tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8250213436473479702024-03-14T11:44:56.033-07:00The WoN ConnectionShare the knowledge, Take the Journey, Heal the SoulCZBZhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09575206236892096611noreply@blogger.comBlogger148125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-825021343647347970.post-78468290809453185592014-12-31T12:47:00.000-08:002014-04-22T22:30:28.287-07:00The WoN Connection<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<span style="text-align: justify;">“Connectedness is what our purpose as human beings is about. It's a primal need. It feels that way to me. </span><span style="text-align: justify;">M</span><span style="text-align: justify;">y life feels meaningless without being connected to others. </span><span style="text-align: justify;">"I consider it a gift to belong here. The support I have received is crucial to my healing journey. The aloneness is unbearable in the immediate aftermath of the NPD relationship..” ~Talia</span><br />
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<b><a href="http://wonforum.blogspot.com/2011/02/together-we-have-won.html">Article: "Together, we have WoN!"</a></b></div>
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<b><a href="http://wonforum.blogspot.com/2011/04/brene-brown-power-of-vulnerability.html">Brene Brown on "Connections"</a></b></div>
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<b><a href="http://wonforum.blogspot.com/2011/03/journey-by-mary-oliver.html">"The Journey" by Mary Oliver</a></b></div>
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CZBZhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09575206236892096611noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-825021343647347970.post-65598256524116635322014-11-05T16:06:00.001-08:002014-11-05T16:07:26.309-08:00The Power of Empathy vs. Sympathy (Brene Brown)<div style="text-align: center;">
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Empathy Fuels Connection</div>
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Sympathy Drives Disconnection</div>
CZBZhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09575206236892096611noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-825021343647347970.post-49900831124868102662014-04-22T22:28:00.000-07:002014-04-22T22:28:02.111-07:00Feel Like Spilling Your Guts to the Narcissist? <div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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Are you reading self-help books telling you to spill your guts and Save Your Relationship? If so, the Royal Narcissist does a happy dance because YOU'RE finally admitting you're a mess! </div>
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Keep your self-examination PRIVATE. Do not tell your spouse. Do not send him or her a letter of apology, listing your many flaws and faults. Many of us make that mistake before learning about pathological narcissism. There is a huge distinction between normal narcissism and pathological and one of the differences is introspection. When people who naturally introspect realize they have contributed to problems in the relationship, they take responsibility for themselves and alter their behavior. </div>
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In a normal relationship, both people recognize their shadow side: the things we do unconsciously that disturb us and confuse a partner. We see it and we change it and we grow as a result. We assume our relationship with a narcissist works the same way--that once we admit we were selfish or self-centered, they will do likewise. </div>
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Have you noticed how healing an argument can be when both people take a hard look at themselves, admit their flaws, and apologize? When someone apologizes, other people are quick to forgive because they also realize that despite their best efforts to love someone, they ALSO make mistakes. With the narcissist however, admitting your flaws LETS THEM OFF THE HOOK. What happens afterwards is that during another altercation, the narcissist USES every intimacy you revealed about yourself to justify WHY they did what they did. You feel like a failure and the narcissist is off the hook....AGAIN. As long as we admit to having contributed to <i>the problem,</i> the narcissist will AVOID (deny) his or her responsibility! </div>
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This is counter-intuitive for people who are NOT narcissists. So we apologize again, hoping the narcissist will mirror our behavior by doing likewise and they DO NOT. In fact, they will build on your humble admission of fault as a character trait. For example: everyone does things that are selfish (insert whatever trait you want here). You say, "I am so sorry for only thinking of myself!" and you expect this admission to trigger a similar response from your partner. Instead, each time you are taking responsibility for your behavior, the narcissist accuses you of being selfish. He or she doesn't say, "I feel neglected when you do such-and-such". No. Why not? Because "I feel neglected" is self-revelatory. Instead, the narcissist says, "You are a Selfish person. Even YOU admit it."</div>
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Most people who have written about their break-up with a narcissist, have learned to introspect and take responsibility for their part in the fiasco. Most people also learn over time, that the narcissist will use any excuse, ANY EXCUSE AT ALL, to avoid taking responsibility. Your short list of defects, mistakes, flaws, and weaknesses become the reason WHY the narcissist acted the way they did.</div>
