The Link

Issue 4 – Spring 2001

A Newsletter written by and for those who have experienced family abduction, with a special focus on life after reunification.

Dear Readers,

The Link is a support and advocacy group for people who have been affected by parental abduction—which is when one parent illegally limits or does not allow a child to have contact with their other parent. Your articles, comments and suggestions are very much welcome and appreciated. We hope that The Link can be helpful to you!

Take care,

Kelly, Dawn and Cecilie

The Heart of an Abduction

By Cecilie Finkelstein

Allow me to take you into the mind and heart of a newly abducted child, myself, as I was abducted by my father at the age of 4, and share with you what it was like to be taken 5,000 miles away from the mother I would not reunite with for 14 years.

As an adult I have worked on gaining clarity, both for myself and in the interests of helping others understand, how it is possible for a child to develop a deep fear and almost hatred of a parent they once adored and loved, and to submit to the life an abducted child leads: life on the run, living as a fugitive, living in constant hiding and fear, living with the idea that the missing parent is somehow dangerous to them, and just disappearing without a trace, without any attempt to contact that left-behind parent at all. Only as an adult have I been able to go back, put it all together and begin to understand, see how easily this can happen, understand how I learned to fear and hide from the person who had once been one of the two most favorite people in my life.

When I was first abducted (I was taken from Norway to the US-my mother is Norwegian and my father is American), I asked for my mother many times, and couldn’t understand why she wasn’t with me, why my father seemed to get angry when I asked for her. He told me that she would be coming soon, but was “busy” and couldn’t come just yet.

I missed her terribly, yearned for her, cried myself to sleep, but believed that she was coming soon and waited for that day. I couldn’t understand why I couldn’t talk to her on the telephone, as I usually did when I was with my dad who was separated from my mom, but again was told that she was busy.

I began to feel abandoned, but waited and waited. During this time I was kept busy with the novelty of a new country, new language and surroundings, and by the rewards I got for being a good girl, which meant not asking about mom too often.

But I kept asking and waiting, and one day was told that mom decided not to come, not ever, didn’t really want to come, but that dad would take good care of me instead. When I started to cry, I was ignored, and soon learned not to mention the M word again, not even to myself. It hurt too much.

As such a young child, in a short time memories of my mother began to fade. I even began to forget what she looked like, and together with the hurt of feeling abandoned by her, and being told that she was a bad person and had a bad family that didn’t love me, I was taught to feel glad to be away from her. Later, told that she had changed her mind and was now looking for me and wanted to take me away, I willingly lived a life of hiding to avoid being found by the now stranger who wanted to take me away.

I lived the next 14 years on the run and in hiding, living on buses, traveling through 3 countries and 34 of the 50 US states, pretending to be a boy, having my hair dyed, changing identities, rarely going to school, and being exposed to unsafe situations, all to hide from a mother who just wanted to love me. I believed that my father was a hero, and was sacrificing his freedom and happiness to protect me from the bad people, that I would lose everything if I didn’t cooperate and help.

It was a life of homelessness and fear, of sleeping in a different town every few days or weeks, and of telling lies to keep from being found. I had to remember which name to use where, and which bathroom to use, boys or girls, I had to beg for money at times, and was told not to trust anybody except my father, because they would take me back to “her” if I wasn’t careful. I wasn’t allowed to get too close to anyone or be too friendly with the neighbors, because they might betray us. There was a constant aura of suspicion and fear.

It took a long time, most of those 14 years, for me to begin to see the truth: that I was living a lie. My fathers lie. That he didn’t do what he did to save me or protect me but out of anger. As I grew older it became increasingly clear, whether from meeting my father’s sister at 15 (my father hadn’t allowed me to speak to her until then), who took me aside and told me my mother was a lovely person who I should get to know, from seeing my picture on a milk carton as a missing child, from sensing the tremendous anger that my father held inside and seeing his tendency to exaggerate supposed “wrongs” against him, From piecing together comments and retrieving long hidden memories, and just maturing and gaining a sophistication that I did not have as a very young child, it began, slowly, to dawn on me that what had happened might have been very wrong.

It was. What he did was meant to hurt. And it did. And the irony is that it hurt him too. We don’t have much of a relationship today.

