Parent Traps: Diane Dierks & Dr. Rick Voyles on Co-Parenting Dilemmas

[00:00:00] This winter, take your icon pass north. North to abundant access, to powder-skiing legacy, to independent spirit. North where easy to get to, meets worlds away. Go north to Snow Basin. Now on the icon pass.

[00:00:27] The views and opinions expressed by A Little Bit Culty are those of the hosts, and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the podcast. Any of the fucking mazeball content provided by our guest bloggers, sponsors, or authors are of their opinion

[00:00:41] and are not attended to malign any religion, group club, organization, business individual, anyone or anything. We're not doctors, not psychologists, we're certainly not the AP that's associated press for those of you listening at home.

[00:00:52] We're two non-experts, we found ourselves making a little podcast that people happen to like. Okay? Yeah. Okay. Hey everybody, Sarah Edmondson here. And I'm Anthony Ames, aka Nippy, Sarah's husband, and you're listening to A Little Bit Culty, aka ALBC,

[00:01:18] a podcast about what happens when devotion goes to the dark side. We've been there and back again. A little about us, true story, we met and fell in love in a cult and then we woke up and got the hell out of dodge.

[00:01:30] And the whole thing was captured in HBO docu-series The Vow, now in its second season. I also wrote about our experience in my memoir, Scarred, the true story of how I escaped next to him, the cult that bound my life.

[00:01:42] Look at us, couple of married podcasters who just happened to have a weekly date night where we interview experts and advocates and things like cult awareness and mind control. Wait, wait, wait, this does not count toward date night, babe. We got to schedule that, that's separate.

[00:01:55] So it's two days? We gotta hang out? We do this podcast thing because we learned a lot on our exit ramp out of Nexium, still on that journey. And we want to pay the lessons forward with the help of other cult survivors and whistleblowers.

[00:02:07] We know all too well that culty things happen. It happens to people every day across every walk of life. So join us each week to tackle these culty dynamics everywhere from online dating to mega churches and multi-level marketing.

[00:02:18] This stuff really is everywhere. The Cultiverse just keeps on expanding, and so are we. Welcome to season five of A Little Bit Cultie, serving cult content and word salads weekly on your favorite podcast platforms. Learn more at ALittleBitCulti.com Welcome back everybody to A Little Bit Cultie.

[00:02:54] There's been a lot of really positive response from our two-parter with Alisa Wall. That was a good one. It was a good one, and we really appreciate all the feedback from that. We also appreciated so many of you sharing your top five list from Spotify. Oh yeah.

[00:03:08] That was really cool. I didn't know that many people listened. We're actually coming up on 100,000 downloads in episode as of this recording. I feel like flexing. Yeah, let's flex. Let's just flex it. Maybe just bust it out of his shirt. His muscles just ripped open his shirt.

[00:03:22] So this is kind of a follow-up. It's not a two-parter, but... It's relevant though. After we spoke last week with Dr. Christine Cucciola, we thought this would be a good follow-up. Dope episode.

[00:03:32] I walked around with that one for at least a day or two, like a good movie. Learned a lot from her, and we thought this would be a good follow-up because it's sort of a natural segue slash subset.

[00:03:41] What's powerful about it is if you get the concept of course of control, you can apply it to areas of your life where you experienced it. Or maybe even inadvertently kind of at a perpetrator of it.

[00:03:50] Yes, since we started this podcast, we've had a number of requests to talk about how these concepts, culty, course of control, gaslighting, all those concepts relate to parenting. So that's why we decided to have our guests today, and they are the co-hosts of a podcast called Co-Parent Dilemmas.

[00:04:10] Their podcast tagline is providing practical solutions to those impossible co-parents. Diane Dirks is a licensed marriage and family therapist and the executive director of the Center for Navigating Family Change, a nonprofit that works with high-conflict co-parents.

[00:04:25] She's also the author of the books, Solo Parenting Raising Strong and Happy Families. Her co-conspirator on the Co-Parent Dilemmas podcast, Dr. Rick Voiles, is the CEO of the Center for Dispute Solutions.

[00:04:36] And a certified business coach and anger management expert who specializes in mediating and teaching co-parents who are in conflict. So let's just segue a little.

[00:04:45] Let's try these two guests. Here's the backstory. Our episode with Sarmah Mingalis, the central figure of the Netflix docu-series Bad Vegan, was really about the cult of one.

[00:04:54] And the cult of one is an important concept in understanding course of control, which we just spoke about with Dr. Christine Coachella. The cult of one basically means that one person can really perpetuate a whole lot of abuse, mind control, course of control.

[00:05:06] As just how you like to say. Mindfuckery. It doesn't take an organization or business plan for a dynamic to control you. It can take one bad actor like Mr. Fox with Sarmah. Your whole world can be turned upside down by one person.

[00:05:17] That being said, we're talking with Diane and Dr. Rick today about a very specific kind of bad actor in the cult of one tradition. The alienating parent.

[00:05:25] We've said on our podcast from the beginning, the abuses of power that go on in a cult go on in the world. And there are pretty striking similarities between the cult leader and the alienating parent.

[00:05:33] How they use coercive control and brainwashing and how children who experience this kind of abuse and manipulation end up living with guilt, depression, anxiety, and other mental health issues into their adult years because of it.

[00:05:44] And we want to be clear here that the phrase you'll hear in our chat, parental alienation is loaded AF and divisive in the field. We just want to say a little bit about that upfront before we dive into the chat.

[00:05:54] Diane and Dr. Rick's work is important, but we're not experts. And we always want to be responsible in our land. So we actually consulted with another guest, Dr. Christine Coachella. She helped us understand some of the controversy around the concept of parental alienation.

[00:06:06] Dr. Coachella shared with us, quote, anyone who alienates or uses the children as proxies is a coercive controller. It's all coercive control. The course of controllers goal is to fracture the attachment with a healthy parent and even if it's a low level, it's all child abuse.

[00:06:21] Dr. Coachella also shared with us that for many people in the field, the term is weaponized over and over again due to the work of controversial psychiatrists like Richard Gardner. See the Mia Farrow and Woody Allen case for an example.

[00:06:34] And very often due to a weaponization of the concept, moms actually use custody the moment they say they are abused or their children are being abused.

[00:06:42] And you should know, Gardner's minimizing of children's claims of sexual abuse and his lack of real publication makes many in the field call his work junk science.

[00:06:51] Professor Joe Myers's work at George Washington School of Law published a recent study that affirms how the parental alienation argument is used against victims of course of control and is essentially darvo in action. What's darvo Sarah? Darvo.

[00:07:04] Now this is a term we mentioned last episode and we'll probably do a whole other episode on it. For those who are not familiar, it's an acronym for deny attack and reverse victim and offender.

[00:07:13] It's a reaction that perpetrators of wrongdoing, particularly sexual offenders may display in response to being held accountable for their behavior. So I'm familiar. The stats may or found are striking like less than half of any type of abuse claims are credited.

[00:07:27] Women's claims of abuse are believed less than half the time. Moreover, mother's claims of child abuse are credited even less.

