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I Need Blue
I turned around to see a masked man pointing a gun at me. It was just the beginning of a series of events, including robbery and abduction, which changed my life forever. I Need Blue, hosted by Jen Lee, is a podcast series featuring lived-experiences from survivors of life events. I NEED BLUE creates space for survivors of trauma to feel they BELONG, are LOVED, UNDERSTOOD and EMPOWERED! I called 9-1-1 and they provided me with life-saving directions to help my customer who was having a medical emergency. Law enforcement rescued us and caught the robber. Our first-responders face unique traumas every day. I NEED BLUE provides space for them too!
I Need Blue
Barbara: Parental Alienation Silenced Her—Then She Lost Her Daughter
Her daughter’s absence became Barbara’s purpose: to break cycles of alienation, pain, and silence.
Barbara’s life was shaped by not belonging—from family struggles to a marriage broken by parental alienation that turned her daughters against her. The unthinkable struck when her 15-year-old daughter, Erin, took her own life despite Barbara’s pleas for help.
From that tragedy, Barbara found purpose. Now a wellness advocate, speaker, and author, she helps women heal generational wounds, navigate divorce, and reclaim their lives. Her story proves that even in unimaginable heartbreak, healing and transformation are possible—and can light the way for others.
Connect with Barbara:
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WellnessMattersYouMatter
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https://www.facebook.com/barbaradrtina
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Website:
https://wellnessmattersyoumatter.com/
Email:
Purchase my Book:
Amazon: Ignite Possibilities
Connect with Jen:
I Need Blue now has a new home at The Healing in Sharing! Visit thehealinginsharing.com to explore Round Chair Conversations, all relevant I Need Blue content, and ways to support the mission of sharing stories that inspire hope and resilience.
By sharing the hidden lines of our stories, we remind each other we are not alone — together, we step out of hiding and into healing.
Instagram: @ineedbluepodcast
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Apple Podcasts: Listen & Subscribe
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Memoir: Why I Survived, by Jennifer Lee on Amazon
Imagine when you share your darkest hours they become someone else's light. I'm Jennifer Lee, a global community storyteller, host, author and survivor, guiding you through genuine, unfiltered conversations. Together we break the silence, shatter stigma and amplify voices that need to be heard. Each episode stands as a testament to survival, healing and reclaiming your power. Listen to I Need Blue on Apple Podcasts, spotify, youtube or your favorite platform. Learn more at wwwineedbluenet. Trigger warning I Need Blue shares real life stories of trauma, violence and abuse meant to empower and support. Please take care of yourself and ask for help if needed. Now let's begin today's story.
Speaker 1:Barbara grew up with a constant sense of not quite fitting in. Like many of us, she longed to find her place within her family, but that sense of belonging never came. She believed that through marriage, she could finally create the space where she truly felt at home. But that didn't happen. Instead, the marriage slowly unraveled and years later, in the thick of a bitter divorce, barbara found herself trapped in a nightmare. No parent should ever have to endure Fighting not just for custody but for the hearts and minds of her children. Parental alienation isn't just painful, it's soul-stealing, and Barbara bore the weight of it alone, isolated, muzzled, shamed. The court system dismissed her pleas. Strangers' words held more weight than hers and when she begged the medical system to listen, something is going to happen to my daughter. I don't know what it is, but I feel it in my soul. They brushed her off with protocol and indifference. Three days later, her daughter took her own life. No mother should have to live with that kind of agony. No mother should have to scream into silence and still go unheard.
Speaker 1:Barbara's story is devastatingly unique, yet echoes a pattern of generational trauma, of generational trauma, manipulation and grief. Too many carry quietly and yet every time I've sat with Barbara, what I felt isn't bitterness, it's grace, strength, compassion. A woman who has walked through hell and somehow still carries a light to show others the way out. Somehow still carries a light to show others the way out. I'm honored to introduce today's guest, barbara. A wellness advocate, speaker, author and trainer who specializes in nutrigenomics and emotional wellness. She empowers others to heal through prevention, resilience and self-discovery. After surviving the unthinkable, barbara now lives with purpose and shows others how to transform pain into possibility. Her message is clear you can soar above the fray. You can build a future that honors your scars and carries your wisdom forward. Barbara, thank you for being my friend and thank you for being my guest on the I Need Blue podcast Jen, thank you so much for having me on.
