30. Part Four: Safe-guarding yourself from 'alienation' accusations - taking responsibility for healing trauma and complex PTSD

Speaker 1: 0:00

Hi, thanks for joining me for another episode of the Post-Separation Abuse Podcast. I'm your host, danielle Black, and I'm a specialist Australian separation and divorce coach, primarily helping women who are struggling to navigate separation, divorce and co-parenting from a controlling former partner. One of the main reasons that I do the work that I do is because I have lived experience of high conflict separation, divorce and co-parenting, including several years of navigating the legal system and the court system in Australia. I'm not sure what day of the week it is that you're tuning into this particular episode, what time it is, whether it's during the day or in the middle of the night. I'm not sure what it is that you're specifically navigating in your life, but I hope that during this episode, or perhaps other episodes, you'll find something that speaks to you. You'll hear a message that resonates with you and that gives you courage to keep going. That's a big reason why I do the work that I do To be a beacon of hope for other women. You can do this, but you don't have to do this alone. The past three episodes of this podcast have been devoted to helping you safeguard yourself, in your case, from accusations of withholding, gatekeeping and alienation and, if you are facing those accusations, to help ensure that you maintain credibility whilst you're defending yourself from those accusations. It's important that I note here that there's nothing that we can do no one thing to completely control our outcome. However, I firmly believe that there are things that we can do to help optimise our outcome and to help influence our outcome. That's one of the main reasons why I decided to do this podcast.

Speaker 1: 2:04

I know many of my clients tune into this podcast several times a week and I thank them for their ongoing support and encouragement and also for inspiring many of these episodes, whether it's from one-on-one coaching conversations with clients or topics of conversation that come up in the group coaching membership that I offer for my clients. My client's stories and what they're navigating Create inspiration for a lot of the work that I do, because what they're navigating is not just solely unique to them. There are so many common themes that I've experienced, that my clients have experienced, that I know so many other women in Australia are experiencing right now too. If you're struggling with aspects of separation, divorce or co-parenting with a controlling ex-partner perhaps an ex-partner who's been abusive in other ways, perhaps an ex-partner who has personality traits consistent with one or more personality disorders. Please know that you're not the problem. Please know that you're not alone. Please know that there are many, many other Australian women who are navigating something similar right now. Hey, I'm Danielle Black and I'm the coach you need if you're dealing with post-separation abuse. I help you make sense of ongoing abusive behaviour after separation and help you take back your power and control. Let's go To round off this series about safeguarding yourself and your case from accusations of alienation, withholding and gatekeeping.

Speaker 1: 3:59

The focus for today's episode is around taking responsibility for your trauma, taking responsibility for your mental health and taking responsibility for how you may be perceived by others, including how you might be perceived by the court and other court professionals. As I've already mentioned on a number of occasions during this particular series of podcasts, I wish that this series was not necessary. I think it's appalling that so many women are accused of lying when they speak up about coercive control and about family violence. The sad truth is that we live in a society where many people still have a belief on some level, whether conscious or otherwise, that women lie, that women lie about abuse and that women lie about abuse in order to prevent the other parent from spending time with the children. Research in this area demonstrates that that's not true, that the vast majority of women are not lying about their experiences.

Speaker 1: 5:06

However, unfortunately, the family law system, the court system with family law, is adversarial. Parents are pitted against one another and oftentimes the dynamic is very much he said, she said, because the nature of the vast majority of family violence is non-physical. The majority of family violence is coercive control, but where there's one form of family violence, there's usually always another, whether that's emotional abuse, psychological abuse, financial abuse. The list goes on. Where there's one, there's usually more, but what there always is is coercive control of some form or another. Coercive control is abuse. Coercive control is family violence. However, coercive control in and of itself doesn't leave you with bruises. It doesn't leave you with broken bones. There's often no trace, no written or verbal or recorded record anywhere Of what it is that you've experienced in the past, perhaps for years, perhaps for a decade, perhaps for two decades.

Speaker 1: 6:17

So in the family law system, if we're talking about parenting, when you're separating from a coercively controlling, abusive partner, understandably you will have concerns about your children being in their care, and if you have those concerns, please trust your instincts. Your instincts are spot on, because the best way to predict how a parent is going to interact with their children is how they interact with the mother of their children. How you've been treated is how your children are ultimately going to be treated. Maybe they're not treated like that right now, particularly if you've got young children, and you know why? Because young kids are really easy to control. It can be as simple as offering a young child a chuppa-chup, a trip through the McDonald's drive-through. Young children are very easily manipulated and this is what many controlling, coercive fathers do. However, as children develop, evolve, get older, develop their own unique identities, personalities, opinions, viewpoints.