[00:07:34] The odds of a court crediting a child physical abuse claim are 2.23 times lower than the odds of its crediting a domestic violence claim and child sexual abuse claims are rarely accepted by courts.

[00:07:45] Needless to say, the discourse on term parental alienation is evolving in the field is divided on it between clinicians and advocates who are quote for it and those who are against it.

[00:07:55] So what I'm understanding is that it's something that exists parental alienation and we're going to get into that, but it can also be used as somebody who is the course of controller or the abuser in the relationship to flip the tables on the person who's actually the victim.

[00:08:10] That's what I'm understanding. Correct. You hear a lot of this in divorce cases and stuff like that. Right. So all that to say some clinicians are no longer even using the term instead reframing it just as child abuse because that's what it is. Well done.

[00:08:22] In this interview today, as you'll hear Diane says that alienators can become dangerous when they're held accountable much like domestic abusers. And from what we're gathering from other experts we've consulted is that she's on point because they are domestic abusers, a.k.a.

[00:08:35] course of controllers, a.k.a. potentially psychopaths. So get your deep breaths and your stress balls, squeezy toys and fidget spinners ready. This one's a doozy without further ado, Dr. Rick Voiles and Diane Dirks of the co-parenting dilemmas podcast. Thank you so much for coming in person.

[00:09:04] And I was saying to Rick when we were meeting, you know, if we all lived in the same city for sure you two would be friends with my parents who they divorced when I or separated when I was two and my dad remarried.

[00:09:15] And all of them are in the field. My dad's a retired school counselor. His partner is a child psychologist. My mother is a family therapist who specializes in mediation and divorce.

[00:09:26] So my parents' experience as a divorced couple really drove her career and shaped her career probably similarly with you both.

[00:09:35] And in terms of like not wanting other parents to go through what they went through and not that either of them were alienating, but just that it was hard. Right. So and that actually is a great segue.

[00:09:46] Do you mind just introducing yourselves a little bit in terms of what brought you to this moment? Oh, sure. What brought me here is I was listening to your podcast and I kind of have interest in cult behavior, cult leaders.

[00:09:58] And so when I saw the bow on HBO, I looked you up on social media and found out that you had a podcast. So I was like, oh, I need to listen to that. So this is before we even had ours, I think.

[00:10:10] And I started listening and the more I listened to your guests, the more I thought, wow, this is so much like the work that we do in our organization with alienating parents and how the kids display the same kinds of brainwashed behaviors and attitudes.

[00:10:26] And it's so egregious to me, you know, how that can happen. So I just thought I didn't see anything on your episode list that looked like that. And then I just reached out and thought, well, maybe it would be a good connection. Thank you. So glad you did.

[00:10:41] And truthfully, a number of people have reached out. People reach out all the time with episode suggestions and parental alienation was a term that I'd heard and a couple of people have made that correlation, but we'd never done a deep dive. So seemed like a perfect time.

[00:10:55] And then Rick, well, both of you, I'd love to hear a little bit about your background.

[00:11:00] I started out as a university professor and ended up owning my own business and being an expert in conflict, doing mediation for over 25 years and then also applying those conflict resolution skills to the corporate world. And then transitioned into corporate training.

[00:11:18] Doing continuing education training is how Diane and I actually met. And then after my divorce, she approached me and asked if I wanted to be part of her training program and training team working with the courts.

[00:11:31] And so taught the class that is required in Georgia for divorcing parents with children and did that for gosh, over 10 years, I guess, quite a while. And when did the cult correlation cross your path? Did Diane bring it up? Yes. Okay. Yeah.

[00:11:47] So you hadn't made that correlation before? Did not. Diane, tell us a little bit about your background. Well, it's kind of a checkered path, but like everybody, right?

[00:11:58] I got a divorce 30 years ago and ended up as a single parent for a little while, got a degree in journalism, did a column for single parents when I lived in Las Vegas,

[00:12:06] ended up coming to Georgia, started doing mediation, got a master's degree and got into mediation because I thought it was fascinating that there was not that choice for us when we when I got a divorce. So did a lot of mediation.

[00:12:20] And then the director of the mediation program said, Hey, I hear that this head of the nonprofit is leaving. She's leaving town going out West. Will you consider taking it over? Sure. I didn't know what I was doing, but I did it anyway.

[00:12:33] I started that was back in 2002, started managing all of the classes that we taught for divorcing parents. And every time I teach a class someone would come up to me and say, Do you do therapy? No, but I should.

[00:12:45] So I went back to school, got additional credits so I could get licenses at therapist and I began seeing clients and children and loved love love seeing the children because they were the most innocent victims of divorce.

[00:12:59] And then slowly but surely I started seeing some really crazy cases and got involved through court orders to see children who were refusing to have a relationship with the child.

[00:13:11] So it became kind of not something I chose by choice just it fell into my lap and then I guess I had some skill and next thing I know I was getting lots of court orders that I couldn't handle so that's when I decided to start training people to do it.

[00:13:26] So now we have, I know we have 20 employees in the organization. I don't know how many therapists probably it doesn't. And so now they do the work and I'm not in the trenches anymore. That's by choice because it really can burn you out after a while.

[00:13:41] But what we do with kids is not just force them to try to have a relationship but there is a way to debrief or you know kind of deep program I hate to use that word but that's kind of what it is desensitize.

[00:13:57] They have a phobia of their other parent that is completely irrational. And so first of all you have to maintain a relationship with the child and build one and maintain one until you gain their trust.

[00:14:10] And then it's a matter of just little by little getting them to see that their other parent isn't who they've been told he or she is.

[00:14:17] So that's a little bit about the process but that's why I'm here now we're doing this podcast because I decided I wanted to write a book but I don't like to write nonfiction.

[00:14:27] So let's just do a podcast and then it's like writing a chapter every week and it just goes on and on and on. So that's why we're here and we're really having a lot of fun. Amazing.

[00:14:36] First let's look into what parental alienation actually is and how you would define it.

[00:14:40] So let me clarify first of all because I know you're going to have some listeners who maybe are experiencing parental alienation behaviors and I want to make a distinction between the behaviors and what is called the syndrome.

[00:14:53] I think most all parents I would say the vast majority in the beginning when they're highly emotional probably engage in some alienating behaviors that could be saying a bad thing about the other parent or rolling your eyes when the child talks about the other parent.

[00:15:09] And we expect that in the first couple of years especially after divorce because people were in the grief process you know they're still very angry.

[00:15:16] And then we hope that after a couple of years and they get settled in their new routine they think better of that for the sake of the children. And so those behaviors don't indicate a parental alienator.

[00:15:27] So if you can think of alienation behaviors on a continuum from mild to severe the syndrome isn't describing people that are in the mild or even to the moderate level. The syndrome requires that the parents engage in these behaviors with a clear campaign.

[00:15:45] They have intentional motivations to make sure that they interfere with the child and the other parent's relationship but also in conjunction with that the child has to display alienation behaviors. And that's why it's called a syndrome but it's a family systems or family dynamic syndrome.

[00:16:04] So a lot of people there's a lot of controversy about why parental alienation is not in the DSM five which is the you know the guidebook for all therapists. And that's because it's not an individual pathology.

