Not Divorced -Alienation Within Intact Families Part 2 - Episode 27
Jan 29, 2024
Lawrence Joss
Have you ever yearned for a connection that seemed perpetually out of reach? Ceyhun's raw narrative in our latest episode takes you deep into the heart of such a longing, where the shadows of parental alienation within an intact family contour adult identities and relationships. He bravely exposes the emotional toll of striving for a father's validation, an endeavor that has left profound imprints on his journey toward self-discovery and wholeness.
Through Ceyhun's eyes, we scrutinize the intricate cycle of trauma bonding and the replication of childhood patterns in adult partnerships. The conversation traverses the rocky terrain of seeking love in the high-stakes game of relationship reenactment, where the stakes are personal growth and emotional well-being. We confront the paradox of craving intensity while learning to embrace the calm of stable, nurturing connections. This episode invites you to reflect on your own relationships, to distinguish between the nourishment of healthy boundaries and the familiarity of emotional distance.
In our concluding segment, the path to recovery unfurls, revealing the tangled web of role reversal within families. We share insights and tools that have illuminated our paths—vipassana meditation, creative expression, and psychotherapy—highlighting the resilience necessary to navigate the aftershocks of familial dysfunction. Ceyhun's candid revelations, coupled with our exploration of therapeutic avenues, aim to empower you to rewrite your own script. Join us in this transformative dialogue, where we lay bare the complexities of healing from the invisible scars of parental alienation.
This podcast is made possible by the Family Disappeared Team: Akai Aquino - Project Leader Glaze Gonzales- Podcast Manager
This podcast is made possible by the Family Disappeared Team: Anna Johnson- Editor/Contributor/Activist/Co-host Glaze Gonzales- Podcast Manager Kriztle Mesa - Social Media Manager Gen Rodelas-Kajabi Expert Kim Fernandez - Outreach Coordinator
Have you ever yearned for a connection that seemed perpetually out of reach? Ceyhun's raw narrative in our latest episode takes you deep into the heart of such a longing, where the shadows of parental alienation within an intact family contour adult identities and relationships. He bravely exposes the emotional toll of striving for a father's validation, an endeavor that has left profound imprints on his journey toward self-discovery and wholeness.
Through Ceyhun's eyes, we scrutinize the intricate cycle of trauma bonding and the replication of childhood patterns in adult partnerships. The conversation traverses the rocky terrain of seeking love in the high-stakes game of relationship reenactment, where the stakes are personal growth and emotional well-being. We confront the paradox of craving intensity while learning to embrace the calm of stable, nurturing connections. This episode invites you to reflect on your own relationships, to distinguish between the nourishment of healthy boundaries and the familiarity of emotional distance.
In our concluding segment, the path to recovery unfurls, revealing the tangled web of role reversal within families. We share insights and tools that have illuminated our paths—vipassana meditation, creative expression, and psychotherapy—highlighting the resilience necessary to navigate the aftershocks of familial dysfunction. Ceyhun's candid revelations, coupled with our exploration of therapeutic avenues, aim to empower you to rewrite your own script. Join us in this transformative dialogue, where we lay bare the complexities of healing from the invisible scars of parental alienation.
This podcast is made possible by the Family Disappeared Team: Akai Aquino - Project Leader Glaze Gonzales- Podcast Manager
This podcast is made possible by the Family Disappeared Team: Anna Johnson- Editor/Contributor/Activist/Co-host Glaze Gonzales- Podcast Manager Kriztle Mesa - Social Media Manager Gen Rodelas-Kajabi Expert Kim Fernandez - Outreach Coordinator
when there's so much longing for the times that's unspent in the past. I think that longing kind of haunts.
