Family Disappeared

The Best of Family Disappeared: Focusing on Personal Growth After Alienation part two - Episode 87

• Lawrence Joss

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This conversation explores the profound effects of parental alienation on individuals and families, highlighting personal growth, emotional healing, and the journey of reconnecting with estranged children. The speakers share their experiences, insights, and the importance of community support in navigating the challenges of alienation and recovery.

Key Takeaways

  • Parental alienation can lead to a feeling of survival rather than living.
  • Engaging in creative expression, like dance, can be healing.
  • It's essential to meet estranged children where they are emotionally.
  • Recovery involves accepting powerlessness over the situation.
  • Children also suffer from the effects of parental alienation.
  • Communication should be approached with compassion and understanding.
  • Recovery is a continuous journey, not a destination.
  • Building a supportive community is crucial for healing.
  • Trust in the child's ability to see through alienation.
  • Navigating relationships requires emotional intelligence and self-awareness.

Chapters

00:00 - Introduction to Parental Alienation and Personal Growth

04:33 - The Journey of Reuniting with Children

11:38 - Impact of Parental Alienation on Relationships

15:15 - Parenting Without Access: Challenges and Insights

20:37 - Navigating Emotions and Recovery

24:02 - Shifts in Relationships and Communication

30:01 - Lessons Learned and Moving Forward


If you wish to connect with Lawrence Joss or any of the PA-A community members who have appeared as guests on the podcast:

Email-      familydisappeared@gmail.com

Linktree: https://linktr.ee/lawrencejoss

(All links mentioned in the podcast are available in Linktree)

Please donate to support PAA programs:

https://www.paypal.com/donate?hosted_button_id=SDLTX8TBSZNXS

This podcast is made possible by the Family Disappeared Team:
Anna Johnson- Editor/Contributor/Activist/Co-host
Glaze Gonzales- Podcast Manager

Connect with Lawrence Joss:
Website: https://parentalalienationanonymous.com/
Email- familydisappeared@gmail.com

Speaker 1:

Hi, my name is Lawrence Joss and welcome to the Family Disappeared podcast and I am recording the outro and the intro for this best of second part of the series from Hawaii and sitting on a porch enjoying the beautiful, beautiful day, looking at nature and man, I feel lit up and if you're wondering what that has to do with parental alienation, estrangement or ratio, it has everything to do with it. I'm living a life and when I first started struggling with this, my life shrunk up and I wasn't living, I was surviving, and it was minute to minute, second to second some days, and it was incredibly, incredibly painful. If you're new to the community, welcome. This is a little bit different intro and it's fun, like we need to acknowledge as part of our lives, to the successes, the victories, the growth, how life can change amongst these kinds of struggles. If you're new, welcome to the community and we're a 501c3 nonprofit. Everything that's coming to you is for free. No one here gets paid anything. We're just doing service and there's a huge team. You know what I mean and kudos to them for being in the background and supporting this happening. Love to hear from you.

Speaker 1:

Familydisappeared at gmailcom. Love to hear what you have to say Any new guests that you're like on the show.

Speaker 1:

Topics covered, suggestions, questions, anything else like that, we'd love to hear from it and you'll hear back from family disappeared at gmailcom or you hear back from the parental alienation anonymous at gmailcom, depending on the questions, and there's a bunch of other resources in the show notes. And today's show is going to be great, it's the best of show again and there's going to be some hawaii tidbits in there too. And just sharing a little bit more of my experience of what living with parental alienation can manifest as not just a struggle, not just tears, not just frustration, but it can manifest as a full and meaningful life. So let's jump into the show, see what happens. 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 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.