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It may appear to others that we're pointing accusatory fingers at narcissists without examining ourselves. This is simply NOT true. We have learned, even if we aren't conscious of it, that our admission of personal weakness will be used against us.</div>
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In a normal relationship, people are LOATH to bring up any intimacy someone has revealed about themselves. They respect the person's willingness to be honest about their problems. They empathize with how it feels when your weaknesses are used like weapons of humiliation. There's an invisible line that we do not cross, even if we are angry and defensive. We do not use someone's painful revelations against them.</div>
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Most people have been taking responsibility throughout the relationship, catching themselves in the act and apologizing. They didn't realize the narcissist was gathering ammunition instead of examining him or herself. The narcissist may cry or weep or appear to be suffering when you apologize but sad to say, it's not real. You'll know that the next time you've done something really swell and the narcissist says, "You may have excelled at that project, sweetie, but that's because you are so incredibly SELFISH. Even YOU said so!"</div>
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During my divorce, I read a recommended book titled "Spiritual Divorce" and dutifully listed my mistakes, flaws, ignorance, blah-blah-blah and tried to have a closure conversation with my spouse. I did not know about narcissism at the time. Do Not Do This if you believe your partner is narcissistic. It releases them from whatever introspection they are capable of and increases your VULNERABILITY. It's humiliating when your tender admissions, offered in good faith, are used against you. Or shared with the narcissist's new rescuer.</div>
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You must be cautious when sorting through self-help books that are NOT recommended for pathological relationships. YOU, the non-N, may end up being humiliated, degraded, and your most spiritual aspects of yourself brutalized. If you want (or feel a need) to self-deprecate, please post to a support group that allows you to express your feelings whatever they may be. For some reason, most people WANT to admit the things they did wrong. We need to purge and confess to being flawed. That's the good and the bad about having a conscience.</div>
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Remember: Pointing fingers at narcissists is difficult for Non-Ns. We want to be fair. We want to be honest. For every finger pointed at the N, we have three pointed back towards ourselves. So in order to feel good about ourselves, we can admit to having flaws, shadows and defects, too. But we CANNOT, SHOULD NOT, DO NOT need to admit this to the narcissist. It's not good for YOU and it's definitely NOT good for the narcissist.</div>
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When narcissists feel threatened, they cannot stop themselves from using whatever ammunition they have to defend themselves. Some narcissists regret their behavior afterwards but not nearly as much as we regret having trusted them.</div>
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Originally posted on <b><a href="http://n-continuum.blogspot.com/2011/12/feel-like-spilling-your-guts-to.html">the Narcissistic Continuum 2011</a></b></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;">©2011WebOfNarcissism.com </span></div>
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CZBZhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09575206236892096611noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-825021343647347970.post-60190095796870190422013-12-11T11:59:00.001-08:002013-12-11T12:00:15.937-08:00BlueSky responds: Is It Time to Date Again?<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<b>BlueSky writes on the WoN Forum:</b></div>
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I can relate to that anxious feeling... I don't think anyone here wants to go through another narcissistic relationship. It hurts too much. But the only way to ensure we don't get into another one is to isolate ourselves from all new people. </div>
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It's not much of a way to live.</div>
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Maybe the first narcissistic relationship is the worst. Maybe there is something to the idea that since we've been through it before, we'll be able to get through it faster the next time, if there is a next time. There may not be. I try not to be hyper-vigilant but sometimes catch myself at it. All of life is full of risks! We cannot get away from it. We could accidentally step out in front of a Mack truck tomorrow and that would be the end of us. </div>
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I was talking to my psychologist about taking relationship risks earlier this week. About all he could tell me was to enjoy the good moments when they come along - if things work out with that person, they work out, if they don't, they don't. </div>
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From a young age, I was in the mode of wanting to control the outcome of things when I was taking what I thought was a risky step. I used to worry so much about doing the wrong thing, getting hurt in some way or doing something that ended up hurting someone else. But we have no control over the outcome. We never know for sure how our actions or words are going to affect ourselves, affect someone else, or how others will interpret our actions and words. </div>
