After my husband threatened to kill me, in a subtle, suggestive way (“I’ll burn down the house”), I encountered a series of abusers. When I separated from my primary abuser, I spiraled. In the immediate aftermath of waking up to the fact that the person you’d slept next to for years might end your life, I was caught back in the snares of others. The target gets caught in the cycle of abuse, rotating through users.

Perhaps after years of gettin yelled at, being called nasty names, having things thrown, I was primed for the love bombing. Give me that crack of kindness and affirmations; just one more dream of being loved by a good man.

There is no “snap” for the abusers. That is a myth. It’s something the neighbors say on the news, when interviewed of what they think about how the man killed his wife. “They seemed so happy; he just snapped.” But no, no, no, you’ve missed the entire plot line. You came to the movie theater and only saw the credits.

I do believe there is a snap for survivors; a snap not in the sense of a sudden crack, but a snap that after years of getting the gears tightened on you, that the camel has enough, and that featherlight straw just breaks you in half.

What broke me was his calm plan to burn down the house.

That there, I was forced to recognize there was a nonzero possibility that he’d plot and plan and design how to get me dead. Just, really, truly, utterly bizarre. It throttles the mind. He’d also said, “you know what I am capable of.” This was true, that I’d been trained for years, to be weary of upsetting him. What I had not known, was that he had been intentional in these efforts. That he’d been aware of his design in frightening me and keeping me in check.

Even today, after years of reading about abuse, about coercive control, interviewing fellow survivors— even today I struggle to grasp this truth. There are men out there, walking around upright, and they’ve got designs on you.

They take the children to the park, to church. They cuddle with you on the couch. They share a thousand meals with their target. Yet, one day, given a certain set of factors and compounding elements, he very well may kill you.

This dropped me off some edge, and I floated down to a sunk place. Back then, I was in my sickest times. Those were my madness months.

Sometimes a shudder ripples through me, like clouds grazing a ridge, I recall the mind I had then, the unreal magic I lived inside of. Some other imaginary world that my mind created, to escape the pain. The mind is incredible, how hardwired it is for survival.

It was kill myself or go on a bender. Actually my decisions were all logical, though others wouldn’t understand. What can they say anyway? No one stepped in to secure the tether between myself and my life. There remained only God and I.

Extreme trauma can shatter one’s sense of self and one’s connection to reality. The way you knew the world suddenly lost.

There was a sense of being let in on a cosmic secret. The velvet curtain was lifted for you. You shook the hand of the man who pulled the gears. My life, during that stretch of time, spoke to me in a way that I’d never known and have not known since.

Looking back, as I am now in my right mind, I can understand that this period can be tracked in quantifiables. The period can be tracked across months, traced across coordinate based geographies; there are characters I can name, and events I could render in words.

At the same time, that — that thing, that time, that experience — it cannot really be confined to such material, rigid, human parameters.

Unmoored from myself, because my brain could not take the shock of the threat from him, I went elsewhere. My mind told itself tales, and there was no barrier to belief.

Each day was an unknown adventure; I felt continually led, and continually held. The spirit world was next to me, surrounding me, and within me. I’d find myself in a conversation with strangers, and asked if I could pray with them.

One of them was a bathroom attendant. In her prayer she asked for help in processing an image she’d encountered the day before. Someone had come to the library restroom and passed a fetus in the toilet. The attendant was in pain from the sight, and we prayed for her healing.

On the way home, tired of walking all day, I sat on the curb and considered plans. There in the gutter next to my feet was a small, blank, simple figurine; a small, carved human figurine. I could not imagine what it would belong to, its origins. I understood that it would not make sense for the figurine, looking like a small, anonymous humanesque item, to have any connection with the women with whom I’d just prayed. Yet I could not shake this association, no matter how illogical, how unreasoned.

Those were my madness months.

“…wearing those headphones, you look special,” he said.

“Oh?” I didn’t understand what he meant, and I kept moving towards the door, probably smiling and nodding, cuz that’s how women should respond to strangers talking to them, right? Don’t be unfriendly, don’t be dismissive; could cost ya. Who knows who this man is, or what he means. Somewhere someone wrote that you ought treat all men like a loaded gun; be cautious. We are trained to prioritize the comfort of the person bothering us over our own boundaries just to ensure a safe exit.

He nods, “yeah, like that movie….’There’s Something About Mary,’ how her brother always wears headphones.”

Wow, thank you.

I vaguely recalled the movie, which I’d seen years ago. What I remembered first was likely what most people remember from the film, which was that moment where the male lead (played by Ben Stiller) had some ejaculate dangling from his ear when he opens the door to greet Mary (played by Cameron Diaz).

She mistakes the substance for hair gel and promptly scoops it into her own hair. She smiles broadly, with her bangs in a comical shape, flying up from her forehead.

Mary’s brother, Warren Jensen, is mentally challenged and has hypersensitivity around his ears. Throughout the film, no matter the weather, he is seen wearing earmuffs. When people touch his earmuffs, he has an extreme reaction.

Oh man, the comfort and confidence of men. What you can do. What is allowed for you. Your unfettered freedom to interrupt and to insult, at whim, at will. The broad scope of your domain.

You can walk up to a stranger in a grocery store, and tell them they look “special.” You can reference a movie known for its grotesque “joke” to a woman going about her business, minding herself. You can interrupt someone’s day to insult someone.

Cornell Law School defines harassment as: “words or behavior that threatens, intimidates, or demeans a person. Harassment is unwanted, uninvited, and unwelcome and causes nuisance, alarm, or substantial emotional distress without any legitimate purpose.”

Who is ever prepared to respond to harassment in the moment. I kept walking, the entire time, I must have sensed that this was not going to be some productive conversation.

“Yeah, that’s me!” and I walked out, hoping to not see him again.

You survive the trip up, but lose a bit peace in the process.

You play along to get along.

We have known for some time about the shortcomings of the family court system—shortcomings that are sometimes deadly, sometimes life-alteringly harmful. These problems are not the result of a few bad apples. They suggest something more structural: a system with too many gaps in training and oversight on the preventative side, and too few opportunities for accountability on the corrective side.

There have been many proposals for reform. Some advocate better training for family court judges, so they can more accurately recognize domestic violence, trauma, and the subtler dynamics of coercive control. Others have suggested jury trials for the small share of custody cases labeled “high conflict.” Still others argue that courts must shift away from a pro-contact culture—one that treats co-parenting as a near-sacred good regardless of context—and toward a clearer prioritization of child safety.

That last point matters especially because many states, either explicitly or in practice, pressure judges toward maximizing contact between parents and children. Some states have codified a 50/50 parenting presumption in statute. Others, including Arizona, do not always state it so bluntly, but their legal language points in the same direction. Arizona Revised Statute 25-403.02(B), for example, requires judges to adopt a parenting plan that “maximizes” each parent’s respective parenting time.

This logic is often defended with a familiar claim: children benefit from support from both parents. And yes, they do—when both parents are healthy, safe, and capable of care. But family court too often treats parenthood as if it were morally neutral, as if the mere fact of being a parent were enough to justify extensive access to a child. It is not.

As we come to better understand the depth and range of family court’s failures, our proposals for reform can become more refined. Lately, in thinking through that process, I have been watching films and listening to tutorials on investigative journalism. I’ve found myself drawn to stories not just about wrongdoing, but about how wrongdoing becomes an arc that can be traced through time, space and people.

One of the films I watched was Erin Brockovich (2000), directed by Steven Soderbergh. The film, based on true events, offers a useful outline for how harm can be discovered, documented, and confronted. I’m less interested here in whether every detail of the film perfectly mirrors the historical record than in the investigative model it provides.

Erin begins as an unlikely protagonist: a single mother with almost no money, desperate for work and trying to care for three children. What sets the story in motion is not expertise, status, or institutional power, but curiosity. She notices something that does not make sense—medical records mixed in with real-estate paperwork—and she asks why.

That question opens a door, and lets in light.

Pacific Gas and Electric was attempting to buy the home of Donna Jensen, a resident of Hinkley, California. Mixed in with the documents related to the sale were medical records, blood tests, and correspondence connected to doctors. Why, Erin wonders, would those materials appear in what was ostensibly a property transaction?

As the story unfolds, the answer becomes devastating. Hinkley residents had for years been exposed to contaminated groundwater. Many were sick. PG&E had represented the situation in misleading ways, reassuring residents while obscuring the nature and scale of the danger. The harm was not only that people were being poisoned. It was that they were being kept from understanding the source of their suffering.

