Parental Alienation: A Mental Diagnosis?

My husband and i have been together for 10 and a half years now,We have 4 children together 3 from his previous and 1 from mine. I have helped raise the girls since they were 4 years old and the little guy since he was 7 months old, unfortunately i have had to deal with my husbands ex-wife for 10 and a half years as well. As the years have passed and her continuos failed relationships and two failed marriages she has become more and more difficulte. Difficulte is not even close to discribe this person she is a viscous virus that has completely encapsulated our childrens minds with her psychotic lies and every waking moment to destroy any love our son and daughters had for us. Heres the kicker we have been battling this women for all these years and more for my husband, we recently went back to court in June of 2010 to have custody changed because she had alienated and brain washed the kids so severly that they would not see or speak to us for almost a year we never gave up trying to pick them up for visitation she has violated every court order, has been indicated by DCFS, has been arrested numerous time's for contributing to minors, all of my step-kids had stright F's and had over 41 infractions in school. She was ordered by court to relocate to the neighborhood and school where we live, we have custody of the kids 60% of the time it has become a nightmare with her near she harasses us all the time, and has tried to run me off the road with her car and has become more violent. Our relationship with the kids was finally coming around and we were all happy,of course it was absolute torture like breaking a wild horse or training a wild dog,we had over come that task but as soon as that happended, this nut put her meat hooks back into the kids our eldest daughter won't even visit or talk to us and now her and the nut are dragging our middle daughter into the swamp by telling her she is fragile and sick and she needs them,they break her down like a cookie would crumble so they can be the heros to put her back together. Now our middle daughter is doing the same to our 10 year old every day by mentaly abuseing him and trying to get him to turn on us he is so tormented by them his moods alter by the minute. This is where we hit dead end, trying to row up stream with out a paddle because there is nothing anyone can do to stop this madness, the therapist that was involved with the case tried to tell the court and the judge that this women was incapable of ever being a parent and expressed the same to the GAL that was appointed. The judge had said this was the most volatile case he had ever heard of along with all of the other attorneys involved and yet they did nothing but make matters worse and give us a life sentence of torment because the court system refuse to do anything. The court system is a joke. And now my Daughter is being harassed by my step-daughters and thier crazy mother at school and at home. Our torment is that we love the kids so much

francine of IL 11:41PM November 09, 2010

I' ve seen PAS fold out resulting in separation from my daughter, after which, I discovered it. It was as if the mother had been using the literature on PAS as a source of instructions.

gb 7:22AM October 18, 2010

I teach a mandatory class for divorcing Illinois parents - I've had over 2000 parents take this class. In every class there is a parent telling this story. The more extreme cases are against the father. Most of whom are heartbroken and at a total loss for explaining when/why the child's attitude (towards them) has changed. It's commonly found where one parent involves the child in a campaign of hatred against the other parent. But, clearly some kids have their own reasons and both parents are trying to figure out why.

It's sad and puts a name to a very real experience. I'll be discussing it in my class tomorrow.

Denise of IL 11:27PM October 01, 2010

I have seen several legal cases in Southwestern Pennsylvania. It is heart-breaking to see children completely oust a wonderful parent because the other parent is alienating to such a degree that the children form beliefs that are so irrational about the alienated parent that they commence threatening harm to themselves. It is not hard to accept this problem when you see it first hand and how quickly the children isolate from the alienated parent believing them to be "dangerous" and "bad." I am so hopeful that the DSM-V recognizes this catastrophic psychologically damaging phenomenon which can lead a child to commit suicide in severe cases. In one of my legal cases, the child ran into ongoing traffic on a major highway to avoid seeing her father and was almost killed. It went on too far and too long before the Court recognized and permitted expert fact testimony about PAS. If you are the alienated parent, stay zealously ambitious and don't let cement dry under your feet. You MUST start forcing custody immediately and try to educate everyone around you. I suggest reading Dr. Bernet's work and Amy L. Baker, who has authored books and papers on this topic which are very insightful.

The key is educating yourself early and staying vigilant in your efforts to stop the alienation. We have an up-hill battle and all the support we can give to the team fighting for recognition of PAS in the upcoming DSM need our support.

Mariah of PA 9:12AM September 20, 2010