Dear Pamela,

I have a court case coming up this month. I feel sick even reading excerpts from your book. I am the custodial parent of a beautiful little girl. She comes home frequently from visits with her father upset and crying.

I made one decision a year ago to not let her go on a weekend long camping trip with her father, but instead to have a sleepover at his house in the city.

He is now accusing me of alienating her from him. According to our daughter, he bad mouths me continuously on visits, and it makes her feel sad. He is berating to her, and in her words she doesn’t feel safe with him.

However, if I try and shelter her, I am alienating and risk losing custody of her. I have to push her out the door into cruelty. and it breaks my heart. I am responding because I feel a lot of fear hearing about this issue. I fear this is a super-charged issue with a lot of emotion affecting families on a very deep level.

I feel deep empathy for Ms. Richardson’s experience. I can not imagine, (and pray I never have to) losing a child. It is excruciating watching our daughter suffer presently, and I am fighting with hopes of her quality of life improving.

I think it is dangerous to paint the portrait of a complex issue with only one brush. I fear that if we load a term such as PAS with intense emotion, and then define it with generalities about custodial parents for example, or mothers, or whatever the case may be; people start behaving erratically.

I am hoping and praying that the judicial system will take the time and care to really look into the issues on a per family case, with calm rational, or else we will be further depriving families of justice.

Corina
Canada

Hi Pamela,

I just finished your book in 2 days and bought 2 more – for my lawyer and parenting coordinator. I am a father of five kids who I have seen only 3 times in five years. The parallelism and the heartbreaks you had were very similar to what is happening to me right now. My eldest daughter has severe PAS in my opinion and this started when she was 8 or 9 but now she is eighteen. Before I had healthy relationship with them and tried my best to stay with their mother. BUt after 4 break ups, it was already too much. So when I separated, the kids also told me they were divorcing me and abused me verbally just like in your book. I am very heartbroken and paralyzed emotionally. As I read every word of your book my heart bled as I can relate to what you were feeling at that time. Before I existed for my kids though I was in a loveless marriage for years. Yet with all my sacrifices, my kids abused me, swear at me and cannot even call me Daddy. If there is hell on earth, I guess I am in it right now. I hope I will write my story in the future and pray it will not end the same way for the kids.

If you have any words of advise, I will really appreciate it.
Louie

To Pamela Richardson,

Thank you from the bottom of my heart for all of your efforts in this cause. From listening to you on the CBC Radio, I finally have a label and some understanding of the terrible ordeal that my family went through over the last ten years. While I sought legal advise and many counselors to help my children, PAS was never mentioned. Instead I was told my son was depressed and anxious, which I now realize was the outcome of PAS not the cause. My son used to come home every week in tears and felt completely torn by his father’s requests for him to discuss legal and financial issues with me. It came to the point that I stopped accepting any child support in the hopes that his father would leave him alone.

Unfortunately, I saw this all unfold again for my children, when their father who is a lawyer divorced his third wife and continued the cycle all over again with their step mom. Things have settled down again, but I so wish I had this knowledge during those difficult times, when it seems no one really understands the effect this is having on your children. I will try to learn how to foster happiness and confidence with the resources that you have provided. I am grateful that you took your tragedy to make the world a safer and happier place for all children. I wish you the best in this pursuit.

I have just looked at the information on the Dash Foundation Web site for the first time and feel compelled to express my admiration and gratitude for your courage and generosity in carrying on a crucial campaign against one of the most sinister threats to children in our society: PAS.

I, like you, am one of those “passive” parents on the receiving end of PAS. However, I believe I may have managed to wake up in time to save my child from the worst consequences of PAS. There was a costly and frustratingly slow and unnecessarily prolonged trial that resulted with the judge recognizing all the damage that had been and would continue to be perpetrated against the child and, yet, the judge decided to leave the child with the perpetrator parent without granting me even supervised access. I am happy to say that the Supreme Court judge’s decision was overturned on appeal. However, our ordeal is far from over as the Supreme Court of British Columbia seems all to willing to continue to empower the abusive parent to carry on her cruel campaign to destroy our child’s chances to heal emotionally and mentally.

I believe that the children of PAS are ultimately victimized by a cynical and self-serving judicial system. I only wish I had the means to embark on a campaign to bring about much needed legislation to stop the judicial system from using children’s lives as a pretext to engage in the financial exploitation of parents.

