Brainwashing children, Parental Alienation Syndrome

[stepnjump]

Emotional maltreatment - Verbal assault (belittling, screaming, threats, blaming, sarcasm, unpredictable responses, continual negative moods, constant family discord and double-message communication are ways parents may subject their children to emotional abuse.

Hi,

I am here because I am close to my wits end. I strongly suspect that my wife behaves in consistent way that seems to be something similar to PAS (Parental Alienation Syndrome) to our both daughters aged 7 and 9.
We were married in 2001 after a very short courtship. She became pregnant very soon after we married. I'm sure that if it hadn't been for our children, she would have divorced me within the first few months. I was obviously her type of person. Now, 10 years later, she called for a divorce.
Before she kicked me out, she asked me to grant her full custody of our children. I asked her why would that be? Wouldn't it best for them to be in touch with both parents as much as possible? She answered that she couldn't do that because she NEEDS THEM SO MUCH! I thought this answer was very immature but what do I know about psychology after all..
For over 1 year before she kicked me out of her house, I had been seeing a doctor in psychology who would keep telling me that I should divorce her at once. Based on what I had told him previously, he explained that she was a dangerous person. Being very stuck in my way of thinking, I tried over and over to make him realize that as a Christian, it was out of the question for me.
In a nutshell, when we married, we both decided it was best that I should be the one that would raise the kids at home whilst she would develop her professional life. During that time, constantly telling me that she was going to divorce me once every month or so, she tentatively would tell me that if we were to divorce, she thought that it would be best if I would agree that a shared custody would be beneficial to them. I agreed.
Years later, I had to go to Canada for many months at a time as I had been called by the estate of my late mother to settle it. My wife at the time told me that if I would leave, that I should not bother to come back. A few months later, I came back having been diagnosed with an AVM (Arterio Venous Malfformation). I had been told by Mds that I could die during the procedure which was very delicate. So I decided to come back to the region so I could see the kids, maybe one last time.. Nobody knew what could have happened to me.
After my surgery, she left taking the two kids with her far away leaving me with all the furniture and everything we hadopi accumulated over the years. Not knowing anyone in the area, I came back to Canada with a truck full of 'stuff' in the hope we might
eventually get back together as a family.

After about 9 months of separation, she allowed me to stay at her apartment. I stayed there about 1 year but due to the high elevation of Colorado, I had a hard time to breathe so whenever she wouldv kick me out of her apartment or whenever I had to leave due to the estate mandate, I would come back to Canada. At last I could breathe!

But the legal system doesn't seem to care much about that. I proved to them that I kept coming back to be with the kids every few months. It ended up costing me a lot of thousands of dollars from my inheritance so I could be a presence in their lives. The last time I came to be with them, she assaulted me by hitting me at the head where my surgery was trying to kill me. Police officers didn't even bother to write a police report. She is so smart that she uses words to get out of any situation...!

Now the legal system sees her best fit to parent our children. We recently had a mediation session in which, her lawyer was present. He suggested that I would call the kids no more than once per week because her client explained that “the kids love me so much that they don't want to tell me that they don't want to talk to me over the phone” I found it very surprising because my daughters were so close to me! Wasn't I like I find this very odd so I started looking on the web and found about this disorder: PAS.
Her lawyer even recommends that I should have supervised visits. This woman was always freaked out that I might take off with the kids to Canada. She is always afraid of everything. She can't deal with life. She hides her head down in the sand as it were.

I'm not a psychologist but from what I read over the web, my wife suffers from non-treated bipolars, panic (anxiety) attacks, has a dependency to addictive substances such as marijuana, medical prescriptions, 6 to 7 beers per night after work, etc...

When I read the following, I found out that this is exactly what is happening. She even destroyed my pictures on the wall that our oldest daughter had there. Her poster was childishly entitled: “Daddy when he was littol “ Then she called me and told me that my pictures on her wall had gone missing. I asked her if she had been stolen anything else. She said no.
I asked her why she was just calling me to tell me such a thing? She said that the kids were worried that maybe I had entered her apartment whilst they were away! She told me the kids were worried. Then I realized that 1- she might have destroyed my pictures to get back at me (anger from bipolars) and 2- to scare the kids against their dad.. How could I be in the US if she knew I was in Canada? Worse thing is she believes herself in her lies!

