTHING - even the day on which I celebrate my eldest child's birthday (she was born late at night in a different timezone from the one we live in. He believes that her birthday should be the day it was in the timezone we live in, not where she was born. This logic would also change the date of my own birthday but he never mentioned that) and about how to deal with my children, my sister, my mother's family, my personal life, that it was okay for him to walk into my bedroom when I was asleep naked with my also asleep and naked then-partner next to me, to feel me up, etcetera etcetera and und so weiter. Blah blah and blahdy blah.

I second guessed myself and worried about my decisions a lot. I was always *somehow* wrong if I asked him for advice or opinions. He always spoke down to me. He put me down too, indirectly - he wouldn't defend me if someone else made negative comments about me. My sister says truly terrible things about me. He liked to regale me with these. I once had a strange feeling about the way he was speaking that led me to ask if he actually agreed with her. His reply was that he didn't know. No. Probably not. It wasn't too reassuring - though I've never been able to put my finger on what was wrong with his response, my initial reaction was: he's lying. He does agree with her. He can't tell me outright that he doesn't. NOW, however, remembering the conversations properly, he seemed vague, not in denial. I don't think he had ever thought that deeply about me before. THAT is why I think he sounded so unconvincing: he truly didn't know because he didn't have a clue about my actual, personal character. He didn't know me. He once texted me when I was at a heavy metal concert. "What are you doing there?" he asked in surprise. "Erm, watching and listening to the band" I replied. "I didn't know you liked that sort of thing" he said. I joked that he didn't know me at all - and didn't get a reply to that.

Looking back, I'm amazed at that rubbish I fell for and the things I put up with. It's very easy to look back and wonder why the hell I put up with the abuse, how I believed the lies and manipulation. It wouldn't happen now - but that person believed in her male parent. She trusted him. She believed everything he did was for her own good and that he was behind her 100%. She believed he knew her and loved her. She did not believe a word against him because she had been forewarned by him that certain people were not trustworthy and only wanted to cause her harm. She had been shown how untrustworthy and evil her own mother was, and without him she would never have been able to unravel the subtleties of human behaviour to see that even the smallest gift was nothing more than bribery. He helped that little girl to see that her mother didn't want her or love her - but that little girl was in her thirties before she realised that he exposed her to terrible terrible thoughts and actions and beliefs like the fact that she was unloved ... and then left them to mill around her mind and torment her and haunt her. He sent that little girl to her bed at night in a house she was not wanted in, filled with people who hated her, ALONE. I spent days and nights thinking about my mother not loving me. It was on my mind constantly, even as an adult. Walking home from school was difficult because I was heading for that house where my presence was unwanted, my entrance dreaded not anticipated. I tried to earn her approval, just to receive a nice word, because it was impossible for her to love me, wasn't it?

When I think about my own offspring, especially the younger one, lying in bed crying and wishing someone else were her parents and that someone would come and rescue her from that hideous existence, it breaks my heart.

I sympathise with his heartbreak. I've been left too. I have NO sympathy whatsoever for what he turned me into because of it. I would NEVER tell my children their other parent doesn't love them! Even when things go bad and I feel like bopping my ex over the head, I try to explain that his behaviour is NOT because he doesn't love them!

Kids get hurt feelings when you don't praise their paintings enough. I can vividly remember the feeling accompanying the words "Your mother doesn't love you. She just wants to control you". My stomach would turn over. My chest would feel empty. My brain would feel like it had all fallen to the front of my head above my eyes, where it would try its hardest not to let them cry. My head would fall forward and look at my knees or the ground and the muscles in my neck would become solid. I'd wordlessly ask myself how I was going to live with this. I'd wish I was my sister because "she loves her because she doesn't look like me or you". How will I live with this? Of course, I didn't know how, I wasn't even in double figures, but my heart was broken.

I became so used to that feeling (because it was permanent. He reinforced it every time I saw him) that it felt normal. When boyfriends or friends made me feel that way, it felt normal - and I'd let them abuse me too.

He didn't just tell me these things once or twice, he told me them continuously for YEARS, from 1976 until 2005. He deliberately inflicted that heartbreak on me (and he knew how it felt to believe your mother might not love you because his was kicked out of the family home when he was eleven), but not on my sister.

After 2005, I was free of him. He was out of our lives completely. It was like a detoxing. Slowly I came to understand (and it's ongoing) what a heinous crime he committed. Slowly I came to review past events and revise their definitions where appropriate. I'm like a historical revisionist now. Once I realised that he was lying about me, everything started to unravel in my mind (and that moment came a few months after he disowned me, it wasn't immediate). Understanding of what he'd done and what Parental Alienation is has grown within me since then. I did not have a sudden epiphany - but I'm a different person. I'm stronger now. I trust my own opinion. I stand up for myself more. I am calmer and more content in many ways. I trust my own plans for my life. I don't feel stupid or worry that I am a bad parent or a let-down or a disappointment or that I can't make my own decisions.

If I saw him again, I'd have an absolutely screaming fit. I'm sure of that - right now, that's how I feel. I wouldn't be able to feel calm at this point in time. I'd scream and scream and scream for him to get the hell away from us. I'd call the police if I needed to. He'd start with his excuses and rationalizing and putting me down ("Don't be so silly") but I wouldn't put my head down and put up with it. I'd scream the place down. I'm not letting that psycho anywhere near us, no matter what rubbish he spouts. My kids - well, the younger one hardly remembers him but trusts Mum. The older one knows that man has legal rights to his grandchildren and has never even attempted to assert them, let alone call since the last birthday in February of 2005. They're loyal to me and they know as much as is appropriate for them to know at their respective ages. My ex supports me.

Time was I would have believed anything he said, including his definitions of my character (a character into which I stepped and played for decades until I realised he had applied the personality traits he wanted to me, and never actually saw the ones I truly have). He told me I was a tomboy (I'm not but I believed him and played that role whenever I was around him - but never at home), that I was loud and gobby (I'm not. Asperger's can make you the opposite, it can make you hide away, shy and nervous), that I'm a typical Leo (!), that I might be the reincarnation of his previous wife (WTF?! See my post about Covert Incest!), that I'm stupid (I'm not going to brag about this. Suffice it to say I'm CLEVER. It's the one aspect of my being that I'm proud of. I have nothing else that shines, just my stupendous brain. Okay, so now I'm bragging.), that the only reason I married my ex is because he was a "big, tall American", that I allowed myself to be fooled by my mother every day of my life - that I mistook her acts of love for bribery or manipulation or guilt or showing off or competition against him, that I needed him to help me form my opinions and see things clearly.

I can't help but look back at how foggy my brain was when I was under the spell of Parental Alienation. I can remember my ex ranting at how "pathetic" he thought my male parent was. He reached a point with him when he just lost his patience and couldn't deal with him without wanting to scream. I remember not being able to understand AT ALL where my ex was coming from. I thought he was mad. When his friend formed the same opinion, I thought he was mad too. My ex's exact words stay with me today because they sum my male parent up perfectly: "He is a pathetic man". He didn't mean, he's a pathetic person. He meant a pathetic male of the species, and only now do I understand the two meanings. He meant my male parent is not a real man, according to the standards of other men. It's telling that my male parent has never, ever had any male friends. His friends have all been women - and when I remember them, I remember them as being easily manipulated, vulnerable women just out of divorces who dumped him or withdrew their friendship after a year or so. And I am sorry that he has spent so much time alone - but he has no conception of it being his fault. He thinks it's everyone else. I believed that too.

