Family Disappeared

Unconscious Alienation: Time is the Enemy in High-Conflict Custody with Lisa Johnson Part 1 - Episode 117

• Lawrence Joss

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Lisa Johnson discusses her extensive experience with parental alienation and legal abuse, highlighting the emotional and psychological toll it takes on parents and children. She emphasizes the importance of understanding the legal system, the nuances of parental alienation versus justified estrangement, and the need for support and community among those affected. Lisa shares success stories that offer hope and strategies for navigating high conflict divorce situations, while also addressing the cultural shifts in perceptions of parental relationships.

Key Takeaways

  • Parental alienation affects millions and is often misunderstood.
  • Understanding the legal system is crucial for effective representation.
  • Parental alienation is a form of psychological abuse.
  • There is hope for reconciliation in alienated parent-child relationships.
  • Distinguishing between alienation and justified estrangement is complex.
  • Cultural shifts have changed how adult children view their relationships with parents.
  • Body language and communication around children can impact their perceptions. 

Chapters

00:00 Introduction to Parental Alienation and Legal Abuse
03:01 Understanding High Conflict Divorce and Legal Strategies
06:07 The Impact of Parental Alienation as Domestic Violence
09:00 Navigating Identity Loss in Alienation Situations
12:11 Hope and Recovery: Success Stories in Alienation
15:07 Distinguishing Alienation from Justified Estrangement
17:52 The Nuances of Estrangement in Adult Children

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)

Connect with Lisa Johnson: https://beentheregotout.com/⁩

Please donate to support PAA programs:
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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_01:

There's a difference between alienation and something called justified estrangement where a parent's own behavior, like actual abuse or neglect, has caused a rift in that relationship. But a lot of the times it's just used as a weapon by one parent to basically win or prove something to other people or to use the kids as what's called narcissistic to have them on their side. And it hurts everybody.

SPEAKER_00:

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, my name is Lawrence Joss, and welcome to the Family Disappeared Podcast. Today we have Lisa Johnson on the show, and she is a parental alienation strategist and has some incredible technology and some incredible useful advice on how to build teams and what an actual functional team looks like, and also how to fill in some of the gaps that we don't even know exist. You know, the interview was super interesting because she spoke about a lot of stuff that I found myself being complicit with in my relationship and taking the high road and being the good parent. She really points to like, hey, that behavior you can't do, even though these strings of parenting that you want to be this good parent. But a lot of this helps escalate how alienation, estrangement, erasure, whatever word you want to use, kind of like takes over. And there's a part that I can look at my responsibility in as we're talking and I'm processing at the same time. And I think it'll be incredibly useful for you too. Some great information at the end of the show. She shares a wonderful resource and a free training. So I definitely stick around for that. And if you're new to the community, welcome to the community. We have a bunch of great resources in the show notes, including what Lisa's going to be sharing. We also have a free 12-step program, Parental Alienation Anonymous, incredible community. We talk about community in the podcast and how important it is to have that support. That's a great place to come check out. And maybe you love it. And maybe there's a different community. But just the idea of having community outside of just the family system and the friend system, but people that are actually experiencing similar stuff or have experienced similar stuff is a total different level of support. Any suggestions, comments, please email me at family disappeared at gmail.com. Comment on any of our platforms. We'd love to hear from you. Let us know what's good, what's useful, what you want to hear more of, and even what you don't like. That's super welcome too. And with that, let's get into the show. Before I knew what parental alienation was, I always thought that taking the high road and being the good parent was the path forward. And even in the early parts of separation and before like it was eminent that divorce was coming, and my kids were with my ex, I'd be okay with them spending more time there because they were having a hard time and the separation's taking time on them. And I made a lot of decisions that I thought were the best for the children. But there was a lack of having boundaries. There was a lack of me understanding like my time is really, really important. And even if the kids have an event, my time's important, and I don't need to acquiesce that to be a good parent. And it's not about being mean or something to the other parent, it's about advocating for my time and my space. And this conversation with Lisa today really comes back to that and really harps on that. Like, hey, we need to be responsible for taking care of ourselves, for advocating for ourselves, for having boundaries. And she lays out some really great stuff how to do that. And at the end of the show, like I was saying before, she actually has a 45-minute free webinar on demand thing for strategic thinking and communication, which I think you're gonna love. So let's hear what Lisa has to say. So excited to have Lisa Johnson on our show today. And she has a plethora of experiences with parental alienation and has a wonderful book. And I'm gonna let Lisa introduce herself to everyone in the community. So Lisa, if you could please say hi and let folks know who you are.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, hi everyone. So I'm Lisa. I'm the female half of Been There Got Out. My partner, Chris, he's the male half. We and I are high conflict divorce strategists who specialize in something called legal abuse. And that's where our clients' exes are basically using the legal system to wear them down and bleed them dry financially. So ours are the cases the most extreme where people say, my lawyer says this is the craziest case I've ever had. They go on for years and years. They often cost a lot of money, cause a lot of pain. And unfortunately, kids are usually put in the middle. And let's see, my background a little bit. I was in the legal system with my own case for 10 years. I represented myself for seven and a half, approximately hundred court appearances in two states and prevailed, but it took a very long time for justice and karma to be served, and it was very nicely. And then my case got published as case law with the state of Connecticut, which is a really big honor for an attorney. And I've been told that it's unheard of for a self-represented litigant, which is what I am, because I'm not a lawyer. So I'm always really proud of that. And then I helped pass something called Jennifer's Law, which made my state, Connecticut at the time, the third in America to expand our legal definition of domestic violence to include coercive control. So all that invisible abuse is now really looked at a lot more seriously when it comes to restraining orders and custody battles. Then my ex decided to sue Chris and I for$4 million in defamation in the New York civil courts. We luckily got that thrown out. And then I always say that our first baby, our first book came out in 2023. And our next book, which is the one that we're going to talk about, that's been my passion for the past couple of years, is called When Your Ex Turns the Kids Against You. Since unfortunately, that is probably the most common thing that we see in our community of extremely difficult domestic violence cases. So I'm so thrilled, Lawrence, that you agreed to let me have this conversation with you today because there's there's so much about this topic. And unfortunately, it affects 20 to 22 million Americans and Canadians alone, from what I've been told. And most people dealing with it don't even realize it and think that they're the only ones. And there's a lot of shame associated with it, as I'm sure you know, because this is your area of expertise.

SPEAKER_00:

Thank you for that, Lisa. And 10 years in the court system representing yourself for over seven and a hundred appearances, that is unbelievable, incredible, and that you got through it and you've actually affected case law and your stuff's getting published. Like that is super empowering for you and for the community at large. That's such a wonderful victory. You don't hear many like that.

SPEAKER_01:

I know, I know. But we have managed to make it happen for a lot of our clients because we think there's a lot that people can do to empower themselves in the process, but it really involves understanding the system that you're operating with within and knowing how to behave appropriately.

SPEAKER_00:

Okay. And you said like when you're helping your clients, they're they're in these high conflict situations, they come in and you kind of like coach them through the process and then each stage just help them up-level the strategies, how they talk, how they show up in court, and all those different nuances. Is that what you're saying?

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, so we get down in the muck. Like there's a lot of different divorce coaches who do different things. Many of them deal with the transition from divorce to being single and life on the other side. We're like right in the muck, though. We're like right in the midst of the family court stuff with helping them be what we call the teacher's pet of clients if they have an attorney, with saving as much time, energy, and money as possible. If they don't have an attorney, especially post-judgment, so after they've already gotten divorced, we do a lot with helping them represent themselves effectively. We do a lot with proper presentation skills, not just to a judge, but to custody evaluators, attorneys for children, guardian items, how to mediate with someone with a personality disorder, how to take strategic oversight of one's case, because these cases are so complex that they fatigue attorneys. And so you have to kind of run your case like a business and understand the responsibilities that come with that. And then the next big thing that we work on is alienation. How do you deal with it in and outside, especially of the court system?