Speaker 2:My heart is full and I'm so grateful to get to know you better and all the wonderful work that you do. Of course, how are you today. You know I feel so, so full today. It's a beautiful day here in Florida and I feel so grateful for this opportunity to tell my story, hopefully helping others, and really it honors my daughter's life and helps me move forward with the work that I feel I'm being called to do.
Speaker 1:Absolutely. What is your daughter's name?
Speaker 2:My daughter's name was Erin, and here we have this big hurricane Erin happening right now. It went all the way to category five and my daughter was sort of bigger than life and it's the second time that we've had this storm.
Speaker 1:Actually, the last time there was a hurricane Erin, she was still with us and I'd just gotten divorced and was in the house and a tree fell on my master bedroom roof while we were all huddled on my bed, on my master bedroom roof, while we were all huddled on my bed, and so, like you said, it is so ironic that right now we have this force of nature out there, but you and I also get to honor Aaron, so what a beautiful parallel right.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it has brought me to a whole different viewpoint of life and death and life cycles and I'm so grateful today, as I think through this, that I get to talk about my daughter, my family they don't really talk about my daughter or bring up anything and so to be able to freely even speak about my daughter Barbara, I can't really imagine not being able to talk about your daughter with your family and relive memories Since you brought up family.
Speaker 1:Let's touch upon that for a moment before we get into the rest of your story. You mentioned not feeling like you fit in.
Speaker 2:I think my parents felt like their job was to create you who you're supposed to be in their image of what they wanted you to be. By creating you. I'm the oldest, and every birthday, up until even in my 60s, my mother would be like you were a colicky baby. You know, that's her first memory is like I was trouble, I was a pain. Both of my girls were colicky babies and it's, it's, miserable.
Speaker 2:My dad told me before he passed away, a neighbor, an elderly woman, mrs Butler, took care of me so much and I wish now that I'd asked more questions, you know. So I don't think I ever bonded with my mother. You know, maybe you weren't ready to have a baby yet. Maybe he pushed himself on you that night, maybe there's something there, and so I felt that my whole life. And then I started judging myself. Okay, I have this rift with parental alienation and I have that with my own mom. I'm willing to look at my part, but also, sometimes things are circumstances and you're breaking the mold and changing things, and that's been a conflict for me, I think. What role in this do I play? Am I really causing this? We create our life. We also have to be ourselves, and when you're trying to be something that you're not, we also have to be ourselves.
Speaker 1:And when you're trying to be something that you're not or that somebody else wants you to be. It just doesn't work. You said not long ago that you kind of asked yourself questions like maybe your mom wasn't ready to have a child. You may never get answers to those questions. How does that make you feel? How do you process?
Speaker 2:that my family's not an open, dialogue, communication family. I remember having this wonderful conversation with my dad. Oh my gosh, we communicated so beautifully. I got off the phone after an hour being like that's the most meaningful conversation we've ever had. And then I got a letter from him saying it's dangerous to communicate in our family and I was brokenhearted. That gave me enough information. Yes, I had validation that I'm not crazy and feeling that I don't belong. I really haven't belonged and she created that in the family. Then I had compassion, because most of us, when we have a child, you're just so filled with love and joy that I have compassion that she doesn't know how to love, she can't love. They were born, you know, during the depression time and everything and as first generation immigrants, and so their childhood was different. So I have some understanding and I know I'll never know, maybe not for me to know, but I did convey and write a letter saying that I was created in the image and likeness of God. I'm meant to be here. I was created to be here.
Speaker 1:Absolutely, you are meant to be here Now. I know not that long ago you had a conversation with your mom where you took your power back and you used your voice. Can you share?
