Long after the relationship ends, many survivors notice the harsh, second-guessing voice in their own head sounds a lot like the narcissist. Psychotherapist Chelsey Brooke Cole joins Lisa to explain how that happens, and how you take your own voice back.

It starts with pressure to move fast, warning signs that get waved away, and an occasional wonderful day that keeps you reaching for more. Over time you become a mirror, reflecting them back to themselves, until you're not sure who you are anymore. Chelsey and Lisa unpack reactive abuse and how it gets turned against you, why anxiety is a terrible foundation for any big decision, and the tell that a thought isn't really yours.

✅ WHAT YOU'LL LEARN
 ✅ How a narcissist's voice becomes the critical voice in your own head
 ✅ The early warning signs that get waved away as "just moving fast"
 ✅ Why the occasional great day keeps you hooked (intermittent reinforcement)
 ✅ How you slowly become a mirror for them and lose your own sense of self
 ✅ What "reactive abuse" is, and why it gets used against you
 ✅ Why anxiety is a terrible foundation for any major decision
 ✅ How to tell your own thoughts from the ones they installed
 ✅ The first steps to getting your own voice back

⏱️ TIMESTAMPS (+1:00 for the bumper)
 0:00 Intro
 1:00 Meet Chelsey Brooke Cole
 4:00 How the narcissist's voice gets inside your head
 10:00 Warning signs and the pressure to rush
 16:00 How control gets established
 21:00 The good days that keep you hooked
 26:00 Becoming a mirror, losing yourself
 31:00 "I don't know who I am anymore"
 36:00 Recognizing the voice isn't yours

CTA (spoken): Struggling to hear your own voice after a toxic relationship? 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: narcissistic abuse, chelsey brooke cole, inner critic, gaslighting, reactive abuse, intermittent reinforcement, toxic relationship recovery, self worth

If your spouse always controlled the money, some of it may already be moving somewhere you can't see it. In this episode, a Michigan divorce attorney who goes by "Jay Attorney" (and who began her career as a government investigator tracking down criminals' assets) gives Lisa a specific, practical map of where money hides in a divorce and how to find it.

Jay covers the quiet places first: the kids' 529s, overpaid taxes and credit cards, prepaid leases, gift cards, cash apps, crypto, and plain cash. Then the harder stuff that usually needs an expert: how a business owner runs personal expenses through the company to shrink what you're owed, the forensic "add-back" that recovers it, and phantom loans and promissory notes that collapse under a metadata check. She also explains the one-year rule for reclaiming an undisclosed asset and why a deposition under oath is often your cheapest, strongest move.

This is strategic education, not legal advice for your specific situation, and the rules vary by state.

✅ WHAT YOU'LL LEARN
 ✅ The one-year rule that can cost you a hidden asset forever, and how it varies by state
 ✅ The first place to look: your kids' 529s and custodial accounts
 ✅ How overpaid taxes, credit cards, and prepaid bills quietly park marital money for later
 ✅ The everyday ways cash disappears: gift cards, returns, cash apps, and crypto
 ✅ How a business owner shrinks the value you're owed, and what a forensic add-back recovers
 ✅ Fake loans, phantom promissory notes, and the metadata trick that exposes them
 ✅ Why a deposition under oath is often your cheapest, strongest move
 ✅ How to make peace when the money is gone and you can't get it back

⏱️ TIMESTAMPS (+1:00 for the bumper)
 0:00 Intro
 1:00 Meet Jay, the Michigan attorney who finds hidden money
 2:40 Why financial abuse hides in almost every high-conflict divorce
 4:57 Michigan's one-year rule to reclaim an undisclosed asset
 7:36 Look here first: your kids' 529s and custodial accounts
 10:35 Overpaid taxes, credit cards, and prepaid bills
 15:39 Gift cards, returns, and cash apps
 20:42 Cash, crypto, and money you can't trace
 22:37 How a business owner shrinks what you're owed
 31:09 Estate accounts, fake loans, and phantom promissory notes
 39:00 Home equity, redirected mail, and offshore secrecy
 43:57 When you can't get it back, and how to move on
 47:45 Where to find Jay

CTA (spoken): Divorcing someone who hid the money? 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: hidden assets, divorce finances, financial abuse, forensic accountant, business valuation, deposition, high conflict divorce, dividing assets, divorce tips

When a child pulls away from one parent, the instinct is to look for who caused it. Dr. Liz Stilwell starts somewhere less satisfying and more useful: the whole family system, and what it is actually doing to that child.

