Anyone who acts as a parental alienator has major issues with their mental and emotional health and is incapable of relating to other human beings in a normal loving, caring way – not even their children.

I know this from first hand experience and was as deeply shocked as anyone who has had their children withheld from them as an act of vengeance, regardless of the impact it has on others. Alienators will do and say anything to hurt you, because they are hurting deep inside, and have been for a very long time.

There are common patterns in the alienators’ past. They suffered trauma earlier in their own lives and became detached from normal behaviours and feelings. It does not matter how strong these people appear on the outside, they are weak, vulnerable and insecure on the inside. Don’t expect them to change or seek help as they are terrified of re-visiting their past – they are stuck in their own traumatised state.

You may recognise some of the common patterns with your own alienator; a troubled childhood, possibly with domestic violence, emotional abuse, alcoholism, lack of loving or supporting parents, or being over favoured and knowing no boundaries. This list continues but some of these will be very recognisable to readers.

It is shocking to the alienated parent how quickly their child can go from being loving to not wanting to see them. The child is living in fear that the alienating parent will punish them in various forms if they do not comply with the alienator’s demands. The child goes into self protection. They are hugely conflicted but side with the people they are most afraid of, who threatens to do them the most harm. This is nothing less than emotional abuse and creates trauma for the child that can stay with them for years.

Whilst it does not change your situation, it can help to better understand why this is happening. Your experience is not because, you or your children did something wrong, but because your X is mentally and emotionally affected by trauma in their past. This is not to make them out as being a victim as any of them can seek help at any time.

Legal and social services remain poorly equipped to identify and deal with parental alienation, which means you are often left to your own devices to manage the situation as best you can.

3 top tips:

1 – Make sure you are in a good mental and emotional state so that you can deal with the situation. There are many tools and techniques to build your mental and emotional resilience

2 – Where you have contact, focus on rebuilding your relationship with your child by concentrating on their needs and support, rather than involving them in the alienation battle of asking them to deal with any of your own issues

3 – Create boundaries between you and the alienating parent. Tactically, it is helpful to remember that you are dealing with people that demonstrate infantile behaviour and you may need to manage them accordingly