What Parent Alienation & World Politics Have In Common

Normally, I always say spirituality and politics don’t mix because they usually don’t. But today, I want to offer you an analogy to help you navigate this huge time of unveiling we find ourselves in, where everything we thought we knew is being challenged. And where the people we perhaps trusted or thought not to be trustworthy were not who we thought they were, or maybe more accurately who we were led to believe them to be.

Sounds weird, right?
You know what you know, and what you know is the truth.

But what if what you think you know is not the product of your own independent critical thinking? What if they are the result of careful manipulation? You might think you are immune to such manipulation because of how you see yourself; a strong, independent thinker, only the weak of mind get manipulated, you may think.

But the kind of manipulation I will be discussing in this blog is insidious because it comes from people and sources we trust, even if we, perhaps on a conscious level, think or know to be discerning.

Even people who are so-called on the same side can fall for carefully crafted narratives meant to protect the status quo and, of course, vested financial interests. When it comes to politics, money and power not only go hand in hand, but they are also the biggest driving factors for the dynamics and behavior we will be examining in this blog.

How parents weaponize their children against the other parent

In this blog, I will explain how the very same mechanism that parents use (on a micro level) to alienate their child(ren) from the other parent in Parent Alienation Syndrome is used by governments to brainwash and manipulate populations to support the unsupportable or weaponize them against their political opponents on a macro level.

I recently wrote a Soul teaching in which I detailed my experience with Parent Alienation Syndrome over twenty years ago when my children were young. PAS wasn’t that well-known or controversial yet, especially not in Europe. What has made PAS controversial is that it has become the abuser’s weapon to a. continue the abuse of the ex-partner (and indirectly the children) and b. gain full custody of the children by claiming the other parent is the alienator when they take measures to protect themselves and the children from further abuse.

The battle of the left vs. the right

With everything currently playing out on the world stage, I can’t help but see this same dynamic being played out in politics. In America and Europe, it is often a mixture of both sides of the aisle, between the left and the right, or perhaps what people would call the bureaucratic machine or deep state that behaves this way. But to be honest, at this moment, it seems to be the favorite weapon of those on the left.

We see this in Europe where in The Netherlands, the biggest party’s leader who was democratically chosen was not allowed to be Prime Minister by other members of government because they didn’t feel comfortable with him in that position, even though the people of the Netherlands elected him. In Germany and other European countries, politicians have seriously discussed shutting down elections if parties that they don’t agree with win. That’s called a coup when you don’t allow the elected parties to take their seats in government.

Although the argument is that they are doing it to save democracy, they are at the same time trampling on the democratic process when they decide who is allowed to govern a country and who isn’t. If the right would behave the way the left does, all hell would break loose. So how have they maneuvered themselves into this position where they not only think that they can do this but have convinced a large part of the world population to see them that way?

In the United States, a similar response is seen to the current administration and the people chosen into office by the American voters. Complicated mathematical equations are used by the opposition to diminish how many Americans turned up to vote for the policies currently being implemented, aka trying to delegitimize the government’s mandate it was given by the people.

Instead, the important figures in this administration are demonized and we are told that their policies are dangerous and that they’re not only there to steal from the American people but also to alter government to such an extent that they can stay in power forever and be the dictators that they are, tricking the American people into total submission and a future without freedom.

If you’re reading this and you think to yourself that is exactly who they are, please bear with me and continue reading to understand the point I am making. My argument is not about who is right or wrong, it’s about seeing the mechanisms at play that have created the current political times we live in, which have caused a lot of division.

Just like a contentious divorce, it has created two camps or sides at war with each other, instead of working together for the good of the people they were elected to govern.

Parent Alienation Syndrome

For those of you who don’t know what PAS is, it’s when one parent, out of spite, weaponizes the children and the system against the other parent. They do this because of their own pain and patterns of control, very often, it is a continuation of the abuse that already took place within the relationship.

Once divorce is on the table and there is no hope of reconciliation, they start a campaign to discredit, isolate, and silence the other parent, often by pretending to be the more mature and stable parent, only wanting to act in the best interest of the child(ren).