SPEAKER_00:

Wow, that is powerful. And again, empowering in that you're taking the parents to the system and you're actually giving them ownership and teaching them how to take ownership of their case so they can have agency in what's happening, I think is such a huge deal because everything is stripped away from parents, as I'm sure you experienced and I've experienced. And then to actually be able to get your agency back and start building from a foundation of knowledge instead of fear and reactivity sounds incredible.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah. I mean, and I think it all comes down to that education and understanding exactly what matters because most people have never been in court before, and then they end up in this crazy case and they're just like, I don't understand why the judge isn't listening to me. I don't understand why nobody cares. It's because they don't really understand the factors that the judge is paying attention to and how to build a really compelling case and understanding that we call it you have it's like you're paying$8 million for a 30-second Super Bowl commercial. So you need to be really succinct, really tight. You need to be clear on what you're there for, what you're asking for, and explaining why you're entitled to it and using a combination of case law and the timeline of your case.

SPEAKER_00:

Well, yeah, no, that that's super powerful. And I'm gonna divert a little bit and jump into some of the stuff on your new book coming out and some really great questions here. You frame parental alienation as a form of domestic violence. Why is that framing so important? And how does it change how people should respond?

SPEAKER_01:

So, parental alienation, it's a controversial label because parental alienation has been used to harm a lot of domestic violence victims in court because whenever someone claims abuse, it's often distracted with parental alienation claims. However, parental alienation, not talking the syndrome, but I'm talking about that behavior of when somebody ends a relationship and their partner uses a child to harm the other person. They say, like, I'm gonna turn our kids against you. I'm gonna make false claims about your behavior just to win the kids to my side. That's an extraordinary form of psychological abuse, not just for the victim parent, but for the child, because it's it's an abnormal influence on trying to sever a child's natural attachment bond to both parents. So there's a difference between alienation and something called justified estrangement where a parent's own behavior, like actual abuse or neglect, has caused a rift in that relationship. But a lot of the times it's just used as a weapon by one parent to basically win or prove something to other people or to use the kids as what's called narcissistic supply to have them on their side. And it just hurts everybody.

SPEAKER_00:

And then when you frame like parental alienation as a form of domestic abuse, are you also saying that the person that's actually the alienated parent is going through a form of domestic abuse and it gets weaponized in the other direction at that parent at the same time? But your specific framing is that it is a form of domestic abuse, and the person that's getting alienated is going through the abuse, correct?

SPEAKER_01:

Yes, it's a form of extreme psychological abuse toward a child by trying to pull away one of their parents, and it's a form of emotional and psychological abuse also towards the targeted parent who often is the healthy parent who has participated in raising the child, been a strong part of that child's life, and cannot believe that the child is turning against them. And it feels like such an extreme betrayal and heartbreak. And not just for the parent in terms of how they feel, but our society thinks that I hate to use example, but I think it's it's a good one, is if a child dies, the community rallies around a parent to support them. But when a child doesn't talk to a parent due to alienation, there's this shame associated with it because it's called like an ambiguous loss where you're grieving a child that's still alive, but there's no one supporting you because they're judging you and thinking you must have done something wrong for your child not to speak to you because people don't understand a lot of the nature of domestic violence, especially the type of domestic violence that doesn't leave physical bruises.

SPEAKER_00:

So then the parents going through this loss with the child and they're taking this abuse, there are no bruises, and then the parent starts to kind of like lose their identity. Like, who am I now? Like when you're coaching parents and they're coming into you and they're in this really crazy situation, how do you deal with that identity loss with the parents in coaching them to take ownership of the process?

