In episode 121 of Beyond the High Road, host Shelby Milford delves into the topic of parental alienation, using the recent controversy surrounding Allison Holker and the late dancer tWitch as a case study. Shelby discusses the impact of alienation on families, drawing parallels to her own experiences with her daughter's stepmother. Despite the turmoil, she stresses the importance of advocating for justice from a place of love rather than giving in to anger. Tune in for a raw and thought-provoking discussion aimed at raising awareness and fostering community support among alienated parents.

00:00 Introduction and Episode Setup

00:44 Shelby's Back Injury Story

02:13 Postponing Planned Content

03:29 Reflections on Erin Brockovich and Twitch

05:51 Suspicions About Twitch's Wife

08:23 Alienation and Advocacy

14:35 Managing Anger and Seeking Justice

23:30 Conclusion and Final Thoughts

Episode Transcript

  You are listening to the Beyond the High Road podcast with Shelby Milford, episode number 121. Stay tuned. Hey guys, what's happening? If you guys are watching, you'll see that I have, you're looking at a different background, different scenery. And that is because I'm standing today. I just got smart and realized that I could work standing up.

I haven't been, I've been more moaning in agony because I pulled my back out this weekend. and when I tell you how, actually, it'll probably show my age. I don't know. I've actually had this problem or this injury, if you will, I guess. Yeah, I guess it's an injury, situation since. First time I can remember it happening was when my daughter was still on my hip, but I get really tight hip flexors in any way, long story short, I've got this SI joint issue.

And when I don't do my exercises, usually happens once every 18 months or so, my back goes out. I've been feeling my hips, both hip flexors, screaming at me. Like. All day, all night, wake you up from your sleep, sort of screaming, for the last, like, month. And, I don't know why, , like, I know that the pain's there, it's kind of like when you have a headache, but you don't go and reach for the naproxen sodium, or whatever it is that's in your cabinet, whatever you normally take for a headache.

Go to the doctor, you know, when you're sick. It's like that. I have these exercises and this, I'm a yoga instructor for fuck's sake, you know, but I didn't do it and now the other day on Saturday morning, I think it was, I was standing right in front of me actually, and I sneezed and that sneeze sent me to the floor and I've been basically crawling around my house on all fours.

Since so that being said, if you remember last week, I was talking about doing something new this week. We're not I had a different titled episode and the whole thing planned for you this week and along with it was going to be another something and. Being that I haven't been able to put the final touches on that other thing, I'm going to postpone that topic until I can, which is hopefully next week.

I had gone back and forth on whether or not to just do it anyway this week and just put the other thing out later, but then I went back to my word of the year. And my word of the year is sturdy. And I don't think, after considering all the options, That I wanted to put them out separately because I want this to be a sort of a sturdy

effort, if you will. So, as a result, today I have just finally decided, I decided this morning, that I will just talk about what's going on with me. And this week, also the content might be, the topic anyway, where it arose from is a little different than how I would normally.

introduce topics. it just might be a little bit different than what it normally is. . So here's what's been on my mind. I've had all this downtime in the last, what, three days to peruse the goings on in the world, catch up on some movies, what have you. So, the first element, the first little drop from the universe was I watched Erin Brockovich again for the, I don't know how many times I've watched it, you know?

But it's such a great movie, and it motivates you to want to change stuff, it's a great motivator. Um, for me anyway. And then, alongside, it wasn't, it wasn't, um, there wasn't one before the other. I think they probably kind of went hand in hand. Do you guys remember the guy Twitch?

He was a dancer. He was on, um, So You Think You Can Dance. Back in the day, I mean, my daughter was a babe. Then he went on the Ellen show. He was the DJ on the Ellen show. He's just this bright. Brave sunshine, just so darling all the time, , brilliant dancer, all the things.

I think he was like, he wasn't a b boy. He was like the poppin lock. That was his thing back in the day. Anyway, um, but

Alan brought him onto his show and he became really famous as if he wasn't already. I had followed him for years. Until he died back in December of 2022. wasn't necessarily a fan fan, but I kept up with him because fell in love with him from the first time that I saw him on that show.

fell in love with his, just him, you know, he just was such a good guy.

can remember being back in Texas and seeing some of his videos, like TikToks, maybe, or YouTube, and also his Instagram. And each time he and his wife would pop up and do their little dances, I would get angry. I was sure back then that it was because I thought that his wife looked like my daughter's stepmoms.

They could be twinsies, used to drive me insane to see Twitch's wife. Just on the screen.

