Alienation, the Quiet Thief

For many, the trauma of losing a child who is still near often feels like an ongoing torture—wounds that no one can see, and yet are just as real. The following offers a glimpse into what an alienated parent endures on a daily basis.

There’s something most people will never understand until it happens to them: parental alienation does not check your résumé, your bank accounts, or your bloodline. And it certainly doesn’t care if you’re Black, white, green, or purple—nor who you love, where you live, or what you’ve achieved in life.

Simply put: who you are, what you have, or who you love won’t make you immune—it just makes you surprised when it arrives unexpectedly.

With this in mind, if alienation wants you, there aren’t enough locks to secure your doors or shutters strong enough to keep it out. Alienation is a force that takes what it wants and is fueled by a hunger that is only satisfied once it destroys the once-loving bond between a parent and their child.

Alienation will slip in quietly—like a thief in the night—and creep from room to room as it robs you of all you hold precious. No corner will be left untouched as it steals your emotional well-being, mental clarity, psychological stability, and even your physical health. When it’s done devouring this part of you, it then moves on to the most sacred prize of all—your children. This is what it craves most as it robs you of the love, the affection, and the bonds you have with them. Even the memories that are not yet created won’t be spared from its wrath.

By the time you realize what’s missing, it’s already halfway down the block, scouting out its next victim.

So if you’ve never felt the thief of alienation at your door—if your home has never turned into a quiet prison cell—don’t mistake distance for immunity. Because no one is safe from this menace. Alienation can and does creep into houses that appear normal and stable from the outside.

And once it’s inside, alienation doesn’t rush. Instead, it takes its time to sow destruction—loosening hinges, thinning the air, letting small distortions harden into “truth.” And all the while, the house looks normal to those passing by. Beyond prying eyes, another “just this once” slips across the dates on the calendar. When the chill finally brushes past, the thief is already in the walls.

That’s when the thief gets bolder—less about what it can lift and more about what it can loosen. Yesterday turns blurry around the edges. Your own kindness becomes unforgivable. You find yourself awake at 2 a.m., as you wonder when the warmth slipped out the back door. And when it finally turns toward your children’s rooms—the heart of the house—it doesn’t need to force the door open; instead, it simply waits for tired hands to turn the knob.

By then, the house is holding its breath. Even good parents are swept into alienation’s undertow—not for lack of love or effort, but because manipulation often finds an opening. In those moments, the nights run longer than they should. The porch light still burns bright. But inside, the frames tilt. The rooms remember what they once held—and what they were meant to hold.

Yet love has a strange way of leaving behind evidence, even when the thief tries to wipe away the prints. Some dates simply don’t erase, words that were sent and received, and small rituals that are kept to keep the bond alive. Taken together, they’re not weapons; they’re proof that love kept showing up even during the times when the door wouldn’t open.

And because of that, there’s a limit to the thief’s reach; what was truly lived will not let go.

In closing, the night does have its limits. What you’ve lived leaves evidence the thief can’t easily erase, and there’s a line it cannot cross—it’s the part of you that keeps remembering, that refuses to allow your heart to forget. So, keep this message in mind: while the thief may leave fingerprints, the walls always remember what was spoken here.

David Shubert