Guidance/Insight for a friend

[Panda39]

Hi all  looking for some guidance for a friend... .

My friend's son (about to be a senior in high school) was very alienated from him so they went through intensive reunification therapy in Canada where his teenager was taught about parental alienation, BPD, and the truths of what has really been going on (as he has been lied to extensively by his BPDmom).  Before that, his son was constantly feeling sorry for his BPD mom and feeling like she was being victimized by his dad. 

My friend (his dad) would say that things between them are really good right now, but he is not sure about what to expect from his son as his son starts to understand how much of what he used to know is just false.  He hasn't seen any emotional outbursts or anything so he wonders if his son had some understanding that he was not being told the truth by his BPD mom all along.  Or do you think it will just take some time for his son to really get it? 

How did you feel when you found out that a lot of what you used to think was true was totally false?

Thanks for your feedback,
Panda39

[HappyChappy]

Hi Panda39,

I guess as we only have a little bit of the jig saw here, I can only give general advice. But it is very common for children with overbearing parents (e.g. BPD) to be very muted in their emotions. I for example haven’t really cried since I was 10 years old. So I wouldn’t worry about the lack of outbursts, I these may well have been condoned by his BPD mother.

When I realised, I kind of circulated around the 5 stages of grieving (denial, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance). My T tells me you have to grieve the mother you thought you had. But I internalise much of this, I actually had to tell some people I was angry, as it didn’t show. I internalise.

I think it’s great you friends son says things are good. Can you hook him up with a Therapist, to guide him through this ? It was essential for me, it may speed up the process. Also hook him up to this website, if possible, buy a few books. But I guess, you’re in a great position to validate as you’re so knowledgeable, and also you clearly care, so my guess is he'll be fine. So what's your plan so far ?

[Sunfl0wer]

I wonder if the reunification group has some post-treatment treatments?  Seems like connecting to other parents in the same position, asking how they are fairing, or continuing to speak to the staff in some form may help Dad learn what to expect in this type of situation.

I can only imagine that something so defining to a person to be learned, to learn that what you thought was true is now challenged in the mind, must take stages and time to digest the different aspects.

What does the treatment center say about this? Is the reunification like a "part 1" of the process of undoing brainwashing?  Does "Part 1" lead to natural progression as child feels increased sense of safety with bonding to Dad?  Or does it require a series of steps and psychological developmental milestones to facilitate?

[isilme]

The son is in high school.  He is still very young, and probably has a long way to go as he starts to make his own discoveries and pieces things together from what he was told and what he has observed.

Both of my parents seem to have BPD, and were both diagnosed bipolar/manic depressive.  I was an only child to them, and so our lives were a shifting set of 2 versus 1 alliances.  As a child, your parents are the highest authority.  So if mom makes statements, no matter how they would sound to another adult, they must be true.  Likewise with dad.  So if mom and dad's statements don't agree, you're stuck.  You have to choose one to believe more than the other, and if one parent is good at playing on your sympathy, guess who gets believed?

I knew things were off with my mother for a long time, and that dad was a violent scary man.  But I wanted one or both of them to be right, so choosing with them both present was hard.  It was easier when they were apart - which ever I was with was 'right'. 

When they divorced, I was no longer around mom, and I totally painted dad "white" just because I needed that to be true.  I needed to believe one was good and therefore the other just "must" be bad.  The reality is both parents had issues, leading them to be compatible enough to get married and have me, but as time, stress, and age set in, they got more and more volatile with each other, with me in the middle.

I am in my late 30s, and am STILL reconciling how things were told to me versus what I know happened.  It's a process. It took me being away from BOTH parents to sort my head out, and emerge as ME finally instead of what I thought each of them wanted me to be, and the fact I am on this site shows I am still working on that.

The son will need support from his dad as he learns to see his mom in a new way.  Her word cannot be taken as 100% fact, and must be seen if not skeptically then mindfully.  And as a teenager, he's got loads of other things going on, too.  The dad will need to understand that his word alone will never be enough to trump everything the mother says.  The son will need time to become less enmeshed in any role he may have as his mother's caretaker, emotional supply, hero, stand in husband, or whatever she may have tossed his way.

[Panda39]

The dad is a pretty straightforward and sincere guy who acknowledges his faults and is not one to lie.  Now that the teen is with dad and is not seeing mom for a while, he has to be seeing that what mom was telling him about dad (claiming dad is violent, for instance) is completely false.  I am pretty sure there will be follow up therapy going on.

The dad is just mainly trying to empathize with how his son must be feeling since he is learning a whole lot about the truth and how different it is from what he has been told, and dad doesn't want to say the wrong thing so he isn't really saying anything about the situation at all.