“I became a professional compartmentalizer from a young age. I lost track of my emotions — I call it the feeling of no feeling. But that is a feeling.” — Steven Eichenblatt, adult alienated child and author of Pretend They Are Dead
When most people picture parental alienation, they picture the now — withheld visits, poisonous messages, the court date that won’t come fast enough. What’s much harder to see is the part that lasts when the legal battle ends: what this experience can do to a child for the rest of their life.
Few people can speak to that from the inside the way Steven Eichenblatt can. He’s a Florida attorney with 37 years of practice, a longtime pro-bono guardian ad litem who represents children in custody and foster-care cases — and is himself an adult alienated child. His memoir, Pretend They Are Dead, took ten years to write and traces what happened after his biological father dropped him and his siblings off one day and, on a psychiatrist’s advice and a co-parent’s convincing, decided to do exactly what the title says.
His story is extreme. But the long-term effects of parental alienation he describes are not unusual at all — they’re the consequences that so many alienated children carry into adulthood. Here’s what those effects actually look like, and what Steven, having lived them and now working inside the system, wants parents in the middle of this to understand.
A childhood rewritten overnight
To understand the effects, you need some context of Steve’s story. Around age seven or eight — old enough, as Steve puts it, “to know what’s going on” — his biological father gave him and his siblings up for adoption and disappeared from their lives, even while living in the same town. The title of his book comes from a magazine article Steven found decades later, in which his father recounted a psychiatrist’s advice for coping with the loss of his own kids by just pretending they are dead.
Returning from a weekend trip with their grandparents, Steve and his siblings came home to an announcement without any warning from his mother that she had gotten remarried, and that they would immediately be moving in with her new husband and his four children. Three kids became seven overnight, with no counseling and no transition. He calls it “the Brady Bunch from hell,” and the announcement that, “this is your new dad.” Richard’s authoritative personality included harsh new routines, punitive household rules and, over time, real violence. Steve was suddenly told he was now being adopted, and even his name was changed.
The long-term effects of parental alienation, from the inside
What does a child do with that much loss at once? Steve’s answer is a catalog of the effects clinicians and alienated parents will recognize:
Emotional numbing — “the feeling of no feeling”
A child who can’t escape chaos learns to switch off. “I became a professional compartmentalizer from an early age,” Steven says, pushing everything aside just to get through the day. The cost came later, as he found that he was losing track of his emotions and feelings. In the book he calls it “the feeling of no feeling,” and that numbness is damaging.
Trouble with intimacy in adulthood
The survival skills that a child learns to use can sabotage who they become as an adult. Steve candidly acknowledges that carrying “all this baggage” made relationships hard — he’s been through several divorces, and describes himself as someone who struggled with “the intimate, emotional part” of being close to another person. It’s one of the most common long-term effects of alienation: a child who experiences that attachments can vanish without warning grows into an adult who finds it genuinely difficult to trust that they won’t.
The hostile voice you carry with you
Alienation often creates a harsh voice in a child’s head which doesn’t leave when they grow up. For Steve, it was his adoptive father, Richard, who for years told him he “would never make anything” of himself — that he’d be “a loser,” a failure. He eventually channeled that into fierce professional drive — partly, he admits, “to prove him wrong.” But the fact that a grown, accomplished attorney still hears that voice tells you how long these tapes keep playing.
Grief no one lets you name
Children going through this rarely have the words for what they’ve lost, so their grief can go underground, and it often extends far beyond just missing a parent. One of Steve’s sharpest insights is about what he calls “the collateral damage”: when his father was erased, so were his grandparents and a beloved uncle. “My relationship with my grandparents was stronger than it was with my father,” he says. “I really missed them.” Parents in the middle of a custody fight, he suggests, badly underestimate how much a child loses when one side of the family disappears; they lose not only a parent, but an entire world of relationships.