I’ll jump ahead now to today. My mother and I have a special relationship today, complete with all the mother/daughter joys and disagreements and fun. But it has taken a lot of work to get here. I had to first deal with and accept the fact that my father had betrayed my trust in such a deep way, and had knowingly used me as a pawn in his battle with the world. For a while I tried to hang on to the belief that what he did might have been justified, because it hurt to believe otherwise. This made it hard to let my mother in. Only when I let go of that idea for the untruth it was, and saw more clearly the systematic ways that my father had planned and carried out the abduction, could I let in and get close to a parent who had been portrayed as the “bad one” for so many years. It was so difficult to start from where we started from, shared pain and lost time, of knowing of each other but not knowing each other, of having to do so much healing, and establishing so intimate a relationship in a context that was so unfamiliar. We had a lot of healing to do, but we made it. It took time and lots of love and understanding, but we’re officially mother and daughter now. I feel whole now. It is a real gift. We are the lucky ones.

So many others are not as lucky.

Like the 17 year old abducted child who recently committed suicide because he said he couldn’t take it any more, and all the others I know of who just couldn‘t heal from the past, reestablish relationships with left-behind parents, or move forward in their lives, and must live life with unhealed wounds and lost love.

Ever growing numbers of parentally abducted children will have to deal with these and other issues related to parental abduction. A painful past, an uncertain future, feeling trapped between two worlds. The pain doesn’t end when a child is found, there is so much aftershock to deal with.

These are the pains, such unnecessary pains. Not knowing who to trust and what to believe, how to let one hurting parent into your life and somehow come to terms with the hurt the other has inflicted.

Healing can and does happen, but how much better it would be if parental abduction were taken more seriously by society and that more children were brought home sooner and given the chance to have the love they deserve (hopefully of both parents), and spared life on the run and the process of healing thereafter.

It is wonderful to know that so many people care, and want to help. Thank you for being there for the children and their families.

For my Joanna Elizabeth

Dedicated to all parents who have lost a child

Your eyes

A thorn in my heart

Painful yet adorable

I shield it from the wind

And stab it deep through the night

Through pain

Its wound illuminates the darkness

Transforms my present into future

Dearer than my soul

And I shall forget as our eyes meet

That once we were together behind the gate

******************

Your words were my song

I tried singing

But winter replaced the spring

Your words, like the sparrow, flew away

Like the sparrow who left our doors

After you

Our mirrors broke-sorrows engulfed us

We picked the splinters of sound

And only learned to lament the gardens

**********************

We shall plant it together

Over the breast of a guitar

Play it over the roofs of our tragedy

To disfigured moons and rocks

But I have forgotten

I have forgotten your voice

Was it my silence

Was it my silence or

Your departure

That rusted my guitar?

************************

I saw you last at the port

A lonely traveler without luggage

I ran to you like an orphan, a child

Seeking answers in ancestral wisdom:

How could the green orchard be imprisoned

Exiled, banished to a port

And still remain green

********************************

I saw you on thorny hills

A sheepless shepherdess-chased

I saw you on the ruins and once

You were a green orchard

I stood a stranger

Knocking at your door

The doors, the windows, the cemented stone

Vibrated

*****************************

Come to me wherever you are

Whatever you have become

And return color to my cheeks

And meaning to my being

Return and take me into your eyes

*****************************

Excerpted by permission of the author

... and may you come to see, not blinded by your eyes ...

Conversations With My 15 year old Son

by Dawn Dibenedetto

the mother of two sons abducted to Saudi Arabia and co-editor of The Link

Tarik was 9 years old when abducted to Riyadh, Saudi Arabia December 18th, 1994. He is now 15. By the grace of God, we communicate, by subterfuge. This began about three years ago through hundreds of persistent calls and hang-ups. My mother finally got through. Tarik succeeded in his first collect call. Now he has taught his brother. The calls are intermittent and at odd hours from the most unusual places, a bathroom… a locked bedroom in the middle of the night… a relative. I live for those calls.

In January 2001, I asked Tarik if he would mind if I asked him questions, kind of an interview format for publication in The Link. I explained to him what the newsletter was about and he said that I might not like his answers. I told him that all I ask is that he tries to be true to self… and the rest would fall into place.

Our next conversation occurred February 24, 2001. I read to Tarik what Cecilie had written to me: "It sounds like Tarik will answer as I would have at his age—that while I recognized that my father did what he did under deceitful circumstances, I was happy with my life and with the fact that if he hadn’t abducted me, I wouldn’t know what the true faith was, wouldn’t know God. I felt bad for my mother but was afraid that my faith would be threatened. Maybe ask Tarik if what I say is something he relates to."