Speaker 2:that with us. So at my dad's burial my dad was supposed to be buried in Florida. He had a plot and a Polish priest convinced my mom to send him up to Pennsylvania to the Polish cathedral and everything. And I even supported my mother, even though I'm like that's his will, you just changed his will. So she didn't like how I parked. I was trying to help her find where she had to pay for everything, whatever. There's this huge, beautiful cathedral and she starts shaming me in front of tourists and everything. And I had made a decision I will never be abused by another person, whoever they are. After I got divorced. I will never allow that happen to me again. So I said I will not be shamed. And then she told me you never should have been born. I was 65 years old, and so then I went OK, I've tried everything to communicate with you. I'm cutting the cord and I have felt like I'm a key to breaking generational trauma.
Speaker 1:The generational trauma. It continues until we recognize oh, there's an issue, right, there's an issue right. What traits of the childhood generational trauma did you carry with you into your marriage and raising your children?
Speaker 2:A great question Staying in a relationship. I was trying to make it work and we were Catholic and my parents said this isn't going to work and I was going to prove everyone wrong and then I stayed too long. That's one of my lessons to others is I tried to make it work for too long and we know we get depleted when you're dealing with emotional abuse and all of those circumstances.
Speaker 1:Thank you for sharing Now. Ultimately, your marriage did end up in divorce and you find yourself in a parental alienation situation.
Speaker 2:One of my superpowers is seeing behavior. So in my marriage I was seeing that making fun of mom, pushing mom out to the side, sort of you know, we've got this and it's us. And my former husband was so involved in their lives and I worked part-time and he was a college professor so he would watch him. He was a really special dad. I never could have imagined anything like this happening. But narcissistic behavior is so prevalent and so insidious. At that time there was no internet, there weren't cell phones, the knowledge of things were not available. You know, I used to say I have a controlling husband and blah, blah. But then I was getting so depleted and beaten down I was like, and I don't want my daughters feeling like they could be treated this way, so those seeds had already started. And then he wouldn't take them for visitation, he was playing all these games with them and I was aware that that was happening and I saw professionals, but not many people talked about parental alienation.
Speaker 2:What happens is children get radicalized very quickly. It happens very fast. I thought that I would be working in that area and being a support for others, but it's so dark and so painful and so much loss and the steps are so tiny. If anyone ever is able to escape it. It's really cult behavior. So they're radicalized, they're trauma bonded to the perpetrator. The collateral damage is our children and also it's been shown that it's nine generations deep. You're teaching generational behavior.
Speaker 1:When you said that the children are radicalized. Can you tell me what some of those behaviors look like?
Speaker 2:They become very afraid of the other parent. So they're always judging that they have to be doing what the other person says. So I'll give you an example. Well, my former husband said I'll never go anywhere. You go see anyone. You see, talk to anyone you talk to. Okay, well, our children are like eight and 10. You know, this is a big problem, I know. For me.
Speaker 2:I didn't have the strength and the knowledge at that time. So the isolation and what are other moms thinking? What are other parents thinking? It was sort of paralyzing. And my youngest, aaron, came and said you can't go to eighth grade, graduation, dad's going to go. I said I didn't make that rule. That's not. You can't go, dad's going to be there. You're not allowed to go if dad's there. You're put in this situation and I kept thinking what's best for my child, them, in the middle of this situation. But I need to set my boundary.
Speaker 2:And even when my oldest daughter, I, had moved away from Orlando and I drove down I think it was I can't remember if it was my birthday or her birthday and our place to go was First Watch and that was very new at the time. There's one in Winter Park. So I drove like two hours from where I was living to go see her. And we're driving together and she pulls in the parking lot. She was driving and she's like, oh my God, dad's car's here, we can't go.
Speaker 2:And I'm like, no, I don't have to live by that rule. So they're just so panic stricken, they're myopic and you know, since I've worked in this area, I've heard so many stories and I've learned from the adult children that the light bulb went on and they realized what happened to them and they're angry. There's somebody on TikTok right now as a daughter realizing that her father was not a monster, that for 20 years she was led to believe. It's just, it's horrible and it's growing worldwide. It is so widespread. It's like our children are an asset and people don't even realize it's happening until it's too late. It's deprogramming somebody like from a cult.