Secrets carried alone
Perhaps the most haunting effect is what unprocessed trauma can do over decades. As a teenager, Steven witnessed his biological father in a horrific car crash near where he worked — and told no one about it for forty years. “I didn’t have anywhere to turn to talk about it,” he says. When a child has no safe adult to hold their pain, they learn to bury it – and it does not disappear.
The alienating parent isn’t the only one destroyed
One of the more unexpected threads in Steve’s story is his hard-won compassion for the father who left. Reading the thousands of pages of journals his father left behind after his death, Steven concluded plainly that the experience “ruined his life.” His father thought about his children constantly, spiraled into addiction after the crash, and — Steven later learned — silently watched his kids from a distance for years, even hiring an investigator to find them, but was never able to summon the courage to make contact.
Steven doesn’t excuse it — as a father of five, he says he can’t accept the “pretend they are dead” rationale at all. But it’s an important reminder for any parent being pushed out today: alienation is a tragedy that consumes everyone it touches. The parent erased from a child’s life is often grieving for a lifetime. (For the fuller picture of how this dynamic works and what to do about it, see our complete guide to parental alienation.)
What Steven wants alienated parents to know
Because Steven now sits on the other side of the bench as a guardian ad litem, he offers realistic advice for parents living through this unique hell:
The system is slow, and you can’t rush it. “The justice system is completely overloaded,” he says — and short of a genuine emergency, there’s little you can do to speed it up. Bracing for that, rather than pinning your hopes on quick resolution, can help adjust your perspective.
Anger will cost you. “Anger is not going to get your kids back faster — it’s going to make it far worse,” Steve observes. He has watched parents so consumed by hatred of an ex that they can’t be in the same room even when their children are adults, “and that just kills the kids.”
Get real support, and don’t do it alone. Steven is emphatic about therapy and finding people you can actually talk to, especially those who’ve been through it before. He points parents toward counseling through schools, churches, or temples, and mental healthcare for kids caught in divorce. He also swears by exercise and getting out in nature; as a runner, it’s part of how he’s gotten through himself.
Don’t let this experience make you completely hopeless. “You are a victim if you’re in a situation where you’re being abused,” he says — “but you don’t have to stay a victim, and you can’t let that define you.” He’s watched people in his own family never climb out of that role. His conclusion: “No one’s going to help me until I learn how to help myself.”
Questions to ask yourself
- If my child is being turned against me, what am I doing to stay steady enough to still be there when the door reopens?
- How might I be letting anger drive my choices?
- Who is my support through this — and do I have even one person who has walked this road before me?
- If I grew up with alienation myself, have I ever gotten help?
Moving forward
There is no tidy ending to Steven’s story — no “48-hour love story,” as he puts it, where reuniting with his father made everything whole. The long-term effects of parental alienation are real and lasting; pretending otherwise helps no one.
But Steven’s life is also proof of what is also possible: that an unbearable childhood can still produce a meaningful life, where pain is used to help others. Steve refuses to be defined by what was done to him. If you’re the parent being erased right now, that’s hope worth holding onto.
Resources
Steven Eichenblatt — attorney and pro bono guardian ad litem in Florida, and author of Pretend They Are Dead, a memoir of his childhood as an adopted, alienated child (available on Amazon). Find him at stevenscotteichenblatt.com and on Instagram @seichenblatt.
From Been There Got Out: if your children are being turned against you, start with our complete guide to parental alienation — and our second book, Been There Got Out: When Your Ex Turns the Kids Against You, is written for exactly this.
Frequently Asked Questions About the Long-Term Effects of Parental Alienation
What are the long-term effects of parental alienation on a child?
They can run deep and last well into adulthood. Drawing on his own experience as an adult alienated child, Steve Eichenblatt describes emotional numbing — becoming a “professional compartmentalizer” who loses touch with his own feelings — along with difficulty forming close, trusting relationships later in life. Other common effects include a harsh internal voice absorbed from an alienating parent, unprocessed grief that goes unnamed for years, and trauma buried because the child had no safe adult to confide in. Importantly, these aren’t signs of weakness; they’re the predictable result of a child adapting to overwhelming loss. Naming them is the first step, whether you’re a survivor yourself or a parent trying to protect your child from them.
