Traveling Around Oregon to Advocate for a Law to Emphasize Family Mental Health in Divorce and Child Custody Battles

I have taken three long journeys this year, and several last year, to both promote my mental health workbook for survivors and the importance of focusing on family mental health in high-conflict child custody battles.

I suffered child sex abuse and generational sex abuse trauma as a child. My mother was a child sex abuse survivor who struggled with depression and alcoholism. Fortunately, I was a good student, and my father was determined that I receive a university education. Although I struggled with depression as a child, I discovered I felt better if I walked or rode my bike in nature. Later, I worked in wildlife and fisheries biology. I loved my work and gained self-confidence and overcame my struggles with anxiety, but permanent jobs were hard to find, so I went back to school to become a registered nurse. I married while I was in nursing school and worked briefly as a psychiatric nurse before my first child was born. He was born on the autism spectrum, and my husband had a demanding job, so I was not able to go back to work. 

My marriage ended. At first, my relationship with my ex-husband remained good, but after he started dating another woman, problems crept into our relationship, culminating in my ex-husband taking my then-13-year-old daughter out of my house when I was on a walk with my son. I had minimal contact with my daughter until I won a child custody battle a year and a half later. I won the case so thoroughly that the judge presiding over it ordered my ex-husband to pay me 90 percent of my attorney's fees. My attorney told me such wins are rare.

I won by doing the right thing. I obtained court orders for my husband and me to work with a court-ordered parenting coordinator and for my ex-husband to use his health insurance to pay for our children to also see therapists. The coordinator testified on my behalf in court, and my daughter's therapist was willing to testify that she thought that me having visitation with my daughter was both something my daughter wanted and was in her best interest. However, after the coordinator testified, my attorney said it was clear to her from the judge's comments that I had already won the case. Lawsuits are expensive, so I decided I had won enough without spending more on fighting for more.

Great for me, but not that simple either. My children suffered terribly. My son struggled with anxiety and depression for years, and my daughter was diagnosed with Borderline Personality Disorder, which is common among child sex abuse survivors.  

If high-conflict divorce and child custody battles can cause the same damage to children as child sex abuse, why are they legal?

However, I don't want to criminalize divorce. We don't need that kind of reform. Instead, I want to give parents and children mental health help and require divorced or separated parents to communicate through a parenting app or emails so third parties, such as social workers and judges, can examine them to determine which parent is more responsible for the conflict.

Which parent uses Nonviolent Communication or Effective Communication from Dialectical Behavioral Therapy? Does a parent criticize and blame a co-parent for problems? Does a parent bring up an issue respectfully? Does a parent respect a co-parent's right to vacation, holiday, and birthday time with children? Does a parent respect their co-parent's need to rest when ill? 

Is a parent exerting power and control over their children and co-parent, or are they aware and respectful of both their children's and co-parent's rights and needs?

Do parents make accusations of wrongdoing against a co-parent without evidence? The main reason for communication via email or a parenting app is to provide evidence to help prove or disprove accusations of wrongdoing or abuse.

My ex-husband was constantly criticizing me in emails to our parenting coordinator and tried to deny me having birthday time with my daughter or having vacation time with our children. 

I like to write, so my emails were long-winded — something I recommend parents avoid —but I did not try to deny my ex-husband vacation or holiday time with our children the way he did to me. I also avoided criticizing him and focused on our problems instead.

The other reason I think we need a law is that I know other female abuse survivors who struggled in child custody battles, sometimes with men who had beaten them or sexually abused them when they were a minor. One child sex abuse survivor I worked with had a trauma bond with a man who had exposed her to drugs and sexually abused her. She declined to press charges, but he soon went to prison for doing the same thing to another teenage girl. When he finished his sentence and was released, he then went on to live with the then thirty-year-old woman he had sexually abused a decade and a half earlier. After their baby was born, he walked out with the baby and accused the mother of throwing a book at him while he held the baby in his arms. So the judge who presided over the case awarded custody of the baby to the father and supervised visitation for the mother. Unfortunately, the father rarely brought the child to supervised visitation, which resulted in the court case that provided me the opportunity to meet the child's maternal grandmother, who told me all the things her daughter never told me.

I wonder what the judge would do if she learned what the grandmother told me, but our court system is not organized that way. Obviously, neither parent told the judge that the father had sexually abused the mother when she was a minor. Nor could either parent afford therapy or a lawyer.