Speaker 2:
Hi, my name is Lawrence Joss and welcome to the Family Disappeared podcast. Today we're going to have part two of our conversation with Jehun, who is a colon in out of Turkey, and the first part of the conversation was fascinating. We're talking about what it's like to live in a family system where the parents don't get divorced, where they live in the same household but parental alienation or estrangement is still present, and what that looks like as Jehun, who is now 35, is a young adult coming into adulthood, and how he's working with all these different thoughts and ideas and what's happening in his body. And that's a really deep dive into some fantastic stuff. And please remember to like, share, leave a review for us. And also there's a link in the show notes for the podcast crew where you can actually contribute, ask questions, make suggestions for the show, and I'd also like to ask you out there. So let us know Like do you like the shows being about 30 to 40 minutes and in part one and part two, would you prefer the shows to just be one hour long? And you can send us an email at FamilyDisappeared at gmailcom and let us know that, or, podcast crew, let us know that through there. And, finally, we want to have as many people represented on the show as possible. We want to have as much diversity, inclusion and equity and we want to have people from marginalized community, from the LGBTQ community, from the BIPOC community, like we want anyone that's looking for a platform to be part of this conversation to express their opinions, and I want to share this platform with you. So please contact me, let me know if you have interest in doing that. And again, familydisappeared at gmailcom. And now let's jump into the show. Welcome to the FamilyDisappeared podcast.
Speaker 2:
It took me a long time to realize that part of my nervous system and functionality had been colonized by my parents and it's an interesting topic and we're going to have a show on this in the future. But basically, just my mom using my nervous system to regulate herself right, because she had trauma and she hasn't necessarily done the work to regulate herself, so she uses something outside of herself Instead of a therapist, she uses a child. So you see this a lot in parental alienation, where there's trauma, generational trauma, secondary trauma, whatever it is and someone else is using a third party to regulate their nervous system instead of taking care of themselves and getting professional help, so they're blowing their trauma through someone else, like the children, and then the children become sort of like a parent in some sort of ways or just something to regulate the family member's nervous system. It didn't ever get to the dysfunctionality where the system fell apart, but it did influence my decisions as an adult and as I went out into the world. So we're really going to continue that conversation and to dig into some more of the nuances and let's find out what happens next.
Speaker 2:
Let's jump in. Yes, I guess my question is for you. It sounds like you're trying to convince your father of what your mother has done to you and you want him to acknowledge that. I'm curious why that feels really important to you.
Speaker 1:
I think maybe before I was just conditioned to see masculinity in general maybe as the villain or as the enmity, this toxic masculinity and authoritarian masculine.
Speaker 1:
I think I want to activate the more and more the masculine traits in me. Spending more time with my father, I want to learn masculinity from him and there is a I know there is a longing, strong longing for a father figure that I want to make up from my past. So instead, when my father is not there, I have my fortunately uncles from my father's side. So I think it's very crucial, lawrence, when this alienation is happening, that one has a support system from 12 steps, but also from the parents, relatives, that's here, is and sees you. So in a way, you know this. In this dysfunctional parents, there is this don't truck, don't trust, don't feel, don't talk rule. For many years I'm exposing that I'm getting out of it and so it's so nice that I have some support system my uncles from my father's side, from my mother, from my Most from my father's side, yeah, but also from my mother's side there is place that I can go and stay.
Speaker 2:
Yeah, I'm loving that you have the support from your, from your uncles, and that sounds like it's really dear and important to you, but I'm still there's this thing that I'm a little confused about like you want your dad to hear about your perception and your lived experiences with your mother, and it feels like it's it's important to you and I'm curious why is it important for your dad to have that part of a shared reality with you, to agree or even to acknowledge that that that happened?
Speaker 1:
Well, I think, maybe most importantly, I don't want to feel lonely anymore in this. Well, why do I want my father to see me and understand, acknowledge what's happening? Because I feel like a like I feel as if torn between this and this gender wars, this long, stricken, long stretch conflict between them, as if I've been kind of self destroying in this family annihilation, and I think I want everybody to see what's happening and take some. Take some action either separate houses, as a first step, or divorce.
Speaker 1:
I think my parents, all their life they want to hold on to this perfect image. So unless that perfect image is broken, which could be divorce, they may not take accountability and responsibility of their shortcomings and imperfections because they play like universal gods. For children, the parents, parental figures, are the first gods, but they have it needs to be local gods. That needs to be overcome. But whereas in my parents I think they played like universal gods and if they divorce, that view may shatter, so they may start taking some responsibility and feel like all right. Then we need now, we need to acknowledge we made some mistakes and we need to focus on our children's well being too. It's not only about us, it's also our children here.