Can parental alienation affect a child into adulthood?
Yes — the effects rarely stay in childhood. Steve Eichenblatt, now an attorney in his sixties, is candid that the baggage from his childhood made adult relationships hard and contributed to several divorces, and that he still notices the old hostile voice from his adoptive father. The coping mechanisms a child builds to survive — shutting down emotions, expecting people to disappear, staying hyper-independent — don’t switch off when they grow up. Instead they quietly shape how the adult trusts, bonds, and handles conflict. The encouraging news is that awareness changes the trajectory: adults who recognize these patterns can address them through therapy and support rather than passing them on.
Do alienated children ever want to reconnect with the rejected parent?
Many do, though it’s rarely simple. Steve eventually sought out the biological father who had given him up — knocking on his door as a young adult, terrified, needing to understand what had happened. The reunion was complicated, and there was no fairy-tale resolution. His story also reveals how often the rejected parent never truly let go: Steve later learned his father had watched the children from a distance for years and even hired an investigator. For alienated parents, this is a source of hope — a child’s current silence does not necessarily mean the door is closed forever.
How does parental alienation affect the rejected parent?
Often devastatingly. After reading thousands of pages of his father’s private journals, Steve concluded that being cut off from his children “ruined his life.” His father thought about the kids constantly, fell into addiction, and grieved from a distance for decades without ever finding a way back in. It’s a strong counter to the assumption that a parent who disappears simply stops caring. Frequently the opposite is true: the erased parent is suffering profoundly, sometimes for the rest of their life. For parents being pushed out today, it’s validation that the pain you feel is real and shared — and a reason to protect your own mental health while you fight to stay in your child’s life.
Does a young child even understand what’s happening during alienation?
They feel it far more than they can express. Steve notes that a young child tends to simply accept “day to day what’s handed to you,” because they have no choice — which can look like acceptance and not being bothered about how things are. But beneath the surface, the child is absorbing enormous grief without the words or the safe space to process it. Steve also highlights how much a child loses beyond the targeted parent: he mourned his grandparents and uncle — “the collateral damage” — as deeply as anyone. So a quiet, “resilient-seeming” child is not necessarily an okay child; they may simply be compartmentalizing pain they can’t yet name.
What can an alienated parent do while waiting for a court date?
Focus on staying steady, because the legal process is slow by nature. Steve, who serves as a guardian ad litem, is honest about the system being “completely overloaded” and can rarely be rushed without a true emergency — so bracing for a marathon may help protect you from crushing disappointment. In the meantime, get real support: therapy for you and your children, people you can talk to (ideally someone who’s been through it), and outlets like exercise and spending time in nature. Above all, he warns, don’t let anger run the show. It won’t speed things up, and it tends to make it worse for both you and your kids.
Why does anger make things worse for an alienated parent?
Because it damages the very relationships and credibility you’re trying to protect. Steve has watched parents so consumed by hatred of an ex that they can’t share a room even after their children are grown, and he’s clear that it just “kills the kids.” Uncontrolled anger can also color how a guardian ad litem or judge perceives you, and it drains the energy you need for the long haul. Managing it isn’t about suppressing legitimate pain — it’s about channeling it into therapy, support, and modeling the steadiness your children need from you.
Can you heal from the long-term effects of parental alienation?
Yes — Steve Eichenblatt’s life is evidence of it, though he’s honest that healing doesn’t come with a tidy happy ending. He built a meaningful career, became a devoted father who refused to repeat his own father’s abandonment, and channeled his pain into advocating for children. His guiding principle is blunt and empowering: you may have been a victim, “but you don’t have to stay a victim, and you can’t let that define you.” Healing, he believes, comes through therapy, honest support, physical outlets, and the decision to move forward rather than stay stuck. As he puts it, “no one’s going to help me until I learn how to help myself.”
