A Path Out of the Darkness
How the support of The Respondent community is helping to bring one father back from the brink
“The day we see the truth and cease to speak is the day we begin to die.”
― Martin Luther King Jr.
During the holidays, we should be dashing through the snow with our kids, laughing all the way to the sound of Jingle Bells, or hearing children laughing and seeing people passing, meeting smile after smile, accompanied by Silver Bells.
Unfortunately, like so many parents, I feel more like a boxer who got my proverbial “bell rung,” as I crawl through the wreckage of a high conflict divorce. The struggle is intense, multi-dimensional, and at times seems inescapable. I’ve lost my children to the American divorce machine and lived the horror of watching, in isolation from behind the plate glass prison of parental alienation, my children lose me. These battles are especially difficult to endure during the holidays. Oh, what a far cry from the idyllic holiday scenarios celebrated in classic Christmas songs and pop culture.
Losing the experiences and influence that are fundamental to a present, engaged, and valued parent leaves one feeling like there is little to smile about and much to lament. Similarly, the discrepancy between the expectations of what the holidays should entail, versus the loneliness, disappointment, and loss suffered by those who are separated from loved ones, adds to the living grief that parental alienation sows in the souls of parents, and especially in children who are forced to deny their reality to appease an unhealthy, manipulative parent.
Not long ago, I received a series of messages from my daughter—a beautiful, loving, kind, and typically respectful young woman who has been weaponized against me by the unresolved personal demons of her unhealthy mother—that shook me to my core. (The contents of the messages are not important.) At 3:57 a.m. the next morning, I recorded a personal reflection on my phone in an attempt to release some of the mounting pressure building up within my being:
Would my death yield more than my light?
I desire the PEACE that death will bring,
After being implored by my child (weaponized by her mother) to kill myself;
I desire escape…calm…relief…
Would my death fix a vile, broken, destructive, murderous system?
Surely, it would not.
Systems don’t care.
Death doesn’t yield results.
The only path in our dark world is toward the light.
My death would yield loss;
My light might yield no more…
But it is what I have to give.
The ensuing days brought me closer to the brink than I ever imagined I could be.
An internal battle; uncovering living grief
The war of high conflict divorce is fought on two fronts. There are the external battles perversely waged in and out of family courts, and the consequential internal battles raging within the hearts, minds, bodies and souls of diminished, discredited, discarded parents and their children. The binary battlefronts are intertwined, of course, but we must fight—and win—the internal battles irrespective of the status of the external battles.
My two daughters have been progressively alienated from me over the course of my separation and divorce. At one time, there was a glimmer of light, such as when my ex-wife drove the girls to Chicago to spend the weekend with my son and me on Fathers’ Day 2021. Sadly, that light has gone out. That is the last day that I spent time with all three of my children. Weeks later my ex-wife’s predatory attorney sought the appointment of an unwittingly malignant Guardian ad Litem, a move which both fomented conflict and ensured much more money poured into the system. In the 18 months since the well-intentioned but woefully unqualified Guardian ad Litem has been appointed, my middle daughter has been hospitalized twice for mental health concerns, yet I have never seen or been allowed contact with her, and I am now severely alienated from both of my daughters. Given the devastating effects of a family law system that compensates corruption and doubles down on incompetency, I may never have a relationship with my daughters again, may never embrace them again, may never laugh with them or see them smile again.
At the insistence of the Guardian ad Litem, who in court testified that I am “99 percent compassionate,” my regular parenting time with my son was terminated on April Fool’s Day (no joke). Since then, I have seen him for a total of about a dozen hours. The time that I do spend with my son, under an ill-advised and ill-equipped court order, involves mandated “reunification therapy,” whatever that means. We were unified when the order was entered and will remain unified.
The casualties strewn about the external battlefields of high conflict divorce take their toll internally. I had been losing this internal battle when I reached out to Greg Ellis. Greg responded (he is The Respondent, after all!) and he and I discussed the “ultimate strength” of vulnerability, a virtue not readily shared among men. It was upon that backdrop that my daughter’s messages came through, and I invited Greg into one of the darkest moments of my life. Greg, being the consummate loving, engaged, and resolute father that he is, encouraged me to hear the message behind her words, the pain of her loss, rather than focus on the words themselves.