But now, the more I think about it, I think it's just that they had the same mannerisms. That, um, my daughter's stepmom and this chick, uh, Allison Volker, have this a lot of the same mannerisms. But, y'all, talk about quote unquote triggering. That chick did it to me every single time her, one of their videos would pop up back in the day, right?

But I loved Twitch so much that I convinced myself, I remember where I was, and I was like, I shouldn't be like that, I shouldn't be judgy just because somebody reminds me of something bad going on in my life, right? Like, something terrible going on with me. She may not. I, basically, I was telling myself that it was, of course, unfair to this woman that tWitch married.

And sure, tWitch must have a good judge of character, right? Being naive and all the things. , looking back now, though, I don't know, I was thinking about this last night, I don't even know if my daughter's step mom and this Allison girl, Actually look so much alike physically, but their mannerisms are carbon copies of one another.

The way they speak, the way they talk how they talk, the way they come across, all of it. they're one of the same. And so now it makes sense why it bugged me so much. It wasn't so much that they looked alike. It was how they were carrying themselves. Why this is important. I'm getting there. So just know that I'm not just talking about some gossip and my vendetta against, My ex's wife,

, and you know, just last week or the week before , I just got through talking about my anger towards her and how I needed to go back towards forgiveness

So, back in the day, I really didn't like Twitch's wife, when I heard about his death back in December of 2022, I remember I was standing right in this living room looking at my TV in disbelief, but I knew immediately and then I convinced myself that I was being judgmental and also sort of projecting.

I was like, it's her. It's her. I don't believe a thing that she's saying. I like knew it was her. You know, how sometimes you just have that sense. Anyway, um, I went down a deep rabbit hole looking into what was going on with this Allison girl, I was like, she seems like an alienator, things are not right.

Come to find out, her , eldest daughter is not Twitch's, she's from a different relationship and Allison had Twitch. Adopt the oldest eldest girl. Her name is Wesley. I think now y'all know, first off, I am not one to spread rumors. This is just my take on things. And there is a, productive ending to this.

So just know I'm not here just gossiping about pop culture and. Who done it, but so if you've done any research or if you've heard any of the news on Allison today and all that's going on.

Then you probably already are thinking the same thing I am, which is she probably had the ex, Wesley's dad, sign an NDA, but I don't know. He's not been around. But basically, my point is, is that she's an alienator, I think. I believe the reason I picked up on that vibe from her is because I know it so well from my daughter's stepmom, Again, I could be way overreaching, I could be still coming to conclusions that aren't correct. This is just my initial thought. back then, nobody was talking about how Allison Twitch's wife. Was shady. So I figured it was like a non issue except for the fact that I didn't like her because I already knew that she had Twitch adopt her daughter, and that other guy was still around. So I knew something was up, but anyway, fast forward two years.

this week, a bunch more stuff came out about Alison Hooker and the book that she's writing. Now, I'm not going to go into all the stuff that they have just recently found out about her, except to say that she has now alienated Twitch's kids from Twitch's family, the living relatives of Twitch.

Again, proves this hunch that I had from way back when. She's an alienator, things aren't right, something else happened with that death. And it really pissed me off. It really, really made me angry. Because it brought up that feeling of like, These people that are doing this, that are meddling, um, unfortunately, I'm not saying it's always women because I know that it happens on both sides.

And I know my, my ex is a man father who is also acting to alienate my daughter from me, but , it seems at least Through my observation that there's a lot of women out there that are so vindictive and are meddling with children's lives and their realities in order to serve themselves, and they're putting themselves off like presenting themselves and believing themselves to be these heroes, these saviors.

Of these children and of the world around them. One thing I will say, like I said, y'all do your own because I really, this is not like a gossip podcast or even episode. But I will say that

during her really recent, a video interview. She's got this new book coming out and they were doing this to basically like the pre pre press tour for this book. Which is, by the way, a tell all from her side about of Twitch's dirty laundry that I believe is all fabricated.

She's talking about him being a drug addict and that she found all this stuff in the closet. And she's making herself to be like the victim and surprised about all of this and she didn't know what to do with it. Meanwhile, children are now learning this stuff about their father.

