“I’m Afraid My Daughter Was Kidnapped by Her Survivalist Boyfriend”
In the wake of the discussion with Hurting Parent, yesterday’s and today’s Dr. Phil episodes are oddly appropriate. The basic outline is there: The well-behaved 18-year-old who leaves home suddenly and secretively, the third party who puts ideas of abuse in the teenager’s head and woos them away from the safety of home, the parent who calls the police when their child leaves home of what appears to be their own volition. In this case the teenager is a young woman and the third party is her age-appropriate boyfriend:
Gina claims her 18-year-old daughter, Alexis, was “taken” from her home in the middle of the night by her boyfriend, David, a claim both David and Alexis plainly deny. David is an admitted survivalist who says he has an arsenal of weapons, and Gina says she believes David is brainwashing her daughter.
“Three weeks after Alexis met David on Facebook — and only once in person — Alexis left in the middle of the night to go live with him. I believe that David kidnapped Alexis,” Gina says, which both David and Alexis say is ridiculous, stating that Alexis was 18 and went voluntarily with him. “David has told Alexis her whole entire life has been built on lies, that I am a very controlling, manipulative person … He’s trying to turn Alexis against her whole entire family,” claims Gina.
The episode’s main page is here. The Dr. Phil site doesn’t make it easy to find all the pages and videos for a given show, so here’s a list of links:
- “I’m Afraid My Daughter Was Kidnapped by Her Survivalist Boyfriend”
- A Mom Claims Her 18-Year-Old Daughter Was ‘Kidnapped’ By Survivalist Boyfriend; Is Mom Over-Reacting?
- Why Mom Says ‘Social Media Joke’ With Daughter ‘Backfired Big Time’
- Mom’s Plea To 18-Year-Old Who Moved In With Boyfriend After Three Weeks
- How A Parent May Unintentionally Alienate Their Child – If you don’t watch any other video, watch this one.
For the moment, you can see the entire episode here: I’m sure this Youtube upload is completely legal.
[Trigger warning for child sexual abuse below.]
The charmer you see talking about how he wants to kill Alexis’s boyfriend is Alexis’s stepfather, not her father. Wednesday’s show is about why Alexis’s biological father isn’t in the picture:
Alexis’ biological father, Dan, says that years ago, after breaking up with Gina, she accused him of molesting Alexis when she was just 2 years old. Dan vehemently denies this allegation, claims Gina was violent with him during their relationship and that she’s capable of lying to get what she wants – even alleging that Gina got pregnant on purpose – claims Gina denies.
Although this episode is no longer about Alexis’s leaving home, it digs into the mother’s psychology more deeply, culminating in polygraph tests for both Alexis’s biological father and Gina.
- Main page
- A Woman Says She Believes Her Ex Molested Their Daughter; Hear Dr. Phil’s Questions About Her Claims – Dr. Phil’s assertion is bullshit. Parents in denial do that kind of crap all. the. god. damn. time.
- Man Claims Ex Falsely Accused Him Of Molesting Their Daughter As Revenge
- Could A Mom’s Accusations That Her Ex Molested Their Daughter Be False?
- Father Once Accused Of Molesting Daughter Gets Results Of Polygraph Test
- Mom Who Once Accused Ex Of Molesting Their Daughter Takes Polygraph
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Thing I think having watched just a little bit: this fellow David doesn’t seem to have the best discretion (at least from the way things are shown), but “straight up, if I didn’t think I’d go to jail I’d cross over these three feet and rip his head right off” is not a statement that would make me STOP going to the range…
Alexis learned her taste in men from her mother. And will hopefully fix it in the very near future. The way she clung to her douchebag stepfather at the end of the second episode, though… It’s horrible that in her family, he was the one person she could trust at that moment.
And yeah, stepdad’s tactics are on about the same level as his wife’s parenting.
It does seem very much like the Hurting Parent thing where I think that the rapid departure to a person that you really can’t know all that well (I can’t imagine sheltering someone in my home long-term that I’d only known for three weeks, so it raises my eyebrow a bit about the array of reasons why someone would) is a plan that has some significant downsides. But if you’re an adult (even if a young one) who apparently does not have uncontested access to your social media accounts (!!) or even your phone (!!!!!) I can well see how that would seem like the most appealing and possibly even actually the best available option.
It’s a plan so bad that it makes you realize how awful the other options must have been. Blocked in and controlled on all sides, with the tunnel vision of adolescence (and desperation, and probably depression) and a sudden jolt of high-wattage limerence straight to the neurocortex–most teens would have squirted out of there like a watermelon pip. And if you were raised by a personality-disordered mother who pulled stunts like going behind her douchebag husband’s back to try to get back with her jailbird ex, David’s brand of crazy would feel like a more sensible, orderly version of home.
