Arique Dross was ten when he was removed from his mother and placed in foster care. He would go through about two dozen homes, and a stint at Rikers, before he became the family lawyer he is now.

Arique Dross is a New York attorney with his own Manhattan firm, handling custody, visitation, child abuse and neglect, orders of protection, and juvenile matters. His path was anything but linear: split from his siblings in foster care, arrested young, and facing years in prison before he changed course, went to law school, and took his first job prosecuting child-abuse cases because he wanted to be a voice for kids who, like him, never felt heard. He describes that history as both a shield and a sword in the way he advocates.

In this conversation, Arique and Lisa talk about why family court so often makes things worse, and how to stay out of it safely when you can. He walks through the outdated tender years doctrine and why both parents now start on equal footing, unpacks the misconception behind the "father's rights" label, and is honest about how hard parental alienation is to prove when the conduct happens behind closed doors.

They also get concrete about the delays that define these cases: adjournments months apart, a child who slowly becomes a stranger, and a court's limited interim options, including a therapeutic-visitation waitlist. Arique lays out real remedies: contempt when an ex won't follow the plan, makeup time, and an emergency habeas petition that gets a withheld child back in front of a judge in days rather than months. He closes on a hard truth in his work: some family fractures outlast the lawyers, the judge, and the case itself.

As always, this is strategic education, not legal or mental-health advice for your specific situation.

🎓 What you'll learn

• Why family court "brings your problems to your front door," and when to resolve outside it
• What the outdated "tender years doctrine" was, and why both parents now start equal
• Where the "father's rights" label comes from, and what the law actually says
• Why parental alienation is so hard to prove, and what mental-health experts add
• Why every month of delay in a withheld-child case is time that can't be made back
• What a court can and can't do in the interim, including therapeutic visitation
• How contempt works when an ex won't follow the parenting plan, and what relief to ask for
• The emergency habeas petition for a child who isn't returned, heard in days not months

⏱️ Chapters
0:00 Intro
1:00 Why staying out of family court matters, and making a safety plan
5:00 From foster care and Rikers to family law
9:00 Watching domestic violence as a child, a "shield and a sword"
13:00 When an order of protection gets weaponized
15:00 The tender years doctrine, and why both parents start equal
19:00 "Father's rights," weekend fathers, and a common misconception
25:00 Why kids need both parents, when it's safe
27:00 Why alienation is hard to prove, and the cost of every delay
35:00 Contempt when an ex won't follow the order, and makeup time
43:00 The emergency habeas petition, and enforcing your custody order

Keep going 💜
Book a free 30-minute discovery call and we'll help you map your next steps: https://beentheregotout.com/call
📘 Been There Got Out: Toxic Relationships, High-Conflict Divorce, and How to Stay Sane Under Insane Circumstances — https://www.amazon.com/dp/194627495X
📘 Been There Got Out: When Your Ex Turns the Kids Against You (our parental-alienation book) — https://www.amazon.com/dp/1967674183
🔗 Arique Dross at The Dross Law Firm: https://www.thedrosslawfirm.com/
🔗 The Dross Law Firm on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thedrosslawfirm/

About Been There Got Out
Chris Barry and Lisa Johnson are high-conflict divorce, custody, and co-parenting strategists, and the founders of Been There Got Out. They know these cases from the inside: both have successfully represented themselves in family court. Few attorneys have a playbook for a case like this — Chris and Lisa write yours with you, so you and your kids can get through it as unscathed as possible.

Every decision you make in a high-conflict divorce tends to set off something you did not plan for. David Bulitt calls it the law of unintended consequences, and after 37 years as a divorce attorney he treats it as a working rule: before you send the email, file the motion, or answer your child's hard question, stop and ask what else could follow.

David Bulitt has practiced family law almost exclusively since the late 1990s and is a partner at a Washington-area firm. Julie Bulitt is a family and marriage therapist of more than 35 years who works with individuals, couples, and groups. They have been married 37 years and raised four daughters, two biological and two adopted, and they started writing and teaching together after realizing they were having versions of the same conversations in their separate offices, his from a legal chair and hers from a therapeutic one. That split screen runs through everything they say.

