At two years old, Emilie's parents divorced. By the time she was five, her innocence was already stolen. Her mother, Andrea, so enraged over the dissolution, began a rancorous campaign to get back at her ex-husband, Patton. Lies, manipulations, alienation, withholding custody, and making false child abuse allegations ultimately led to the diagnoses of Emilie's Clinical Depression, Eating Disorder, PTSD, and Conversion Disorder. Emilie was cutting and burning the flesh of her own body; she was later Baker Acted and suicidal. Andrea, a master manipulator, convinced the Pinellas County, Florida judges she was innocent. With more than a dozen witnesses against her at a three-day custody trial, yet another judge remained unmoved about the effects parental alienation actually had on its helpless victims. Judges' ambivalence enabled and empowered Andrea. Yet when Patton learned that Emilie was also being physically abused by her mother, he refused to return her to Andrea that night at 8pm when she was expected. By 11pm, Patton was unlawfully arrested and jailed for interference with custody, a civil right according to Florida statutes, not a crime. Due to the witnessing of her only loving parent being incarcerated, a childhood full of alienation, and emotional and physical abuse, Emilie suffers with a lifetime of scars ongoing mental health issues and low self-esteem. Emilie is one of thousands of children in the United States suffering this familial tragedy. Only awareness and forcing judges to uphold the child abuse statutes, which clearly include "mental infliction" in its definition, will stop this exploitation. Please share this story, follow us on social media and petition your family courts to have parental alienation treated as the horrific child abuse that it is.