Dr. Liz Stilwell is a licensed psychologist in New York and New Jersey who specializes in forensic psychology as it relates to family court. She has more than a decade of clinical experience with children and families, which she brings into her custody evaluations, risk assessments, and treatment. She practices with West Essex Psychology, and this is one of her first long-form interviews.

In this conversation, Dr. Stilwell walks Lisa through the roles families are often confused by: the custody evaluator, the guardian ad litem, and the attorney for the child, and what a psychologist specifically adds. She explains structural family therapy, a decades-old method the psychologist Salvador Minuchin pioneered, which maps a family's boundaries and asks whether they still serve the child, and why she insists on involving the entire family system rather than a single parent-child pair.

They also cover the parts that hurt: how a divorce changes a child's world no matter how carefully parents try to shield them, why children so often take the path of least resistance instead of voicing a preference, and how a parent can separate their own feelings from their child's. Dr. Stilwell is careful and precise about the difficult questions, what the research actually supports on abuse allegations and alienation defenses, and how she thinks about reunification camps versus therapy, and she closes with what to ask before you trust any professional to evaluate your family.

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

🎓 What you'll learn

• What a custody evaluator does, and how the role differs from a GAL or attorney for the child
• What structural family therapy is, and why it treats boundaries as the problem to fix
• Why a good evaluator involves the whole family system, not just one parent and child
• When a therapist should refer allegations back to evaluation before treating a family
• Why children often take the "path of least resistance" instead of stating what they want
• How to hold your own feelings when your child sides with the other parent
• What the research actually says about abuse allegations and alienation "muddying the waters"
• What to ask before you trust an evaluator with your family

⏱️ Chapters
0:00 Intro
1:00 Meeting Dr. Liz Stilwell, forensic psychologist
3:00 Custody evaluator vs GAL vs attorney for the child
7:00 Structural family therapy: "a boundaries approach on steroids"
9:00 Why the whole family system has to be involved
11:00 Allegations of alienation, and when to refer back to evaluation
13:00 How a divorce changes a child's world, even when you shield them
15:00 Why a child takes the "path of least resistance"
17:00 When your child sides with the other parent, and not taking it personally
21:00 Abuse allegations, alienation defenses, and what the research really says
27:00 Reunification camps vs therapy, and choosing the right evaluator

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.

The spouse who wouldn't discuss money during the marriage is not going to start now. Erin Levine puts that near the top of her list of signals that a divorce is heading somewhere difficult, and she is direct about what refusing to share the numbers says about the person doing it.

Erin Levine is the founder and CEO of Hello Divorce, an online platform that walks people through the divorce process with automated legal documents and flat-fee plans, with mediators, attorneys, and certified divorce financial analysts available for the pieces that need a person. She practiced family law for sixteen years and ran a sizeable firm in the Bay Area before building it. Her interest in the system started much earlier: as a teenager she went through criminal and civil proceedings after being abused by her gymnastics coach, and came out of it wanting to help people opt out of a process she found isolating and re-traumatizing. She is also a state-certified domestic violence advocate.

Erin and Lisa work through the assumptions people arrive with. That a waiting period ends a marriage on its own, when an unsigned decree means you are still married. That common law marriage applies in every state. That children do better in a house full of tension than in a divorce. That a judge will hear the whole story and set the record straight, when courts are not built to punish and the vindication almost never comes. They talk about what to do when the other side stonewalls discovery, including subpoenaing employers and banks directly rather than spending a year asking, and about orders that get ignored because nobody wrote a deadline or a consequence into them.

