The Garden of Roses: Stories of Abuse and Healing

I am a survivor of generational child sex abuse trauma. I struggled with depression, low self-esteem, and anxiety for decades. I healed in the most unusual way--by going through more trauma. I won a child custody lawsuit my ex-husband filed against me to take custody of our daughter from me. I won by obtaining court orders for our family to work with a therapist, for my ex-husband and me to work with a court-ordered parenting time coordinator who was a forensic psychologist, and for our children to work with their own therapist. The whole series of events around the lawsuit my ex-husband filed against me took place over eight years or so. I was imperfect as a parent and made plenty of mistakes, but I was much better at following the therapist's and the coordinator's advice than my ex-husband.  When my ex-husband's lawsuit to take my daughter from me finally went to court, the coordinator testified on my behalf. I won the case so thoroughly that the judge ordered my ex-husba...

  How to Journal to Document Abuse or Conflict I went through eight-plus years of intense co-parenting conflict with my ex-husband that lasted until both our children were over 18 and still resurfaced whenever there was a reason for us to communicate about our children.          It was hell. The most important piece of advice I can give any parent going through co-parenting hell is to try to make life as happy as possible for your children. Try not to burden them with your problems, but that is the advice everyone gives. It is true, but even better is to make sure you and your children have fun together, whether it is buying art supplies and a giant pad of paper and making pictures together, cooking a special meal together, walking in a park, or playing in a stream together. But if you are going to go to court before a judge and assume that you will, if your relationship with your co-parent is filled with conflict…then you have to document your case...

Documenting Child Custody Battles and Abuse (c) V. Jones   I went through a high-conflict child custody battle that included false accusations of abuse and other wrongdoing made by my ex-husband against me; I won despite the accusations. How? I obtained the best documentation I could to cope with false accusations of abuse—a therapist for my children and a court-ordered Parenting Time Coordinator for my ex-husband and me. My ex-husband resisted obtaining a coordinator and using his health insurance to pay for my children to be in therapy, so I had to pay for our children’s therapist out of pocket while I waited for our court-ordered mediation to fail so the case could be heard by a judge. My ex-husband had found the therapist, but he rarely took our children to therapy and, even more rarely, went to therapy with them and the therapist.  Guess which parent the therapist testified in support of? Me, obviously. What do you do when you can’t afford therapy? Well, yo...