They Are Killing My Son

Online video games have consumed my son, gobbling up his desire for social life and a career. His isolation caused a mental breakdown previously. He could suffer another. I have no way of knowing his condition because I have been shut out of his life.

Al’s father, Michael, and stepmother, Deborah Potechin, aka Eve, have kept him captive by enabling his gaming addiction. They disregarded my plea to stop enabling him, refused to help him seek treatment, rejected my requests for a discussion, ignored third parties’ mediation attempts, and blocked the county’s welfare check visits.

While ignoring Al’s suffering, the couple has militantly prevented me from helping him through brainwashing and smearing to instill in him distrust and hatred towards me.

How could a father so callously disregard his son’s suffering? The answer comes in Michael’s own words. In response to my plea to stop enabling our son, he complained that as a senior, he had “earned” the right to keep his grown son in his house, Al’s health and future were not of his concerns, and I ought to quit bringing it up to disturb his enjoyment of old age. Shocking? Not to me. The brazen selfishness and apathy are the essence of this man and the cause of Al’s plight.

The Absent Father

I met Michael in my last year of graduate school. He was soft-spoken, good-looking, with an appearance of maturity thanks to our ten-year age difference. His lack of empathy bothered me at times, but nothing flashed danger. We were married after eight months of dating. I was preoccupied with launching a career, working three jobs at one point while he was busy jumpstarting his consulting business. We lived our life in parallel lanes.

The anticipation of Al’s arrival is the pinnacle of our marriage. We planned the pregnancy for months and had our happiest time preparing for his birth. Al arrived on a brilliant California summer day.

In the following weeks, I struggled with breastfeeding, engorgement, sleep deprivation, swelling from an episiotomy, and hunger. Despite working at home, Michael did not even heat a can of soup for me. He snuck out to dine in restaurants without bringing home a takeout for his exhausted wife. Caring for others does not come naturally to him.

Al was a riot at night, waking up every two hours. I could barely get any sleep. Michael refused to help at night when the initial excitement evaporated.

Al was my prince, whose every groan was my command. He was never introduced to diaper rashes or bruises, typically synonymous with early childhood. I took him everywhere with me – the stores, the library, parks with other new moms and babies, the “mommy and me” program, my volunteer work, and even my Ob/Gyn appointments when Michael was unavailable, which was often.

One day, Michael came home exclaiming he saw a woman shopping for groceries with a baby, as if he just discovered America. “Why can’t you do that?” he asked. I was so dumbfounded by his insane unreality that I could not utter a word.

Al and I spent our day playing, reading stories, singing nursery rhymes, and listening to classical music purportedly inspiring “Baby Einstein.” In less than five months, he spoke his very first word: “Mom.”

Within eighteen months, Al learned all his alphabets and nine numbers. He started reading by himself before the age of four. I was impressed by his thirst for knowledge. Believing a well-developed social mind centered on empathy was the key to a happy life, we joined playgroups and frequented playgrounds.

While Al and I bonded in our shared experiences, Michael lived a life of his own behind a closed door in his home office. Though only separated by a thin sliding door, we seemed a world away. He rarely joined us. Our part-time nanny was astonished by how distant and foreign the father and son seemed. She commented, “Al has no reaction at all when his father appears as if he is a stranger!”

Indeed, Al did not understand how this aloof man was related to him for nearly three years. Michael’s excuse was he must work to support the family. Surely not every working father shunned his family. Still I accepted his excuse and my sole parenting reality, taking on all the housework and childcare duties.

I usually left Michael undisturbed, but one day, upon entering his office with a question, I discovered, to my amazement, that the fifty-year-old man was tracking Santa Claus on the internet!

Michael moved the family to Oregon for its reputed low cost of living when Al was four. The relocation turned out to be the inception of Al’s woe.

Al was a quick learner. He participated in various extracurricular programs, diligently following instructions and making his best effort. He was more advanced in math and reading than most of his peers and ranked in the top three of his class.

Michael’s absence became increasingly conspicuous while I was devoted to raising Al. He no longer cloistered himself behind a closed door but frequently traveled to Southern California, purportedly for work, extending his trips to include weekends and holidays, even Thanksgiving. Left Al and me to share life’s challenges and rewards, celebrate the joy of the seasons, and weather the howling storms. I was anxious to impart my knowledge, values, and skills, giving him the foundation to survive life’s vicissitudes.

We huddled in bed every night, read stories, and sang lullabies. My heart swelled with delight when I heard him giggle in his dreams. A mother’s reward is her child’s happiness.

Divorce Scheme

After years of absence, Michael came home a changed man one day. He took Al out for breakfast and wanted to plan his birthday party! I thought he finally came to his senses and diligently provided all the information he requested – Al’s schedule, his pediatrician, dentist, friends and their parents, and a To-do list for party planning. Al was ecstatic about the attention he finally was receiving from his father.