- Marcus.

Dear Ms. Richardson:

Thank you for the copies of the book you couriered to my office. It was very generous of you and I do appreciate it. I will see if I can forward them to people involved in this area in the hope that the message gets through and helps at least one family. It is sad that so tragic a circumstance had to occur and that, despite your best efforts, nothing could stop the damage being done to your son.

I can tell you that my conversations with clients that are even passively influencing their children against the children’s other parent have a new urgency after reading your book. My clients are responding accordingly as I call upon their love of their child(ren) to ensure that what they say and do not say is supportive of the other parent’s relationship with their child. I am noticing a distinct difference in their response as they ask me to take steps to relay the same message to counsel for the other parent.

In the meantime, a group of Vancouver family lawyers have taken steps to incorporate a society of Parenting Coordinators to act as referees, in high conflict cases. The Parenting Coordinators are family lawyers, psychologists and counsellors trained in mediation and arbitration. The parties sign a contract which lasts as much as two years and retain the Parenting Coordinator to resolve disputes regarding children, promptly, by attempting mediation and, when that fails, by arbitrating disputes. We hope that this will reduce the level of conflict children are exposed to and reduce the length of time any particular conflict takes to resolve. Of course, decisions that are arbitrated are subject to review by the courts, but the standard of review is such that we expect only decisions that are clearly wrong will be set aside.

The courts are supportive of the Parenting Coordinators and we are already seeing Judges and Masters encouraging parties to use them.

I believe your book will be helpful in educating the courts and counsel about the dangers of not dealing aggressively with signs of child alienation. I am much more than just saddened that you had to endure the experiences you detail within it, but hopeful that it will enlighten those who are in a position to help others. I appreciate your courage and the phenomenal strength it must have taken to complete the book.

Sincerely,

North Shore Law
Per: Patricia Bond

Dear Pamela Richardson,

Your appearance on W5 last November occurred right in the middle of my own experience of PAS. I am so thankful to W5 for airing that show and to you for having the courage to be on it to help people like me and to educate the public, which is so badly needed. I want you to know how much your pain and courage are helping others.

That TV feature was the first I had ever heard of PAS and confirmed for me that this is exactly what I was going through. Unfortunately, the week W5 aired and I finally realized what was happening, my son was gone. He left me to “spend and extra week” with his father (we have 50/50 custody) and since he left I have not been able to see him or speak to him for 6 months. I am being blocked from contacting him by phone or email. He has even shut out my parents and all his aunts, uncles and cousins.

My ex and I have been divorced for 8 years now, and the PAS started full force when he got re-married. I tried being his wife’s friend from the time they met, but then she told me she couldn’t speak to me any more because my “ex” didn’t want her to, and then the emotional battle for my son began.

She now has my son calling her “mom” and he is convinced that I am an evil person or dangerous monster. He is trained to ignore me and turn the other way if he ever sees me in public or I try to say “hi” to him. His dad shows up at school morning, noon and after school to make sure I don’t try to talk to him in the hallway, to the point where my ex follows me wherever I go in the school.

My ex has even tried to block me from knowing any information about my son, such as extra-curricular, academic and medical, even though, as joint custodian, I have the right to this information and have had to fight for it. Like your ex Peter, my ex-husband coaches most of my son’s sports, so naturally I am never emailed information or even told what team my son is on.

I have tried the “legal” route as you did, but lawyers simply say, “He’s 13; he can do whatever he wants”.

I think to myself, “Yeah, until my dysfunctional son is vandalizing your car or dating your daughter….”

Fortunately, my 11 year-old-daughter has not succumbed to their Alienation tactics, even though they do not allow her to call me or talk to me if I see her when she is with them in public. She is not allowed to mention me or say anything about me in their presence. My son tries to make her feel bad for continuing to love me and see me.

Part of the reason she has not been poisoned is because I decided that I needed to educate her as much as I could on PAS. I can’t do anything to help my son, but maybe I can save my daughter. I showed her the W5 episode, which really helped her understanding and awareness of what is going on. When she saw that you had written a book, she said “You should get that book, mom.” I wasn’t really interested in getting the book since I knew the end of your story through the show, and I already had a stack of reading I wanted to get through.