I believe it is also to defuse and discredit any stories of abuse that come out post-divorce that would tarnish the narcissistic abuser’s reputation.

Naturally, acting in the best interests of their child(ren) is what all parents need to do post-divorce, but in the case of an alienating parent, this is a thin mask that quickly slips. They may consciously want to act in the best interest of the child(ren), but making their ex-partner pay for the perceived pain they caused is what subconsciously drives their actions instead.

This results in the launching of smear campaigns and fabricating lies to discredit the other parent while at the same time isolating them from the people who could otherwise help them break the cycle of abuse.

When one parent uses the child(ren) to continue the abuse

My ex-husband, at one point, convinced my son’s school that I was going to live in a religious sect with my children because I would have no money to provide for myself and the children, and he was the only one who could keep our son safe. He would have also wanted to save our daughter, he would claim, but in his version of reality, I didn’t allow him custody of our daughter out of revenge for him moving on and having a very loud and open relationship with another mother in my son’s class while I was pregnant with his child.

The school fell for his story hook, line, and sinker.

I later had to file a complaint against the school for allowing my ex-husband to take my son out of school against his will when he was supposed to be with me and not his father. My son had roses for the teachers and snacks for his classmates to say goodbye on his last school day because we were moving. Instead, my son was snatched away during school hours by his father with the school’s permission so that I couldn’t pick him up and take him with me and his baby sister to another village.

The manipulation

Why did this happen? Because my ex-husband had been successful in stirring the staff’s emotions to the point that they genuinely thought that they were acting in the best interest of the child. They felt good about their ability to stop me from taking my son and breaking the abusive cycle my children and I continued to be in despite having divorced my abuser.

They were convinced that I was the worrisome parent because he had successfully been able to manipulate them into seeing me that way.

The reality was that there was no sect – this was just a figment of my ex-husband’s very rich imagination, kind of like the Russia collusion hoax. I was moving to a small two-bedroom apartment 5 minutes across the German border because I couldn’t find a home closer by. Because Germany is part of the EU I could take my severance pay with me.

I was moving after our mutual lawyer advised me to pick up my kids and move as far away as possible from my ex-husband (who I had given everything during the divorce just to be able to get out alive with my children). I had returned to our mutual lawyer desperate because my ex-husband was making it impossible to raise our children together post-divorce and was using a pitbull lawyer to back me into a corner that allowed him to continue to hurt me and the children.

He refused to acknowledge our baby because he didn’t want to pay child support. He wouldn’t allow our son to have contact with his baby sister and me while he was at his father’s house. He would tell my son horrible things, such as that his sister was not his daughter but only his semen, even though my son was only 8 years old at the time.

He was setting the stage to get full custody of both children, something he had always promised me he would do if I ever dared to leave him. Initially, this wasn’t an option because he worked different shifts and it would cost a fortune in childcare. But he quickly moved in a single mother with children as a solution, but also to show what a great father he was to re-emphasize that he wasn’t the problem, I was. He was this amazing father and family man, trying to be a good father to his own children but I didn’t let him because I was using the children as a weapon against him.

The repertoire of false claims & accusation

To win sympathy and to paint me as the unhinged scorned vindictive ex-wife filled with irate jealousy and a need for revenge, my ex-husband circulated the rumor at school that I was going to try and get full custody of our son by falsely accusing my ex-husband of sexually abusing our son. That is the level of dirty tricks he stooped to, to get the school on his side.

Having been abused as a child myself, I was working on a children’s book on this subject at that time, which I had discussed with one of the teachers. Because people believe that where there is smoke, there must be fire, and because he positioned himself as someone who was just trying to move on after his life had been shattered to pieces – they again fell for his story hook, line, and sinker.

In a situation where he would normally be condemned for being openly with someone else while his recently divorced wife was pregnant with his child, he was able to change the narrative to successfully make me the object of scrutinization and condemnation rather than himself.

His version of events was that I had broken him by leaving him, and now I was going to take his son away from him by manipulating the system against him. I didn’t have this intention whatsoever, but that didn’t matter because it fit the deliberate storyline he was trying to weave around me.

Hell has no fury like a woman scorned.

