Family Disappeared

Systemic Parental Alienation, Family Hierarchy & Survival w/ Dr. Azzopardi Part 1 - Episode 121

• Lawrence Joss

Share episode

Lawrence Joss explores the deeper systemic roots of parental alienation, revealing how alienation unfolds gradually through subtle family dynamics rather than appearing overnight. He and Dr. Charlie unpack how cultural norms, family structures, and early relational patterns shape the roles parents step into, and how those roles can quietly shift power, boundaries, and attachment inside the family system.

Key Takeaways

  • Parental alienation is a gradual process.
  • Negative talk about a parent is common in relationships.
  • Cultural norms influence parenting roles significantly.
  • In some cultures, mothers are primarily caregivers.
  • Fathers often take on structural roles in parenting.
  • Understanding alienation requires a cultural lens.
  • Parental roles can vary widely across different societies.
  • The dynamics of family relationships are complex.
  • Emotional care is often seen as a mother's role.
  • Structural care is typically associated with fathers.

Chapters

0:00 – Safety, Survival & Early Alienation Patterns
 2:05 – What the Systemic Lens Reveals
 5:40 – When Problems Become Relational
 9:20 – Cultural & Structural Pressures on Families
 11:55 – Alienation as a Gradual Process
 14:40 – Boundary Breakdowns & Role Confusion
 17:55 – Power Shifts: Children Elevated to Partner Role
 21:25 – Why Kids Choose the Unpredictable Parent
 25:40 – Subtle Behaviors That Shift Family Hierarchy
 28:30 – Parentification & Emotional Oversharing
 31:55 – Long-Term Effects on Attachment & Identity
 35:50 – Attraction Patterns & the Drama Triangle

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 Dr Charlie Azzopardi:
Website: https://ift-malta.com/⁩
Courses (IFT Malta): https://ift-malta.com/courses-2/
European Journal of Parental Alienation (EJPAP):
https://ift-malta.com/elementor-1206/

Please donate to support PAA programs:
https://www.paypal.com/donate?hosted_button_id=SDLTX8TBSZNXSsa bottom part

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:

Sometimes we parents complain about something without wanting to alienate the other parent, of course. But that complaint can then eventually, if something goes wrong in the marital relationship, the children already have an idea of who's the safe parent, who's not the safe parent, who can abandon them, who will not abandon them. You know, and they play around that in a way that guarantees their safety. That's what because this is safety. This is about survival of the fittest, really.

SPEAKER_02:

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 Lauren Straws, and welcome to the Family Disappeared Podcast. Today we have a Dr. Charlie on the show, and he's talking about the systemic perspective of parental alienation and family systems. And this is incredibly, incredibly important if you are struggling with parental alienation and you don't understand what's happening in your family, and you're thinking my kid hates me, my kid's behaving that way. This is happening with my ex. This really gets into the system. And we also address the larger system, the court systems, some of the political and cultural and social systems that we take for granted that we don't really know our impact in parental alienation, estrangement eraser as well. Welcome to the Family Disappeared Podcast. A bunch of great resources in the show notes. We have a free 12-step program. There's a link in the show notes for that. We're a 501c3 nonprofit. Please donate. And just think about this perspective. Anything that you donate is helping the next person in. You're already here. We want to make sure we can reach the newcomer, the person that doesn't have access to these resources. So I'm going to tell you a quick story quickly. I was suffering. My heart was breaking. I didn't know what was happening with my kids. My life was falling apart. I was in a tremendous amount of pain. And I decided to sign up for a two-year Buddhist chaplaincy program at uh Yapaya in Santa Fe, New Mexico. Phenomenal place to go. And even to check them out online, they have an incredible amount of resources. So I'm taking this training. I don't think it has anything to do with my family at the particular time. And we get one of the teachers teaches on systems theory. And in systems theory, we break out into a party of like three people and we start looking at our system. And I chose my family system. I'm like, hey, I'm a parent. Hey, there's the other parent, and we're at the top of the family system. And then we have my three kids underneath us in the immediate family. And as we're doing our work, I realize that my oldest daughter has more power in the system than I have because she's been elevated to my partner's partner. And this isn't the child doing something. This is my partner having the child maybe sleep in the bed, telling the child that all her problems and what's going on, and using her for emotional support. So this gives the child the idea that they are a parent, that they have a major decision-making vote in the family, and that they've been knighted in a way or picked in a way to help create a better family or keep the best possible family. And the parent that's not enmeshed with the child is dropped down lower in the system. So I found this out on this Buddhist chaplaincy training, and it just rocked my world. It devastated me. I didn't know the word parental alienation. I just knew that what I thought was just its standard wasn't. And my life wasn't working that way. And I didn't understand all the implications and all the different nuances to it. But that's my story. Systems theory is incredibly important. Learn about it, understand it, do research on it. It's outside of the norm, but it will change your life. Okay. Let's see what Charlie has to say. So we are so excited to have you on the show today. And Dr. Charlie Asperadi, am I pronouncing the last name correctly? Esapardi. Well, Doctor, if you could just go ahead and introduce yourself to the community, give them a little background about who you are and where you are, and then we'll jump into some questions.