Speaker 1:When your children would go into a panic because they saw your dad's car at first watch? Did they ever say what would happen to them if you actually go in and saw him?
Speaker 2:You know they really didn't. You know I don't think there was anything physical, but I think emotionally. I know how he operated with me in my situation, so they were afraid to talk to me. They're afraid to have a relationship with me. Each situation, I think, is somewhat different, but it's really mind control and I wasn't allowed to have my voice and you don't know why.
Speaker 2:I was there when my grandson was born in the hospital and I was always tiptoeing around my daughter because it felt uncomfortable, and I took care of him for three years. Every time she needed me, I'd drive two hours and she's a nurse, anesthetist, and she'd have to be in the hospital and her husband would travel or whatever. And then all of a sudden you're cut off and there's no explanation, there's no reasoning and that's a common denominator. You don't know why, you don't have answers, you can't figure it out, there's nothing you can do. But the lesson I learned is I'm not giving myself up and I am going to be me and not try to turn into Jekyll and Hyde all the time trying to figure out how I can have a relationship with you.
Speaker 1:Let's talk about Erin.
Speaker 2:She was brilliant and she was an incredible writer and storyteller, but she had, like, no emotional words.
Speaker 1:Did your daughter's dad recognize that there was a problem? Like was he on the same page with you of oh, what is going on? We got to get help.
Speaker 2:No, my ex-husband kept blocking her from getting the help she needed. I got her court ordered for counseling and he told her she didn't have to share her feelings, you don't have to tell anybody anything. Which made me very suspicious and finally I think he realized that things were really going south. And finally she got to see a juvenile therapist. She would go I'm sad, mad or glad, Like she had no verbiage for emotional things, and so I had to set a timer and make her. You can't watch Full House unless you're in our session at the dining room table for 25 minutes or something. I just went to such length. Who else can I call? What can I do? Is there something I missed?
Speaker 2:I don't think she was an indigo child, but she was a really different child. She was really in a bad space when she decided to do what she did. She was bipolar. No one really talked about bipolar. I kept looking for patterns. She was really unhappy.
Speaker 2:As a human, I have a much closer spiritual connection with her than in her human form. So I had this knowingness that she came here to do what she was meant to do and it was time for her to leave. And she passed me a baton, and that's why I feel grateful to be able to even talk about these issues, to help others, because I feel like that's my mission. And she's working from the other side and she's so happy. Every message I get from someone that can feel her energy is she is so happy, and I think that's a message that I try to convey to other people, people that have had loss that you get to have joy again. I didn't know if I'd ever get to feel joy again in my life, but that's our job is to move on and, however that looks like, for us to be able to find joy and life became more meaningful to me lonely, frustrating situation.
Speaker 1:You can't control it, right. Not being able to control it is gone because now she's just there. She's always just there. What do you remember of your last conversation with Erin?
Speaker 2:Well, she wouldn't talk to me. So I showed up at that therapist's office. I was standing in the lobby it was a small lobby and she was waiting for her appointment and then she went in and when she came out my last words were I just, I love you. You either got her or you didn't. She was just, oh my gosh. She just had such imagination and creativity.
Speaker 2:And one time she and her friend I think they were like in sixth grade or seventh grade, like she was very sensitive and there was a home for domestic violence, but she and her friend wanted to make a Halloween party for all the children at this center and they made up games and they enlisted some other kids and they put goodie bags and all these things together. I remember talking to the center saying you know, we don't want anyone coming in doing like one thing, because then the children get excited and they have an expectation, so will they be back at Christmas or Easter or other times? And I'm just so proud of her for really rallying and doing things. And then one of our neighbors they were having a big crawfish boil type of thing and she had rescued one of the crawfish and went to the pond. You know, to put that crawfish in that pond. I love that. She was just this unique child. I embraced it.
