Nine published accounts — books, interviews, parliamentary testimony, and a peer-reviewed study’s participants. Brief quotations only; the rest is summary. Both directions are represented: children cut off from fathers and children cut off from mothers. Where an account has limits, they are labelled.
Tamara Jansen
Testimony to Canada’s House of Commons Justice Committee, Oct 2026 · Reported by ARPA Canada, 10 Nov 2026
Alienated from her father · Mother portrayed him as evil
“I had lost almost twenty-five years with my dad.”
Her father was a hardworking baker; after the divorce when she was six, her mother — a psychiatric nurse — portrayed him as “the ultimate evil.” She was taught to hate him and lost contact for about 25–30 years. Reunited as an adult, she was “shocked to discover how much alike we were… We thought the same way, we shared the same passions for entrepreneurship and creativity.” He died of pneumonia shortly after a reconciliation attempt.
What she wishes had happenedThat the court had recognised the manipulation and protected her relationship with both parents. Every time you tell a child the other parent is bad, she argues, you are telling the child half of them is bad.
Source: ARPA Canada — Federal bill could significantly change family law
Lisa Goodpaster
Author, Alienated: When Parents Won’t Parent (Archway, 2023) · Founder, The Stephood Project
Alienated from her mother · Stepmother as alienator
“My childhood was a living nightmare, alienated from my mother while staying silent to protect my dad.”
Divorced at four, she describes her mind “held captive” by her stepmother, who erased her right to know and love both parents — a 40-year psychological nightmare she only understood as alienation as an adult, after finding a manuscript her stepmother had written fabricating conversations and events. Recovery involved intensive psychotherapy, somatic therapy, and the Hoffman Process.
What she wishes had happenedCo-parenting and awareness, so other children are not “led with years of trauma and confusion.” She founded the Stephood Project to reach survivors who do not yet know what happened to them.
Source: The Stephood Project — My Story
Andrew Folkler
Writer, The Red Thread (Substack)
Alienated from his mother · Stepmother as alienator
“We internalized that conflict as blame that belonged to her.”
Growing up in Singapore, negativity at home was directed at his mother; the children grew resistant to seeing her because it brought conflict, sliding from moderate to severe alienation and ultimately no contact. As the oldest he was parentified — responsible for siblings, later dropping out of college to work and buy a house for the family — leading to burnout and depression. Reconnecting as an adult, he “took complete ownership… because I felt I owed her some kind of debt for all the suffering she endured.”
What he wishes parents understoodThat alienators impose roles on children — parentified child, scapegoat, golden child — and a child’s rejection is not freely chosen. Targeted parents and therapists should help the child step out of the role.
Source: The Red Thread — The Roles of the Alienated Child, Part I
Rick Marks, PhD
FamilyLife Blended podcast, Ep. 103, 16 Jan 2023
Alienated from his mother · Father as alienator
“We were then raised to hate my biological mother. I was not allowed to call her [Mom]… I had to call her Mrs. Como.”
Born 1961; his parents divorced when the four children were 4, 3, 2, and six months old. His father was his idol — “I am daddy’s boy” — and he did not hear the term “parental alienation” until adulthood, though he knew what had happened in the 1960s–70s. He later reconnected with his mother, who “loved me no matter what from afar,” and wove the story into his teaching on healthy relationships to honour her.
What his story showsA rejected parent’s steady love from afar matters — his mother never stopped loving him despite being denied her children, and that is what he carried into adulthood.
Source: FamilyLife Blended Ep. 103 transcript (PDF)
Anna Grandusky
Therapist · Bluebonnet Affiliated Counseling Services, 18 Mar 2025
Alienated from her father · Later estranged from her mother
“None of it was truly my choice.”