Tarik: "Yes."

Mom: "What would be the best case scenario for the future for you as relationships with your father and me."

Tarik: "For you to get back together. But I know this is impossible. So the next best thing is for both of you not to hate each other. Or if you can’t do that… not to talk about each other, at all.

"Even if you do it in another language, I could tell. I could tell just be looking in my father’s eyes. At first maybe for over a year, he never said anything. And then he’d say just bad things. He would think I didn’t understand when he talked to others. But I understood everything. I could have gotten my father into a lot of trouble but I didn’t want to."

Mom: "But he’s your father. If you hurt him, you hurt yourself. Is that how you feel?

Tarik: "Yes. But it’s different now. I am not a small boy. He can’t hit me like he use to. I have a temper like him." Tarik recalls a recent family dispute over pancakes that escalated into a battle…

Mom: "Ideally where would you want us to live?"

Tarik: "Saudi Arabia. You both should live in Saudi Arabia but not for a long time. Maybe 2 to 5 or 6 years. That’s all. Mom you think that it is like jail over here. That we are in jail. But it’s not like that. My father has written a book that has been published. Everyone is saying it’s very good. It’s on ‘Parenting’. I think he says a lot of good stuff, but doesn’t do it."

Tarik’s cardinal rule numero uno comes to mind--not to talk about each other, at all. I swallow my editorial and am silent.

Um Tarik wa Ryan

Mother of Tarik & Ryan (and Noelle too)

Seeds

‘Left behind’ parents do many things on a thread of hope, like a seed thrown to the wind. It is with that faith that we must continue to plant those seeds. You do it with doubts that plague you…it won’t get to my child..this is useless…it’s a waste of time. But, let’s discuss some ‘seeds’ that have borne fruit.

1-A son taken to Saudi Arabia recently communicated with his mother. He asked if she had sent him a book bag years ago. The mother said yes, and it had your name embroidered on it. Having mastered the puzzle, he told her that his father had told him it was from his stepmother’s family…but he inwardly questioned it. The miracle was not that he got the bag…but it’s route and the tales surrounding it! The seed took over 3 years to germinate.

2-The abducted child recognizes her picture on a milk carton. It started a silent search process from within…and she reunited with her mom 6 years later.

3-The tape sent by the distraught ‘left-behind’ mother that had been discovered by the child years later…and listened to by the child. That seed fueled the discovery of another parent.

So parents, don’t let the downside of abduction suck out your ability to plant. We must throw seed out in every way we can. Whenever possible, cultivate them with positive communication to family members (even the abductor’s family), agencies and law enforcement. Memorialize (and keep a scrapbook of) memories to reflect upon…but MOST IMPORTANT…don’t ever give up hope.

Catherine Meyer: A Mother’s Struggle

Catherine Meyer is the mother of two sons who were abducted to Germany by her estranged ex-husband. Catherine Meyer decided several years ago to use her tragic experience to help others in a similar predicament. In 1999, she co-founded ICMEC, the International Center for Missing and Exploited Children, and has worked tirelessly to raise the profile of parental child abduction as an issue which requires international attention, and to promote new legislation and better laws to protect children.

Child abduction is a parent's worst nightmare. Losing a child for a few minutes on an outing is frightening enough - but imagine returning home where all your children’s possessions remain, but they are gone.

Your world collapses. The pain is joined by panic. Emotionally traumatized, parents have to cope with daunting obstacles--finding help, dealing with unfamiliar legal systems, bearing the financial costs of pursuing justice. And they are often misunderstood. Instead of sympathy, they are often faced with disbelieving questions. And the pain never goes away, because the wound cannot be healed.

I have lived this pain for six and a half years. On July 6 1994, I sent Alexander and Constantin, aged 7 and 9, to spend the summer with their father in Germany. They never returned to London. In defiance of our custody agreement, my estranged husband kept the boys and disappeared. For weeks I had no idea where they were. Very soon I found that neither the police nor the authorities could help me. There was nothing I could do.

Despite initial court decisions in my favor, and the pleas of American, British and French officials, I have been unable to get my sons back. Worse still, I have hardly been able to even see my two sons. I have met Alexander and Constantin for a total of only 24 hours in over six years.

