Tag: family

Reconnection Trauma & Trust /Charlie McCarthy

The short answer is: Yes, relationships can be restored.

The longer answer is that, speaking from personal and professional experience, rebuilding trust (the love is there, just dormant/suppressed/disallowed) after experiencing parental alienation and the subsequent trauma can be a challenging journey for both the parent and the child. Many of us are so thrilled when we have communication and contact again, that we get our hopes up, giddily high. It’s obviously amazing to get to that point, having suffered the loss of our children from our lives, and so unjustly, but the road ahead can still (not always) be a winding one with some twists, turns and speedbumps along the way.

Here is some guidance that I hope will help:

Remember that healing is a unique and individual process for each family. Acknowledge and celebrate small milestones in the healing/reconciliation process. Recognise and appreciate the positive moments that signify progress.

Recognise and validate the emotional pain caused by parental alienation. It’s crucial to acknowledge the trauma both you and your child have endured.

Gain a deeper understanding of parental alienation, its effects, and strategies for overcoming it. Educate friends, family, and professionals involved in the child’s life to create a supportive network.

Where it might help things along, engage with mental health professionals who specialise in trauma, family dynamics and have a firm understanding of ‘parental alienation’ (though they might not want to mention those words out loud as they’re loaded and potentially insulting/upsetting to the child.

Consistency in your actions and words is crucial. Demonstrate reliability and a commitment to rebuilding the relationship by being present and involved in your child’s life. Understand that rebuilding trust is a gradual process. Be patient and set realistic expectations for yourself and your child. Avoid rushing the reconciliation process.

Create an environment where open and honest communication is encouraged. Both parties need to express their feelings, fears, and hopes without judgment. However, I would suggest that the child speaks more fully. It can even be that, years down the line, the child is unable to accept that anyone but them was the victim. They have endured a hell of a lot of ‘programming’ in that alienation period. It’s heavy with guilt, shame, anger, grief … let them unload (this isn’t easy) in a ‘safe space’ with you, one where your child feels emotionally secure. It might have to be neutral ground at first. And let them not fear retribution and anger. Do all you can to give them a sounding board, empathy, patience and love.

I hope you enjoy our daily posts, offering guidance. Reach out if I can help you with the coaching I offer.

#charliemccready

#parentalalienationcoach

#narcissisticabuseawareness

Camille – Visionary , Died in a mental hospital

Born in 1864, died in 1943—forgotten by the world, left to languish in a mental hospital.

What was her story?

She came to Paris to study art at a time when the prestigious École des Beaux-Arts was open only to men. Undeterred, she joined studios that welcomed women. There, she met and became the lover of the celebrated sculptor Auguste Rodin. Their relationship was one of fiery passion and shared artistry—they created side by side, their collaborative genius preserved in works housed today in the Rodin Museum and Musée d’Orsay.

But Rodin, already entangled in a long-standing relationship with another woman, eventually left Camille. As his reputation soared, hers plummeted. She was scorned, shunned, and dismissed—not just as a lover but as an artist. Alone, distrusting, and out of favor, she struggled to sell her works.

Adding to her isolation, her brother, the renowned poet and diplomat Paul Claudel, played a pivotal role in her downfall. Camille, seen as “too modern” and a source of familial shame, was forcibly institutionalized by her family. For 30 years, she fought to explain the injustice of her confinement, writing anguished letters to friends and family, pleading for release. Her clarity and heartbreak resonate in these preserved writings.

On October 19, 1943, Camille Claudel died of malnutrition in a French hospital. No family members attended her funeral, and her body was buried in a common grave.

Decades later, the world has finally recognized her brilliance. Her legacy has been restored: her sculptures now stand proudly beside Rodin’s, and a museum near Paris is dedicated entirely to her work.

Camille Claudel is no longer forgotten. She is honored as the visionary she always was.

Narcissism

When you’re in a relationship with a narcissist, there will always be another secret life going on behind your back.

This is because these people are very empty, and they need stimulation from multiple sources just to face existence. They’ll be doing drugs or pornography. They’ll be stringing multiple partners through flirting and emotional affairs. They will be chasing financial intrigue that occasionally gets them into scams and trouble.

The reason they must flirt with other people is also because they’re seeking to move on to other people who don’t know the games they play.