Who cannot defend himself. So they, they have this entirely altered reality, right? just like we do. I mean, we understand this, right? She has made herself out to be the savior. She's like, oh, I could save my last person that was affected by drugs and alcohol. But I just couldn't reach Twitch,

she turned the whole Interview into her being like this holier than thou And wanting to move on with her life and to onto her new love And her children need to move on from twitch and stop being identified as

Twitch's kids so that they can move on with their lives too and close that chapter y'all I was ready to lose my damn shit. Normally, I wouldn't have Kept the interview on even to I probably wouldn't have ever watched the interview. Had it been with anything else, but when it comes to a topic like this, and these days,

I feel like

it would be I don't know if naive is the right word, but not right to turn the other cheek or turn away from blatant cases like this and not bring it out to light. Because most people aren't talking about. The alienation tactics happening. Most people aren't talking, well, they're a little bit talking about the fact that she's keeping the grandkids away grandkids from Twitch's mom, you know, and family.

They're a little bit talking about that. That's all over Twitter and it's all over whatever that Allison's keeping her kids completely away. But mostly they're talking about the fact that she's Probably to blame reopening the, , the case on Twitch's death and also, this book that she's writing, right?

They want to basically debunk all the things. But nobody's really, really discussing the fact that this lady, has fabricated these children's realities of who their father is. The world's reality so that now these kids are always going to be judged by what this woman has now painted for them.

So it just made me really mad. And the fact that she's putting herself off to be the savior. Right. That she was the victim in all of this and that she just needs to be able to move on and, and be at peace with everything. When really she's behind the scenes, getting the family design NDAs to even

be permitted to show up at Twitch's. Funeral cause nobody else was allowed to make money off of Twitch, except for her. It's the whole thing is absolutely crazy. And so I hesitated on bringing this up to you, um, and discussing it here. I wasn't sure where I was going to discuss it, but then I thought y'all, I want to keep it real with you guys.

I'm human too, you know? And I have clearly some anger about this. And I think it's because it's also so close to home because she, like I said, to a T, her mannerisms and her tactics, her behaviors, and the way that she speaks, her strategies, the way that she employs the strategies is so similar, if not identical, to how my daughter's stepmother does it.

And before, like, let's say a few years ago, I don't know if I would have been able to touch this with a 10 foot ball. Today, I am in a much better place than I was then. My anger is much more contained and I can direct it into advocacy. Right into fighting for a cause I don't know what that means for me, but I do know that the first thing that I can do and I think it's my responsibility and anybody who has it on their heart to also shed light on situations like these.

Right to show because, um,

I think I spoke about it. I'm thinking about this because this is all right off the cuff.

I think I spoke about this last spring when I was talking about identifying ourselves as being alienated parents, oftentimes will back us into a corner and cause us to isolate ourselves more from society. Defeat the purpose of being able to spread the word and spread awareness.

Because there's such a stigma, like, what did you do to lose your kids or whatever? Nobody wants to pay attention to it, especially with the Tina Swithins in the world who are out there demonizing the term parental alienation. Right? So,

when current events like this, this is, I think, where my mindset is, is when current events like this sad,

Very unfortunate, unnecessary events like this go on with this Alison Holker girl. I think it's so important if it's in your mind, if it's on your heart to speak out, there is a way, you know, and like I said, I don't know what my way is yet, but I do know that I wanted to, to, to pose it to y'all but I don't, I don't see the productivity and fighting against, especially your abuser. but fighting for the cause, is a must. If we want to put a dent in this. Pritika meant the world and you know, on the larger scale, like, I think the reason why I locked up and couldn't speak broke into sweats and basically ran home and kept my mouth shut, clammed up back in the day was because I was in my mind wanting to fight against them and them alone.

And that was never going to work for me. Because I was still needing to process through trauma. But I definitely can, especially now coming from a much more healed place, Raise the conversation and not just with us as alienated parents. I want to raise it with you guys so that you can also raise it in your communities, but I think we need to get it out there to other people that will listen and when it comes to current events, this is what I was getting ready to say when it comes to current events like this, that everybody loved Twitch.

People know him, , it was just so uncharacteristic of him to have taken his life and the way that has been said happened. And so I think that with issues like these, we have the ability to reach more people about the people, the perpetrators that are doing this. Being able to use your anger to fight for the bigger picture Solution

is not only productive. I think it could be therapeutic so long as you are I hate to say being careful because that sounds a little alarmy, and I don't necessarily mean it that way, but so long as you are keeping yourself aware, and managing your mind, basically, around

how you're thinking and feeling about the situation and what is motivating you at all times. it's so easy to be fighting for something, fighting for a cause and being upset about the injustice being done, right? Like in this case with Allison Holker, what I think anyway.

my hunch is that she probably alienated tWitch from the world as much as she could, alienated the kids away from his family now, and she's alienated her, her eldest from her father's side of the family, her actual father's side of the family, you know, and so who knows what kind of emotional abuse is happening inside the house with the kids and what they're hearing, what they're witnessing and, and what have you, right?

