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Alienated Mother reconciles with daughter · Head Shrink Inc.

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_00: Today I got an opportunity to interview an alienated mother.
• 0:04
  SPEAKER_00: We don't often get to hear from a parent who's alienated, so hopefully you enjoy.
• 0:28
  SPEAKER_00: I ran across um Sunday.
• 0:32
  SPEAKER_00: I think Sunday, you messed possibly messaged me.
• 0:36
  SPEAKER_00: I can't remember the origin of us connecting.
• 0:40
  SPEAKER_00: But the first thing that struck me was your name.
• 0:43
  SPEAKER_00: Because I was like, whoa, is that really your name?
• 0:45
  SPEAKER_00: And and it is really your name, right?
• 0:47
  SPEAKER_00: Sunday.
• 0:48
  SPEAKER_02: Yes, it is my like full birth name.
• 0:52
  SPEAKER_00: So that's why I wanted to one, I wanted to talk to you because I I because that's just a very unique name.
• 0:59
  SPEAKER_00: And then two, I think we connected because you had talked about um you have you are wait, you have kids that are estranged.
• 1:09
  SPEAKER_02: I my daughter and I uh we had a uh alienation situation with my mother.
• 1:15
  SPEAKER_02: And we worked through it.
• 1:16
  SPEAKER_02: So my daughter and I are very close today, but it's one of the few, um, I think one of the few success stories for alienation.
• 1:26
  SPEAKER_00: Sure, okay.
• 1:27
  SPEAKER_00: So before we dive into that, so give me who are what do you do?
• 1:31
  SPEAKER_00: Who are you?
• 1:32
  SPEAKER_00: Tell me a little bit about yourself.
• 1:33
  SPEAKER_02: Okay, I'm I'm an attorney in Montana and I've practiced going on 30 years in the fall.
• 1:39
  SPEAKER_02: Um I feel like I have a good practice.
• 1:42
  SPEAKER_02: I've received a state state bar award for my pro bono service.
• 1:47
  SPEAKER_02: I was nominated from by a judge probably, I don't know, 15 years ago or something.
• 1:54
  SPEAKER_02: So um I do a lot of high conflict divorce and custody litigation.
• 1:59
  SPEAKER_02: I used to do a number of other areas, but as uh my career moved forward, I just continue to specialize.
• 2:06
  SPEAKER_02: So that is what I exclusively do.
• 2:09
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and so like are you so you show up in like family court?
• 2:13
  SPEAKER_02: I show up in family court, yes.
• 2:16
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 2:17
  SPEAKER_00: Um do you so is that what you started out as?
• 2:21
  SPEAKER_00: As like a family, uh like a divorce lawyer?
• 2:24
  SPEAKER_02: No, no, I started out and I did um a lot of um inmate litigation.
• 2:29
  SPEAKER_02: So I have an instrumental case called State of Montana versus Mark Edward Walker, and it completely changed how the prison systems are required to deal with the mental health issues of certain mentally ill inmates.
• 2:44
  SPEAKER_02: And it's been written up in some of the human rights um journals.
• 2:48
  SPEAKER_02: So I'm very proud of that case, but I did that in just a pretty broad range of legal areas, um, did a lot of criminal defense, did some in-house counsel.
• 2:59
  SPEAKER_02: The first firm I worked for, we worked for our biggest client was a hospital.
• 3:04
  SPEAKER_02: So I did a lot of that.
• 3:05
  SPEAKER_02: I did some personal injury litigation and just a variety of areas.
• 3:10
  SPEAKER_02: And I didn't really pick family law, but it sort of picked me.
• 3:14
  SPEAKER_02: I kept getting referral after referral after referral.
• 3:17
  SPEAKER_02: So it just sort of morphed into I only do family law anymore.
• 3:22
  SPEAKER_00: I need to go look at your Google reviews because what I what I have found is if a lawyer if a family lawyer has bad Google reviews, it usually means they're good.
• 3:32
  SPEAKER_02: I I do I some really um rough ones that they were rather upset with me.
• 3:36
  SPEAKER_02: Some I don't even know who they were, some of them.
• 3:39
  SPEAKER_00: Well, because it's I think this it's again, it's why I don't do any kind of rec um court judges will in family law court will often say, Oh, you need to go see a reconciliation counselor.
• 3:53
  SPEAKER_00: And I don't do that work for via the courts because usually there's a parent that doesn't want that to happen.
• 4:01
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 4:02
  SPEAKER_00: And they will file complaints against exactly they turn you in, yes.
• 4:06
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, or they give you horrible Google reviews because you're trying to help uh the father and a kid get back together.
• 4:14
  SPEAKER_00: So you probably experienced that.
• 4:16
  SPEAKER_02: I did.
• 4:16
  SPEAKER_02: I had a high conflict one and she filed a bar complaint on me, and then she was actually harassing me on the other side, and they I think they came back and told her that you know if she keeps doing that, she should be more worried about her license.
• 4:30
  SPEAKER_02: Um, but she was she was she was licensed.
• 4:33
  SPEAKER_02: She's a she's a licensed.
• 4:35
  SPEAKER_02: I have to be careful how I say she she's licensed in the medical profession, and um, she was sending me like bizarre books and postcards to my house, and we were able to prove what she was doing.
• 4:47
  SPEAKER_00: So they mean have you ever had to file like a protection order against somebody?
• 4:54
  SPEAKER_02: Um or yourself in in a personal situation, but that was dealing with more of a romantic situation.
• 5:01
  SPEAKER_02: Um, we've had to, and that was the spouse of a former romantic partner.
• 5:06
  SPEAKER_02: Um, but we've had to trespass people.
• 5:10
  SPEAKER_02: Um had to do that.
• 5:12
  SPEAKER_02: Um, I did actually have a situation where um a guy, I'm pretty good with the gray rock technique.
• 5:18
  SPEAKER_02: And most people, if you don't give them any energy, they'll just go away because it's no, it's no fun, right?
• 5:24
  SPEAKER_02: And he kept crafting.
• 5:26
  SPEAKER_00: Can I interrupt?
• 5:27
  SPEAKER_00: Can I interrupt?
• 5:27
  SPEAKER_00: Because for people that are listening, do you want to tell us what the gray rock technique is?
• 5:32
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, yes, a great gray rock technique is basically, you know, when when you're dealing with the type of people you need to use it on, they're trying to provoke you, antagonize you, um, course you just be very difficult.
• 5:46
  SPEAKER_02: And you just don't give them really any energy back.
• 5:50
  SPEAKER_02: You know, you say as little as possible, even if it's terribly upsetting, you just try to go blank slate with your face.
• 5:58
  SPEAKER_02: Um, you know, do not react.
• 6:00
  SPEAKER_02: React is triggered by what they do.
• 6:03
  SPEAKER_02: You might be, if you have to respond, make it very short.
• 6:07
  SPEAKER_02: But gray rock is to make you as boring and uninteresting as the biggest gray rock in your yard.
• 6:14
  SPEAKER_00: Yes, that's a good explanation of it.
• 6:16
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, I typically in the mental health field, typically it's seen as an answer to people that have narcissistic tendencies.
• 6:25
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and and so you just kind of make yourself dead essentially to the word to that person in particular.
• 6:35
  SPEAKER_00: Um so I'm I totally interrupted you, I apologize, but I wanted to make people know what the gray rock method was.
• 6:42
  SPEAKER_02: No, I'm glad you did because you forget when you start using words that you use all the time.
• 6:47
  SPEAKER_00: Right, right, and acronyms and things like that.