Speaker 1: 7:22

This is where we start to see conflict. Just because your former partner may never have been violent with the children doesn't mean that that will never happen. It's not uncommon for physical violence to begin once a child reaches late childhood or early adolescence. Because they are simply harder to control, they start questioning what it is that the other parent is telling them and, in many cases, are far more emotionally mature than the other parent. As you can understand, this causes conflict. So if you're questioning your children's safety in the care of the other parent, it's for good reason. Trust your gut instinct. Even when you doubt yourself. Please trust your instincts. A man who is abusive to his partner or former partner, whether that has ever been physical or not, is not a good parent. A good parent does not abuse the other parent of their children.

Speaker 1: 8:18

Back to the topic of today's episode taking responsibility for your trauma. You didn't cause someone to hurt you. That's not your fault, but what you are responsible for is your healing. What you are responsible for is your own mental health and your own wellbeing. What you are responsible for is your trauma. You are the only one that can do something about your trauma. And not dealing with your trauma, not working through and processing your trauma, not taking responsibility for that, can have a significant impact on how you are perceived. When we're talking about disputes to do with parenting arrangements that end up in front of the court, in this situation where we're dealing with a mother who is concerned about the safety of her children when the children are in the care of the father, women are often painted as being over-emotional, over-anxious, mentally unstable. You get the idea. If you haven't appropriately managed your trauma, if you're not currently seeking support for that, you are more likely to present as being emotionally unstable throughout the court process. You are more likely to be perceived in a negative light.

Speaker 1: 9:33

Trauma is widely believed to not be the event in and of itself, but rather what occurred within the brain and the body as a result of the event, and I think that's an important differentiation to make. The trauma that you have is not because of the actual event, not because of the things that occurred, but rather what those things caused to happen within you. And it's important that we acknowledge here that not everyone experiences trauma from the same kind of event and different people have different capacities for processing significant events, upsetting events, hurtful events. Some people are able to move through those things and not have lingering trauma, not have lingering flashbacks, hypervigilance, not be triggered continuously, and other people can remain very stuck in their trauma experiences. Very simply, ptsd or Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, is a mental health condition that people can develop if they have been through a traumatic event, so a particular event that might have been threatening their safety in that moment their life. Maybe they experienced a natural disaster, maybe they witnessed a serious accident, combat in terms of veterans, those sorts of things.

Speaker 1: 11:11

Complex PTSD is a condition that can occur after prolonged and repeated traumas, and this can be as a result of things like child abuse, as well as family violence. The trauma from repeated events can cause problems with memory and can also disrupt the development of someone's identity, their ability to control emotions and their ability to form healthy relationships with other people. The symptoms of complex PTSD involve a variety of stress responses, anxiety, nightmares or flashbacks. It can include heightened emotional responses, for example aggressiveness or impulsivity. It can lead to someone avoiding particular places, situations or other things that are related to the trauma. So, for example, if you are very avoidant to any and all communication with your former partner, even though you may be physically safe, if you are resistant to engaging in any communication with them at all, if communicating with them about even the most general of parenting topics leaves you feeling highly anxious, highly emotionally triggered, that is potentially for you a stress response, a symptom that could be related to complex PTSD.

Speaker 1: 12:40

Victim survivors of family violence who are experiencing complex PTSD can also have issues with emotion regulation, so difficulty expressing and processing emotions in a healthy, appropriate way. They can struggle with their sense of identity and sense of self. There can be an excessive attention to the possibility of danger, so a hyper vigilance of danger, even though the reality is that they are physically safe. There can be frequent negative thoughts and emotions and excessive reactivity to negative emotions. There can be persistent feelings of shame, guilt and worthlessness and difficulty informing healthy, meaningful relationships and friendships. Often there can be a lot of difficulty establishing trust.

Speaker 1: 13:38

You might be wondering how any of this is relevant to you safeguarding yourself from accusations of alienation, gatekeeping or withholding. The reason that this is relevant is because many men who make these accusations also target the mental health of their former partner. And if you have symptoms consistent with complex PTSD and if you're not actively doing something about that in a way that's meaningful and is actually leading to results, so cancelling is great. But if you've been working with a counselor or a psychologist for a period of months or potentially years and your ability to regulate your emotions healthily has not significantly increased, that's a problem. Trauma is not something that you need to live with for the rest of your life. There are particular therapies that can help you to mitigate the symptoms of complex PTSD. Complex PTSD is something that can be treated in a way that will allow you to move on with your life and no longer be significantly triggered on that emotional level by the things going on in the world around you, including communication with your ex-partner.