I, I can imagine it is hell for them. and yet they probably don't even have words for it, you know, but I know for me that when I make it personal, I tend to start to judge, to blame, and want to attack, and let me tell you, even now, I still have, not as much anymore, but I really had some judgments early on, like back in 2022, and a little bit even yesterday.

Like, about her character, Avi, right? There's one thing with understanding that something's not right, something's going on here. This doesn't add up, why would somebody behave like this? And there's another thing to start placing somebody in a category and name Kali. And that's where I was sort of bordering on yesterday, and I think that when we start advocating and fighting for a cause, it helps us to, broaden the view so that we're not singling people out.

Speaking of Tina Swithin a little bit ago, when fighting against somebody like her, although cause is good, When you do fight against the one person like that, it, it's a slippery slope. I'm not saying don't do it. I'm just saying let me say it like this. I would really need to manage my mind around my thoughts and emotions at all times in my pursuit. Of justice now, if you're fighting for the bigger picture, it makes a huge difference in, at least for me, in the way that you go about doing it.

Fighting against is going to cause you to stay in anger, blame, judgment, right?

Attacking, right? So the reason that we don't want to do those things, right?

Okay, this is how I'm gonna say it. When we're fighting against somebody, it usually generates thoughts that cause us to feel more victimized, right? We feel like, for instance, God, how do I do this? Um,

Let's pause it for a second. I don't remember where I heard this, but somebody, um, said one time the hatred of injustice will cause you to tear something down. It'll cause you to spin your wheels and, uh, eventually take the

hatred of injustice will cause you to tear something down and likely yourself. ? But loving injustice. Will cause you not only to feel better on the inside. , I don't remember where I heard it, but the idea is, you can hate injustice, and it'll cause you to tear things down, that thing down.

Or, you can love justice, Loving justice is going to bring you a much better result in the end. Hating on injustice will cause you to judge, cause you to blame. You'll feel dissatisfied, taken advantage of. Could cause you to go into self pity, into that victim mindset, right? But it's not fair.

They're doing this and they shouldn't be able to do that. And how are they getting away with this? And this is bad and they're bad and bleh, right? And it causes you to, like, um, you know, with alienation, as alienated parents, one thing that I think we're all suggested to not do is go out and speak out and speak out in anger and be that person, right, that's hating injustice, it would just perpetuate that

stereotype for us, But, if we decide that we love and purpose ourselves for justice. Then you're looking at the solution, You are looking for ways to solve for the injustice. We're not, it's, it's a much wider. A broader focused way to go if we're feeling love towards the solution Then it doesn't leave much space for the anger towards a specific person or a specific crime whatever it is for you, So that's what I keep having to remind myself of this week It's not about this bitch who's doing whatever and abusing her children, possibly, I mean, it is, but it's also not. There's a bigger, more widespread issue than that. And the fact that the mannerisms of this woman and the mannerisms of the woman that's in my daughter's life are so, , synced up by my observation anyway, it tells me that, and I already know just from, all of you out there that I speak to on a regular basis, That this is happening, not just on a small scale, but on the big scale, this isn't just an isolated incident. So I don't need to focus on only her and only my situation, right? With my daughter. But if I look at it as. a behavioral pattern or whatever and I, uh, uh, as a way to, Oh, fuck. I don't know what I'm saying right now.

Oh, buddy. Ow. Buddy, this hurts to do all this. Ow.

I'm trying to get something done here. Can't do it when you guys are fucking go. Do it. It's so fucking annoying trying to work.

Ow.

See, here's the thing is when we're living in anger, anger only, riles up our nervous system, right? And so then we go into fight or flight, right? Living in the anger and anger alone is going to cause us to not act in the most evolved way, Not think in the most evolved way, not feel the best, We're going to be feeling feelings like hatred, anger, indignance.

self pity happens so often coming from anger because we feel that we don't deserve what's happening to us. They don't deserve it. And we're talking about all the ways that things are wrong and things need to be done, but we're not actually living in the solution, right?

We're living in the indignance and people love to band together in indignance and in hate. That is a thing. It's a real thing that has been going on since there were people probably, right? People love to get together and Bond right connect on the injustice is done to them being done in the world, I mean, there's there's coaches out there that market their programs on this and this alone.