Speaker 1:

So I've been coming to Hawaii for the last couple of years and this is my third year out here. The first time I came out here I came out to dance, do different movement stuff and connect with community and I learned that all going through parental alienation, that I never danced before, and I started to move and I started to really enjoy it and it's kind of like a hippie hey kind of dance, which is called ecstatic dance or five rhythms and you just get to move and express yourself. And I think I was 36 or 37 in the beginning of my journey when I first danced that way. I was up in the redwoods and early on in my 12-step experience, if anything came through my email twice, I just sign up and show up. So I showed up at this drum circle in the redwoods in southern california I think lake victoria, I forget what the area is called and man, the lady that did the drumming there her name is christine stevenson and she was phenomenal and she had gone into like iraq and afghanistan and brought was phenomenal and she had gone into like Iraq and Afghanistan and brought different tribes and different factions together and drummed like really, really, really.

Speaker 1:

Tribal music is incredibly, incredibly healing and it's been a huge part of my journey and has been because of parental alienation that I've had to seek stuff outside of myself to resource myself inside. And that might sound counterintuitive or contradictory to what you're going through. If you're in the middle of the belly, you just want your kids back, you just want your relationships back, you just want the status quo to be what it was, but it doesn't work that way. You know. This work is about healing, it's about changing our lives, it's about new opportunities. So I was at this retreat in the Redwoods and there was a shaman there.

Speaker 1:

The dance is there. You get a partner, they put a blindfold on you and then your partner, kind of like, moves around you with their hands and keeps you not in harm's way, not bumping into other people. It's called the dance liberation. That's what it's called dance liberation. There's a Netflix short or some kind of movie out there or something about it. Super cool if you Google it and can find that.

Speaker 1:

So, blindfold on, I've never really danced like. I'm 36 years old, I'm maybe tightened up a little bit, struggling and blindfold, and I get to just do whatever I want. My hands are flailing and whatever, and I'm like holy camoly, like it was freedom. And for a couple minutes and when we're struggling with parental alienation or any other form of that like freedom, freedom is a commodity. It's incredible. It's amazing.

Speaker 1:

So I started to dance and I started to do movement stuff and contact, improv and so many other things that I will share with you, and it changed my life. I started to get into my body. I'd always been head up and the pain was head up and there was so much pain in my body because the things were disconnected and starting to move was transformational, god, and I'm so curious for you to give me some feedback on switching out formats, how this is landing. So send me an email comment on the video, say I love this, I hate it. Hey, knucklehead, go back to recording in a studio. This is silly, whatever. Anyway, with that being said, let's jump into the second part of the best of. I want to segue really quickly into something exciting that you've shared with me, renee is that you are reuniting with your sons right now.

Speaker 1:

How is that feeling and what happened? How did this take place?

Speaker 3:

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, 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. It was painful to hear.

Speaker 3:

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 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.

Speaker 3:

And then it was probably a week and a half later 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 3:

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. 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? And it was that surface level conversation that we would have with a friend that we hadn't talked to in a long time.

Speaker 3:

This was a call where he really felt a need to ask me some questions.

Speaker 3:

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. So that was interesting, but in those first two conversations, no discussion of the past. I guess I was curious to know if you experienced a change in your behavior that may be contributed to having your children come back to you.

Speaker 2:

I think that there is so much to be said about the self-scrubbing discovery. That's a big part of the connection. I think it's like realizing who have I become after all this, through all this and getting the feedback from mothers and then consciously deciding to do things a different way. So it's that let go of how I've been doing it and the willingness to be coachable and say, oh God, take accountability of, like God, that might not have landed so well and I thought I was doing the best I could. But if I shift, I got to a point where I had to let go, literally let go. Well, wait, they're supposed to be. I kept fighting, fighting, fighting and everything I was doing. When I say fighting, begging for them to follow what was agreed upon, and I thought that was my job, to make sure that legally and spiritually they're aligned. But it wasn't working. So that's when I just really let go. And when I say let go did start doing things very differently than I had been doing in the past.

Speaker 1:

As you're going through this process where you had very little or no connection, and now you're starting to have connection, how has recovery influenced what's happening with your child and with your life in general?