Something else was changing, too. Al started pulling away and became hostile to me on occasion. My perplexity didn’t last long. Michael was in such a hurry to execute his scheme that he proselytized Al in my presence. “It’s time to cut the umbilical cord!” he jeered, “Let go of your mom’s apron string!” He hacked away at the vital bond between a mother and child, shattering Al’s sense of security and attachment.

He took Al on an alleged “business trip,” but it was unveiled years later that he smuggled Al to Disneyland to fast-track a father-son relationship. He then put him through the “inspections” of his mistress and her family that conspired to trap a man for their disturbed daughter – Deborah Elaine Potechin. They taught ten-year-old Al deception, plotted against his loving mother, and coerced him into silence.

The divorce paper came in email while I was visiting my dying father.

Michael squirreled away assets, spied on me, lied to the court, and blatantly brainwashed Al to turn him against me. His viciousness and cunning surprised me. I sensed an expert hand pulling the strings, the hand of someone cold-blooded and devious.

I kept calm and civil throughout the divorce proceeding for Al’s sake. Despite all his ploys, Michael could not overcome his poor parenting record. During the custody evaluation, he could not produce a single parent from Al’s school to vouch for him. The family court awarded me full legal custody.

The Forgotten Boy

Unfortunately, my employer transferred me to California a year after the divorce settlement. Michael fought in court to take Al from me. The judge, himself a divorced man who received overwhelming one-star ratings and a lawyer’s comment stating, “General inclination is he hates women,” ruled in Michael’s favor in a gross miscarriage of justice.

I considered quitting my job to stay in Portland with Al, but Oregon was known for its scarce job opportunities then. Giving up my job would mean an extended period of unemployment, financial dependency on Michael, perennial bickering, poverty, and a toxic home environment for Al.

Al was fatefully left behind. I wanted to discuss parenting with Michael, but he avoided me, directing all communication to his lawyer. He quickly married his mistress, Potechin, and shoved her down Al’s throat.

I thought Michael would blissfully get on with his life since he had run off with everything he wanted – a speedy divorce, child tax credit, child support payment, and Al. I assumed he would appreciate the enormous sacrifice I’d made, of which he and his wife were the beneficiaries. I expected him to show some kindness and positivity. Instead, he made it his mission to erase me from Al’s heart, forcing upon Al a loyalty conflict. He trashed learning and promoted self-indulgence to spite me at the expense of Al’s development.

Michael stopped faking his attention to Al, and reverted to his usual aloof self. Al was left alone in his room with video games like a hamster in a cage with a wheel. Michael did not bother to pick him up after school, a 5-minute drive; instead, he made him walk to a friend’s house to play video games daily.

Potechin, twice divorced and childless, refused to play a nurturing role in Al’s life. She shunned interaction with him and snubbed his yearning for love and affection. Her divorced mother, Marjorie Potechin, took over Al’s bedroom – a child’s sanctuary, relegating him to a den by the stairs. Potechin diverted money from Al’s education and health care to feed her insatiable greed and lifestyle. To assert her dominance and total control of Michael, she has attacked me relentlessly and schemed to cut me out of my son’s life and block any of my influence.

In the years that followed, they left Al home alone for days when they went about their business and vacations. They cut the budget for his school lunch, making him skip the meal altogether when he needed nutrition the most as a pubescent teenager. Instead of engaging him in social and learning activities, they exploited him as child labor for housekeeping. To cut costs, they took him out of school to take online courses in his sophomore year when interaction with peers was crucial for his social development, causing him to fail his second year of high school.

Instead of standing up to the Potechins and protecting his son, Michael acts as their accomplice, actively manipulating Al into accepting their abuse and neglect. To preempt my objections to their mistreatment of Al, Michael convinced Al to believe that their abuse were his own choices! The little that I know about Al’s suffering is only the tip of the iceberg, for they have coerced and conditioned Al into keeping silent about anything that happened in that house.

In the absence of love, affection, and human interaction at home, Al found enjoyment, stimulation, and tenuous connection with friends in online video games instead. Gaming was his escape from the toxic couple’s neglect and abuse. Over time, it became an obsession.

Michael ignored my plea to act as a responsible father. He bought Al a gaming machine when he had already displayed alarming symptoms of addiction. He yielded his parental responsibility to the gaming device.

I fought to steer Al away from gaming when he visited me. Like Sisyphus rolling a boulder uphill, my efforts were canceled by the couple’s enabling, and my relationship with Al was threatened. In Al’s retorts, I heard the echoes of the couple’s backbiting.

While spending lavishly on home improvement, multiple automobiles, and vacations, the couple chose not to fund Al’s college education. Hoping to provide him with a better opportunity for a fulfilling life, I persuaded Al to come to California for college with my financial support.