SPEAKER_01:

I am a systemic therapist by profession. I've been practicing for the last um 38 years, mostly in Malta and mostly in the UK, Scotland, and Ireland as well. I am the chair of the Institute of Family Therapy in Malta, which is the only institute dealing with systemic practice, that is. And I'm also the founder of a course alongside with Parental Alienation Europe, which is the Masters in Parental Alienation Studies. That's because we also have another master's in systemic therapy as well. And I'm also the co-founder with Brian O'Sullivan of the European Journal of Parental Alienation Studies. So we edit that. We run the course, and I practice as well with families and children and individuals as well during separation or before separation. My work mostly focuses on preventing separation and therefore preventing things from getting worse between partners.

SPEAKER_02:

Thank you for that, Charlie. And I'm super excited to have this conversation specifically bringing in the systemic view, because you don't find a lot of therapists that are actually specialize, and that's what their practice is around the system. So for the folks out there, can you just let them know basically what the systemic lens might look like rather than just the interpersonal lens?

SPEAKER_01:

Typically, um traditional psychology is individual psychology and it focuses mostly on the individual. And so when there is a problem, problem from a psychological perspective is considered to be the problem of that particular person. So typically, psychology locates problems in the individual mind and maybe work out through that problem by taking that person back in history to his upbringing, to his childhood, to see what wounds are there so that then they can be repaired through therapy as the person goes along and progresses in therapy. The systemic view of the problem is not locating the problem in individuals, but is locating the problem in relationships. So relationships can be multiple and especially within different contexts. So from a systemic perspective, and from my perspective, I don't know, a child's problem is not the child's problem. It's not located in the child's mind, but is located in the relationships that the child has with and around him as well, including the relationships at school, the relationships in the extended family. And also, if you extend it, which I do sometimes in therapy as well, especially with couples, to the political system and the religion system that people are surrounded with, sociopolitical system or context that surrounds the person. We know that some individuals may be having problems within that context, but when they're removed from that context, that problem disappears. So this is the difference between systemic practice and individual practice, the psychology, traditional psychology practice.

SPEAKER_02:

Thank you for that. And just to break it down a little bit more, and then correct me if I'm wrong, like the immediate system that the child is in is its parents, maybe other siblings, and that's kind of like the nuclear family system. We expand that out, and then we add the grandparents, we add other family members, and we expand that out. It can go generationally down the maternal or the paternal line, and then like you're saying, all the other stakeholders in the child or the family's lives, attorneys, lawyers, school, work, environment, religion, socioeconomic status, all that stuff builds into the system and creates these different pain points or leverage points within the system, right?

SPEAKER_01:

Sure. We know that um children coming from a specific background are more at risk of suffering from mental health problems, so depression or anxiety, for example. We know that children reared up in certain environments are more likely to get involved with the justice system or fail in school, for example. We know that there's lots of research um showing us how the different social status of children um often makes or breaks the child.

SPEAKER_02:

Totally. And in the context of like parental alienation in the actual family, generally we're saying it's that spouse, it's a spouse, the kids act in this way, but on a systemic view of the actual family, like what's breaking down? Like what are some maybe consistent points you see that break down within the family on a systemic level that lead to alienation or severe or even mild cases?

