Overcoming Parental Alienation: Mending Hearts and Rebuilding Bridges Part 1 - Episode 42

The echoes of estrangement can resonate deeply, reverberating through the hollows of a parent's heart. Join us as we welcome back Renee, whose narrative of reconciliation after a 30-year rift with her children, offers a poignant testament to the resilience of familial bonds. Her experiences, layered with moments of hope and heartache, provide a compass for those navigating the murky waters of parental alienation. Renee's candid reflections underscore the necessity of self-awareness and the courage to face past missteps, whilst casting a light on the delicate dance of patience and empathy.

Throughout our discussion, Renee and I dissect the intricate web of emotions that parental alienation weaves—not just for the parents, but for the children who find themselves caught in it's grasp. The journey of mending these ties is one that calls for a measured, thoughtful approach. We delve into the strategies that can pave the way for heartfelt conversations, and embrace the transformative power of understanding and respecting the emotional landscapes of those we love. Our shared narratives reveal the art of listening without judgment, and the significance of approaching a reunion without the baggage of the painful past.

As our episode draws to a close, the Family Disappeared Podcast extends an invitation to listeners to join a community bonded by shared experiences and a collective desire for healing. Renee's transformation, supported by the Parental Alienation Anonymous 12-step program, may inspire you or someone you know who's yearning for reconnection with estranged loved ones. We part with an offering of resources, wisdom, and a wish for peace and joy in your own journeys toward familial wholeness. Let these stories illuminate your path, as they have ours, toward a future where past divides are bridged by the power of renewed connection.

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Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:00

And had I not done the recovery work by working the steps and having a sponsor and going to meetings, it would have been too much for me to handle. I felt like I went into an army or a war without armor when I was, you know, without PAA, and this time I felt like I was fully armored up. I was ready to go, not for battle but to not emotionally lose it when I did talk to my kids. So I felt a huge level of protection.

Speaker 2: 0:32

There was a time in my life when I was overwhelmed and underwater. Those days are the inspiration for this podcast. This is by far the ultimate healing journey for all of us. Healing ourselves emotionally, spiritually and physically is paramount to this journey. From this place of grounding, we can all go out into the world and change all our interactions and relationships. We can engage people from an integrated and resourced place. This is a journey of coming home to ourselves. In today's episode we'll start to explore some of these issues. Let's begin the healing journey today. Welcome to the Family Disappeared Podcast. Hi all, my name is Lawrence Joss and welcome to the Family Disappeared Podcast.

Speaker 2: 1:11

Today we have a really fascinating show. We have Renee back on the show, who has been on the show several times, and she has been alienated, estranged from her kids for roughly about 30 years on and off mostly and she is now reuniting with the kids. So we're going to have a conversation about what that looks like, what the arc has looked like, what difficult she's faced in the past possibly caused by her or just caused by the situation and what she's doing now to show up differently in these relationships and how she's evolved. And and what's happening with the kids and some other really fascinating nuances in the conversation. And if you're new to the community, welcome. We have a tremendous amount of resources and in today's conversation we're going to talk a lot about PAA Parental Alienation Anonymous which is a free 12-step program, and just how that's changed the arc of her connecting with her kids. And if she would have had some of these other resources earlier on, maybe something different would have happened. Please stay tuned for the show and again check out the show notes. There's links to PAA Parental Alienation Anonymous. There's links to our Family Hope Project. There's a bunch of other really useful information and yeah, let's jump into the show and see what happens.

Speaker 2: 2:25

You know, early on in the struggle for me is I'd have connection with my kids and I just want to download to them how I was feeling about different things. I wanted to let them know what it was like to be a parent, how kids and parents relationships would be Like. I had these different ideas of what this relationship would look like. I wasn't really aware of parental alienation or the dynamics. I just knew what was going on wasn't okay and I wanted to convince my kids that it wasn't okay. And as time went on and as I became a little bit healthier, as I started resourcing myself emotionally and spiritually.

Speaker 2: 3:00

When I go to my kids in these ways, I'd see them start to shut down and pull away or just not feel good, and I'd see that in their eyes. I'd see their body change and I realized how much I was contributing to the system of alienation and estrangement, how I was actually part of that, as I was trying to convince them of what was going on or what wasn't going on and it wasn't useful. And I'm sad that I did that as a parent and at the same time I was doing the best that I could and I don't have a lot of guilt and shame around that, because I've been able to identify those behaviors in myself and work on them. And I can also acknowledge that I hurt my kids in a way that wasn't useful and I might do some of that again. Like I'm not perfect, this isn't about being perfect. This is from learning from my mistakes and acknowledging it.