That is what makes the story so useful as a model.

The contamination in Hinkley did not become actionable merely because people were ill. It became actionable because someone connected symptoms to records, records to knowledge, and knowledge to institutional responsibility. The investigative task was not just to notice suffering. It was to identify the mechanism of harm, determine who knew, establish what documents existed, and ask why the harm had been allowed to continue.

Family court poses a similar challenge.

If we want to understand how the system harms protective parents and children, we need to become much more precise about what, exactly, the harm is and how it can be documented. A parent saying, “this system is destroying me,” is telling the truth. But for that truth to become legible to institutions, journalists, lawmakers, or the public, it often has to be translated into records, timelines, financial documents, orders, emails, transcripts, invoices, evaluations, and patterns. Cha-ching, cha-ching, cha-ching.

Take, for example, a protective mother who says she was driven into sex work in order to afford supervised visitation and maintain contact with her child. That claim is shocking, but it is also investigable.

What did the court know about her financial circumstances? The affidavit of financial information filed in the case would be one place to begin. What fees was she ordered to pay, and to whom? Court orders, provider invoices, and payment records could help establish that. Was there a meaningful inquiry into her ability to pay? Did the other parent have greater financial resources? Was supervised visitation imposed as a temporary safety measure, or did it become a costly, semi-permanent condition that functioned as a barrier to motherhood itself?

Those questions matter because they move us from anecdote to structure.

The point is not simply to document one woman’s desperation. It is to reveal a system in which access to one’s own child can become contingent on an ability to pay private actors: supervisors, evaluators, therapists, interventionists, and other court-connected professionals. In such a system, poverty can become evidence against a parent, while the financial burdens imposed by the case deepen that poverty further. The wheel turns, and the parent is blamed for being crushed beneath it. Victim blaming at an institutional level, all to familiar.

This is one way family court harm may have to be investigated: not only as emotional devastation, but as a paper trail. Not only as private grief, but as institutional design.

That, to me, is one lesson of Erin Brockovich. Harm rarely announces itself in a form that is easy recognize; this is how abuse works, after all, subtle and web-like. Someone has to notice the strange document in the wrong file. Someone has to ask the irritating question. Someone has to gather the records, build the timeline, identify the decision points, and keep pushing past the official story.

Only then can the broader public begin to see that what looked like isolated suffering may in fact be a pattern. Only then do we have a chance of calling a rotten tree by its name.

Content note: discussion of domestic violence, coercive control, and lethality during separation.

One of the great private victories of survival is the moment the target finally understands what is happening and where she is.

It’s such a victory to finally awaken to the truth.

(While I use 'her' to reflect the statistical majority of those targeted by coercive control, I recognize that abuse knows no gender. My door and this column are open to all survivors; glad you are here! “Coercive control” : a pattern of domination — surveillance, isolation, and intimidation. )

It is a terrific breakthrough moment for the survivor to recognize her surrounds, painful as it is to experience this gut-jerking, mind-bending paradigm shift. Going through the looking glass, you are bound to snag some shards.

The target is only vaguely aware of the full scope of the danger she is in. In my case, as an example, although he had threatened to burn down the apartment, and I’d known him to be violent and destructive. Still, it was months before I could proceed with getting an order of protection; I just could not wrap my mind around the fact, the continuing fact, that I was in danger.

This is why survivor-thrivers need a knowledgeable support system around us. We need friends who understand. Advocates who understand. Therapists who understand. And yes: we need judges who understand.

Research consistently demonstrates that the 'separation window' represents the period of highest lethality for survivors and their children. This act of seeking independence is frequently the catalyst for extreme violence; approximately 75% of domestic violence-related homicides occur during or immediately following separation. To seek freedom is to court death.

I’ve been thinking about what could make the system better.

A recurring proposal is that judges need more training, more education, so that they can be able to recognize coercive control / domestic violence. I can empathize with this need, this solution.

I’ve often thought, if I had been trained beforehand, in my youth, to recognize the early signs— the love bombing, the accelerated start, what boundaries even are— then perhaps the dominos of my life might have fallen differently. As time goes on, I long less and less for things to have gone differently; I guess that’s healing, I guess that’s acceptance.

If abuse survivors could be met with even empathy, that could be terrifically helpful. Today I watched this video about DV screenings in health care settings and was gobsmacked at the idea that if people responded with kindness to DV disclosures, that response could reduce the likeliness of PTSD. (around 4 minute mark)

For states to qualify for federal grant funding under Kayden’s Law, for example, they’d have to have initial training of 20 hours for judges. There are further caveats, in that the training must be offered by a “qualified professional” and be “evidence based.”

But that raises questions I can’t stop thinking about:

• Who decides what counts as “evidence-based”?

• Who qualifies the “qualified professional”?

• What standards will be used — and what happens if trainings are superficial, outdated, or shaped by the very misconceptions they’re supposed to correct?

And then there’s the larger question — one I want to ask you directly:

If we could change one thing right now to produce safer custody orders, would judge training be the highest-value intervention? Or are there other changes — protocols, safeguards, accountability structures — that would do more to protect children and the safe parent in the window when it matters most?

If you’ve been through family court, I’d especially love to hear: what did you wish the judge understood? What would have changed the outcome?

What intervention would have made your dominos fall differently?

It was 8th grade, I was asleep, or rather, I was pretending to be so. Perhaps this was a way that it would make the arrangement acceptable, that I would be laying down on the bed, and on my mother’s bed, of all places. We were fully clothed, and I believe we had arrived there, in bed, in a relatively innocuous way; there had been reading. This memory stretches past several decades of days now, so its details hang loose, but the broad outline is rather secure. There seems to have been a book on site. The overhead reading lamp was on, the classic silhouette of a long neck, arching to curved brass, the sharp contours of a triangle, with the base cut out, fanning out light.

At this time I still wore glasses. There was a sensation of being, or hoping to be, enticing in the eyes of this other person in the room. That I had worn suitably flattering clothing, and that my shape underneath might spark some imagination.

At that time I still had long hair, not like now, though some boyfriends (I’m embarrassed, even now, that this a title they held; ugh) asked me to grow it longer— isn’t that a pretty bold request? To ask someone to modify their appearance for you? “Could you lose five pounds? Could you grow bigger breasts? Could you wear contacts? Could you wear a wig?” How far might we go in becoming dolls, they would like to know.

Brock said that Hope wasn’t “living up to his standards” was what it seemed to say, in the screenshot of Hope’s order of protection petition, in a news report on her children’s death. He defined the standards.

Perhaps the devil had given them all some handbook, a list of phrases that they could use to belittle.

There I was, on the bed, eyes closed. I suppose I wanted to be looked at, to be admired, appreciated, found beautiful, found attractive. The weighty, pelvic curing lure of the male gaze, eh? The total thrill of feeling oneself being beautiful in the eyes of a man. That crack we crave.

He, my first boyfriend, a fellow 8th grader, he removed my glasses. To him, I should have looked to be sleeping, but perhaps I am mistaken. Perhaps he could know the ruse we were architecting. That two young people might likely feel too awkward, too shy, too novice to admit and accept they wanted to be in close physical proximity, and to enjoy one another’s physicality and physical presence.

He was shorter than I. Perhaps this factored into calculations he should would have, consciously or not, worked out in advance. If we had been standing, would it have been hard to make the first move? To be more diminutive in height, compared to your female companion?

Or am I simply finding excuses for this man? As we are so trained to do. It wasn’t his fault, after all, she wore provocative clothing. We put men up on a pedestal as these pretty perfect things; we’ll place no fault on your shoulders, and no blame at your feet.

He removed my glasses and kissed me. I don’t remember the sensation, neither how my body reacted physically, nor what emotional spark entailed. What I do remember, is that I’d been laying down, eyes closed, and then I was kissed.

Should he have asked for consent?

Recently I received an email from a former abuser which read, no joke:

“I hope you are doing well. You been crossing my mind A LOT!! but you told me not to contact you [any] more. So I hope that is ok that I did? I just hope that you are great and full of love! If you want to hit me back, obviously you can. If not I understand...well I don’t understand, but I will have [to].”

It’s so bizarre, it’s laughable. It’s so laughable, it’s bizarre. And yet, here we are.

Through examining this particular data point (this communication), I hope I could come to terms with my own shame and bewilderment. I also hope that by looking at the tiny minutia of incursions, this can help readers better identify the itsy bitsy bellwethers in their own life; to see the micro aggressions, so one might avoid the macro aggressions. The micro incursions train you to accept the macro ones, so we need some vigilance to catch the early, subtler signs.

