This project was born out of pain and heartbreak, often expressed as anger, disbelief and disgust. I am not sure that survival without friends and family would have been possible. What carried us through was not personal strength. It was the community of people who refused to let us face this darkness alone. Friends, colleagues and partners that saw the dynamics and forces clearer and sooner than we did, and friends, colleagues, and partners that knew the truth of our hearts and character even when toxic versions were offered as the only possibility.
I want to thank my brother first because his decision to stand for the truth and push back against the madness cost him the most. He showed up with the kind of bold courage that doesn’t count the cost before choosing the truth. A choice that quite literally changed everything. His support was vital — unwavering, insightful, and constant — It was him that chose to join us as we huddled in isolation in an alienation steeped bomb crater on a beach of relational destruction. He would be one of those few that saw it as captured ground from where we would map out a reclaiming of all that was destroyed. My brother, complicated, fragile, difficult, but the heart of his father when it counted most!
Thanks to my partner, whose presence was a lifeline. She was perhaps the one to call it first and definitely the one to say it loudest. She researched, she wrote and she made important calls. She stood with us in the moments when the truth felt unbearable, when the ground shifted under our feet, and when the silence of many that we loved cut the deepest. Her clarity, her humor and her fierce justice warrior ethos helped us hold onto ourselves when the family system we knew was collapsing around us.
Thanks to so many of our extended family whose deep love for peace and harmony didn't blind them to the truth of what was happening. Your words of encouragement remain treasured memories and we appreciate each of you.
A special thanks to the friends and business partners who sat around fires at night sipping wine while listening without judgment, who believed us without hesitation, and who offered support without needing the story to be simplified. Your willingness to stand beside us — even when the situation was complex, painful, and deeply personal gave us the courage to keep documenting, to keep learning, to keep writing, to keep pursuing justice, and to keep building something that might help others.
We extend our gratitude to Dr. Susan Heitler, whose work illuminated behaviors that had been hiding in plain sight. Her writing on conflict dynamics, manipulation, and triangulation gave us the vocabulary we needed to understand what was happening. It gave us the validation that these patterns are real, recognizable, and far more common than most people realize. She helped us see that what we were experiencing was not a private failure, but a systemic harm. She was one of the very first voices that encouraged us to tell our story to illuminate the toxic dynamics of ASAS to the millions of families that face it in the dark. She stated the desperate need for a movie on the topic and suggested writing a script. While our skills lended more to a book and a website we hope the script will be next.
And finally, we readily acknowledge that all the JI and KI in the world, even with hundreds of notes and stacks of handwritten memoir, would not be anything useful or illuminating without the genius of AI. While Kelli and I both love to write, we don't like and are not adept at many aspects of an educational website. Without AI to organise, vet, refine and structure the complex material that underpins this site, it would not exist in a useful format. While no AI will replace human connection or professional guidance, the clarity and structure provided here by AI helped transform our lived experience into a resource others can use. It empowered us to transform our anger into a voice of clarity and caution. Indeed, it enabled us to speak about something that had once left us speechless.
This site is dedicated to everyone who has endured adult sibling alienation, and to everyone who stood beside them when the truth became heavy.
If you are reading this because you are living through something similar, we want you to know: you are not alone, and your story deserves being heard. Our hope and prayer is that these resources will equip you to navigate ASAS heartbreaks and challenges with absolute clarity so you can protect the vulnerable parents you love and the relationships you cherish.