There is a long stretch on hiring and managing a lawyer. What to ask on one scheduled call rather than a string of billable emails: what is your strategy here, what worries you most about my case, what happens when they file. Why an attorney who is emotionally intelligent is an asset rather than a softie. Why the aggressive courtroom reputation you were told to hire is usually the wrong fit for a case that could settle. And why your retainer is almost always refundable, so switching early is possible. Erin also gives the plain answer for anyone still in the house and afraid of what leaving will set off: call a local domestic violence center and build a safety plan first, because that window is the dangerous one.

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

🎓 What you'll learn

• The red flags, visible before anyone files, that a divorce is heading for litigation
• Why a state's waiting period running out does not mean you are divorced
• Why the aggressive "pit bull" attorney usually costs you money and misses your leverage
• The questions to ask a lawyer to find out whether they can handle a high-conflict case
• Why courts are not built to punish, and what a realistic result actually looks like
• How a private judge, arbitrator, or outside mediator can move a case the lawyers stalled
• What to do when the other side will not comply with discovery
• Why your retainer is almost always refundable, and when switching lawyers makes sense

⏱️ Chapters
0:00 Intro
1:00 From teenage litigant to family lawyer: why Erin built Hello Divorce
5:00 Getting clear on what you need before you spend the money
9:00 Divorce myths: waiting periods, common law marriage, staying for the kids
11:00 The myth that court is where you get vindicated
15:00 Before litigation: the financial disclosure that stresses people most
21:00 Red flags that your divorce will be the difficult kind
25:00 Why hiring the "pit bull" attorney backfires
29:00 Lowering the conflict: private judges, mediators, and the other side's lawyer
36:00 Hard truths, retainers, and vetting a lawyer for a high-conflict case
45:00 Safety planning, discovery stonewalling, and finishing the process

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
🔗 Hello Divorce: https://hellodivorce.com/
🔗 Hello Divorce on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/hellodivorce/

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.

What the other parent says about you is not something you can control. You can control whether your child has one home that feels steady. That distinction is close to the whole conversation in this episode, and it is a more hopeful one than most targeted parents expect.

Dawn Brauer has spent 24 years as a pediatric physical therapist. After her own high-conflict split, she went back to what she knew best, infant development and the parent-child bond, and turned it into the work she now shares under the name Secure Babies. She and Lisa met across Instagram in the early Been There Got Out days and have been friends since, and this is her return visit to the show.

Dawn and Lisa start with the behaviors that turn a child against a parent: gaslighting a child's reality until the safe parent looks like the controlling one, leaning on a child as a confidant, and the abuse-by-proxy that ramps up once a target has left. For the parent watching it begin and bracing to lose their child forever, Dawn's answer is that secure attachment is a buffer, and that the mind's leap ahead to catastrophe is a trauma response, not a forecast. She also talks openly about her own regulation work, and why a somatic approach changed how often she gets triggered.

The heart of the episode is her SECURE framework, built letter by letter: showing up so a child feels significant, empathy, co-regulation and consistency instead of chaos, being the behavior you want your child to model, resilience and repair when you get it wrong, and emotional education so a kid can name what they feel. The throughline is that the way you talk to your child becomes their inner voice, which is exactly why the steady home matters even when the other one is loud. Dawn closes on her newer work helping parents build that bond from infancy through tummy time.

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

🎓 What you'll learn

• Why there is no "healthy co-parenting" with an abusive ex, and what to aim for instead
• What abuse by proxy looks like: gaslighting a child's reality, and leaning on a child as a confidant
• Why a secure attachment buffers your child through what happens in the other home
• How catastrophic thinking convinces targeted parents the bond is already lost, and why it usually is not
• Dawn's SECURE framework: showing up, empathy, co-regulation and consistency, modeling, resilience and repair, emotional education
• Why your own regulation makes you the steady, safe home your child actually needs
• How "the way we talk to our children becomes their inner voice" plays out for a kid hearing criticism in the other house

⏱️ Chapters
0:00 Intro
1:00 From pediatric PT to the parent-child bond
3:00 Alienating behaviors, abuse by proxy, and gaslighting a child's reality
9:00 Why emotional abuse gets minimized, by courts and by us
11:00 Comfort when you see the turn beginning: secure attachment as a buffer
15:00 The parent's own triggers, and somatic therapy
20:00 The SECURE framework: showing up, significance, self-esteem
25:00 Empathy, and the three kinds of it
30:00 Co-regulation, consistency, and "flip your lid"
34:00 You: modeling, resilience, and repair
42:00 Emotional education, and learning to trust your gut
51:00 Unconditional love, boundaries, and where to find Dawn