With Lisa, they work the seam between strategy and psychology. David can tell you what works against a bully; Julie can tell you why the bully became one, and both agree you usually need the two together. They talk about why so many separating parents assume they have no power left, when understanding an abusive person's patterns makes that person more predictable. They also dig into why family courts still struggle to identify emotional abuse, even in a county that built a separate courthouse for family cases: limited time on the docket, limited money for evaluations, and the plain fact that mental health is hard to see from the bench.

The back half is about the children. Julie lays out how to move a child out of black-and-white thinking by teaching them to live in the gray, why you give kids an age-appropriate truth rather than a comforting lie, and how shutting down a hard topic teaches a child to stop bringing things to you at all. David makes his case, against a listener who pushed back on it, for why a parent should still tell a child that their other parent loves them. That is the kind of communication work, saying the strategic thing instead of the satisfying thing, that our Strategic Communication coaching is built around.

As always, this is strategic education, not legal or mental-health advice for your specific situation.

🎓 What you'll learn

• The law of unintended consequences, and why to pause before every decision or reply
• How to stand up to a bully ex without looking bad under the court's microscope
• Why your ex wants a reaction, and what refusing to give one does to their strategy
• Why family court often fails to identify emotional abuse, and what closes that gap
• The "table" model for support: lawyer, therapist, and specialists each in their own role
• How to get ahead of your own therapy or diagnosis history instead of letting it be used against you
• Self-care a stressed parent can actually use: sleep, meditation, journaling, regulating first
• How to help kids out of all-good or all-bad thinking, and why no topic should be unsafe to raise

⏱️ Chapters
0:00 Intro
1:00 Meet Julie and David: a therapist and a divorce lawyer, married
3:00 The law of unintended consequences, and controlling only yourself
7:00 Bullies: hitting back without looking bad under the microscope
13:00 Why your ex doesn't share your values, and refusing to take the bait
17:00 Why family court struggles to see emotional abuse
19:00 The table metaphor: building a team of support
23:00 Is going to therapy supported in court? Getting ahead of it
31:00 Safety first, the blame-and-shame trap, and self-care that works
39:00 Splitting: teaching kids to live in the gray
45:00 Telling kids the truth, and the "your other parent loves you" debate

Keep going 💜
Book a free 30-minute discovery call and we'll help you map your next steps: https://beentheregotout.com/call
📘 Been There Got Out: Toxic Relationships, High-Conflict Divorce, and How to Stay Sane Under Insane Circumstances — https://www.amazon.com/dp/194627495X
📘 Been There Got Out: When Your Ex Turns the Kids Against You (our parental-alienation book) — https://www.amazon.com/dp/1967674183
🔗 Julie & David Bulitt at TheBulitts.com: https://thebulitts.com/
🔗 David Bulitt at Joseph, Greenwald & Laake: https://www.jgllaw.com/attorney/david-bulitt/

About Been There Got Out
Chris Barry and Lisa Johnson are high-conflict divorce, custody, and co-parenting strategists, and the founders of Been There Got Out. They know these cases from the inside: both have successfully represented themselves in family court. Few attorneys have a playbook for a case like this — Chris and Lisa write yours with you, so you and your kids can get through it as unscathed as possible.

Functional depression is Meaghan Johnson's name for doing everything and being nowhere near okay. She describes it as a filter over your eyes: you handle the school run, the filings, the calls, and you are not really there for any of it.

Meaghan Johnson is a former practicing attorney with a master's in dispute resolution who now teaches mind and body healing techniques under the name A Mindful Sip. She came to the work through her own spinal injury and the depression that followed the birth of her first child, a stretch she got through by studying Eastern and Western approaches to the mind and applying them to herself. She also lives with an ongoing trauma rather than a finished one: a child with a brain injury. That shapes how she teaches, because she is not offering people an end date.

In this episode, Meaghan explains why the mind generates the replay after a hearing. It reads threat, it files the threat at the front, and it runs the tape. She talks about emotions as chemistry, cortisol and adrenaline dropping into the system the way serotonin does, and about the loops that keep redosing you. Her training method starts small on purpose: watch the five-pound feelings first, the irritation when someone cancels on you, until the brain learns a different response. Then the heavier ones.

