Emotional Stress Following Parent-Child Separation

Abduction of Child
Cases of parental abduction post-divorce are becoming increasingly common. Usually, this is the reaction to losing the battle for the custody of the child. The bitterness and frustration that one feels when the law ‘snatches away’ someone who is very close to the heart, gives birth to an urge to decide upon justice outside the court. It is more common among men, and the father abducting the child does it as a statement of his ‘rights’, which he feels are being denied to him. In some cases, the motive is extortion of money from the other partner – but that is less common than the ‘revenge motive’. In their mutual animosity, parents use the child as a weapon to gain a point over the ‘adversary’. After losing the legal battle for custody, a partner avenges himself on his spouse through this act. With the number of international marriages increasing, some parents flee overseas with the child. This is an offence heavily punishable by law in the UK, but anger takes precedence over reason for those who do it. Abducting the child takes a heavy toll on all involved, and professional help is usually advised to help cope with the trauma.
Stalking the Ex
A stalker does not always plan his moves, specially in the case of divorced parents. It may be a way of keeping track out of sheer anxiety or grief at being denied the company of the child. In some cases, mothers who have lost custody of very young children complain of a physical attachment to the infant, a ‘gut feeling’ that the child is hungry, sick or sad. Fathers may doubt the capacity of the mother to protect the child, or provide all that a child needs. In both cases, the lone parent may keep a close watch and physically follow the child or the other partner around just to get the full picture. Sometimes however, there may be a darker purpose. Threatening a partner on phone, sending hate mails, following are all done with the hope of intimidating him or her, so that the child’s safety may be questioned, and the stalker may win over as protector. Once again, the offender knows it is punishable by law, but does it as an assertion of rights that have been violated.
Self Abuse
This is the most common of all the syndromes. Alcoholism, drug abuse, lack of appetite, over-eating, sleeping disorders, smoking are all normal ways of trying to punish oneself for losing one’s offspring. A mixture of self-pity and self-flagellation drives the lone parent towards all acts of self destruction. Though thankfully rare, sometimes this syndrome can prove fatal. Once again, the professional care is strongly suggested. If the person is not in a state to realize it himself, a friend or relative might step in to provide help.
Visiting Blues
How does one decide how much company is ‘enough’ for one’s own flesh and blood? The greatest complication in divorce procedures involves child custody, and the regulations binding visitation (now called contact) is the most hotly contested. Depression following a visit to the child is extremely common, since the parent is bound to feel that it was ‘not enough’. However, mobiles and the internet have helped greatly in these cases, and affection has found an additional support from the virtual world. The idea is to keep in touch and not feel left out from the parental rights, and there are many ways of finding solutions without hurting anyone else.
Joint Custody Duels
Joint custody can not always provide the answers one is looking for, though it succeeds with couples who have an excellent understanding and high level of maturity. The stress in these cases comes from a conflict with the ‘rules of the other household’. A parent may feel that the child is more inclined towards the other partner, and may feel neglected by the child. The emotional turmoil is terrible in these cases, since a parent cannot always voice his or her needs and helplessness in the way a child can. It is impossible to run the gamut of pain, anger, bitterness, and grief of losing out on a life one had created as a lasting impression of love, and remain unscathed. The divorce itself is bad enough, but missing the child is a pang that cuts more cruelly. It is an emotion that can be comprehended only by those luckless enough to have been in such a situation, and they are their best healers.