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

🎧 More with Dawn Brauer on this podcast
Ep 9: Secure Attachment When Your Ex Is Alienating
Ep 172: Secure Attachment Against Parental Alienation

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 your own child starts treating you like the enemy, the panic can push you into the exact reactions that make it worse. In this episode, licensed psychologist Dr. Mark Singer, who works inside custody and family court evaluations, joins Lisa to explain what parental alienation actually is and how a targeted parent can respond.

Dr. Singer clarifies that parental alienation is a set of behaviors rather than a formal diagnosis, and distinguishes it from estrangement caused by real harm. He and Lisa focus on what helps: unconditional love and patience over self-defense, boundaries that never make a child feel rejected, and the danger of punishing a child for the other parent's influence. They cover how step-parents and blended families shift the dynamic, why so many kids reconnect as they grow, and the reality of child safety and false allegations.

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

✅ WHAT YOU'LL LEARN
 ✅ Why parental alienation is a set of behaviors, not a formal diagnosis
 ✅ The difference between alienation and estrangement caused by real harm
 ✅ Why defending yourself often backfires, and what to do instead
 ✅ How to set boundaries without making your child feel rejected
 ✅ Why punishing a child for the other parent's influence deepens the rift
 ✅ How step-parents and blended families change the dynamic
 ✅ Why so many kids reconnect later, and why consistency is everything
 ✅ Child safety, custody evaluations, and the reality of false allegations

⏱️ TIMESTAMPS (+1:00 for the bumper)
 0:00 Intro
 1:00 What parental alienation actually is (and isn't)
 6:00 Alienation vs. estrangement, and why the difference matters
 14:59 Responding to a child who pushes you away
 19:00 Boundaries without rejection, and why punishment backfires
 25:08 Step-parents, blended families, and divided loyalties
 34:00 Why kids reconnect as they grow, and how to keep showing up
 41:05 Therapy, child safety, and the reality of false allegations

CTA (spoken): Living through parental alienation? Book a free discovery call at beentheregotout.com.
 Books: When Your Ex Turns the Kids Against You — https://www.amazon.com/Been-There-Got-Out-Against/dp/1967674183 · Been There Got Out — https://www.amazon.com/Been-There-Got-Relationships-Circumstances/dp/194627495X/
 Tags: parental alienation, targeted parent, child rejecting parent, alienation vs estrangement, co-parenting, blended families, custody evaluation, false allegations, high conflict divorce

Custody evaluators spend a few sessions with your family and then write a report that can shape where your child lives. Dr. Mark Singer does this work in New Jersey, and he starts from a plain observation: most parents arrive with very little idea of what the evaluator is actually there to assess.

Dr. Mark Singer is a New Jersey custody evaluator who is familiar with coercive control and the dynamics of high-conflict cases, which is not something every evaluator recognizes. He posts as @drmarksinger. In this first of a two-part conversation, he and BTGO walk through the evaluation from the inside: what it is for, what it is not for, and how a parent can get ready for it without trying to perform.

A theme he keeps returning to is that a court, and the evaluation that feeds it, is not built to raise your children. It exists to resolve a legal question. The day-to-day parenting stays yours. He talks through why cultural knowledge and plain comfort matter when you are choosing or vetting an evaluator, since you want someone who will actually understand your family, and what a parent can focus on to prepare honestly rather than script an image.

This is Part I. Part II picks up how to respond when one parent is working to turn a child against the other, so a few threads here point ahead to that second conversation.

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

🎓 What you'll learn

• What a custody evaluator is actually assessing, and how to prepare for it honestly
• Why cultural knowledge and plain comfort matter when you choose or vet an evaluator
• Why a court, and the evaluation feeding it, is not built to raise your children
• Why an evaluator who understands coercive control changes what gets seen
• What to focus on before an evaluation instead of trying to perform an image
• A preview of Part II: responding when one parent turns a child against the other

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
🔗 Dr. Mark Singer on Instagram (@drmarksinger): https://www.instagram.com/drmarksinger

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.