Al struggled with gaming addiction throughout college. Michael kept him on a short leash by making their home a trap house with unquestioned gaming access, luring him back for nearly all his school breaks and sixteen months of online learning during COVID. There were times that Al wanted to quit gaming, but the toxic environment the couple had perpetuated made it impossible. While at their home, Al suffered a mental breakdown, and the couple did nothing to help him.

I arranged for Al to receive medical care when he returned to California for school. It brought him back from the verge. I urged him to enroll in a treatment program and begged Michael not to allow him back in their home if they were not prepared to stop enabling him. I suggested we sat down as a family to persuade Al to receive treatment.

Michael rejected my plea without explanation and transported Al back to their trap house immediately after his graduation. My numerous emails and text messages filled with sincerity, medical information, and video testimonies about the deadly consequences of video game addiction were met with silence. Michael’s stone-cold indifference to Al’s suffering baffled me.

Since returning to Oregon, Al grew increasingly irritable and unresponsive under Michael and Potechin’s manipulation. Soon, he stopped communicating.

The Hand That Pulls the Strings

I worried about Al and decided to visit him. That was when I uncovered the missing puzzle piece.

I arrived in Portland in January 2023, intending to provide whatever support Al needed to break away from social isolation, even if it’s just for a few hours – gym membership, dining out, movies, anything that could give him a respite.

I tried again to seek Michael’s cooperation. He rejected my overture, informed me they had hired a lawyer to probe legal action against me, and threatened to submit to the authorities the video footage of me leaving a Valentine’s gift for Al. Knowing what I knew about Michael, I was still stunned by his jaw-dropping overreaction. His threat made no sense because neither of us had sought a restraining order against the other, nor was there any legal basis for one. I wondered whether he had lost his marbles until Potechin finally emerged from behind the curtain.

She has evaded me for over a decade and used an alias, Eve. I knew nothing about her, including what she looked like. Even though I felt her invisible hand of manipulation, I had refrained from making assumptions or comments about her. We crossed paths without my knowledge when I attempted to find a go-between to communicate with Michael.

Potechin recognized me and plotted her attack. Making herself up to be a victim, she riled up Michael and ordered Al to send me a text message accusing me of stalking her. She went around the neighborhood, smearing me with her figment of “stalking” and “kidnapping.” I cannot help wondering what sordid past she have had to come up with such illicit ideas so readily. She must have a pathologically inflated ego to fancy the aim of my visit was about her instead of my son’s well being.

Then, it came to light that she was the one who read all my emails and text messages instead of Michael. She intercepted my communication, thwarted my effort to help Al, encouraged Michael’s indifference, and engineered his distrust and hostility against me. She has made Michael her puppet, who surrendered his autonomy and conscience and sacrificed our son. No wonder she contrived to keep me away, even trying to prevent me from attending my son’s high school graduation while I was planning to invite her to join me!

Everything finally made sense. The flip side of Michael’s blindness to others’ needs and emotions is his inability to discern others’ ulterior motives. His craving for attention and admiration makes him easy prey to predators. He often fell victim to wily salespeople and con artists, one of whom swindled thirty thousand dollars from him. His ruthless approach to our divorce bears distinct fingerprints of the Potechins; both mother and daughter had ample divorce experiences and been hardened by life’s bitter lessons through years of savage struggles.

The Potechins see me as their natural enemy, for my duty as a mother to protect and advocate for my son is fundamentally at odds with their selfish design. They have hoodwinked Michael into believing that my concerns for my son’s well-being are nothing but a ploy to take Al from him. They have manipulated the father and son to fight their war against me, destroying Al in the process. Their ruthlessness make Cinderella’s stepmother look like a fairy godmother.

I waited for Al in Portland for three months, but he did not come. Michel and Potechin frightened him with tall tales of “kidnapping.” By keeping him captive, the couple has ensured their misdeeds remain uncovered. Michael has robbed a healthy, promising, and happy boy of his mother’s love, turned him into a suffering, lonely soul, and continued to usher him down a gloomy path.

I have sought help from attorneys, law enforcement, public agencies, religious leaders, and elected officials. Some could not penetrate the couple’s stonewall, and others had their hands tied by a dysfunctional system.

The National Center for State Courts defines parental alienation as “a strategy whereby one parent intentionally displays to the child unjustified negativity aimed at the other parent. The purpose of this strategy is to damage the child’s relationship with the other parent and to turn the child’s emotions against that other parent.” This definition accurately describes the behaviors and motives of Michael and Potechin.

Psychologists have pointed out parental alienation’s long-term negative impact on children, including “depression, anxiety, poor self-esteem, lack of trust in relationships, and self-defeating behavior.” Some believe its heinous nature is “on par with physical and sexual abuse.” However, until this insidious form of child abuse is prosecuted, victims have little recourse.

Therefore, I implore you, the readers, to help raise awareness of this crime against children and demand lawmakers and legal scholars institute laws against parental alienation.