Parental Alienation Ruined My Life

February 9, 2021

If you want to know, then this is my story. Read it if you like. If I ask you to, I’ll tell you what I want from you. My story is all true and I would like for the reader to take away the fact that parental alienation destroyed me entirely over the course of the last twenty years and if you can help me in any way, I would greatly appreciate it. To reunite with my children would make me forever grateful. Let me begin by ensuring everyone that I am not a criminal. I have never been charged in a court of law for any crime other than a misdemeanor crime. I have not been convicted of a felony or federal crime. Some of the charges were charges brought about during the parental alienation period of my life. When I was divorcing my ex-husband, he had me arrested falsely, and turned wanting to be a mother into a crime. How is it in the best interest of the children to ruin their mother emotionally and financially? I have no felony charges. These are all misdemeanors, all are alcohol related, all except one are over 10 years old and most can be linked to this traumatic event in my life. I’d like for you to read my narrative explaining how parental alienation has ruined my life. I am unable to find work because of my record with SLED. People will hire me, but then retract the offer when they run my background.

Greenwood County Voter Registration office hired me recently, I interviewed, and they hired me on the spot. Only, they called me the next day and to retract the offer. I tell potential employers that I have a misdemeanor record. I have a letter from Greenwood School District 50 where I applied for a job as a substitute teacher, stating that they could not hire me “due to your SLED background check.” I lived a life at one time. I worked, paid bills, took care of children, but was an alcoholic all the time. I have been sober since December of 2014. I have had no trouble with the law in ten years. I deserve to be able to get a job and get on with my life following such a horrific event in my life.

Losing custody of my two daughters is the most traumatic event that I have ever experienced in my life. It is like experiencing my children’s death, only it never ends. The girls are 21 and 23 years old now and were abused by parental alienation since they were ages 4 and 7. It was not only their father who poisoned their minds, but his entire family. A financially influential presence in our small-town community and among authorities, they were able to impose a great deal of damage. At that time, I was an alcoholic and my behavior self-destructed right into their strategy to destroy me entirely as a person. It has been a nasty battle that I have been dealing with for twenty years. I don’t want to say that I have given up, because I will never lose hope, but I just feel so defeated and beaten down by years of chaos, lies, and anguish. The oppression I experienced from my ex-husband and local law enforcement became too much to bear. I just kept on losing more and more in my life.

When my children were ages 4 and 7, they began to experience parental alienation by their father, my ex-husband, against me. In the summer of 2004, alcoholism consumed my life and I was in a downward spiral. Don’t get me wrong, I functioned, but not at the level I should have been. I worked a full-time job as a business office manager in a nursing home and had been working there since December 1996. I had custody of my children following the divorce and my ex-husband had visitation every other weekend. At that time, I was on good terms with my ex-husband and I told him I would be going to rehab for alcohol and drugs, that it was what I needed to do for myself and my children, and he encouraged me to get help; we could just work it all out. By that I assumed he meant he wanted to restore our relationship as a married couple. I did not want that.

When I left town to go the drug and alcohol rehabilitation hospital in Statesboro, GA, my ex-husband proceeded directly to the courthouse to file emergency custody papers, stating that I had abandoned my children. Abandoned? What? I was devastated when my mother later notified me by phone at the hospital that my ex had taken custody of the girls. The staff at Willingway was most disobliging of my circumstances. They threatened me that if I left to come home to deal with the situation with the children that they would contact the authorities and tell them that if I did not complete rehab, it would be in the best interest of the children not to be in my custody. They said I would never get my children back. I was inconsolable and desperate to come home, but after 45 days in the hospital, I came home only to keep picking up a drink.

I went to the attorney who had handled my divorce. He advised me to get sober, go to AA, be good for six months and I get my kids back. Simple enough, right? Not by any agenda. When I say I was an alcoholic, I mean I was totally saturated from my gut to my brain to my soul. Alcohol consumed me and I could not quit. Only God was able to take that from me with a miracle, and I am forever grateful to have been sober since Christmas 2014. But, that is another story all in itself. This is a story of a tragic event that occurred in my life and how it affected me long and my rights as not only a parent but as a human.