But if this has been a nightmare for me, imagine what it is like for a child. All children find it difficult to cope with divorce. Children are not only hurt and disappointed, they often feel guilty, believing that they are the source of the family breakdown. When a separation leads to abduction, the trauma is that much more severe. Not only do children experience the breakdown of their family, they find themselves wrenched from a loved parent only to realize there is a war between the people they need and love most.

A common thread in many cases of child abduction is the sustained, vengeful effort of the abductor to deprive the other parent of contact with the child. The abductor may be bitter and angry or feel betrayed. Initially, there can be justifiable reasons for these feelings of bitterness. But when these feelings grow into obsessive hatred, child stealing easily occurs. The abductor will enmesh the child in his or her personal feelings of anger against the other parent, and the child can hardly combat this process.

The abducting parent has run away with the child because he or she wants nothing to do with the other parent and cannot accept the idea of common parenthood. The aim is to flee one jurisdiction in order to reverse custody decisions and destroy the other parent’s relationship with the child. The child becomes a tool for revenge against the other parent.

In custody hearings if and when the child is found, it becomes of paramount importance to the abducting parent that the child says the ‘right thing’ to the judges. The child, traumatised by the loss of one parent, is now in fear of losing the remaining parent. In time, the child replaces positive memories of the absent parent with hurt and anger and blocks out the left behind parent. Then, the child ends up asserting that he/she does not want contact with the other parent.

Commonly, the abducting parent is seen as ‘all good’ and the other as ‘all bad.’ There are no longer the usual mixed feelings. One parent is perfect, while the other parent is a source of contempt, with no positive characteristics. When these children are asked to give compelling reasons for their rejection of the left-behind parent, they are unable to provide them. They may have had strong bonds with the absent parent yet positive memories seem to have evaporated overnight.

These children often deny negative influence from the other parent, who supports this “independence” vociferously. In fact, alienators will typically proclaim that they had nothing to do with this process and the child’s rejection of the left-behind parent is purely a result of their own experiences.

When judges are not aware of this symptom, they can easily decide that it would indeed be in the child’s best interest not to have contact with the left-behind parent. However, when a child is deprived of a healthy relationship with one parent, the perceived rejection becomes internalized and can lead over time to self-loathing and depression, and over time the child learns that hostile behavior and manipulation are a normal part of relationships.

I have met many children who were forcibly separated from one of their parents. I have heard their stories; how they were led by one parent to believe that the other is bad; that they should have nothing to do with them. I have understood how easy it is for this to happen. They had already lost one parent, and for fear of losing the other, they had no choice but to identify with the latter. Yet in spite of all this, some of these children eventually sought contact with the estranged parent. The healing process was hard, often impossible in its entirety. But many were able to establish a new bond, predictably but sadly too often to the detriment of the abductor whose turn it becomes to be seen as the ‘betrayer.’

I think of the day: the day when my sons will be free to reach out and find their way to me, their mother, who had to stand by helpless and watch them grow without her love and attention. It is a day that I dream of constantly. I wait for it with a mixture of hope and apprehension. Will I be able to deal with my sons’ pain? Will they be able to reconcile themselves with the past? But then, love can overcome everything.

Catherine Meyer

www.icmec.co.uk

A Therapist’s Tale

by Brida Smith, MSW

Parental abduction has been a subject rarely discussed in psychotherapy literature. Yet, it has been an issue lurking in the shadows for many years. With the greater facility for travel and the ability to easily disappear across continents, the temptation to abduct has been greatly enhanced. Then, too, there is the fact that 50% of marriages end in divorce with many long battles for custody, sometimes making parental abduction look like a seductive solution.

Most of us have seen the pictures of missing children, on milk cartons or on the walls of buildings. Usually, we have gone our separate ways, wondering what could have happened and, perhaps, saying a silent prayer that the young person has found their way to safety. I had little reason to think about what psychotherapy issues might be involved in those pictures. Then, I found myself sitting across from Katrina doing an intake interview.

Katrina was a vibrant, attractive young woman in her early 20's. She appeared matter of fact as she related a story she obviously had to tell many times prior to this. She was a little sensitive to what my reaction might be, aware of the amazed reactions her story often engendered. I will admit, too, to feeling a bit overwhelmed. This was a different and truly traumatic story. My first reaction was that this young woman was surprisingly intact to have lived through such a nightmare. Katrina told a story of being abducted by her father at 5 years old and taken to another country to live. She didn't know it then, but she was not to see her mother again for 13 years.