Speaker 2: 3:50

There's a lot of peace in being able to see how the system is moving and how I'm contributing to it, because as I take agency, my life starts to change and we're going to talk about a bunch of that in the show today. So that's a lot out of me. Let's jump into the conversation. Hi, rene, it is so great to see you again. We're really excited to have you back on the show, and today we're going to be talking about what it's like to be reuniting with your sons after approximately 30 years of alienation and estrangement and erasure. And If you could just tell us, like over the 30 years, like what kind of contact did you have with your two sons and was it different with each of the sons? What did that look like after over the last 30 years?

Speaker 1: 4:32

Contact with them was extremely rare. When it did happen, there was usually an extenuating circumstance, a graduation that I decided to show up to. Or you know, in one case their dad punished my son by making him go with me for Christmas, and that's a story in itself. So very, very rare contact over a 30-year period, no deep conversations, no moments where we really connected in that entire time.

Speaker 2: 5:09

And over those 30 years, would you say that you spoke to the kids, texted them, emailed them five times, 10 times, 20 times? And was it different for each boy or did you do the same thing with each kid each time?

Speaker 1: 5:22

I would say that I texted and or emailed each of them in 30 years I mean that's a long time probably 30 or 40 times, and I would say a little bit more with my older son than the younger. He was a little more open to having contact for some of those years, for periods of time. So with my youngest son we would have literally six months, nine months a year without me reaching out at all.

Speaker 2: 5:53

Yeah, and just to contextualize this, like you're saying, 20 to 30 times over 20 or 30 years, I'm guessing. In the first months years there was quite a bit of outreach and then it kind of got to the point where you started to taper down or just kind of like take care of yourself in a little way, and then it got down to once or twice a year. Possibly. Is that accurate?

Speaker 1: 6:13

That's very accurate. Trying a lot from that place of desperation in the beginning, I would say for at least the first five years just constantly trying, constantly reaching out and not getting anything back. You can only stay in that place for so long before you have to do something to move on.

Speaker 2: 6:36

Yeah, and I think that's a great point for anyone out there that is listening, because my experience is very similar to Renee. In the early years there was a lot of text and there was a lot of reaching out. There was a constant emotional pull on my brain, my body, every aspect of my life, the ruminating thoughts. I couldn't really live life because I was so entrenched and enmeshed with the alienation myself and in some ways I think I'm hearing you saying I was helping push it forward and perpetuating it with my reactive behavior, with my desperation, with my just longing to connect with the kids. Was your experience similar to that?

Speaker 1: 7:13

Absolutely. I was feeling so raw and so desperate that I couldn't think past myself. All I could think of was this is being done to me. It's not fair, it's wrong. But I wasn't able to step out of that because of that level of pain and grief. To wonder you know what's it like for my kids on the other side?

Speaker 2: 7:38

Yeah, and that is a great point. And in the beginning I was just trying to, like you're saying, just take care of myself emotionally. And it was hard to put myself in the kids' shoes and touch on their perspective and their heartache and their confusion and their pain and their anger. And if you're a kid that's alienated, estranged, not connected with your parents, like all your feelings are real and valid. You know what I mean.

Speaker 2: 8:02

And it's incredibly challenging to manage an ecosystem as a parent or grandparent, you know, in the early days. So we do create intended and unintended harm at times. So I just want to acknowledge that that's real and I think you've spoken about it quite a bit, Renee, that when you did have connection in the past, when they were younger, like that, all that stuff would get kicked up and you would get really reactive and you'd kind of like want your kids to solve those emotional needs for you and in doing that, you know created harm and pushed them away. Could you tell us a little bit about how that manifested in your life in the early days?

Speaker 1: 8:40

It was so emotionally loaded that it would go right from. This is a good idea to me actually taking action. So, as an example, you know I would hear a song on the radio that talked about being a man of your word and I would immediately text my son and say I just want you to be a man of your word, I just want you to treat me the way that I deserve to be treated, and then, of course, there would be nothing back because it was too much. I was spewing too much emotion in his direction for him to be able to even start to process that. So there was quite a bit of that kind of thing where just constantly grilling and asking questions, and I'm sure the pressure on them was tremendous and I had no idea.

Speaker 2: 9:34

Yeah, yeah, and it's interesting when you describe that and it's similar behavior that I would do. I'd go to my kids and want to get some kind of emotional need met or I want to point out something about how kids should be or what life should look like, and I remember having conversations and then I'd see that light go off in my kids eyes or just feel them completely pull away. Then that's the splitting that you hear about in parental alienation and estrangement, where the kids just get overloaded and they have to cut off from the reality, from their life, from the thought process. Everything shuts downed and they have to cut off from the reality, from their life, from their thought process. Everything shuts down and they just go numb and they just go to probably some habitual behaviors that have been hardwired in the family system and they don't come back very easily.