• 6:49
  SPEAKER_00: I one time I had I had a client that was emailing me, calling me incessantly, and I had to file something against them.
• 7:04
  SPEAKER_00: And um then once I did that, then they went to the the board and complained, and it went, it didn't go anywhere.
• 7:10
  SPEAKER_00: But it just yeah, people are kind of wild sometimes.
• 7:14
  SPEAKER_00: Um, okay, so I wanted to have you on Sunday to talk about kind of your experience with this alienation.
• 7:22
  SPEAKER_00: So can you can you kind of give some context for your experience of alienation?
• 7:28
  SPEAKER_00: So and and then and I'll just say as an aside to to listeners, alienation is different than estrangement.
• 7:35
  SPEAKER_00: I think it's um it's all under the kind of in my opinion, it's all under the same umbrella, kind of as cut off from family, and then there's estrangement and alienation.
• 7:47
  SPEAKER_00: So uh I'll Sundale I'll try to stop interrupting you.
• 7:50
  SPEAKER_02: Oh, sure.
• 7:51
  SPEAKER_02: No worries.
• 7:52
  SPEAKER_02: Um, so it it actually even goes way back to when I was a child, and my parents were divorced.
• 8:00
  SPEAKER_02: I have a brother, and when they separated, um my father, he had, you know, he used alcohol.
• 8:09
  SPEAKER_02: What whether he's an alcoholic, whether he's not, who knows?
• 8:13
  SPEAKER_02: But my mother would tend to frame things with him.
• 8:18
  SPEAKER_02: So I didn't realize it even until I went through my own alienation with my daughter that my mother was watching.
• 8:26
  SPEAKER_02: I did not realize how um pathogenic and toxic she was.
• 8:31
  SPEAKER_02: But we'd be growing up, and you know, my dad um, he just struggled with depression.
• 8:37
  SPEAKER_02: He struggled with a lot of things.
• 8:40
  SPEAKER_02: And looking back, I realized that um, you know, she made us feel like he wasn't safe.
• 8:47
  SPEAKER_02: Oh, your dad is so embarrassing.
• 8:49
  SPEAKER_02: Gee, you know, the way he laughs, he's just so embarrassing.
• 8:52
  SPEAKER_02: Oh, you're not safe there.
• 8:54
  SPEAKER_02: Are you okay?
• 8:55
  SPEAKER_02: She would plan things when, you know, it was time for us to go with him.
• 8:59
  SPEAKER_02: Um when um when I would have have events um still bothers me to this day.
• 9:10
  SPEAKER_02: He often wouldn't show up and I'd hear, oh, your dad, you know, he just is going to play poker.
• 9:16
  SPEAKER_02: He would rather, you know, be playing poker than me with you kids, or I heard this or I heard that.
• 9:22
  SPEAKER_02: And you know, I just kept you know, hearing all this.
• 9:26
  SPEAKER_02: And then of course, like any alienated parent, he would get angry.
• 9:30
  SPEAKER_02: So we would be around when he would get angry and be like, look, this is what I'm talking about.
• 9:34
  SPEAKER_02: This is you know how how unsafe your father is.
• 9:38
  SPEAKER_02: So anyway, uh um I didn't realize my mother was doing that until I got older.
• 9:46
  SPEAKER_01: And so when my dad um still bothers me, but when when my dad, um when I got into college, my dad got chronically ill, but we had gotten close.
• 10:01
  SPEAKER_01: Excuse me, I didn't think I'd try.
• 10:04
  SPEAKER_00: I I very much appreciate you being willing to talk about this.
• 10:09
  SPEAKER_00: Oh gosh.
• 10:10
  SPEAKER_02: Um, my clients take all my Kleenex and have a divorce office, so they're not readily handy.
• 10:16
  SPEAKER_02: So anyway, um we got to be close when I was in college, and um my dad died my my second year of law school.
• 10:26
  SPEAKER_02: So anyway, um I was very high achieving, I was an excellent figure skater.
• 10:34
  SPEAKER_02: Uh I competed against Tanya Harding at the Northwest Regionals.
• 10:38
  SPEAKER_02: Um yeah.
• 10:40
  SPEAKER_00: But she didn't she didn't hit your knees.
• 10:42
  SPEAKER_02: She did not.
• 10:42
  SPEAKER_02: I was not worthy.
• 10:43
  SPEAKER_02: I was not a worthy enough opponent.
• 10:45
  SPEAKER_02: Um, but she was fantastic, it was one of the highlights of my life, you know.
• 10:49
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, she could jump halfway up the hockey board.
• 10:51
  SPEAKER_02: So I did a lot of competitive figure skating, and my dad wouldn't, you know, show up.
• 10:56
  SPEAKER_02: And my mom would just, you know, just say these things.
• 11:01
  SPEAKER_02: And I remember in high school, I received a number of scholarships, and I listed, you know, they asked you who's your mom, who's your dad?
• 11:12
  SPEAKER_02: And it came out in the paper with my parents, and my mom went completely berserk.
• 11:17
  SPEAKER_02: And she had this way of like isolating you when she would get extremely abusive.
• 11:22
  SPEAKER_02: And I just remember her standing over a chair, just you know, I was like all kind of balled up, you know, yelling and screaming.
• 11:30
  SPEAKER_02: And I just, it was, you know, and how awful I was.
• 11:34
  SPEAKER_00: And you were a young adult at this time.
• 11:36
  SPEAKER_02: I was, I was in, I was in high school, and when I got all my scholarships and they were published in the paper, um, because it showed up my dad being listed, my real dad, and not my mom and my stepdad, she went crazy.
• 11:51
  SPEAKER_02: So then I went off to college and I really did well in college.
• 11:55
  SPEAKER_02: I received a half tuition scholarship and um I got a Pell Grant.
• 12:00
  SPEAKER_02: My dad helped me get a Pell Grant because he was terminally ill at that time.
• 12:04
  SPEAKER_02: So, anyway, but before that Pell Grant came through, um, I was very happy there, and my mother started refusing to pay for college.
• 12:14
  SPEAKER_02: So I almost, you know, left that college and went elsewhere.
• 12:19
  SPEAKER_02: And um and then this uh Pell Grant came through and I was able to stay there.
• 12:26
  SPEAKER_02: So fast forward, fast forward, my dad passes on.
• 12:29
  SPEAKER_02: I have my own law practice, I'm doing well.
• 12:32
  SPEAKER_02: Um, most of my work is referral.
• 12:35
  SPEAKER_02: Like I don't I don't advertise and we don't answer the phone like two-thirds of the day because it's just too many people.
• 12:42
  SPEAKER_02: And so I have a really strong law practice.
• 12:45
  SPEAKER_02: So um I had a daughter, and the relationship with that that dad did not work out, um, which I don't want to get into.
• 12:54
  SPEAKER_02: He's doing well now, and I don't have anything bad to say about him.
• 12:58
  SPEAKER_02: Um, so I don't want to get into why, but it was a worrisome situation at the time.
• 13:04
  SPEAKER_02: So anyway, my mother, um, I ended up buying a house very close to my mother's, just three blocks away.
• 13:12
  SPEAKER_02: And she, you know, convinced me to have her watch my daughter mostly.
• 13:18
  SPEAKER_02: You know, I mean, it was it was affordable.
• 13:20
  SPEAKER_02: I was a young mother.
• 13:22
  SPEAKER_02: I was busy, you know, building my practice at that time.
• 13:26
  SPEAKER_02: Um, I'd only, I think I'd only been in practice maybe five to seven years when I had my daughter.
• 13:33
  SPEAKER_02: So it was, you know, critical time of building.