Speaker 2:
So the end them acknowledging what's going on in the family system. You I'm hearing that it would sound really healing for you for them to actually acknowledge that there was any kind of dysfunction going on in the family system, because right now it's crazy making and it's really distorted mirroring that's coming back at you. That's making you feel like the crazy one.
Speaker 1:
Yes, yes, definitely. It's as if when my mother calls me, I don't, when I don't respond, and she keeps pushing, getting attention from me, as if I have to feel like maybe I'm a bad son for not returning to my mother's goal. But I just want her to actually acknowledge the boundaries, especially pretending nothing happened in between. I would like her first to write see that I felt hurt, what happened, but she pretends as if nothing happened in between. So she wants to take me, call me to the past, where she was just a mother, the perfect mother she was she thought she was totally.
Speaker 2:
And are you okay if I dig a little bit more into the question with your father? Does that feel safe and appropriate for you, as long as you're comfortable, or I can get back to some of the really specific questions, and I'm fine doing that too. I'm just curious and again, if this doesn't land in a great way or you don't want to answer, that that's great too. Is this idea of getting your father to see what your mother has done? Doesn't that feel like it's still you putting your mother's stuff and and all this Ameshment and colonization of your your, your body and mind before your relationship with your father, because she's still taken up all the space even though she's not there, and you're wanting your father to hear the stuff instead of just being with your father and not Getting all her stuff again, like it's like keeps morphing into a different shape and size and now it's the story your dad needs to hear and it still keeps you separate from your father.
Speaker 1:
I think what I'm aiming with that intention, lawrence, is I want I'm asking for my father's protection and intervention with reason, not like intervention with like conflicts, or I want father's name in form of reason. I know that father was protecting me but I didn't know it had so many conditions attached to it and now I want a reasonable figure to intervene and promote the reason and promote the truth. I want truth by my side and I'm trying to, you know, kind of mobilize some support, some more support on this case, so that the truth can reveal itself and heal everybody actually in this.
Speaker 2:
It sounds really challenging and I think it's a common theme, like I know, for me. I wanted people on my side. I want people to understand my story. I wanted people like the language and that you use to mobilize the truth. I kept trying to get different parties to do that and I was exhausting. I was really really, really tiring and I landed up for myself finding that happened in my own interpersonal recovery and I couldn't get that from my family and I don't think I still do in many ways, you know. So it's a really interesting intersection and, again, a wonderful nuance and the topic and I want to like move this conversation a tiny bit to the right because I think this is really important and I don't and I don't know if we've discussed it on the show before your 35 years old. You're out in the world, you have partners, you're dating like how does this manifest in in those relationships? And you look for similar characteristics like from your mother in in in your partners.
Speaker 1:
Actually, lawrence, for the last few years I've been living and a reclusive monks life, doing just the inner recovery, going, taking online psychoanalysis three, four times a week, watching the movies. Only that's aligned with my developmental path, the questions that I'm stuck at, I'm looking answers for, watching YouTube videos on psychology, on personality disorders, narcissism, dysfunctional parenting, family systems, this drama triangle, trying to learn as much as I can Overcome this crazy making situation. So I've been abstaining, abstaining from dating from all that because I didn't want to Get into the same pattern, same cycle of abusive, toxic relationships as I learned, the modeled from my parents, because in my relationships I'm aware now of what, what, what, what's happened in the past that almost led to my demise, which was I either looked for partners and that I would abandon, as I felt abandoned my by my parents, even though they were all giving in generous. I probably wanted to abandon them. Reenacting what was happening to me, you know, to mirror what was happening to me, I was trying to understand, unconsciously, and I fell in love with the woman who would, who would abuse me instead rather than love, because that was also my truth, right.
Speaker 1:
So in a way, I went out to look for people like me, who was all given, but being abused and abandoning them because Reenacting, replaying myself, betrayal, self abandoning. And also I was looking for women like my parents who are abusing me, abandoning me. I was trying to prove my worth through my intelligence and through which I was aiming to transform them in the faith, with the hope that that way I can transform my parents, maybe. And doing all these I was trying to find a cure, a portion, a route, remedy to the route calls and rescue parents, provided that this way, maybe the marriage will function and start, so they'll start seeing their children. I think this was all happening in the background, in the unconscious right. I wasn't aware of what, what, why was I doing? What?