[00:16:16] We know that the people that alienate have pathology but it's typically a personality disorder of some type you know narcissistic or sociopathic.

[00:16:26] But because the syndrome requires both the parent and the child to be in conspiracy against then it is more of a family dynamic than a personal pathology.

[00:16:36] So when we talk about parental alienation as a syndrome it really is about a parent like I said who has a campaign to ruin the relationship because of their anger or sometimes because they grew up without a parent themselves.

[00:16:52] So didn't need one didn't have one you don't need one either and no one can pair it like me so you just need to get out of the picture.

[00:17:00] Get out of the way and the best way to get you out of the way is to convince our child to not be with you. So we can talk about more of the behaviors as we go through this but that's kind of the overview.

[00:17:10] Well the first thing that came up in reading about it and even hearing how you just described it like there's a point where relationships end and normally they end badly otherwise they probably wouldn't know.

[00:17:21] And where it shifts into the parental alienation I can think of two cases where I've had friends kind of have tumultuous endings and I remember one where the other person was pretty volatile and they sense calm down but a lot of the stuff that they were doing for at least a year or two.

[00:17:38] I don't know how my friend kept his cool with some of the stuff that was going on and to the point where they were even making things up and now they seem to reach a point this is 15 years later where it's civil and he has a relationship with a child.

[00:17:52] I think he has to I told him at the time I was like whatever you do you have to demonstrate you're not who they're saying you are his ex-wife yeah and reading it I thought yeah this person was definitely doing some parental alienation but it doesn't seem to be going on anymore

[00:18:05] and they've reached a point where it seems somewhat reconciled 10-15 years later and I guess my question to you is when is it for sure something that's going on or just someone who's willing to amp up to a certain point that's not acceptable and then they cool off once they maybe find another relationship or no longer angry at it

[00:18:24] and reality sets in that this person's gone. What's that point I guess?

[00:18:28] We talk about an emotional divorce process there's always two processes the legal divorce and the emotional divorce and for the average person the emotional divorce is about two years and you really can't shortcut that and that is where you learn to detach emotionally

[00:18:47] so that kind of the behavior you just described fits in that emotional divorce process and if the child was still very interested in loving the other parent and still interested in loving and wanting to be with your friend as the father then even if there was some alienating behavior we wouldn't call it parental alienation because it didn't stick.

[00:19:10] That's a good way to define it. It's similar to the continuum I'm not sure if you've studied Stephen Hassan's continuum about cultic behavior. It's interesting to use the word continuum because we refer to his model all the time the bite model in terms of what's happening in a group

[00:19:23] what types of control are being exerted on the continuum one side of the continuum being very little coercive control or just behaviors that are a little bit culty which is the name of the podcast where there's a group and maybe there's some isolation like maybe a you know a football

[00:19:38] it's called fantasy league like where they fantasy football I know you don't do that but like there's some elements of sports that people be like it's a little culty but like you can leave the group and no one's going to shun you and there's not destructive things happening which is on the far end of the continuum

[00:19:55] and that also goes to what we often look at in a group is what's happening with the leader and what's the relationship like with the leader in the group and often the leader on the destructive end of the continuum is a sociopath and or a narcissist

[00:20:08] or psychopath so I'm just wondering when you've seen we're making these correlations when you've seen parents on that side of the continuum do you feel like they're all sociopaths narcissists combinations borderline and maybe since this episode is off our normal template of survivor focus ex cult stories

[00:20:28] maybe you could give us some definitions of those things for our listenership.

[00:20:32] Sure, so it's a complex situation. So I really guard against black and white kind of descriptions are blanketing it because we do know that there's something called the pathological alienator but there's also something called justified alienation

[00:20:46] and what we often see is let's use mom for example is saying to the kids your dad he's a very angry dad you know every time the child comes home and reports that dad has yelled at them well there he goes again he's an angry dad eventually they start describing dad as an angry person and then they don't want to see him anymore

[00:21:03] and guess what happens to daddy gets angrier and then all that does is feed into the alienation attempts right and so it becomes a self fulfilling prophecy really if I can name somebody angry they become angry and so sometimes parents

[00:21:18] let's say a mom is just really detached or she is abusive she's emotionally and physically abusive there would be a reason right a justified reason why the children would not want to be with them.

[00:21:30] So sometimes the alienated parent is the pathologically disordered person and they will then accuse the other parent of alienating when really it's about how they are in relationship with their child so I just want to point that out as well before we get into some of the meat of the pathological alienator

[00:21:45] because it is very complex and not a simple process so as far as the pathological I would say yes they all have some sort of disorder there's something wrong with any parent who would dig deep into a child's soul and the very thing that they want as a child probably for the rest of their lives is to feel like their parents approve of them

[00:22:07] and love them and care about them and have unconditional love for them. And so I think we talked before about how a cult leader will promise things promise wealth promise saving the world promise you know grandiose ideas which pull people into the cult to begin with right

[00:22:27] So the alienator very much like the cult leader will pretend I would even say love bomb the child make this very enmeshed close relationship with the child and then slowly and gradually begin to wear away at their connection with the other parent it doesn't happen overnight it has to be a slow and gradual

[00:22:50] disconnection from the other parent and I've had some really difficult cases where I remember one little boy he was a little he was 12 years old and I had spent some time with him trying to figure out what is this with his dad that he just can't have this relationship with his dad he wasn't giving me any good reason

[00:23:08] and one day he kind of fell apart my office crying and he said my dad raped my mom in front of me and I was like taken aback by that and I said when when did this happen and he said when I was to

[00:23:21] I said well do you have memories of it and he said no my mom just described it to me and I knew then that that was probably for me that was all I needed to hear because I just felt like okay because I suspected alienation all along but when I heard that I was like whoa and then it was time to report to the court that this was not okay to be that's child abuse to put that kind of idea in a child's head

[00:23:47] he couldn't possibly have remembered that but why would you tell a child that wow and what was the recourse the recourse was and they parents lived in different states and the judge sent the kids to live with dad and mom had to have supervised over the you know like FaceTime visitation with the kids with the therapist present and as far as I know that was five or six years ago they're still living with dad

[00:24:11] and I got a letter actually from that little girl not too long ago to tell me that just out of the blue dear miss Diane I wanted to let you know that things are going really well with my dad and and she had sent her mom a letter and she sent a copy of the letter to me saying that telling her mom now that she's 17 that what she her mom did to her was abusive and she's still interesting enough she still wanted to work on her relationship with her mom but at that point I think she's probably more mature than her mom

[00:24:41] yeah sounds like it must be rewarding for you to see that there's a system not always to see that it works out yeah one of the things I tell everybody in our organization when we do these really hard cases is that we're always going to be helpful we might not get the outcome that we want so the hope always is that we reunite these kids with their parents but that takes a lot of things aligning at the same time and when you're dealing with the court system anytime their timing is not going to be that

[00:25:11] we're never in line with mental health timing right so sometimes we just have to say we'll report to the court and let the court make the decisions if we can't get it done in our office so either way we're going to help that child is how we look at it

[00:25:25] this is the golden age of cult recovery the more we speak up and share our stories the more we realize we are not alone your voice and your story can empower others this is Sarah and I'm proud to be a founding collaborator of the hashtag I got out movement learn more at I got out.org

[00:26:01] maybe it's getting eight hours of sleep and that's my personal and everyone's dream isn't it well I definitely have some non negotiables like I'm in Vancouver right now and I'm spending literally as much time as I can outside in nature hashtag cold pools hashtag crushing it nature is a non negotiable not enough time in the fresh air and the trees around me and I start to feel not great not myself not grounded therapy day is a bit like my nature walks I try to not miss it and I know I'm just going to feel so much better all around if I make it a priority I get so much out of it.