A bellwether is an indicator that acts as a forerunner, often signaling future trends.

This particular abuser I’d kept in contact with, on and off, over about 20 years. Which sounds both ridiculous and reasonable. Abusers are the latcher-ons, the barnacles, the hanger-ons. They try to stick around as much as possible; to ingratiate themselves into your heart and mind, your life and routines.

One of the earliest signs of his selfish nature was that, on the day I told him I’d finally gotten a job where I could use my degree, a job that would take me out of state (and away from him), he refused to give me a ride home from his house. He became cold, dismissive, and withheld warmth and affection that he’d typically been so generous with. It felt like punishment. I walked home, stunned at this treatment.

Speaking of work, I suspect that his chronic (chosen) unemployment was another indicator. He did not apply for jobs, he didn’t want to work. When he did work, he’d encounter disciplinary issues, not show up on time, drag his feet. This aligns, I suspect, with the selfish, egotistical person’s (the narcissist’s) fundamental belief that they are above and beyond the expectations that everyone else must adhere to.

This behavior, a refusal to work, tracked with a worldview I’ve come to recognize: I’m above the rules that bind everyone else. Expectations are for other people. I’m special.

Many years later, I flew him out to visit me. We’d gotten entangled again. I was spending time with other friends, and he seemed not to like this; as if he wanted me exclusively for himself, which could be endearing but also claustrophobia-inducing. That kind of possessiveness can be mistaken for devotion, especially if you’re starved for tenderness; if you have become attached to this particular person’s affection.

I returned home from hanging out with other friends and, feeling a bit guilty that he seemed wounded, I gave him an enveloping hug, said “sorry.” He said, “you smell like Black people” and walked away. I was stunned. The friends I’d been with happened to be Black, for background.

I did not, and still do not, fully understand what he might have meant by this. The context, with his tone— it seemed spiteful. Even now, I feel uneasy with how quickly, and with what ease, someone could be so fun-loving, goofy, and affectionate and then with lightning quickness deliver a barbed comment, and reveal a hidden hateful streak I found repulsive.

A sudden closing of a door; a sudden darkening of the sky. So fast, like slipping on ice.

What stood out to me about this email communication was this—

“you told me not to contact you [any] more. So I hope that is ok that I did?”

Put another way— “I know you told me not to do this, but here I am, not listening to you and not respecting your boundaries.” I suppose this must be intentional on his part, perhaps he is trying to invoke frustration, annoyance, a response, a retort. To provoke engagement.

It’s a boundary poke disguised as sweetness. It’s an attempt to provoke any kind of engagement: curiosity, anger — anything. Because any response re-opens the circuit.

If I had responded, and stated again, “don’t contact me, stay away from me,” this opens the door and gives him attention. I recall reading another DV-focused writer say that we need to “starve the cycle.”

Don’t engage with them, don’t reply. Try to “grey rock” them— another bit of advice from a fellow survivor. The expression means that you should try to be as boring as a grey rock to the abuser.

This same survivor (Ruth, actually, who I’ve written about often; a pseudonym), said that when you are a rich source of narcissistic feed, the abuser will likely keep trying to return to your life to “hoover” (like the vacuum). They want to suck up the narcissistic supply, to feed on a range of emotions from you— your happiness, your sadness, your rage, your hurt.

Another element, in this very short message, that I think is of note is the closing —

“If not I understand...well I don’t understand, but I will have [to].”

Again, I believe this is an attempt to ensnare me back into communication— he feigns ignorance of not knowing why I wouldn’t want to be in touch with him. It’s an invitation for me to explain myself to him, to educate him, to tell him my side of the story.

Well, I’m not falling for it. I’ve blocked him everywhere.

Have you received similar messages from one of your barnacles? How did you respond?

Stay strong and take care.

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She’s holding a manila envelope containing photos, screenshots, a police report, a journal of incidents written at 2 a.m. when the house finally went silent. In her body, the muscle memory of being watched. In her mind: one blunt question that shouldn’t be a gamble— will the judge actually understand domestic violence?

Not just what the movies have shown, what most have imagined “domestic violence” will register as. Not just bruises. Not just broken things. But coercive control; that silent, stealthy invisible shit. The ways an abuser can look calm in court while the target looks “emotional,” “confused,” “overwhelmed”—aka traumatized, if people know how to recognize it.

So today, let’s talk about the thing we keep being told is the fix:

Domestic violence training for judges.

Some starting questions I had about this topic— which in my dreams could be a silver bullet to solve a whole lotta issues— When did it start? What does it include? Who teaches it? Does it change outcomes? And why do so many survivors still leave court feeling disbelieved?

DV gets concealed and excused by cultural stories — and courts are not immune.

Question for you: What questions have you had about DV training for judges? Drop them in the comments if you feel comfortable doing so.

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As mentioned in the NYE post, I’ve been getting into positive affirmations— they are helping! This is the power of the mind, the power of thought, the power of framing.

Each morning when I wake, I put on a recording of positive affirmations and lying in bed still, repeat them to myself, in my mind. This particular slice of day— just upon waking, before exiting the bed, in the still, quiet, dark room— seems to be a fertile time to plant these roots of positivity.

I find the positive framing is becoming stronger and stronger, able to last longer in my mind, able to help me “think positive” even in the face of triggers.

A trigger is any sensory reminder of the traumatic event: a noise, smell, temperature, other physical sensation, or visual scene. Triggers can also even be thoughts or memories, floating through the mind. Triggers can elicit emotional and behavioral reactions— stress reactions— as if the trauma was recurring in the present.[Source: National Library of Medicine, “Understanding the Impact of Trauma”]

Triggers (like much of the body’s behavior) are actually a self-preservation mechanism— despite being so, really, massively unpleasant. The body is programmed, ever-oriented towards self-preservation, at all costs. When it catches a whiff of something that was harmful or detrimental in the past, it wants to alert the…. erm, life force (?) — you, your consciousness, inside the body, that you need to respond.

What I mean to say is that— even the trauma triggers we experience, we can see them in a positive way. They are the body trying to help us, to activate a response to help us deal with something (it perceives as) harmful.

A grain of gratitude towards all things; even the shittiest of things.

What to call this phase (drop your term below)

With my growing affinity for positive affirmations, and seeing how they have been helping my mind, which helps my life, even as I navigate the bullshittery of “post-separation abuse”…. or maybe we can come up with some alternative terms for this bizarre, whack-a-doodle experience… here are some of my ideas:

• “Why are you still so obsessed with me”

• “Papi, move on”

• “Live your own life, stop trying to live mine… it’s taken!”

• “You so sad”

• “You be a sad, itsy-bitsy man… God = disappointed”

• “Your Honor, he is still being weird….”

• “You are a joke and I can’t even take you seriously”

Would love to hear reader’s suggestions for what we might call, from a human, lived experience, this rather clinical, academic term / “post-separation abuse.”

My favorite aggressive affirmations (steal these)

Then, some positive affirmations that us all survivor-thrivers can use to cobra our way through this bizarre bullshittery:

• I am strong; he is weak.

• The truth will prevail, in the end; I shall be patient.

• He is scared of me.

• In this world, we will have trouble. // In this life, I will have trouble. // Everyone is fighting something; I shall fight this. [inspired by John 16:33]

• I am smart; I will figure this out.

• God will help me; people will help me.

• Haters gon hate.

• He is butter; I am a searing blade.

• Resources will come.

• People will believe me; I stand with Truth.

Keep your hand on something steady (ya coffee, a heated blanket, chair), and take breaks on purpose—stay in tune with how your breathing is, how your body is, and let the body cast a vote. If you start to feel flooded, numb, or pixelated, pause and orient to the present (name 5 things you can see in your present environment, 4 you can feel, 3 you can hear, 2 things you love about yourself, 1 thing that you are grateful for), then decide whether to continue or take a break.

As a survivor, you have experienced various traumas. The way you read can take this into account. You can exercise executive level functioning to engage with texts, get what you want or need, while avoiding re-triggering. Trauma-informed care emphasizes choice, safety, and empowerment—including while you read.

Take care of yourselves. And without further ado—

Overview

• 1) A ritual I didn’t want

• 2) What financial abuse is—and why it’s so effective

• 3) A short history of money as control

• 4) How it begins, escalates, and gets excused

• 5) Resisting financial abuse—especially after separation

1) A ritual I didn’t want:

The electric glow of my phone screen in a dark room, the tiny loading wheel of the bank app spinning like a dare, like a blade. I’m on the Wheel of Fortune, but never the winner.