Speaker 4:

Recovery for me really started when I found out about the phenomenon of parental alienation. Before that I really did not understand what was going on. I had my hypotheses, I had pieces of the puzzle that really didn't make sense. It really started to make sense three years ago, before COVID to make sense three years ago, before COVID by chance found an article on parental alienation. I live in Canada and here there's a university that has a program on this phenomenon and that's how I started understanding what was going on.

Speaker 4:

For me, finding about the phenomenon of parental alienation was an eye-opener. It just allowed me to finally understand and put the puzzle pieces that I had in my hand, that I could not fit together into a coherent whole. After I've started reading on the research and literature on the phenomenon, I started looking for a support group, and I found a support group, which is paaorg. With that I connected with other parents that were in the same situation. When that happened, well for me. Well for me, it just allowed me to put away that heavy weight that I had for so many years to find that other people were in the same boat. That was so liberating.

Speaker 1:

You're married and you're struggling with the kids. What does that look like with your spouse and how does it affect your interpersonal relationship directly with her? And then, how does it affect the family system at large?

Speaker 5:

So I've been remarried for four and a half years and was dating a year before that to my current spouse. So in my situation, thankfully my new spouse also experienced alienation on her side with her ex and her children. So she fully understands actually probably understood it better than I did when I became aware of Parental Alienation, anonymous, and sort of really did a deep dive into understanding the situation and all the parts to it. Like you said, it was all elbows and knees before that, but she really had been dealing with that for eight or nine years before she even met me. So she had some really good tools to help me navigate the situation and she actually had a very good relationship for a short time with my daughter and for a longer time with my son, actually a very close relationship which made the alienation actually very difficult for her as well.

Speaker 5:

I would say that as the alienation continued and it got worse, it occupied more of my thinking time and my emotions and my bandwidth. Unfortunately, there were times where my absorption with this sort of all-consuming thing which you know alienation can kind of be that way, or at least I found it to be it really started to affect my ability initially to show up in the relationship at times and I realized that was part of what brought me to coming to the meetings was I realized that it was affecting my relationship in a way that I didn't like, and I didn't like the way things were going and I knew I had to do something different, and that was getting support for myself and not relying on her to be 100% of that emotional and mental support for me as I was going through this.

Speaker 1:

Do you find your spouse disconnecting from the idea of the kids, basically like shutting down and pulling away and not really wanting to engage in the idea or the thought of them, kind of like they're protecting themselves and closing down and don't want to necessarily continue to be part of those conversations?

Speaker 4:

no, my spouse is very in the thick of things and the sense that she, like I said, I share with her what's going on, the issues, the progress, the recovery. She sees also the good things that are happening, especially lately with my son. So even when things were really hard, she was being supportive in the sense that she would remind me that it was just a period. Presently it was bad but eventually it will get better. She's reminded me of her having her door open. I remember her asking me at Christmas do you want to reach out to my son? You know, to invite him for Christmas time and stuff like that, because we weren't ready. I would be the one, you know, taking it slow. So I feel that she's always been very supportive.

Speaker 1:

This parenting without access? What does that look like for you? Since you got into PAA Parental Alienation Anonymous, like did you feel you had any power to parent without access and now do you feel like you're parenting without access to some degree?

Speaker 6:

I think that statement is very true for me. I've been in program for two and a half years now and when I first came in I don't even know if I felt like a parent At that point. I hadn't seen my kids for years. The damage to our relationship was irrevocable. At that point I didn't have any aspirations of getting my children back. I really wanted to survive. I felt like I was dying emotionally and I needed a community. I need people that understood what was going on for me. So, being an active parent, having any kind of parental role, I mean I knew I was a parent. I certainly didn't feel like one and I didn't feel like I had a voice. I felt I'd lost my sense of agency. And now it's interesting I do feel like I have a voice and I really get to express that when I'm part of the PA community, when I'm part of podcasts, when I write for the social media. But I've had another shift again recently in my kids, 21 and 19. And one is studying overseas and the other one, I think, is studying here. I really have no information about what's going on for them and it's leading. It's an interesting process.