[00:26:31] I put my worries and anxieties in their rightful place and helps me clear my mind so I can focus on what I really need and sometimes what I don't need like I don't need to be overbooking myself just because I hate to say no to people you know what I mean thanks therapy thanks for helping me see that.

[00:26:44] And if you're thinking of starting therapy, give better help or try it's entirely online designed to be convenient flexible and suited to your schedule. Just fill out a brief questionnaire and get matched with a licensed therapist and switch therapists anytime for no additional charge.

[00:26:57] Look, even when we know what makes us happy it's hard to make time for it. But when you feel like you have no time for yourself non negotiables like therapy are more important than ever.

[00:27:06] Never skip therapy day with better help visit better help dot com slash culty today to get 10% off your first month that's better help HELP dot com slash culty. Meals bring people together but for many families providing their next meal can be a challenge.

[00:27:22] You can help by participating in Macy's annual feeding the hungry food drive.

[00:27:27] All proceeds go toward local food banks and families now through January 31st you can purchase an icon in store or online or watch out for the blue feeding the hungry shelf tags where a portion of your purchase will be donated to local pantries.

[00:27:42] Together we can combat hunger in our local communities at Macy's. Limitations in the court system. Do they not recognize what they're looking at or do they they act swiftly? What's the response generally?

[00:27:55] It depends on the attorney how much they know about it. You know like I said people throw around the phrase parental alienation all the time just like they throw around narcissism and ADHD and bipolar and you know.

[00:28:07] So that the attorneys will fight for it but they know nothing about it. Unfortunately a lot of judges don't understand it and they'll just order some family therapy to some family therapist who has no training.

[00:28:19] You cannot do traditional family therapy with these kinds of families. You have to be trained specifically in how to reprogram desensitize and traditional family therapist who doesn't know anything about it can actually do more harm.

[00:28:33] Especially if the alienating parent is charismatic and narcissistic and they know some of these things they can flip it around in gaslight to make the other normal healthy parent look like the angry one right? They went over the therapist. Yes.

[00:28:49] The professionals are just as vulnerable as the child and then they become and again linking this to the cult behavior. You know they have their sycophants that they involve in this process of brainwashing and sometimes that's the oldest sibling.

[00:29:08] If they can get the oldest sibling and those younger siblings trust the older symbol like they'll follow that older sibling or it can be a private school. Oftentimes alienating parents will home school or private school because the public schools too big.

[00:29:22] They can't fool everybody but if they get into a small religious school where the you know there's not too many teachers not too many administrators.

[00:29:28] They can really kind of wage a campaign with them against the other parent and say all kinds of horrible lies so that causes the school to be very protective of the children. So they sometimes unknowingly become part of the brainwashing or flying monkeys as we refer to it.

[00:29:46] Yeah. And for any listener doesn't know what the flying monkey reference is from the Wizard of Oz and the wicked witch sending her flying monkeys to do her bidding. Yeah. Keith Reneary had many flying monkeys by the way. He actually didn't do a lot of the heavy lifting.

[00:30:01] You need help to do this right? Yeah he was very good at assembling the monkeys.

[00:30:05] So one of the things I noticed right away and I think this is in your prepared document is just the way that an alienating parent will make sure to isolate his or her children from the other parent and that's one of the key things we've learned is that all of the cult leaders that's like the first step.

[00:30:22] If you're isolated from the outside world or isolated from media, isolated from friends or other people that you can confide in then you're much more malleable to the person. Yeah definitely.

[00:30:36] In my experience the alienated parent will have approved friends and those are only the friends that they can convince the parents of who the dad is right? They're not allowed to have friends that they don't know their parents.

[00:30:50] So that's one way to isolate. They also don't allow them to be in activities.

[00:30:54] Almost every case that I've dealt with, the child is isolated at home. You know they're allowed to do chess club online for instance but they just don't want that child intermingling with other kids to maybe even talk to kids or witness a healthy dad son relationship right?

[00:31:13] And so it's really sad. I'm working with a woman right now that I think the dad is just hugely alienating the teenager and dad has a lot of money and so you know promising cars and this and that but she just sits and cries about how her son is not who he used to be, used to be a star baseball player,

[00:31:30] used to be very social, used to be you know just a good student and now when she sees him he's grown his hair along. He's not in any activities.

[00:31:39] He's isolated in his room watching video games all the time and just breaks my heart that that's where he's gotten to because dad is so bent on making sure this child doesn't have any outlets.

[00:31:51] What's fascinating to me, you hear how sophisticated a process it would take to create this kind of a system and my first thought is often how do you know how to do this? I mean who teaches? How can you accomplish this?

[00:32:08] And I think that's where the pathology part comes in. It's just part of who they are, that pathological disorder that they are focused on themselves whether it's the cult leader or the alienating parent and they are just exercising their desire to be God in that case and everyone dependent upon them.

[00:32:29] When you look at it, it's a very complicated. You got to get your monkeys, you got to get your monkeys trained, you got to get them organized. It would be like, wow, if I had a corporation that could run this well we'd make a lot of money but it's not. It's a disorder.

[00:32:45] So is that because of the narcissistic wound?

[00:32:47] I tend to think it's that narcissistic behavior and again on that continuum we will remind you that we all have narcissistic tendencies, right? But when it's a disorder and the narcissist is acting out in their best interest the results is what Diane was describing where you get that child who in public dad is praising them.

[00:33:12] Oh that's great but behind closed doors tearing them down and then the kids still wanting to have the love stay and keep trying to please and can't.

[00:33:23] So this brings me back to an episode that we did whose work you both would love I'm sure her name is Alexandra Stein and she wrote terror, love and brainwashing and she looks at how the cult leader basically follows the same principles as in this and I'm not we're not the experts you guys are in this field of disorganized attachment.

[00:33:41] Theory specifically around, oh I'm gonna butcher this. It's been a while since we talked to her but basically from my understanding that the cult leader in this case creates an atmosphere first isolates and then an atmosphere of total terror fear of being not good enough and always trying to measure up and just like a child is trying to get the affirmation of the parent.

[00:34:04] And so the person who's causing the terror is also the person who's providing the safe haven.

[00:34:10] And so that's one of her theories around how these cults operate and if I look at the people who are in our case still loyal to, if you can believe it, our former leader Keith Reneary is that they were the ones who were put the most in that position.

[00:34:24] They were both torn down by destroyed belittled shamed but then also praised protected promoted like everything came from from Keith. And you know, again fully isolated Nipi and I were not fully isolated so we didn't have that same experience. So it's complete enmeshment. Can you define enmeshment?

