Topic : 12/26 "Brainwashed by My Parents"

I represent a support group  - the NJ PAS Support Group.  Our small group was brought together by author & researcher Dr. Amy J. L. Baker (get her book  -Breaking the Ties that Bind).  We are all alienated parents - men and women, mothers and fathers.  Equal amounts men and women. 

Let me tell you that PA and PAS are real.  Everything that Mel Feit described on this episode has happened or is happening right NOW to our precious chiidren in New Jersey, and I'm positive ALL over this country and in other parts of the world.  It's about time that somebody RECOGNIZED IT and wants it to STOP.  We live with the effects of Parental Alienation every single day......every day that we miss our once-loving children. 

All the research, all the classic symptoms noted in research and books on PA and PAS..... those are our kids!  Who are being or have already been brainwashed to hate us for NO reason, by an angry ex spouse.

We are doing everything in our power to make changes - to somehow make a change, at least in our own state, and hope that required education for Family Court Judges will someday be a requirement. 

All the parents who are suffering out there, wondering "what did I do?"  and "why does my son/daughter hate me and not even want to see me?  WHY?"   all of those hurting parents, GOOD LOVING parents are in pain.  And the children are suffering horribly from anxiety and depression from being caught in the middle of a horrible battle.  It has got to stop.

PARENTAL ALIENATION IS REAL whatever you want to call it.  What Mel described - WHEN the child is brought into the campaign of denegration against the other parent, THAT is what we know......that's when we know it is real, as children do not naturally know how to hate one of their (good loving) parents; a child has to be TAUGHT to do it! 

----Carrie - on behalf of the NJ PAS Support Group 
(thank you Dr. Amy Baker)

I have been a victim of PAS.. my parents were divorced before I turned 2 years old.  10 years later my real mom decided to ask for child support.  My "biological mother" lets call her, would always speak bad about my father.  my parents used to have shared custody of me.. my brother and i went one week moms - one week dads. my grand-mother became very sick about a year before the child support fight began..so she moved in with us, causing us to move from the house i grew up in, etc, etc...  my granny, my brother and i were like 3 peas in a pod.. we were unseperable and she was our rock.. one night, my brother and my grand-mother got into an argument.. because he said he wanted to live permanently at my mothers(the alienator) .. she told him it wasn't a good idea.. her own mother knew what she was doing wasn't right.. well, when my mother came home my grand-mother was furious and my mother asumed my brother had said something to upset her.. my mother kicked my brother out of the house! .. then, my mother began to buy me everything i wanted.. and telling me that she bought EVERYTHING and that my dad never paid for anything.. she would always talk bad behind my fathers back!.. me, beign 12 years old.. believed her of course!.. so, i would go to my fathers the next week and tell him that he was dead beat and didn't love me because he never bought me anything...(which is true, my father and my step-mother bring me, my brother and my step-sister on regular trips and we spend family time together) .. which brings me to another point.. when i turned 4.. my mother bought me, my brother and my step-brother each a brand new Television.. and never gave me bed time, never made me eat dinner at the table, let me eat whatever, whenever.. from the age of 4!!.. so, i thought i had the best parent in the world right?.. well, i would go to my dads, i didn't have a tv, i had a bedtime, i had rules, i wasn't aloud to be out on the street till 10pm, at the age of 11! .. in my head, my father and my step-mother were horrible parents!.. and my mother would always remind me of that, that my dad was a mean parent! .. does PAS exist?.. i would have to say yes.. because i have been an imediate victim of alienation, and it has made a bad affect on me, but thankfully my dad and my step-mom made me go to a therapist (gosh, those horrible parents, i dont think so..i think they're amazing for having made me do the best thing for my life)..well, thats my story.. PAS, does exist! 

My parents divorced when my sister was 4 and I was almost 3. My father left my mother for another woman. He is a cinematographer in the film industry and developed a relationship with an actress on set. At the time the actress(now my stepmother) was married to an oscar winning director.
After both my father and stepmother told their spouses they wanted a divorce chaos struck. My mother got together with my stepmother's ex during the divorce trial. My mother would get together with magazines and newspapers. She would have my sister and I to pose. "Smile your going to be in a magazine," were her exact words. Once the story was printed my mother would sit my sister and I down and read to us the most disturbing stories about my father and his so to be spouse.
My mother bad mouthed my father and stepmother so much that my sister grew an awful hatred for my stepmother. Almost every time we went to visit (every weekend except the third weekend of the month) my sister and stepmother would get in to the most horrific screaming matches. My sister would repeat word for word of what my mother would say. She called my stepmother a whore, witch, etc...
Eventually my father wouldn't even pick us up or take us to school, because a few times my mother would show up and cause a major scene.
Of course when we did go to my father's they would send us with nannies or babysitters. My parents decided that every holiday they would share. Half of the day we were at our mothers and the outher half our fathers. One Easter my father refused to drive us back to our mother's. I remember feeling so guilty, and sad for my mother. She and my stepfather drove 1 1/2hrs to pick us up. During that time our father made us get into the car with our aunt who drove us home. This would have been ok, but it was before cellphones. We were crying and screaming saying that our mom was coming, but they made us go.
I know neither of my parents handled the divorce well, but with all of the drama my father finally gave up. My stepmother never let us get close to her. She has known me since I was 2 and still treats me like dirt. Almost to the extreme of "Mother Dearest."
They refused to help pay our college, but payed for my stepbrother's. And later threw it in our faces that we never went.
I am one month away from being 27, and still carry much pain from my parents divorce. I wish I were a daddy's girl, but know it will never happen. My mother still bad mouths my father, and my sister and myself barely talk to him. Both of our spouses refuse to go around both our dad and his wife. I cry all the time about this part of my life and carry more hurt than anyone could ever imagine!