Speaker 6:

I'm starting to really grieve the lack of relationship with my kids which I think I've been pushing down for many, many years. I know I have been and so that the grief is coming out, but I'm also having moments lately where I don't feel like I'm a parent at all, which is it's a strange space to occupy. I know that I am and it was different when my kids were still in school, somehow, even though I didn't have contact with them. Now that they're young adults and I really have no idea, I sort of have an idea of where they are, but I don't know if I mean they could be married, they could be parents themselves. I have no clue and it's really it's a challenging space to occupy and dealing with the grief at the time is, at the same time, is really interesting. So the parenting without access I can feel that intellectually, but emotionally that's feeling a little bit wobbly right now.

Speaker 1:

What do you want to let anyone know that's struggling in the beginning of parental alienation, someone that might have no contact, or someone that's just starting to have contact again? What would be the two most important things you would like to share about your journey in recovery, or something not to do?

Speaker 4:

What I learned and the most important tool that I learned is accepting the powerlessness. Accepting that I cannot control what my son thinks or what my ex is going to say or think For me. Letting go and accepting this powerlessness, not trying to have control on the outcome of the relationship, trying to mend it is the first recommendation that I would give. Second thing is accept that your child has the intelligence in seeing through this craziness, in seeing through this craziness which is parental alienation. Accepting that the realization that that child will have may be quick and hopefully will be quick. Sometimes it'll take a bit longer, but trusting in the child's intelligence, insight, love. Also trusting in their love for myself as the parent, trusting in the good times that trusting in the good times that they'll remember the good times and realize that they were true, recognizing my powerlessness, but then maybe a step further, is recognizing my powerlessness and control over the situation.

Speaker 5:

But recognizing God or my higher powers, control and understanding of the situation, that is far beyond mine. That would be number one. Number two was I tried to force a lot of solutions, and forcing solutions is can be anything from forcing your kids to have to communicate with you by, you know, over texting, over messaging, putting them in a position where they feel like they don't have a choice and they have to respond when they're not ready to. I just remember that there was a good period of time where I was trying to force solutions, and forcing solutions usually doesn't work. It didn't work in my case. And then, maybe just slightly associated with that is also there were times where I was really upset with my children for what was going on and I didn't realize, I didn't have the view that they're suffering too, meaning that they might not even have recognized it yet. You know, they sometimes haven't come to a full understanding because they're young you know, they're either teenagers or they're young adults

Speaker 5:

but that they're suffering too. They're suffering a loss, they're suffering the absence of a parent, which has got to be I mean, in my mind, has got to be heart-rending and giving compassion and love. Giving just an abundance of compassion and love to my own children that they are also going through this difficulty called alienation, and it's not something they chose and it's not something they would choose. So that's probably the last thing is just really being in a place of just really being able to share compassion and love for the situation and understanding the situation they're in, rather than, you know, constantly thinking about the situation that I'm in.

Speaker 3:

Let's face it, we're pretty stubborn people sometimes and in the conversation I was having with someone yesterday, she asked me for specific suggestions and I gave them to her and her response was well, that kind of feels like I'm kowtowing or like I'm bending over and just letting them do whatever they want and we had a great conversation about this is not a pissing match. My ego has no place in this relationship, because every time my ego has shown up, things go south, and I thought that was something really good that came out of that conversation is this isn't about winning or losing, or looking better than or worse than. If that makes sense totally.

Speaker 2:

But that's where people have to understand what's my ego. And understanding that's again like, oh, is this me or is it my ego wanting to have its way? And that's hard. And we're human beings and we're programmed like that human condition of needing to protect ourselves. That fight or flight thing can take, wreak havoc in our lives without us even knowing.