I can hear the refrigerator hum, the house settling, the faint ticking of a clock I didn’t notice until now. My balance refreshes—again—and the number is wrong in a way that makes my body feel instantly deflated, compressed.

I scroll through transactions I don’t recognize. A subscription. A transfer. A charge in a city I haven’t visited. “Huh? How?” I tell myself there must be an explanation—there is always an explanation.

Later, my partner talks about money the way people talk about weather: casual, inevitable, unworthy of scrutiny. A passing of the tides.

“It’s just easier if it all runs through me,” they say, as if they’re doing me a favor. Sure, right, who doesn’t want more ease in their life? Sounds legit, in its own way.

Or: “You’re anxious—don’t look at the accounts so much.” Oh, he’s got me on this one, truly—it does make me anxious to look at the accounts. His concern seems like care.

Or: the favorite line, soft as a sigh: “Why don’t you trust me?” He is eminently convincing; his look of light wincing draws out my care taker, the forgiver in me. A role I have learned for a long time now.

That’s the thing about financial abuse: rarely does it arrive with a slammed door or clenched fist. It arrives with access, under the guise of help, with the framing of “teamwork”—and then, quietly, I have fewer choices than I used to have.

2) What financial abuse is + why it’s so effective

Financial abuse (also called economic abuse) is a pattern of behaviors that controls a partner’s ability to access, use, or maintain economic resources—so that dependence replaces freedom. The National Network to End Domestic Violence describes financial abuse as tactics that conceal information, limit access to assets, and restrict access to family finances. [See PDF here]

One reason it works: it doesn’t to be extreme to be devastating. If you can’t access money, you may not be able to access housing, transportation, childcare, legal help, or medical care—the practical infrastructure of leaving. NNEDV notes research indicating financial abuse occurs in the vast majority of domestic violence cases and can be a powerful method of keeping someone trapped and ensnared with the abuser.

It’s not separate from other abuse; it’s often the turbine that powers it, a critical infrastructure for all other forms of abuse:

• Isolation becomes easier for him to maintain when you can’t afford gas or a phone plan

• Intimidation from him hits harder when you’re already financially cornered

• Threats he throws out land differently when your credit, job, or lease is on the line; he sharpened the stakes

That’s why financial abuse appears explicitly in widely used domestic-violence frameworks like the Power and Control Wheel (“Using Economic Abuse”). There’s a 2 minute economic abuse video at The Duluth Model website.

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I’d had my head far down in the sand. I’d not signed up for notifications from the docket. That was how much I did not want to know; did not, so desperately did not, want to be reminded of this fu-king mess.

Every time I faced it, clicked on the docket link and scrolled— I wondered — truly, how do I not take this on as my fault? It just didn’t seem like something so bizarre could have come to me, save for some serious error I’d made. What a flub.

If I had done things right, whatever “right” is, certainly I’d not be here. I’ve gotten stuck with a Jerry Springer life, an existence hemmed in on all sides by contention, bullshit, conflict, conspiracy.

My Anti-Dread System (a protocol)

For many months, years even, I hated the docket. Hated even the font and the colors. Tried to ignore it, neglect it, will it out of existence.

But I’ve changed. I’ve “locked in” as the youth say. I’ve (tried to get) all my ducks in a row, as my mother says. Here’s what I did:

1. Saved the docket as a bookmark on internet search bar, maybe it’s like exposure therapy, seeing it there and having to sit with it in my life. Acceptance.

2. Signed up for electronic notifications, so I didn’t have to take the long leap to peek myself.

3. Spend an hour on B.S., take an hour break and do something entirely different. Come back to it, and keep working on a Motion or whatever nonsense.

4. Consume 100 grams of protein a day and put on 5 pounds of muscle.

5. Sit ups, push ups, pull ups, fighting through the physicality; shaking up my somatic system.

6. Get heated blankets for bed and couch; get plush shag rugs. A soft house that cuddles me.

7. Use ChatGPT to help me draft emails to attorneys and law firms and DV orgs. First, brain dump all the things I’m thinking, and then ask Chat to help me organize it into something coherent and make it not too weird.

8. Use prayer and mantras to reorient my thinking: “I can overcome all obstacles,” “In this life, you will have trouble.”

9. Listen to aggressive, angry punk rock music. White Stripes does it for me.

10. Take designated breaks, most often at night. Make myself dinner, watch a movie, and try to forget about the shadow over my life, and how he has yet kept his hooks in me. A small pocket of forgetting the past; a small peak into the future, because there must be a day where he is totally gone.

The notification still lands like a punch. But now, when it hits, I already have my hands up.

What are ways you operationalize the survival, the fight back process?

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Your stomach does the familiar drop, as if the floor has shifted under you. You scroll: allegations you’ve answered before, demands for documents he already has, a hearing date that collides with your work schedule— which he knows. You imagine the fluorescent courtroom and the waiting benches. Despite this going on for years, it is still surreal and you barely believe it is real.

Litigation Abuse

The National Domestic Violence Hotline defines litigation abuse as when an abusive partner misuses (abuses) the court system to maintain power and control, often in divorce and custody contexts. (Here’s their explainer: Litigation Abuse — The Hotline.)

WomensLaw describes the same pattern: after separation, an abuser may try to keep control by misusing (abusing) the court system—through repeated motions/petitions, delays, meritless appeals, and other tactics that force repeated court involvement. (Litigation Abuse — WomensLaw.) WomensLaw.org

Litigation abuse is coercive control with a stamp and a filing fee.

If abuse during the relationship relied on isolation, intimidation, monitoring, financial sabotage, or humiliation, litigation abuse often keeps the same goal—domination—but changes the setting. The courtroom becomes the place where:

• He gets ongoing access to you (through hearings, mediation, discovery, co-parenting disputes). The Hotline

• You are forced into compliance (deadlines, disclosures, evaluations, responding to accusations). The Hotline

• The system can be manipulated into re-casting you as “the problem,” especially when he retaliates with counter-orders or false reports. NNEDV

The cruel twist is that litigation abuse can look like “using ones rights,” which is why it’s so hard to name—and so exhausting to stop. WomensLaw.org

Thankfully, there are tools you can use to counter litigation abuse.

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For some of us, though, NYE doesn’t come with champagne. Instead, it invokes an inventory: what we have survived, what we have learned, what we have lost, and what we are somehow, miraculously, still carrying.

Recently I’ve been starting my days with positive affirmations— I know, it sounds terribly “middle-life,” terribly “DV-survivor,” right? Corny, so massively corny. And yet, I find those tendrils of good-self-talk working their way into my day, and helping to reframe my perspective.

So, recently, I’ve been focusing on what I am grateful for, to force my eye and mind to seek out the good. I think about Ruth, a protective parent I came to know several years back, and how her example has inspired me, and helped me understand my own experiences with abuse better.

Confusion comes first

I began researching abuse the way some people begin searching a coastline after a shipwreck: looking for anything that might explain what happened.

People imagine that when you realize you’ve been abused — and yes, it is a realization, a discovery — the first emotion is grief. A profound loss at having realized the person you loved was an illusion, and worse than that: a façade meant to ensnare you.

Or they imagine rage comes first — rage at being duped through black-belt manipulation; rage at yourself for all the apologies accepted, all the flowers accepted, the second, third, fourth chances, ad infinitum. Rage at having lived inside their cage.

But in my experience, confusion often comes first.

Confusion creeps in like a stumbling entrance: am I in the right place? It’s relatively gentle, non-hostile. It’s an emotion you can sit with — a puzzle on the table — as years of questions begin to string themselves together into something that resembles cohesion.

Trauma researchers describe initial reactions to traumatic stress including sensations like shock, numbness, and confusion/ disorientation. Your mind is trying to assemble a coherent story from an incoherent experience. [Source: National Library of Medicine, “Understanding the Impact of Trauma”]

The map

When I started my master’s thesis — and met Ruth through that work — I had just separated from my abuser. I was trying to research trauma while actively carrying it. I was trying to write about coercive control while still hearing its after-echoes in my own nervous system. It had barbed points. It still does.

Some moments were searing, like listening to a child disclose abuse — a kind of moment that doesn’t just shock. It rearranges your sense of the world.

But the thesis, the knowledge I gained, and now this publication, have given me something I didn’t have before: patterns that explained my life to me; language to articulate the issue; a community.

I was in my confusion, and as the clarity came to me, and I checked off the boxes, patterns clicked into place-- like the Power and Control Wheel. It was like someone had given me a map to my life. It was an unhappy surprise to see where I'd landed.