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I think we have to find a way to accept that <i>we don't know what will happen next </i>- good or bad. And, since about 2005, what I remind myself of is that the unpleasant things in life teach us valuable lessons about ourselves and others and that if we learn these lessons, we end up being better for it. It's hard to explain how I got there, but I decided that even though there had been so much damage and hurt from being with him, if someone gave me the chance to go back and avoid him, I wouldn't take it. I'd learned too much from it and valued what I had learned. (I know that many here likely would take that chance - and that's cool.) </div>
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I recently saw the movie "About Time"' and it was a kind of cute but rather muddled movie. It was about a guy who discovers he can go back and relive bad moments and alter the outcome so that life would always be good and conflict-free. I'm not sure the movie was really aiming at what I ended up thinking about ; but I did think about how the guy in the movie, by making everything all puppies and rainbows, was depriving the people around him of the normal obstacles and pitfalls we all encounter. I believe we need them. </div>
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OK - yes, maybe we don't really NEED narcissists in our lives....but please don't let that narc in your past get in the way of the possibility of experiencing and enjoying good things that come your way. The only way to find out if your new relationship is a good one or not, <i>is to go ahead and experience it. </i></div>
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Original WoN Thread: <b><a href="http://www.webofnarcissism.com/forums/index.php?topic=11875.0">I Messed Up</a> posted by gareth</b></div>
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CZBZhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09575206236892096611noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-825021343647347970.post-56328430017178361152013-07-20T10:27:00.001-07:002013-07-20T10:27:42.588-07:00Bringing Home the Bacon: financial ideas by ComoKate & her WoN Friends<br />
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"Since most of us have economic concerns, starting an idea thread with links to potential money raising entities might help and inspire us. As with anything, take what you need and ignore the rest. Always be safe in contacting others and good luck! Please feel free to jump in and share your ideas and resources. We have a lot of energy and talent! We survived the narcissistic relationship, after all!<br />
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When I was in college and supporting my daughter by myself, I worked weekends as a receptionist answering phones, making appointments, filing insurance claims...it was *very easy work to do* and be trained in for that did not get in the way of my studying. They even let me bring my daughter who would watch television in the women's break room and color so I didn't have to pay a sitter. ( some of the kindest people I ever met were there. The clinic was bought out by a big HMO and everyone was scattered). Those were <i>poor days</i> but we made do. We went to the "dollar" theater to watch old movies, had popcorn nights, I would give her a few dollars and she would take FOREVER to compare everything at the Dollar Store. I sold plasma once a week for a tidy sum of money. I think the rates for plasma are much higher these days and am considering doing it again if need be." ~<b>ComoKate</b><br />
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<b><span style="color: #76a5af;">Job Search Engine Sites</span></b></div>
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<b><a href="http://jobsearch.about.com/od/jobsearchengines/a/jobsearchengine.htm">Best Job Search Engine Sites</a></b></div>
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<b><a href="http://www.monster.com/">Monster</a></b></div>
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<b><a href="http://www.indeed.com/">Indeed</a></b> includes millions of job listings from thousands of web sites, including company career pages, job boards, newspaper classifieds, associations, and blogs. Job seekers may also search job trends and salaries, read and participate in discussion forums, research companies and even find people working for companies of interest through their online social networks.</div>
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<b><a href="http://www.linkup.com/">LinkUp</a> </b>is a job search engine that searches jobs on company sites. The job postings are from small, mid-sized, and large company career sections, and are updated whenever the company web site is updated.</div>
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<b><a href="http://www.simplyhired.com/">Simply Hired</a> </b>searches thousands of job boards, classifieds, and company sites. Advanced search options include type of job, type of company, keyword, location and the date the job was posted.<br />
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<b><a href="http://www.thebeehive.org/careercoach">The Beehive</a></b> This Career Builder tool will help you create a plan to get the Career you really want. There are lots of steps, but we’ll make it easy for you. There are four main sections, all of which will help you create a personalized Career Plan.<br />
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<b><a href="http://www.womenemployed.org/">Women Employed</a></b> Mobilizing people and organizations to expand educational and employment opportunities for America's working women.<br />
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<b><span style="color: #76a5af;">Education and Career Planning</span></b></div>