Speaker 2: 10:17

And I think it's a great point for anyone out there that's newer to this and struggling is to really learn from some of the things we've gone through that haven't been very useful and, in retrospect, even kind to the kids. And it's not that we're bad parents, it's just that we tried what we could try, based on the skills that we have, and that's why this podcast exists is to share different recovery stories and different strategies and different ways that we navigate these relationships. Now and I want to segue really quickly into something exciting that you shared with me, renee is that you are reuniting with your sons right now. Like, how is that feeling and what happened? How did this kind of take place?

Speaker 1: 10:59

You know, it's been a process that started probably two years ago. It started with my youngest son and I was doing just a regular reach out hey Dan, how you doing? And he didn't respond back for a couple of weeks. But when he did respond back, it was very angry. He indicated that the way that he was feeling was abandoned, that I had ruined his life by not being there for him and that he could no longer have a relationship because he never learned those skills because of me, that I had ruined his life, and it was painful to hear. And it was painful to hear.

Speaker 1: 11:44

However, I had been in PAA for probably a year at least, and I knew a few simple things that you all had taught me. Number one don't respond right away. Number two if and when you do decide to respond, talk to somebody else first, kind of bounce your ideas off of them, and then what I was told right before I responded from another member is you've got to meet him where he's at. You have got to meet him where he's at, so you don't get to come in with your reality, because it's going to be in direct collision with his reality. And so it was about six hours, which is a really long time. For me, patience isn't a key character that I have, but I waited six hours and then I responded back with a very succinct, short message that said thank you so much for sharing where you're at. That must have taken a lot of courage and if there's anything I can ever do to make this right, please let me know. And he immediately responded back with thanks, mom, I appreciate that. And then it was probably a week and a half later. He said would you be open? He texted and said would you be open to a phone call? And I responded back again, succinct and short. It's easy to get excited and think, oh my gosh, this is it. Everything's changing. And then I start getting too wordy and too chatty and I just had to respond back with yes, what would work for your schedule. And he let me know that he was actually available right then if I was. And I said sure, you're welcome to call me anytime.

Speaker 1: 13:26

And the key point for me, there was not me picking up the phone and calling him, he was the one that made the request. So not being desperate. And hey, I'll call you right now. I just waited for his phone call, which came within a couple minutes and there wasn't any exploring of the past at that point. It was how are you, mom? And I said, well, I'm doing really good. How are you?

Speaker 1: 13:51

And it was that surface level conversation that we would have with a friend that we hadn't talked to in a long time. And then, you know and this was a call where he really felt a need to ask me some questions he had apparently been told that I had a mental illness, and I'm not sure, I'm not going to guess who told him that, but he was dating someone that had a serious mental illness and he wanted to know how I felt being someone that had that illness as well. And without making him feel bad, I was able to just come back and say you know, I've had my share of issues in my life, but that is not one of them. So I'm not sure if you're confusing me with someone else. You know, the last thing I wanted to do was make him feel guilty or ashamed that he had misinformation all these years, and so I just kind of made light of it and within a week again we had another conversation and then I didn't hear from him again for a year.

Speaker 1: 14:57

So that was interesting. Yeah, that was interesting, but in those first two conversations no discussion of the past. Yeah, Wow, you had me two conversations, no discussion of the past.

Speaker 2: 15:05

Yeah, wow, you had me like captivated, like I was in there. I was like just sitting like on your bed, like just staring at you while you were telling me that story, because it pulls at so many different strings. And I think my first question is is I'd love that you gave him the agency and the power to pick up the telephone and call you and you had enough recovery to know that it wasn't your job to call him. He was reaching out, that you wanted to I don't know if this is true, but that he needed to be empowered to do that himself. And my question is is like a two minute or three minute gap while you're waiting for the call? What was that like?

Speaker 1: 15:41

It was pretty stressful that like it was pretty stressful. You know, I'm always reminded of how quickly my neurons in my brain fire when I'm emotional or under stress, and I'm sure I went to a million different places. You know what if he doesn't call? What if he calls? And we start screaming at each other. You know what's that going to look like. But none of the things that I was worried about happened.

Speaker 2: 16:02

You also mentioned something right before you said that you said because a program that you took six hours to respond to his first text and you were resourced and you called someone or reached out to someone that wasn't in the middle of the fire with you, which I think is such an incredibly important nuance to folks out there that are struggling with this, sometimes in the beginning or even in the middle of the fire with you, which I think is such an incredibly important nuance to folks out there that are struggling with this.