SPEAKER_01:

I mean, I think the first thing is just validating how outrageous a situation it is and how unfair it is. I mean, for people living with legal abuse, there's three main emotions associated with it that I think could be applied to a parent that's a target of parental alienation, and that is rage. You're so angry because you cannot believe that this is happening. You can't believe your ex would stoop this low. A sense of injustice because it's like this is so unfair. And often it's very hard for other people to understand the pain that you're going through, and especially a feeling of despair that this is never gonna get better. It's always gonna be this way. The kid is never gonna come back, they're never gonna see what's really going on. And so this can consume your whole identity and your life. And again, there's that sense of isolation because many people are not familiar with what alienation is and they blame and judge, they don't empathize.

SPEAKER_00:

And like, how do you work with a client that comes in that's dysregulated to this degree and they can't really understand what's going on and you to help them kind of like find a path forward? Like, what would be those one or two things that we could share with the community that those would be the first one or two things after validating their experience that you'd be able to share with a parent to kind of like come back to their own body?

SPEAKER_01:

Okay, so I think reminding people how common that is is a bit of a relief. And also what we found really helpful is we have a number of clients whose kids have come back to them. And so one of the things we do that's been really effective is we have this weekly legal abuse support group pretty much every Sunday for an hour and 45 minutes. And we I always say we do the very unusual thing in the domestic violence space of blending our male and female clients together because we know that abuse is a human issue, not a gender issue, and alienation affects men and women. And so this topic comes up a lot. And in the group, we talk about what it's like to be in situations like this. And like I said, a number of our clients have kids that have come back to them. So they will share about what happened. And I'll always say, look at the progress that you made. Like just this past weekend, one of our clients that we've had for the past few years, her oldest is in his 20s. And when we met, she was like, He's already aged out of the legal system. There's nothing I can do. Like, hope is lost. And she was scared because she had two younger children. All three of them live with their father, and she thought, I'm gonna lose all three of them. One of them went back and forth between the homes, and then the middle one she saw very infrequently. So she would get these awful texts from her oldest son's phone about how he hated her and wanted nothing to do with her, and all, you know, all the worst things you can imagine. After some time had passed, she had an opportunity to see him at the front door of where he lived, and they had a conversation about it. He told her that he was not the person who had ever sent those texts. His father had gotten into his phone, and we had we see this a lot, where the parent takes the child's phone and sends these awful messages. I wish you'd die, don't come to my events, like I never want to see you again. And so I think that's a thing to also remind parents is when things are coming through your kids' phones and you they're not saying it to your face, there's a good chance that they're not the ones crafting those messages. So now her oldest is 25. And this past Sunday in our group, we have a symbol called the balloon man. It looks like one of those waving tube people that are outside use car dealerships. That's our that's our victory symbol. So she's like, get the balloon man ready for me. My son has been living with me. He's been no contact with the other parent for four months, and we just took a vacation together. I it's just like wow. And so I say, you need to share these stories because people in your situation feel like it could never change for them. So we have a number of clients who have that. Also, I do interviews all the time with different professionals and a close friend of mine, her two daughters were alienated from her for eight years. They're in their 20s, and they came back to her last year, and both of them individually let me interview them. And so those two interviews alone have helped so many people because they went into a lot of depth about what it was like from the child's perspective while they were away from that other parent and why they did it and what was being put in their head, threats that were being made. And it's interesting because my friend who this happened to is a very close friend of mine. So I got to see her amidst her heartbreak when they weren't talking to her, and then to see what happened when they came back. And now their relationship, they're really, really close. They came over and celebrated Christmas with us. I see her and her daughters all the time, and it's just like you would never imagine that they had been separated for eight years. So there's definitely hope. And I think that's the most important thing is for people in this situation to hear those stories, those success stories, because it really does happen.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, that's beautiful. I love the idea of your group and that people are blended together and it's a people group, and also you're bringing in hope and you're bringing in stories and they're real-time stories that are that are really happening. That sounds incredibly healing. And this group that you run, is it open just to your clients? Is it an open group? How does that work?