He had succeeded in creating an even bigger injustice and outrage with him as the victim, to divert any attention away from him and his behavior by manufacturing a narrative that did not exist to vilify me and make me look like I was the one lying and playing dirty trying to get even with him.

He was so loud and obvious in this affair because it was part of his storyline and because it made everything I said viewed through the lens of the jilted ex-wife and therefore taken less seriously. Any concerns I had became delegitimized because his story seemed so plausible. It could have potentially been a very painful situation if I indeed had hoped to reconcile with him.

Instead, it only made me more steadfast in my decision to move on because I didn’t want to be in a relationship where I could not be myself, make my own decisions, or say and believe the things I saw as true. He wanted to dictate to me who I was to be, what my life should look like, and what I was allowed to say or believe. I was over it. For years, I had tried to reason with him and failed, there was nothing left to lose. There was only my freedom and sanity to be gained.

Creating chaos to confuse the aggressor & victim

By playing the victim and making me the bully, he was able to weaponize other people’s emotions against me. What often makes it difficult to identify the true victim in any situation is the fact that all roles; victim, rescuer, and bully or perpetrator are on the victim triangle. They are merely the different faces of victimhood.

It’s also a well-documented phenomenon that abusers (perpetrators/bullies) often see themselves as their victim’s victim.

This makes it very difficult to see who the true aggressor is in situations like this, especially because you don’t always know all the events leading up to the current situation. We saw this play out recently in the Oval Office during the Ukrainian peace talks, where some people swore the American President and the Vice President were the aggressors while others believed the Ukrainian President was the provoker of the conflict that ensued.

Recognizing the narcissistic abuse

I am sure that many men and women reading this who have experienced this kind of post-divorce abuse recognize the modus operandi of their abuser in my story. I know now that this is classic narcissistic abuse, but back then as a 28-year-old mother of two, I had no idea what I was dealing with or how to protect myself and my children from it.

As the children got older the lies got worse and he was able to turn both children against me. For example, he refused to come to see the children but then told them it was because I didn’t let him. In reality, I was the one who actually when close to his house on a visit to my family offered to bring the children by so they could spend time with him as they had not seen their father in two years. He initially refused, but then called back because he changed his mind.

Why would I bring the children to their father if he was so abusive? Because cutting a parent off completely is not good for the children. So we met in a public place, and he was able to spend time with his kids, but more importantly, the children were able to spend time with their father, who they had not seen in nearly two years and would not see again for another two years because he again refused to come to visit them.

The incessant gaslighting

He claimed he didn’t have the time because of work or the money, even though he was a homeowner and could somehow afford to own and feed a big dog. I would get the lame excuses, and to the kids, he would say it was because I didn’t allow him access to them or that I had made it impossible for him to come and get them. My mother would bring the children on the train to him when they were older, at her and my expense, when in those days, he outearned us both.

I want to make this point because it so clearly shows how my ex would accuse me of the very things he was doing or blame me for the things he did, such as the example above. He would tell my children even ten years into his new marriage that none of the things that were going wrong in their life would have happened if I had not left him.

My children desperate for his love and affection gobbled it up. In reality, he left me when I demanded he go into therapy if he wanted me to give our marriage another shot. From that moment on, he wanted nothing to do with me or our unborn child and he demanded I terminate the pregnancy because he didn’t want to have a second child if we weren’t going to be together.

The inevitable brainwashing

In the end, children who have been successfully alienated from a parent have actually successfully been manipulated to see the other parent the way the ex-partner sees the other parent, as cold and uncaring, the person responsible for all their pain.

An alienated child will be convinced that this is based on their own memories and their own experiences with the parent they no longer want contact with. They will not be able to see that the alienating parent has manipulated their perspective by, for example, telling the child stories of abuse that never took place or by interpreting sound parenting as bad parenting because the child didn’t like the outcome. Another favorite is to refuse to back the other parent in their parenting or refuse to draw one line when it comes to house rules, think of bedtime, what time the child needs to be home, smoking, alcohol, drugs, and so on.

There is simply one objective, and that is to pit the child against the other parent no matter what it takes.

How does this relate to current world politics?