I am stunned when I realise how much rubbish I accepted.

Parental Alienation is Emotional Terrorism. It is the deliberate harm of innocents in the pursuit of selfish desires (usually revenge).

There is no need for it.

Narcissism - discussion

Am reading Louise's post about narcissim and am finding some very interesting correlations and validations of my belief that my male parent is a Narcissist.

Quote:

"The narcissist INITIATES his own abandonment BECAUSE of his fear of it. He is so afraid of losing his sources (and of unconsciously being emotionally hurt) – that he would rather "control", "master", or "direct" the potentially destabilising situation – than confront its effects if initiated by the significant other. Remember: the personality of the narcissist has a low level of organization. It is precariously balanced.Being abandoned could cause a narcissistic injury so grave that the whole edifice can come crumbling down. Narcissists usually entertain suicidal ideation in such cases. BUT, if the narcissist initiated and directed his abandonment, if the abandonment is perceived by him to be a goal HE set to himself to achieve – he can and does avoid all these untoward consequences. "

I've mentioned before that he disowned me (which I'm not arguing with). Well, at the time, I may or may not have mentioned this before, I was looking for a way to get him out of our lives. I'd had enough of him. I was verging on hatred for him. I wanted him away from my female children because he is a pervert and I was not going to allow him to do to them what he did to me (he was alone with one of them once in her whole life, and the other never). My eldest was coming into puberty and so in my mind I was looking for a way to keep him away from us. Simultaneously I started going back to my church - which he had always hated, for some reason. He wouldn't mind if I believed in HIS (bizarre and NOT ordinary) beliefs, but basic Christianity? He'd panic and try and stop me, criticise, mock (oh the mockery of every aspect of my life ...), bash (as in anti-Bible-bashing), nag nag nag ... it was endless. He'd get himself into such a state. I found it weird. He was proud of what he felt was emotion-free logic and self-control ("I'm rational so I'm stronger than most people"), but when it came to me going to church, he'd freak out like he was having a panic attack. He demanded compliance from me. He never got it, though I often lied to him about my church attendance. It was easier to say I wasn't going and didn't believe in it that to have to put up with endless nagging and attempts to alienate me from church. Clearly this was a control issue with him and I was being disobedient. I hadn't asked his permission to go to church, despite he and my mother not having me christened in order for me to make up my own mind ...

SO, there came the time when he really began to lay it on thick - but I felt stronger and stronger. His nagging and complaints and objection and criticism of my beliefs, my way of life, how I was raising my children, all this went on from August to March. I consistently said "I don't want to talk about this with you. If you keep on, we will fall out", and all the while I was thinking that maybe I should use this as a way of getting rid of him. Unfortunately I'm not devious enough or deceptive enough. All the while I kept us away from him, too. We live three hours from him so it wasn't a problem. And then he blindsided me - he disowned me, out of the blue, after months of me not backing down (which was simultaneously terrifying and exhilarating). He cut me off via email (how kind, the COWARD), using such foul speech, disgusting phrases and vile lies that when I told a friend about the content of his astonishing email, he said "Your DAD said those things?!" Nobody could believe what he had said, least of all me. It was disgusting - and an eye-opener, of course.

I have two theories about why he did this when he did.

Theory One (which is most supported by people who know him): my sister had previously disowned him (and me) and would not return to his life with her four children if I was in it. I told him for years that one day she would make him choose between us - and she did.

Theory Two: he saw it coming. He realised that I was becoming stronger and stronger, and wising up to him on many levels. He knew that once I finally realised just what he had done for thirty years, I would disown him - so he got in there first.

I'll never know unless I really talk to him - and as I will never see him again, no talking of any kind is going to happen. He'd never admit to any fault anyway. Alienators (narcissists) almost never do (I have seen two regretful alienators on mailing lists I used to belong to so there's hope!).

What made me begin to peel away the layers of deceipt only really began with his disownment email. It was just the start. My realisation of his betrayal truly began when I realised that he was lying about me - my uncle unwittingly told me what he believed was the "truth". It was being touted that I was the one who had done the disowning. Okay, so I was looking for a way of keeping the man away from my kids, but I had NOT disowned anybody at that point!

If you're wondering why I didn't just say "Keep away from us, we never want to see you again," remember what your alienator is like. Would they just accept that, just like that? Would they just say "Oh, okay" and walk away? No, they wouldn't. I had to find a way to get rid of that man that would leave him no way of ignoring my wishes - because that's what he would have done. He would NEVER have listened to me. He always ignored what I wanted and did whatever the hell he liked. The reason I spent so many months trying to think of a way to remove him permanently from our lives was because he, as a narcissist and alienator, believes his rights and desires are the only ones that matter, that everyone else in the world in stupid and that it doesn't matter what they say. He would have ridden roughshod over me saying anything about him staying away from us. "Don't be stupid. I'll do what I like. You're not keeping my grandchildren away from me. I'm your FATHER. You owe me". Blah blah blah.

But he initiated his own abandonment and solved my problem.

"Get him to hit you!"

I've remembered a small thing. I was once with an aggressive man who was frequently verbally and emotionally abusive towards me. This man used his physicality to intimidate me, pushed me once and ran at me to throw his fist in my face - but did not actually hit me. He meant to make me think he was going to. Of course I didn't know that at the time. I thought he was about to punch me in the face and break my nose in front of our toddler. These details are shared for background, not for sympathy. This man and I have put the past way behind us and moved forward for the sake of our shared child (who doesn't seem to remember the above incident).

That act was the last straw for me. I called my father and explained that this man had been bullying me for a very long time. The male parent said, well, if you need to leave, I'll provide you with money. We agreed that having someone else know what was going on would provoke a change, and that I was safer with someone else knowing.

Then we discussed a storyline running in a soap my stepmother watched: an abusive and violent husband beating up his wife. The male parent said, "Yes, we've noticed the parallells between you and the TV show. It wouldn't necessarily be all bad if he hit you. You should provoke him, get him to hit you, then you can get the police to get him out of the house."

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

This is an example of just how manipulative an alienator can be. This parent of mine actively wanted harm to come to me in order to get rid of my partner. To me, this demonstrates a clear opinion of me as an object. I didn't want to be hit in order for my partner to leave! I wanted my partner to go to counselling with me to rebuild our family! I didn't want to provoke him because I WAS scared of him, but also because I'm not like that. It would have been a lie - but my male parent clearly saw nothing wrong with it. I cry when my offspring have hurt feelings - that parent could think about and actually want physical harm to come to me to achieve an aim - to "win" publically.

Authoritarians and abusers

This man allegedly kept his daughter and three of the seven children he fathered on her imprisoned for 24 years, adopting the other three (the seventh died).

A psychologist has reported on this case at the link above, when asked the most obvious question: HOW could someone do this? That is, mentally speaking, how would someone be able to do this? How could you imprison, rape and abuse your own children?

I see this so often with Parental Alienation and indeed often ask the same question myself. How on earth could anyone actively wish to abuse anyone else?