SPEAKER_01:

So we're on this platform, it's kind of like Zoom, it's called Kajabi. And so everyone in it, because we screen all of our clients, they have to register. And so it's a client perk, but sometimes we'll let like a person come in and visit the group, almost like sample it out to see what it's like. I mean, it's mostly like 20 to 30 people that we know pretty intimately. But that's one of the things our clients get is like, like I said, a perk because they love having a ready-made community. And because we exclusively deal with the extreme cases, everyone in the group is dealing with the crazy issues. I say they're everyone's dealing with your ex in different flavors. So it's nice to be with people who really get it. And we call our clients sweetie pies because they tend to be the most kind and empathic people and they do things for each other. Like as they get to know each other, they become really close. It's just like wonderful. I don't mind working on the weekends because I love our clients and I love our group.

SPEAKER_00:

That's beautiful. Yeah, and community is definitely one of the main paths forward that I've found, and it sounds like your community sounds incredible. And you mentioned a couple things earlier. You mentioned alienation versus justified estrangement. So, Lisa, what's the clearest way to distinguish between justified estrangement and alienation? Like, how do you tell the differences and what can you say about that?

SPEAKER_01:

Okay, so I am not a forensic investigator, so I don't know all of the details between like a professional who does this all the time. But based on what we know and what we've researched and what our clients have experienced, is alienation is when a person has turned a child against the other parent and there's no history of abuse or neglect. Justified estrangement is when that parent's own behavior caused the separation where a child doesn't want anything to do with that parent. So when you're dealing with the legal system and an evaluator's trying to figure out what's going on, they want to see some kinds of documented patterns of abuse or some extreme situation that would cause a child to suddenly not want to talk or have any contact with a parent anymore or be pulling away from a parent. So for example, we have a client whose ex used to take their son out to play soccer and would like kick him. He would kick him, he would physically harm him, there were bruises. This had been documented for a while with the child's therapist, with the school, and with the pediatrician. And so this is not a case of alienation because the parents own be violent behavior, which is already known and been documented, is the reason why the child is having a problem with the parent. So that's the difference. It's that it's like, did the parent do something and not something trivial? And that's the issue, is like, how does someone decide whether it's a valid reason for a child to reject a loving parent? It's a little bit tricky, but we have a friend who's a therapist who was talking about an interview he had with a child who was in fifth grade who didn't want to talk to his father anymore. And he was saying, is there something, you know, something that happened? And the boy said, When I was in first grade, he didn't get me the crayons that I loved. He didn't buy me the crayons that I wanted. That is not abuse or neglect. That is not a good reason. Like there's something that's off there. So it's very different when a parent has actually abused or neglected a child versus like, well, I didn't like what you did, or I don't like that you disciplined me. And so that's why I'm never going to talk to you again.

SPEAKER_00:

Right. That makes a lot of sense. And you also said like it's incredibly nuanced, and if it's more like an emotional abuse or withdrawing love, controlling the child, like from that standpoint, it's really hard to talk about justified estrangement versus alienation, because most of the times, like you're saying, with there's no bruise like what you do. You just that's alienation. And sometimes it's not. There has to be times when it's not too, like it's also real.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, and it's not that there has to be bruises at all, because a lot of it is the emotional stuff, but it's really, really tricky. Like we had another client whose ex used to make the kids for years while they were still together kneel on rice as discipline, like really, really harsh punishments. And so there were issues in that relationship long before they split. And after our client split with her ex, we made very sure that she was always encouraging the children to still have a relationship with their father. And he was claiming alienation. And then when a therapist got involved and said, Well, could this be an alienation case? Because she understood the different factors that are used to build an alienation case, she was ready to fire right back, like, Well, you you have no verifiable proof that I've done this, this, this, this, this. I haven't sent poisonous messages. I've always tried to support the relationship. You know, you can talk to the kids about what happened before then, which has been documented, but you have no proof that I've ever stood in the way to try to turn these kids against their parent.