Ultimately, I recognized my daughter’s vitriol toward me was a desperate cry for peace, for a semblance of normalcy, for relief from the dungeon of turmoil and despair in which high conflict divorce imprisons families. Trapped in the grips of parental alienation, my daughter was begging me to alter a toxic dynamic that a broken family law system has rendered me powerless to change. My daughter’s desperation, mixed with my own, crept into my core and pulled back the rug of my soul, under which I had swept years, and perhaps a lifetime, of living grief.
Walking toward the light
I believe myself to be a reasonably mentally and emotionally healthy person who has coped reasonably well with the devastation that parental alienation has inflicted upon my family. Yet, I now recognize that I actively need to process my grief with the support and guidance of a qualified mental health professional, which I have begun to do in my continuing journey to find light in the darkness.
I have developed the personal narrative that “the only path in our dark world is toward the light.” Surrendering myself to that dark reality of my family’s destruction—and, at times, my despair—does not mean I will ever deprive my children of my love, support, and encouragement, should they come to call. I can’t have any contact with any of my kids over the holidays or on my coming birthday. Yet when my son and I do have time together again, I know we will spend it in natural conversation, with plenty of laughter, “meeting smile after smile,” as if no time has passed between our way-too-short and way-too-infrequent meetings.
In once recent discussion with an alienated father, I talked about my son’s “warrior spirit,” as he traverses his own journey through parental alienation, and other forms of domestic violence suffered in his mother’s custody, with courage, love, kindness, resiliency, and wit. I have confidence that my son and I, by suffering through and embracing the challenges presented to us by parental alienation, will continue to transform ourselves into stronger, kinder, more loving, resilient, and courageous men.
The connection, engagement, and vulnerability that I have shared with Greg and others has encouraged me to invite more members of my loving and supportive community into my struggle. Each of them have endured their own challenges and hardships and, in one way or another, have invited me to walk with them through their struggles. The fact that they have been vulnerable with me has emboldened me to invite them into my suffering in ways that I otherwise couldn’t have done.
We all wish for peace during the holidays, and I hope anyone reading will find their peace through connecting with the light that shines within themselves and their community. You are never alone. And I want to you to know, and remember, that while darkness may pervade your current moment, or some moment in the future, it is always within your power to reach out and find a lifeline to help lead you back into the light.
I am an alienated parent who has been embraced by an engaged, loving, and supportive community led by The Respondent, which has become integral to my battle against the scourge of parental alienation wrought upon my family. Connecting with likeminded people who have lived the struggle has had a profound impact on me. My conversation with Greg that terrible night, and others like it in the ensuing days, may well have saved my life.
During the time that I was writing this article, I had lunch with a lifelong friend who is a loving husband and father of five kids. Tragically, his older brother took his own life during the holidays a few years ago, leaving behind a kind, responsible, and loving ex-wife and three beautiful children. When I spoke with my friend about my struggle with the reality that I may never see my girls again, I said that I will never deprive them of the availability of my presence and love. He looked at me through tears and with passion, said, “Yes, exactly, that’s it!! That’s EVERYTHING!”
I can bring light to my daughters’ worlds by remaining available. I can bring light to my son’s world by being present for him during whatever time we have together. It’s all I can offer right now, given my situation, and I will continue to do so every chance I get. I offer light to you, too. During this season, I pray that you are not experiencing the darkness that has shrouded my family. And if you are, that these words will bring you some light.
- Kevin Thomas
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Read one forsaken father’s recent thoughts on The Respondent book in How the Grinch Steals Children.
As a mother who is watching her son go through this with very young, sweet, vunerable, impressionable daughters, this has given me a different approach to support him through this. Thank you to the brave men who have opened up and given deep, painful thought and found a reason to carry on the fight and the hope. Thank you.
Thanks for sharing your story.