Meaghan and Lisa also cover the difference between pain and suffering, why anger is a reasonable response to someone turning your children against you, and why responsibility is a more useful word than fault. Lisa tells the story of a therapist adding one word to the sentence she kept repeating to herself, and how much that changed. They close on children: what kids pick up from a parent who thinks they are hiding it well, and why the practice is building your own steadiness rather than trying to fix the child.

As always, this is strategic education, not legal or mental-health advice for your specific situation.

🎓 What you'll learn

• What functional depression looks like from the inside, and the red flags to listen for
• Why your mind replays the hearing at 2am, and what it thinks it's doing for you
• Emotions as chemistry: how the loop keeps redosing you with cortisol
• Start with the five-pound feelings: the training method that builds up to the heavy ones
• Becoming a witness to your thoughts instead of the person pinned by them
• Pain versus suffering, and where responsibility differs from fault
• The one word that turns "this will never happen" into something you can wait out
• What your kids absorb even when you never argue in front of them

⏱️ Chapters
0:00 Intro
1:00 Meaghan's story: an injury, a newborn, and functional depression
5:00 Red flags: what your mind says when you're alone at night
9:00 Emotions as chemistry, and how the loop keeps feeding itself
12:00 Watching your thoughts instead of being caught inside them
15:00 Five-pound feelings, and training before you need it
20:00 Pain versus suffering, and the word "yet"
25:00 Marathon mindset, and finding something usable inside the trauma
32:00 Anger is allowed; the loop is the problem
37:00 What children absorb, and the gift of a steady parent
41:00 The power of fun, one client's volleyball, and where to find Meaghan

Keep going 💜
Book a free 30-minute discovery call and we'll help you map your next steps: https://beentheregotout.com/call
📘 Been There Got Out: Toxic Relationships, High-Conflict Divorce, and How to Stay Sane Under Insane Circumstances — https://www.amazon.com/dp/194627495X
📘 Been There Got Out: When Your Ex Turns the Kids Against You (our parental-alienation book) — https://www.amazon.com/dp/1967674183
🔗 Meaghan Johnson: https://meaghanjohnson.com/
🔗 A Mindful Sip on Instagram (@amindfulsip): https://www.instagram.com/amindfulsip/

About Been There Got Out
Chris Barry and Lisa Johnson are high-conflict divorce, custody, and co-parenting strategists, and the founders of Been There Got Out. They know these cases from the inside: both have successfully represented themselves in family court. Few attorneys have a playbook for a case like this — Chris and Lisa write yours with you, so you and your kids can get through it as unscathed as possible.

An Arizona judge looked at three years of one parent blocking the other from their own child and named it two things at once: parental alienation, and domestic violence. The ruling is on appeal. If it holds, it becomes something other parents in the state can point to.

Our guest is Billie Tarascio, an Arizona family law attorney and the owner of Modern Law, a family law firm in the Phoenix metro area. She also runs Win Without Law School, a coaching program for people who represent themselves, covering trial skills, legal writing, and how to challenge a custody evaluation. She is deliberately careful with the phrase "parental alienation" in a courtroom, because the term has been used against domestic-violence survivors, so she builds her cases around specific behavior rather than the label.

In this conversation, Billie walks Lisa through the case: the DUI, the custody change, the vague order that set no actual parenting time for the mother, and the three years that followed. They get into the relief a targeted parent can actually ask for, why a parent should keep enforcing parenting time even when a child resists, and how to handle a co-parent who lets an arrangement slide unofficially and then claims alienation once the other parent tries to make it official.

They also spend time on the parents who are falsely accused of alienation, something Billie and Lisa agree is often predictable, and the personal work that keeps a hurt parent from putting their own feelings onto their children. And they explain why a domestic-violence finding carries so much weight: in Arizona it creates a legal presumption against joint legal decision-making, which removes one of the tools an abusive co-parent relies on. They close on building a parenting plan tight enough to keep you out of repeat litigation.

As always, this is strategic education, not legal or mental-health advice for your specific situation.