Speaker 1:

How did that one year later connection happen? Did you reach out? Did he reach out? What happened?

Speaker 3:

I had reached out to him because I do have a higher power and I call God, and I kept kind of asking my higher power you know, give me a nudge when it's time to reach out to my son because, not that I needed to defend myself, but I felt, like for Renee, I needed to be able to speak my truth on some level, not in a harmful level, but in a level where I was taking care of myself.

Speaker 3:

And I kept asking and asking and the answer was no, no, no, no for a year. And all of a sudden, one morning I woke up and I just got this intuitive feeling like now's the time. And so at 430 in the morning I sent him a message and I just said you know, you were so courageous last year in reaching out to me and I had such an appreciation for how openly you shared with me and I would be remiss if I didn't now do that myself. And he responded back almost immediately and said I would love to have another phone conversation, mom, and I said that would be great. When does that work for you? And we had another conversation and that's when he said you know, I'm going to sit here and listen, because you listened to me last year and that meant a lot to me, so now it's my turn to sit and listen to you, and it was amazing.

Speaker 1:

As you're having some connection with your kids, do you feel like alienation is still present and part of the conversation and basically has its own seat at the table, Like I use that analogy a lot Like there's still something there with me even though I'm interacting with my child. Do you feel like alienation has a seat, has an inertia, has a power or some kind of dynamic in those relationships? Yeah, I do.

Speaker 5:

I think again. The way I look at it is, the kids unfortunately aren't given a choice in this situation. Now my daughter is older and I think she does have a choice as an adult, but when it started she did not have a choice and I think it does have a power because to me it starts right at the idea of the child having to make a choice between one of the two parents, right? So there's an inertia there to maintain the connection with the I don't want to say the favorite parent.

Speaker 5:

Maybe that's not the right term I don't know what exactly the right term is, but the parent that's chosen versus the alienated parent. I do think as time goes on, the longer it goes, there is some inertia to that state of affairs becoming normal and becoming normalized for the child to where that's accepted. And then you have, of course, all kinds of family dynamics that would make potentially alienation or disconnection more comfortable if that's been in the extended family or through the lineage in multiple generations. Yes, I do think it has an inertia. Sometimes that inertia feels like it's really hard to overcome and, to be honest, I don't even sometimes know how to overcome it, other than me showing up as the best version of myself and being available and useful in a way to support my children when they are needing support and just being the best version of myself for them if they need me With your child turning 18 or moving out of the house or college, have you seen a shift or has that been your shift at all?

Speaker 4:

Yes, I definitely did see a change in his mindset when he started living by himself. That is when my relationship started to rekindle with him. We were talking once every two weeks on the phone, exchanging emails. During the pandemic we would do activities together training, having dinner, virtual dinner together and stuff like that. During those three years when he was living by himself, his mom was out of the country and when she came back, that's when the alienation got worse. So things were getting better, and then when she came back, things really got worse and it was even worse than what it was beforehand. So there does seem to be a relationship between the distance between the alienating parent and the child and how the alienation is being expressed. That's what I've seen.

Speaker 1:

And your relationship the last three or four months. You had said there's a shift in how old is your son now and the shift is directly related to him moving out again or starting college or getting married. I'm not quite clear what the shift is.

Speaker 4:

I don't know what brought the change of mind, but I just know that there is a shift, that is an openness now for the last couple months that was not there before. I have not discussed with him why it is, but there is definitely an openness the way he speaks. The summer he was the one that asked if he could come and visit me, so he came for almost a week at my place and we had fun, we connected, it was excellent. But it was on his agenda or it was him opening the door and he even verbalized it, saying that he wanted to rekindle the relationship and to start with on a new basis.

Speaker 1:

What does the relationship look like today with your youngest son? We're talking about Dan, correct.

