The Garden of Roses: Stories of Abuse and Healing

      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...