The psychologist's answer was that a certain type of person believes it is their right to treat people as they want, especially their children. My male parent exhibits traits of this nature: he considered himself "owner" of his family, my mother and my sister and me, and said as much in public. He felt himself "in charge". "No one tells me what to do". "I know things other people don't". He felt he was cleverer than everyone else.

When no one listens to him, they are targets for verbal abuse -not just complaints or whinges, like "Oh, you're so annoying," but extreme and foul abuse. My mother and one of her sisters were called whores by him - he called my mother a whore in front of me! Amongst other things! As I've mentioned before, her cancer "was her own fault".

When I reached puberty, things changed a little. He suddenly noticed me in a different way. He leered at me, tried to stand too close and rub himself up against me (arms or legs), lay on top of me and kissed me all over my face, ran his hands up and down my back to see if I was wearing a bra ... I tried to keep myself out of the way. I stopped going near him whenever possible. I wouldn't give him hugs anymore, though he forced them. He was always looking at me with a dirty smile on his face. It's sickening to even remember it. He constantly made comments about me growing up, quite often dirty. I refused to play Scrabble anymore when he used the word "erection". I began to hate going to his house every third weekend and did everything I could to get out of it. At first, no one really listened to me, and he'd be "reasonable": "She doesn't have to come if she doesn't want to", and I was forced into it once or twice. From a logistical point of view, I think perhaps Mum felt guilty that he had driven four hours for me to refuse to go. My credibility wasn't brilliant because my PA behaviour (and Asperger's?) was wonderful for twisting incidents into crazy misrepresentations of the truth.

ANYWAY, back to the authoritarianism. Mum told him we didn't like his leering and talking and jokes and curiousness about our pubertal development. He was embarrassing us. Could he please stop? His answer made me begin to realise what a selfish man he is. He didn't apologise. He didn't even stop. In fact, he told us it was his right to do it because he was just proud. He said he wasn't going to stop because he wasn't doing anything wrong, and that he could do what he wanted. "You're my daughters, I can do what I like". I had a similar discussion with him on my sister's wedding day. She had come to me privately a few days before and said "I'm dreading him doing all that stuff on the day. Please talk to him." So I did - and had almost the same conversation.

"If you do that, it will embarrass her."
"I can do what I like".

And yay me - I stood up for us!!!! I nearly passed out with fear but I was defending my sister! And, in a roundabout way, myself.

"No, on this occasion, you can't."
"I can. I can do and say what I like".
"NO. YOU CAN'T. YOU WILL NOT DO THIS ON HER WEDDING DAY! I'll speak to C (his partner) about this if I need to, but you will not mention her growing up once. You will spoil her wedding day. She's afraid you're going to go on about her growing up. I'll tell C all about this if you don't promise not to say a word!"

And he didn't do it! The threat of being grassed up. That's interesting - I've just realised the connection (duh). He behaved himself because I threatened to tell tales on him. When I threatened to tell Mum about him going on about us growing up, he said what I said before: that he wasn't doing anything wrong. He didn't have to worry about Mum's opinion of him - for some reason. In his mind, he had already discredited her? But the current partner - he didn't want her to know. Interesting.

I think this brainwashing (that he could do whatever he likes because we are his children) is the reason I never told anyone about the inappropriate behaviour. I was un-credible anyway to some degree, so the chances of being believed were slim. Perhaps he knew that. In my mind, he could do anything he liked because he was in charge. He believed it was his right to do certain things to me, so because I was "on his side", I believed it too. I've often wondered why I let him do it. I *thought* it was wrong but because I believed everything he said, I believed I was wrong too, so I tolerated it. That's a realisation right there in front of you, folks, thanks to a Sky New psychologist and my own ramblings. I've just worked that out. I was brainwashed into thinking he could do no wrong so when he did wrong, I didn't know it. "You're just imagining it". He made all sorts excuses for his behaviours. He noticed when I wouldn't stand near him anymore and he pushed it. He deliberately pushed himself into my private space. "Nothing wrong with a cuddle", but then he'd be rubbing my breast. He did that in public once and almost laughed at me when I looked at him, moving away quickly. His grin was huge and his expression was one of conceit and utter disdain for me. "You idiot. Look what I can do - and you put up with it!". That he'd do it in public shocked me so much. I began complete withdrawal from him at that point. Although I had never left my daughter alone with him before then anyway, I was determined to keep her away from him. I left the area within a year of that.

More about alienated child behaviours - Set ups.

Well, more about MY alienated child behaviours, anyway.

I was a pretty rotten kid to my mum. I'm mortified now, to be honest. I did REALLY well at school consistently. Academically - I'm was a good kid. Behaviour-wise to her? I was awful. A certifiable IDIOT. I never broke any laws but I broke rules - and I didn't care. I didn't smoke but I used to go to bars and nightclubs secretly when I was 14. I was not promiscuous. I dated loads of boys but never did anything with them. I never got thrashed on alcohol (apart from on one occasion the alienator decided it would be a good idea for me to get smashed out of my head to teach me a lesson, at the age of 15. He and his cousin allowed the cousin's 13 year old and me to get absolutely wasted. My mother was never told and it's something that made me wonder about him. Of course, at the time, I didn't think there was anything wrong with it because he was always right ... I'm pretty horrified by this event). I simply don't like alcohol very much, never have, and haven't drunk any for years because of my religion.

Because, as I've said many times already, I had been told that every time she said no it was because she didn't like me, that it was because she wanted me to be unhappy, that she wanted to control me, that she wanted to stop me having fun, this had a devastating effect on me as a teenager. I've touched on it before this but I have things to add.

I truly believed that when she said no, it was for all the above reasons - so sometimes I went out of my way to get what I wanted because in my opinion I was entitled to have/do what I wanted. If the only reason she said no to me was because she hated me, then that wasn't reason enough. That was my logic. She was only saying no from spite, therefore what I wanted to have/do was rightfully mine and I had every right to go behind her back and have/do things anyway. Of course, it never entered my mind that she was, for example, making me come home at 11pm for my own safety and well-being. She was only stopping me dating at 13/14 for my own protection - but in my mind, it was holding me back from something everyone else was doing for her own personal, evil reasons.

So, I lied a lot. I went to nightclubs and bars at 14. She had no idea. It never occurred to me that what I was doing was in any way wrong or inappropriate because I had been conditioned by the alienator to believe that she did not want what was best for me. She wanted control and dominion, not what was best for me.

What a psycho he is ...

One of the reasons I hated those road trips to his house was because they were spent assassinating my mother's character, life, choices and motives. "She just wants to control you" was a frequent phrase. I'd rant about teenage woes which SHOULD have been met with: "Well, she loves you, she's just trying to do right by you" or whatever. What I was met with was almost as if another teenager was in the car ranting with me and agreeing with everything I said, then putting a spin on it. He wound me up and sent me home filled with anger and fury at her unfairness and evil ways. "She has no right to treat you that way."

The trips home were the worst. Now I realise that he was priming us/me (especially, as the older child) for our arrival. One particularly tragic trip comes to my mind now. He was going through the motions: "She doesn't really want you. She just wants to get back at me and control you at the same time. She just thinks your her toys. If she loved you, she would never have broken the family up. If she loved you, we'd all be together". I can remember saying, "Yes, she only thinks we're her toys". He was pleased and agreed with me. He said he was going to ask for custody because he believed we wanted to live with him. Based on those conversations in the car, I'm not surprised he thought that - but he had COACHED me into saying those things. It was bizarre, like brainwashing sessions lasting four hours, the same things over and over again, until I parrotted everything back at him and went home pissed off.

