The Garden of Roses: Stories of Abuse and Healing

 My son and I arrived about a half hour late at a rural county courthouse distant from our home to stand with our signs--"High Conflict Divorce is Child Abuse."      We like to arrive about fifteen minutes before the usual noon court recess when employees, litigants, and lawyers stream or trickle out of the courthouse, depending on whether the location is rural or urban. Maybe my son got up late on his day off from work, or maybe I did not plan enough time for our three-hour drive, or some of both. My son feels a passion for this work, as do I, although I write all the blogs and press releases that the media usually ignores. When he was 10 years old, his father's girlfriend tried to force him to look her in the eye and repeat her criticisms of me back to her. "Your mother is nothing but a leech on your father." He reacted instead, "Stop criticizing my mother." My son knew the truth. My mother was 39 when I was born, and my father was 50. They died befo...

I have been traveling through Oregon for the last year or so to promote my issue. I want counties to teach parents involved in high-conflict divorce and child custody battles mental health and communication skills instead of requiring them to go through lengthy, time and money-consuming courtroom battles. I went through a child custody battle that lasted a decade or so, if you count all the years that led up to my ex-husband trying to take custody of our daughter away from me, and then the aftermath of his continuing harassment of me until our daughter turned 17, and there wasn't much time to fight over custody of her anymore. I won the battle so thoroughly that the judge in the case ordered my ex-husband to pay 90 percent of my attorney's fees. My attorney told me that such wins are rare. I knew that to be true because I am a former psychiatric nurse who worked with survivors of child sex abuse and domestic violence who lost their children to the men who abused them because th...

      The Family Mental Health and Child Custody Act My Story or Why I Composed this Petition My name is Virginia. I endured generational child sex abuse trauma as a child and struggled with depression, low self-esteem, and anxiety for decades. I was a good student and graduated from college to become a wildlife and fisheries biologist, which improved my self-esteem. Permanent jobs in wildlife and fisheries eluded me, so I returned to college to become a Registered Nurse. My favorite job was as a psychiatric nurse. I married, had children, divorced, and then endured an 8-year child custody battle. I won the battle by obtaining court orders for specialized therapists to work with my family. I followed their advice, and they testified on my behalf in court, so the judge who presided over the custody battle awarded me 90% of my attorney’s fees. Then I realized I no longer suffered from depression or anxiety.  During the long years of that custody battle, I tau...

 Hackers have been bedeviling me since January 2020. I wish the politicians who run the state and federal government cared about the people of the United States.

One of the most serious, well-intended but thoroughly misguided therapeutic protocols is for a therapist to advocate for what a child wants.  This may be a good idea in most situations, but there is one situation that places a child in the middle of a conflict--when parents are battling over child custody.  The reason for this is obvious to me, but apparently not to the people who make therapeutic protocols. When there is a high-conflict relationship between parents, putting the child in charge puts the child squarely in the middle of the conflict.  If you want to profoundly damage a child, then put them in the middle of the conflict between parents. In any high-conflict co-parenting relationship, both parents contribute to the problems observable to third parties, such as therapists. When wellness rather than legal cases is emphasized, parents may differentiate themselves from one another by embracing therapeutic coping strategies such as Nonviole...

 The Family Mental Health and Child Custody Act by V. Jones 1. Before marriage or the birth of a child and again during separation or divorce, the state of Oregon shall provide and require parents to take mental health and communication classes. The classes shall include: Nonviolent Communication Listening skills Mindfulness or similar religious or secular practices, such as centering prayer, yoga, or Native American sacred practices, such as Sweat Lodge and traditional dances. The reason is that these practices all heal, but parents may be more likely to comply if healing skills are part of their cultural traditions. A group of professors of psychology, psychiatry, or social work may be convened to examine the literature and decide which practices and groups offer the same healing for trauma as mindfulness. Journaling is both a form of healing for trauma and a source of documentation of trauma. Professors of psychology, social work, or psychiatry. 2.  After sep...