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<b><a href="http://www.clicktoempower.org/media/6803/careerempowerment_2_career%20exploration_workbook.pdf">Click To Empowerment:</a></b> Choosing and Planning for the Career You Want (a free 22-page printable pdf document)<br />
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<b><a href="http://www.ed2go.com/">Ed2Go</a> "</b>I have taken several classes from this site. They "partner" with local community colleges around the US. You get a paper certificate from your local school but take course work online. These courses helped me with my night classes and I've been very impressed with their services." ~<b>ComoKate</b><br />
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<b><a href="http://www.mooc-list.com/">The MOOC list</a></b> (Massive Open Online Courses). Free classes from the best Universities in the world.<br />
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<b><span style="color: #76a5af;">Selling, Trading, Bargaining</span></b></div>
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<b>How To Sell on Ebay</b> <b><a href="http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL32FA2EB5DF44DFAE">Video List</a></b></div>
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<b><a href="http://www.dummies.com/how-to/internet/ebay/Sell-on-eBay.html">Sell on Ebay for Dummies</a> </b></div>
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Unleash Your Digital Talents: <b><a href="http://digitalunite.com/guides/shopping-banking/making-money-online/how-sell-on-ebay">How to Sell on Ebay</a></b></div>
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<b><a href="https://www.listia.com/">Listia</a></b> is a site where you can list things you want to get rid of and earn "credits" you can then spend on other people's stuff on the site. You can ask others to pay the shipping, but you will get fewer credits that way. People tend to bid more credits (like on ebay) on items offering free shipping.<br />
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<b><a href="http://www.freecycle.org/">Freecycle</a></b> is a place to list things you want to give away and things you need or want.</div>
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<span style="text-align: center;">Have a talent you can market? </span><span style="text-align: center;">Turn Your Passion Into A Business on </span><b style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.etsy.com/sell?ref=so_sell">ETSY</a></b></div>
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"<a href="http://www.craigslist.org/about/sites" style="font-weight: bold;">Craigslist has a barter section</a>," <b>Lottie </b>says, "but people also list things in the normal categories and say sometimes they will trade. "If you have trade-able things, but no money, you can try bartering sites." </div>
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<b>Talia</b> brings the <b><a href="http://www.savingadvice.com/articles/2013/01/10/1013660_52-week-save-money-challenge.html">52-Week Save Money Challenge</a></b> to our attention. <i>"All you need to do is save the dollar amount of whatever week you are in during the year. Week one you add $1, week two, $2 and week fifty-two, $52. Add that all up and you have a cool $1378 dollars saved at the end of the year." </i>This is a printable <b><a href="http://www.savingadvice.com/images/52-week-savings-challenge.pdf">pdf worksheet.</a></b></div>
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<b>Hopeful1 </b>offers a suggestion: "I first heard <b><a href="http://www.komando.com/">Kim Komando</a></b> on the radio giving little snippets of computer advice. She also gives advice in other areas, she's very informative. She gives references to legit work at home businesses." </div>
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Check out this article on <b><a href="http://www.komando.com/tips/index.aspx?id=3700">The Kim Komando Show:</a></b> <i>Earn Money at Home via the Internet.</i> <b><a href="http://www.komando.com/tips/index.aspx?id=5617&page=1">Take Surveys</a></b>. Try <b><a href="http://www.komando.com/columns/index.aspx?id=3056">blogging</a>, </b>but don't buy a new car before your pay check arrives! </div>
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<span style="text-align: justify;"><b>Honeybear </b>suggests: "In many cities, there are now websites where you can sign up to babysit or even work as a nanny. My daughter had a great second income from babysitting for families. Years ago when I went back to teaching voice, I had to string together jobs at four different places but I made a decent living. If you have a bit of musical experience and know music and like kids, teaching beginning piano is also an option. Many music stores look for responsible people to teach, or if you have a piano or keyboard in your home, you can also make some money that way. </span></div>
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<span style="text-align: justify;">Private music schools in the area are also a source, but you have to seek them out and get a decent resume together. </span>House sitting can also be a good thing. Get info out there that you will watch houses and pets while people are traveling, and that could bring in some extra income. Also, if you lived in my daughter's neighborhood, I wouldn't have to keep her dog." </div>
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<b>LiftedUp</b> knows how to pinch a penny or two. She writes, "Financial survival. I nearly have been homeless many times and live on edge now so hope I can help!" </div>
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<b style="text-align: justify;"><b><a href="https://relayrides.com/list-your-car">Make Money Renting Your Car</a></b></b><span style="text-align: justify;"> </span></div>