🎓 What you'll learn

• Why attorneys and even judges often avoid the term "parental alienation," and what to describe instead
• How a documented pattern of behavior can meet a court's definition of domestic violence
• What actually proved this case: phone records, logged contact attempts, family testimony, and texts
• Why you keep enforcing your parenting time exactly when your child is resisting contact
• The trap of allowing an unofficial arrangement and then claiming alienation later
• How to proactively defend when you are the parent being falsely accused
• Why a domestic-violence finding can shift legal decision-making away from an abusive co-parent
• How a parenting plan with tiebreakers and procedural steps keeps you out of repeat court

⏱️ Chapters
0:00 Intro
1:00 Meeting Billie, and the video that started it
3:00 Why she avoids saying "parental alienation" in court
5:00 A DUI, a custody flip, and a vague court order
7:00 Three years of blocked contact, and the judge who reversed custody
9:00 The child's wishes, documenting the pattern, and arguing best interest
13:00 The relief to ask for, and why you never stop enforcing parenting time
15:00 Allowing an unofficial arrangement, then claiming alienation
17:00 Extracurriculars, teenagers, and long-distance parenting
19:00 When you are the one accused, and doing your own trauma work
25:00 Why a domestic-violence finding matters, and airtight parenting plans

Keep going 💜
Book a free 30-minute discovery call and we'll help you map your next steps: https://beentheregotout.com/call
📘 Been There Got Out: Toxic Relationships, High-Conflict Divorce, and How to Stay Sane Under Insane Circumstances — https://www.amazon.com/dp/194627495X
📘 Been There Got Out: When Your Ex Turns the Kids Against You (our parental-alienation book) — https://www.amazon.com/dp/1967674183
🔗 Billie Tarascio at Modern Law: https://mymodernlaw.com/

About Been There Got Out
Chris Barry and Lisa Johnson are high-conflict divorce, custody, and co-parenting strategists, and the founders of Been There Got Out. They know these cases from the inside: both have successfully represented themselves in family court. Few attorneys have a playbook for a case like this — Chris and Lisa write yours with you, so you and your kids can get through it as unscathed as possible.

Your children will gravitate toward what feels familiar when they start choosing partners, and what feels familiar is the relationship they grew up watching. That is the reason Chris and Lisa push back on staying together for the kids' sake when the relationship is an abusive one.

There is no outside guest on this episode. Lisa had been speaking at a parenting summit about helping kids build safe relationships, and she pulled Chris on afterward to talk it through. Between them they have spent years coaching people through high-conflict divorce and legal abuse, and both know the version of this decision that comes before any of that, when someone is still weighing whether to go at all. Lisa stayed roughly twenty years in hers, held partly by the idea that leaving would make her responsible for breaking up the family.

They revisit the list from a workshop they ran on the dangers of staying, and spend most of the time on one item: a child inside an abusive household takes that in as the normal shape of a relationship, and painful as a divorce is for kids, modeling the other thing costs more. Lisa then talks about a book by Dr. Amy Hammel-Zabin, Conversations With a Pedophile: In the Interest of Our Children, written from a decade of letters with an incarcerated offender. The lesson she carried into her own parenting was about how secrecy is used, and how to raise kids who have an open channel to you and to other trusted adults.

Chris takes the last stretch on keeping a relationship with a child while the other parent works against it. He describes staying scrupulously off the subject of what kind of person his ex is, addressing only the specific action in front of him, and being the consistent one for long enough that it registers. Neither of them promises it produces a result this week. The point is that the groundwork is there when your child is ready for it.

As always, this is strategic education, not legal or mental-health advice for your specific situation.

🎓 What you'll learn

• Why staying in an abusive relationship for the children's sake tends to backfire
• What kids absorb as the normal shape of a relationship, and how it repeats later
• Why waiting until the kids leave for college is a different calculation when abuse is involved
• How offenders use secrecy, and how to build a channel your child will actually use
• Why every child needs trusted adults besides you, and how to set that up
• Chris's rule for addressing your ex's behavior without attacking your ex
• Why consistency matters even when your child does not respond to it yet

⏱️ Chapters
0:00 Intro
1:00 Why "stay for the kids" kept Lisa in the marriage
3:00 What kids absorb as normal, and why the cycle repeats
5:00 Waiting until the kids leave home, and where that logic breaks
7:00 The dangers of staying, and the one Chris keeps returning to
9:00 Secrecy, grooming, and building a channel your kids will use
11:00 Chris on addressing the action without attacking the other parent
13:00 Why you never bash your child's other parent