They know they’ll get bored with you eventually, or you’ll learn to resist their shenanigans. And since being alone would kill them, they begin to groom possible replacements among anyone whom they can charm.

You’ll also notice this habit of making promises to you and then using those promises as a dangling carrot to get compliance from you. If you don’t do what they want, they’ll withdraw the promise.

Sometimes, they’ll deny having promised at all, or they postpone it until you give up. The truth is that they never intended to fulfill it in the first place.

Narcissists have lost all sense of right and wrong. Everything is about satisfying themselves.

When you finally leave, they’ll circle back to you, pretending to be checking on you when actually they’re checking if they still have access.

If you have a child with them, they would weaponise that child to torture you until you cut them off totally or you manage to enforce boundaries with the help of the law.

But the child will be scarred or wasted by the counter parenting and objectification from the narcissist.

Society knows very little about narcissists.

Sometimes, you stay because you fear the pain of letting go until you realize the pain you’re already taking for holding on.

Other times, you think you’re staying for the children until you realize that the narcissist is turning all of them into other small narcissists and broken empaths.

Your solution is to recognize that this person is incapable of peace. They’re only excellent at pretending and confusing you.

You will never have a life until you detach from them and direct your life towards wholeness and emotional stability.

Credit to original poster.

Loss in the silence

Perhaps it’s due to several decades of overt targeting, prior to several decades of being up close and personal to the dream and the nightmare .

I know I’ll never be the same ; our sons won’t ever be who we were and it’s past time to recreate my space and step out of the long shadow of high conflict , malignant , manipulation , intimate partner violence that produces Child Psychological Abuse that’s largely abused or ignored legally .

“The loneliest moment in someone’s life

is when they are watching their

whole world fall apart,

and all they can do is stare blankly.

It’s not the shattering itself that breaks you

it’s the silence that follows,

the quiet space where you realize

there’s nothing left to salvage.

And in that moment,

you know that you’ll never be the same again.

You’ll build something new,

perhaps,

but it will never be what you lost.”

F. Scott Fitzgerald

Going to leave this broke down palace,

On my hands and my knees G⚡️D

Children back talking

When a child backtalks, sometimes also referred to as mouthing-off or sassing, they are in the throes of a huge, internal maelstrom of emotion. Whatever they are reacting to in the moment, whether it’s being told ‘no’ about something or being asked to do or not do something, it is rarely those issues that are at the root of the problem. The moment at hand is just the tipping point causing a fissure in the child’s heart that lets out a bit of the steam inside. The real concern should be that there is, metaphorically, steam in the child’s heart to begin with.

It is at this point that parents have the opportunity to model self-control and self-regulation by controlling their own knee-jerk reaction to their child’s backtalk. Instead of meeting fire with fire, childish outburst with childish parental outburst, child’s tantrum with adult tantrum, parents can slow down, breathe through their own emotions, and then listen through the fiery storm of their child’s words to the hurt, fear, and anger behind the words.

In the same way that “a gentle answer turns away wrath,” a soft-voiced, “Let’s take a minute and calm down so we can work through this together, okay?” from a parent is a magical, healing balm that immediately begins to diffuse tough situations and creates an atmosphere in which connection and communication can bring effective, peaceful solutions not only to the issue at hand, but to the inner turmoil that prompted the outburst in the first place.

Meeting a child at their point of need when that need is expressed through meltdowns, yelling, disrespect, or defiance takes patience, self-control, and empathy on the part of a parent, which can be a huge growth experience for the parent if they, themselves, were not parented that way. But the impact of living those positive life skills in front of our children is immeasurable.

-L.R.Knost

Read more: http://www.littleheartsbooks.com/2013/07/08/backtalk-is-communicationlisten/

________________________

📚Peaceful Parenting Resources: http://t.co/T8goym3P6Z 📚

________________________

Please respect the work of authors, photographers, and artists. You are welcome to share provided you include appropriate credit and do not crop out author’s names from quote memes. Thank you. 🙂

#thegentleparent #peacefulparenting #parenting #children #life #kindness #faith #feminism #socialjustice #equality #globalresponsibility #humanity #peace #sexualassaultsurvivor #cancer #cancerwarrior #books #quote #LRKnost

http://www.LRKnost.com

Fighting a rare, incurable cancer, but I’m still here!💞 L.R.