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<b style="text-align: justify;"><a href="http://www.rentasofa.com/">Rent-a-Sofa</a></b><span style="text-align: justify;"> Do you have a guestroom that's empty most of the time? </span><br />
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<b style="text-align: justify;"><a href="http://www.rxoutreach.org/">OutReach</a></b><span style="text-align: justify;"> These people saved my life...if you need prescription medication </span><br />
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<b style="text-align: justify;"><a href="http://www.wahm.com/">WAHM</a></b><span style="text-align: justify;"> Finding jobs on WAHM and transcription etc, saved us from homelessness. </span><br />
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<b style="text-align: justify;"><a href="http://directory.ic.org/">Intentional Communities</a></b><span style="text-align: justify;"> If you are looking for an intentional community, ecovillage, cohousing, commune, co-op, or other cooperative living arrangement, browse through our community lists. </span><br />
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<b style="text-align: justify;"><a href="http://www.foodpantries.org/">Food Pantries</a></b><span style="text-align: justify;"> If you have a </span><b style="text-align: justify;"><a href="http://www.211.org/">211 line</a></b><span style="text-align: justify;"> in your area call that to get referrals to food pantries. Also one can cold blind call churches, and many will have food pantries. We have done it that way too. If you live in a rural town find out where the local flea market is, a lot of poor people will sell cheap goods at these including canned goods and you can bring stuff and sell for a small fee. I have done that before. Here there is no sales like that but where I used to live had them. </span><br />
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<b style="text-align: justify;"><a href="http://www.salvationarmyusa.org/usn/www_usn_2.nsf">The Salvation Army</a></b><span style="text-align: justify;"> will give out food </span><br />
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<b style="text-align: justify;"><a href="http://www.dollardays.com/wholesale-food-pantry.html">DollarDays </a></b><span style="text-align: justify;">Everything food pantry </span><br />
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<b style="text-align: justify;"><a href="http://www.indeed.com/q-Caretaker-jobs.html">Caretaker </a>"</b><span style="text-align: justify;">I saved a couple friends from homelessness by giving them this link which gave them the idea to get a caretaker position. If you are healthy and can handle it, there are jobs for disabled and elderly for live-ins. One job you can always get, its hard and yes, I did it, is a home health aide worker or nursing home aide. They won't turn you away usually and it may keep you off the streets." ~LiftedUp </span><br />
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<b>Lottie's </b>List:<br />
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Amazon seller's account<br />
Used book stores pay for books or trade<br />
Ask friends or family if they want to buy anything you have<br />
If you are a good cook or baker, there are people who would trade or pay for good home cooking. Place an advert," says Lottie.<br />
Yard or garage sales (place ads)<br />
Consignment shops in your area<br />
Dog/cat sitting<br />
Dog walking<br />
Gardening help<br />
Teaching a community class<br />
Teaching a class for local kids/homeschoolers<br />
Senior companion<br />
Running errands<br />
Party entertainment (balloon animals, face painting, clown?)<br />
Music lessons<br />
Cooking lessons<br />
Other lessons you could teach?<br />
Temporary employment agencies<br />
Substitute teaching<br />
Swap meets<br />
Farmers market<br />
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Lottie says, "If you are a good cook or baker, there are people who would trade or pay for good home cooking. Place an advert."<br />
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A few last words from our wise ComoKate: </div>
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"Being financially independent is extremely helpful in being able to make good decision that you *want* to make, not *have* to make. When you look at the suppression of women throughout history, much of it could not have happened without making women financially dependent upon men, ignoring the discrepancy in wages, lack of education, valuing time spent raising children, etc. </div>
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Keep employed and keep busy with your own life. He broke your heart and trust. Don't let the coward break your life or spirit !" </div>
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CZBZhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09575206236892096611noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-825021343647347970.post-66643867810615870552013-04-16T19:38:00.001-07:002013-04-16T19:38:18.049-07:00The Power of Connection with Hedy Schleifer at TEDxTelAviv<div style="text-align: center;">
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CZBZhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09575206236892096611noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-825021343647347970.post-1634889055625030702013-02-21T21:47:00.000-08:002013-02-21T21:47:07.391-08:00Resources for Domestic Abuse Survivors and Women Who Need Help Starting Over<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<span style="color: #38761d; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Financial Aid Grants Scholarships Financial Tools</span></div>