• 13:35
  SPEAKER_02: So what had happened is little by little, um, my mom, it was kind of like Pac Man.
• 13:41
  SPEAKER_02: She just kept eating all the all this all the um you know, the everything on the screen.
• 13:48
  SPEAKER_02: And I, you know, I'd go to pick up my daughter and oh, well, you know, we we've got plans, or oh, our favorite movies on tonight.
• 13:55
  SPEAKER_02: Oh, um, you know, she just had a bath.
• 13:59
  SPEAKER_02: Um she would say things like, you know, she's starting to get sick, oh, you know, so and so's coming over, she's so excited.
• 14:07
  SPEAKER_02: And so little by little, like I would go to pick up my daughter and I would hit excuse after excuse.
• 14:15
  SPEAKER_00: So were the excuses were like why she couldn't why that why your daughter couldn't go with you at the time?
• 14:23
  SPEAKER_00: Right, right.
• 14:23
  SPEAKER_02: I'd get off of work and usually we'd have dinner at my mom's house, and then pretty soon they started eating dinner earlier, and when I'd call to pick her up, it but it seemed like she was so good at it, it just seemed, you know, I was busy and my head was on the practice, and she, you know, she'd say one thing and I'd acquiesce and another.
• 14:43
  SPEAKER_02: And so I would spend a lot of time over there, and pretty soon she she absorbed most of the time.
• 14:50
  SPEAKER_02: So um if I would talk about wanting to um take her to a special movie, she would make sure she got to the movie before I got to take her to that movie or anything I was looking forward to.
• 15:04
  SPEAKER_02: So if I was like, oh, Nemo Like she would take her to the movie first, and then oh, you know, I'm gonna be taking, you know, I'm gonna take her to, I don't, and uh I'm not saying my daughter's name because I'm trying to keep it more private, you know, she's an adult now, but I would say, um, yeah, I'm gonna I want to take her to Nemo, or I want to take her to Monsters Inc.
• 15:25
  SPEAKER_02: And all of a sudden they would go to Monsters Inc.
• 15:27
  SPEAKER_02: or they would go to Nemo or whatever it was.
• 15:31
  SPEAKER_02: So then we got my daughter and I.
• 15:33
  SPEAKER_02: Um, my daughter wanted to start figure skating.
• 15:36
  SPEAKER_02: I'm a I'm a big believer with kids.
• 15:39
  SPEAKER_02: I see a lot of parents stick their kids in stuff they like, and I don't like that.
• 15:44
  SPEAKER_02: So Wednesday envelope came home from school, and there was a thing about skating, and my daughter goes, I want to go, you know, I want to go learn to skate.
• 15:52
  SPEAKER_02: I'm like, okay, you know, we can do that.
• 15:54
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 15:55
  SPEAKER_02: So we go to the rink, and um all of the coaches, like most of them were people I skated with, like way back when, and now they're coaches.
• 16:04
  SPEAKER_02: Wow, and the and the rink is broke and they have no money.
• 16:08
  SPEAKER_02: So I'm like, okay, yeah, I'll I'll I'll volunteer coach.
• 16:11
  SPEAKER_02: So I volunteered, I think four or five years, like four or five seasons.
• 16:16
  SPEAKER_02: My daughter and I started skating, and then when I started learning my jumps again, I was doing, I couldn't do any doubles or triples, but I could do the axle and a few other things and show her things.
• 16:26
  SPEAKER_02: My mother would frame it as, oh, that's so sad.
• 16:29
  SPEAKER_02: Your mom, you know, she just wants to compete with you.
• 16:32
  SPEAKER_02: You know, she's out there trying to compete with you.
• 16:34
  SPEAKER_02: So she would turn it into like anything that we bonded on or was positive, she would like spin doctor it to something like terrible nefarious.
• 16:46
  SPEAKER_00: I'm I'm I'm becoming more and more convinced um that when I'm interacting with a lot of estranged parents, that accusations are often admissions.
• 17:00
  SPEAKER_00: Right?
• 17:00
  SPEAKER_00: So her accusing you of that actually was what she had been doing your whole life, essentially.
• 17:08
  SPEAKER_02: Probably, probably.
• 17:10
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, yeah, and I think she was super jealous.
• 17:13
  SPEAKER_02: Like I was a former Miss Montana, Miss 1992 Montana.
• 17:17
  SPEAKER_02: So, but I didn't look at it like that.
• 17:20
  SPEAKER_02: I just I would I've never been one to use that, you know.
• 17:23
  SPEAKER_02: The year I won that, they they said, Oh, it's your best year to find a rich husband, and that's like not my thing, you know.
• 17:30
  SPEAKER_02: So I never really used, you know, that I just wasn't one of those girls that like used it like that.
• 17:35
  SPEAKER_02: You know what I'm saying?
• 17:36
  SPEAKER_02: I was more interested in my career and um just working out and sports and what did your mom, what do you think looking back, did your mom push what does she push you towards?
• 17:46
  SPEAKER_00: Towards finding that rich husband or towards the career?
• 17:50
  SPEAKER_02: Well, she pushed me towards the career, um, for sure.
• 17:53
  SPEAKER_02: And then I I dated a guy that she just thought was the guy.
• 17:57
  SPEAKER_02: So after he moved he moved to Montana, um, we met in law school, and I chose not to marry him.
• 18:07
  SPEAKER_02: So he married somebody else and he moved to my hometown with his wife.
• 18:12
  SPEAKER_02: And then my mother would hang out with him.
• 18:15
  SPEAKER_02: Like he'd get invited to the cabin, she would get invited to the cabin.
• 18:18
  SPEAKER_02: He would help build the cabin.
• 18:20
  SPEAKER_02: Um and then after when they were divorcing, my mother pushed me towards um dating him again.
• 18:28
  SPEAKER_02: She set up this whole thing.
• 18:33
  SPEAKER_00: So, okay, so let's go.
• 18:35
  SPEAKER_00: So you graduate, your daughters, your mom's watching your daughter.
• 18:40
  SPEAKER_00: Um when so then you said there's some kind of alienation that was taking place.
• 18:46
  SPEAKER_02: Well, what happened is um when I was when I I was I tried a case with a attorney, a really great attorney who became a good friend, and he's like, You need to get your kid back.
• 18:58
  SPEAKER_02: And I said, Look, I said, if I go toe to toe with my mom, it's gonna be really bad.
• 19:04
  SPEAKER_02: You know, it's gonna be really he's like, You just gotta go pick her up, take your kid back.
• 19:07
  SPEAKER_02: It's like you gotta go do that.
• 19:09
  SPEAKER_00: And how old were what what describe this more?
• 19:12
  SPEAKER_00: Your kid was actually like staying at your mom.
• 19:15
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, yeah, because I could never really get her back to my house, you know.
• 19:19
  SPEAKER_00: So how old was she at the time?
• 19:20
  SPEAKER_02: She was that was about fourth grade, I would say, you know, third or fourth grade.
• 19:24
  SPEAKER_02: So I but I was coaching skating, and she and I were skating quite a bit together up until um fifth grade.
• 19:32
  SPEAKER_02: And then um we we planned this trip to Hawaii, and I was paying for my mother, I was paying for Teal, I was paying for Chloe, her friend, um, I was paying for everybody.
• 19:45
  SPEAKER_02: And at the last minute, um, because my daughter really liked going on trips with me, she got them to, and and what I figured out later is she was planning to try to completely take my daughter from me.
• 19:57
  SPEAKER_02: But at the last minute, she got them to become afraid of some, I think that was when the Nile virus or one of those was going around.
