Alienation - Alienation means interfering or cutting a person off from relationships with others. This can be done by manipulating the attitudes and behaviors of the victim or of the people with whom they come in contact. The victim's relationships with others may be sabotaged through verbal pressure, threats, diversions, distortion campaigns and systems of rewards and punishments.
Description:
Alienation may be absolute in that all the victim's relationships are sabotaged equally or it may be targeted towards a particular type of relationship such as social friendships, family relationships, professional relationships, contact with members of a group, club or organization or contact with members of a particular gender, race, social status or religion.
Social relationships outside of the home may be frowned upon by an individual who suffers from a personality disorder. They may try to break the relationship by making up shocking or accusing stories about either the non-personality-disordered (Non-PD) individual - or about the person the Non-PD is trying to befriend. The Non-PD may face consequences or punishments as a result of making or maintaining contact with a person who is not on an "approved" list.
In the case of chosen relationships, partners are often put under pressure to avoid contact with their own siblings, parents or extended family. In the case of unchosen relationships, romantic relationships, partnerships or marriages the Non-PD is involved in may be sabotaged.
Professional relationships outside of the home may also be the focus of alienation attacks by a personality disordered individual.
The most widely reported form of alienation is parental alienation - where a parent tries to sabotage the relationship their child has with the other parent. This is quite common when divorcing someone who has a personality disorder. Click Here for Specific Information about Parental Alienation.
Alienation may be overt or covert.
In overt alienation, the victim knows that the abuser discourages or disapproves of a relationship and may be confronted with threats of consequences or a system of rewards and punishments as an incentive to reduce or break off contact.
In covert alienation, the victim is not aware of the activities of the abuser. The abuser may attempt to subtly manipulate the victims habits or routine to reduce the incidence of contact with another person using diversions. The abuser may also use distortion campaigns or manipulations to divert friends or family away from contact with the victim. The abuser may also recruit proxies or third parties to directly or unwittingly sabotage or compromise a relationship.
Alienation is a form of emotional abuse. We need social contact to maintain a healthy emotional state as much as our bodies need food and water to maintain a healthy physical state. Depending on our social metabolic rate, we may need a lot or a little of social contact to stay emotionally healthy. If we are socially malnourished, we may begin to exhibit symptoms of depression such as anger, insomnia, loss of appetite, low energy etc.
When somebody inappropriately or chronically denies us access to loved ones, friends and family, they are abusing us. This can be as damaging as being denied physical needs such as sleep and nutrition. If you are an adult and your actions pose no direct threat of physical or emotional harm to others, then no one has the right to control who you can and can't see or where you can and can't go.
When we are malnourished and abused in this way, we are vulnerable to making poor personal choices. We may revert to ineffective behaviors to try to resolve our conflict such as anger, retaliation, begging, bargaining or sneaking around.
If we are subject to chronic alienation, we are prone to progress through the classic 5 stages of grief - anger, denial, bargaining, depression and acceptance. Once we reach acceptance, we are apt to become enablers of the abuse, denying ourselves the very thing we need most to become healthy. We may avoid contact with outsiders, defend our position, avoid scrutiny and avoid situations which threaten to shine a light on our plight. This process is sometimes referred to as Learned Helplessness or Stockholm Syndrome.
Coping with Alienation - What NOT to Do:
Don't believe a person when they tell you that you don't need social contact with other people.
Don't give in to pressure to stop seeing a loved one, family member or friend.
Don't give in to inappropriate pressure to avoid activities with groups that are good for you.
Don't retaliate or try to hit back at a person who is trying to sabotage your relationships.
Don't kid yourself into thinking things will get better with time or that this or that will blow over - this is something you need to confront and fix quickly.
Don't tell yourself that you can handle this on your own. Solitary confinement can easily break the most resolute of spirits.
Don't sneak around or hide your social contact just to avoid conflict. This is something you need to insist on as a bottom-line issue. You need social contact just as much as you need food and water.
Don't tell yourself you have to fix the loved one in your life who suffers from a personality disorder before you can go on with the rest of your life. You can't fix anybody, and you will just frustrate yourself and the other person if you try.
Don't use these guidelines as justification or cover for being a bum or abandoning your commitments and responsibilities. We're not talking about having affairs, quitting your job, abandoning your kids or partying while the rest of your family struggles to make ends meet. If you are so inclined, then your loved ones probably need our support rather than you.
Coping with Alienation - What TO Do:
Get support - talk to a friend or therapist and describe what you are dealing with. Break the silence and get an idea of what other people see and hear and experience.
Talk to the people from whom you are being cut off. This takes courage - but go talk to the people whom you have been told are monsters, or who have been told what a flaky, dysfunctional abusive person you are. Make your own mind up using your own intelligence. Let them do the same. Perhaps they are monsters, but perhaps not. You may be totally surprised by what you learn.
Stand up for what your appropriate needs are. Confront alienation abuse with a calm, yet firm, resolve not to allow one person's dysfunction lead to dysfunction in yourself. "I care about you deeply - but I also care about my own health - and this is something I need to do.
Visit with loved ones and good healthy friends regularly. Go alone if your personality-disordered loved one chooses not to join you. Give yourself permission to break taboos and slay sacred cows if it is a healthy activity or choice.
Celebrate life for as long as you have the health and strength to do so. A person with a personality disorder may be cloaked in a canopy of depression and darkness, but you have a short time when you have health and strength. Carpe Diem - Use it well.
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