Also, ouch the autoplay.
Fixed it. Note to self: Don’t link to videos hosted on the Dr. Phil site again. Their autoplay is so tenacious that they play even in the post editing window.
I watched these Dr. Phil shows. It really got me to thinking about how PD parents perceive “reality”. When I watched the mother, especially once she failed the test, I see someone that seems to truly believe she’s in the right. What I take from this is that even though she lied about the sexual abuse, and probably many other things, she felt it was for justifiable reasons thus, it wasn’t really “lying”. The means justifying the results. Even when the lying was for self serving purposes, she could deceive herself into believing it was for the best.
I could see a lot of my mother in this woman. Seems loving and caring on the surface, and truly believed she was a great mom. My mother was a master at justifying her bad behavior, even in her own head, so that she always appeared nearly angelic. I believe that she believed she was always in the right no matter what she did.
This was one seriously screwed up woman who seems to have seriously screwed up her daughter, let alone what she did to her ex-husband’s life.
Thus there being absolutely nothing anyone in the world could say that could get through their armor of righteousness. My mom and this woman, both lost causes that really shouldn’t have been allowed to have influence over anyone else’s lives.
I finally got through the second episode. Verrryyyy interesting.
Dr. Phil can shut it, though. First, claiming that no parent would ever deliver their child to someone the child had accused of molestation, as discussed; secondly, the incredibly awful way he responded to the polygraph test reveal.
The daughter, who’s been told this happened for 16 years, is reeling, near tears, and says “I don’t know what to believe.” Not surprising: she’s processing, maybe for the first time, the idea that something she’s believed since toddlerhood, something that has had catastrophic effects on her relationship with her father and huge impacts on her sense of self, etc. might really not be true. This has to be rocking her to her foundation and she barely gets a chance to breathe before her father steps in and starts making angry accusations against her mother, insisting that the mother betrayed him and her and destroyed their relationship intentionally. You can see the daughter trying to bargain, insisting the mother didn’t lie; maybe she was wrong, but she wasn’t lying. The father’s having none of it. So when the father starts insisting that her mother is malicious, the daughter snaps at him to stop.
And Dr. Phil’s next move, rather than acknowledging the enormity of this for her, and the damage done to this poor girl WHATEVER the truth is, is to demand that she be “gracious” to the father she grew up thinking of as her molester, who has spent the past hour loudly bad-mouthing the mother who raised her and whom she still loves. Immediately. Right at this moment. Big applause.
I do feel for the father in this situation, but his response, however understandable, was incredibly insensitive. No wonder the daughter ran to the douchebag stepfather.
I still am not sure about the molestation accusations. I think it’s very possible that the daughter did say something ambiguous to the mother, and the mother took it and ran with it and obsessed over it until it became something damning and huge (as with her daughter being “kidnapped”). It’s profoundly disordered and no less damaging than flat-out fabrication, but it would explain the mother’s obvious confusion and insistence that she was responding to what her toddler daughter told her. From her screwed up perspective, she probably was.
Are you totally nuts? His response was perfectly valid for the situation, and the applause make PERFECT sense. Who’s got it worst here, yes she believed that for 16 years but on the other end he was believed to be a rapist for 16 years. What about the enormity of HIS situation? After all this time he DESERVES some recognition and acknowledgement and not after some other years. In the end, that’s what it was, a false belief, she was NOT molested, the father is the real victim, not her. And for her not to show a shred of graciousness for the real victim, Dr. Phil calling it was absolutely called for.
The father was not making “accusations”, he was stating facts. Did you miss both the polygraph tests? She was proven to lie, not only by the polygraph but int he show itself Dr.Phil proved how shady her accusations (TRUE accusations this time) were. A polygraph test is way more reliable than your impression of a “mother’s insistence”. Do you expect a liar to all of a sudden act acknowledging? Of course she’s going to act like that, anyone would act like that, ALL people exposed by polygraphs deny it afterwards.
Make any excuse about a screwed “perspective” you want, it doesn’t matter how you juggle with it she did ruin the daughter-father relationship. She’s the reason her daughter believed that for 16 years in the first place, and is in this “enormity” situation of finding out that her father did nothing wrong, and that she must “difficultly” stop portraying her father as a rapist like her mother has.
You are very belated and you seem to be conflating mother and daughter which makes me think you have an agenda here. I’m also wary because you apparently don’t think being lied to your entire life counts as victimization.
Bisky, His reaction was HUMAN and quite mild under the circumstances and the girl should definitely grow up and face reality. Switch the genders from a falsely accused mother with an estranged son and I am certain you will understand, because it is clear you are the one with the agenda.
You’re very, very late, and also dead wrong.