• 20:06
  SPEAKER_02: So they, so my mother claimed Teal was too sick to travel, so I canceled this whole trip.
• 20:12
  SPEAKER_02: Well, that very next day we go to the parent-teacher conference, and my daughter's supposedly really sick.
• 20:19
  SPEAKER_02: And um, I say, okay, well, let's go take her to dinner.
• 20:22
  SPEAKER_02: You know, she had a really good report.
• 20:24
  SPEAKER_02: Let's go to dinner.
• 20:25
  SPEAKER_02: Oh, she's skating.
• 20:26
  SPEAKER_02: And I'm like, what is she doing skating?
• 20:27
  SPEAKER_02: You know, she's got an earache, you know, that's not good.
• 20:30
  SPEAKER_02: Well, my daughter ended up breaking her leg that day at the rig.
• 20:34
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, she broke her leg, broke her ankle.
• 20:37
  SPEAKER_02: So she ended up with massive surgery.
• 20:41
  SPEAKER_02: Um, it was very close to the growth plate.
• 20:43
  SPEAKER_02: So about that time, I had purchased a new house out of town, and it was a dream home.
• 20:50
  SPEAKER_02: It was a custom home by one of the top builders in town.
• 20:53
  SPEAKER_02: And she was supposed to move in.
• 20:56
  SPEAKER_02: You know, we I got it set up.
• 20:57
  SPEAKER_02: She was excited.
• 20:59
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and I got that house closed in October, November.
• 21:04
  SPEAKER_02: We had a really difficult big farm and ranch multi-million dollar case.
• 21:08
  SPEAKER_02: My co-counsel got uh had a motorcycle wreck, so I had to take over the case, and we were just super busy, so I had to delay getting her in.
• 21:17
  SPEAKER_02: Well, then December comes and I want her to move in, and my mom just kept delaying it.
• 21:23
  SPEAKER_02: And then incrementally, finally, uh May comes and I'm like, look, you know, she's moving in.
• 21:30
  SPEAKER_02: So I get her, she's all excited about the garden, and we're we're planting some starters.
• 21:36
  SPEAKER_02: My daughter is, and Memorial Day weekend comes, and my mother says, Oh, she's she's got plans.
• 21:43
  SPEAKER_02: She wants, we're going to, you know, she wants to go with her cousins.
• 21:47
  SPEAKER_02: They're going to Fairmont.
• 21:48
  SPEAKER_02: So, no, I said, I am tired of spending holidays alone.
• 21:52
  SPEAKER_02: You guys planning stuff.
• 21:53
  SPEAKER_02: She needs to move into the house.
• 21:55
  SPEAKER_02: Well, that very weekend, um, she comes over, my daughter's a complete Completely different person.
• 22:01
  SPEAKER_02: She's demanding, insisting, she just wants to stay in her room on her iPad.
• 22:07
  SPEAKER_02: And she's wanting to make cakes, which is going to create a mess.
• 22:10
  SPEAKER_02: And she's just being very unruly.
• 22:12
  SPEAKER_02: Like, just, you know, from the end, we're talking about the garden.
• 22:16
  SPEAKER_02: Oh, the garden's stupid.
• 22:17
  SPEAKER_02: I don't want to do the garden.
• 22:19
  SPEAKER_02: That's a lot of work.
• 22:20
  SPEAKER_02: But she was super excited.
• 22:21
  SPEAKER_02: We had all these seedlings.
• 22:23
  SPEAKER_02: So then she starts out, I'm I'm afraid of you.
• 22:27
  SPEAKER_02: She starts the narrative, I'm afraid.
• 22:29
  SPEAKER_02: And I'm not doing anything to make her afraid.
• 22:32
  SPEAKER_02: I'm just telling her no.
• 22:33
  SPEAKER_02: So then she demands to have the whole iPad.
• 22:37
  SPEAKER_02: She's going to go in her room.
• 22:39
  SPEAKER_02: And I call a psychologist, kind of like, you know, the kind of work you do, somebody I know that's in the courts.
• 22:46
  SPEAKER_02: I say, what do I do?
• 22:47
  SPEAKER_02: You know?
• 22:48
  SPEAKER_02: And I also called somebody high up at the sheriff's department that I knew.
• 22:52
  SPEAKER_02: And I said, She's making these accusations.
• 22:54
  SPEAKER_02: I feel like they're setting me up.
• 22:56
  SPEAKER_02: What do I do?
• 22:57
  SPEAKER_02: They say, take the iPad away.
• 22:58
  SPEAKER_02: Take the iPad away.
• 23:00
  SPEAKER_00: So the next how old was she at this time?
• 23:04
  SPEAKER_02: She's um just she was just finishing, I think it was um it was either the end of fifth grade or sixth grade.
• 23:12
  SPEAKER_02: I think it was just finishing it, all gets episode 13, 13, or 12 or 13.
• 23:19
  SPEAKER_02: Right.
• 23:19
  SPEAKER_02: I might be off on my timeline.
• 23:20
  SPEAKER_02: I I think it might have been sixth grade, actually.
• 23:23
  SPEAKER_02: She was finishing.
• 23:24
  SPEAKER_02: So anyway, um there's there is a guy that lived down the street.
• 23:30
  SPEAKER_02: I had a long-term on and off dating relationship with him.
• 23:33
  SPEAKER_02: He was a doctor in town.
• 23:35
  SPEAKER_02: His ex-wife remarried him.
• 23:38
  SPEAKER_02: She absolutely hated me, hated me because of this love triangle.
• 23:41
  SPEAKER_02: Well, my mother, I think, benagled something with them and convinced my daughter to go down to their house.
• 23:49
  SPEAKER_02: So my daughter go, you know, so the day she says, I'm afraid of you, I said, Well, go across to Dr.
• 23:56
  SPEAKER_02: So and so's house and tell him, you know, or we've got, you know, Rob and Beth from the church.
• 24:01
  SPEAKER_02: You go tell them, or, you know, Judge So and so.
• 24:04
  SPEAKER_02: There's a judge on my street is down the street, tell him.
• 24:06
  SPEAKER_00: But I need to, I need to move on to this street.
• 24:09
  SPEAKER_00: All the power brokers are living on this street.
• 24:12
  SPEAKER_02: I don't I don't live there anymore.
• 24:14
  SPEAKER_02: So anyway, she goes down to the house with the woman that hates me and and the doctor, and she's like, you know, she starts telling things that she clearly heard from my mother about that relationship.
• 24:25
  SPEAKER_02: Spills the beans with the the new newly married wife.
• 24:30
  SPEAKER_02: So anyway, um, it turns into this big mess.
• 24:34
  SPEAKER_02: Um, I get my daughter back to the house, you know, she's fine, she's staying there, but my mother continued this up.
• 24:41
  SPEAKER_02: So um fast forward, so then we start, you know, having legal wranglings.
• 24:49
  SPEAKER_02: I can't even remember the timeline.
• 24:51
  SPEAKER_00: So um we go let me let me let me interrupt.
• 24:54
  SPEAKER_00: So I I'm confused because look looking back on it, how does your mom like, were you scared of your mom?
• 25:05
  SPEAKER_02: Um, I think I I mean when I was growing up, like she would slap me across the face and she was really controlling and mean.
• 25:13
  SPEAKER_02: So I think she did control me, like, but it was like a psychological thing.
• 25:17
  SPEAKER_02: Wasn't like I thought she would beat on me anymore, but I she she kind of you know rules the family, and she's like one of those that's in control.
• 25:27
  SPEAKER_02: Her husband's very passive.
• 25:29
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know.