During those years, she was given a changed reality about her mother which slowly and sadly took hold. She was discouraged from asking about and grieving her. Instead, she was given to digest as best she could over the years that her mother rejected her and was not a woman of good character. So began a long saga with her father, a man on the run and not in anybody's book a model parent having, also, apparently abducted a child from his first marriage.

At the time of my meeting with Katrina, she had met with her mother and broken off contact with her father. She had had several episodes of depression and anorexia --- classified as Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. There was no question but that this was a person dealing with intense pain, confusion and a deep distrust of life and living. Nonetheless, this was also a young woman who in some corner of her being was motivated towards wellness and having a life. She had friends, interests and was attending college--despite the fact that she had only irregular past schooling. She quickly started looking for a job to support herself. This was no easy undertaking, since she was still dealing with anorexia, severe anxiety and sleeplessness.

In working out a treatment goal, safety would have to be a priority since her feeling of security about her entire living environment was fragile and tenuous. At this time, too, meetings with her mother were difficult, but I felt that developing a relationship with her mother had to be a central goal. She needed to have a sense of belonging, of roots and hopefully eventually a secure loving relationship with her mother. I must have strongly believed in the wise thinking that a parent's greatest gift to their children is to give them roots and wings. She needed roots. At first and for some time, I didn't fully appreciate the enormity of this task for Katrina, for her mother and, indeed, for me.

Katrina's mother lived outside of the U.S. They were able to visit with each other a few times a year and to keep frequent telephone contact. I had met with her mother and was relieved to meet an intelligent, sensitive and lovely woman deeply concerned about her daughter and wanting to understand and to have a relationship with her. However, I had constantly to remind myself that the anticipation, not alone the actual mother daughter meeting was a source of anxiety and worry.

What made these meetings so extraordinarily painful and anxiety provoking? I thought about children who had been adopted and knew that there was often a wish and, at the same time, a reluctance to find their natural parents. When and if a meeting finally materialized, it was undoubtedly fraught with a myriad of mixed emotions and trepidation on both sides. But, at least, if the adopted child has been able to internalize good adoptive parents, there is not a need or expectation for a strong relationship with the natural parent. Again if the child has not had the opportunity for good consistent parenting, the need and the wish lingers on, searching and hoping for some successful resolution. When the abducted child and missing parent finally find each other, perhaps, there is an expectation of instant healing and repair---the ordeal is over at last. Yet, it is but a beginning, a time for bridge building, of somehow trying to fill in a gaping hole made by the loss of crucial years. For the parent time may have almost stood still. Life has to somehow go on. But each day only brings more painful wondering and beseeching of God, of somebody, to send back their child.

Possibly, indeed, the many and costly legal efforts have been in vain. For the abducted child, now a teenager or an adult, they have had to create a new reality, one where this parent is hardly a memory and is, now, a stranger in whom it is difficult to place trust. But, perhaps, even a more crucial issue is that of the child's developmental stage at the time of the abduction. For my client the old abandonment issue was reignited with it's opposite fear of engulfment. There was nothing in between. From her perspective at the time, neither one could give her much to look forward to.

When a child has been abducted by a parent, their sense of family security, of trust, is abruptly and devastatingly shattered. Even if the intentions, at first, seemed in the best interests of the child, even this delusion must wear off quickly. The child merely becomes a stolen prize and part of a selfish punitive act giving little thought to the long lasting results for the child. Initially, life for the abductive parent looks better. They got away with their child. But, now what? Must they lie to their own child, distort reality and live a life on the run? Even when they can return to the protection of their family or country, there are untruths to be told, fears of being found out, betrayed by a family member or friend, waiting for the other shoe to drop and the child's possible rejection of them in the end.

At best, this can only be a life of stress, of fear, loneliness and guilt. It is certainly not the sort of circumstance that makes for good quality parenting. It must, also, lead to an over dependence, a need to tightly control and, indeed, to greatly resenting the burden of this child. The abductive parent must feel doubtful, if not just occasionally regretful, even appalled at what he/she has done to their child, just to get back at an ex-spouse. Of

course, there are times when abduction may be the only course of action when the safety of the child is definitely at stake.

For the child, the powerless victim of the drama, no choice is offered, no opportunity given to recognize and deal with feelings of fear, loss, confusion and even terror. "Where is my Mommy?" "I want my teddy." All useless.