Speaker 3:

It's been probably three weeks since we talked, maybe a month now. Every time that I've reached out I've probably reached out four or five times he had a lot of exciting things happening for him. He got a new job, made a move, also started doing some work with Fox Sports, which was really exciting for him, and he's raising two children. He's a single dad. So he was just in the throes of all this change. So rather than think to myself, well, he doesn't really have time right now, I would just send out short little texts and just say, hey, I'm thinking of you, I hope everything's going okay. And he responded every single time and a couple of times with little clips of interview things that he had done with Fox Sports so that I could watch them and you know. So really engaging in spite of the fact that he's crazy busy right now. So that meant a lot to me. I felt like I was a priority, which was great.

Speaker 1:

What conversations have you had about meeting in person? Is that on the table, like what's going on with that?

Speaker 3:

You know it's really not, ironically not yet. I had written down some things that you know. I'd already mentioned the things that have changed since I met them that we have open communication, that they reply immediately. I got a friend request on Facebook for the first time in like 12 or 15 years or something. But the things that haven't changed that I somehow intuitively know I need to just keep my hands off of them for now is that there are no plans for visits, no consistent contact, daily or weekly. I don't expect them to reach out to me all the time and I don't reach out to them all the time.

Speaker 3:

Me and I guess this is kind of where I am now, several weeks, months later, processing all of this with each of the boys is, regardless of how good it goes right now, there is no getting back the time that we've lost, and so for me that's a little bit of a dip into reality. Like you know, you can't go back, and 30 years is a long time. So while I'm super grateful and really working on no expectations, there is kind of that underlying oh darn it Like, this is not the easy button, this is not the fix it button. That's why I still go to meetings. I still work with my sponsor. You know, on meetings a couple people have said, oh, it's so cool to see you in the room still, even though you're back with your kids. It doesn't fix it, you know. Had I still been an emotional mess when they reached out, it wouldn't have worked because I would have been too desperate and they would have felt that same old feeling of, oh my gosh, here she comes, put on your seatbelt, you know. But instead it's just been more like seeing or talking to a really good friend that I haven't seen in a lot of years. It's a great experience, but it's not that top of the mountain. Oh my gosh. Life is great, you know, it's just. It is what it is, and it's easier for me to stay present when I'm not on the mountain and then in the valley, and on the mountain and in the valley again. So there are some things that haven't changed and I really trust my higher power to let me know when the time is right, when it might be appropriate to reach out and say hey, you know, if you're ever this way, I would love for you guys to stop in and see our new home. And you know all of that.

Speaker 3:

One thing that did change that my higher power kind of gave me a little nudge on is the second conversation I was having with my youngest son, so we were fairly well-estab, established and open at that point. At one point he said, hey, mom, hang on a second, the kids are getting in the car, I'm picking them up from school. And I said okay, and so I hear kids in the background talking and stuff. And he says, hey, guys, guess who I'm talking to? I'm talking to my mom. And then he paused for a second and he said no, no, no, my real mom.

Speaker 3:

And I was like, wow, so they do know about me. And then they said, hi, you know. And then I talked to my son a little bit more, being careful to guard by words, because now it's an earshot of my grandchildren that I really don't know and at the very end I was able to say to them and truly mean it I wouldn't have said it had I not Truly mean that you know what guys you are so lucky to have the dad that you have. He is doing an amazing job with you and I just want you to know I think you're very lucky. And they both said thank you, and I said I love you guys, and they said we love you too. And that was big.

Speaker 6:

One of the biggest lessons I've learned in recovery is learning how to respond rather than react. So I'm curious when you found out about your daughter's imminent wedding, how did you respond? How did you react? How did recovery take a place at the table when you were trying to navigate that?