• 25:30
  SPEAKER_00: I can imagine people hearing the story and thinking, um, this is your daughter.
• 25:36
  SPEAKER_00: How why would you not just go and get her, right?
• 25:40
  SPEAKER_00: Like from this woman.
• 25:43
  SPEAKER_02: Well, because she just she has a way of just um weaving back into your life, you know, she'll harass and harass you.
• 25:50
  SPEAKER_02: Um, it's not that simple.
• 25:52
  SPEAKER_02: Like if you you tried to do that, she would create a situation that would just blow up into some craziness.
• 26:00
  SPEAKER_02: Um I I don't even know how to explain it.
• 26:03
  SPEAKER_00: Um, I mean, looking back now as looking back now as an adult, what would you have told your young, the younger version of yourself to like I I mean, if I wish I'd have known you and TikTok and no contact and all that, because I definitely would have gone no contact at that time.
• 26:21
  SPEAKER_02: I definitely would have filed a protective order against her.
• 26:24
  SPEAKER_02: I eventually did file a protective order and it was granted.
• 26:28
  SPEAKER_02: Um I it was granted because she encouraged my daughter to run off, which was unsafe.
• 26:34
  SPEAKER_02: And um, I had a protective order in place on her for quite some time.
• 26:39
  SPEAKER_00: Did she ever violate it?
• 26:40
  SPEAKER_02: Oh, she would violate it in insidious ways through my daughter's friends of contact through um these friends to my daughter or through family, but like she wasn't like bold enough to just follow you or something.
• 26:55
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 26:56
  SPEAKER_00: So then um was when did or did your daughter end up like fully living with you?
• 27:05
  SPEAKER_02: Um what ended up happening is I had this protective order, and um there was I think that came later, but let me let me go to this one big event.
• 27:17
  SPEAKER_02: So my mother, um, my daughter and I went on a really great trip to Hotel Roosevelt.
• 27:24
  SPEAKER_02: It's kind of a cool haunted hotel, and she and I both kind of like that kind of thing, and um went really well.
• 27:31
  SPEAKER_02: Well, then my mother never travels, so two months later, my mother takes her to the Seattle Seahawks game, and and about two weeks after that, um my mother's being disruptive in the morning, and I took my daughter's phone away.
• 27:48
  SPEAKER_02: So my daughter tried to get the phone back from me and grabbed me, and I knew like they were setting me up to have like a physical altercation with her.
• 27:59
  SPEAKER_02: So when she was grabbing me, I put my hands like I had a vest, it's Montana, you know, at a big vest, and put my hands in my pocket and dropped to the floor.
• 28:08
  SPEAKER_02: Well, she continued to go after this phone.
• 28:11
  SPEAKER_02: She was in about seventh grade.
• 28:13
  SPEAKER_02: So I leave the house and she grabs and she yanks me back in, my daughter.
• 28:18
  SPEAKER_02: So it's gotten, you know, my mother is encouraged all of this.
• 28:22
  SPEAKER_00: So I mean, so that that's an that's an assault, right?
• 28:25
  SPEAKER_02: It is, it's bad.
• 28:27
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 28:28
  SPEAKER_02: So anyway, then there was ice, and I was trying to get away from the situation.
• 28:33
  SPEAKER_02: I fell.
• 28:34
  SPEAKER_02: So my my knees are banged up, and I call law enforcement, and I and uh that was when I practiced, and they've changed it since.
• 28:43
  SPEAKER_02: They typically would just warn them.
• 28:45
  SPEAKER_02: So they come out and they take my statement, they take her statement.
• 28:50
  SPEAKER_02: Okay.
• 28:51
  SPEAKER_02: And I just wanted them to let her know, let them let my daughter know she couldn't do that.
• 28:57
  SPEAKER_02: Well, I was devastated.
• 28:58
  SPEAKER_02: They took her to JDC, you know, juvenile detention.
• 29:04
  SPEAKER_02: She spent the night there.
• 29:05
  SPEAKER_02: So the next day, my daughter was very, very upset and talking to my mother, and it was probably definitely the wrong thing to do, but I let her go off to my mother's.
• 29:16
  SPEAKER_02: Well, the next thing I know is my mother is, you know, coming after my license.
• 29:22
  SPEAKER_02: They came up with this story that um I choked her, I did this, I did that.
• 29:28
  SPEAKER_02: And so all of a sudden, like we have a youth court looking at it.
• 29:32
  SPEAKER_02: And the only thing, like, thank God, it protected me.
• 29:36
  SPEAKER_02: So I'm talking to one of the officials, and I'm saying, no, this, this and this and this didn't happen.
• 29:42
  SPEAKER_02: I tell the story.
• 29:43
  SPEAKER_02: Well, by the grace of God, and that's the only thing I can think of, is a few months before I'd put the vivent alarm system in, and there was a doorbell cam, and the doorbell cam picked up everything inside.
• 29:59
  SPEAKER_02: And so when I had my computer tech pull off of the pull off all of those the footage, they could hear it, and I completely forgot that she yanked me back in.
• 30:11
  SPEAKER_02: That was on the camera.
• 30:13
  SPEAKER_02: So rather than the setup my mother was planning to have youth court take my daughter because I was abusive, you know, putting quotes that are I know the podcast can't see it.
• 30:23
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, um, they they filed a PFMA and she was in youth court.
• 30:29
  SPEAKER_02: So then my mother was um got crossways with the probation officer and was so this lady saw through her and through that process, and the reason the videos were turned over, I mean, that would have been a licensure thing for me.
• 30:46
  SPEAKER_02: It would have been a game, a family law attorney assaulting their child.
• 30:50
  SPEAKER_02: Well, the video proved the exact opposite, and it was such a long time, and they saw that they could hear the different times.
• 30:58
  SPEAKER_02: I tried to remove myself.
• 31:00
  SPEAKER_02: So my daughter was in youth court, and what we did is we put her with a neutral party, and that was a big turning point for our relationship.
• 31:09
  SPEAKER_02: She was living with like a cousin that we neither of us were very close to who happens to have a counseling background.
• 31:16
  SPEAKER_02: So that part is really important because I would tell anybody going through alienation if you can place them with a neutral third party, and the reason I could is her dad wasn't in the picture, so it was all my choice.
• 31:31
  SPEAKER_02: But I got you know the prize, which was my daughter, out of my kind of out of my control.
• 31:39
  SPEAKER_02: So it gave me a buffer from my mother.
• 31:42
  SPEAKER_02: So then whatever craziness she had that I was reporting, which she would deny, the third party was now experiencing it.
• 31:52
  SPEAKER_02: And now she was butting and she was butting heads with a probation officer.
• 31:56
  SPEAKER_02: So then the probation officer told me, she said, I think you need to change your will.
• 32:02
  SPEAKER_02: I think your mother is capable of killing you.
• 32:05
  SPEAKER_02: And I think what she was trying to do is get me to commit suicide because she would have inherited, you know, as not, I mean, it wouldn't have made her like Donald Trump or Elon Musk, but you know, she would she would have a sizable amount.
• 32:20
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and I was really down at that point.
• 32:23
  SPEAKER_00: So anyway, um the probation when you say down, like your mental health was suffering.
• 32:29
  SPEAKER_02: Oh, yeah, like you feel like you want to commit suicide, like there's no way out.
• 32:33
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I mean, they they get you to that point, you know, like you you don't you don't see how you're gonna get through it.
• 32:39
  SPEAKER_00: So your mom like throughout all of this stuff, your mom, your mom's behavior stayed consistent.