Speaker 2:
So what I'm hearing you saying is that there was kind of like a couple different things going on. Your relationship to either With people that really loved you and you would use the bandit man in the pulling away of the love to kind of like control the relationship, or you were in a relationship with people that needed you to regulate the nervous system and take care of you, and both of those things when happening in your home and you were raised with that. So you went out and reenacted those relationships in both sides of that spectrum, which are basically the exact same spectrum.
Speaker 1:
Exactly yes. And then the I had one to a healthy romance hell or healthy friends. That showed me interest romantically and I could not reciprocate because I find it boring or help too healthy. It's like I was addicted to a roller coaster that doesn't stop. That was frightening, because it just can't stop.
Speaker 2:
I love that, like when something healthy comes along, it's like whoa, yeah, that's too much for me. I need that real high, I need that real low, that in between stuff, and I don't want any of that. And I think that's a really important part of recovery, whether it's 12 step, where you're doing your own interpersonal work or whatever is. Instead of being in these really highs and really lows, we find this like Medium way, like the middle path, where we just have smaller fluctuations in once in a while. A big fluctuation, yeah, but it's really hard to Stay in the middle when you're used to the top and the bottom.
Speaker 1:
So I totally relate to that yeah, to me healthy boundaries where a sign of lack of love.
Speaker 2:
I love that healthy boundaries are a sign of lack of love. We are definitely taught that in alienation, estrangement or ratio. I think that's that should be the new definition, the new definition that healthy boundaries Of the lack of love, right. So the kids need no boundaries in measurement. That knows, you know, that means that you know I really love you. And early on you said that your, your mom, used to yell out the window every 30 minutes, you know, and my ex partner would come in my, my kids rooms every five to 10 minutes to check on them, to look on them, you know, and and they think in like she's coming to take care of them, but she's just coming to get a hit, just, she's just coming to get a little relief, a little like, oh my god, yes, I'm okay, I'm still alive, they're here, right, you know. So, yeah, that that that's all wonderful stuff and you said it very well.
Speaker 1:
So it was like you also, maybe that I was like the drug to my mother, right? So she was addicted and I was her drug. So in a way I imagine myself in a bottle of alcohol. You know, that was me, I guess, for my maybe a mother.
Speaker 2:
So 100% and just just staying on this relationship topic because it's really fascinating and and for me, I was attracted to my first wife because she had similar characteristics to my mom. She needed someone to soothe her nervous system, so she would for my analogy, she was kind of would feed on me to soothe her nervous system and I'd feed on her to Get my needs met by soothing her nervous system. And then I went out and looked for a partner that did the same thing, which was which was my, my first wife. So it's important in in relationships that I own a part of everything that's happening With, with my children, with my family system, because I'm just reproducing and reincarnating the relationships over and over again. And we had spoken briefly on the intake interview about trauma bonding. You know and I I'd like you to just to share with with the audience what that means to you and and relate it to maybe one or two of your relationships, what they'll look like when we talk about trauma bonding.
Speaker 1:
I don't know. You know there's a lot of nice things I wrote here. If you read it you might say, wow, why did you not bring this, bring this out? And I just can't. There's too much to talk about. You know, I lost all these things I wrote. I wrote many things. Now I don't remember anything.
Speaker 2:
It's more fun, it's more organic and this is what people want to see. They want to see the imperfection like like you. Looking at the notes Is a wonderful part of the show because it really speaks to how we're raised. And if we're just perfect, if we're just good enough, then we'll be lovable. Then then then we won't be defective, then our parents will love us and accept us and everything will be okay. And we can never get perfect enough for them to love us, because it has nothing to do with us, it's their work. But we want to be perfect to do their work for them. But it doesn't work. They gotta, they gotta do something or not.