"Your Daddy will take care of you." Not a totally reliable or soothing solution to this helpless weeping child with an awareness that something has gone terribly awry. But even they can see it's no use and may even get worse and "it's best not to get my Daddy more upset." Thus begins an uneasy connection between anger and the fear of abandonment.

Life continues. Mother gradually becomes a ghost from the past, perhaps a thing of dread in the present but deep inside a gnawing ache. Father is all there is and you had better be good or he may disappear also. Down the road, the light may unexpectedly start to dawn, to unfold, to cast doubt, an intrusion, here and there, of other questions and other answers. Then--What an awakening!! "Was I just a pawn, a possession in this whole scenario? Father can't be trusted anymore. Can anybody be trusted?”

The world is set adrift from its fragile moorings. They have lost the sense of belonging, of feeling lovable just for being who they are.

Meanwhile, mother's life takes on a nightmarish quality as she struggles to make some sense of this horrifying reality. It never goes away. It is heart wrenching to see another child, to experience a child's joy at having conquered a new milestone, to want to guess their age, without aching, longing and having that awful nagging—“If only....”.

I remember growing up on a farm where my father raised sheep. In early Spring they gave birth to "new" lambs. The lambs arrived with the snowdrops and daffodils. The absolute joy of these lambs as they merrily hopped with each other in the security of their watchful mothers fairly wafted across the fields to any passerby. Then just to make sure, they gaily ran back every now and again to their respective mothers, suckled awhile and got a reassuring lick from mom. Life was idyllic in those green fields as daisies shot up all around.

Sadly, one day, this wondrous dance of life was changed, changed utterly. Every year, on the first Friday in May, the lambs were taken to the local fair. It felt for me that I had awakened to a world of haunting unease. The air drooped heavily with looming change. Suddenly, there came a symphony of sounds changing in quality and tone to a final dirge. The earth filled with the piteous calls of lambs separated from their mothers, driven from their fields forever. For many days the mothers wandered aimlessly back and forth, desperately calling their young. Now, instead of the utter joy, the pleading drifted across to passersby.

Nobody had a solution and their hopelessness and despair get lost in time. That was life on the farm and the struggle of making a living. Existence in the animal family offered no opportunity for input or disagreement.

Nonetheless this, too, was an abduction and holds similarities to the experience in the human family. The bereft parent is left to pick up the shattered fragments of his/her life and somehow go on. Except, this is not a death, a final ending, but an unresolved, endless grieving. This becomes complicated by having to involve detectives and the legal system, which can involve much expense, energy and time when none of these may be readily available. One day, one year, the question may have to be "when do I admit it is no use and hope that one day, one year, my child will find me."

It took Katrina several months after she found her mother's telephone number to make the call. She wondered how on earth she would find words to say something to this stranger, her mother, on the other end and more nervous, yet, at what the stranger might say to her.

Finally, came that moment, the meeting with her mother. This moment she remembers as pregnant with anxiety, confusion, longing and fear. With whom was she meeting? How would she address her? What were they to each other?

Katrina didn't want to get bundled up and taken back to her mother's country and in essence grow up again and do an identity change. Trust and scary expectations persisted as painful question marks with no easy answers.

There were so many unknowns, so many muddy, murky areas, her father's story, her mother's story, her own story and who knows what other stories.

Nothing could be accepted at face value. Issues of caring, acceptance, dependency, trust all had to be explored, tested and worked through. Boundaries and mutual expectations had to get aired, withdrawn and bounced back and forth before finding a comfort zone. I think that the level of expected intimacy was the most daunting for Katrina, again, the two extremes of either abandonment or being smothered. These would take time to sort out.

In addition, she had a feeling of strong sensitivity to her mother's loss. How to make up in some way for these lost years? Meanwhile, she was, also, feeling overwhelmed by her own pain, helplessness and knowing that neither of them could go back. It became like an intricate dance with both trying to learn the steps as they shuffled along, halting, moving back and sitting out the next dance before trying again. They had together and separately to restory their relationship and to weave a new tapestry of their own unique design. A tapestry that would give their relationship needed meaning, provide a healing bridge which would safely transport them through those lost years into a hopeful future.

