When Alienation Makes Sense, Part I

I have one particular memory of my father’s physical abuse that is extremely vivid. There are other’s but this one is unique.

We were all in the living room watching TV. My sibling and I sat on the floor, keeping our eyes glued to the TV set. Behind us on the couch, the argument between my parents got more and more tense. I remember my sibling and I both sliding closer and closer towards the screen, inch by inch, moving very slowly we tried to become invisible. I also remember not being able to see what was on the TV screen because my tears were blurring my vision. We didn’t dare cry out loud, not sure why, I just know we didn’t that night. At some point, when it seemed I couldn’t possibly sit any closer to the TV, my parents were standing in the hallway to the bedroom. I eventually turned away from the TV to see what was going on when I heard my Mom say, “please don’t”. She was no longer standing but trying to shuffle across the floor on her hand’s and knees. My father’s hand had grabbed her by the hair and she was being dragged into the bedroom, while his other hand opened the bedroom door. I don’t remember anything more about the evening after that. So, my Dad is not a nice person. In fact, he is down right scary. He scared me then and he scares me now. My parents eventually divorced.

The really interesting part about this particular incident is not the abuse, or the fear, its how I remembered it or maybe even more so… when its meaning changed and how that changed my relationship with my father. I was in high school. I was laying in my bed thinking my way awake after a peaceful night’s rest just like I usually did each morning. My mind drifted to how I felt sorry for my Dad, living all alone now, as my parents had divorced many years ago. Then I thought about the years at my childhood home. My mind skipped from one memory to another in no specific order and then without warning, to that specific evening. Suddenly, I was bolting upright in bed. Sitting up, feeling somewhat stunned, I replayed the events of that evening in detail like I had many times before. The TV, the carpet, the tears, the sounds, the sight of my Mom struggling under the ruthlessness of my Father’s actions. You see… this wasn’t the first time I had thought about that night. But this was the first time I felt differently about it. In times past, it was just another memory. Now it had words like violence, ruthlessness and fear attached to it. I told myself then, as I tell myself now… I just happened to be ready to put the memory into the category it belonged.

I never told my Mom about that morning, or what I remembered. Not until I was an adult did she know I even thought about my father as a violent man. I don’t know why that memory seemed to reside in a state of suspended animation until that time but that was when I decided I didn’t need to feel sorry for him anymore and I could do without tension-filled, guilt-trip ridden visits with him. If anyone should feel guilty, it should be him. I stopped participating in visitations with my father. I told him and I told my Mom that I had other things to do that just couldn’t be rescheduled. I never mentioned my epiphany to either of them.

So, how does this all relate to the subject of this blog, PAS?

I chose not to see him. I realized I didn’t like him. One could argue that I was alienated from him. And isn’t alienation also called PAS?  Well, in this case, it may have been alienation but it wasn’t PAS. Here’s why… The reason I felt the way I did about him and chose not to see him was because of him, his actions and his behaviors, not someone else’s. This is the ONLY time alienation makes sense or better put… alienation is an understandable and an appropriate reaction.

If someone like my Mom had kept me from visiting him, convinced or told me of the person he is, and then I chose not to see him and dislike him, then that would be PAS. While my Mother did her best within the system to protect us from him, she did not alienate us from him. There’s a big distinction here between protect and alienate. While protecting your children helps them, alienating them harms them. We’ll talk lots more about this later.

Gratefully, I was allowed to come to my own decisions about my father. I didn’t want much to do with him, I didn’t like him and I had very good reasons why. Sadly, I still do.

Read a continuation of this post at, When Alienation Makes Sense, Part 11

Advertisement