[00:34:44] Enmeshment is, we often say in this field it's parents use what we call parentification and fantalization. Parentification means I'm gonna need you so badly and need you to take care of me but at the same time give you so much love that we have this enmeshment.

[00:34:59] It's almost like codependency but with a child. So enmeshment is codependency with a kid? Pretty much because kids can't recognize it because their need for survival is so attached to that unconditional love.

[00:35:14] And oftentimes we see Rick and I see this all the time not only in parental alienation cases but in a lot of difficult cases where kids will say they want to live with the parent who they aren't sure they have unconditional love from.

[00:35:27] And they'll actually blow off the parent. They know that really is there for them because they feel like they, if they don't do what that other parent wants them to do they risk losing their love and that just feels too scary. So they will go the other way.

[00:35:43] And so, and fantalizing is really connected to if you think of Munch-Halsen syndrome, I've got to keep you needing me. So it's kind of the opposite of the parentification.

[00:35:54] Instead of I need you to parent me, I need you to need me as a parent so bad that you can't leave me and will create issues or problems or, you know, that's where we often see helicopter parents later on when the kids go off to college.

[00:36:08] I still need you to need me as a parent. And so those are unhealthy attachments. They can appear to be very healthy and organized attachments but they're actually very unhealthy ones.

[00:36:18] So, you know, I don't know if there's research attached to the cult behavior, but I do know if you ask researchers, do those unhealthy attachments create personality disorders and nobody knows because they're so complex. You know, could be a narcissistic wound.

[00:36:36] It could be it could be a thousand things. So, you know, that's not completely clear yet.

[00:36:40] That is something that I'd love to do an episode on one day with to have some some experts on and look at just my brief skimming of the surface when I look at people like Kharash, David Kharash or Keith Ranieri who also they've all had.

[00:36:52] They all have a very similar upbringing with like my dime, what Nipi calls my dime store psychology analysis of like, but just like an absent parent and like really poor attachment, very unstable child-parent relationships.

[00:37:06] And then whether that causes the narcissistic wound or they're just never enough or whatever. And then they end up becoming these like hugely destructive cult leaders. It's normally the opposite sex.

[00:37:17] The reason it's hard to study is because you got to have people admit that they're narcissistic to do the study and they don't show up well. That's been the biggest. We interviewed a guy named Dan Shaw and I asked him a question.

[00:37:30] He's like, well, the short answer is you can't really know because these people aren't strong enough to open themselves up to any sort of cross analysis and subject themselves to it. They leave therapy as soon as they're challenged and therapy is all about being challenged.

[00:37:45] Yeah. If you're worried about maybe being a narcissist, you aren't. You aren't. I can say though, when I have individual clients come in and ask me or tell me about situations where the other parent is just doing behaviors that sound alienating.

[00:37:59] I always ask the question, what was their upbringing like? And I would say nine times out of 10 they tell me her dad left her when she was three and that she had never had a relationship or his mom died when he was six.

[00:38:12] And you know, and that's exactly right. You do find that quite a bit. We look at some of the people in our situation. I don't like the term daddy issues, but that's what we've kind of noticed. They all had absent fathers. Yeah.

[00:38:24] Absent fathers, drug addict fathers, narcissistic fathers, deceased fathers, very, very busy, famous fathers. And I'd like to say I had a very healthy relationship with my dad even though they separated when I was young.

[00:38:34] Thank goodness they were both in this field because they made sure that I had a very healthy relationship and certainly talk about it. We talk a lot about our feelings in our family and they had me in play therapy, drama therapy and music therapy. Still do.

[00:38:52] Here I am. I think you have to be very careful though, because we only hear about those that end up having these incredibly terrible issues.

[00:39:03] You can be in the same family and have three children raised by the same two parents and one child is just more vulnerable than the other two. And the other two grew up and don't become pathological, but we don't talk to them.

[00:39:16] Right. So sometimes that it can appear that if I don't want to send the message to your listeners, if you have a narcissistic parent, you're going to end up a sociopath. You know, that's not true.

[00:39:28] Not everybody is susceptible, but I think in our message when Rick and I do the podcast is always if you're worried about that, then be the parent you need to be because all of the research tells us that kids need both parents in their lives,

[00:39:41] but they only need one parent to do the right things, to be stability, to be unconditional loving, to be consistent, predictable. All those safe things that kids need.

[00:39:52] And so we try to give that encouragement to parents that you can overcome this by just being who you are as a good parent. Lurt Rick, do you want to say anything about that? Yeah, somebody who's looking for unconditional love and doesn't get it.

[00:40:05] There are many bad parents out there that aren't narcissists. They're not, they're not, they don't have a pathology. They're just not good at being parents for whatever reason.

[00:40:16] So that person grows up without that affirmation, without that unconditional love and of course goes out and tries to find it, tries to fill that hole, tries to feel valued and important and loved

[00:40:30] and end up being a risk of being a victim of either falling in love with a narcissist who promise that they're going to do that for them.

[00:40:40] And then it turns horrible or a cult leader. We're all looking for more love, I think regardless of whether our parents were good or bad.

[00:40:48] Yeah, I think it's a very normal thing to want and maybe it's labeled differently like in my case, I would have called it community. You know, I wouldn't have said I'm looking for love. I would have said I'm looking for it. Yeah, I'm looking for it. Yeah.

[00:41:00] Attached to place an anchor. And yeah, to belong. Which is also really love. So it's just like a little Venn diagram of belonging community love driving us and I think that a good cult leader as in a successful one knows that and can dole it out.

[00:41:19] And you notice how it looks for it and it's quite it. Yeah.

[00:41:56] These were a picture perfect influencer family, but everything wasn't as it seemed. I just had a 12 year old boy still appeared asking for help. He's emaciated. He's got tape around his legs. Ruby Frankie is his mom's name.

[00:42:13] Infamous is covering Ruby Frankie, the world of Mormonism and a secret therapy group that ruined lives. Listen to Infamous wherever you get your podcasts. This episode is sponsored by BetterHelp. What are your self care non-negotiables? Maybe you never skip leg day or never miss yoga.

[00:42:34] Maybe it's getting eight hours of sleep. I mean, that's my personal and everyone's dream, isn't it? Well, I definitely have some non-negotiables like I'm in Vancouver right now and I'm spending literally as much time as I can outside of nature.

[00:42:46] Hashtag cold pools, hashtag crushing it. Nature is a non-negotiable. Not enough time in the fresh air and the trees around me and I start to feel not great, not myself, not grounded.

[00:42:55] Therapy day is a bit like my nature walks. I try to not miss it and I know I'm just going to feel so much better all around if I make it a priority.

[00:43:02] I get so much out of it. It helps me put my worries and anxieties in their rightful place and helps me clear my mind so I can focus on what I really need

[00:43:09] and sometimes what I don't need. Like I don't need to be overbooking myself just because I hate to say no to people. You know what I mean? Thanks therapy. Thanks for helping me see that.

[00:43:16] And if you're thinking of starting therapy, give BetterHelp a try. It's entirely online designed to be convenient, flexible and suited to your schedule. Just fill out a brief questionnaire and get matched with a licensed therapist and switch therapists anytime for no additional charge.