But it helped me get from confusion to clarity, to a better understanding of how I'd gotten ensnared. I was grateful, because, as painful as this new knowledge was— it moved me from confusion into clarity, and clarity is a form of rescue.

I did not stay; many stay. I was able to leave; many are not.

Ruth and the hidden heroes

Over months of conversations, and now years of knowing her, I came to see Ruth as a real, living Beatrix Kiddo, aka Black Mamba, not because she ever threw a punch, but because she kept walking into terror for the love of her child.

She came face-to-face with her abuser at custody exchanges. Again and again.
She worked endless hours to fund a defense that never should have been necessary. She passed out from sleep deprivation and exhaustion, behind the wheel, driving on the highway. Regained consciousness in time to get control of the vehicle.

She learned family law like a second language — statutes, cases, legislators, committees — because nobody was coming to save her son unless she became the kind of person who could translate the nightmare into something the system was forced to hear.

For the love of her kid, she has stayed alive.

For the love of another human being, she endures years of litigation. Being lied about, being lied to, being misbelieved. Protective parents, like Ruth, are unknown heroes, fighting in an opaque, closed system for the one they love the most.

Not for money, not for fame, not for their own self-serving comfort and security. Seeing Ruth for the hero she is has allowed me to be more generous for how I see my own fight. To think perhaps it is not always an embarrassment to have to keep fighting my abuser, that perhaps I am valiant and resilient as well.

Maybe it isn’t always an embarrassment to still be fighting. Maybe it is resilience.
Maybe it is a kind of valiance that no one gives a nod to, save for fellow survivors and God.

Gratitude

I’m grateful, and I hope you can be, too, despite what life has laid out for you. If you’d like to be corny with me, here are some positive affirmations you can try.

I am still here.
I can still learn.
I can still love, even after what love was used to do to me.

I’m grateful for you, grateful for your fighting spirit, for your time and energy, for the ways you continue to heal, for how you use your life to make the world a tiny bit better.

Wishing us all a wonderful 2026.

“In reality, for the victim-survivor it was love. It doesn’t matter how you frame it, it was real to them.”

In my mind I absolutely loved him. As far as I could tell, I loved him as much as I’d ever loved anyone— even more than. That sense of love, the love you have for an abuser, feels particularly profound. You sacrifice so much. You forgive so much. It’s a long haul love; a roller coaster love; it’s that end-of-the-earth kind of commitment. Ride or die, as they say; many amongst us have died.

In other contexts, those who sacrifice and forgive like the victim-target-survivor are lauded. For the victim-target-survivor, she is chastised and sneered at. She is not seen for the great love she gave, but for her dupability. There is no sympathy for the ones who wake up and evade; it’s a hard dream to extricate oneself from.

After escaping, I understand better and empathize with those who have left a cult, or found they were adopted late in life, or experienced delusional psychosis. You live in one world— and the foundation flips. I recall reading that the first emotion when you wake up is confusion. Yes. Absolutely. It’s a totally bewildering thing, to discover you’ve been abused. Absolutely strange and bizarre.

Lundy Bancroft said that “the woman doesn’t leave because she doesn’t know she is being abused.” It blew my mind and it was also me. Recalling that you got a bruise on your honeymoon, the left elbow in Italy. Still, yet, you don’t know you are being abused? C’mon now.

Surely there was some apology there. There must have been calculations done on his behalf, “he’s stressed,” “I should have…,” In photos of the time, in no time I look fine; the next day, or the next, we are caught smiling cheek-to-cheek. Back to normal.

Probably would have been too much of a ricochet for the mind to go for divorce the day after marriage. This is how is works, too. On the big, big days of life, this is where the abuser wrenches the gears. Have a blowout on the day you move in with him; have a blowout just before your family arrives for a visit. These delicate contexts, a moment of increasing intimacy, this is when he’s sure to pin you down and erode you a little more.

—————————-

She was duped; she was weak; she knew all along; she had a part in it; she could have gone. See how long she stayed.

You made your bed, lie in it. You married him. You stayed last time.

He doesn’t seem like that. He was family, too.

—————————-

You endure, endure a lot, and are ever hopeful that he will come back. That version you loved being with, your closest companion, when he was good and the air was light. He had such a terrific lust for life, that pulled me in; every day an adventure. The suspense and magic and every glance a shared message. A shared silliness that made us children; with no one else and no one since did I have such a way to be. I still see us, chasing one another round, rowdy. Why did that work, then?

My ability to anticipate and discern his anger became a refined instrument. Guarding the watch occupied me now. The list of offenses that would tilt him kept extending.

I cannot remember all the reasons I forgave him, but I’m sure there were many.

For all the forgiveness I extended him then, I have none for myself now. Even though I later learned his intentions were malicious—and that he deserved no pardon—I still find myself carrying the burden. As though the harm is my fault. As though, still, I should have known better. His old game, still working its ways through my life: he bears no responsibility, and I remain the guilty one.

How does someone develop those skills? How long did it take him to refine the ability to manipulate, to coerce, to use his hot hammer anger as a weapon?

When must it’ve started? Would he still be in the womb, or sometime in the intervening years? To turn into someone who stalks, harasses, belittles, spits, hits, hunts? This is a sad sport, which I wish I’d never joined. There is no clean exit from it.

Even today yet, he pursues me on. Both in practice and my mind. I find myself waking up and recurringly wondering, as the first thought of the day— will he find me and kill me?

Years ago when I was first circling the realization, speaking to different DV advocates, one of them asked, “Do you think he would ever kill you?” My mind caught on a sharp snag, I was shocked to discover I could not say no.

And that—that—well.

Perhaps I am still in shock. How long can it take to come to terms with the possibility that there is a man, upright and walking around, who might stalk me out and kill me.

The most ludicrous thing of all, and sheer sickness of it, was that I found once I had breath I rushed to his defense, “maybe on accident.”

How in the fuck do you kill someone on accident?

One was born the fourth of six, no glasses until fourth grade when a teacher noticed that she was always squinting at the board. What might she have missed in those earliest years of education, and did this set the dominos lead to her fundamental belief that she was “not terribly smart”?

Those damn butterfly wings, slippery in their performance, unknown winds flitting off to bless and burden. If you’d gotten glasses, might you have avoided later car crashes, later vitriol, later having the police escort then-so-called husband out of the house.

He is given just a few minutes to pack and what he chooses to pack is the blankets your mother knit for you. The so-called husband opts for the vindictive, even in those last moments; not that he should be expected to do otherwise. What were the parts of your childhood, carved out from the composite, that later made you a target for abuse? Is there any blame to lay, and would it heal us, anyway?

As an infant, her own mother put her in the oven. When her father, who we later learned was a pedophile, came home and asked where the baby was, her mother said in the oven— “to keep her warm.” It makes total sense when you’re in the throws of an episode. Or that it would make sense to wake all six children in the dark hours of the morning to carve soap; this had to happen. I can relate, being compelled. The logic you inherit from without, that no one else can counter.

It was a memory passed down to us, my siblings and I, something we knew growing up. The entry point of this knowledge, my mother’s early brush with death, I can’t recall. Only recently, we both laid on the sectional, lounging and reading, you (my Mom) now a grandmother, and I learned the fuller arc of how your childhood bumped along, rattled along, punctuated by your mom disappearing for years at a time, living on the second floor at the hospital. Back then, electroshock therapy was in vogue, but lobotomies were passé.

You and siblings would pile into the station wagon, pause in the hospital parking lot, and wave at empty windows.

A childhood memory of mine— I see you crying in the kitchen, provoked to tears by the wooden spice rack on the blue linoleum countertop, a memento of your mother. He (that man you called husband for some time, the man we called mistakenly called “Dad”) threw it out. In the moment it seemed an act of mercy and protection, to try to spare you from pain. In retrospect, we know certainly he was not capable of such consideration.

What could have shifted in my mother’s life that might have spared her, and also saved me?

I’m sorry, Mom. I’m real sorry.

We are together but I find myself trying to parse fundamental questions— is this person safe? What has happened to him? Should I go?

It’s been years since I have seen that man in the flesh. Yet, years on, he still haunts my unconscious, the region of my mind inaccessible to my conscious efforts, self-soothing, therapy. Can anyone cure my dreams?

Many holy books have assured the living that ‘in this life, you will have trouble.’

Was this promise meant to give us some foreknowledge, and in that pre-knowing, we might stock up some preparations? Or that by knowing strife was on the horizon, we’d not set unrealistic expectations. We complain of trouble, as if things should be otherwise, and this is silly.