I originally wrote this blog as a Facebook post which many people wrote to me came exactly at the right time for them. This is why I decided to convert it to an actual blog post to post on my website.

Initially, I didn’t want to write about this viewpoint at all because it is such a contentious topic but I kept being shown how much the geopolitical events mirror the very mechanisms underlying Parent Alienation Syndrome, so I sat down to write about the parallels I was seeing and how the public’s response was so recognizable to how children, schools, courts, and other institutions respond to PAS.

Outsiders wanting to stay neutral

The biggest mistake people on the outside of a conflict make is to believe that if they condemn both sides or don’t pick sides they are being objective and somehow are doing the right thing by staying out of it. That is actually what not only emboldens but perpetuates the abuse, it doesn’t lead to change and it retains the status quo.

When we do not vote or say voting doesn’t change anything, we keep the status quo and we prevent change from actually happening. Sometimes, voting does in fact not lead to the change we hoped for but it should lead to us voting again and making our voices heard even louder instead of giving up.

Saying the system is rigged and it doesn’t matter who you vote for, leads to things remaining as they are. It does not create the change you want to see in the world. So, if you don’t vote you can’t actually know if the system is rigged because you are not giving the system a chance to work. It may not always work directly, but it does work over time.

I predict that the same thing that happened in the United States will happen in the Netherlands, in the next elections the current biggest party will be even bigger, and when they win again the voters will not accept that the leader of the party they chose into office will not be allowed to represent the country as their Prime Minister. The fact that political parties and leaders who we may not always agree with are chosen by the people, is proof that the system does work when we use it.

Pretending to be the better ‘parent’ (moral superiority)

Some political ideologies use these very same tactics to discredit, isolate, and silence their political opponents while pretending to be morally superior, much like the one pretending to be the better parent in PAS. They position themselves as the better politician, the better ideology, the better party, and the ones the most concerned about the well-being of their people and their nation. They want you to believe that they are the better option.

I am not talking about the people being accused of behaving like this but rather about the people pointing the finger at them who are claiming to be fighting to keep our democracy.

Remember, I shared earlier that an alienating parent also profiles themselves as the more mature parent, claiming to be working in the best interest of the child. But much like the alienating parent cannot hurt their ex without also hurting their children, governments tend to hurt the very people they claim to be protecting or, much like my ex-husband play the favorite game; caring for one child (special interest group) and refusing to acknowledge and care for the other child (a group they want nothing to do with remember the deplorables, the trash, etc.).

Playing favorites or creating black sheep and golden children is just another form of narcissistic triangulation. A healthy government body should not be pitting its ‘children’ against each other. Once you see this, you cannot unsee it.

Weaponizing other’s emotions against their opponents

Another way I see a parallel between world politics and Parent Alienation Syndrome is how governments use the population’s emotions to stir up their fear, anger, and outrage against their political opponents using lies and fake narratives to achieve their goals.

This is not done once or only in certain cases. No, it is done over and over again, and judging by what I see being posted on social media, there is still a large part of the population who continues to fall for it hook. line and sinker. My ex-husband created new outrageous lies every time he felt he needed to weaponize family, friends, the school, the courts, CPS, etc. against me.

This is because triangulation is a narcissist’s favorite weapon.

Much like the school believed my ex-husband without ever fact-checking with me if the story was true. They fell for it because he had carefully built a one-sided narrative that made it seem as if everything he told them was the truth and nothing but the truth – when in reality he had lied through his teeth and fabricated every bit of his story.

This is because narcissists are absolutely charming when they want to be, they could sell ice to Eskimos if need be. They are extremely convincing because they are high on their own supply, i.e. they believe their own fabricated stories.

The game of allies & silencing any opposition

Later, my ex-husband would try to use the support of the school against me in court. Moving away to break our co-parenting agreement for our son obviously worked against me in court, and often, I would lose in the initial court case only to win on appeal, where he was less able to play on people’s emotions and sympathy with his emotional stories that were not even true or sometimes even relevant. They only served to make me look bad so that he could, for example, get out of paying child support or demand full custody, etc.