[00:43:30] Look, even when we know what makes us happy, it's hard to make time for it. But when you feel like you have no time for yourself, non-negotiables like therapy are more important than ever.

[00:43:38] Never skip therapy day with BetterHelp. Visit betterhelp.com slash culti today to get 10% off your first month. That's BetterHelp, H-E-L-P dot com slash culti.

[00:43:50] Even though I didn't fall prey to Keith in the same way that many people did, I remember and actually this is captured in the vows.

[00:43:58] Some of our listeners might remember this scene but he has me up on in front of all my peers running through the sales presentation. Nippy was there and he humiliated me in front of 14 of the highest ranking people in the whole company.

[00:44:11] We were all there and he had me running through this presentation over and over and over again.

[00:44:15] I was failing at it because I was learning this new thing and I was determined inside my mind to push through and to not crack because I knew it was being tested. I didn't want to start crying or something and I didn't, I almost did.

[00:44:26] And at the end after teasing me about this, he said looked at me and went well done or good job or something like that. And I got the little gold start at the little crumb of validation. Well, is that what you saw?

[00:44:41] In some ways, yeah. I mean even though I didn't want to be with him or find him attractive or anything like that, I definitely respected him. Well, that was I think him identifying it exploiting him. I think he was testing me.

[00:44:54] Well, you were susceptible just not to the degree that others felt like others. Yeah. After that experience and knowing what I know now about him and how he controlled all these other women around him. Well, you went home that night and felt okay.

[00:45:06] Yeah, I was fine. But I can see how somebody like that can control people by doling out the affection, the validation or the affirmation to people who really need it. Right? But first by rejecting you. Yes, that's exactly my point.

[00:45:22] Structure is I'm not sure if you're familiar with the game. It's a method that men can learn for dating and they call it. There's a book and a workshop. Look it up.

[00:45:34] Maybe we'll do an episode on it, but like where they teach the men to do is called nagging. Oh yeah. Yeah. And they're like insult the girl or the woman and then the woman's like. No, that's sick. Well, it's not so much insult them. Tease more.

[00:45:49] Yeah, it'd be like, I like how your nose is crooked. Like a back. Like a backhanded. Yeah. So then the woman's like, what? Did he just reject me or validate me or whatever?

[00:46:01] But then he's strangely interested in them because you know, and certain women I think are susceptible to it. Like someone who's totally used to getting validation from men and all that stuff. All of a sudden the one that doesn't give it to him. There's a brain function.

[00:46:14] I think it triggers. Let me make a comparison. What you were just talking about, Sarah. Is the alienator and probably had a big blow up about something screaming yelling. You didn't do this right or wrong.

[00:46:28] And then right before they do that purposely right before it's time to call mom or to take mom's call and the child knows and dad will always put that on speakerphone, even though we tell people that's terrible to do that.

[00:46:41] Monitor those phone calls, but it'll be on speaker and the child stands there and knows the alienating parent is staring at them and they treat that parent with. Crazy disrespect. Why are you calling me?

[00:46:54] I hate you, but you know, and I hear it from the targeted parent, you know how painful that is.

[00:46:59] And I can, I don't know for sure, but I can bet that when they hang up the phone, the parent says good job because I need for you to behave this way in order to please me.

[00:47:10] And here's the child who really probably would love to have a conversation with his mom. Oh, it's so hard. What else did you see as the correlations?

[00:47:18] One of the things that we haven't talked about yet is how alienators can become dangerous when they're held accountable, much like domestic abusers. Right? When you put them in a corner, they come out fighting.

[00:47:32] So I had a situation where I had to testify in a case and the mom who was the alienator did not like how I testified and the judge rolled in dad's favor.

[00:47:43] In the Guardian and Lightham, who also was a magistrate judge emailed me or texted me later and said that the mom had threatened her after the case in the courtroom.

[00:47:53] I don't know exactly what she said to her, but she texted me later and said just be careful because she was a judge, a magistrate, part-time magistrate judge at the time.

[00:48:03] And she had the benefit of having the police sit outside of her house the rest of the night.

[00:48:07] And I did not. Now luckily my husband's an ex cop, so I wasn't too worried about it, but still, you know, and that for the first time I went, wow, you know, she was always so nice to me.

[00:48:19] And so, you know, putting on the show until she didn't get what she wanted and then it was kind of out of control. And I had a situation not too long ago similarly.

[00:48:28] And this is how interesting, you know, narcissists project, right? They will project on other people what they're really guilty of. I mean, that's just a common narcissistic thing. And I had a situation where she kept the mom kept saying dad was alienating, dad was alienating.

[00:48:44] And I was talking to dad and thinking, no, this guy is not an alienator. He wouldn't be in therapy with me if he was doing this, you know. Well, the teenage son ended up when he found out that the judge didn't rule in dad's favor.

[00:48:55] He went and tried to commit suicide. So he just said, I can't deal with mom. She's crazy. And some really crazy stories came out in that case too that I don't need to go into.

[00:49:06] But when mom showed up at the mental health facility where dad had taken him, instead of going in like a normal parent and gone, oh my gosh, this is what normal parents do. If I have to walk away from you to save your life, I will.

[00:49:18] It's kind of like the Solomon cutting the baby in half, right? You know, no, don't cut my baby in half. You can have her because I don't want her to be harmed.

[00:49:26] Mom went in there blazing guns with, you know, telling the people at the facility this is all dad's fault and she doesn't need to be in here and she needs to come home with me.

[00:49:36] And to me that was a sure sign that she was an alienator because that's not what a normal parent would do. You know, think about your own child. You would go in there saying, okay, obviously this is too much for you.

[00:49:47] If I need to walk away from you, I'm willing to do it because I love you that much. And so they don't realize that they show their colors when suddenly something happens that they can't control and then they become pretty out of control.

[00:50:02] And the feeling of imprisonment, that was a note that also because I'm reading right now stolen innocence by an former FLDS member.

[00:50:09] That's like the polygamous sect of Mormonism and, you know, everything that you have your cult leaders slash alienating parents prohibit or greatly limit the followers or the children's freedom to leave, travel pursue liberty.

[00:50:21] Anytime your freedoms restricted I think is a major red flag for both cults and alienating parents with being shunned, rejected, stalked, ruined if you leave.

[00:50:30] And FLDS is quite an extreme but, you know, they weren't allowed to engage in the outside world in any way and those restrictions, you know, happen slowly and over time.

[00:50:39] It's not like people joined and they knew that they wouldn't be able to have TV or go to normal school.

[00:50:45] Well, some of them were and some of them were born into it but then the leaders added and added and added like it got more and more and more strict. And I think that that's probably something that happens in both cases.

[00:50:56] It's a slow burn, you know, and you don't see it right away. And the ability to not be able to interact much like in cults where they dismember you or what have dismember ship you or whatever they call that in cults.

[00:51:09] Shunning, yeah, you know, you don't want to leave because you'll never be able to talk to so and so again.

[00:51:15] And we see that in the child being turned away from completely not just the other parent but everybody associated with the other parent their own grandparents, their aunts and uncles, their cousins.