Then we saw the book when we were out and my daughter again encouraged me to get it, so I humoured her and got it, but put it on my shelf. She relentlessly asked me how the book was and when I told her I hadn’t started it, she kept asking, “Why not?” Part of the reason is that I was trying to get over the horrible pain that plagued me day and night, and I felt reading your book would only increase my pain and feeling of hopelessness.

I was right. After the first chapter or two I had to stop, because your story was all too similar to mine and my heart ached with the turn of every page; I couldn’t take it. I wanted to ignore it all and pretend this wasn’t really happening to me, that I would wake up tomorrow and it would all be over, just a bad dream. I often liked the first 10 seconds of waking up just for that reason; in the first 10 seconds you forgot the pain and thought your life was normal, then the sinking feeling begins in your stomach and you realize that sleep was the reality and your life is the nightmare.

But something pushed me on to keep reading your book, like a train wreck you don’t want to see but can’t help but look. I felt that maybe by facing the pain it would help heal me somehow.

Reading your book helped me in so many ways and gave some relief to my soul. I realized what is seriously wrong with the Family Court System – there are no consequences to people who decide to disobey the Orders. If they were to implement fines or jail time for parents who don’t follow Court Orders, I think more people would fly straight and kids would be better taken care of by the justice system.

I realized that there is no use going down the path that you did, that all the money in the world will not bring my son back, especially since he is 13 and the courts will let him decide what he wants. One of the most frustrating things was trying to convince and educate my lawyer about PAS. She would not believe me and indicated that I must have done “something” to precipitate this situation, since “it is extremely unusual” that a child would treat his mom this way for no reason and there is no “reason or logic” for my ex and his wife to do this to me.

Even my son’s psychologist, who specializes in helping kids of divorce, said she was “vaguely aware”of Parental Alienation Syndrome. How can you be a specialist for divorced families and not have any training or knowledge of PAS? This needs to be a requirement for anyone working in the family court system.

The frustration of PAS is that unless someone knows you personally and that you are a good mom, they just can’t believe a child can turn against a parent like this. My son’s psychologist refused to see what was going on and now it is too late. My friends and their mothers have all cried for me and my situation, because they know how unjust this is and what kind of a relationship I once shared with my son. I have boxes of cards and notes he wrote to me up until 6 months ago, saying how much he loved me and how great a mom I was.

I used to have such a close bond with my son and he swore he would always love me and never leave me for anything. Then somehow my ex and his wife managed to brainwash him to the point that he will deny that I am even his mom. How do 13 years of loving memories just disappear for a kid? How do you deny your own mother?

I have thanked my daughter many times for making me read your book. It has taught me more than anybody or anything else I have read. I thank you, Pamela for writing your book and being so open with all the details, as painful as they are, but your story is the validation that victims of PAS need. You have encouraged me by your strength to go on, for there were so many times I really felt that I couldn’t go on, nor did I really want to.

I came to realize that my daughter needs me more than ever now, and I need to be thankful for her and pour my life into keeping her strong by being a strong example and to educate her on PAS. I need to show her that I can get through the PAS, and that she has the strength in herself to resist the poison that her dad, stepmom and brother continually try to inflict on her.

Thank you again for your strength and using your painful story to educate others. I hope your book will continue to create awareness and fall into the hands of people who have the power to execute the change needed to save our children.

Signed “Y”

I feel for what you went through. What I find sickening is how those in the legal system involved with your son, the Judges, the lawyers and psychologists how they can sleep at night with what happened. There was a case in early 2009 where the court overturned a decision to give custody to the father after the mother tried for 10 yrs to alienate her children from the father….it only took 10 years and the emotional abuse will last a life time…….they poor children are scarred for life….how can your ex husband look at himself in the mirror and not realize he lost the most precious thing a parent can have in life and that is a happy child! I don’t get it….I just don’t get it…..

Dennis

I am just in the middle of your book right now. I am doing a report/essay on PAS for my college English class and I came across your book. I am so sorry for your loss. It is a great book, well written, and I can relate fully.

My husbands ex-wife has alienated his 2 children form him for the past 7 years now. We went to trial and like yours, we had a psychologist that was not for us, guardian ad litem that was friends with the ex’s lawyer, and a judge that just wanted it off his docket. Our expert psychologist told the judge he must get the kids out of her care ASAP. The judge seemed to like the PAS expert and said he believed he was accurate, however, 2 months later when he gave his final order, he gave full custody to the mom?