In politics, the government uses the media to corroborate its story, think of basically any news story that has told us to see something in a certain way. It’s not that we are being shown the true story, it’s that we are being shown the narrative we are meant to believe. Because most people don’t truly fact-check or because they want to be seen as being on the right side of history, etc. they again fall for these narratives hook, line, and sinker.

Plus, anyone who dares challenge the chosen narrative is discredited think of, for example, highly respected immunologists who were silenced and de-platformed during you know when. We know now, five years later, that what were deemed wild conspiracy theories back then often turned out to be true for example regarding the origin, treatment, and even v-ax complications, etc.

Going after their opponents through the legal system

Did I already tell you that parents who try to alienate the other parent love senseless and endless litigations based on false claims and lies? Sound familiar politically, I bet. Didn’t we just go through a period where after a couple of unsuccessful impeachments, a former president was suddenly a convicted felon, which as Judge Judy said you had to twist yourself into a pretzel to figure out what the crime was? Even Alan Dershowitz a lifelong Democrat criticized the political weaponization of the justice system that took place in the United States last election cycle.

In fact, parents committing parent alienation love accusing their ex-partner of being the alienator as a way to get full custody of the kids. When my son was 12 his father launched a full-court case against me demanding full custody because he claimed I abused our son. Again after consulting our divorce lawyer who couldn’t represent me out of conflict of interest, I suggested a three-month trial period of my son living with his father which my son in the wake of a new half-sibling being born to me said he wanted.

Just two weeks later, I received a call from my son’s dad at 7 am in the morning to tell me that he was bringing our son back to me because his wife threatened to leave him if he didn’t get my son out of the house. Suddenly, I wasn’t an abuser anymore and a perfectly fit parent when it suited him more.

Unraveling the truth

The thing is that the truth always comes out in the end. We are in a time now where the truth about all of it, is coming to light. All the people that we have been told are dangerous, spreading misinformation and lies, the people that have been silenced and discredited, de-platformed, and so on with little exceptions will turn out to be the ones who are actually on the right side of history. (I said little exceptions, not no exceptions.)

This is still a tricky thing to say at the moment because so many people are still under the impression that they know the truth when they are merely buying into the narrative they have been told. Even people who pride themselves on being critical, independent thinkers end up falling for false narratives hook, line, and sinker.

That is the power of manipulation; it can make us honestly believe that we have made up our own minds because we initially can’t see the manipulation. Once we see through it, it becomes very difficult to be manipulated again.

Whether you believe the official false narratives or the wilder conspiratory false narratives that are also based on fear-mongering, there is actual truth out there from respectable and reasonable sources that may be drowned out, but that will give you a better understanding of what is really going on.

It is sad, but the truth is that we can no longer trust the mainstream media, no matter where we live. Once you tune into different sources and voices, you see that mainstream media always spins things a certain way. This is because a lot of these media outlets are in bed with the government and/or infiltrated by government agencies.

Did you know, for example, that US government programs supported independent media in more than 30 countries? This is how we get individual news outlets repeating the same script verbatim both nationally and internationally, controlling the narrative. In 2023, one of these US government programs funded training and support for 6,200 journalists, assisted 707 non-state news outlets and supported 279 media-sector civil society organizations dedicated to strengthening independent media. How can media be independent if it is being funded by the government?

Sources of truth that I have found on my journey are for example Thomas Sowell, Jeffrey Sachs, and the many highly respected doctors questioning the you know what, a couple of years ago. For every narrative we are told to believe, there are people who know their stuff to help us get a more complete understanding of the truth because so many of the narratives we are told have never been true, to begin with. They are carefully crafted stories to sway public opinion in the way the government wants the public the view the matter.

Who do you believe, the accused or the accuser…?

But with so much mud being slung around or certain people deliberately trying to muddy the waters it can be hard to know who to believe. This is exactly what happens in these contentious divorce situations that end in parent alienation.

It’s also how abusers are able to continue their abuse by making the situation so messy, sordid, and difficult to see through that they are able to isolate their victims while bystanders support them in their abuse because they became convinced of the abuser’s lies to discredit the other parent.