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<b><span style="color: #38761d;">National</span></b></div>
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<b><a href="http://www.wispinc.org/Programs/WISP/tabid/62/Default.aspx">Women's Independence Scholarship Program (WISP)</a></b><br />
Education is a powerful tool which breaks down barriers and opens doors of opportunity. The objective of the Women's Independence Scholarship Program is to help survivors of intimate partner abuse obtain an education that will in turn offer them the chance to secure employment, personal independence and self sufficiency.<br />
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<b><a href="http://www.scholarshipsandgrants.us/scholarships-for-women/">Scholarships And Grants.us</a></b><br />
Scholarships for Women<br />
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<b><a href="http://www.aauw.org/">American Association of University Women</a></b><br />
The AAUW awards fellowships and grants of up to $35,000 to women for educational, project and professional support and for post-baccalaureate study or research in the US. Candidates are evaluated based on scholarly excellence, commitment to helping women and girls through servide in their communities, professions or other fields of research.<br />
<a href="https://svc.aauw.org/about/branches.cfm">AAUW Branches Search</a><br />
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<a href="http://www.bpwfoundation.org/"><b>Business and Professional Women's Foundation</b> </a><br />
The Career Advancement Scholarship Program is for women who are advancing their careers or re-entering the workforce.<br />
Please check with the Legacy Partner in your state for more information on Career Advancment Scholarships and others they may award.<br />
<a href="http://www.bpwfoundation.org/index.php/contact/State_and_Local_Legacy_Organizations">State and Local Legacy Partners</a><br />
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<b><a href="http://www.rankinfoundation.org/">Jeannette Rankin Foundation</a></b><br />
Scholarships for women age 35 or older,low-income,pursuing a technical or vocational education, an associate's degree, or a first bachelor's degree,enrolled in, or accepted to, a regionally or ACICS accredited school<br />
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<b><a href="http://www.peointernational.org/">P.E.O. (Philanthropic Educational Organization) International</a> </b><br />
The mission of the P.E.O. Sisterhood is to promote educational opportunities for women and maintains six educational projects.<br />
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<b><a href="http://www.talbots.com/online/landing/landingPage.jsp?landingPage=scholarship&_requestid=685492">Talbots Women's Scholarship Fund </a></b><br />
For future scholarship info e-mail- talbotswomen@scholarshipamerica.org<br />
Phone-1-507-931-1682<br />
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<b><a href="http://www.soroptimist.org/awards/awards.html">Women's Opportunity Awards</a></b><br />
The Women’s Opportunity Awards program assists women who provide the primary source of financial support for their families by giving them the resources they need to improve their education, skills and employment prospects.<br />
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<b><a href="http://www.patsyminkfoundation.org/index.html">Patsy Takemoto Mink Education Foundation for Low-Income Women and Children</a> </b><br />
In 2013, the Foundation will offer five Education Support Awards of up to $2000 each to assist low-income women with children who are pursuing education or training<br />
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<b><a href="http://www.educationgrant.com/grants/grants-for-single-mothers/">Federal/State Grants for Single Mothers Info</a></b><br />
<a href="http://www.studentaid.ed.gov/fafsa">Application for Federal Student Aid</a><br />
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<b><span style="color: #38761d;">State Specific</span></b></div>
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<b><a href="https://scholarships.asu.edu/scholarship/1408?destination=node/1408">Arizona State University</a></b><br />
Arellano Scholarship for Survivors of Domestic Violence<br />
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<b><a href="http://www.aspsf.org/students.html">Arkansas State</a></b><br />
Single Parent Scholarships<br />
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<b><a href="http://www.webofbenefit.org/#!__services">Web of Benefit</a></b><br />
Boston/Chicago Areas<br />
Through grants,Web of Benefit provides women with access to multiple services and resources<br />
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<b><a href="http://www.uky.edu/CRVAW/applyWES/about.php">University of Kentucky</a></b><br />
Women's Empowerment Scholarship Program-Ending Violence Against Women One Diploma at a Time<br />
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<b><a href="http://www.mnsu.edu/wcenter/scholarships/">Minnesota State University</a></b><br />
Re-entry, single student with custody of children; or re-entry, married who have delayed their own education to raise a family with an inadequate income of their own, from their partner's income, or their partner's income make them ineligible for other financial aid.<br />
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<b><a href="http://education.uncc.edu/coed-financial-aid/external-scholarships/cvan-battered-womens-program">University of N. Carolina at Charlotte</a></b><br />
CVAN Battered Women's Program: John and Mary O'Dwyer Flynn Memorial Scholarship.Scholarship amounts range from $200 - $500. Scholarships may be used for tuition, books, fees, supplies, transportation, and/or child care. Applications are considered on an ongoing basis.<br />