I can even remember one occasion when he said "Wouldn't it be lovely if a judge was at your mum's house when we got home and he says you can come to live with me?" Think about what that did to my little brain. I believed every word he said: that he was a better, kinder parent who loved me, and she was an evil witch with a tiny mind who wanted nothing good for me at all. He revved me up during that particular journey. I got so excited about the thought of a judge waiting for us to allow me to and live with the alienator that I was practically jumping up and down. I remember leaning over the front seat, eager beyond belief that this was possibly going to happen. He allowed me to believe all this and I got to the point at which I ACTUALLY believed it was going to happen. I craned my neck from my seat in the car to look for the judge at the front door with the paperwork allowing us to turn the car back around and go "home". I thought about the new school I would be attending the very next day.

Of course, it didn't. Judges don't generally work child custody cases on SUNDAY evenings. They also don't turn up at people's houses to order them to change custody details. He knew perfectly well from the outset that it wasn't going to happen. He knew I was going to be disappointed. It was what he WANTED.

That man, the alienator, put ALL those thoughts into my mind. He set me up - and my mother (and my sibs and step-parent, because PA affects everyone in the family). I was no more than ten. He let me believe my troubles were about to be solved, knowing FULL WELL that it was all a great big impossibility and a LIE of the most devious and nasty kind. He set me up for disappointment in order to hurt my mother and he didn't mind hurting me in the process. Perhaps I was so objectified that it never entered his mind that he was hurting me too.

It took me a while to realise why he did this. Manipulators can't allow their subjects to be happy. He did not want me to be happy when I got home. He wanted me to be angry so I would take that anger out on my mother. He wanted me to be angry with her. He wanted to punish her and also make it look like I wanted live with him. He wanted to deliver me to her front door filled with anger and hatred.

I still don't know if he understands that he hurt me as well as her. I really don't know. He told my uncle that he "talked to me too much about the divorce" but I don't know what he meant by that. I don't know if that includes the alienation. I suspect, sometimes, that he is beginning to know what he did because his disowning of me was an attack out of the absolute blue. I think he was then realising that I was thinking for myself so he got an attack in first. He can tell anyone who wants to listen that I was the problem, not him. Like a child, he can tell tales first.

Post-divorce trauma on all sides

I've already explained how the divorce happened. I'll find a link to the page later on but I have some things to post today. If I don't post them now, they'll either vanish into the depths of my memory or they'll annoy me until I post them.

After my parents split up, traumatic for all four of us, I would say, we didn't see the male parent for a while. He stayed abroad to finish up bits and pieces with our house and general affairs. Something was badly amiss between them - clearly a spiteful divorce, but I don't mean that, I mean more than that - to cause my mum to tell us we weren't going to see him for months. If memory serves, it was three months. She specifically said "He doesn't want to see you for three months". He later said SHE had said he couldn't see us for three months. Now, I don't know to this day who said what. I honestly can't say. IF she did say that, it was the only time I have ever known her to lie about him specifically (she did lie about returning to our home country from abroad, as I think I've mentioned, but she lied to escape him. She felt she had no choice. She was afraid of him). She wasn't like that about him to me at any other point as far as I know. She always encouraged us to see him. Immediately after she told us while she was brushing my hair, we burst into tears. Either she did lie and then realised how upset we were, thereafter resolving never to deliberately do something like that again, or HE is lying. Now to be perfectly honest, even back when I thought he was a good person, I STILL could imagine him saying something like that, just to be spiteful. If we look at his "disowning" of me, it fits more that he would say it than her. I don't believe he didn't want to see us then and I don't believe he doesn't want to see my offspring and me now - he just wants complete obedience and thinks that he can manipulate people into behaving a certain way by withdrawing himself. It's like a tantrum. "If you don't come back to me, I won't see you or the children and then it will be YOUR fault that they don't know their father/grandfather".

I've heard that logic from him before. In 2005 he claimed that it was my fault that my sister stopped speaking to him. They argued about something which kind of involved me but had nothing to do with me (she thought he was stopping off at her house on the way to mine, something he used to do regularly, but on one particular occasion he had no plans to. She felt slighted and yelled at him, refusing to speak to him for a year afterwards. I kept my mouth shut and kept out of it because she's DIIIIIIFFFICULT, to say the least, and I wanted her and her kids at my offspring's birthday party. She was already ticked off at me for generally being alive and was vacillating about coming. This perceived slight when he called to actually beg her to come to the party tipped the scales and she cut both him and me off at the same time). So, because this problem between the two of them occurred during a phone call involving me, he blamed me. "I lost your sister because I was pushing for what you wanted." I NEVER once asked him to get involved or push her or nag her. Not once! I invited her and left it at that because she's as mardy as he is. If you nag, she digs her heels in - so I invited her and left it with her.

Anyway, back to the no contact for three months, I still can't say for certain. Either way, once we did see him again, he felt like a stranger. I've mentioned that before too. He kept ALL of our possessions for such a long time that I forgot them too - I forgot my toys and cuddly bears I'd been given at birth. He kept every single item from the family home, down to her clothes - and mine - kitchen stuff, furniture, ornaments, you name it. Literally EVERYTHING they had built up together remained with him and he wouldn't give it back. He was trying to force her to go back to him. It wasn't until he nagged me about my religion that I was on the receiving end of his manipulation and bullying. I didn't even realise that he may have treated me in the same was as he treated her after their divorce until recently. He does not know when to stop.

Don't get me wrong: I understand the trauma of divorce and being left by your spouse. It's happened to me. I also understand fighting for your family, tooth and nail, but this has to stop at some point, and when you're upsetting and traumatizing the very person you want back, that is, when you have to make threats to force them to come back to you, you've lost. He never understood that. He couldn't see anything wrong with threatening mum with dire consequences if she didn't go back to him. He couldn't see anything wrong with issuing hatred for mum and her family because they supported and loved her and protected her from a man who used to sleep in his car outside their home.

I have to go now and I didn't even get halfway through what I wanted to say. Back later.

To the person who asked how long alienation lasts, I will come back to that too.

Hmmm

It's been a while. I've been busy but thinking too. Thoughts rolling around my head are one, that I'm an object that THAT person and two, I am also and separately a sex object to him too. Doesn't feel good. Makes me feel dirty and worthless - initially, anyway. Those feelings have been with me since I was a child (though, as I've said, I never realised until recently where they came from). I do however now remind myself those feelings have a source - and unrighteous source, and so will go. I do still feel better most days, although I have to keep reminding myself that my mum loved me. I'm reprogramming my brain. Takes time.

Alienating behaviour - I know people like juicy examples so here's another one. We used to spend at least a week in the Summer holiday with him. I hated the drives to his house - four hours each way. I never wanted to do that drive. It's vile and I resented it. I didn't want to go away from my home and, after my brothers were born, I didn't want to be away from my siblings. I hated being forced into that situation. I hated that no one listened to me. I hated that I spent a full day a month travelling on dangerous high speed roads to spend one day and a morning with him. I actually envied my friends who saw their dads on Sundays!. I'm not saying I hated every minute with him, because I didn't. Half the time it was fun - he took us to see our family, ie his siblings, our cousins, my beloved grandfather, the beach - but he spied on us when we were asleep and slobbered all over me and spent hours telling us how evil our mother/grandmother/aunts/uncles were. He snogged my neck like a boyfriend would. When it freaked me out, he said he was just showing affection and that there was nothing wrong with that. The more I withdrew from him, the more he chased me. If I didn't want to stand close to him, he would deliberately stand practically on top of me.