Speaker 1:There's a lot of stereotypes that go along with suicide, and sometimes parents take the brunt of it. Why did you do nothing? Why didn't you see the signs? How did you not know? What would you say to those people who think that?
Speaker 2:share with this, with other people that are in circumstances, is that I know I did everything that I could. I put myself in danger. I sacrificed myself trying to get help for my daughter and I remember even my therapist saying Barbara, we've done everything that we can do. If there's anything else I could even think of to do, we would be doing it. I am so conscious of not having regrets and that helped me accept things easier.
Speaker 2:I was fighting with her father to get her help. I had a counselor come into my house because I couldn't get her in the car to go, or if I did like I would have to do things like I'm sorry, you cannot have your new PE shoes you know sneakers unless we go to this appointment and a lot of therapists are not skilled enough to try to even reach that person and it's like you know I can't do anything. She's not going to open up or talk to me. I knew her behavior was not appropriate. I knew she wasn't on drugs and then, when she saw this therapist finally, four times, I felt like, oh, thank God, and I would even go there and sit while she wouldn't speak to me because her father had started alienating me from them, so they were afraid to talk to me, they're afraid to have a relationship with me, but I was like I'm always there, could never push me away.
Speaker 2:When I came to then the Palm Beach area I was living in Jupiter I realized, even though it'd been years, I go, you know, I need to go and be with other surviving people from suicide and one I can tell them that you will go on and there will be life, and also I need it. There's unresolved things that I haven't dealt with. You're never done. I heard so many stories and that's the one thing is that I live with myself because I did everything I could and somebody has free will and in the end she had free will.
Speaker 1:What resources have you been able to find to help with your?
Speaker 2:grief. Yeah, and you know it was really hard for me. I kept thinking that for some reason God kept removing people in my life that were a resource for me. And I'll give you an example. The night that this happened it was a Saturday night when I got called to my former husband's house it's like you better get over here really quick. It happened in his house. There really wasn't anyone. In fact, the police officer woman said do you want me to stay with you tonight? And you know I really didn't want that.
Speaker 2:I'd been working very closely with a therapist. My daughter was having troubles and we were working together. We had thought that she took a turn for the better and he left on a cruise no cell phone, no contact. So here's the person that I'd been leaning on and working with, who wasn't even available. And by the time he got back I had to go through that whole thing again because he was in shock. We already had a funeral.
Speaker 2:This happened in Orlando and I reached out to the survivor of suicide group and they said we want you to know that your former husband is coming to our group. And that was the only group in Orlando. So I felt cut off from that. So everywhere I sort of was turning, I didn't really have a lot of support. And it wasn't until six months later that someone shared with me an organization called Compassionate Friends, and it's for parents who have lost a child and it's for parents who have lost a child, and so that was very helpful. But when you're dealing also with a suicide death, it's a different form of death, and so you're with parents. Maybe there was a car accident, maybe there was an illness, but there's just all these questions and different dynamics you can hear my voice attached to someone taking their life. This happened, you know, over 20 years ago, so the stigma then too was very different. And so even parents you know this comes on your family there's a big ripple effect that people want to remove themselves, like. I remember my mother, my daughter was 15, and my mother saying well, you know, I just really didn't know her. You know they want to distance themselves unless you have a family, that really is a comforting type of family. So I really walked through this alone, holding other people up, having the courage for other people.
Speaker 2:A really special thing did happen, and that was that my neighbors had a fundraiser and one of them had suggested putting a park bench on the pond. It was behind my house. There was already another bench there for someone who lost their child. He was in his early 20s and having a legacy and a prosperity, and I will often drive, or I feel a need to drive, to Winter. It's in Winter Park in Orlando.
Speaker 2:This happened a couple of weeks ago. I was sitting on the bench, some people young people came up and I said this is my daughter's bench. I used to live here, you know, and I've met people on the bench and I even created a little bit of a YouTube stories from the bench. A woman was in a near neighborhood, had become a minister with the Episcopal Church and started a grief group. So they reached out to me and they said you know, you need at least six months time before really coming to something like that. They had asked me to leave the group because I couldn't speak my truth. I really wasn't welcome in that group because a suicide death is so different. There's so many unanswered questions. So at that time I was very angry, very much in grief and not being able to save my child and no one listening to me.