• 32:46
  SPEAKER_00: It just didn't matter who it was, it just it stayed consistent with the probation officer with the third party.
• 32:53
  SPEAKER_02: And and the cousin, the probation officer, um, they were able to get no contact between my daughter, you know, and my you know, my mother and my daughter, you know, able to get no contact.
• 33:05
  SPEAKER_02: And um, and she would by she would she so then she was almost like these people that are alienators almost have the same predatory skills of sex offenders, and they can kind of um charm children.
• 33:19
  SPEAKER_02: So Teal had a little friend and she charmed the little friend to kind of be her agent.
• 33:27
  SPEAKER_02: So when Teal she was not allowed to have contact with my mother, this little friend started causing all these troubles.
• 33:34
  SPEAKER_02: Um, that was a friend of my daughter's that my mother had used.
• 33:39
  SPEAKER_00: Would would that friend keep her updated on what?
• 33:42
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, keep her updated, try to cause issues with where my daughter's at.
• 33:47
  SPEAKER_00: They would say that in the estrangement world, that's called a flying monkey.
• 33:52
  SPEAKER_02: Okay, yes, yes, but she was using children for it.
• 33:55
  SPEAKER_02: So the probation officer is very alarmed, and she had my daughter get a um evaluation, and they found out that it was about the the person who evaluated her about the five top five percent worst alienation he's ever seen.
• 34:10
  SPEAKER_00: Oh wow, yeah.
• 34:12
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, it it's it is mind to me, it's mind-boggling.
• 34:18
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and again, it's like obviously I I tend to be a backseat driver because I didn't experience these things.
• 34:23
  SPEAKER_00: So there's things that I would say, oh, I would have done this, I would have done this.
• 34:26
  SPEAKER_00: And I'd I'd like to think that I would have done those things, but but maybe I wouldn't have.
• 34:31
  SPEAKER_00: So um, so then the outcome of it is what then?
• 34:36
  SPEAKER_02: Well, that so once she was off the probation, they closed it.
• 34:39
  SPEAKER_02: My mother immediately filed a a lawsuit against me for parental, you know, to get custody, but she used it to try to embarrass me through my legal career.
• 34:51
  SPEAKER_02: And they usually a complaint that you file against somebody is a couple, two, three pages.
• 34:56
  SPEAKER_02: She just did this huge smear campaign on me, but put it through all my legal pleadings and filed it at the courthouse where I work, or you know, in front of the judges where I work.
• 35:07
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and I think she was trying to make me back down because she could always get me to back down.
• 35:12
  SPEAKER_02: Well, I didn't back down, and we were in litigation about two years.
• 35:17
  SPEAKER_02: Um so during that time, um I think that might have been when I got the rest, I can't remember.
• 35:25
  SPEAKER_02: Maybe it was more than one restraining order.
• 35:27
  SPEAKER_02: It's just it's such a blur.
• 35:29
  SPEAKER_02: The whole thing is so traumatic.
• 35:31
  SPEAKER_02: Um, you it affects your memory, honestly.
• 35:34
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, oh yeah, yeah.
• 35:36
  SPEAKER_00: You know, so it's it's almost like, and and I would dare say that I mean, there's complex trauma.
• 35:45
  SPEAKER_00: I would say that this is this is like complex trauma for you because it's not only your own upbringing there was trauma, but then now you're trying to raise a child, and and that same trauma is happening to you, except you have this child that you're trying to raise.
• 36:00
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 36:00
  SPEAKER_00: Um yeah.
• 36:03
  SPEAKER_02: So anyway, um we so the it's the whole interesting thing of the whole thing, and here here's a really important takeaway for everybody out there, if you're going through it.
• 36:16
  SPEAKER_02: Um when I was dealing, like she would just cause so much chaos every time she interacted with my daughter.
• 36:25
  SPEAKER_02: So there is one particular weekend on Easter, and my daughter, I'm you know, I'm sitting in the kitchen, I'm like doing something, you know, getting cleaning, you know, probably cleaning her dishes or something.
• 36:37
  SPEAKER_02: And she just starts saying all these like awful things to me, or, you know, you drive a Tahoe because you're a hoe, or you're crazy.
• 36:45
  SPEAKER_02: And she just kept on and on and on and on about all these awful things, you know, or we'd be driving by uh uh the mental center of mental health, and she's like, Oh, you need to go there.
• 36:55
  SPEAKER_02: And she was just like horribly toxic and awful.
• 37:00
  SPEAKER_02: I said the most awful things.
• 37:02
  SPEAKER_02: So the interesting thing that I did, one of the few things I did that was really helpful and interesting, is when you're dealing with these people, they spin all these like people like my mother spin so many different stories, or the story changes later.
• 37:19
  SPEAKER_02: So when I'd have these really bad events, I'd have a group of people on an email thread, and I would, you know, usually there is a lady that was working with the two of us, and she was a co-parenting parenting coach because my mother had people convinced, you know, it was because I had bad parenting.
• 37:37
  SPEAKER_02: Well, if I'm parenting away, she's counterparenting.
• 37:41
  SPEAKER_02: Even a good parent's gonna be a bad parent if you have somebody counterparenting, you know, because they're they're getting a backup.
• 37:48
  SPEAKER_02: So anyway, we had a co-parenting parenting educator, and I had this lady who was just a saving grace I was going to as a therapist named Maureen.
• 37:58
  SPEAKER_02: And Maureen had done supervised visits way back when for my daughter, between my dot, my daughter and her dad, and my mother was involved in that, and Maureen saw way back then how toxic she was.
• 38:12
  SPEAKER_02: I didn't see it.
• 38:14
  SPEAKER_02: So, this Maure lady, everything came out the way she had predicted.
• 38:18
  SPEAKER_02: So, Maureen was involved as my therapist.
• 38:21
  SPEAKER_02: We had this um co-parenting coach, and I think we also had a reunification therapist.
• 38:28
  SPEAKER_02: I can't remember the whole detail, but I would when something really bad would happen that I couldn't explain, I would send a big long email narrative to everybody, you know, like, you know, it's in the kitchen and this happened and that happened and this happened.
• 38:44
  SPEAKER_02: Well, fast forward now to trial, and my mother puts into evidence, because now we're at trial, she's trying to take my daughter from me this video, and it's a video of that weekend, you know, and you know, my daughter's egging me on.
• 38:59
  SPEAKER_02: I think I called her grandmother a name or something.
• 39:02
  SPEAKER_02: So so it goes into evidence, and the judge looks at my mother and he says, that is not going to have the effect on the court you think it is.
• 39:11
  SPEAKER_02: Well, luckily, I had the backstory because I had the whole email that I'd written that was simultaneous with that event.
• 39:19
  SPEAKER_02: So I was able to give it a context.
• 39:21
  SPEAKER_02: That was super helpful.
• 39:23
  SPEAKER_02: Um, the other thing that was really helpful that I learned from it is to um like you look at patterns, and so whenever my mother would do something that was going to get her in trouble with the treatment team, because after she was at a youth court, you know, we were dealing with um these different professionals, she would cause like a diversion.
• 39:46
  SPEAKER_02: So here is one of the things she did.
• 39:48
  SPEAKER_02: CPS even got involved.
• 39:51
  SPEAKER_02: Um, I got a call.
• 39:52
  SPEAKER_02: My daughter was going to a lady in town who is every town kind of has their gold star therapist.
• 39:58
  SPEAKER_02: And this lady is one of the best of the best, and you can't get into her, and you have the waiting list for weeks.
• 40:05
  SPEAKER_02: So she calls me and she goes, Sunday, I don't know what to do, but you're there, you know, your mother's insisting to take your daughter to therapy, and your daughter says she'll only go to therapy if your mother takes her.