Yet I still find it teeth-clenchingly unfair that I’m still bothered by this man, or still affected by his violence from long ago. (Although, he continues to harass me through the courts, which is current; but I do not have to share a room with him nor hear his voice.)

Conversely, I recognize I’m also luckier than most. Whatever the luck is there. I am alive. And on a long enough timeline, under a certain set of circumstances, I might not be. He said he’d burn down the apartment we shared that that time. There were no assurances given that I wouldn’t be in there when he’d torch it.

Probably there is science behind this, probably it’s a PTSD response. Post-traumatic stress disorder. A “stress disorder” makes it sound light to me, its clinical-ness misrepresenting the terror of it. To continue to have dreams (nightmares) of someone who had infected your life.

“A disorder in which a person has difficulty recovering after experiencing or witnessing a terrifying event. The condition may last months or years, with triggers that can bring back memories of the trauma accompanied by intense emotional and physical reactions. Symptoms may include nightmares or unwanted memories of the trauma, avoidance of situations that bring back memories of the trauma, heightened reactions, anxiety, or depressed mood. Treatment includes different types of trauma-focused psychotherapy as well as medications to manage symptoms.”

I did therapy, I did drugs, I raged against my own life, went mad, went deeply sad, purchased razor blades for the bathroom, purchased $500 pants, lived in different hostels, dropped a job, got a job, journaled some more, and am I healed yet?

When will he stop invading the place I can’t block him from?

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Yet this new figure, disruptive as they may be, is not the end of the story. A Guardian ad Litem—GAL for short—can shape the course of your custody case, but you can still influence the process.

Understanding what GALs are supposed to do, what they often actually do, and how you can engage with them strategically is one of the most powerful steps you can take to protect your child.

What Is a GAL Supposed to Be?

In theory, the GAL is the neutral investigator who helps the court see past “he said, she said.” The Latin ad litem means “for the lawsuit.” Their charge: represent the best interests of the child. They might interview parents and children, request school or medical records, talk with teachers, therapists, or extended family, and finally, file a report with recommendations. Judges often lean on that report when deciding custody and visitation. It’s an example of operational outsourcing; the judge may have an overloaded case load, and the GAL is meant to be an investigator finding out important facts.

Most states define GALs not as advocates for a child’s wishes, but as fact-finders. For example, Pennsylvania statute directs GALs to “make specific recommendations to the court relating to the best interests of the child” even if those recommendations diverge from what the child actually wants. Florida law emphasizes that the GAL is not the child’s attorney, but an “independent voice” to investigate the circumstances (Florida Statute § 39.822).

The rationale sounds sensible. But the reality on the ground often looks very different.

Training Gaps and Systemic Problems

Across the country, the training and oversight of GALs varies dramatically. Some states require just a few hours of continuing education; others require a law license but no specialized training in domestic violence, trauma, or child development.

Studies from the National Council of Juvenile and Family Court Judges and the American Psychological Association have repeatedly underscored that family court professionals—including GALs—often fail to recognize patterns of coercive control and instead misinterpret protective behaviors as hostility or “alienation.”

That gap in understanding is not abstract. For protective parents, it can mean that even credible, documented allegations of abuse are discounted in favor of “maintaining contact” with the other parent.

A Tale of Two States

Consider how this plays out differently across jurisdictions.

In Maine, for example, GALs are governed by a detailed set of court rules. They must file written reports, disclose sources, and meet training requirements in child development and family dynamics. Yet parents there still report that GALs sometimes fail to account for coercive control, instead focusing on surface-level parental cooperation. [Maine Rules for Guardian Ad Litems]

In Texas, on the other hand, courts may appoint either a GAL or an “amicus attorney.” A GAL investigates and reports; an amicus attorney is supposed to advocate for the child’s best interests. In practice, the lines blur, and neither role requires deep training in family violence. Protective parents often find themselves explaining abuse dynamics to the very professionals meant to evaluate them.

A June 2025 Texas legislative analysis (omnibus bill analysis) confirms that current law does not require any minimum qualifications before appointing an amicus attorney: “Current law does not require an amicus attorney to meet any minimum qualifications prior to being appointed...”

The differences highlight a broader truth: no matter where you live, the GAL is a human being operating inside a system with inconsistent guardrails. That makes it even more important to be strategic in your interactions.

What to Expect Once a GAL Is Appointed

When the judge orders a GAL, they will soon reach out to schedule meetings. Expect interviews: one with you, one with the other parent, and often one with the child. They may also request records from schools, pediatricians, or therapists. They might call relatives, neighbors, or anyone you list as a reference.

It is tempting to see this as an opportunity to “finally be heard.” But the GAL is not your advocate. They are writing for the court. Like other roles appointed by the court, they are an extension of the entity.

Their role is closer to investigative journalist than therapist— except that their story will be read by a single audience: the judge. And unlike journalism, you may not see drafts before publication.

Protective parents often report that the first interview feels like a test. A mother in Arizona recalled: “He barely asked about the abuse. He asked if my son liked baseball, if I helped with homework. When I brought up the restraining order, he wrote one line: ‘Mother says father has anger issues.’ That was it.” Her experience is not unique.

How to Engage Strategically

So how do you protect yourself when the GAL steps in?

First, prepare your materials. Organize documents into a clean, easy-to-follow binder or digital file. Include only what is directly relevant: police reports, medical notes, school records, a concise timeline. If you overwhelm them with hundreds of pages of loosely related material, you risk being dismissed as disorganized.

It is not fair for you to be the organized, crisp, clear self-advocate when you are grappling with a system that systematically ignores abuse. But this post is about how to navigate a broken system; we talk about system reform in other posts.

Second, keep your phrasing child-centered. Speak about your child’s routines, safety, schooling, and well-being. Avoid monologues about your ex-partner’s flaws. If you catch yourself starting to talk about the co-parent, try to pause and redirect.

Again, you should be talking about concerns, about trauma you experienced, about your legitimate fears. But not with all people and not in all situations. As a trauma survivor, I get that this can be difficult. But we try to be strategic to reach our aims.

Judges and GALs alike are attuned to tone, and they often punish what they perceive as parental bitterness.

Third, document the interaction itself. After every GAL meeting or call, jot down a summary of what was asked, what you answered, and any concerning remarks. This running log may become invaluable if you later need to challenge the GAL’s report. Or if you need to document a pattern of malfeasance to a legislative ad hoc committee (looking at you, AZ!) or a journalist (hey ya!)

When Red Flags Emerge

What if you notice signs of bias? Perhaps the GAL dismisses your child’s disclosure of abuse as “coaching.” Or perhaps they use loaded terms like “alienation” without substantiation. These are red flags, and they are common.

If this happens:

• Stay factual. Collect counter-evidence. If the GAL says your child “is thriving with both parents,” but school records show a decline in grades after unsupervised visits with co-parents, include that in your response. Whenever possible, try to find a way to provide quantitative data to back up a claim, or third party witnesses.

• File strategically. Your attorney can submit objections or a motion to strike portions of the GAL’s report. Even if the motion is denied, it creates a record for appeal.

• Know the limits. Courts rarely remove GALs mid-case. But you can file motions that require them to disclose sources, methodologies, and training credentials. This transparency can expose weaknesses in their findings, if they have insufficient training / background, and thus were not equipped to make an evaluation in the first place.

The Long Game

Engaging with a GAL is rarely about one decisive moment. It is about creating a paper trail, organizing evidence, and refusing to be erased. Think of every interaction as part of a broader record. Judges come and go, cases stretch on, appeals are filed—but the documents remain.

A GAL report that misrepresents abuse is not the end. It is an artifact you can challenge, correct, and reframe. It is also a lesson in how the system works: quickly, superficially, often blind to coercive control. Your job is to bring the depth back into focus.

You Still Have Influence

When a GAL is appointed, it may feel like the ground shifts under your feet. But preparation, clarity, and persistence can steady you. Organize your documents. Keep your phrasing child-centered. Log every interaction. Challenge bias factually, in writing, with research and documentation.

The GAL is not your ally, and not necessarily your enemy. They are a conduit—a flawed one, but one you can still shape. You still have influence, even if the system is deeply flawed. Their report may carry weight, but your truth, carefully documented, can carry farther. The truth is a mountain enduring.

If a GAL has just been appointed in your case, don’t wait for the phone call. Begin preparing today. You can do this.