Speaker 1:
I think I learned in my upbringing that Love can only be taken advantage of, exploited, and genuine love and innocence Will eventually be exploited. So I just need to play along, play along and surpass, surpassed these functions of my parents, outrun them out, compete them, hit them with their own weapon. I think that was the strategy I unconsciously took on. So I was traumatized heavily and and I could only again be involved in relationships that perpetuate that trauma, bonding, that abusive patterns of relationships that as if innocence and love cannot be remained intact, it has to be Corrupted. Power corrupts, abuses and the good things as if cannot be kept and worked on and improved or Generated more. Love cannot be generated as if one will abandon before or one will love less, so it's only comes down to who's gonna leave earlier, who's gonna love less, and you know, and exploit more. It's become this Commodity, maybe, of relationships rather than a genuine bond for me.
Speaker 2:
Totally no. No, that makes a lot of sense and for anyone out there, like trauma bonding is just kind of like maybe it's an attachment disorder that you're I'm bonding over, or like again, when a parent needs a child to soothe their nervous system, that parent has some kind of trauma. So now they're bonding with their child or someone else in their life in order to work with their trauma that they're not even aware that they're having, and then Relationships just keep pouring out in all different directions that are dysfunctional and Inherently not necessarily useful. And that's basically what what trauma bonding is and and what we're, what we're talking about, we, we were talking and you shared a wonderful analogy About Jenga, which I got a huge kick out of, and it's related to the family system and life and and a couple of other things that you happen to mention. Are you willing to to share your Jenga analogy with us again?
Speaker 1:
Sure, thanks for bringing it up. I also like that analogy. I felt like I good it could be a good metaphor analogy for the situation I've been going through that I felt myself as the last build building block at the bottom of a Jenga where the hands of parents, or all the capitalist hands, are just trying to go to new heights, stealing from the blocks, in a way exploiting the system, without being aware that if it's gonna collapse, you know, with the people at the bottom collapsing and the whole system will collapse. So I felt like at the strength by being pulled from opposite directions, like as if the those hands one of these two parents were pulling me to their direction from opposite sides, as I was being the last block building block at the bottom. So I was almost I first feeling like tearing apart and so I didn't know.
Speaker 1:
No, and the thing is as if this also makes you, makes, may make me feel maybe the collapse of my parents will be also my collapse. Right, I'm in this collapse and I elation all together. I can't get out of this game. That it's gonna eventually collapse on me, that I feel I'm driving force of this whole skyscraping. Consumers think parents can keep up their perfect image. I I will Kind of Take the burden of this, but eventually it will collapse on me was maybe the Unfortunate takeaway also.
Speaker 2:
Yeah, no, no. That's a wonderful perspective, like a, like a child in a family system at the bottom of the the Jenga game, holding the weight of both parents and both parents are tugging and trying to get different needs met, and the Child is just feeling the weight and and the incredible Responsibility of the whole Jenga game that's sitting on top of them. And I think this is an interesting thing and I'm gonna ask you about it, like the Omnipotence piece, right, like this idea that I am Responsible for all these blocks that are piled on top of me as a child, where they're a young child, a teenager, young adult, an adult like you, like just feeling the weight of the family system on you and the responsibility for that has just got to be completely over overwhelming and just a Incredibly challenging to to process or navigate.
Speaker 1:
Yeah, maybe my unconscious desire was to keep up my parents perfect image, because if that collapse, it's gonna reveal that maybe I've been all orphan all along, that they were children themselves and Orphaned. They were orphan children themselves Creating another children. So we were all living in orphanage trying to parent each other, and I think I didn't want this kind of truth to be the truth to be revealed, because in that case that means I've been an orphan for 35 years, step-step-step parents all this time.
Speaker 2:
I gotta tell you, man, like, like, culturally we're In different countries and stuff like that and some of your Analogies and languaging is so refreshing and beautiful and what a wonderful idea, like they were often, like we're actually don't have parents when we're in some of this dysfunction and amassment and Regulating different people's nervous systems, that we're all a bunch of children just running around trying to parent each other. And I think it's really an important Thing to um be clear about. In the family system, the kids are getting elevated to parent status over and over and over again in different situations where they're two years old, five years old, ten years old, fifteen years old, twenty five years old. Like they get elevated because there is all the kids running around and it's like a nut house. So I love that analogy. That really rings very true to me.