Speaker 1: 15:01

When your mental health is being attacked by someone who might also be accusing you of alienation, withholding or gatekeeping, what we need to be mindful of is how you're going to be perceived by the court and by court professionals. What we want to safeguard against is there being any confirmation bias with court professionals that you speak to. So, if there are accusations from your ex -partner that you have a personality disorder, that you have an anxiety disorder, that you are unable to appropriately manage your emotions and that that is having a negative impact on the children, simply that being in writing in, for example, your ex-partner's affidavit, which is something that is created when things enter into the court process Simply having that in writing that will be read by court professionals. And then, if court professionals meet with you and you present in a way that is highly emotional, that is agitated, perhaps you burst into tears when talking about your experiences. Perhaps you present as being emotionally dysregulated. Should these professionals have an understanding that you have experienced trauma? Yes, do all of these court professionals have that understanding? Are they all trauma informed? No, by not taking your mental health and your trauma recovery seriously, you run the risk of being perceived in a negative light. You run the risk of your ex-partner's narrative regarding your mental well-being. You run the risk that that is going to be taken seriously If you present as being emotionally dysregulated, if you present as being avoidant when it comes to your ex-partnering and by avoidant I don't mean not wanting to be in the same room as them.

Speaker 1: 17:01

Now, bear with me here. There's a fine line. I'm not suggesting that you need to present as being perfectly okay with being in the same room as your ex-partner, because that would understandably cause people to doubt the veracity of your claims. When it comes to family violence, however, there's a difference between not wanting to be in the same room as them, not wanting to engage in face-to-face conversation. There's a difference between wanting to avoid that and refusing to appropriately communicate with them at all about anything, and I'm hoping that you're able to see the differences there, that I'm referring to that nuance.

Speaker 1: 17:41

It's important that you're credible when it comes to your claims of family violence. However, whilst being seen to be credible when it comes to those allegations of family violence, it's important that you're not perceived as being emotionally unstable, which can happen if you have a lot of unresolved trauma, and I know it's total bullshit that you should have to be so vigilant when it comes to how you are perceived, but that's the reality of the legal system, that's the reality of the court system. Whether we like it or not is really beside the point. This is what is, and if we don't radically accept that fact, we run the risk of seriously compromising our overall outcome. We run the risk of compromising the outcome for ourselves and for our kids. Another layer to this is something that many professionals who work in the separation and divorce space are not aware of, and that is the symptoms of complex PTSD align and overlap quite strongly with the symptoms of borderline personality disorder. Just sit with that for a minute. The symptoms, the characteristics, the presentation of complex PTSD complex post-traumatic stress disorder present in a very similar way, with a lot of overlap, to borderline personality disorder. Yes, you heard me correctly. Many women who have been diagnosed with borderline personality disorder have actually been incorrectly diagnosed. There are a number of professionals who write on this topic who believe that as many as 80% of people who have been diagnosed with borderline personality disorder are actually instead suffering from complex PTSD.

Speaker 1: 19:42

What I don't want for any of my clients or for you who are listening right now. What I don't want is for you to be mistakenly pigeonholed as potentially having a personality disorder because you have unresolved trauma, because you have stress responses that aren't being appropriately managed when it comes to emotion regulation, when it comes to flashbacks, nightmares, anxiety, hypervigilance when it comes to situations, places, communication with your ex, heightened emotional responses, heightened stress responses when you get a text message or an email from your ex partner those sorts of things. Those are the sorts of things that could impact how you are perceived by the court and by professionals who work within the court system, and that's not what we want, because that will negatively impact your credibility. Something that I'm often telling my clients is calm is credible. Calm is credible.

Speaker 1: 20:49

When you can speak calmly about your experiences, you are credible. You are more likely to be believed when you can engage calmly with professionals, when you can engage calmly with your ex. That includes engaging in a co-parenting email communication without freaking out. Now, I know you might be thinking well, danielle, the court professionals not going to know that I have a meltdown every time I have to communicate with my ex. No, they're not likely going to be sitting there whilst you're composing a response to your ex-partner. However, the words that you use, the way that you frame responses, whether or not your responses are emotive all of those sorts of things can obviously be impacted by whether or not you're in a survival mode when you're composing a response, and anything that you put in writing can be used against you in this process.

Speaker 1: 21:50

So you taking responsibility for your trauma, you taking responsibility for your mental health and you taking responsibility for how you might be perceived is a very important part of this journey. And you know what? Living with trauma, living with complex PTSD it feels like shit, being triggered at the mere sight of a text message or email from your ex-partner. That's not life. That's not really living. No one should live that way, and I'm speaking here from lived experience.

