Been thinking about this a lot lately as I hit the three-year mark. Thought I’d share what’s actually helped me vs what felt like throwing money down a drain.
CBT was my first stop. Sarah, lovely woman, but kept trying to get me to “reframe” my thoughts about the situation. Look, I know cognitive distortions when I see them, but my kids genuinely haven’t spoken to me in years. That’s not catastrophic thinking - that’s Wednesday. Eight sessions of being told to challenge my “all or nothing” mindset when the reality is quite literally all or nothing right now.
Standard counselling next. Spent £60 a session explaining parental alienation to someone who kept suggesting family therapy. “Have you tried talking to your ex about this?” Right. The same person who’s told our children I abandoned them. Sure, let me just pop round for a chat.
EMDR was… intense. Did help with some of the trauma responses, the way my body would physically react when I’d see other families together. But it couldn’t touch the ongoing grief because it’s not past trauma, is it? It’s present, continuous loss.
Then I found Rachel. Third therapist, nearly gave up. But she’d worked with other parents going through this. Didn’t need me to explain what parental alienation was. Didn’t suggest I just needed better communication skills. She got that this is a specific type of trauma - ambiguous loss, she called it. Mourning someone who’s still alive but unreachable.
That’s when things shifted. We worked on building my sense of self outside of being “Mum to Emma, Josh, and Lily.” Sounds obvious now, but I’d completely lost myself. Meditation helped too - not the fluffy stuff, proper mindfulness practice. Jon Kabat-Zinn’s work.
The grief counselling was what cracked it open though. Treating this like the bereavement it is, while holding space for the possibility they might return. Complicated grief, she called it.
Still see Rachel monthly. Still here. Still hoping. But I’m also still me.