Dear Dr Phil,

               As i saw the heading of the show today i knew that was the show for me. I have been divorced from my only sons father for 8 1/2 years. And it has been terrible off and on ever sence. I got full custody of our son and he got every other weekend and two 3 hour visits per week on mon and thurs 5 to 8. He was furious about that he wanted full custody. So every time i looked at him the wrong way ( and his new wife) I got arrested for bogas things that i dident do. The first was stalking. Second was assult. all in witch i had my son at the time i was accused and i had to go down and make bail. i never was put behind bars and when it would go to court it was dismissed thrown out because i really dident do anything. there was one more time that i did have words but that was all and here we go again. all that ended in 2001. and from then on its been good one min and bad the next we have all been friends but that never last. Only until he dont get his way about something. so anyway thats only a part of my story so i know all to well about the brainwashing and asking the child Questions my son is 13 now. So things are somewhat calming down. But when i turned on the show today i got to watch 9 minutes and i was irriate. The man that said that the child should be taken away from the brainwashing parent and placed with the other. Oh man im glad i wasent there. You just dont jerk a child away form there parent like that and them not get to see the other one. That is my opinion on that first sedment. I wonder if there are more parents that think the same way??? Thank you for your time.

                                                                                                                       LaVaughnda Baker

   Dear Dr Phil ,

      My little girl Whom will be 12 years old on Nov 1st ,  Some 7 years ago had an issue , which was That I went to visit her , and we went for a walk together , ( She lives with her mother in Raul northern California ) at one point she pulled away from me and ran up to someones house that I didn't know .... I ran up to her , and told her that she shouldn't do that , that wen in public she should have a adults hand , Se got mad and said that she hated me , to what I replied , that you should say mean tings to people or the ones you love .... Se ran home crying , .... My X went in her bedroom to talk to her , she than came out to talk to me , stating that she was to young to understand what I had said .... ( remember shes 5 going on 6 years of age , and I feel that that is way old enough to start learning and distilling respect in a child , Now I mean just teaching them compassion , understanding , and respect ... I don't mean mistreating them ) which is what I told my X ,... Whom then told me to leave ... ,.. not even letting my say goodbye , ... the last thing I heard was my little girl yelling .., that she hates me and never wants to see me ever again ..... which tore me up ....

    Now over the last 7 years , I ave and am still being told that my little girl is still traumatized but what happened , Now there are many other things that play in to this that I wish I had room to share ....  My X as threatened my using my little a number of times over petty things as well as things that I had no control over , ... over the years .... but the thing she uses the most is that at 12 , she is still traumatized but this .....

     I don't think that is passable unless that other parent is rehearsing it to the child .... can you or anyone give me some feed back ...  