SPEAKER_01:

Okay, the way I understand parental alienation is that contemporary, parental alienation is seen as one point in time, as a phenomenon belonging to high conflict situations between two partners. Yeah. But from my experience, I've noticed that parental alienation typically starts much earlier than that, even when the couple is relatively on good terms with each other and have a relatively good relationship. And some of these alienating behaviors already start when the child is a little baby and the couple is relatively okay. And some signs and symptoms there already indicate to us that alienation might be an eventual problem if some conditions change in the relationship. So because the couple is okay, so some behaviors, alienating behaviors, are accepted as cultural nuances, perhaps as well. But if something changes in the couple's relationship and they go and get stuff, then alienating behaviors become extreme as we see them in court or as we see them in high conflict situations. For example, it is very typical for the children to be considered more the mother's job to take care of than the father's, for example. I see many children of five and six and seven are still, for example, sleeping in the matrimonial bed beside mom or dad, and the other parent, because of different excuses like snoring or I don't know, or the child is afraid at night, or this and that, goes to sleep somewhere else, in the child's room, for example. So this is a very interesting disruption that is happening in the family structure, because parents are parents and the child is child. So when the child engages with the parent as if they are the partner of that parent, then because nothing is wrong with the relationship with an inverted commas or nothing wrong is so visible, what happens is that many people accept this as normal parents' behavior. You see, so my view of understanding parental alienation is as a process rather than as a one-time phenomenon that people suddenly find themselves in or engage in suddenly. Speaking badly about another parent or not speaking about another parent is very common in normal typical relationships between partners, especially in traditional cultures, even like Malta, for example, it's still the idea of the family is a bit more traditional, perhaps. And in Italy, for example, where parents expect from themselves and from each other to have a different kind of position in relation to the children. And the mother is still the provider of care, and the father is still the provider of structure, structural care rather than emotional care, like the mother's job within inverted commas. This is being a bit um disrupted now because of dual earning families. So many, well, almost every family is dual earner in Malta, and the traditional family is in decline. And this puts more pressure on the system, of course. This is the kind of political context I was talking about when uh before when I said that these political decisions made are not always in favor of the family system, of course, but in favor of the economy rather than the family system. So these also influence how people view themselves as parents or as co-parents or as you know, um simply providers, or whatever.

SPEAKER_02:

Thank you for that. And I'm gonna touch on a couple things that you mentioned. And first, there's like this idea, I talk to a lot of parents and grandparents, and like you're saying, they want to point to one particular instant and they say, hey, wow, that's the thing that happened. And what you're saying is the system is built multi-levels, and this is happening for years and years and years, which has been my experience, and sometimes as a baby, even in vitro, where energetically the mothers connect into the child in a particular kind of way. So the parents that are super surprised that parental alienation is happening and they just want to focus on that one area. How do you take the family back and actually get them to look at the system and how the system was built to give them some perspective? And I just want to give the audience a little couple nuggets of perspective that they can go back and track a little bit further back in the history, and they can see this behavior existed. And I love the bad example that you gave where it messes up the hierarchy of the family system, and the child thinks that they are one of the parents, and one of the other parents maybe is lowered in the system. But we'll get to that in a second. Like, what are some other instances that people can track in their origin story where they can see alienation coming in in very subtle ways? Do you have a couple of other examples?

SPEAKER_01:

It is typically uh parental alienation or the early signs of parental alienation, as I write in one of my papers, which was published on the European Journal of Parental Alienation Studies, is definitely, I would call it the child's understanding of the distribution of power in the relationship. So, for example, one parent may see the other, I don't know, drinking some alcohol. They're in a party and they're drinking some alcohol. Let's say the man is drinking alcohol and the woman is not drinking alcohol so that she can drive back home, you know. And just one comment, you know, I'm driving, we're driving home, I'm driving back home because daddy has drunk, as sad and accepted as is, is already an initiating point where the child starts thinking that daddy can be unsafe, for example. Or one parent complaining about the other parent in front of the children and not allowing the other parent to defend himself or herself. Or one parent, for example, the mother corrects the child, and the father comes in and says something to the mother against the effect of disciplining the child. So it's like saying, I am in favor of the child and against you. You see, so children will start questioning authority, will start questioning their sense of closeness to whom, and start also measuring very early in life. They start questioning the safety that each parent can provide in some way. You know, this is all about attachment, it's all about survival. It's instinctive that every child measures the distance between the parents and between themselves, and start calculating who is the safest. And the child typically alienates the safest parent because they know that that parent can be there anyway, anytime. No matter what I do to that parent. That parent loves me, I'm safe with that parent, and we can in some way retract the offensive position I am taking against that parent. And typically children alight with the unpredictable parent, with the parent who offers them less security and safety, with the hope of developing a close relationship that helps them feel safe with that parent. So, for example, one parent during a fight with the other parent may say, Oh, I'm leaving, for example, yeah. So that parent, from the child's perspective, becomes the unsafe parent because that parent can actually up and leave for no apparent reason, although the child understands the fighting, but there's no reason to leave. So I may be abandoned by the parent. So I attach to him more so that as a child I can attach to that parent more so that I feel safe and try to hold that parent by allying with him against the other parent.