Keep going 💜
Book a free 30-minute discovery call and we'll help you map your next steps: https://beentheregotout.com/call
📘 Been There Got Out: Toxic Relationships, High-Conflict Divorce, and How to Stay Sane Under Insane Circumstances — https://www.amazon.com/dp/194627495X
📘 Been There Got Out: When Your Ex Turns the Kids Against You (our parental-alienation book) — https://www.amazon.com/dp/1967674183

About Been There Got Out
Chris Barry and Lisa Johnson are high-conflict divorce, custody, and co-parenting strategists, and the founders of Been There Got Out. They know these cases from the inside: both have successfully represented themselves in family court. Few attorneys have a playbook for a case like this — Chris and Lisa write yours with you, so you and your kids can get through it as unscathed as possible.

One parent refuses to submit financial information so a child can apply for college aid. The court explains that the child is the one who loses. The parent does not care. Both Lisa and this episode's guest have watched that exact thing happen in their own families, on two different continents, and it is a good illustration of what withheld information is actually for.

Elizabeth Shaw is a narcissistic abuse recovery coach in the United Kingdom who works with people untangling relationships with narcissistic partners, parents, and adult children. She is known for short, plain explanations of covert behavior on Instagram, Facebook, and YouTube, the kind of post that gets sent around because someone finally recognized their own household in it. This is her second appearance on the show.

Elizabeth starts with dry begging, the indirect ask that leaves you paying for something you were never asked to buy, and then moves through the rest of the pattern: withholding small and harmless information for the sense of importance it buys, refusing to explain lateness, building a no-win loop where questioning the story makes you the problem, and isolating you through triangulation until your own judgment feels unreliable. She is clear that there is no personality type that invites this. Boundaries are still the answer, but some people read a boundary as a challenge.

The second half turns to the communal type: the one who volunteers at the charity or the church, gets the praise, goes home and complains about the people being helped, and accumulates defenders who will not hear a word against them. Elizabeth explains why trying to expose that person tends to backfire, and what leaving does instead. She and Lisa close on narcissistic parenting, from weaponized incompetence before a job interview to a parent who carries their child's trophy around as if it were their own.

As always, this is strategic education, not legal or mental-health advice for your specific situation.

🎓 What you'll learn

• What dry begging is, and why you end up paying for something you were never asked to buy
• Why no personality type invites narcissistic abuse, and what a boundary really does
• The difference between someone who is private and someone who withholds to feel important
• How the no-win loop gets built: ask and you're controlling, don't ask and it's your fault
• How triangulation separates you from the people who spotted the behavior first
• The communal narcissist: charity and volunteer work as a steady supply of admiration
• Why exposing that person backfires, and what happens when you leave instead
• Sabotage in practice: weaponized incompetence and withheld financial information

⏱️ Chapters
0:00 Intro
1:00 Reconnecting, and the account that started Lisa's light-bulb moment
3:00 Dry begging: the ask they never actually make
5:00 Who they go after, and why boundaries can read as a challenge
9:00 Secretive vs. private: refusing to answer simple questions
15:00 The no-win loop, and how trust gets built before it gets used
21:00 Isolation, triangulation, and fifteen years of a false story about a neighbor
27:00 The communal narcissist: charity, church, and the enablers
37:00 Envy, "noble" professions, and why conviction sounds like truth
43:00 Secret sabotage: weaponized incompetence and withheld information
49:00 Narcissistic parents, kids' sports, and who takes the credit

Keep going 💜
Book a free 30-minute discovery call and we'll help you map your next steps: https://beentheregotout.com/call
📘 Been There Got Out: Toxic Relationships, High-Conflict Divorce, and How to Stay Sane Under Insane Circumstances — https://www.amazon.com/dp/194627495X
📘 Been There Got Out: When Your Ex Turns the Kids Against You (our parental-alienation book) — https://www.amazon.com/dp/1967674183
🔗 Coach Elizabeth Shaw on Instagram (@coachelizabethshaw): https://www.instagram.com/coachelizabethshaw/
🔗 Elizabeth Shaw on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/coachelizabethshaw/
🔗 Overcoming Narcissistic Abuse, Elizabeth's site: https://wasitme.blog/