• 40:15
  SPEAKER_02: Well, I go to talk to her, and your daughter just sits there like this and looks at a wall and won't say anything.
• 40:21
  SPEAKER_02: And you're paying me, I don't remember how much it was an hour for her to look at a wall.
• 40:25
  SPEAKER_02: So she calls and she tells me this right after the session.
• 40:28
  SPEAKER_02: So I got on the phone, I called my mother, and I said, You're gonna be sorry.
• 40:32
  SPEAKER_02: I said, you know, I I I heard from the therapist that she's doing this and that, you know, and I basically was like, You're gonna be sorry, you can't get away with that, blah, blah, blah.
• 40:41
  SPEAKER_02: Well, now she knows she's in trouble.
• 40:44
  SPEAKER_02: So my mother comes up with this crazy story, and she says that I threatened to kill her, and I and I was gonna go get a gun and I was gonna dig a hole and I threatened to kill her.
• 40:57
  SPEAKER_02: And one, I don't even own guns.
• 41:00
  SPEAKER_02: I'm probably the only Montana that doesn't own guns.
• 41:02
  SPEAKER_02: Two, I don't hunt.
• 41:04
  SPEAKER_02: I have like I work on work for people who have multi-million dollar ranches that say you can come hunting.
• 41:11
  SPEAKER_02: And I'm like, I don't hunt, no big deal.
• 41:13
  SPEAKER_02: But I that's not my thing.
• 41:14
  SPEAKER_02: I have a back issue, so I can't even lift anything.
• 41:17
  SPEAKER_02: So she has this ridiculous story that I'm gonna go like kill her and put her in a hole.
• 41:22
  SPEAKER_02: So CPS opens a case on me, yeah, and and then they they um tried to do a removal and they kept her from me for like two days because they knew they couldn't interview her with me, you know, and and I've gone toe-to-toe with CPS.
• 41:38
  SPEAKER_02: I'm no friend of theirs, I'm one of the ones at their office.
• 41:41
  SPEAKER_02: If I've called, they won't allow anybody to talk to me without a supervisor.
• 41:46
  SPEAKER_02: And the month before I had a case, and um rumor has it, they've had to CPS had to turn CPS in to the hotline because somebody reported a placement they did that was not okay.
• 42:00
  SPEAKER_02: So then the very next month, I'm the target from them, you know, because I've gone after them so hard.
• 42:08
  SPEAKER_00: Well, and if you're in a small community, then the everyone's gonna know everyone.
• 42:15
  SPEAKER_02: Exactly.
• 42:15
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 42:16
  SPEAKER_02: It's like 60,000.
• 42:17
  SPEAKER_02: So nothing happens with that, and they don't even have a case or anything.
• 42:22
  SPEAKER_02: But um my mother, my point with that story is like when these people you you have them on the ropes, you know, the alienators or the you know, the toxic co-parent or you know, somebody with one of those personality disorders, and you have them on the ropes, they'll spin a different narrative and create a diversion somewhere else.
• 42:43
  SPEAKER_02: So you always look for these diversions because it usually tells you you're on to something that you know, the step before it.
• 42:50
  SPEAKER_00: My my takeaway uh about this is two things.
• 42:53
  SPEAKER_00: It's one documentation becomes super important.
• 42:58
  SPEAKER_02: Very important.
• 42:59
  SPEAKER_00: Documenting the fact the facts, not feelings about stuff, but just being very factual in documentation.
• 43:06
  SPEAKER_00: And then two, um, pay attention.
• 43:08
  SPEAKER_00: Human, and I say this often is that human behavior is very predictable.
• 43:12
  SPEAKER_00: And and so um what you're describing is that your mom's just been very predictable over time.
• 43:19
  SPEAKER_00: So um, so we don't have a lot of time left.
• 43:22
  SPEAKER_00: So, how how are things now?
• 43:24
  SPEAKER_00: Like, let us know how things turn out.
• 43:27
  SPEAKER_02: So, my daughter, right now, my hair here, she's a stylist, she does it.
• 43:31
  SPEAKER_02: So, I would not let her do my hair if we did not have a good relationship.
• 43:35
  SPEAKER_02: That could be really bad.
• 43:36
  SPEAKER_02: Right.
• 43:37
  SPEAKER_02: Um, she's gotten she's gotten uh very, she's very confident, you know.
• 43:41
  SPEAKER_02: They're still like she still is, it's weird because it's almost like a Stockholm syndrome.
• 43:48
  SPEAKER_02: Like she and my mother, she's so angry at my mother, and you know, they yell and they scream at each other, and it's just toxic, but yet they still interact.
• 43:58
  SPEAKER_02: And the interesting thing is so.
• 44:00
  SPEAKER_02: Now my mom.
• 44:01
  SPEAKER_02: Oh, one thing I wanted to tell you, which is interesting, is when we did go to the court case, um we oh we took one witness out of order who was an expert.
• 44:12
  SPEAKER_02: My mother put on four days of testimony and trial, and her attorneys, this tells me they think she's a liar or cuckoo or both.
• 44:21
  SPEAKER_02: They did not have her testify in her case.
• 44:25
  SPEAKER_02: They did not put her on the stand.
• 44:27
  SPEAKER_02: So then when it was time for our turn to put our case on, she dismissed it right before it was our turn, dismissed the whole case.
• 44:37
  SPEAKER_02: No, my mother did voluntarily dismissed her case.
• 44:42
  SPEAKER_02: So she because she was afraid she was gonna have an order against her.
• 44:45
  SPEAKER_02: So she put me through hell, drugged me through the mud, maligned my name, and then dismissed her case.
• 44:51
  SPEAKER_02: Before I I I I I feel like you know, I feel like that Lindsay Buckingham Stevie Nicks thing where she's you know, they wouldn't put her song, her side of the story of their breakup, you know, Silver Springs on the first album.
• 45:05
  SPEAKER_02: So years later, you know, they have the concert, she's screaming at him, you know, um, you know, on stage singing that.
• 45:12
  SPEAKER_00: That reference, so that reference is lost to me because I don't listen to Stevie Nicks.
• 45:17
  SPEAKER_00: I don't I'm not up to date on culture like that, but that's wild.
• 45:21
  SPEAKER_00: So she spent all that money just to be able to drag your name through the courts.
• 45:29
  SPEAKER_02: Yes, and and and my daughter told me her goal was to ruin my career and to ruin me because she wanted to ruin me.
• 45:38
  SPEAKER_02: And when she found out she was gonna get an order probably against her, she dismissed it.
• 45:43
  SPEAKER_02: But and then I could have sued her civilly, but at that point I was so exhausted, spent so much money on trial.
• 45:49
  SPEAKER_02: I just wanted to rebuild my life.
• 45:51
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 45:52
  SPEAKER_02: So, but anyway, my daughter and I now um we talk, we talk every day, we share a dog together.
• 45:58
  SPEAKER_02: I think, I think she'll end up probably taking the dog from me because she's pretty close with the dog.
• 46:04
  SPEAKER_02: Um, but um we we do a lot of lunches, a lot of dinners.
• 46:10
  SPEAKER_02: She has her own apartment.
• 46:11
  SPEAKER_02: I've helped her, you know, throughout the years, you know, to um continue, but I I still don't think she entirely understands what happens and she doesn't want to talk about it.
• 46:22
  SPEAKER_00: Does she go to has she been to a therapist at all to talk about?
• 46:24
  SPEAKER_02: She has, but she she doesn't she doesn't like therapists.