Guiding Katrina through this maze of feeling over-reactive, over-responsible, guilty and desperate was a long and uncertain process. All the while, she was struggling with a fairly rigid lifestyle which included college and involvement with various causes of social justice. Her poor eating habits, additionally, distressed her ability to maintain relationships. With time, she was able to trek that slippery path to slowly healing her relationship with food. It took time, indecision, discussion, before she could feel that she had arrived on the other side. Now, perhaps, like most people who have had a serious eating disorder, she worries about relapse somewhere, looming around an unexpected turn or bend.

Along with this phenomenal success and progress for Katrina, it took some of the edge off of her meetings with her mother. Now they could share mealtimes. At last, they could enjoy that taken for granted family function of sharing a meal. Her mother could feel that she was becoming a part of her daughter's life instead of waiting outside hoping for some obscure entry. Another milestone gained.

Although Katrina's life did continue with it's own roadblocks, she was progressing. I should also add that she did not use prescription medication for health reasons and because of adverse reactions.

Along the road, there were existential issues, feelings of despair, worthlessness, anger, perceived rejections, periods of acute anxiety and problems with sleep. She had a tendency to get intensely involved with causes involving rights and justice. Her college grades were always excellent. She gave 200% to everything. But, who could keep up such a pace without burnout. Consequently, she was often at dangerous stress levels. She needed help to prioritize, to pace herself, to feel less responsible and to feel entitled to care for herself. Just feeling acceptable and loved for herself was not something that would come easily to her.

Katrina has a natural gift for being sociable, perhaps, a technique learned as a survival mechanism when she was sent out on city streets to beg for money. She is articulate and can express her viewpoint without offending her audience. Consequently, people listened and she got noticed. As she moved on, she gradually got the courage to talk about herself and her experience as an abducted child. She heightened the awareness of classmates with class presentations.

Possibly, the greatest achievement for this mother and daughter was in being able to stay the course, to review and go through lost developmental stages and to surmount missing mutual experiences hidden all along the route of those bygone years. They could finally establish trust, feel love, acceptance and laugh together. They have moved into the realm of most mother/daughter relationships. There are occasional different points of view. But, most important these can be discussed without fear of blame or rejection. They are getting used to having to delve deep inside and to accept who the other is.

Getting away from an internalized, passive, old familiar role and changing it into an active, take charge, "I can do it" role takes careful watchfulness. Certainly, for Katrina, it has become a sort of constant vigilance, diminishing as time goes by, that when she finds herself slipping into automatic victimhood, she must quickly change gears and review the situation.

As mentioned, Katrina made friends easily and had supportive friendships. Still, there were painful uncertainties and she often needed to discuss feelings of inadequacy, communication impasses, of feeling offended or having offended. She was super cautious. But much in her favor was her ability to get back on the road again after she had reassessed the problem and re-tooled her life-kit.

Romance, without even an invitation in hand, was moving steadily and surely towards center stage. Katrina unexpectedly found herself attracted to a young man. She subsequently waded through a few short, unsuccessful, hurtful relationships. But, they were also helpful in their way in pushing her to sort out what she wanted as a more permanent experience. She continued her search in finding a trusting and deeply loving relationship and was lucky enough to find one. Of course finding the right mate is only part of the journey. For most of us, it takes time to become attuned to each other's faltering, illusive music and dance. As one can imagine, for Katrina, establishing a trusting, caring and intimate relationship would not come easily.

Fortunately, this relationship has not only endured but matured and flourished. This is in no small part due to her ability to remain watchful in tending to weeds before they become a danger to growth. Not to be discounted was her keen antenna and ability to recognize a good man.

Again, while all relationships require careful attention and work, for Katrina, this is greatly magnified. Probably, the most important person in her growing up years and her male role model taught her not to trust. He taught her to feel vulnerable that love and security could be given and taken away without a nod or an explanation. It is not difficult to imagine that one might feel extremely wary of placing oneself in a situation where a certain amount of dependency on each other is part of the deal.

Boundary issues and the ever lurking query of abandonment or engulfment are not felt so acutely but linger in the background. Katrina has learned to be more gentle with herself, to trust change and see it as a process. She continues to have limited involvement with her father. Their contact is by occasional letters or she has seen him accidentally when visiting a relative. Although their encounter does not cause the acute panic that it did, she remains fearful of allowing him to take an active role in her life. She feels that he remains too intrusive and still potentially destructive, having minimal insight into his having done anything wrong.