Ruth, a protective parent, once referred to it as the “dreaded doodle bug disease.” In the courtroom, you get the diagnosis. Then, a bevy of court-appointed roles (weary to call them “professionals” lest it be misleading) will, over time and through various payments, help cure you of the disease.

Understanding these patterns isn’t just about theory. It’s about practical tools: what to expect next, how to document effectively, and how to respond strategically. Forewarned is forearmed; this is checking the route of the marathon, scanning the horizon. Think of this piece as a guidebook you can lean on to face this quintessential courtroom problem.

Ruth brought concerns of her child’s serious injury to court. Bruises atypical, burns poorly explained; changing stories. The kid himself says and describes, in the words of a child, things that we know, as adults, just ain’t right.

The evidence gets minimized, labeled as inconclusive. Not enough of a smoking gun. The father counters with an allegation of alienation—the claim that the mother was manipulating their child against him.

“Coaching” is a word that often gets used. By the way, in that 60 Minutes interview, that’s just real weird, Woody Allen suggests that daughter Dylan was “coached” by her mother Mia Farrow. I speculate that Allen, with his high-profile case, wrote the playbook for how to use the PAS trump card, framing the mother as a manipulative coach.

With the use of a temporary order, Ruth went from 50/50 custody (parenting time and decision making), to 10 hours supervised visitation per week, and 0 decision making.

A note on temp orders, which have been identified by the Arizona Ad Hoc Committee as a mechanism that’s being abused in family courts, to quickly switch custody from a safe parent to an unsafe parent.

A temp order is a short-term ruling a court issues while a case is still ongoing. They are meant to address immediate needs and stabilize the situation until the court can hold a full hearing or reach a final decision. They can be issued ex parte (without the other party present) if there’s an urgent risk of harm (or a claimed urgent risk of harm), though the court should schedule a follow-up hearing quickly.

The temp order is valid until the final judgement; the name “temp” can be a major misnomer since they can drag on and on. Leaving protective mothers in a painful limbo.

In practice, the order is often drafted by the attorneys involved, then submitted to the judge for approval. In some jurisdictions, the judge’s clerk or court staff writes it based on the judge’s ruling. Parents are legally bound to follow them as if they were final orders.

Temp orders can have outsized consequences:

1. First Impressions Matter: Judges often default to keeping the “status quo” (who has the child under the temp order). If one parent gets temporary primary custody, courts sometimes continue that in the final order to avoid “disruption.”

2. Supervised Visits: A temp order may place one parent under supervised visitation — often very hard to undo later, even if evidence is weak. The visitation supervisor has a financial incentive to keep a parent under supervision.

3. Financial Leverage: Support orders tied to custody can shift financial power. A parent with temporary custody may receive child support immediately, reinforcing their ability to maintain custody. Taking away finances means taking away resources, and sometimes coercing a protective parent to take on multiple jobs. Ruth had a period where she was working so much, she was so exhausted that she fell asleep behind the wheel while driving on the highway. Thank God she was OK.

4. Court Trajectory: Once temp orders are in place, the case often orbits around them. Experts, evaluators, and even final orders are influenced by the temporary structure; they also benefit financially as they are “service providers” for the dreaded doodle bug disease.

Custody-specific implications:

• Temporary Custody Becomes De Facto Custody: Courts prefer stability for children, so the temporary arrangement often becomes permanent. Judges can be hesitant to take the stance to reverse their colleagues’ order.

• Evidence Thresholds Are Lower: Judges may issue restrictive temp orders based on “prima facie” claims (e.g., affidavits or testimony) without full cross-examination or evidence testing.

• Pressure on Parents: A parent with limited time may face enormous pressure to “comply” or prove their fitness to regain equal or primary custody. In general, parents also feel that they must follow the orders of the courts, even when deeply flawed, otherwise they lose all contact with their child— the worst outcome.

• Bias & Leverage: In high-conflict cases, whoever “wins” the temp order stage often has leverage throughout the litigation.

Continue reading with a paid subscription to learn the four most common ways courts respond— and how you can prepare for them.

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Hope you are well.

Recently, two protective parents reached out to me—one via Substack, the other by email (protecttheparents@proton.me). I was encouraged by this. It’s a sign that Protect the Parents is becoming one of many resources protective parents can turn to.

I’m always grateful to hear from readers, and to learn what support you might be in greatest need of; I am also interested in just hearing the details of your case. As I build my knowledge across a wider data set, this can help inform the work, and give me greater depth of insight into the problem.

For example, with sufficient case samples, I/we can identify a through line of the most pernicious/common problems, and what have been different parents responses to those problems, and what was the end result. The family court is a broken system with many cogs and levers, and we can look at the elements piece by piece.

For example, in the Arizona Ad Hoc hearings, two issues they identified as core problems are:

1. Temporary orders that swiftly transfer custody from the protective parent to the abusive parent.

2. Quasi-judicial immunity for court-appointed professionals—visitation supervisors, therapeutic interventionists, and others—shielding them from accountability.

So, just a friendly reminder that I am always glad to hear from you. I read every email and every message. I may not always be able to help in the moment. I hope I could refer you to some resources, or at least provide a listening ear to those who are often disbelieved and silenced through gag orders, shame and/or exhaustion.

Disrespect-by-Proxy

It was so helpful to hear reader’s responses to “That Unwelcome Touch”. I believe that most people faced with this scenario might have let is pass by— seeing your aunt be touched inappropriately by someone in a position of power— because in the moment there seemed little margin to address it (getting into an ambulance, going to the hospital).

With reader’s commentary and responses, I feel less inured to this disrespect-by-proxy. I feel I understand the truth of what happened better— he did it intentionally and that is wrong. It is just too improbable for him touching my aunt’s ass (hand reaching out, fingers outstretched, crossing my line of sight). Then there are just no good, sensible, logical, reasonable reasons for him to have done so. This ERT dude does it because he wants to, I suppose. And this is just so foreign and strange to me, I have a hard time, even still, to wrap my mind around it.

Note: this is not the ERT person of the story; stock photo

This is one way abusers get away with “minor” violations: they bank on the target’s confusion. They rely on the fact that most people wouldn’t imagine touching a stranger’s intimate areas without consent. The strangeness itself becomes a smokescreen.

But I don’t have to fully understand it in order to recognize this bad behavior.

And while it may seem I am spending an inordinate amount of time thinking about what might be considered a relatively minor offense— the brush of two fingertips across a behind— if we let this go without critique we set ourselves up for more egregious offenses in the future. All under the guise of “accidental” touch.

We don’t have to fully understand someone’s motivations to recognize bad behavior. And if we let these “small” offenses pass without naming them, we normalize the conditions for worse ones—always cloaked in claims of accident, claims of innocence.

A couple days ago I happened to see him in a local restaurant. I looked over at him, he was facing me directly, and we made eye contact. Not sure how to articulate this, but it was like there was a dark, hating heat emanating from him. It was not that he wore a scowl or had clenched fists. Something about his facial expression looked menacing.

I have been formulating ways to address it, about notifying people in the community to be aware of this man, and to avoid his particular ambulance if there is a choice. I’ll keep you posted for how it turns out.

More Unwarranted Touch

In addition to this instance, there has been another incident of “surprise touch.” This one I experienced.

This summer I joined a local gym run by a couple, let’s call them Lee (wife) and Paul (husband). Paul is a beef cake, a human version of the cartoon characters Johnny Bravo and the Hulk. He wears a baseball cap and has a full beard; he has flat-soled Converse shoes with socks that say, perhaps ironically, “Rest Day.” Paul has a barrel chest, abs like a tree trunk, and thighs that could sprint the ocean floor. As he recently described himself, in a moment of joking though with accuracy, he is “incredibly powerful.”

Lee is about five feet tall, 150 pounds, all muscle. In terms of appearance her strength is more concealed; she looks trim, but not necessarily very strong. But she can bench press a fridge. When she comes to classes to work out, the bar is laden with thick bars of color; the blue 45-pound weight plate, the maroon 65-pound, more.

When I had just joined the gym we all started our exercises. People are scattered around an outside space, working through their back squats, per coach Paul’s instructions. I had not been aware that Paul was behind me, and he touches my back, perhaps as some sort of corrective gesture?

I am used to taking yoga and pilates classes. Typically I have had those instructors ask the group at the start of class if practitioners give their consent to receive touch adjustments. I’ve even had teachers who had everyone close their eyes and thus privately raise their hand to express that they did not want to be touched.