Her parents divorced when she was one. Her mother presented as a devout, flawless church figure while interrogating her after every Sunday visit to her father and drilling guilt into her. At 12 she was forced to sit with her father and stepmother and say she did not want to see them. At 14 she chose to live with her father full-time; her mother packed her belongings, gave her room to her brother, and later told her living with her father would turn her into a “slut and a druggie.” She never willingly saw her mother again. Labelled accurately: attempted alienation from the father that ended in estrangement from the mother.
What she wishes people understood“The depth of the alienation I endured and the price I paid for simply trying to survive” — and that she can parent differently, so her own children are never forced to choose between love and survival.
Source: Bluebonnet ACS — Parental Alienation Hits Home
Meagan
The Present Father Show (YouTube) — “I Was Alienated From My Dad”
Alienated from her father
“Keep showing up. Send the birthday message. Remember the milestones. Stay consistent. Love them without conditions.”
Separated from her father in childhood and reunited at 16, she began seeing a side of him “completely different from the person she had been led to believe he was.” She did not realise it was parental alienation until her twenties, watching her partner go through it with his own children. As a child she felt abandoned even though her father kept trying — she simply never saw many of his attempts. She describes the loyalty bind, being silenced when she asked about the other parent, and doubting her own experiences well into adulthood.
Her advice to alienated parentsKeep showing up — and let information about alienation come from third parties rather than forcing the realisation on the child.
Source: The Present Father Show (YouTube)
Steven Eichenblatt
Attorney · Been There Got Out interview on his memoir Pretend They Are Dead
Alienated from his father · Extreme case — labelled as such
“I lost track of my emotions — I call it the feeling of no feeling.”
Around age seven or eight, his biological father — on a psychiatrist’s advice — decided to “pretend they are dead,” disappearing while living in the same town. His mother remarried without warning (“this is your new dad”), the children’s names were changed, and the new household was harsh and at times violent. He became “a professional compartmentalizer.” As an adult he names difficulty with intimacy, a harsh internal voice, and grief not only for his father but for grandparents and an uncle — “collateral damage” when one side of a family disappears. He sought his father out as a young adult; there was no fairy-tale resolution. This is the extreme end — adoption, name change, disappearance — not a typical custody case.
What he wishes parents understoodA quiet, “resilient-seeming” child may be compartmentalising grief. Anger “will cost you” and will not get children back faster — alienated parents need real support and therapy.
Source: Been There Got Out — Being the Alienated Child
Anonymous adult child
VictimToHero.com — “An Open Letter to Alienated Parents”
Alienated from her father · Mother as alienator
“I parroted my mother’s words since I was a child about how horrible a man he was… In fact, there was no evidence at all.”
She refused contact with her father and met him only twice briefly. In secret she admired him, searching newspaper poems he published hoping for a reference to her, “living a dual reality” — openly calling him a monster, privately wishing she had the courage to run to him. He died before they reconciled. A relative later told her what her mother had done to keep him out of her life, and she found a secret website he had created for her, with writings and poems.
Her message to alienated parents“Your children need you. They need your love even when they reject you… Keep reaching out, because even when they refuse contact, they need the assurance that you haven’t given up. Live a fabulous life so they can look up and admire you.”
Source: VictimToHero — An Open Letter to Alienated Parents
Twenty adults in one study
Verhaar, Matthewson & Bentley (2022), Children — pseudonymous participants, ages 26–59
Research voices · Both directions (75% mother as alienator, 25% father)
“I was a functioning depressed person where I would go to work, I could handle kids, but I would fall apart after that.”
Mean age of separation from the targeted parent was 6.9 years; 80% later reunified — and difficulties persisted even after reunion. On suicidal thoughts: “I often had suicidal thoughts. That was throughout my 20s… it was a horrible life at times.” On numbing pain with substances: “Anything to get away and not feel.” Half became targeted parents themselves — and for some, their children were what stopped them: “The thing that did stop me was thinking about my kids and wanting to see them again.”
What the study arguesAlienating behaviours should be recognised as emotional abuse, and reunification alone should not be treated as a cure.
Source: Verhaar et al. (2022) — full study (PMC)