This was not a new thing that my wife was buddying up with my daughter against me. She clearly would say to her when she would be drunk: You are my buddy Meadow! Don't tell dad, it's a secret between you and me!
Having lived with a similar mother who kept denigrating my father after he had left, it took me for him to die and be in the same situation before I would realize what my mom had done! She was bitter that he had left her. I understand in a way because for her Marriage was for life but as to my wife, I have no idea why she's upset at me, she's the one who had kicked me out. Yes I had met someone else but AFTER she had left. I had stayed very honest for over 7 years despite all her yelling, putting me down and constantly threatening me that she would divorce me! She always tells me that I'm a bastard, an asshole and all those words, right in front of the kids. Despite the fact that she never loved me, to her it's almost like an assault on her self esteem. Why? I don't know. In a way she's happy she found grounds for divorce, on the other hand, she loves to hate me! Very weird.

I also read the description of narcisim and that seems to be very much defining her.

What would you guys suggest I do to protect these kids from the emotional abuse and to alleviate the chances that she might lash out at them one day like she did to me? The psychologist I saw suggested that I ask for the full custody until she gets treated and gets better but having never worked in over 10 years, how can I prove my point in court? Looks like the psychologist I saw doesn't want to have to go to court or something... I feel so alone!

If a psychologist might enlighten with what kind of personality I might be dealing with, it could help. I read in Wiki that PAS is not recognized in court?

Thank you very much in advance for helping those two beautiful girls. If you want to write me directly or talk on the phone.
I have no money to pay for a lawyer. Besides, I don't believe in them at all. They are only in for money.

I think what I need is to convince the judge that my ex needs to be psychologically tested to determine whether she might introduce any dangerous patterns in our kids' lives. How do I go about that?

BTW I know she had a very hard time with her dad when she was growing up. She told me she was getting slapped by her dad so much that siblings had to intervene. It's not surprising that now the pattern has transposed to our relationship between husband and wife.
Though she never told me, from reading her diaries, I strongly suspect sexual abuse might have occurred between dad and daughter but I will never know for sure.


BRAINWASHING CHILDREN
A child is being brainwashed when one parent does or says something in
an attempt to undermine the child’s relationship with the other parent.
Brainwashing children can be subtle (one parent minimizing the
existence of the other by erasing any reference to him/her in conversa-
tion or photos) or overt (“Your father doesn’t love you—he doesn’t
send me enough money to take care of you!”).
Brainwashing is sending the child a message that says, in effect: “You
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and I are allies against the world. We are best buddies. I wish you didn’t
have to be with that other parent, but there’s nothing I can do about
it—you and I are victims of a system that wrenches you away from me
three days a week and that forces me to share you with the other par-
ent. Someday you’ll be old enough to choose where you want to live,
and I just know you’ll choose my house.”
Brainwashing or programming children is usually done to convince
the child that one parent is better and more loving than the other. Par-
ents who excessively demonize the ex-spouse want their viewpoint to
be validated by others—especially by the children. If they can sway the
children to “vote” for them, it validates them as the good person and
the ex-spouse as the bad person.
A 1991 study of 700 families titled Children Held Hostage: Deal-
ing with Programmed and Brainwashed Children (Clawar and Rivlin,
American Bar Association, 1991) reported that brainwashing and pro-
Brainwashing Children
gramming occurred at least occasionally in eighty percent of families.
The study found that some level of brainwashing and programming oc-
curred more than once a week in fifty percent of families and, in the
families who were experiencing high-conflict divorces, brainwashing and
programming commonly occurred more than once a day.
In the book Healing Hearts, author Elizabeth Hickey writes:
According to the Clawar and Rivlin study, women are often
the worst offenders. Bitter mothers represent the majority of
likely programmers. The study contends that women have a
sense of ownership of their children and a conditioned view of
their role. Also, women are overwhelmingly “awarded” cus-
tody of their children and thus spend more time with their
children.
Remember that once upon a time you, too, could see the
good in the child’s other parent. Your child now stands at that
point.
What is best for [children] is a healthy relationship with
both parents, and they need permission from each parent to
enjoy a relationship with the other.
Brainwashing can result in severe, long-term emotional damage to chil-
dren. It distorts their perception of reality. For instance, they may per-
ceive Mom as a good parent, but that doesn’t coincide with what they
hear Dad saying about her. This can result in children doubting their
own sense of reality, having low self-esteem, withdrawing from rela-
tionships, becoming mistrustful or misinterpreting the world around
them—in extreme form, all symptoms of paranoia.
Brainwashing children may backfire against the parent who does it.