[00:51:25] They are not allowed to have any interaction with them and it's not so much not allowed as much as I convince you that anything that that anything that's connected with that parent has to be bad.

[00:51:37] And it really is difficult for the younger children because if you think about child development, they're all black and white and concrete right until they're about 11 or 12. So they see the world in black and white concrete terms.

[00:51:48] So that's why they love superhero movies that they cater to the younger crowd those movies because five minutes in they know who the bad guy is and the good guys and I know what I'm looking at.

[00:51:59] And so that's when alienation can often really take hold because you know, mom's good so dad has to be bad.

[00:52:06] And if dad is completely bad then his parents have to be completely, you know, it makes sense to them, which is really makes them most vulnerable to the alienator. If it's attempted in the teenage years, it doesn't work so well.

[00:52:19] And let me also say that sometimes alienation starts in the marriage often starts in the marriage. So it doesn't just start all the time after divorce. It starts when they're infants, you know, the mom dad never letting the other parent do certain things for the child.

[00:52:35] I need to be the needed one, you know, and it starts slow like that and then it just sort of progresses. And if you think of the divorce as the ultimate boundary that makes them angry, then the game really amps up at that point.

[00:52:49] Yeah. And it's interesting too. You might have one parent that does the behavior and doesn't necessarily lock horns with the other parent who doesn't do it back.

[00:52:59] Does that make sense? Like I saw something to get to into my family, but I saw some things that my mom would do and my dad just didn't take the bait.

[00:53:08] If that makes sense, he would just be like, no, like he saw the behavior and it wasn't like it isn't to say that, you know, there's not other things going on.

[00:53:16] But I can remember thinking certain times maybe I should and then my dad, but now she'll be fine or something like that. So you had that parent who was putting in perspective. And, you know, I was one of five and four.

[00:53:29] And so I could see kind of like, you know, we're maybe one brother would just dismiss it and one might be a little bit more susceptible to it. But we all kind of worked each other out of it. If that makes sense.

[00:53:38] You had that one parent that had a good boundary and modeled it for you. Yeah. Had a model of consistency that I was like, I'll follow that instead of this. Exactly.

[00:53:47] Yeah. One of the mistakes I see a lot of alienated parents make in the beginning and you can imagine how this feels to have a child that you've had a good relationship with for 10 years.

[00:53:58] And then all of a sudden I'm not allowed to love him or her ever again. So I have to announce that to that parent and you can imagine the pain that brings the parent, right? And they get kind of desperate and start showing them pictures.

[00:54:12] But look, look when you were five and went to Disney World and look, we went down on that one ride. Look how happy we were.

[00:54:18] And kids will say, yeah, I was faking it there because they have such a strong need to align with that other parent that they will actually deny. That they ever had a relationship. They will forget.

[00:54:31] They will tell the therapist, no, I don't have one good memory with my dad. And so instead of understanding what it is, they too often make a lot of mistakes up to that point.

[00:54:43] They're writing long letters and you know, trying to convince them that I'm, I love you and why I don't understand what you don't love me. And they start to blame the child and now that just makes them more susceptible to the alienator.

[00:54:55] Now they're doing, now you're doing the alienator. Look how your mom. Right. And if we can catch them in time and teach them how to talk to their child and amazingly not a lot of parents know how to have an emotional conversation with their children.

[00:55:11] And so I think the alienating parent also recognizes that the other parent may not have the skills to deal with it because they've witnessed that in the marriage and then they're just, they just know how to do it. And it's really sad.

[00:55:23] One thing we didn't talk about was going to get to in a minute. We use a different term, but the capitalizing on the investment concept. Rick, do you want to explain that one? Yes. That black and white, those there's it's all or nothing. It's all good, all bad.

[00:55:36] There's no, there's no in between. And that's part of that loyalty that you have to have completely to the cult leader or to that alienating parent. And like you've already said, they give it and take it away so that they can give it again.

[00:55:50] Well, and specifically the capitalizing on investment that we as we understand it is the same reason cult followers they stay in is because after they've invested so much, even if they think they may have been faulty.

[00:56:02] They tend to double down instead of backtracking and made to be like that it's harder to admit you're wrong. Right. Like Diane just said, right? Now I have false memories or I deny the memories that I do have. I'm fully invested, especially in the teenage years.

[00:56:20] If they've been brainwashed for many years, you know, five to 10 years and then you get a teenager who their narcissism by nature, they're never wrong.

[00:56:30] Right. So they not only have this false idea about the other parent, but even if you start to whittle away a little bit at those ideas and get to the heart of it and they see it, it's really hard.

[00:56:43] Then did backtrack and say, oh, I've told all of my friends that my dad's a terrible person. I've told five professionals and I've told my dad. Yeah. Yeah. That's hard for a little teenager.

[00:56:55] Now how do I as a 14 or a 15 year old who I'm never going to admit I'm wrong anyway because that's my, you know, M.O. Now all of a sudden I don't know how to do that. I don't know how to turn around and go a different direction.

[00:57:10] And then it like you said, Sarah, it's too much of an investment of the lie. And they really don't have enough life experience or had any modeling of repair skills. How do you repair a relationship? How do I fix a mistake when I've hurt somebody?

[00:57:25] They don't have that. If they ever acquired, it's going to be much later in life. We make a lot of mistakes, but one thing I think the B&R are really good at when we do blow up or lose our temper or act in the life.

[00:57:35] In a non ideal way. We're both very quick, I think to go, you know what? That was totally overreaction to our kids. I'm really like, I apologize. I'm going to work on that and I feel like that's something that they're now starting to do with us.

[00:57:48] And I'm very proud of that. Yeah, that's where they're going to learn it. Yeah, just don't play pop music while I'm on the highway. My dad calls it repairing a rupture. Yeah. I got to do that. Or using the attachment language. We're reattaching. Reattaching. Yes.

[00:58:04] Speaking of repairs, one of the ways that we try to repair and there are different repairs and that's one of the hardest things for us to describe to the court. You know, the court just says, oh yeah, these people over here have magic dust.

[00:58:17] We'll just send them to those professionals and they'll sprinkle their magic dust and all of this will go away. And sometimes the repairs aren't what the court hopes it will be. It's not going to be, you know, all roses and rainbows and everybody's happy.

[00:58:30] And here's where it has really struck me, especially with teenagers. They're desperately wanting someone to leave them alone because just leave me alone. Stop asking me these questions. Stop reminding me that I've done these horrible things to my mom or dad.

[00:58:48] Just leave me alone to finish out my childhood so I don't have to be reminded of what I've done.

[00:58:53] And once I've built a relationship with them, I will often say, you know, I don't necessarily agree with your reasons, but I hear that it's just too stressful for you.

[00:59:04] Let's talk about a soft break instead of you just breaking up with mom and dad or, you know, not ever seeing them again without, because it's so important for the parent to keep the bridge open.

[00:59:18] Because if you close the bridge or burn it down, it's really a pride issue for kids in their 20s to reconnect. So how can we have a soft break? And that's where I'll see tears.

[00:59:32] The kids go from fighting me to crying because I'm somebody is finally saying, I'm going to let you off the hook, but we're going to have a session with your dad or with your mom to talk about the break.