Thinking back on our journey together, Katrina has made enormous and, at times, unexpected progress. I believe that a number of different people and complex ingredients must get credit for this. To begin with, I think that the most important factor was Katrina's own endowment of amazing motivation. Those early years with her mother were loving, trusting years which were stored carefully in her memory for later availability. Her father remained in total denial that his actions were destructive, yet, on another level, I am sure that he wanted to be a good parent and gave some caring moments. Supportive friends and others in her small family have helped greatly.

Katrina has been involved in a "rational emotive behavior therapy" group for the past few years. This has been invaluable in giving her useful tools for dealing effectively with the challenges of living. I suppose that the best description for her therapy with me would be that of a safe harbor. An anchor from which she could venture out, re-negotiate and re-establish important relationships, check out other routes, tell and re-tell her internal story and find self acceptance and joy in her own uniqueness.

At this point, Katrina is busily preparing for new and exciting phases in her life. Naturally, there will be other rivers to cross. But, having successfully surmounted some of the giants, others start to appear less high. In the end life is as life is. There is only so much of the future we can plan. For the rest, we hope that we can move smoothly with the flow.

Brida Smith is a licensed social worker living in North Carolina. She can be reached at 828-877-3410 or at BRIGHID@CITCOM.NET

Abduction is not Love

by Kelly J. Niles, MPA

Kelly Niles, a former parentally abducted child, is writing a book about her experience called

The Long Weekend: A Daughter's Story. She is also the newest coeditor of The Link.

There are many ways to show our children that we love them. As a parent myself, I struggle with the daily decisions that parents face in raising their children from the mundane to major development issues. We don’t show our children that we love them by alienating them from a parent.

Alienation in any form is abuse, whether it be through verbal means, abduction or both. As parents, we model good problem solving skills by using the systems in place to address family or custodial issues, and also by being what we are, adults. Douglas Darnell, Ph.D., author of Symptoms of Parental Alienation Syndrome, writes that parental alienation occurs “when parents physically or psychologically rescue the children when there is no threat to their safety.” This practice reinforces in the child’s mind the illusion of threat or danger, thereby reinforcing in the child’s mind the illusion of threat or danger, thereby reinforcing alienation.

Parental alienation is similar to the Stockholm Syndrome, which occurs when hostages begin to identify with their captors. In the case of an abducted child, the identification will be even stronger because of the age of the child and their relationship with the parent. For fear of losing the abducting parent as well, the child will not only want to please their abductor but will also readily believe allegations that they have been abandoned by the parent who is left behind (Violaine Delahais, P.A.R.E.N.T).

Abduction is not love. Taking a child from home by way of what is now termed parental abduction, is one of the worst forms of abuse a parent can inflict upon a child. Because of the long-lasting effects on the children who have been abducted, it has been characterized as a severe form of child abuse and is now a federal offense. Many children of abduction experience severe conditions while away from the victim parent and sometimes for their whole lives following their return. If they are returned.

Symptoms include:

Inability to trust, establish relationships	Fright	Depression
Developmental delays	Anxiety	Long-term grief or rage
Confusion about the event	Bed-wetting	Withdrawal
Suicide attempts	Thumb-sucking	Sleep disturbances
Difficulty adjusting upon return	Regression

Often when a family has experienced an abduction it is tucked away for decades and sometimes for whole lifetimes, affecting every aspect of the family dynamic. The child victims of the abduction are often to eager to let it lie as well. They were, after all, taught not to trust anyone and to keep secrets.

It is our responsibility not just as parents but as guardians of all children to expose this dirty little secret for what it is, a crime, and a severe form of child abuse. Most importantly, the adult survivors of this crime need to come forward and voice not only their views but also their experiences in order that we may learn from them.

Helpful Stuff!

The following two resources may be helpful in dealing with family abduction:

Child Find of America, Inc.

1-800-I-AM-LOST

http://216.33.148.250/cgi-bin/getmsg/www.childfindofamerica.org

Home to The Link. Child Find can provide information and referrals.

National Center for Missing and Exploited Children

1-800-THE-LOST

http://216.33.148.250/cgi-bin/getmsg/www.ncmec.org

Though primarily involved in unresolved cases, they have information and referral services that may be helpful.

Please contact any of the co-editors of The Link’s newsletter via email:

Dawn DiBenedetto: DAWN333@EROLS.COM (parent of two abducted sons)

Kelly Niles: WRITERONE2@AOL.COM (former parentally abducted child)

Cecilie Finkelstein: SARACECILI@YAHOO.COM (also a former parentally abducted child)