• 46:27
  SPEAKER_02: My mom has kind of turned her against them because of that experience.
• 46:31
  SPEAKER_00: Well, she hasn't met me yet.
• 46:33
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 46:36
  SPEAKER_00: Um do you talk to your mom then?
• 46:41
  SPEAKER_02: No, we we tried to rebuild things um about two, three years ago.
• 46:46
  SPEAKER_02: And I think she was doing it.
• 46:48
  SPEAKER_02: My daughter was staying there for a short period of time because we did have a you know kind of a difficult situation.
• 46:54
  SPEAKER_02: And so when my daughter graduated, she stayed there.
• 46:56
  SPEAKER_02: But it just so I was like we I thought we were rebuilding our relationship, and I tried to help my mother with my daughter and have my daughter be respectful to her, and then she just betrayed me again and just kind of cut me out.
• 47:10
  SPEAKER_02: So she makes a point to have everybody in the family have family Christmases, I'm not invited, Thanksgivings, I'm not invited.
• 47:17
  SPEAKER_02: My daughter still goes to those, and I'm not going to tell her not to, you know, because she's got a right to have those relationships.
• 47:26
  SPEAKER_02: But my daughter, she sees how toxic my mother is, but yet my she still sucks her in.
• 47:31
  SPEAKER_02: And my daughter gets really upset with my mom.
• 47:34
  SPEAKER_02: And I I often try to tell her, like, look, you know, she's not gonna change, you know, why are you getting upset?
• 47:40
  SPEAKER_02: You're not going to be able to, you know, talk reason to her, you know, and she's getting better at it, but um, yeah, but I have a relationship with my daughter, and um, in fact, we're gonna probably be planning a trip in a couple months.
• 47:55
  SPEAKER_02: And uh, you know, we have dinners together and she does favors for me.
• 47:59
  SPEAKER_00: And um so um with your mom, I mean I feel like you both of you are pretty generous to her in in regards that you haven't cut her out of your life then.
• 48:13
  SPEAKER_00: Like if she called you, would you pick up the phone?
• 48:16
  SPEAKER_02: I I would pick up the phone, yes.
• 48:18
  SPEAKER_02: And we it I thought we were rebuilding, and there was some I had falling out with my brother.
• 48:23
  SPEAKER_02: She got my brother involved in this.
• 48:25
  SPEAKER_02: And um, when I had a falling out with my brother, she just cut me off again.
• 48:30
  SPEAKER_02: It's almost though, like I think she's ashamed of what she did, and people see it.
• 48:34
  SPEAKER_02: So it's I think sometimes hard for these people to face you.
• 48:38
  SPEAKER_02: I I don't really know.
• 48:39
  SPEAKER_02: I I don't understand her.
• 48:41
  SPEAKER_00: I'd be surprised.
• 48:41
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, honestly, again, human behavior is pretty predictable.
• 48:45
  SPEAKER_00: I'd be surprised if she feels ashamed about what she did.
• 48:51
  SPEAKER_02: I don't know, maybe she's just doing it to be mean, you know.
• 48:54
  SPEAKER_02: I don't know.
• 48:55
  SPEAKER_02: But she like I started going to family meals and then all of a sudden she cut me off again.
• 49:02
  SPEAKER_00: I think people have this belief.
• 49:04
  SPEAKER_00: Um it's uh it's called belief.
• 49:07
  SPEAKER_00: Well, it's called belief persistence.
• 49:10
  SPEAKER_00: And people will believe, even if evidence is in front of them that their belief is wrong, they will still believe the thing.
• 49:18
  SPEAKER_00: And so I wonder I mean, because she's a boomer, right?
• 49:22
  SPEAKER_00: She's a boomer.
• 49:23
  SPEAKER_02: I think she's about 78, 79 now, somewhere in there.
• 49:26
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and she like lives in town, yeah.
• 49:29
  SPEAKER_00: She lives local too as well.
• 49:31
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 49:31
  SPEAKER_00: Well, I appre I appreciate you telling this your story.
• 49:35
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, it's like when you were talking earlier about your dad passing, and then this kind of experience, I I immediately start thinking there's like this 12-year-old Sunday, and then there's adult competent Sunday.
• 49:47
  SPEAKER_00: And the 12-year-old Sunday just wants a mom that cares about her and loves her and has a good relationship with her.
• 49:56
  SPEAKER_02: Right.
• 49:57
  SPEAKER_00: But an adult competent Sunday is like, what is going on?
• 50:01
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, it's very confusing still.
• 50:03
  SPEAKER_02: And I work in this field, you know.
• 50:05
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 50:05
  SPEAKER_00: So you probably I would imagine then you see this sometimes with other with clients.
• 50:12
  SPEAKER_02: Yes, I do, and I'm able to pick it up pretty quickly.
• 50:15
  SPEAKER_02: But in my own site, I have a blind spot or in my own life, I have a big blind spot.
• 50:20
  SPEAKER_02: But for clients, I'm able to help quite a few people who've gone through this.
• 50:24
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 50:25
  SPEAKER_00: I just I wonder what is gonna happen when a grand uh a great grandkid shows up if if your mom's still living.
• 50:35
  SPEAKER_00: Um anyhow.
• 50:37
  SPEAKER_00: Anything else?
• 50:38
  SPEAKER_00: Any great last words?
• 50:40
  SPEAKER_02: No, I think I think the biggest thing with people though, be really careful in these situations because there's a difference between responding and reacting.
• 50:48
  SPEAKER_02: And these types of people want a really bad reaction out of you.
• 50:52
  SPEAKER_02: And sometimes you need to just um bite your tongue or pick a time when you're going to respond to them, you know, with emails or texts, because I see these types of people will gaslight you, and then the sane person becomes insane just because of being tortured, and they have tons of bad messages to the other person.
• 51:13
  SPEAKER_02: And um they I think it's really helpful if people just pick different times they're truly going to respond and just really like try not to react, you know, just train themselves not to engage in the in the um in real time unless it's an absolute emergency, because that's how these people get you.
• 51:35
  SPEAKER_00: I think, yeah, I would I would agree with you.
• 51:37
  SPEAKER_00: I think it to me, what comes to mind when you're saying this is having high emotional intelligence.
• 51:42
  SPEAKER_00: And I think high emotional intelligence means you have good emotional regulation, and even if something really ticks you off, you're able to control your tongue, which you have to do that in court.
• 51:57
  SPEAKER_00: I I don't always have to do that in off in session with people.
• 52:01
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but yeah, certainly I would imagine you have to do that in court.
• 52:04
  SPEAKER_00: Um, Sunday, I appreciate you coming on and talking and sharing your story.
• 52:11
  SPEAKER_00: Um, I would love at at some point, possibly off into the future, I would love to hear your daughter's perspective on this if she's ever interested.
• 52:20
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, sharing it.
• 52:21
  SPEAKER_00: I think the challenge would be um I don't want to talk mean about my grandma.
• 52:28
  SPEAKER_00: Um I'll just treat her mean, but I don't want to talk.
• 52:32
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I mean, they have yelling matches, you know, and there's times I've stepped in and said, you know, they're they're this old, you need to be respectful.
• 52:39
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, they help her financially, you know.
• 52:42
  SPEAKER_02: I I don't want her to be doing that, even though it is my mother.
• 52:47
  SPEAKER_02: She probably deserves it.
• 52:48
  SPEAKER_00: But yeah.
• 52:50
  SPEAKER_00: Well, thank you for sharing.
• 52:52
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, thank you.
• 52:53
  SPEAKER_00: I appreciate it.