Sometimes, child sex abuse and adult rape survivors develop what therapists call trauma bonds with their abusers. Sex abuse and rape can involve acts of seduction. The abuser isn't always abusive. They can be kind and even appear loving to their victim because that gets them what they want.

I remember what the mother of the child in this custody battle told me about the father. She said that he was a gifted writer. I never read anything he wrote, so I can't comment, but at the time she told me this, she sounded very much in love with him. However, in one of my two very brief interactions with him, I found him very rude, very critical, and very cruel towards the mother of his child.

I think the only way to cope with a situation like this is to focus on family mental health. Teach the parents mental health and communication skills, and monitor their communication via email or a parenting app.

So, where have I been as I have traveled around Oregon?

The first place I went to was Madras, Oregon, in Jefferson County, Oregon, in late April. 2026. I understand that there were continuing education activities or a court staff retreat that day, so the court staff was not there. However, I met a very frustrated man who also did not know there were special activities for court employees that day. He was way past divorce and child rearing, but he had gone through a situation related to high-conflict divorce -- chaotic co-parenting. He had an ex-wife who struggled with addiction and who was often not available to care for their children, so he did most of the childcare. I cannot confirm his story, but obviously, mental health support was what the mother of his children needed in order to be a better parent to their children.

Next, I headed to Prinveville to stand by the Crook County courthouse. A cold wind blew, and I shivered for 45 minutes while I stood with my signs. 

One woman said as she passed by me, "I like your signs."

After that, I headed to a motel and watched television before sleeping. I haven't owned a television in over a decade, so I only get to watch television when I am at motels. I found PBS and left the television on PBS.

The next day, I headed to Fossil, Oregon, the county seat of Wheeler County, Oregon. Only 1,600 people live in Wheeler County, but there are plenty of fossils and lots of scenic territory. No survivors or parents came forward, but four different people either said that they liked my signs, agreed with me, or gave me a thumbs up.

Next, I headed to John Day, Oregon, in Grant County. A newspaper reporter came to meet me and spoke to my son on the phone to confirm my story. He published an article, which I have somewhere, not near my computer at this moment. Court employees streamed out of the courthouse at 5PM. The only one who spoke to me was a well-armed policeman questioned me to find out what I was doing. I explained that high-conflict divorce seriously harms children and can cause them to experience the same mental health disorders child sex abuse survivors experience, and that I wanted to teach parents mental health skills before children are born and during and after divorce, and mandate parents communicate.....well, you know the rest because I have already said it and said it and said it in this blog. The policeman confided that he encountered lots of children and adults harmed by their parents' high-conflict divorce, and he ended up thanking me for what I was doing.

Then I found a motel and went to sleep

The next day, I drove through the Blue Mountains to Baker City, Oregon. If I had the money to buy a ranch in the Blue Mountains, I think I would. No, the Blue Mountains are so unattractive. Don't go there. I need the place to myself.

In Baker City, a group of school kids was playing on the courthouse lawn, so I tried to both stand by my sign near the courthouse front stairs and be unobstrusive. The setting was really pretty--an old stone courthouse surrounded by a park-like setting of older trees and grass. At lunchtime, employees streamed out of the building and returned later. 

None of the court employees spoke to me, but three older gentlemen in jeans, cowboy boots, and cowboy hats said to me, "I like your signs."

Or was it the same man who said the same thing to me three times?

Then I headed to Vale, Oregon, for the county seat of Malheur County. Ontario is the largest town in Malheur County with almost 12,000 people and is located right next to Idaho. I had intended to stand by the courthouse in Vale beginning just before 4PM, but I realized that I had low blood sugar. Really low blood sugars shut down brain function, so I decided to eat rather than stand by a courthouse. I found a Super 8 with a fast-food restaurant next door. I watched nature shows and true crime shows and got up at 6AM the next morning. I headed to a coffee place for a cappuccino, and then I headed to Vale again. I arrived at the courthouse about 20 minutes before 9AM and witnessed a rush of people streaming in. A couple of people gave me a thumbs-up or told me they liked my sign, but no one engaged me in a longer conversation, which is why I usually stand by courthouses around lunchtime or for an hour before 5PM. 