[00:59:44] And this is just what you need right now, but let's keep the bridge open in case either one of you want to reconnect and I can be in the middle for that reconnection if you need me to be.

[00:59:55] And you can text me as the therapist if you ever think you want to reconnection and I'll help you do that. And it gives the child an opportunity to say to the parent, reiterate the lies. And I have to coach the other parent to say, I understand.

[01:00:10] And that's very, very hard on the parent. But if we know that it's not going to work and you have an obstinate child who's especially a teenager is determined this is not going to work.

[01:00:21] And I'll slit my wrists if you try to make me reconnect with that parent as a mental health professional, you have to listen to that, you know.

[01:00:28] And so it's difficult, but it is a way to keep the bridge open so that I guess if I'm going to think about it in a cult way, they're not allowed to leave.

[01:00:39] What we're saying is your parent has a fence around you, but we're going to cut a hole in the fence that that parent doesn't know about. And when you're ready, you can escape and that can be pretty powerful for the child.

[01:00:52] I'm sure there's a lot of resources that you both have access to and we'll make sure we get those from you and put them in our show notes.

[01:00:59] In addition to a copy of the PDF that you made that we've been working off of that compares a cult leader with a severe parental alienator. And let me say this too, we have a Facebook group called Adult Kids of Alienation because we're trying to gather stories.

[01:01:14] Because this is also a very hard subject to study to get anecdotal information.

[01:01:21] And so I'll put that in or I'll give that to you for your show notes so that you have that if anybody would like who's listening, who had that happen to them as a child, but now they're adults and they'd like to talk about it.

[01:01:31] It's a way for them to privately talk through some of those things. Tell us what else where people can find you and if there's parents listening to this and want to hear more of your podcast. Rick. Co-parentdilemmas.com.

[01:01:45] Anywhere you can find podcasts, everywhere you get your podcast, we're listed in most of them. So yep, www.CPdilemmas.com. And if anybody has a dilemma or question they want to pose to us so that we can process it on our show, we love that.

[01:02:02] We're at 1234dilemma.com. Dilemma is spelled with one L and two M's. Rick is a terrible seller. She does that for me. I thought there was an N in there for some reason. I don't know. Dilemma? You're so validated. Hi, Validine. That's damn. Dilemma.

[01:02:25] There's some of those too. Well, I super appreciate this conversation. This is sometimes our podcast. Well, no, this is a lot culty and something. You know, there's an overlap here.

[01:02:36] Obviously, a parental alienator is not a cult leader, but they use a lot of the same tactics and maybe they're both. There probably are cult leaders who alienate within what's called the, you know, in our introduction, we'll have mentioned the cult of one, which we have.

[01:02:51] Which we had a lot of people ask us about. There's definitely more and more of that happening where it's, you know, in an abusive relationship or in a business atmosphere where there's a leader who's doing a lot of these same tactics.

[01:03:03] So that's what we're here to look at, not saying an alienating parent is saying, you're a cult leader. Obviously, that's not the point. Oh, they're the leader of their cultish family. Yeah, exactly.

[01:03:16] And these are just more tools for the tool belt so we can understand what to look for and how to see it and to give people resources. The tool belt's getting heavy. The tool belt's getting really heavy, but that's good. You know, we're armed.

[01:03:26] So thanks for taking the time and I really appreciate you making the drive, Rick, and I hope to meet in person next time and keep doing what you're doing. Yes. Thank you for having us. Yes. Thank you for having us. We appreciate it. Thank you.

[01:03:54] All right. What'd you think? The tactics are the same? Tactics are the same. Different domain. You know, it's interesting where this is starting to, you know, bleed over into my personal life as well other than the cult stuff.

[01:04:07] But both of my mom and dad work in this field and my mom specializes in family and divorce and mediation. And I consulted with her on this as well and she added a lot to the conversation. She did. Thank you. Thanks, Bub.

[01:04:20] I think everyone can relate because either they've been through something like this or they have a friend who's been through divorce and describe these things to them. Or maybe the friend's the perpetrator.

[01:04:27] You have to read them in. It goes on, you know, I mean, divorce is bringing out the worst, right? Especially if there's kids involved.

[01:04:33] Yeah. And you can always see in that dynamic who's going to be the bigger person, you know, and who's going to be the one that undercuts the parent to the kids. And it's just the saddest thing for me is the effect on the children.

[01:04:47] And I have to say on a personal note that, you know, my parents split up when I was two and perhaps it was the field that they were both in. But both of them were very, I don't want to use this word because it's an exium word upholding.

[01:05:01] What's a better word? That's fine. Well, they were just kind to each other. They're kind people.

[01:05:09] They're kind people and I know it was hard and I don't want to share their lives on this podcast, but I'll just speak from my experience is that I always felt that both of them had each other's backs. And they gave me a real template. Oh, babe.

[01:05:20] Thank you. Appreciate that. Thanks, mom and dad. Love you. And I love you, Nippy. I love you listeners. We're rubbing noses right now. Not really.

[01:05:32] We'd love to hear what you think if you had any personal experiences with parental alienation or if you're currently co-parenting with a total D bag, please feel free to leave us a message or leave us a message on our voicemail over at our website at a little bit called the Dec Cam.

[01:05:46] And for more culty culty content, join us over on the Patreon where we exchange audio content and other fun bonus content for cash money. Yeah, it's fun over there. It is fun.

[01:05:58] And you can listen to new episodes, add free at the lowest tier and the other tiers go all the way up to some fun gifts that would be coming in the mail.

[01:06:04] By the time you listen to this, the inner circle will have been opened up to the inner inner circle. Patreon not to be confused with Patron. Patron. And I hope you have some Patreon and some Patron to celebrate your holidays. It's Christmas everybody. And Hanukkah.

[01:06:22] That too. It's a holiday season. Let's just say the holiday season. I keep putting my foot in my mouth. It's okay, Nippy. You're not going to get canceled. Not by me anyway. I love you so much.

[01:06:33] Don't cancel Nippy guys. He's just such a good guy trying to make his way in the world. Just like everybody. Cheers to that. Happy holidays. For now. Hope you liked this episode. Let's keep the conversation going and come hang out with us on Patreon.

[01:07:06] Where we keep the tape rolling each week. With special episodes just for Patron subscribers and where we get deep into the weeds of unpacking every episode of The Val. If you're looking for our show notes or some sweet, sweet swag or official ALBC podcast merch

[01:07:20] or a list of our most recommended cult recovery resources, visit our website at alilbitculti.com. And for more background on what brought us here, check out Sarah's page-turning memoir. It's called Scar, the True Story of High Escape Nexium, The Cult that Bound My Life.

[01:07:34] It's available on Amazon, Audible, Narrated by My Life, and at most bookstores. A Little Bit Culty is a talkhouse podcast and a Trace 120 production. We're executive produced by Sarah Edmondson and Anthony Nippy Ames with writing, research, and additional production support by senior producer Jess Tardy.

[01:07:50] We're edited, mixed, and mastered by our rocking producer Will Rutherford of Citizens of Sound, and our amazing theme song, Cultivated, is by John Bryant and co-written by Nigel Asselin. Thank you for listening.