Speaker 1:How is your relationship with your other daughter today?
Speaker 2:She just cut me off when I talk about courage. I'll give you an example. There's a big Polish ball in Miami Beach. It just had its 50th anniversary. My father passed away but my mother bought a table for us and then all of a sudden, my daughter showed up. My siblings never told me that my daughter was coming. And my sister brought her and I'm at this table, but she didn't want me to sit next to her, to be there in that space, to not show anger and animosity, to have to rise above the occasion.
Speaker 2:I don't think people, even my siblings, have no idea what that takes. You know, I wish there would be open, but the ball's in her court. And then I had called my former son-in-law a couple years ago and I said can I send some gifts to my grandson and you can give them to him so he knows that I haven't forgotten him and that I love him? And so I was doing that. And then my daughter called me and I was manipulative and I'm this and I'm that, and so I thought I don't want to create any problems for my grandson.
Speaker 2:I've had to distance myself and almost detach from all of that emotion and say I want her to be happy and for some reason, I think that she wants to inflict hurt and pain on me. It's her stuff. I've done all this work. She hasn't done the work and so I I have compassion, but it's so painful and Erin tells me she goes. Mom, I'm sorry Danielle is being fed the wrong information from the wrong people, and I know you want this to be better, but I'm sorry it's not going to be better. I don't know when, but we're all working on it, absolutely.
Speaker 1:And you know what we're going to pray that the positive person, that the right person comes in for your daughter. But we're also going to pray that her ears are open.
Speaker 2:Yes, that's what I pray with. And so, as a mother, you know, I hope her lessons are soft, I hope she isn't hit hard. I mean, that's my child. I don't want that to have to happen and you don't act like this if you're happy. So I know that she has to be in pain, so I am always praying and hoping that you know something will come through so she realized how loved she is and can open those channels.
Speaker 1:Absolutely so. Today, you are a wellness advocate, an author, a speaker.
Speaker 2:You are a wellness advocate, an author, a speaker, yeah. So, as I said, at first I thought I was going to be enmeshed with the parental alienation and taking over a Facebook group, but that's where Soar Above the Fray came from. So I've taken a number of different workshops and stuff and then all of a sudden being cut off by my daughter and I knew that day could come. So every time that I was with my grandson I hugged and infused and I know they'll have emotional memory when we talk about life lessons and generational trauma and things. And Erin came to do what she had to do.
Speaker 2:I feel that way also. I've had to come to terms with and let go of. I've done everything I can do to try to have a relationship with my daughter and my grandson. I just thought I can't get in the way of whatever life lessons she has to go through and I just have to stop and get out of the picture and soar above the fray. And that is helping other people with things I wished I had known so I could have done a better job or not made some of the mistakes I made.
Speaker 2:My goal is to help mitigate the trauma, so I've developed a course for women going through divorce with children to help during that time period of divorce, not to go deep because there's too much going on. You're trying to figure out how you're going to financially survive or keep your job or be there for your children, but there are things that you need to be doing and being aware of, and even one is to start sowing the seeds of forgiveness, because you're trapped by that other person or the circumstances. If you don't start forgiving and having compassion, we're responsible for some part of it, even if it's 3%. And also I have a membership group that I'm starting called Own your Life. No matter what's happened to you as women maybe you lost everything in a flood, maybe a fire. Maybe you're an empty nester now or divorced after 50 years of marriage who are you now? And support each other in a positive way and not victimhood. It's moving forward and being there for each other.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and we'll have the links to those, to everything that you do. We'll have it all in the show notes. Barbara, thank you for being my guest today on the I Need Blue podcast.
Speaker 2:Thank you for such a stimulating conversation. That was in areas I never thought we would even be delving into, but thank you so much, thank you.