One Summer, our mother came to pick us up, having not seen us for two weeks. I waited for her and was watching for her out of the window. She walked up the drive full of smiles, happy to see me (my sister wasn't in the room at the time), waving, beckoning for me to open the door and come out. He freaked out. He said, "Don't open the door! She might snatch you!". What an odd thing to say. She was there to pick me up anyway. I remember the confused look on her face because she was happy to see us - me, because my sister wasn't there - and I wouldn't come to the door, as far as she was concerned. He wouldn't let her in the house, either. Wasn't his house.

He also used to regularly ask for custody. I don't know why. She was never going to give him custody, was she? He nagged for it.

I've been tense for thirty one years

Going back to my social skills and lack thereof: I realised yesterday while I wrote that post that I have had a knot in my stomach for as long as I can remember. It's a tenseness, a feeling of stress, one that increases whenever I leave the house and that grows exponentially when I'm around people. It's a foreboding when I meet someone knew because I know without a shadow of a doubt that they will eventually realise they dislike me, despite us getting on well at first.

THIS is the feeling I mentioned - the not feeling normal. I can remember it not being present before a certain point and then sitting in my stomach ever since.

The feeling in my stomach began the moment he first told me she didn't love me anymore and intensified every time he told me things this:

My mother told a lie - or so I thought. She told me that we were returning to our home country for a holiday and that we'd being going back again after two weeks. We never left. We returned to this country with only a suitcase or two - and as I mentioned previously, male parent kept EVERYTHING including our clothes and toys. Male parent told me that she had lied to us, that she had never intended to go back, that she had known all along that we would not be going back abroad. "She lied to you." She also didn't love me, according to him. Was just using me. Only wanted control over me. Thought I was her toy and possession. Didn't actually want me at all. Just wanted to keep me away from him to hurt him.

I worry so much, all the time. My ex affectionately once said to me that if I didn't have something to worry about, I'd worry about that. I was a worried child. I was - and still am - permanently afraid of upsetting people and, even now, at the age of 37, if I think I've made someone angry or upset, I'll cry. When I used to get hauled into the boss's office at my last job for making mistakes, I'd cry. I couldn't help it. It used to drive me mad! I'm too old to be crying about raps at work!

But now I know where it comes from: a worried, disturbed, scared, unsettled, traumatized little girl who thinks that she's so bad, evil, unloveable that even her mother cannot love her. I have felt shame for who I am since the age of six.

This situation was brought about by the one man in the entire universe I should have been able to depend on and trust in. Parents are all flawed, I know that. I don't expect him to be perfect, not for a minute. I'm a horribly imperfect parent, but that man hurt me on purpose. With deliberate intent, he said evil things to me that have affected my entire life, my entire personality, all my relationships, my self-esteem, my mental and physical health, made me ashamed of myself, EVERYTHING. I have no friends (at the moment) because of what he did. I'm incapable of normal adult social interaction (at the moment). My stomach is in permanent knots because of what he did.

BUT today I woke up feeling hopeful about myself for the first time. The knot is still there and still almost as big as yesterday, but today I know I can get rid of it. I know that I'm not damaged beyond repair, that I'm not autistic, or insane. I just have a broken part or two - and broken parts can be fixed.

I went around my normal social interactions today watching myself as if in the third person. I was less tense than normal and less ashamed of myself. I spoke less today and felt good about it. The only time I feel relaxed and unembarrassed about myself is on the days I don't leave the house.

She did love me, no matter what he said. Nothing can change that. Nothing he says can change the fact that the person she didn't love was him, not me, and that's not my fault or my problem. I didn't do anything wrong. He abused me - parental alienation is child abuse. I have a lot of negative imprinting to alter in my mind - but now I know I'm permitted to do that and I'm allowed to do that and that I should and must do that, that I CAN do that. I have no need to feel shame, though it's not going to vanish overnight, but I actually feel better about who I am today than I did yesterday. This may not sound like a big deal but this is HUGE!!! I don't want to tell total strangers that my mum didn't want me - because I know now that it's not true. I don't have to feel worthless because I'm not, no matter what he said. She did love me and in fact loved me so much that, though the silly woman was incapable of hugging her kids even when they were in desperate need, she kept me and took care of me in the face of my hatred for her (and believe me, I wasn't nice to her).

My mum used to tell me that you have to think up nasty things before you can say them, and that to think them up means you'd carry them out. "You'd only say that if you had done it first". Now I know that everything he said, like the old saying "Many a true word spoken in jest", was true about himself, not her.

He, the alienator, lied, did and does not love me, used me, saw/sees me as a toy/possession/object, does not see me as a person with any individual worth, used me to control and hurt his ex-wife, my mother. At the moment I don't feel a thing towards him other than anger. It's odd. After he disowned me, the shock was intense: I had to understand the kind of person he was then showing himself to be. I then spent two years crying as I realised what he had done to my mother and me (and to my sister to some extent), getting into trouble at work because I couldn't keep my emotional state outside, alienating people all on my own by being so tearful and down and depressed. Today, two and a half years after he disowned me, is the first time I've felt good about things in any shape or form. My counsellor has helped me make a real breakthrough in understanding the alienation. I was all kinds of upset for a while but now I feel very little towards him beyond anger.

I'd rage at him if I met him but at this point in time, I feel like I've never had a father and am grieving for that loss. For him personally - that's who I feel little for, to clarify. I don't care if he lives or dies. It's VERY odd to say that about the parent I thought mattered most but it's true. My uncle tried to patch things up but I couldn't raise any interest, not least because male parent is a dirty pervert, but besides that, I couldn't care less about him. I don't wish him ill. I just don't care. Maybe this is numbness, who knows. Time will tell.

I'll never speak to him again, that's for damn sure, and neither will my offspring.

Alienators are never wrong

Continuing from the theme of my last post, what's hardest for me to understand is, after all the long list of dirty, nasty things he did and said to me, how the hell did I succumb to the brainwashing?

I'm an intelligent person. I'm genuinely bright, but that man savaged my self-confidence and always managed to blame it on other people. Again, I'm not saying my mum was a perfect parent; she was far from it. Sometimes she was even cruel, but most of the time she did her best. He made me doubt my own mind. When I felt uncomfortable about him insisting on me going swimming during puberty or deliberately starting intimate and inappropriate conversations, I'd say so - but somehow, he was never wrong. I was. He was never wrong, never at fault, never to blame, and always had a million excuses as to why it's your own fault that you feel uncomfortable because you misread him drawing pictures of your breasts/got embarrassed by him using the word "erection" during a game of scrabble with two teenagers/kept ornaments of men with large penises around the house.

When you're consistently told something - in this case that I was imagining his bad behaviour - it sticks eventually. I feel so stupid for falling for this. I can forgive myself for believing in my dad as most kids do. I can forgive myself for not knowing he is a nutter when I was a teenager. What I can't fathom is how I allowed myself to believe in him as an adult?! I'm currently on my second university degree so I'm not uneducated. My offspring fares excellently - thriving, in fact. No criminal convictions for anyone in my house. I'm a good person. I contribute. I have responsibilites and respect from my friends. And yet, I fell for brainwashing until I was 35. I feel utterly ridiculous.