SPEAKER_02:

That makes a lot of sense. And it was really interesting in my story. My ex-wife was super close with the kids, and I always thought it was like this really, really, really deep love. And when I had them on my time, she'd send little notes. I love you, I miss you, you're only going to be back in three days. She would call them and text and drop off little meals, and I had no idea that this was just stuff amping up, and these little subtle things like a kid sleeping in the bed and stuff, got to this place where she's bringing food to the house, and I can't provide my own kids food. I had no idea it could escalate in those really tiny, seemingly caring on the surface, you know?

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, it's very common. Of course, there are many culturally embedded signs in the early stages of parental alienation. Many, many simple things that happen between parents and between children and parents. And you can immediately identify the target child, the targeted child as well. If there are three siblings, typically one child is targeted as the alienating child for the other parent, by one parent, of course. There is no typical childhood position, whether he's the first child, the eldest, or the middle, or the youngest child. But typically you can identify the it's like even saying, I've encountered cases where the father was the breadwinner, and by choice the mother decided to stay home because the father was earning enough money. He was traveling abroad, he was for work, and the mother was always complaining against her husband because he's always away. He's always away, he's always away. So, in some way, the children had all the opportunity to ally with the mother already since they were little babies. The father was not very present in their life, but he had a good relationship with the children when he was there and when he wasn't there, using phones to call them and other means of visual calls as well. So the mother was complaining all the time against the husband. The children would see her crying sometimes as well. So they took it against the father very radically, and they were criticizing the father, and she would say nothing, for example. She wouldn't stop the children from complaining against their father. And that also gave the children the idea that they can complain about the father because he's not a good father, he's a dangerous father, he's abandoned them, and he's only good to buy them toys, but not to play with them, for example. So people do this very often without even the bad intention in it. I mean, sometimes we parents complain about something without wanting to alienate the other parent, of course. But that complaint can then eventually, if something goes wrong in the marital relationship, the children already have an idea of who's the safe parent, who's not the safe parent, who can abandon them, who will not abandon them, you know, and they play around that in a way that guarantees their safety. That's what because this is safety. This is about survival of the fittest, really.

SPEAKER_02:

Yes, 100%. I totally get they just don't want to die, and they're just trying to figure out how not to die and survive. And on the systems level, you were talking about the child sleeping in the bed, and traditionally, in a system, in a family system, in the immediate family system, you have the two parents at the top of the system, and then you have the children of the siblings below them. And then when the child starts feeling like a parent or someone that can make a decision, they get elevated next to the alienating parent at the top of the system. And then the other parent finds them on the bottom of the system if we're looking at a systemic approach. Is that accurate?

SPEAKER_01:

Sure, sure. And this is very visible in circumstances where the alienating parent, the eventual alienating parent, tells us in therapy, for example, because he's my confidant, my son is my confidant. I trust him. I speak openly to him because he should know. No, you don't speak openly to children about your marital relationship, for God's sake. You see, about how lonely you feel without your husband. You don't speak to your children about that. That's something you should be discussing with your partner, with your whoever, but not with the children. So the relationship elevates the child to a parent status. And that leaves the other partner out, obviously. Which is very, very interesting. Sometimes even opening Facebook, you know, and see some profiles. Sometimes even the profile picture is between an adult and the child. It's almost incestuous, you know, parent and a child kissing each other under the lips. And if people accept these, it's very dangerous because obviously it's almost like a romantic relationship between the child and the parent, which elevates the child to a parent status. And then it can culminate also in children criticizing the other parent, which then leads to eventual alienation, of course, because when the child feels the right or the duty to correct the parent, then you know, some structural changes have occurred there.

SPEAKER_02:

And as the child ages and they've put themselves on equal authority level as one of the parents, and then they get into their 20s and into their 30s, what happens within the immediate system and in the new family system that this child is creating as they start their own family? Like, is there something you can track or notice from system to system as the system expands after this child has experienced being at the top of the system in her parents' relationship or their parents' relationship and now in their own relationship? Does that make sense, my question?