Speaker 2: 16:26

Sometimes in the beginning or even in the middle, even 20 years later, with parental alienation, when something comes up, we reach out to someone that's really close to us, that happens to be in the fire with us our partner, our parents, our sister, someone else that's upregulated and what I'm hearing you say is you reached out to someone else that was in the program, that had some recovery, that didn't have their skin in your game and they were able to give you some advice or some support that was useful and not from like a fragmented or desperate place that a parent or grandparent might be in. Is that accurate?

Speaker 1: 17:05

parent might be. And is that accurate? Yes, very accurate. She herself was moderately reunited with her kids for several years, and so I knew that she had done a lot of work in this area, and I immediately knew that she was the best resource for me to contact.

Speaker 2: 17:19

I love that and if anyone's new to the show or you've been listening to the show for a while, you know the support group that we're talking about is Parental Alienation Anonymous. You know we have an incredibly get to have relationships and we get to be resourced in a different kind of way. We don't have to make the same kind of mistakes that we make when we're in isolation and we're all alone. And I'm hearing a lot of that in your story and you also said you're about a year into attending meetings when you started to reconnect with your son, and I'm thinking because of the meetings and the support and all the other interpersonal work that you had took, you couldn't have reconnected with your son in that same way any time sooner than in that particular moment.

Speaker 1: 18:20

Yes, yes, had it happened prior to that, I would not have had the skills to handle it. And had I not done the recovery work by working the steps and having a sponsor and going to meetings, it would have been too much for me to handle. I felt like I went into an army or a war without armor when I was without PAA and this time I felt like I was fully armored up. I was ready to go, not for battle, but to not emotionally lose it when I did talk to my kids. So I felt a huge level of protection.

Speaker 2: 18:59

And just to contextualize it how old was your son a couple years ago when this conversation started taking on a little bit new context? I guess.

Speaker 1: 19:10

He would have been 34 at that time.

Speaker 2: 19:13

Okay, okay, and it's interesting. In the research that Karen Whittle does, she talks about this window of time in the early 30s to mid 30s. That reunification, that starting this process, becomes a lot more common because the kid's critical thinking is fully developed. So this is really important. A lot of people don't necessarily understand that somewhere between 26 and 27, the brain is fully developed. But it's not until like in the early 30s to mid 30s that critical thinking becomes fully developed, and before that there's a lot of black and white thinking. And as critical thinking comes on board and becomes fully developed, there's a lot more colors in the rainbow and a lot more creativity and spaciousness and a lot more possibilities for for the brain to work differently.

Speaker 1: 20:01

And that's the slight window it sounds like you stepped into with your particular son where there is a possibility to have a different kind of conversation it really was, and the only thing that I would add to that is, by the time they were in their 30s, both of them, uh, they had had life happen to them, they had gotten a divorce, they had, uh, were able to. Ironically, you know, here's an upside to having had this experience with my kids they were both able to, and continue to, positively co-parent their children with their ex-partner. And, uh, when I did have full conversations with my son recently several hours long with my youngest son just about a month ago he actually wanted to talk about the deeper level things and I have a lot more empathy and a lot more sympathy for people who've gone through a divorce and how hard it is to not only make that decision but also to make a decision to co-parent the children in a positive manner. And so that second conversation a year later and the third conversation after that was much, much different than the first one two years ago. This was to a much deeper level. He said I want to know where you're at, mom, and I'm just going to sit here and listen and be quiet. He said I want to know what happened and I was able to say the easiest way that I can say, that is, your dad kept me from you and your brother and he said and what did that look like?

Speaker 1: 21:45

And I was able to just cite very general examples of that. You know, we don't want to get into the story and the blaming and all of that, just that, you know, he was very angry, I was very angry, and we both made decisions that we and I'm sure your dad regrets those decisions today and I certainly regret them. And there were opportunities for me to see you and I was not allowed to do that, and you know, then we continued to talk for another, probably two hours after that, and he really seemed to have a need to share about things that I had missed out on, you know. So he just started rambling about all of these things over maybe the last 10 years you know, mom, I don't know if you know this and I don't know if you know that and he started just plugging in all of these details and he couldn't stop talking all of these details and he couldn't stop talking.

Speaker 1: 22:46

It was like he really had a need to like okay, mom, I'm ready to catch you up. So here it is, and so it was a really good opportunity for me to just sit and be quiet, ask no questions, make no real comments, just general statements like oh wow, that must've been difficult or that. I can tell that that was really emotional for you. You know, I had to be so careful with that because that was not my nature before PAA. I would get in there and give my opinion and make a judgment and give a comment and say, well, of course your dad did that. I mean, it's your dad right Didn't need to say any of that because I knew the kind of damage that that would inflict.