Unless I'm wrong, I've answered my own question. Brainwashing overrides your confidence in your own opinions. When someone you (secretly fear and) look up to and think is your friend builds you a world view from six years old and no one challenges it, when that person insists that they are always right and know better because they are older and male and no one corrects him, it imprints on your mind, despite the evidence of your own eyes and ears, despite your own best judgement, despite your instincts.

He abused me in many ways but always talked himself out of it and blamed ME. When you're growing up, you're trying to make sense of the world. One of my parents barely spoke to me - my mum. The other one - the male - spoke all the time and even now freely admits he may have talked too much. He bragged that he treated us like grown ups when our mother treated us like kids - hence us watching "Salem's Lot" before we were in our teens (a film so frightening I won't watch it now) - and that this meant he had more love and respect for us. I believed this too. I trusted him and he knew it so he fed my brain with rubbish and adult rubbish at that. Once he knew I trusted him, he could say anything he liked.

I think that the moment he knew that was the day they abandoned me when I was maybe seven. They argued and my mum picked up my then baby sister. She ran from the house in such a panic that her shoes came off in the front garden. He ran after her, jumping over a fence to chase her. And there was I, left in the house by myself. THAT moment is when my mental outlook, my whole perception of life changed. At that moment, I realised I was not important to either of them for myself, or at least not to him, anyway. I don't know what was going through her head. Maybe she didn't think he would chase her and that he'd stay in the house with me? I don't know. I have, until I typed the preceding sentence, consistently believed that being left behind by both of them means that both of them did not love me. I don't know. I will have to think about this. Anyway, I think the moment he realised he could use me against her was shortly after they ran off. I ran up the road after them, wondering where the hell my parents had gone and why they had left me. I found them at a house futher down. My mother was sat in an armchair crying with my sister on her lap. I was so angry that she had left me - and taken my sister - that when she reached out to me for a cuddle, I backed away.

THAT was the moment for him. He knew then that he could (ab) use me against her. No thought of the two poor little girls involved in adult arguing. No thought for the seven year old they'd just ran off and left behind. Just: "I can turn her against her mother as revenge."

Sick!

Egocentricity

My male parent is a chauvanist. He thinks women should never work when they have children at home. When my daughter was very young, I worked part time out of necessity. He criticized me regularly for it, said I was leaving my daughter. He also put a fake baby voice on when I would leave for work, saying, "Mummy, don't leave me again!". Git. My mum even once said he hates women.

He treated me like a boy. Once he'd decided I was a tomboy, that was it. His mind wouldn't change. He decided what I was and has never changed his mind. Even I believed it. I'm not sure I am a tomboy. He tried it with my daughter and went through a stage of buying her nothing but boy's things, until I protested. His partner bought her girls' things alongside his choices.

When I hit puberty, he became a pervert. He leered at me, would "accidentally" rub against me, against my breast, ran his fingers up and down my back to see if I was wearing a bra. He ogled my sister and I horrifically when we breastfed. He did this to me once. The second time I had to yell at him to leave the room. He actually argued with me about it, demanding to watch. He made disgusting sexual jokes and innuendoes. He drew pictures of me and added breasts (my daughter remembers this). I blocked a bedroom door once to stop him coming in but he pushed the block out of the way - I was 21. He kissed my neck like a boyfriend would (it was after this incident that my mother told me she had been warned, when I was a baby, never to leave me alone with him ... but she did, didn't she?? Visits, long stays ...). He looked at the back of my trousers to make sure my bottom wasn't visible through the material and made comments about "around the front".

He never thought he was wrong. My sister and I complained often and long to our mother about his teasing. To hear "You're getting big" and "You're growing up" all the time was mortifying. It made us feel so uncomfortable AND spied on and observed. I understand parents say these things. It's hard to convey the tone of voice he'd say these sentences or to describe the expression on his face, but I must stress that these were not the normal words of a parent amazed at a child's growth. His expression was DIRTY when he said these things. He was perving on our adolescence, telling us boys would be queuing up for it with us. Mum spoke to him once and asked him to stop. He told us afterwards that he had no intention of stopping because he wasn't doing anything wrong, that we were the problem - he therefore didn't care about how we felt, going back to my posts about Objectification and him not seeing me as a person. I remember a similar incident when my sister was about to get married. She was SO afraid of him going on about her growing up (which he had never stopped, just as he said) that she asked me to speak to him. I did, wondering what the point was because he never listens to anyone. He, of course, said "I will say it if I want to". I said, "Please don't, you'll spoil her day." This became an argument. He said he had the right. He felt entitled to say whatever he wanted, no matter what the cost or how much he hurt her. We both repeated our cases and he only behaved himself after the intervention, I believe, of his partner.

He has an excuse for everything. This used to drive me absolutely mad. He is impossible to talk to, sometimes. He's someone you would avoid talking to because he'll give you "a lecture with diagrams", someone once said, when you've only asked him for the time.

Comments. Questions.

I'm getting panicky about continuing the previous train of thought so I'm going to hold off for a few days. Deborah's lovely comment here sums up the purpose of this blog: cleansing.

If you want to ask me anything, fire away. My email address is on my profile, plus you can leave comments.

I appreciate all the comments so much, as well as the increasing number of visitors this blog is receiving and the referring links which provide half the traffic (I'm considering reciprocating. Leave it with me). As I said at the start, my posts are about catharsis but also about warning potential/current parental alienators off carrying out their attacks on the other parent. I know that someone reading this may splutter indignantly that they have every reason to make their children hate their other parent or "see them for what they are", but believe me, you're hurting your children (and yourself because one day they'll suss you out, I guarantee), not helping them. Deep down you know what you are doing. Please stop.

I have spent much of my life trying to find out what is wrong with me. Turns out it's nothing that a good dose of counselling and catharsis can't heal. I remember sitting at a train station in my country writing in my diary when I was eighteen. I wrote: "Will someone please help me?". I did not know what I meant. It took nineteen years to find out. All through my childhood and adolescence, I knew something was wrong somewhere but I couldn't put my finger on it. The mental signals I received from each of my parents was wrong. I believed my male parent to be the greatest person on Earth - and yet he abandoned me three times, called my mother a slut, my aunt a slag, my grandmother and a second aunt lunatics, and also felt me up. My mother cared for me and tried to be my friend, but smacked me when she lost her temper from frustration and tiredness (and a second husband who cheated on her and admitted to never having been faithful to any woman, and treated her like a doormat).

I thought the problems were all my fault: that I was the screw up. When one parent does their best to care for you, and the other one is acidic and merciless in their attack of that parent, causing you to doubt your own mind, your own memories and experience of that parent, what the hell are you supposed to do? I felt like I was out of my mind sometimes.

But I never was.

A counsellor told me the following: you're not unstable, you were around unstable people.

NOW I know she was right, but I waited thirty years for those words. I thought I was evil and worthless and useless and ugly because of the words/lack of words of my parents. As I said previously, the alienator used every single situation he could find to denigrate my mother. She almost never said a word about him - so I believed him, not her. He said she was wicked, she never said she was not, so therefore my child's mind believed him.