Speaker 1:
Yeah, and what hurts and saddens me the most is the very people I want to see me, hear me and parent me, expect me in the first place to see here and parent them, and that just creates a bunch of kids free for death, match and competition and we going all around in omnidirectional and it puts me in a double bind, lawrence, like should I prioritize living for myself or for my parents? Because I couldn't find out how to do both, otherwise I was tearing apart.
Speaker 2:
Wow, that's crazy, making yeah like how do I take care of myself, show off for my parents, where am I supposed to be, what I'm supposed to do, and just for any parents and grandparents out there. This is such a wonderful interview because we're really digging into someone that's done a lot of work and is looking into some deeper layers of the psychology of the kids and their minds and how do I navigate this and how do I manage all these really complex things that are going on? And I love the work that you're doing and I want to ask this question Like you said like life got really challenging and dark and bleak and just share with us a little bit what your recovery work looks like today and what aspects of your recovery work do you feel early on are the most important for young adults, for children, folks that are alienated or in a dysfunctional family system to start working on?
Speaker 1:
Okay, yes, I'm. What I'm doing is when my emotions are too heavy and pent up, accumulated, I want to go. I do vipassana meditation. I do vipassana meditation once only. It's a 10 day silent retreat with healthy food. Also, I find it really helpful. The power of silence. I feel that this is where the guts or higher powers voices, because there's so much mind chattering. I want to meditate for one hour, focusing on my breathing and my body scanning, when I could finally call my body down and call my breathing down. There is sometimes answers. That's generally not where I was looking for. That's coming from within to me, I don't know from where. You know, that's the thing, that's the beauty of it. Vipassana meditation, any breathing and body scanning, I think could work.
Speaker 1:
I do 12 steps program. I've been on ACA, coda and now PA. I'm not active. It's very active every day, but I do it as need be and I have a sponsor. I had paused at the fourth step, which is always the point. That's because of my perfection is at you know approach. I postpone always. I want, I intend to finish it up someday soon.
Speaker 1:
Other than that, for me, because I like music, also creating songwriting, and I'm interested in creating movies or short movies to not movies yet, but short movies to. I'm enrolled at the psychology program now and it's also film school, so I love watching movies. Movies there are almost movies in all topics today, right, and I feel that whatever stage I am at the time, I'm trying to watch that movie. Because now I'm aware that in a lifetime there is only so much books and movies I can I can enjoy and so much friends I can meet among 7 billion. So I accepted that. You know that was hard for me to accept, so I need to be picky about what I'm watching or reading. So I'm trying to choose that in alignment a tune, or in alignment with the recovery process I'm in.
Speaker 1:
So 12 step meditation, silent retreats, movies, psychoanalysis for me, sessions, if people can afford or they value it, psychotherapy and psychoanalysis for me it's a, it's a very nice thing, I love it. And journaling and journaling. And there is this artist, two way prayer programs, or just two way prayer programs. I think one can find it online easily. You just journal for 10 minutes and the others in the room give you feedback if you like. So you hear each other and you give feedback. It's you can also make friends and God's quite to God's, quite. Through this programs on 12 steps, I met some people serendipitiously and we are in touch. So when I feel the need or urge or to wish or just for no reason, I just contact them. And that kind of support network is so important that for one to not feel isolated, be isolated, especially at the time of prices.
Speaker 2:
Hmm, hmm, that's very close. I'm hearing meditation, I'm hearing therapy, I'm hearing 12 step work and you mentioned CODA and some other stuff and those are just different 12 step programs, very similar to parental alienation, anonymous, and they concentrate on a little bit different things. So that all sounds great and the creativity and the music. And you mentioned, in the end, having community. I think that is a necessity because so much of the stuff is so isolating. So that is all wonderful.
Speaker 2:
And we are getting near the end of the show and it's just so much in there. I'm going to have to listen to the several times because there's so many different nuances that we touched on a little bit. And if anyone's out there and there's something that they want to be explored or to to dig into a little bit, send us an email at family disappeared at gmailcom. Ask me a question. If you have a question for jayhun, ask the question. I'll make sure he gets the email and gets to answer it and maybe it'll influence some few future shows of there's certain things we've been discussing again, because it's been just ridiculously rich today. So just to wrap up the show, what do you want to say Like, what do you want to say to to young adults, adults that are in in your same Position, whether they're a little bit more advanced, or there there are several steps behind you like what's, what's that thing? That if you could Communicate one thing with them, what would that be?