🎧 More with Elizabeth Shaw on this podcast
Ep 63: Why You Can't Reason With a Manipulative Ex

About Been There Got Out
Chris Barry and Lisa Johnson are high-conflict divorce, custody, and co-parenting strategists, and the founders of Been There Got Out. They know these cases from the inside: both have successfully represented themselves in family court. Few attorneys have a playbook for a case like this — Chris and Lisa write yours with you, so you and your kids can get through it as unscathed as possible.

You walk in with an airtight case and still lose, and it usually isn't because the judge is against you. In this episode, retired family court judge and longtime attorney Anthony Bompiani ("Judge Anthony") joins Lisa to explain why strong cases fall apart and how to present yours so it actually lands.

Judge Anthony covers the variables that decide a case, why a lawyer promising a "slam dunk" is a red flag, how to make audio and other evidence count by tying it to the legal issue, and the ordering trick built on what judges remember first and last. He shares the one cross-examination rule you never break, how to read a judge's body language in real time, and why the way you treat the clerk and the security officer can quietly shape your day in court.

This is strategic education, not legal advice for your specific situation.

✅ WHAT YOU'LL LEARN
 ✅ Why a "perfect" case can still lose, and what really drives the outcome
 ✅ Why a lawyer promising a "slam dunk" is a warning sign
 ✅ How to present audio and other evidence so it's admitted and actually counts
 ✅ Why one clip proves nothing without a pattern tied to the legal issue
 ✅ The primacy-and-recency trick for ordering your testimony
 ✅ The cross-examination rule you should never break
 ✅ How to read a judge's body language and adjust in real time
 ✅ Why how you treat court staff can quietly shape your day in court

⏱️ TIMESTAMPS (+1:00 for the bumper)
 0:00 Intro
 1:00 Why a "perfect" case can still lose
 2:53 The variables that decide a case, and the "slam dunk" red flag
 7:39 Making audio evidence actually count
 13:29 The binder-of-evidence mistake nearly everyone makes
 19:33 Primacy and recency: ordering your testimony to land
 26:51 Cross-examination: the one rule you never break
 37:33 Reading the judge, and why body language matters
 46:19 Finding the support that gets you through it

CTA (spoken): Preparing to steer your own case? Book a free discovery call at beentheregotout.com.
 Books: Been There Got Out — https://www.amazon.com/Been-There-Got-Relationships-Circumstances/dp/194627495X/ · When Your Ex Turns the Kids Against You — https://www.amazon.com/Been-There-Got-Out-Against/dp/1967674183
 Tags: family court, representing yourself, pro se, courtroom strategy, cross examination, audio evidence, custody hearing, retired judge, high conflict divorce

Christy Keating prosecuted sex offenders for the better part of two decades and then walked away from it, because every case she touched arrived after the damage was done. She now trains parents in prevention, and this conversation is about what prevention looks like inside a household where the other parent is the problem.

Christy is the founder of the Heartful Parent Collective, a certified parent coach, and a positive discipline educator. She sits on the board of the National Coalition to Prevent Child Sexual Abuse and Exploitation, teaches in schools for both professionals and parents, and still keeps the law license she stopped practicing under. Lisa was one of the presenters at Christy's Safe Parenting Summit, and this conversation covers what she was brought in to fill: the relationship piece.

Christy makes the case for a wide definition of safety. Parents are frightened of the extreme scenarios and underprepared for the ordinary ones, so they avoid talking about sex, substances, exploitation, and what a healthy relationship is supposed to feel like. She calls the goal brain safe and body safe, and she is explicit that keeping a body safe is an adult job, never a child's, even though the child still needs language and tools of their own.

A listener asks about co-parenting with a narcissistic mother who is harming the kids' mental health, and Lisa and Christy work it through together. Why having one steady parent shifts a child's outcome. Why self-regulation comes before co-regulation, so the parent is available to help a child process what happened. Why simply telling a child the truth does not counter the kind of influence that resembles cult conditioning. And the research on positive childhood experiences, which parents can deliberately stack against the adverse ones. Christy frames the whole project as breaking the cycle of intergenerational trauma before it repeats.