Speaker 1: 22:24

I kept my phone on silent for years because the sound of a message tone would trigger my nervous system to the point that my heart would be racing, my palms would be sweaty, I would feel nauseous, just from a message tone. That's complex PTSD and that was unhealthy. It was a horrible way to live, and seeking support for that is one of the best things that I have done for myself and also for my kids, because I can guarantee you right now that if you are dealing with symptoms of trauma, if you are dealing with symptoms of complex PTSD, you are not showing up in the world as the best version of you. You're a shadow of you at best, and that's not a criticism. This is not your fault. It's not your fault what was done to you, but it is your responsibility to do something about it. It is your responsibility to reclaim your life so that you can show up in the world in all of your brilliance. The world needs what you have to offer. It's the life that you deserve to live and you know what. It's the version of you that your kids so desperately need and want.

Speaker 1: 23:40

If you are experiencing symptoms of trauma, if you are experiencing symptoms of PTSD or complex PTSD, please seek support. If you're not yet engaged with a counsellor or a psychologist who is trained in supporting victim survivors of family violence, who is experienced in this area, please, please, connect with someone who can help you, preferably someone who is also trained in EMDR therapy. Emdr therapy EMDR stands for eye movement, desensitisation and reprocessing. It's a psychotherapy treatment and it was originally designed to assist veterans who were returning from combat situations with PTSD. It has been incredibly helpful for many victim survivors of family violence, myself included. I highly recommend it.

Speaker 1: 24:43

If you've been engaging with a counsellor or a psychologist for a long period of time for six months or more and you really haven't noticed a significant improvement in some of your symptoms your emotional regulation, other triggers, other hypersensitivities, being hypervigilant, the way in which you might be triggered, for example, by communicating with your ex-partner you might like to explore working with another professional or, if you're not already engaged with a separation and divorce coach, that might be another pathway that you'd like to explore. A number of the clients who are working with me are also engaged with counselling or with a psychologist. However, I've also had a number of clients transition to me after they got to a point where they felt that the talking therapy of counselling had served its purpose. Thank you. They felt that they needed something more and coaching for them was the right fit. If you think that might be you, I strongly encourage you to book a discovery call with me where we can have a chat About whether working with me is the right thing for you and for your situation. At the time of recording this podcast, I am still offering 30 minute free discovery calls that can be easily booked via my website, danielblackcoachingcomau.

Speaker 1: 26:11

We can't control the behaviors of our former partner. We can't control what accusations are going to get thrown our way. Many people think that by giving into the demands of their ex, acquiescing to those demands, doing what we can to keep our ex happy, that that will limit the likelihood of accusations being thrown at us. I'm sorry to burst anyone's bubble, but that's actually not the case. It's not the case. If you're currently stuck in a cycle of just simply giving into your ex's demands in the hopes that things are going to get better, I'm sorry to say you're wasting your time and it's no way to live. Take my word on that one. I'm speaking from experience. Taking back your power and control means you needing to step up.

Speaker 1: 26:59

This is a conversation that I had with a new client just last week, chatting with her about the fact that no one was coming to save her, that she needed to put on her own cape and be the hero in her story. Now she's not doing this alone. She's got a lawyer, she's got a psychologist, she's got friends and family and she's got me. She's not doing this on her own, but she's the only one that can do the work, and this is also my message to you. No one is coming to save you, but you can do this. You can do hard things. I've got no doubt. You've done plenty of hard things in your life before you can do this. You don't need to do it on your own.

Speaker 1: 27:40

What was done to you is not okay, but right here and now, while you're listening to me, you've got a choice. Are you going to stay focused on the past, on what was done to you, on the unfairness of it all, or are you going to turn so that you're looking forward, so that you're looking to the future, so that you're looking to the next chapter of your life, because that's where true power lies. That's where the best version of you is. It's not in the past. It's not in holding your ex accountable. It's not on focusing on the fact that there's zero consequences for him and how. It's also unfair. It's not on focusing on the fact that the legal system's unfair. It's on facing forwards. It's on reclaiming your power and control. It's on doing what you can to work through and process your trauma. It's on taking control of your mental health, your emotional health, your ability to regulate your emotions, so you're not snapping at your kids, so you're not freaking out every time there's an email or a text message.

Speaker 1: 28:44

This is what I want for you to be able to show up as the best version of you. It's what you need, it's what your kids need and it's one of the best things that you can do to help optimize your outcome when it comes to your parenting matter. No one can control the outcome. No one can guarantee you a particular outcome, but there are things that you can do to influence the outcome and there are things that you can do to positively influence your credibility. If you're struggling right now with separation, divorce or co-parenting with a controlling ex-partner, I see you. I'm here to help if you need me. Thanks so much for your time. I'll talk to you soon.