Here I am, at a new gym, in a new group of people, doing a movement that’s unfamiliar to me. And as I am doing it, I am touched by someone I’d just met. I believe I flinched in surprise; but my movement is also limited because I’m holding heavy weight on my back and trying to properly execute the squat.

Paul stands there, behind me and off to the side, observing my form. Nearby is another long-time member of the gym, similarly jacked, like Paul. Let’s call him Tyler. Paul had been training Tyler for the past two plus years. I’d felt as if Tyler was watching me, or perhaps just looking at me, noticing a new member of the gym.

Paul asks Tyler, “what are you thinking about?”

In the moment, it feels as if the comment is referring to me, somehow suggestive. That I’m in between these two beef cakes, and the comment might be a nod to Tyler having some internal thoughts about me. Like Paul had noticed Tyler noticing me, watching me do squats.

I am not sure about this situation. There is no way to know for sure, right? But it surely feels strange. Feels like I’m under a plate of glass, being assessed.

It felt as if I were being observed and assessed between the two men.

“Drown That Bitch Out”

In a later class, both Paul and Lee are there. Class has finished, everyone is exhausted, sweaty, and strewn about the small outdoor area. Lee starts to speak, she is making an announcement about friends and family week, where members can bring new people in to try out the gym. Paul is adjusting the music, and the volume goes up, covering Lee’s voice.

“Baby, please, I’m talking,” says Lee.

It seems accidental, Paul fiddling with the device, I think he murmurs something to Lee about working on it. One of the gym members makes a joke about Paul cutting off Lee.

“Yeah, drown that bitch out,” says Paul.

“Haha, right, as I was saying…,” and Lee continues with her announcement about the promotion.

In the moment it felt something was off; this was not a funny joke. Wasn’t funny to me at least.

If someone is willing to publicly refer to their wife—a co-owner of the business, mother of their children—as a “bitch,” what does that suggest about private dynamics?

Does it suggest that Paul sees women in general as bitches who ought not to be listened to? If someone will refer to their own wife as a bitch, and kid about silencing her voice, even under the guise of a joke, what does this say about how he might treat her, how he might treat women?

Is this verbal abuse?

Let’s look into this, to get our definitions straight, and be able to clearly identify the problem.

“Verbal abuse is a type of emotional abuse. It is when someone uses their words to assault, dominate, ridicule, manipulate, and/or degrade another person and negatively impact that person's psychological health. Verbal abuse is a means of controlling and maintaining power over another person…. Verbal abuse involves using words to name call, bully, demean, frighten, intimidate, or control another person." — VeryWell Mind

And these particular elements caught my attention:

“Some signs that you are experiencing verbal abuse include:

• You're afraid to go out in public with them because of what they will say about you in front of other people”

Verbal abuse can take many different forms, including:

• Humiliation: When you are insulted in public by a peer, a friend, a family member, or a dating partner, this can be particularly painful.

• Name-calling: Abusive, derogatory language, or insults that chip away at the target’s self-esteem, sense of self-worth, and self-concept. Anytime someone engages in name-calling, it is a form of verbal abuse. Even if the names are said in a neutral voice, this is not an acceptable treatment of another person.

• Ridicule: Typically, verbally abusive people will make you the butt of their jokes. This can be done in private or in person. But if you don't find it funny, then it is not harmless fun. What's more, verbally abusive people usually select jokes that attack an area where you feel vulnerable or weak.

On the one hand, there can be an impulse to turn away and forget. To look the other way, so as not to draw further attention to someone being debased. To give them privacy, and almost go along with the pretending.

To maintain the paradigm that Paul loves his wife Lee, the mother of their two young boys. That perhaps on this day he made an off-color joke he should have kept in his head. If I witness an instance of a man verbally abusing his wife, does it mean he doesn’t respect or love her?

Or, were we all made witnesses to an instance of abuse, verbal abuse, which is often the precursor to more (always, a lighter form of abuse leads to heavier; one form of abuse spawns other methods; over the timeline the frequency increases). And if Paul might refer to Lee as a “bitch” in front of gym/ community members, is he using harsher barbs in private?

The community dynamic at the gym is quite intimate; it is often the same small group of locals, every day, in an hour long session. We come to recognize and know one another, we chit chat before and after class. People gather and socialize outside of the gym space. So Paul uses this epithet in reference to Lee in front of those who she might feel are friends. We are also her students, and I look up to Lee for the hard work she has put into her health and abilities.

So what do we do? Do I ask to speak with Lee, and say, “hey, I think you were verbally abused / humiliated by your husband.” …..And then what?

With these things, with abuse both personal and observed, it feels like there are more questions than answers. But over time, though paying attention and contemplation, I think we can arrive at best practices.

How we can call it out and work to counter it, this dark creeping.

I’d like to share these instances and hear from readers— what would you do?

A few years ago, I might have missed it entirely. But writing Protect the Parents, and reading other Substacks that cover women’s rights and gender equality, has sharpened my awareness of sexism and misogyny. This is both a gift and a burden: I can see what’s wrong more clearly, but I can’t unsee it. Sometimes, it’s depressing to realize how often these moments happen.

Or, as they say, ignorance is bliss.

First case in point: recently I had family visiting me. My cousin ended up getting into a bike accident and I had to call an ambulance (thankfully he is OK, but needed stitches). My cousin is in a stretcher in the ambulance, my aunt standing on my right, the ERT guy on my left. He advises that my aunt ride with her son in the ambulance, and I’ll follow behind, driving with my uncle. We all agree.

My aunt presents as quite feminine, has a delicate frame and moves with grace. She has one foot on the ledge to step up into the cavern of the ambulance, as she has ascended half way, the ERT guy says something. She pauses mid-ascension to ask what did he say?

“Watch your head, ma’am,” he says.

Which I found superfluous as: 1) she is not very tall; 2) she does not make sudden, jerky movements but moves in a smooth, languid way; 3) she was clearly being cautious already entering the vehicle and was in no danger to bump her noggin. Admittedly this is all from my perspective, which is slightly different from his. Perhaps from his vantage point, viewing my aunt in a side profile, he saw she was within the realm of possibility of clunking her cantalope?

She hears him, nods in agreement, continues to step into the ambulance.

As my aunt is entering the white box, with her son laid out on a stretcher, the ERT guy stretches out his hand and —I can’t make this up— touches my aunt’s ass with the two forefingers of his hand. Like, is that supposed to give her a turbo lift for those few remaining inches into this metal box?

It was totally strange and confusing. Here is my aunt, in front of me, we are all stressed out with concern over the kid, who got a bloody face, and what is this man trying to pull? Why even touch her in this way? Just to be an ass?

He is appearing in a position of power— he has medical knowledge, he is associated with this vehicle we need to get my cousin to the hospital; we are in an emergency situation. It feels like there is nothing I can say in this moment. I feel like I do not know how to call him out, like — “Hey, there’s no need to touch her. Please don’t.”

She takes her seat on the iron banquette, at the foot of her son. He steps in. It’s not a suitable place nor time to speak up that something subtle but wrong has happened.

There was no need for him to touch her. And it seemed intentional somehow, that he would cause her to pause there, mid-lift, and actually make contact with a private region of her body.

If it had been you — there in that moment — what would you have done? Would you confront him on the spot? Wait and report it later? Let it go?

I still don’t know the right answer.

Have you ever been in a moment where something inappropriate happened, but you didn’t speak up right away? How did you handle it afterward?

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But clarity doesn’t come from memory alone. It comes from structure. From preparation. From knowing exactly where your documents are, and how to bring them forward when needed. Think of this post as your assistant—helping you build a court-ready binder that supports your credibility, protects your child, and gives you back a bit of control.

Why Organization Matters

Family court is not trauma-informed. It's paperwork-informed.

Too often, protective parents are discredited not because they're wrong—but because they’re overwhelmed. It can be maddeningly difficult to present as calm when you’re a trauma survivor and are forced to face off against your abuser.

Judges often respond more favorably to the party who presents themselves as calm, credible, and prepared. Emotional expression—even when completely justified—can backfire in court. And while some judges recognize that emotion can bring humanity into the courtroom, many still interpret displays of anger, sadness, or fear as signs of instability or exaggeration. For protective parents, this means that organizing your case and presenting it clearly—through facts, timelines, and documents—may be more persuasive than impassioned testimony alone.

If we imagine ourselves in the judge’s position, the culture of their profession values cool, distanced consideration as an ideal. As one scholar put it, “to call a judge emotional is a stinging insult, signifying a failure of discipline, impartiality, and reason.” (source: “Heart Versus Head: Do Judges Follow the Law or Follow Their Feelings?” )

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