9 Months of the AAP

I began my project nine months ago, in early June 2023. I’ve made videos about my story, interviewed experts, parents, and former alienated children. I’ve researched in an effort to understand the psychology behind this abuse and expose it from my decades of experience. 

I’ve covered news and media stories, expanded to include a leadership team of amazing women I’m lucky to know, and traveled to various cities to hit the streets to inform strangers about parental alienation. 

We’ve started a support group, newsletter, blog, and, in less than three weeks, (with the help of Dr. Jennifer Harman and the PASG), we’ll be hosting our first-ever public speaking event, where seven child survivors of parental alienation will be having a filmed panel discussion, live, at Colorado State University.

As we prepare panel discussion questions, vote on the best slogan for our banner, and work out all of the details of our itinerary, it begins to hit me: wow, we’re really doing this. We’re really speaking out, together. We really are forming the coalition I hoped for last summer. 

That’s odd, I then realize. I don’t feel so alone with this anymore. I can breathe easier now. And that means everything to me.

You see, since I was eight and my parents were still married, the alienation not only destroyed my special bond with my dad, but it also isolated me from everyone in my life and made me dependent on my mom. Suddenly, she was “the only person who loved me” and “the only person who truly cared.” 

Since learning the truth, I’ve slowly been able to reconnect with lots of family members and friends, while also meeting many new people, and I’ve realized how wrong my mom was. Lots of people love and care about me, but I wasn’t allowed to believe that. What comes to my mind is a quote by Stephen Chbosky: “We accept the love we think we deserve.” It was, in the end, encountering better love–unconditional love–that led to me questioning the love I had grown up with.

Why am I a fervent believer that it’s important to increase the public awareness about parental alienation?

My hope is that one day children will grow up, and as they’re learning about consent and sexual health in school, they also learn warning signs of parental alienation and psychological abuse. They need to know it exists so they can look out for it. I can’t count the amount of times I’ve thought  I wish someone had told me that it’s not okay for one parent to talk badly about the other one. I wish someone had told me it’s not okay for one parent to say your other parent doesn’t love you.

My hope is that parental alienation will become a household term, and that people doing alienating behaviors will be shamed.

As a child survivor of parental alienation, I don’t blame people for their lack of  understanding; after all, I’ve been through it, and I, too, struggle to comprehend how this has happened to me and how a parent could do this to their child.

Finally, as word has spread about my project, more and more people have messaged me saying thank you…. I’m here, it’s happening to me, and I support what you’re doing. I wanted to say thank you as well. For your courage, support, and willingness to fight against child psychological abuse alongside me.

Thank you.