The parental alienation by my ex-husband and his family destroyed me completely. And once again, how is that in the best interest of the children? The manufactured tales of their horrible mother who is arrested all the time. It was easy to paint the picture of a criminal when they were fully backed by our local small-town Sheriff’s Department. Now I know that all of my arrests have not been ex-husband related but the majority of them were. The majority of them were dropped due to lack of evidence. But, I was so drunk all the time, depressed, desperate to see my children, so, I fully played into their hands and their plan to alienate me from my children’s lives and to destroy my life. Why did they want to destroy me? I do not know of a reason. I guess I must have ruined somebody else’s life.

Essentially, that is what he has done. My life is as a productive member of society is over. I have been falsely arrested four times based on fabrications by Chris Godfrey. These were false allegations and the charges were dropped due to lack of evidence. There was no evidence. Nothing was ever retracted from the news however, and my children and everyone else, see me as a criminal. I have been slandered in the news and the girl’s father made sure they were aware of my arrests. And how is it in the best interest of the children to ruin their mother emotionally and financially?

In any event, the girl’s father began to not let me talk to the them. He would tell them things that would make them shy away from me and not want to talk on the phone or be around me and come see me. And, when I would call, he would have me arrested for unlawful use of telephone. What the hell? I’m their mother! And the sheriff’s dept just went with whatever my ex said about me and would take out a warrant on me.

I can’t count how many times he has had me arrested for unlawful use of telephone and violation of a restraining order. One time he had me arrested for stalking, once for identity theft, and once for criminal domestic violence of a high and aggravated nature with intent to kill. He told the police that I tried to run over him with my car. Now mind you, this supposedly happened at a 16-lane intersection, at 8:30 in the morning, and no one saw anything to report. Not one other person saw this horrific act, but the story made its way to Fox21 News. However, my ex reported the entire lie and I was arrested. A total fabrication. And once again I am slandered in the local media for my children to see. They must have been so embarrassed. My ex did not take into consideration the fragile lives of our children when exposing such young children to such adult issues.

I wish that now, since they are adults, my girls could be open minded enough to be told the truth about their mother and about the untruths told by their father. That is what I’ve always been told. You know, that my children would just know better when they got to be older. Well mine did not. Simple as that. I keep wondering how long until they are old enough that they will be able to understand or want to know the truth. I want to be able to talk to them and have a relationship with reasoning and understanding.

It is truly an awful feeling to be telling the truth, screaming it, and no one wants to hear anything but the sordid details of the original lie. I have endured a lot of awful feelings inside. By alienating me from my children, my ex-husband has inflicted much pain all over me. He was relentless and brutal in his mind games controlling the children’s thoughts and beliefs. He corrupted their little minds and filled them with fear, hatred, and God only knows what other lies. This man pursued me relentlessly with the criminal authorities backing his fabrications every step of the way. I, saturated in alcohol, played right into his dirty, rotten tactics to make me look like a horrible monster.

I honestly do not remember the last time that I saw my children. Well, I have seen them in public in our small town and it is terribly awkward. They run away from me, as does their infantile father. My oldest daughter has at least one child that I am aware of, but I have never met them. I recently started communication in the way of notes and cards, at the urging of my therapist. I do not know where they live or how to contact them. The ex-father in law agreed to get the correspondence to the children that I send to his address. But, I may as well live on Mars. It hurts. It really does. How could he brainwash their little minds so badly with no remorse? Why, all of a sudden, did the father of my children, decide he wanted to utterly destroy me? It must have been embarrassing for my girls too. When I would be arrested and some cock-a mani story is in the news, I know he made sure that the girls were aware. They were just too young. They should not have been exposed to the parental alienation practiced by the entire family on my ex’s side.

Parental alienation is a term I sadly, came to know well; and my children’s father became an expert at it! I have feelings of hurt, anger, resentment, lost hope, betrayal, and grief. When I lost custody of my children, I suffered a tragic loss and grief does overwhelm me. I don’t deal with the grief in my life because I still, in my mind, see my children as two little girls, ages 4 and 7, who have lost their mother to alcoholism. It truly was another “lifetime.” I had another life once. Now I live a different life. This is how I cope.

I have a lot of embarrassment and shame concerning my children. The awkwardness is thick and heavy surrounding my relationship with them. If I see them in public, it is awkward because they do not see me as their mother. They have hatred for me. My love for them is awkward. There is such an immense difference between us, me, and my girls. I don’t know what the future holds but, so far my children are totally unreceptive to me and the idea of me being in their lives. I never lose hope. Almost, but not completely.