Politically, you just have to look at the side that is fabricating the ‘truth’, de-platforming, and silencing the people who challenge them to understand who is applying this tactic, not because they are fighting for democracy but because, just like parents who alienate their children they are fighting to keep control which they equate with power, and when it comes to politics boatloads of money they lose access to (think of USAID).

Become your own fact-checker

They say actions speak louder than words, and in this type of dynamic, when you look closer, you will see that what these people say does not match up with what they do. This is politically true as well when your messaging becomes all about the danger of your opponent’s politics while your own politics directly endangers your people or the people involved from other countries, you are simply not being congruent.

At some point, sooner or later, people are going to see through the lies and see the truth. It didn’t take long for CPS to see that my ex-husband was all talk but no action. He didn’t show up for meetings. He didn’t come to see his son when he got into trouble and was sent to juvenile hall. The only contribution he had to give was telling them what a bad parent I was and how I was to blame. Although my ex-husband was initially very convincing his inability to show up as the amazing father he claimed to be would always undermine him in the long run.

What makes it most confusing is that both sides say that the other is lying, so who do you believe?

My advice is to question everything. Fact-check the so-called fact-checkers, as many of these sites were called into life to sustain the false narratives. To truly be sovereign means to think for yourself and to research every topic for yourself thoroughly.

But above all, stop listening to the words being said and start looking at the actions. You will quickly be able to see the truth, but be careful because even here, you will be shown carefully collected and edited information that is meant to solicit anger, outrage, and condemnation because that will keep you supporting the abusers in their abuse.

Our repressed shadows getting triggered

The less we have dealt with our own unresolved pain the easier it is to weaponize it, something we have seen over and over again leading to people’s outrage, anger, hatred, and fear being fanned high and directed at the political opponents.

This is EXACTLY how narcissists operate, and it can be really difficult to resist when someone is playing with your emotions.

I remember a family situation where my older half-sister successfully manipulated my ex-husband into punching my other half-sister in the face again through triangulation when my younger half-sister had done nothing wrong (sidenote he was out of line for hitting her period). My older half-sister used my ex-husband’s anger to punish my younger half-sister for posing a threat to her romantic relationship in her eyes. My younger half-sister got too cozy with my other half-sister’s boyfriend and this is how she orchestrated her revenge and payback.

This same dynamic plays out in politics when politicians are able to weaponize the population’s emotions against their political opponents, manipulating the people to become violent in the streets or even trying to murder political opponents because of the rhetoric being used to vilify them.

In the situation above, my half-sister used the traumatic birth of our oldest son to sweep up my ex-husband’s emotions, telling my half-sister to shut up when she was only trying to show empathy. After telling her a couple of times to shut up that she didn’t want to hear her sob stories, my ex-husband who had been drinking at the family party that night shot up and made her shut up.

Being triggered by his own painful emotions, he was convinced of his right to make my half-sister shut up because my older half-sister had created a situation in the early morning where she made my other half-sister look like the person who was saying something wrong.

It’s another classic form of triangulation. my older half-sister could not punish her sister herself without being condemned, so instead, she created a situation where she tried to direct everyone’s anger at my other half-sister. My ex, who had anger management issues, was just the cherry on top when he got up and punched her, making it seem as if my older half-sister’s accusations were correct because even one of the people involved was angry now.

But if you go stirring into people’s unresolved pain, it’s quite easy to make them volatile. Governments don’t only know this; they utilize it by creating stories or using words that play into collective fears and pain. For example, the ancestral pain of slavery, the fear of another genocide, the fear of losing one’s freedom, etc., etc.

The importance of self-reflection

So, next time you have a visceral reaction to what’s happening in the world—so much so that it calls you into action, whether that means showing sympathy and support, feeling outrage, fear, anger, or even hatred—see if you can catch yourself in that moment and truly allow yourself to examine what’s driving your response.

What within you is prompting you to react the way you do, and are you genuinely seeing the situation as it is, or are you being manipulated into perceiving it in a certain way?

If this simple exercise makes you angry and triggers all your biases, maybe it’s a good opportunity to fact-check those biases.