Speaker 1:
Actually, lawrence, before I respond to your question, I like to say that I love this Conversation with you. There's so much I like to still Talk to you about and, yeah, what I would like to tell them is that this is definitely a hard work. It needs both hard work and faith in In a higher power as Anybody understands it. To me, it's actually allowing space, room for the unknown. If, if we are only going by what we know in the past, well, that wasn't a good place and and the the output of the past probably may not yield the answers we need today. So there is so much need for, I think, a loving new room and space of unknown that, because I don't know what I don't know, and there's so much of it, especially it may be for people with a hard, difficult past. So there's a lot of mourning, that's, that's awaiting, I think, and it's okay to be in the depressive mood, to be depressed and mourn over the lost childhood, maybe the good enough parents, the time to spend with them, the fantasy and dreams we were holding on to in the past to survive, that's maybe won't mean anything anymore today or tomorrow. So most of most of our identity, most of the chunk of the identity as we knew it, of ourselves May actually need to be left behind, including the dreams and fantasies we had, so we may start Completely different new life tomorrow. So we need to be ready for that unknown and to go embark on a journey.
Speaker 1:
For me, the reason I was holding so tightly and firmly to my past and parents and Hopefully decreasing the soul, was that my take is it's harder to lose something one has never experienced, one has never had. So my take is that Children with good enough parenting whatever that may be defined May find it easier to detach and start their life early on. But when there's so much longing for the times that's unspent in the past, I think that longing kind of haunts. It's, at least for me. It made me want to kind of as if life owes me something, that sense of entitlement. I need reimbursement, I need like Makeups of the past. So I couldn't kind of look towards future because there it was still some business With the past that I was expecting from, from life, and but again I may need to change and let go of expectations of that and that's the recovery work beautiful stuff, wonderful conversation.
Speaker 2:
So so many Many things left to discuss. I agree with you 100% and I look forward to continuing the conversation, hopefully at a later date on a on a different podcast, with maybe with some other Alienated or previously alienated children. I think that would make a really interesting panel, like digging into a couple of these nuances and here in some different perspectives. So thank you for your time and and I hope you have a beautiful day.
Speaker 1:
Oh, thank you, Lawrence. I would love that, and thank you for having me over. It's so nice to be here and sharing my experience. Thank you for the space.
Speaker 2:
Well, what a what a great show and I'm done, oh, I say wow at the end of each show. I hope someone makes fun of me for that or does something with that. But anyway, um, wow, what a great show and I don't know about your experience, but there were so many different nuances and so many different paths to go down and so many wonderful ideas and concepts that J-hoon shared that are Are really cool and refreshing and interesting and we'll definitely Re-engage and continue some of those conversations. And if there's anything that you want to hear more about or questions you have Family disappeared a gmailcom you can ask me the question, you can ask j-ho and the question and we'll we'll get those answered for you. And Remember that there's some great links in the show notes. As a link to parental alienation, anonymous, which is a free 12-step support group we spoke about 12-step support groups and community and how important that was and in the conversation. There's also a link in the show notes the family hope project, which is an educational and advocacy platform. Please, please, check that out, because that that that is awesome and um, and what else is in the show notes. There's other good stuff in the show notes.
Speaker 2:
As the podcast crew. Let us know what you'd like on the show Feedback, anything like that and like share, do something. Let someone else know that there's some really great information. And I'm gonna end the show with this I wish I had some of this information early on and I my trajectory would have been so much shorter and the pain less and the access to resources so much easier. So share, like, do something, and Don't do something too. So have a beautiful day and I will see you around the neighborhood. Thanks for taking the time to join me on this episode of family disappeared podcast. Do you know someone who can benefit from what we're discussing on today's episode? If so, please share this podcast with them and anyone else in your community that might be interested in changing their lives. Together, we'll continue the exploring, growing and healing journey. I will see you on our next episode. Until then, happy days to all.