As always, this is strategic education, not legal or mental-health advice for your specific situation.

🎓 What you'll learn

• Why a prosecutor of twenty years left the law to work in prevention instead
• What child safety covers beyond the frightening headlines, and what parents skip
• Brain safe and body safe: why body safety is an adult job, never the child's
• How one healthy parent changes a child's odds when the other home is not safe
• Why regulating yourself comes before co-regulating with your child
• Why telling your kids the truth does not, on its own, undo being turned against you
• Adverse childhood experiences, and the positive ones you can deliberately build

⏱️ Chapters
0:00 Intro
1:00 A Friday pop-up, and what the Safe Parenting Summit is
3:00 Twenty years prosecuting sex offenders, then a turn to prevention
5:00 What safety covers: relationships, substances, trafficking, sex
6:00 Brain safe and body safe, and why body safety is an adult job
8:00 Parenting alongside someone who is harming your child's mental health
11:00 Why telling kids the truth is not enough on its own
13:00 Adverse childhood experiences, and the positive ones that offset them
14:00 Prevention as the way out of intergenerational trauma

Keep going 💜
Book a free 30-minute discovery call and we'll help you map your next steps: https://beentheregotout.com/call
📘 Been There Got Out: Toxic Relationships, High-Conflict Divorce, and How to Stay Sane Under Insane Circumstances — https://www.amazon.com/dp/194627495X
📘 Been There Got Out: When Your Ex Turns the Kids Against You (our parental-alienation book) — https://www.amazon.com/dp/1967674183
🔗 Christy Keating at The Heartful Parent Collective: https://theheartfulparent.com/

About Been There Got Out
Chris Barry and Lisa Johnson are high-conflict divorce, custody, and co-parenting strategists, and the founders of Been There Got Out. They know these cases from the inside: both have successfully represented themselves in family court. Few attorneys have a playbook for a case like this — Chris and Lisa write yours with you, so you and your kids can get through it as unscathed as possible.

When you represent yourself, the judge is forming an impression of you before you ever open your mouth. Connecticut trial attorney Eric Reinken joins Lisa to break down "court culture," the unwritten rules that shape how you're treated and that pro se litigants almost never get told.

Some of it sounds small until you see how it adds up: the phone that buzzes, the eye-roll, the file you slam down when you lose. Eric covers what to wear (and why the white shirt matters), how to prepare and mark exhibits so you look like you belong, the single best habit in front of a judge (be concise and stop talking), how to address the court instead of arguing at your ex, what an appeal actually is, and why ordering the transcript after every hearing is one of the smartest moves a self-represented litigant can make. General education on courtroom conduct, not legal advice for your case.

✅ WHAT YOU'LL LEARN
 ✅ Why "court culture" is real, and why ignoring it costs you
 ✅ The small habits that bias a judge against you, starting with your phone
 ✅ What to wear, and why the white shirt matters more than you'd think
 ✅ How to prepare and mark exhibits so you look prepared, not lost
 ✅ Why "be concise, hit your points, and stop talking" beats a long speech
 ✅ How to address the court instead of arguing at your ex across the aisle
 ✅ What an appeal can and can't do (it is not a second try)
 ✅ Why ordering the transcript is one of your best strategic moves

⏱️ TIMESTAMPS (+1:00 for the bumper)
 0:00 Intro
 1:00 Why court culture matters when you're on your own
 4:20 The small things that bias a judge against you
 8:32 Dress code, and the white-shirt rule
 14:11 Preparing and marking your exhibits
 18:12 How to present: be concise, address the court
 27:34 More pro se etiquette
 29:51 How appeals actually work
 34:10 Why you should always get the transcript

CTA (spoken): Heading into court on your own? Book a free discovery call at beentheregotout.com.
 Books: Been There Got Out — https://www.amazon.com/Been-There-Got-Relationships-Circumstances/dp/194627495X/ · When Your Ex Turns the Kids Against You — https://www.amazon.com/Been-There-Got-Out-Against/dp/1967674183
 Tags: pro se litigant, representing yourself in court, courtroom etiquette, family court, eric reinken, court culture, marking exhibits, family court appeal, self represented

Counselor Ann Silvers will not tell you family court delivers justice. She has worked with legislators and watched how laws actually get made, and her assessment is blunt: the system fails a great many of the people who walk into it. She has worked with legislators, she has watched how laws actually get made, and her assessment is that the system fails a lot of people. She is equally direct about guardians ad litem, where she sees bias arriving with the appointment and parents kept from their children on the strength of it.