Jude Egan started out taking cash-only divorces in a language he was still learning, in a town where he knew no one. Seventeen years later he is a certified family law specialist, and he still measures success one way: getting you done.

Jude Egan is a certified family law specialist practicing on California's central coast, with about 15 years focused on family law and a doctorate earned along the way. He also serves as minor's counsel, representing children in custody cases, and he is writing a book, The $35 Divorce, aimed at teaching people how to think their way through the process rather than only grind through it.

In this conversation, Jude and Lisa cover a lot of ground. He explains what minor's counsel is and how a California appellate case blurred the line between a child's lawyer and a guardian ad litem, how he draws out a coached child over several low-key meetings, and why the opposing lawyer, more than the facts, can decide whether a case stays sane. He makes the case for a firm trial date as what actually drives a settlement, and lays out his "band of reasonable outcomes," a way to judge an offer against the cost, in money and in life, of holding out for more.

They also get into the parts that stay with him: a coercive-control appeal he lost that nonetheless expanded what California courts will recognize as abuse, and a client he lost years earlier when a judge would not issue the order she needed. He talks about knowing your judge, rehabbing a bad first impression, writing on a co-parenting app as if it will become evidence (it will), and lowering his own fees so people can actually get in the door. His closing theme matches BTGO's: take real oversight of your case, because no one will ever advocate for you the way you can for yourself.

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

🎓 What you'll learn

• What minor's counsel is, and how it differs from a guardian ad litem
• How to tell when a child has been coached, and why it takes more than one meeting
• Why a firm trial date is the thing that actually drives a settlement
• The "band of reasonable outcomes," and how to weigh an offer against the cost of fighting
• How a coercive-control case can move the law even when you lose it
• Why knowing your judge, not just the law, changes how you present
• How to write on a co-parenting app as if the judge is reading it, because they might
• Why taking oversight of your case beats handing a lawyer a check to save you

⏱️ Chapters
0:00 Intro
1:00 What minor's counsel actually is (Family Code 3150)
5:00 Lawyer for the child vs. guardian ad litem, and a blurred line
11:00 Spotting a coached child, and keeping kids out of the case
15:00 The lawyers you can't work with, and the cost of letter wars
21:00 Why a trial date is a "burning fire" that drives settlement
25:00 The band of reasonable outcomes, and the cost of saying no
27:00 A coercive-control case that changed California law
37:00 Knowing your judge, and rehabbing a bad first impression
43:00 Communication that survives the court's microscope
49:00 Lowering the barrier: capped fees over big retainers
59:00 Being your own best advocate, and taking oversight of your case

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
🔗 Jude Egan at Jude Egan Law: https://www.judeeganlaw.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.

A courtroom can do one thing with your marriage: dissolve the legal contract. It cannot hand you an apology, a ruling that you were right all along, or a place to set down what happened to you. Michelle, who coaches under the name the Pistol Whip Hippie, begins there, because so much money and energy gets spent expecting court to deliver the one thing it was never designed to give.

Michelle came to this work through early-childhood education and years of home-based intervention, then built a coaching practice for people in high-conflict family court, many of them men who had frozen into deferring the way an abused partner does. She works from Mesa, Arizona, and runs in-person groups there. Her throughline is that regulation comes first: the calmer, more grounded parent is the one who can actually use the system, make decisions, and be a safe harbor for the kids.

In this episode, Michelle and Lisa talk through why wounded parents tend to over-correct, swinging from passive to aggressive at exactly the wrong moment, and how that plays into a trap the other side has already set. They cover parallel parenting and moving all communication into a written, app-based channel, so the record works for you instead of against you. Michelle explains the silver bullet by proxy, where an ex avoids attacking you directly and instead builds a case against your new partner, and why quality time and small anchoring rituals matter more than raw hours when your access is limited.

The conversation is the first of two parts, and it stays on mindset and nervous-system work more than courtroom mechanics. The takeaway is steady and practical: get yourself regulated, and the legal fight becomes something you can think your way through.