Next, I headed to Burns, which is the county seat of Harney County, where Steens Mountain and Malheur National Wildlife Refuge are located. The geology in the Malheur County part of the trip was magnificent, although it flattened out in Harney County. The circuit court administration for Harney County is in John Day, but it may have had a court annex in Burns. I will have to do more research if I go to Harney County again. I went to the domestic violence agency there last year. They told me the same thing as all the other domestic violence agencies I spoke to in Oregon told me--that domestic violence survivors often go through high-conflict child custody battles without the help of either lawyers or therapists.

This is another reason I think we need to make the focus of divorce and child custody battles family mental health.

After eating at a Mennonite bakery in Burns, I drove home to northwestern Oregon, arriving just after 10PM.

In May, I headed out again. My first stop was the wrong side of the circuit court in Hood River. I say "wrong side" because few people went in or out of the courthouse, and there appeared to be another parking lot around the corner. If I had carried my signs and bags with flyers around the court, would I have met more people? I will never know. What I do know is that I was doggone cold for the 90 minutes I stood there. I passed the time by watching cars and trucks cross the Columbia River on the bridge from Washington.

Then I headed to The Dalles, where the weather was warm, but not too warm. Four different people commented that they liked my signs. One stopped to chat. She had been married and divorced four times. She had no biological children, although she had stepchildren. Fighting over child custody had never been part of her life experiences, but she thought that teaching people getting married or divorced mental health and communication skills was a good idea, so she signed my petition.

The next morning, I headed to Moro, Oregon, arriving about quarter to 9 AM. I stood with my signs by the courthouse until 9:05 AM. Then I left. Moro is the county seat of Sherman County, Oregon. Only about 1,600 people live in Moro County, so I doubted that there were any divorce or child custody cases that day.

Then I drove on through fantastic geology, a river canyon, and ranch land to Condon, the county seat of Gilliam County, Oregon. I wrote about the people I met in Gilliam County in my previous blog, so I won't repeat the story here.

I drove on through more amazing geology to Heppner, the county seat of Morrow County. Morrow, not Moro. Since I read online that the county circuit court is actually administered in Pendleton, the county seat of Umatilla County, I did not plan time to stand by the courthouse, but I did take a picture of it. It is magnificent. In so many towns in Oregon, they have torn down gorgeous old courthouses to replace them with modern buildings that have better electrical lines, plumbing, and lighting than the old courthouses, but which are not as beautiful.

Then I headed to Pendleton, where I stayed overnight.

I had planned to go to Enterprise in Wallowa County, and then on to La Grande, the county seat of Union County, but the direct road to the Wallowa Valley was closed. There were two other roads into the Wallowa Valley, but I hadn't planned to spend that much time traveling. So, the next morning, I just stood by the Umatilla County Courthouse from about quarter to Noon to 1:15 PM. Another man who had gone through a challenging child-custody and child-care situation spent about 15 minutes sharing his story with me. He didn't sign my petition because he didn't think teaching parents mental health skills would help reduce child custody battles. Still, I was happy to be able to listen to him and give him some emotional support.

My son also traveled with me to the southern Oregon coast. We stopped by the courthouses in Coquille, the county seat of Coos County, and Gold Beach, the county seat of Curry County. My son took a wrong turn, and we missed the afternoon hours when people leave the court for the day, but we stood outside the courthouse the next morning. Several homeless men stood outside the courthouse door when we arrived the next morning. They were not enjoying themselves. They were awaiting hearings. They all had summons. One saw our shirts saying high-conflict divorce is child abuse and came over to talk to us. He had gone through a chaotic childhood marred by parental addictions and divorce. He felt his own struggles with addiction and homelessness were caused by his childhood. I gave him a free copy of my book, How to Heal: A Workbook for Survivors by a Survivor Plus Tips for Documenting Abuse, which can be found on Amazon.com at https://www.amazon.com/How-Heal-Workbook-Survivors-Documenting/dp/B0GMQBP8R8.

A few weeks later, my son and I went to the Columbia County courthouse in St. Helens, Oregon, where we met a lawyer with tattoos all over his arms who hated lawyers. That day, we met no people going through a divorce and no survivors, homeless or otherwise. Right now, we are visiting our favorite places in nature, and I am making videos about them and posting them on YouTube. Both my son and I have found healing from childhood trauma by spending time in nature. It's not all that you need to do, but at least it is free, pleasant, and easy. See my videos here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fNnX13EAF5A.