This post features a picture from the 2009 animated film, Coraline, based on a book by Neil Gaiman. Coraline’s parents are preoccupied and don’t give her the attention she wants. She finds a small door in their house leading to a magical place where everything seems so much better. She’s blind to realising it’s all too good to be true. It reminds me of the ‘grass is greener’ experience when our children are lured by alienation (promises, lies, manipulation …) to leave us, we’re no longer ‘good enough’ for them. Coraline’s ‘Fake Mother’ (you can probably see where I’m going with this) turns out to not be as loving and good as Coraline initially thinks, and the story involves her attempts to escape back to the real world and her everyday parents. The fake mother is referred to as a ‘beldam’ which is a malicious woman, witch or shapeshifting demon whose goal is to lure children into her fake world so she can feed on their souls. When Coraline tries to run from this ‘alienated’ fake world, the escape tunnel becomes steeper and longer on each attempt. Some have theorised that Coraline doesn’t escape and becomes the next beldam.
As alienated parents, we long for our children to see the bigger picture and ‘escape’. They’re enmeshed in a false drama, a trauma re-enactment narrative of the ‘protective’ and ‘good’ loving parent. The child is not victimised and the target parent is not abusive. This is a pathological delusion. We have simply become part of the alienating (borderline) parent’s complex trauma, most likely from childhood. It is usually triggered by divorce – a ‘pathological mourning’ which turns sadness and anxiety into anger and resentment.
#charliemccready
#parentalalienationcoach
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#childcustody
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#fathersrights
#fathersrightsmovement
#Fathers4Justice
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#narcissisticabuserecovery
#splitting
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#divorcebattle
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#traumabonding
#traumabond
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