Ann Silvers is a counselor and hypnotherapist in Washington State with over twenty years in private practice and roughly sixteen books published. Counseling is her third career, after a first in microbiology and a second raising her children, and she trained for it as a returning student over eleven part-time years. Her books include Abuse OF Men BY Women, a shorter volume on partner abuse in any gender configuration, Feed Your Calm on food and supplements for anxiety, and Building Skills to Uplevel Life, an emotional intelligence workbook. Lisa sought her out after seeing her speak about alienation and about men who are abused by their partners.

In this episode, Ann makes the case that anger is always secondary. Whatever the intensity, something underneath it is not being processed, and venting at the anger level does nothing about it. Her model is a container for each emotion with a release valve at the base. In a working system the emotion arrives, you take the information it carries, and you let the rest out. For most people those valves are sealed, the containers fill, and then the smallest new instance breaks the seal and returns years of backlog at once. She teaches a sentence for opening it, and points out that most of us are working with four labels for our feelings when the situation calls for far more.

Ann is honest that in some cases the power to change the outcome is not there, that you fight as long as fighting is reasonable, and that being right does not always carry the day. So the second half is about living in the meantime. Depression as anger turned inward, and why it presents differently in men. Interrupting rumination, plus two resets you can do inside two minutes. What alcohol does to sleep quality and to the following day, why caffeine's half-life matters more than people think, and the protein question a naturopath asks every anxious client. She and Lisa close on taking a compliment without deflecting it, and on the three elements that make journaling do something.

As always, this is strategic education, not legal or mental-health advice for your specific situation.

🎓 What you'll learn

• Why anger is always a secondary emotion, and what is usually sitting under it
• Administrative abuse: a broader term than legal abuse, and why it fits your case better
• The container model: why a small setback can return years of backlog at once
• The sentence structure that gets you underneath an emotion instead of venting it
• Depression as anger turned inward, and why it looks different in men
• Interrupting rumination, and two resets that take under two minutes
• Alcohol, caffeine, and protein: the physical inputs nobody links to a court date
• The three elements journaling needs before it improves anything

⏱️ Chapters
0:00 Intro
1:00 Ann Silvers's three careers, and anger as a secondary emotion
6:00 Nine years in: angry at the system, not at the ex
8:00 Guardians ad litem, bias, and "administrative abuse"
11:00 Powerlessness, and when being right doesn't prevail
13:00 Emotions as information, and the container with a release valve
16:00 The sentence that opens it, and chaining it back in time
20:00 Depression as anger turned inward, and the feel-good deficit
24:00 Interrupting rumination, and two resets under two minutes
28:00 Depression in men looks different, and what to watch for
35:00 Alcohol, caffeine, protein, and the family court protein bars
43:00 Taking a compliment, and journaling that changes something

Keep going 💜
Book a free 30-minute discovery call and we'll help you map your next steps: https://beentheregotout.com/call
📘 Been There Got Out: Toxic Relationships, High-Conflict Divorce, and How to Stay Sane Under Insane Circumstances — https://www.amazon.com/dp/194627495X
📘 Been There Got Out: When Your Ex Turns the Kids Against You (our parental-alienation book) — https://www.amazon.com/dp/1967674183
🔗 Ann Silvers, MA: https://annsilvers.com/
🔗 Ann Silvers's books, with Amazon links: https://annsilvers.com/blogs/news/ann-silvers-self-help-helper-help-books

About Been There Got Out
Chris Barry and Lisa Johnson are high-conflict divorce, custody, and co-parenting strategists, and the founders of Been There Got Out. They know these cases from the inside: both have successfully represented themselves in family court. Few attorneys have a playbook for a case like this — Chris and Lisa write yours with you, so you and your kids can get through it as unscathed as possible.