One result of repressed emotions is the rejection of our shadow aspects. When that happens, our desire to be seen as ‘good’ or to view ourselves as ‘good’ can lead us to be even more easily manipulated. The objective of a truly healthy person is not to be good, but to be whole integrating both our light and our shadow side.

As we become more whole, we don’t need to prove to ourselves and the world that we are ‘good’ because we are no longer internally programmed to do so to compensate where we subconsciously believe we are ‘bad’ based on unresolved (often childhood) trauma.

Waking up from the illusion can be a rude awakening

I hope this analogy helps you navigate these challenging times, where things are not always as they seem. A lot of truth is coming to light, and in some cases, it can be somewhat of a rude awakening to realize that the people we always saw as the ‘good’ guys in many cases have been part of the problem and the people that we thought were the ‘bad’ guys were actually working for our good all along, even when we have been told that their actions would only harm us.

It reminds me of a phone call I had with my oldest son two years ago when he, now an adult, called to apologize for the hell he put me through as a teenager. I won’t lie raising that kid was incredibly difficult, especially when he came back from his dad, devastated that his father threw him out in his eyes after first getting his hopes up when he was welcomed with open arms as the long-lost son that finally came home. He started drinking and doing drugs shortly after, and no matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t help him get his life back on track.

During the phone call, my son chuckled and said, ‘Who would have thought you would be the one to always be there for me?’ I might be paraphrasing, but that is what it came down to. He said it as if he could hardly believe it himself, despite the fact that he was there as a witness throughout his life and could have just seen it with his own eyes.

It took him thirty-one years to realize that no matter what kind of trouble he got himself into, no matter what he did, I was there to support him even when sometimes that meant putting up strict boundaries and giving him some tough love. The reason it took him so long to see it was because his father had programmed him to see me as this cold, uncaring mother who had raised him wrong. Everything had just always been my fault; he had been told over and over again until he started to see me that way.

That is the extent to which we can, given the right circumstances, become brainwashed without ever questioning the narrative that we have been fed. I am not suggesting that this is because you are dumb and naive or immature, of course not.

It’s because narcissistic abuse is so sophisticated that it can be hard to spot or resist.

Even the most intelligent and conscious people can fall for narcissistic manipulation because it is done so brazenly and so convincingly.

Seeing things as they are, rather than how we want them to be

Recently, in a therapist group, there was a mother (also a therapist herself) seeking advice because her son didn’t want to go to swim class anymore because the coach put his finger in the child’s bathing suit her 4-year-old son had told her.

An astonishing amount of people responding said not to worry because with all the parents looking at the pool, there was no way the coach would abuse the child where everyone could see it.

A few other people and I responded that this is exactly what happens in these cases of sexual abuse because no one expects predators to abuse their children right under their nose because of the position of authority this person has or because of the level of trust, they have in this person as a friend, family member or facilitator.

I was once sexually abused by my stepmother’s father in the backseat of the car, with my father and stepmother sitting in the front. I had just met him and within hours of meeting him, he started touching me on the hour’s drive home from his house to ours. Having been sexually abused as a very young child I froze and did what I had been conditioned to do – which was to stay quiet and endure it.

Who in their right mind would risk getting caught like that?
As a healthy individual, we can’t imagine this level of audacity or harm.

Had he been caught, he would have denied it and said I was making it up or that I had somehow initiated it. The response to getting caught is often either to deny, deflect, or accuse. They will do or say whatever they can to get away without being held responsible for the harmful consequences of their action.

Yet narcissism and psychopathy do co-occur not only on a micro level, such as with a step grandpa, the swim coach, or with an alienating ex, but also on a macro level, such as certain industries, and the government bodies that are meant to regulate them.

Much of this has taken place right under our noses in plain sight. We have just not been able to see this because, just like the therapists responding to the swim coach thread, we never thought our governments would be so brazen as to go against our best interests without even trying to hide it.

At some point, however, the cognitive dissonance becomes so clear we can’t help but see it and demand change. We live in exciting times, where things are about to change in a way that we haven’t seen in centuries. The status quo is being disrupted, and as uncomfortable as it may be to go through this, it is what will land us in the Golden Age, both literally as well as figuratively.