I went through this with my husband and his ex.  His ex brainwashed his little girl into hating her father and making her believe the man she was living with and eventually married was her father.  And it all boiled down to MONEY!!  My husband was behind on his child support so she wouldn't let him see her.  Unless we lived within driving distance.  My husband was in the military and we were stationed in Germany.  Wasn't going to cost her a red cent but she wouldn't let her come to visit when her grandparents were coming to visit us.  We lived in another state for many years and finally let her come visit one summer in 2004.  It was always said the the child was deathly afraid to fly so couldn't come to visit.  We have to come to the state where they lived in order to visit her.  We couldn't afford to fly at a whim either.  So unfortunately we didn't get to see her very often. And of course I was the classic wicked stepmother in her mother's eyes.  When Kayla was 2/3 years old,  her mother forbid us to let her call me mommy, but made her call the man she was living with daddy.  Tell me that wasn't confusing to Kayla.  It was always a constant battle.  The summer she was with us, she would call her mother with a calling card, I would listen in on another phone, her mother would question her as to whether or not we had computer access or cell phones and what kind of house we had, etc.  I couldn't believe she would question her like that!  While Kayla was with us, she would tell us that her mother made her do all the chores while she watched TV, but the minute she got back with her mother, the tables turned, we treated her like a slave while she was there and our son didn't have to do anything.  We split the chores between them, she doing "girl" things like helping with the dishes and laundry, etc and him doing "boy" things like barn chores, mowing the lawn, etc.  When she flew home with her grandmother who had come to visit at that particular time just to be able to fly back with her, we didn't hear from her that she had made it home safely, we had to contact her via email that said yeah we got home about 12, I thought you were going to call me so I didn't worry about it.  That shouldn't come from an eleven year old.  My husband was a truck driver over the road and couldn't always call at a specific time, but would call when he could.  I would email telling Kayla that Daddy would be home this weekend, expecting her to call, but no calls cause they were too busy.  Turn about fair play.  Finally after almost a year he got an email saying since he hadn't called in all that time, (I know phone lines work two ways) she wrote an email with undertones of her mother, saying that she wanted to change her last name to her stepfather's.  When my husband called his ex she said yes she wanted to change her name, so he asked if her current husband was going to adopt her, she said no, she just wanted to change her name.  Which meant that she could still get child support.  My husband said absolutely not!!  The next thing he knew was he got legal papers in the mail so sign off all parental rights, which he did just because he was sick and tired of the BS that went on for years.  Unfortunately because we couldn't afford a lawyer at the time, and he was behind in his child support, he is still paying to this day.  We've been told that we could have negotiated to lower or eliminate the past due child support because she wanted him to sign the papers.  Hindsight is 20/20.  After all was said and done, all we could say was that when Kayla hits 18 we hope she'll realize how her mother really was when she was little and that her father really does love her.  I do know that Kayla has some issues with trust and I think that it all stems from this.  But a lot of it I still believe was based on the fact that my husband was behind on his child support.  Of course when he was in the military it was paid on a regular basis but when he got out it took a while to find a job that would allow us to live as a family and pay his child support.  She always said the money went for Kayla, but the day of mediation, when she found out how much child support she would get, she said there now I can buy a new car!!!  I could go on for hours about this subject but I believe that PAA is VERY real !!  I just hope and pray that someday Kayla will be able to understand why her biological dad was not in her life growing up!!!!

i went through the same thing that the guy who took his kids .. I did not take my kids, I let my life go through the court, and well I lost my kids and to this day. I have tried to contact my daughter by my space but she blocks me from her site.
I feel the only time I will get to see them is when my x dies some day. .what a sad thing to say but nothing you can do.
My last final though, Life goes on and the x will have to explain her actions when she meets her maker, and I hope God will forgive her.

It is obvious that this parental alienation issue has been around for quite some time. There are many, many scarred kids who are now grown ups that speak and write about their personal unfortunate circumstances. Look at the emotion and the interest that is generated by today's show. Go in any library and see all the books addressing a problem that did not originate last week or last year. Search online for parental alienation (PA) or parental alienation syndrome (PAS)...you will be amazed at the volume of documented, specifics on the seriousness of the problems...cases happening today...and, without much imagination, one can get a good visual on the magnitude of this compounding problem looking forward.

 

There are hostile, aggressive dad's and mom's...don't miss this point...our grandchildren have been alienated from their biological mother (our daughter), from us, our daughters' friends and blood relatives. Our daughter's ex, even after his remarriage and the passage of almost 4 yrs time, has successfully navigated the California family court system to avoid compliance with original and subsequent court orders for 50/50 custody and 50/50 visitation. In fact, his superb manipulative skills; deep pockets of continuing income; and, angry, vindictive nature...coupled with "brainwashing" techniques practiced from more than a few years before their separation...has surely caused psychological damages to two young boys.

 

There are two (2) important matters that MUST be addressed without further delay. First: Family courts have let our children down by not originally REQUIRING that divorcing parents always allow children to continue loving and interacting with BOTH parents. Exceptions only need occur when one or the other parent is disqualified from contact with his/her children because of a court recognized issue. Second: Mental health and psychological agencies must be forced to recognize and address the seriousness of this matter. We cannot any longer tolerate such an extensive "syndrome" being ignored and swept under the rug. Look...if they cannot bring themselves to establish a meaningful standard for diagnosis of this character/behavioral mental illness which adversely affected so many children for so many years, that can be applied by the money-grubbing psychological therapists and evaluators, we need to have them put out of business.

 The court are not the place for divorce we need a better system. there is real abuse that happens that the court do not believe because it is used so often in so many divorce's. parent alienation does happen.  we need a system the get to the truth out for the sake of our  children involved in the court battles . what we really need to do is get divorce out of the courts, where it can drag on for years,  while the children suffer . A place that places the best interest of the child first , that try to cool thing down when they get out of control and look in to charges to see which one are real and when one parent is just using the system to beat up the other . I have seen over the years the both parent can use the kid to hurt the other .  that there are abusive woman as well as men . the when to try to get out of an abusive relationship it is quite often that the court can be use to abuse you again and abuser are very good at using the court . I sure no system is perfect but we need something better then we have now

THANK-YOU!!! I thought the same thing, she was so ignorant as she sat there acting like it doesn't happen. She drove me nuts every time she spoke, Dr Phil was asking her a question and she answered with another question...I was cheering when the daughter stood up to her at the end!!!