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

🎓 What you'll learn

• Why family court exists to end a legal contract, not to validate what your ex put you through
• Why your nervous system is the foundation: dysregulated, you can't advocate or decide well
• The over-correction trap: swinging from frozen to aggressive at exactly the wrong moment
• The "silver bullet by proxy": an ex who won't attack you directly, but goes after your new partner
• How to turn a court-ordered communication app from a punishment into a protective record
• Being your child's "point of reference": a steady household beats hours on a calendar
• Why raw parenting time matters less than the quality and safety of the time you do have

⏱️ Chapters
0:00 Intro
1:00 Where the "Pistol Whip Hippie" name came from
3:00 From early-childhood work to coaching parents in court
5:00 If your nervous system isn't handled, you have nothing
9:00 Family court is a wounded-human problem, not male vs. female
15:00 Why judges can't give you the story you need told
19:00 The over-correction trap for parents who spent years deferring
27:00 The silver bullet by proxy, and the restraining order
35:00 Parallel parenting and moving everything into writing
39:00 Being your child's steady point of reference
53:00 Quality over quantity when your time is limited

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.

Twenty years ago Katie packed a minivan one outfit at a time, took her two small children to karate, and drove a different way home. They followed a stranger's car from a restaurant parking lot, because the shelter does not give out its address.

Katie is not a professional guest. She is a survivor who spent about two decades not talking about most of this, and agreed to talk here because she thought it might reach someone. Her marriage began in 1989 and turned once the children arrived; the divorce took five years, largely because her ex had unlimited free legal help through his father's connections. She had no car for a while, a minimal allowance, and a transcription job she did after the children were in bed. Her name here is her first name and nothing else.

In this episode Katie walks through the whole arc. The early control, over who she saw and how long she was gone. Gaslighting she had no word for at the time, where objects moved or vanished and she was told she had imagined them. The cover stories she was instructed to repeat when he lost another job. Nights barricading a bedroom door with a dresser and turning it into a game for a three-year-old. The bank teller who gave her the first real plan she had. Two weeks in a shelter over Thanksgiving. And the round of protective orders, violations and hearings that followed.

She and Lisa spend a long stretch on court itself, and Katie is unsentimental about it. What opposing counsel said to her attorney before the first hearing. What happened when she testified about marital rape, and how the resulting attack on her credibility followed her through every appearance after. Why the marriage counselor stayed silent when her husband threatened her in session, and the reason she gave afterwards. What everyone involved treats as a business transaction while it is your entire life. Katie then covers what she would do differently: shielding the children from her own distress, not waiting for them to be older, and using the time they were with their father to look after herself, which she resisted for months and later called the thing that kept her functioning. Both children later needed inpatient and intensive outpatient mental health care. Both graduated college. The family is still in therapy, and Katie's parting instruction is to stop being cruel to yourself, because that is the abuse continuing after the abuser has gone.

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

🎓 What you'll learn

• What a safety plan actually contains, from the paperwork to packing one outfit a day
• Why you have to call a shelter before you go, and what to bring that they will not have
• How opposing counsel works on you in a hearing, and why you can feel it but not show it
• What can happen to your credibility when you testify about sexual abuse in a marriage
• Why the people you expect to help often will not, and where help does come from
• What Katie would do differently with her children, starting with what they saw
• Why taking the parenting time you are not with your kids to look after yourself is not selfish
• Why being cruel to yourself after you leave continues the pattern the abuser started

⏱️ Chapters
0:00 Intro
1:00 Meeting Katie, and how the marriage changed once the children arrived
5:00 Control, cover stories, and gaslighting she had no word for
11:00 Barricading the bedroom door, and explaining it to preschoolers
18:00 The bank teller who gave her the first real plan
22:00 Two weeks in the shelter, and the stories that all matched
26:00 Protective orders, violations, and the first hearing
30:00 The marriage counselor's silence, and the reason for it
32:00 On the stand: credibility, and what testifying cost her
43:00 What she would do differently with her children
50:00 Physical outlets, taking care of yourself, and full custody
57:00 Where the family is now, and being kind to yourself

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.