They, pull people in and talk about all the ways that people have done them wrong, whatever audience that they happen to be targeting, talk about all the ways that the perpetrator has wronged them and it's terrible and use these tactics to, stop the alienator or stop the narcissist in their tracks.

But when you're focused on the narcissist always, then you're constantly having to adjust what you're doing in order to prepare, . adequately, anticipate what the perpetrator is doing. So you're still always out focused, focused on

hating the negativity. It's an icky place to live, Constantly thinking about what they can do to harm you. Instead, when you decide to purpose yourself to raise awareness. To band together in solution. It's not as attractive. I will say it's not as click baity, but you're going to find yourself feeling a lot better and accomplishing a lot more.

You're not just a, what are those books called?

Like a slam book, burn book? You're not just . Talking smack about the evil people that have done you wrong, you know, but it's It's so tempting to do, especially when you can see the clear injustice being done. Like with me, the other day, when I was looking at all of this crap all of this evidence against this Allison girl, these poor children that are now suffering at the absence of their father and Twitch himself. We don't really know how he left the world, but anyway. So it was difficult for me in that moment to not Want to sit and blame and think nasty thoughts about her. But when I do that, guess what?

I feel like shit, but it doesn't mean I'm going to turn my cheek, you know, and ignore it and let somebody else deal with it. I mean, it's not my business to deal with, but I can actually turn this into something productive for us. For me, for our children, you know, by bringing awareness, by talking with you guys about bringing awareness in love, coming from a place of love for our children, for our own selves, and for maybe even the person that's committing the crime, if you will, you know, for a better society, for peace and love forever, you know, oh, my back is killing me right now, but, um, it's like somebody has Jabbing me with a dagger.

Um, so anyway, I guess that's all I wanted to say is that coming from and I know we've talked about this a lot, but I specifically wanted to talk about it with this recent case. It's not really even a case yet with this um,

new, um,

this recent new events surrounding Twitch's death, you know, and, um, I also just wanted to share it cause I do like to let you guys in on what's going on with me

in hopes to help you, and support you and your own feelings of anger and maybe even indignance and maybe even hate. You know, it's okay that you're feeling those feelings. It's okay to have the anger or to be in a place of self pity even, right. It's okay to be there. And when, if, and when you want a better experience, then just notice that you're there first and then. Start moving into more loving thoughts moving into a more solution focused way because when you're in the anger judgment attack mode I promise you what that will do is reinforce all of that negative thinking and negative feeling, and you'll just continue that same cycle.

This is why people are always like, I just can't seem to

get

away from the anger. , I mean, I hear this all the time. It's because you're feeding it without even realizing that you're doing it. You keep going back and ruminating about the stories and what they did that was so wrong.

Because it's natural for your brain to go there, right? Because it wants to solve for it so that. You are then the hero of the story, not in a sick and twisted way like some people do it, but I mean, like, that is just what the human brain craves for all of us to do. So actually even saying this brings me more understanding and compassion for the people that do it in the pathological way.

Like the borderline personality, or narcissist, but mostly borderline personality person, uh, untreated borderline personality. Or narcissist person who is, longing to be seen as the savior, it actually kind of makes sense because they clearly are still reliving. We already, I already knew this, I guess, reliving, unresolved stuff that happened in their own childhood where they were either embarrassed or shamed to the point where they needed somebody to rescue them and nobody did it.

So they now are trying to be everybody else's savior, that's just my thoughts about it. I mean, again, not the doctor, but that would make sense if that was the psychology behind it, ,

you know,

it always feels better to, purpose yourself towards love and not towards the hate.

I have an episode out already a couple of them. Anyway, that would probably pair well with this. One of them is the hater mindset, would pair very well with this today. and the other one is probably was done back in June, why parental alienation might be blocking your road to healing. Um, and I have parental alienation in quotes because it's really the, the term itself that sometimes gets us backed into the corner. So that might, one might, if you've been thinking recently about speaking out and advocating for your children, for all the children speaking on PA as a whole, I think maybe that one might be helpful for you too.

Um, to look at other ways to, to reach other people or even the people in your own world who have, not responded well to the term parental alienation or the way that you've been describing it. You know? Um, so I think that's that hopefully next week, my back will be back. Hopefully tomorrow, my back will be back in order and we'll have business as usual.

So until then, y'all have a lovely week. I'm going to go crawl onto the floor again. Bye.

#parentalalienation #parentalalienationrecovery #twitch #alienatingparents