SPEAKER_01:

Yes, of course, of course. Let me go back a bit and then come slowly, slowly to build this up because I think this deserves some explanation. So if we think about all this process as everyone in the family system is trying to survive within a system that is somehow somewhat uncomfortable for all the members in it. Well, there's no perfect relationship. So everyone in the family is sometimes uncomfortable. And just consider a relationship where the child has been parentified and has been elevated to the status of the other partner. Not only the parent who starts correcting the youngest children, for example, but also the partner who starts confiding in the mother or the father and whose mother or father start confiding in him. This is with one parent. So the child learns that he can confide with the parent, even though they are a child. So this is a problem of boundaries. So people start developing an idea that they can connect at different levels to anyone. And for their emotional well-being, they try to do that and they learn to do that, and they continue to do that, even in their adulthood, because this is all about attachment and attachment problems, isn't it? So if I have an attachment problem as a child, that's likely to develop, if unattended, of course, it's likely to develop into an adulthood attachment problem. And so the child who is now grown up, who was growing up in a system where boundaries were shaky, where boundaries were unclear, is likely to have developed some kind of personality issue. Whether you want to call it personality disorder or not, that's fine. Which means what? What's a personality disorder? A personality disorder is when someone learns to obtain some kind of safety, to do something that guarantees their safety in one context and that worked, the child's wiring system grows into that kind of behavior. So every time I need some kind of safety, I perform this kind of behavior. Little do I realize that when I grow up and I'm in an adult relationship with a woman or a man, and I need something, some attention, whatever, and I perform that behavior, then that behavior is doesn't fit with that relationship, with that context. Because my partner might say, you know, I'm married or I want a man in my life and not a baby who cries for the banana kind of thing. Yeah? So if as a child I've learned to shout for a banana and cry for a banana, and then after crying, my mother or my father would give me the banana. When I grow up, and I am in any other relationship, when I want a banana, which can then be something else, like I want, don't know, a job or I want something else, or you know, I want to buy an iPad or whatever. And then what I learned to do, what my wiring system has learned to do, is to shout and cry for the banana, for the iPad, for whatever. So every time I find myself in the situation of feeling deprived in some way, all I know how to do to obtain what I want is by shouting and crying. But just imagine yourself going for your new job in the office, and your boss says something and you don't like it, and you act as if you're acting with your mother because you don't have clear boundaries implanted in your wiring system, then and you behave like that. Obviously, the boss will tell you, wait, this is not, I'm not your mother guy. I am your boss, and you have to treat me like your boss. And I'm not going to give you what you want, especially if you behave in this way, because this is childish. So then, personality disorder is in many ways childish behavior, because this is learning mechanisms that we've learned over the years as children, and we grew up with to obtain what we need for our safety and survival, and then we apply the same methods in different relationships, inappropriately, of course, because that relationship calls for some maturity or something else.

SPEAKER_02:

Right. And you're talking about a more overt behavior, but there's also like a subversive behavior where I work extra hours, I show up early, I don't ask for what I want. It's the same mechanism, except it's not yelling for the bananas, hiding under the pillows, and just waiting for whatever. Yeah, so I think it's really important that overt and subversive parts are yeah, really challenging to watch in our children.

SPEAKER_00:

Of course, yeah. Very, very difficult to see to see as well.

SPEAKER_02:

And then just another piece that I'd like to touch on on the family system. Like when I met my partner, I was coming from my nuclear family, and I was bringing my own trauma into the relationship. So I was attracted to her and to the alienation perspectives or whatever she presented as alienation at that time, because it was familiar to me already. Do you believe that in the system if we go the maternal or the paternal line? Like I'm already preconditioned to that person, to that alienation strand, because it's part of how I was raised to some degree or in some fashion already.

SPEAKER_01:

Well, definitely, because um, when people meet, little do they know the mechanisms, the unconscious mechanisms of what's making them like or dislike each other, whatever. And often there is what's I think lovelays called the love overload or emotional overload. When someone meets a partner, the first few months are the months where each partner will be focusing only and seeing only the good things about the other partner. And I think this is very important because if I am, I don't know if you know about the psychodynamic or psychoanalytic idea of why people choose each other based on the needs, but also based on the unconscious provision of those needs. In each other. And so if I meet someone at that point in time, it's because I need something. So many people they call it the Karpman's triangle. And so, for example, if I am in the position of a savior at that point and I need to save someone for me to feel okay, because this is my script as a child growing up, then I would probably find a victim, even if I a victim to save from a perpetrator. Yeah, and this is quite the scenario. You know, when I meet a woman or a man, if I am a woman or whatever, if you're gay, whatever. So if I meet someone, I need that someone to be a victim because this is my need. I'm a savior by nature. So I find someone who is a victim of someone else, of a perpetrator. And so, in some way, I save that victim and I'm a savior. So her need is to be saved. So her need comes from a position of victimhood. You see, so the perpetrator would also need a victim, but someone who can be victimized, not someone to save, because obviously the perpetrator is never saving someone, but is perpetrating someone. So the cycle goes on. If you read simple stories like Little Red Riding Hood, uh Rapunzel, there is always this drama triangle, which we can see. And it happens in life because it is the attachment drama. I don't know. When I met my wife, my need was to feel some kind of containment. And when my wife met me, she needed some kind of space and some kind of freedom from her obsessive parents. So we met each other, we loved each other unknowingly because of these needs. And then when we grow up, then we start finding out and realizing how that bond is based on these primitive needs, if you want to call them that, which need to be resolved in some way, because otherwise we can't go on fulfilling each other's needs forever, because then the children come and they disrupt. You know, the children disrupt this pattern. And this is where most conflict begins. And Jack Dominion, who was the Vatican's consultant about family matters, used to say that he can trace every separation and divorce back to the first pregnancy. Well, the first birth of the first baby. I would extend that to the first pregnancy, because even in pregnancy, the relationship is being disrupted, the boundaries are changing, everything is being challenged. All these unconscious needs. First you were a victim and now you don't need me as a victim. Or first you were a perpetrator and now you are not perpetrating me, you're perpetrating the child or victimizing the child or whatever. So the roles are challenged very much.

SPEAKER_02:

I'm smiling because I love the way you break that down. Like I picked my wife because she was super anxious, and I'm good at regulating people's nervous systems because that's what I did for my mother. And she picked me because I was good at doing that, and she had that need to control someone in that way. And then like there was an intense amount of love when we first started dating. And once she got pregnant, she started attaching to the child in an unhealthy way, and the child started meeting her needs in her belly, and I felt the love shut off in or diminish. And I could never identify it until 10 or 15 years later. Like that energy shifted, and everything she was feeding from me, and I was feeding from her, like you're saying, got disrupted. So the alienation, if we want to call it that, or the attachment injury, re-injury happened at conception, at pregnancy. And I think that's such a great way for parents to start looking at their situation in a different kind of way, and even for alienated kids to actually see what's actually happening. And I love that you do the systemic view of this because this is where the healing is, in my opinion. Wow, what a great show! I I love the idea that there's actually systemic therapy out there. You don't hear anyone talking about it. And for me personally, looking at systems has been one of the most important things that I've ever done in relationship to parental alienation, estrangement, and erasure. It gave me a sense of hope, empowerment, understanding. It gave me a sense of relief that I wasn't crazy. And I wasn't talking to the therapist or the attorney or being stuck in the court system. I was actually going back and seeing how this living, moving organism manifest in my life and understand that my family system, me, my ex-wife, and my three daughters, extrapolates out to the maternal, which is the mother's history and grandparents and great-grandparents and other siblings, and then the paternal, which is my family and my friends, and my work and all these other things, and they all impact the system. And as I started to be able to notice how the systems worked, I could see that I do have some agency in my system. And I'll end with this the most important thing to know about systems theory is the number one leverage point in any system is the individual. So by you showing up for your own life, whether it's through 12-step meetings, finding support groups, doing your own therapy, reading books, you potentially have the empowerment to affect your family system. So thanks for coming out today. Great resources in the show notes, free 12-step program. Come out and check a meeting out. It's a loving, kind community. We are a 501c3 nonprofit. If you want this to continue, we need your support. Please donate. Recurring donations would be wonderful. One-time donations are wonderful. And again, you're helping the next person coming in. And I'd like to say, not all of us have the same resources. So if your resources, time and you want to volunteer, please email us at family disappeared at gmail.com and like and share the content that we're creating. It's super important that as many people find out about this as possible. So thanks for coming out to play today. And in case no one's told you yet today, I love you. You know, and I really do. And that might sound strange, but uh it's something I learned to do along the way is just to open up my own heart. And in opening my own heart and just saying something that might seem trite and silly, it's changed my life and given me the ability to be in connection with people more often. So thank you for coming out. I love you. Thanks for coming out and playing in the sandbox, and we will see you around the neighborhood soon. Make sure to come back for the second part of this great interview. It's really, it's really cool, and it's a neat to hear a different perspective. 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.