We found out her uncle was a retired bailiff in the same court and she conveniently married a police officer in the same jurisdiction. (they are no longer together, she ripped him off blindly – another story). The kids are now 17 and 18 and they live with their mom who now has put them both in jail this year at different times, claiming they beat her. Child Protective Services were called and the kids said the mom abuses them, but, they don’t belive the kids. The school knows, they can’t do anything. We know this because we just started hearing from his daughter after 5 years via email.

However, suddenly the emails have stopped, and we think mom may have found out. She is now not responding to any of ours. They are so afraid of their mother, it’s pathetic. Now I have a friend in Florida who is going thru this. Her son is now 14 and her daughter is 8. When she went over on Thanksgiving to visit, unannounced, since no one ever returned her calls, she brought all of her kids cousins, grandparents, etc, and they asked the children to come outside so they can see them.

My friend said her son (the 14 yr. old) was so frightened, he kept looking back at the house, afraid that someone was going to come out, or just afraid of what may be said to him when he went back in. Her daughter is now becoming non-responsive to her when she shows up at the soccer games.

She never heard of PAS and I am trying to help her as much as I can. Needless to say she is devastated, and fears for her children’s lives. She said she has never seen her children look this way. She doesn’t have much money to fight this and just is at a loss. Her lawyer doesn’t know much about PAS either, just what I am feeding her.

I am going to do all I can to help her, I will do research or whatever it takes. I will not stand back and see more children go thru this. Your case sounds just like ours went. Unfortunately your son is not alive, and my heart goes out to you and your family. I commend you for all your efforts and may God Bless you. If you know of anyone who can help, please let us know. Thank you.

Janie

Hello,
I want to take this opportunity to thank everyone who has bravely sent in such painful and heartfelt letters. It is never easy to write about the emotional abuse of your children.

As you know I am a parent who has lived with PAS and not a professional. It is this reason and the pain of having to relive my own grief that cautions me from contacting all of you.

Through my website you can find resources that will hopefully be of some help. If anyone has any updated information whether it be research, articles, books or personal experience please write to me. Your voice is heard.

I have been asked to be a guest speaker at The Canadian Symposium for Parental Alienation Syndrome in Toronto. The dates are March 27th through to 29th, 2009. My book, A Kidnapped Mind will be available at the conference as a gift from The Dash Foundation.

Thank you again, from the bottom of my heart,
Pamela

Pamela, I just finished your book. It took me almost a year to read. I found it too hard to read because of the pain that I felt for you; your son, Dash; and also for your other two boys; and knowing that my situation is almost exactly the same. You may not remember but I contacted you via email and sent you my story along with some emails and pictures of my son. I have been alienated from my son for over a year now. You suggested I contact Reena Sommer, (which I did and we spoke on the phone) I found it helpful to speak to someone who has extensive knowledge of PAS. But I feel that nothing I do is working. My ex-husband has been telling me for months that my son does not want to live and talks about different ways that he can commit suicide and/or kill me. He just turned eleven. I went to visit him a week ago. His violence towards me is rising. He kicked me, punched me, hit me with his skateboard, pulled my hair, scratched my car up and wrote obscenities on it with a toy that I had given him for his birthday, broke my mirror… During my visit when I was trying to talk to my son (his father always speaking for him) I begged for his father to let me try to speak to my son alone. His father finally piped up “Tell her! Tell your mom how you want to die! Tell her how you want to kill yourself by stabbing yourself with a knife! Tell her how you want to jump out of the window to commit suicide!” Is he not planting a deadly seed?! I finally feel that I am at a point where I need to let go. Do I stop calling? Do I stop sending letters and gifts in the mail? Do I stop attempting to visit him? A very good friend told me that when my son sees me coming he sees a monster. I think he’s right. My ex-husband has brainwashed my son into believing that not only I, but his sister, grandparents, aunts and uncles are all monsters. There doesn’t seem to be anything that any of us can do to change his mind. What is it going to take for my son to prove his loyalty to his father? I am currently trying with my legal aid lawyer to facilitate visits with my son in the absence of his father and in a safe environment I know this could take months. I’ve decided not to try to visit him again until this gets sorted out. I will continue to write letters and send small gifts. It’s the only thing I can think of to do right now.

Thank you for your support. I am so sorry for all that you have been through and I admire your courage and your strength.
Tracy