SPEAKER_00:

So something that I run into quite a bit on the podcast is there's like young adults in like early 20s, late teens that have estranged from their parent and feels very justified and must probably is very justified in some instances, but there's also a nuance to their justification for estrangement that is super challenging to distinguish because developmentally where they are, their lived experience, which I it's not my lived experience. So it's like hard to represent that nuance of justified estrangement, but also give voice to some other behaviors that might have been there at the same time. How do you deal with that when you have parents that you're dealing with that have older kids or young adults?

SPEAKER_01:

You know, there's an author and psychologist named Dr. Josh Coleman. I'm not sure if you've heard of him, but he's written a few books. One is called Rules of Estrangement, and that focuses on adult children who estrange themselves, who don't want to talk to parents anymore. And he actually said that our culture has changed and that a lot of times therapists can actually contribute to a child or an adult child who is alienated from a parent, because now we talk a lot more about abuse in the past, like in other generations, a parent could be very what we now consider emotionally abusive to a child, and a child would still keep contact. But now parents have a bit less power. Adult children are less dependent on their parents, and so our culture has changed, and that's part of it. You know, I think the burden is on a parent to try to repair a relationship because in a lot of ways we need our kids as they get older more than they need us. Like we want relationships with our children. So the burden is on parents to be like, what can I do to repair whatever it is, why you're not talking to me.

SPEAKER_00:

Totally no. That makes a lot of sense. And yeah, I love Josh Coleman's work and it definitely talks to that. And and also I want to represent these nuances of some of these young adults that are challenged with this and feel like they're not getting heard on their justified estrangement because the parents saying alienation or whatever they're saying, and these kids want their voices to be heard and their position to be heard and their nuances to be heard. And yeah, I was just curious what your experience was with that. And we've spoken a little bit about the idea of like false positives, like someone saying alienation, but it's really estrangement. And then in the same degree, some people must probably saying uh estrangement, but it's really alienation. Like, do you find a lot of the false positives within the work that you're doing with parents?

SPEAKER_01:

Well, we like I said, alienation is super, super common in our community in that it actually happens, but also our clients are getting falsely accused of it all the time. So we want to make sure that people really understand those different factors of what alienation actually means. For example, a parent sending poisonous messages about the other parent to the child. And I often talk about how it's really three categories of this: that the other parent is unsafe, unloving, and or unavailable. And so this doesn't just have to be said straight out, but there's a lot of things that people do with their body language and their facial expressions. Even when a kid is down, you know, far away, but still within eyesight. I learned from a friend of mine who took a parenting class that she said, you don't ever want to have a conversation, let's say it's your kid's birthday party with the other parents about your ex in their line of vision, because even though they can't hear you, they see your body language, they know you're angry, and they know you're talking about that other parent. And your kids pick up on that energy. So you have to be really, really careful. And a lot of people don't realize that. So I know one of our clients was saying she was saying something on a support group meeting. She didn't realize that a teenager was listening to her saying that I have the other parent by the balls. And it was like, oh shoot, the the kid heard it and really like never forgave her for that.

SPEAKER_00:

Wow. Oh, that's super powerful. And that idea that the kids are watching the body language, if you're in line of view, that's that's a golden nugget. Thank you for sharing that. That's really powerful. Wow, what a great show! And super interesting, and it's so wonderful when I interview people or teams of people that are doing some really great work and they're connected to all these other individuals that are doing work alongside them, not necessarily the exact same channel, but another channel that as they're working together, the vehicle's moving quicker because they're moving in so many different channels at the same time. So I really loved how Lisa presented that and all the relationships that it sounds like they built and the book that they wrote and the new book that's coming out sounds fantastic. And again, there's a bunch of resources in the show notes. Please like, share, let people know what we're doing. We'd like to help and resource as many people as possible. We are a 501c3 nonprofit. Would love to have your support if that is available. And if you'd just like to volunteer sometime, we'd love that too. Let us know at family disappeared at gmail.com. And yeah, I think that's enough out of me. I hope you have a beautiful day. Thanks for coming out to play. And in case no one's told you yet today, I love you. And I hope you have a beautiful day. 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.