Speaker 2: 23:28

Wow, wow. That is a beautiful and do you identify in this need for your son to share and replug into you in so many different ways and download all this information over the last 10 years? I think that's incredibly useful and helpful to so many of us, because I haven't had that conversation before and as he's downloading all this information to you and you're starting to actually just get to meet your son again really is what I'm hearing. How did you feel emotionally? I heard how you showed up for him, what was going on in your internal ecosystem, what was happening for you as you were getting these downloads.

Speaker 1: 24:09

You know, it's interesting, and I think what I'm about to say happened because I've already done the recovery work. So I'm no longer on that roller coaster where, oh, they contacted me, I'm at the top of the hill and then, oh, I haven't heard from them in a year. Now I'm at the bottom of the hill. That's been gone for me for some time now, a couple of years at least. So as I was sitting there, I just kept reminding myself stay in the moment, really enjoy and love everything he's sharing with you, be present, listen, just take this in. You don't have to do anything but be there for him right now.

Speaker 1: 24:48

And I really wasn't in like an excited state. I was, I would say, more like shock. You know, if somebody's ever experienced shock, where your brain's trying to catch up with what's happening, that's what it was like for me brains trying to catch up with what's happening. That's what it was like for me. It was just a very surreal moment where I would occasionally pinch myself and just say, wow, I can't believe this is happening, and losing all perspective of what was going on around me. For two and a half hours during this conversation, I have no idea if I was missing appointments and I didn't care. There was nothing else but him and I on this call. I wasn't about to do anything with anybody else in that moment, and it was amazing. And it was pretty much the same thing the next week when we talked again for a couple hours. Just a connection that I truly thought would never happen.

Speaker 2: 25:44

It is so beautiful to hear you say that, and I just want to point out how important it is to our community to hear these success stories, and we're talking a long period of time that there was a lot of struggle, but also something that you said, renee, that is really profound and important is that you have done the recovery work. And I will say early on in my experience, like I hadn't done the recovery work, so I created a lot of harm to my kids and I helped perpetuate parental alienation to a certain degree, because I was so involved in it, sometimes I was pushing it. When we talk about recovery work, if you're not really familiar with that, it's about working on yourself emotionally and spiritually and physically, and it's not in just the relationship with our kids, it's in every relationship in our life. I think that's when recovery really starts to take hold, is when we realize, oh, it's not just about my kids, it's about me having a full, rich and robust life and I love my kids and I want to work on that too. So if you're struggling out there and you don't know what to do, through the 12 step perspective, it's working yourself and it sounds counterintuitive because you feel like someone else is doing something else to you. But by working on ourselves we can show up in all these situations differently.

Speaker 2: 27:05

And, um, you had said that you had spoken to your son and then for one year there was no real contact and that your nervous system has kind of it sounds, let go of the time a little bit and you enjoy what you do and then when it happens again, it happens again. How, how did that one year later connection happen? Did you reach out? Did he reach out? What happened? Wow, wow, renee gets like a super wow. That was a great first part of the show and and so much great insight and emotional work and recovery work. And, um, it's neat to hear someone that's walking the walk you know what I mean and see it in their words and how they're showing up in the conversation and see the possibilities with our kids and grandkids, how stuff can change and how we contribute to the system of it not changing, how we contribute to the system of keeping it stuck just by our lack of skillful means. And there's nothing wrong with it, there's nothing wrong with not having skillful means and there's a lot of beautiful things all starting to develop skillful means. So welcome to the community If you're new. If you're not new, welcome back, and we are a 501c3 nonprofit and we can use any kind of help or support if you have extra resources and please come check out a meeting if that sounds useful, or join the community in a different way through the family hope project, and we want to hear from you.

Speaker 2: 28:28

Is there any other nuances of this conversation you'd like us to explore? Is anything else you'd like to hear us talk about? Do you have any questions? Email addresses in the show notes parental alienation, anonymous at gmailcom, where you can send it out to family disappeared at gmailcom, or you can send it out to familydisappeared at gmailcom if you want to get directly hold of me and we look forward to connecting with you and we will see you in the second part of the episode and, if someone hasn't told you yet today, I love you and I love our community and I'm so grateful to be part of it, and some days it's really hard and some days it's just a beautiful life that I live and I am not my kids.

Speaker 2: 29:07

I'm a separate entity and I love that I am. So have a beautiful day and we will see you soon. 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.