He thought it was hilarious.

"It's her own fault she has cancer"

Continuing from previous post.

The more I think about it, the greater the adjective. I wasn't and am not shocked that anyone would say that someone deserves to develop cancer. I am absolutely stunned. Astonished. And yet, he used to say it in such a blase manner, as if it was as normal as eating breakfast. It's such a cruel, low-down, evil concept: he was glad she had cancer? Had he wished it upon her? Doesn't that, by inference, mean that he was glad my sister and I, and our two much younger brothers from our mother's second marriage, were about to lose our mother?

I remember how he behaved when she started seeing our step-dad. I've been left too, so I know how painful it is to see your ex with someone else, or even just to know that they have moved on. He was still reeling from the split so he must have been devastated. However, it didn't stop him. I guess it wouldn't. His frame of mind was then and is now the same. Even now, thirty years after their divorce, he will still happily give you a good rant about my mother with no less bitterness than when I was seven.

My step-dad wanted to make a good impression, naturally. He's a good man and I love him dearly (although it took me a long time, perhaps a decade at least, because my male parent couldn't say anything good about him either, and, as you will see, planted mistrust in my little mind about my step-dad's motives).

Step-dad ran a market stall on which he sold toys, particularly big cuddly teddy bears. He gave my sister and I a lovely bear each. I chose a tabby coloured bear, she chose a red one. We loved them! We were so poor at the time and our male parent kept EVERYTHING from the house, including our toys. He would not let our mother or us have anything. I can honestly say that by the time the divorce and visitation details had been thrashed out, I could not even remember my toys - the toys I had owned for seven, eight years! He wouldn't let us have them and so, instead of pining for them, we forgot about them. I had absolutely no bond with bears that I'd taken to bed my whole life. The bears that our step-dad gave us were like Christmas coming to two poverty stricken little girls living in a cramped house with our mother, aunt, uncle and grandparents. We were so poor that my school bag was a plastic carrier bag and my pencil case a plastic transparent sandwich bag, so you can imagine how happy those teddy bears made us.

The male parent said that we'd had only been given the bears because our step-dad was trying to buy our love. That put a damper on things. It spoiled the gift, but I guess that was what he wanted. I can still remember the feeling and the words. I was so happy: "Look what he gave me!" "He only gave you that to buy your love". To me, that meant: he doesn't really care about you. So I always thought: my step-dad doesn't care about me. He doesn't want me around. (When my brothers were born later, my male parent said, during the pregnancies, "They'll be more interested in the baby than you".)

Now this smells like more objectification to me. He didn't care how disappointed I felt or how hurt that he would trample on my OBVIOUS happiness. He had kept all my toys for so long I had forgotten them so sympathetic adults tried to help me, make up for the loss. My step-dad was just being kind. He's a good guy, although I wasn't allowed to like him.

Power games. Mind games. Selfishness. Objectification.

All I wanted was to be able to love all my parents - all three of them at this point - and not have to worry about saying anything that would set the alienator off. I just wanted to be able to enjoy all their company without him watching for an opportunity to criticize my mother or step-father or mother's family. When I showed him that bear, I wanted him to be as happy for me as I was.

Argh. I'm really angry now. It may only seem like a bear to you but it's a metaphor in a very real sense. It set the tone for nearly every conversation with the alienator after that. He was always looking - and finding - ways to criticize and belittle my home life. He wouldn't just let me be happy. I feel so hurt that his own feelings meant more than those of a seven year old. I'm still hurting now. I've hurt constantly for the past thirty years and I'm tired of it, hence the counselling and the blog. I need to let go of the pain. I want to let go of it! It just hurts so much to have a parent who doesn't love you.

Guilt, my culpability, inappropriate behaviour

My counsellor said I'm perhaps "naive" and "trusting". My ex-boyfriend, co-parent and now good friend, once said I was "too trusting and that's why I get hurt".

I'm trying to work out why I succumbed to Parental Alienation as an adult. I used to think my male parent was never wrong, even perhaps when he behaved inappropriately towards me. I can remember how surprised I was whenever he did anything like that. His reaction was a smile and normal behaviour so I'd then worry that I was overreacting to him running his hand up and down my back to see if I was wearing a bra or rubbing my breast with the back of his hand when I bent over in front of him or even when he drew boobs on a picture of me my eldest daughter asked him to draw (which she remembers).

I feel so stupid at the moment. I also feel cruel and complicit in the misery the Parental Alienation caused my Mother.

I was manipulated into behaving angrily towards her. I was manipulated into attributing ulterior motives to all her behaviour. He used to tell me she was promiscuous. He said her second divorce (from a philanderer) was "karma" and that so was the cancer that killed her. He said that the cancer was her own fault and the universe avenging itself upon her. I was in my early twenties when he blamed her divorce on karma without knowing the details, and remembering wondering if he was right. At the time, I was still furious with her and "on his side" so I agreed in a way. I was not fully convinced in karma at all, not having any religious beliefs of any kind at the time, but I certainly believed that if karma existed, then she was reaping what she had sowed. He once said she would never be faithful to her second husband (I don't believe she would ever have been unfaithful, personally. Even when I was angry at her, I would never have thought it in her character) and that she would "soon be out on the randy again". That quote comes from my latter teens. It so disturbed me that I asked my then boyfriend if I should tell her. He said "Keep it to yourself". I'm glad I did.

The cancer? He shocked me when he said that the cancer was her own fault. I was in my mid-twenties and, with the help of my new found bravery from my faith (having stuck up for myself against him for the first time in my life, much to his annoyance), starting to realize that the male parent wasn't infallible. The shock of her actually developing it in the first place was frightening enough because my relationship with my mother was beginning to change. I had actually begun to look forward to a thawing, perhaps an understanding of why she disliked me so much (my beliefs at the time due to his influence). I was looking forwards to creating a meaningful PROPER mother-daughter relationship and I think she was too. I was very afraid and rightly so because she died a year and a half after the initial diagnosis. To hear something SO nasty and cruel from him stunned me and I think I can now look back and see a beginning there. At that point, though I was still confused by his attacks on my religion, I probably began to distrust him. I couldn't quite believe I was hearing that she deserved her cancer, that it was all her own fault, that she had brought it upon herself.

More later - have to do something.

"Your mother just sees you as a toy"

I grew up believing that my mother did not want me or love me because the alienator told me so. I was an extraordinarily angry little girl and an even angrier teenager. He loved every single complaint about my mother that came out of my mouth. He rejoiced in them.

How sick in the head does a person have to be to be happy that their child believes themselves unwanted by their mother? He liked it. It's an insane thought: he was glad that I was miserable. This goes back to the objectification. He did not see me as a person, though he once told me that my mother did not see me as anything more than a toy. The irony! Even more ironic was the truth my mother once mentioned about a different matter entirely: you only think these poisonous thoughts about someone else if you've had them in the first place.

I have children and it breaks my heart to think that either of them could wonder if I love them. Because of my childhood experience, I have made sure every day of their lives that they know that I love them.