The “reverse the genders” thing makes Chris sound very Reddit. Wouldn’t surprise me if he was an MRA/incel/Red Piller who believes that the REAL sexism in the world is directed toward men, especially those falsely accused of sexual assault.
I agree with Dr Phil giving her something solid to hang onto. If you have never been molested the ground under your feet seems always shifting. Boundaries is the best thing Dr Phil teaches over and over. He was impacting the truth, something she was not use to from her crazy ass controlling manipulative mom. This child is fractured forever. That is not a loving mom. A loving mom would come clean and beg for mercy….
“Dr. Phil’s assertion is bullshit. Parents in denial do that kind of crap all. the. god. damn. time.”
If you mean the assertion that mothers don’t leave their children alone with their fathers after the children have made these kinds of disclosures about the fathers — yes they do, out of denial or a sense of powerlessness or fear or for any number of reasons.
And mothers who don’t risk being accused of “parental alienation” and punished in family court or by child protection authorities. It happens all the time. There is a fairly recent Canadian decision that made headlines where child protection sided with the perpetrator for years (TW for child sexual abuse): http://www.vancouversun.com/health/Mulgrew+Children+ministry+sided+with+sexually+abusive+father+court+finds/8619201/story.html
The mother in this Dr. Phil episode is pretty awful (I’m partway into the second of the two episodes), but that particular assertion made me ANGRY.
Yes, that assertion. Denial is a powerful force, and that’s without considering all the other pressures you listed. You don’t have to work with child protective services for 40 years, like Dr. Phil brags, to come across case after case of parents leaving their children with people the children accused of molesting them. It’s unconscionable that he publicly made that assertion–and irresponsible.
Right now a woman is suing the Mormon Church for going to the authorities about her husband molesting their children. Which is the opposite of how these things usually go, but there it is. The church actually outed a predator, and his wife is angry about it.
I’m also having a discussion about Marion Zimmer Bradley elsewhere online. So, uh… yeah.
I’ve never been able to stand Dr. Phil, honestly. He interrupts people constantly, and his attitude is often extremely vicious. I don’t think it’s helpful.
Really? Gotta love what you’re smoking 😂😜🤪🤯🤡
Hi guys, I’m david the “survivalist” I didn’t chose that label. GINA did. The producers wanted you to see how she viewed me. I am an avid hunter and outdoorsmen still am to this day.
This was a very sad hard moment in my life. The following year Alexis and I ended up fighting against her mother in court for 9 months….. the. A year after that (year three) was my divorce.. I’ve learned my lesson people cannot handle the truth. I brought my concerns & theories up to dr.Phil’s team and they investigated it. This was not easy. I was at a 50/50 chance of either looking like the worlds biggest a$$hole not believing what was told to me. Or… I was gonna be the answer to the biological fathers 16year old prayer. I never met or spoke with her real father. Until the day before of the show. Shook his hand and said “I don’t care about your side or the story this is simply what I believe I pray to god I am right.
I still maintain some contact with bio father family. Other than that I was young and should have approached it differently. Glad that chapter is over 👌 it was very hard to see this pain in her eyes. On the way home I told her to prepare for the worst. I hoped I prayed the year showed they both told the truth. But in the end it’s the truth that hurts. One day I pray she looks back on that period and really see I just wanted to correct what was wrong. I have a big heart. I wish my father was in my life and some one fight that fight with me. But I accepted the truth. And moved on. It hurt but I learned valuable lessons
Thank you for this update! I’ve been so curious as to the relationship status and how everything ended up after the episode aired.
Are you and alexis still together?
Okay I see something in your comment about a divorce, not sure if that meant you and Alexis got married and broke up or what. Regardless, I wish you the best and I think the outdoorsy adventure attitude you have is super admirable
I think y’all are young and Dr. Phil was likely correct about everything he said. Thank God though that you have enough since to have your girlfriend explore all options for the truth and get out of her crazy ass mothers house. That feeling she had something was wrong, I bet it was a festering 16 old sore that her mother caused and did not know how to get the Splenter out. I am so thankful for you opening her eyes, I pray that she has a good life and the lord blesses her and heals your girlfriends heart. I pray that she is able to fully become the woman God has for her and that he bless her. I am so sorry that her mother (from one mom to another) did not quickly apologize and simply ask for forgiveness. I am sorry she had to do this publicly. I just want to hug her so bad and tell her she will be okay. If she ever want to talk talk please reach out. I was the daughter of a mom like this. Unfortunately I was molested and my mom refused to see the truth and I can understand her pain. Honestly I hope you all are able to heal. I pray y’all beat the odds and if not that you two both have a great life a head of you.
Excuse the typos* in the way home I prayed that the *tests* showed that Gina and Dan were telling the truth.
I tried mending bridges with Gina which was a disaster. As well as mended the relationship with Alexis and her father
Hey, thank you for the update David. Best wishes.