Speaker 1:

So, without breaking the anonymity of the person that, let me know that my daughter was getting married and it's someone very close to me and we had a conversation about lying right, like fighting out. My daughter got married definitely felt triggering, brought up a lot of emotions, and sometimes I moderate what I say a lot because I don't want to create additional harm. I want to be really cognizant of how complex these relationships we have are when parental alienation is present. So this person that I was talking to that shared this with me. I definitely got a little more energetic around it and I'm like, hey, this isn't cool. When we have a conversation, we're going to be honest with each other and we can set boundaries and not talk about certain stuff, but when we're lying, by omission or not sharing stuff, that's actually going on when we're in an intimate relationship together, that really, really feels bad.

Speaker 1:

So I got to advocate for myself in the conversation. I didn't have to make anyone bad, I didn't have to make anyone anything and from a recovery standpoint, I got to stand up for myself and say, hey, in relationship like I want people to be able to be honest and if they can't be honest, that's not really a relationship. And saying this in an intimate relationship where you're scared the other person might leave and all that fear of abandonment kicks up because we don't have access to our kids and possibly grandkids, it was a really challenging thing and what I got out of the conversation was this person called me back a little bit later on and they apologized. It was heartfelt and this is what parenting without access is is. This person is really close to me and someone younger than myself that I'm entering has been in my life a long time and because the work that I'm doing, they did their own work within like an hour and they called back to apologize. So I got to be a parent, even though I wasn't at the wedding, even though it wasn't these other different things, I got to be really strong in my body, articulate, present and I didn't have to hurt or attack anyone and this person got to look at that stuff and say, wow, that's really crappy. If someone wasn't really telling me the truth and they were withholding information in any relationship, I would feel really really bad about that. And they got a call and make an amends to me and if I hadn't been a role model in my recovery, that never would have happened.

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And having someone call me back, kind of was like a balloon, deflating to a certain degree Some of that energy and anger and fear and scarcity and longing to be included in my daughter's life. A lot of that went away because I said, oh, oh, this is here too. Like I came for a peanut butter sandwich and I got a jelly sandwich and the jelly sandwich, you know it, satiated me. In that moment I was so incredibly grateful. I'm going to give a wow-wow. A wow-wow must probably be the Hawaiian version of a wow, so it's a wow-wow. Super cool Again. Some great content. We've done some wonderful work over the first year and a bit and so many people have contributed on the panels and the guests and the people behind the scenes. There's so many people bringing this stuff to you.

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I know for someone that's been struggling with this for 16, 17, 18 years. I wish resources were available. I wish people were talking about this in a recovery-based way that I had access to, Not someone that was saying, hey, I need $1,000, $5,000, $10,000 to have a conversation Like just some people that are going through and could share their experience with me. I think it would have changed my trajectory considerably. And I'm in Hawaii because my trajectory was changed. And I'm in Hawaii because my trajectory was changed and I'm having a blast and I miss my kids and I'm having a blast and I'm the best parent ever in having a blast. I'm the most well-equipped to move through pretty much any situation and that makes me happy. And it might not be my child that I get to touch. It might be someone else, or a grandparent or someone else that's struggling. Just to know that there's hope is a way to change your life. So, whatever your dream is, yeah, you can struggle with parental alienation or estrangement or erasure or whatever, but don't become it. I became it for so long and it caused such a tight contraction. I thought I was going to die. Yeah, I feel a little bit emotional saying that. Yeah, I really thought I was going to die. No, it was a struggle. Anyway, thanks for coming along for the journey day. I hope you love this as much I did. I'm having a lot of fun doing this and the selfie stick took me like an hour. Like you know, I'm a little bit whatever with technology, but I'm hoping this video comes through and they're able to use it in the backend when they're processing it. And there's a link for the free 12 step program 16, 17 meetings a week, Parental Alienation, Anonymous and a bunch of other resources in there.

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501c3 Nonprofit donate. Let us keep doing the work that we're doing. Everything we do is free. No one gets paid. None of the volunteers get paid. I'm stoked to be part of this community. I'm in case no one's told you yesterday, I love you. I love you from Hawaii. Have a beautiful day and we'll see you around the neighborhood 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.