Alienators will lie about anyone - even their own children

He does not see me as a person. He objectified me. To him, I was a weapon to be wielded against my mother and even against her memory after she died. He wouldn't let her go even then. He kept checking in with me, kept reassuring himself that I was angry at her, that he had won. I can remember one day, back when I was still angry at her, that I actually said I was glad she was dead. Today I'm horrified that I ever felt that. I'm not even sure I did, but I certainly said the words. I also said I hated her. At the time, I did mean the latter - but that's what Parental Alienation wants to achieve, isn't it?

Then he smiled. He has two horrible smiles: one is a sick, smug smile, that I realised two years ago means he feels a victory over my mother; the other we might come to later, we might not.

Though I never said as much to him, I instantly regretted saying that I was she glad she was dead. I've never truly been glad of that and I still don't know why I said it. I was afraid of him, probably until recently, so maybe that's why I didn't retract those awful words. Because I was afraid of him, perhaps I wanted his approval too.

I don't see him anymore, not at all. He's a nasty piece of work, that man. He has no worries about behaving inappropriately towards his daughter, either. Ironically, just over two years ago, I was wondering how I was going to get him out of my life as my eldest daughter was about to hit puberty and there was no way on this Earth that I was going to let him perv over her the way he did me. I was scared though, and did not know how to go about it. He is so stubborn and obnoxious that he would never have listened to me simply telling him to go away and never come back. He would have laughed at me (because he thinks I'm stupid, thinks everyone in the world but him is stupid) and ignored me. When my youngest daughter was born, he forced a visit on my little family and me against the wishes of my then partner and myself: I wanted him to wait a couple of days but he ignored us and came anyway. My sister once disconnected the phone to stop him bugging her after she had her second baby, fortunate in the fact that she live seven hours away by car. Had I said I wanted nothing more to do with him, he would have laughed and argued and ignored me.

In the end, he disowned me! If you can believe that! His actions were one of two things, and I haven't worked out which. It may have been a power-play, and since Parental Alienation is all about the wielding of power, I usually favour this explanation. My religious beliefs are not the same as his. I chose my religious path in 1995 (before my mother was ill) and from the beginning he objected. My religion is basically Christian, nothing outrageous, no child sacrifice, no polygamy, we celebrate Christmas and don't suicide bomb. He couldn't bear it. He protested from the start, even to the point that his visits to my home increased vastly in order for him to argue and harangue and pester me about my religion. He said I was being brainwashed (he'd know all about brainwashing, wouldn't he?) and that the religion wasn't right for me. I plodded on, continuing to attend my church, all the while severely peed off that he had no respect for how I chose to live my life and raise my daughter, that he even honestly thought I was too stupid to make my own mind up about the God I believe in. This is a man who swears that he met Christ during an out of body experience. Whenever my sister and I asked why we weren't christened, he always said my mother and he wanted us to make up our own minds - so I did, and he didn't like it.

It was quite bizarre. It's like my church put him into a frenzy and he couldn't stop his mouth. He has never once pointedly explained what his problem with the church is. He just says, "think about what you're doing," "it's not right for you,", "you're being brainwashed".

After a few years, I stopped attending church and went "inactive". Can you guess what religion it was by my use of that word? :> He was ecstatic when he eventually found out and, just like with my mother, bugged me regularly in order to reaffirm his success. "So, you've given all that up, have you?", always shocked that I was never interested in his religion (reincarnation with no particular creed or faith).

In 2004, I started attending church again and still do today. I never stopped loving my church or my God, even during those years of non-attendance. I had my reasons for not going and in 2004, I realised they weren't enough any more.

Of course, I never told him. I knew he would harass me about it again. Eventually one of my kids said something. I'd never told them to keep it secret from him. And then the harassment began again. Snide comments and "think about what you're doing!", mocking of my life choices, and general disrespect gave way to emails containing links to hate sites (and what annoyed me about this, again, was that he thought I was too stupid not to have looked at those sites ten years previously! Of course I did! I made an informed decision about my religion!). He deliberately approached my daughter, then thirteen, about our religion behind my back. He thought I couldn't hear his criticism of our church and thereby ME, but I heard every word. As it was my daughter's birthday, I kept my mouth shout with the intention of speaking to him about it.

He quicky emailed me a hate site link once he had returned home. I asked him again, as I had done many times before, not to bring this subject up. "I don't want to talk to you about this" I repeated, but as usual he ignored me. When I say ignore, he literally pretends I haven't spoken and just carries on. He replied by mocking me. I said enough. I said, "If you don't respect how I live my life and raise my kids, we are going to fall out". I still don't think that this sentence was that inflammatory and neither does anyone else I've shown it to.

What came next was disgusting. He wrote the nastiest email I've ever received and it shocked me to the core. I was stunned. I had only ever witnessed that level of vitriol and hate from him towards my mother. Until then, all his dealings with me had been calm and even (for all the viciousness and vileness they contained). It was, to me, an outburst far unequal to what had preceded. It was weird. It's very easy to look back now and perhaps describe it as a defensive maneouvre because he knew he had been caught out in relation to my daughter. It may also have been a preemptive strike because he knew what was coming from me; I think he sensed that my patience with his bullying was wearing thin and that my fear of him was vanishing. I'm also certain that part of his reason for the outburst was his conviction that I was stupid and that by demanding I behave as he wanted me to, I'd back down and apologize and grovel. A postscript to this is another possible explanation, one that might be added to any of the previous: my sister had refused to speak to him for over a year, while he was in touch with me, and as such had denied him access to not only her but her four children as well. Did he deliberately engineer the situation with me so that he could have her back?

The man took my child aside and criticized my parenting behind my back. I wasn't about to back down - and he was handing me, on a plate, the perfect solution to getting him out of our lives. Outwardly, I said nothing to him. Not a word.

But inwardly, I was reeling. It was not until he "cut me off", as he put it, then, in March of 2005, that I had any idea of who he really was. That action from him opened up a can of worms that I'm still digesting - so to speak - today, two and a half years later. The email that he wrote to me - he couldn't dump his child on the phone or face to face - was so filled with hatred that it disgusted me. I don't know the person who wrote it, nor recognize the LIES it contained. That email showed me a hitherto unknown selfishness that shocked me completely - and he probably still doesn't realise this. It was filled with phrases like "I drove up and down that motorway all those years so I could still have my daughters", with afterthoughts like "and so that they could have their dad". It was all about him. He was disowning his eldest child and all he could think about was how badly I had treated him by not listening to his opinion of my religion. He mocked the death of my mother: "You've lost your mother? Well now you've lost your father too, I hope you can live with yourself".

And of course the irony is that I'm more than happy to have "lost" him. I don't want him or his perverted mind around my kids and me anymore.

The tragedy is that his behaviour in that email and subsequent lies to his brother (that I'd disowned him) made me begin to understand who this man really is. That if he can lie about me, then what else has he lied about? I was horrified and grieved to realise that the things he said about my mother may not have been true, and the more I thought and remembered and examined my memories, I came to understand that he DID lie about her to me and my sister and anyone that would listen. He lied and twisted and manipulated and corrupted and destroyed - and damaged me.

This realization is what causes me the most grief at the moment. I feel betrayed and used and abused. I feel like an orphan. I feel deprived of a father because no loving father would do what he did. This man did not and does not love me. It took 29 years but his victory is empty and he has lost because I finally see him for what he is. He deliberately destroyed my relationship with my mother and it's too late to rebuild it with her. And when I began to refuse to allow his bullying and manipulation to have any effect on me, he turned nasty on me too.