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<b><a href="http://www.ndcaws.org/what_we_do/scholarships/index.html">North Dakota Women's Opportunity Scholarship Fund</a></b><br />
Provided By: North Dakota Council on Abused Women's Services/Council Against Sexual Assault in North Dakota. It is the purpose of the Women's Opportunity Scholarship Fund to provide higher education opportunities to low-income(according to federal poverty guidelines) women who wish to enter, or are currently attending a North Dakota college, university, or trade school.Apply March 29th through June 15th of each year.<br />
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<b><a href="http://www.oregonstudentaid.gov/scholarship-doc/Ford-Opportunity.pdf">Ford Opportunity Program</a></b><br />
<b>Oregon or Siskiyou County, California</b><br />
The Ford Opportunity Program is financial need-based and designed for single parents who are "head of household," without the support of a domestic partner, and who are seeking a bachelor’s degree<br />
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<b><a href="http://www.wwin.org/how-to-apply/programs/">WWIN</a></b><br />
<b>Washington State</b><br />
Improving the lives of low income women in Washington through financial assistance for health care and education.<br />
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<b><span style="color: #38761d;">Other Resources</span></b></div>
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<b><a href="http://www.rosefund.org/">The R.O.S.E. Fund</a></b><br />
In partnership with our medical affiliates we provide female survivors of domestic abuse with access to medical and dental reconstructive procedures to help them to regain their self-esteem.Our medical network of doctors and hospitals is located within New England. Accordingly, the likelihood of ROSE being able to help you, and place you with one of our participating providers is much greater if you are from the New England region.<br />
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<b><a href="http://www.dressforsuccess.org/home.aspx">Dress for Success</a></b><br />
The mission of Dress for Success is to promote the economic independence of disadvantaged women by providing professional attire, a network of support and the career development tools to help women thrive in work and in life.<br />
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<b><a href="http://www.clicktoempower.org/about.aspx"><span style="color: #38761d;">Financial Tools for Survivors of Domestic Abuse from Allstate</span></a></b><br />
The Allstate Foundation helps domestic violence survivors prepare for the future by helping them better understand and manage their personal finances. Working together with the National Network to End Domestic Violence(NNEDV) and Allstate Financial, the Foundation offers tools and resources to achieve these goals.<br />
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<b><a href="http://www.clicktoempower.org/financial-tools/curriculum-download.aspx">Moving Ahead Through Financial Management Curriculum Download</a></b><br />
Helps survivors of domestic violence move from safety to long-term security. These downloadable materials are available free of cost. Any personal information collected is confidential and will not be shared.<br />
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<b><a href="http://www.clicktoempower.org/financial-tools/online-financial-curriculum.aspx">Moving Ahead Online Financial Curriculum</a></b><br />
Watch only the Moving Ahead curriculum sections that meet your needs or take the time to view the whole series. Building your personal financial management skills helps build your independence.<br />
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<b>Sincere thanks to Talia for compiling this resource list!</b></div>
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CZBZhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09575206236892096611noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-825021343647347970.post-46964298023003703922013-02-13T19:14:00.003-08:002013-02-13T19:16:36.180-08:00Dr. Brene Brown talks about "the power of being vulnerable"<div style="text-align: center;">
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"Brené Brown is a research professor at the University of Houston Graduate College of Social Work. She has spent the past ten years studying vulnerability, courage, authenticity, and shame. She spent the first five years of her decade-long study focusing on shame and empathy, and is now using that work to explore a concept that she calls Wholeheartedness. She poses the questions:</div>
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How do we learn to embrace our vulnerabilities and imperfections so that we can engage in our lives from a place of authenticity and worthiness? How do we cultivate the courage, compassion, and connection that we need to recognize that we are enough – that we are worthy of love, belonging, and joy? " ~<b><a href="http://www.ted.com/speakers/brene_brown.html">TED talks website</a></b></div>
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Important talks by Brene Brown:</div>
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<b>Brene Brown on TED: <a href="http://woncinema.blogspot.com/2011/03/brene-brown-power-of-vulnerability.html">The Power of Vulnerability</a></b></div>
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<b>Brene Brown on TED: <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L0ifUM1DYKg">Listening to Shame </a></b></div>
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<b><a href="http://wonforum.blogspot.com/2011/04/dr-brene-brown-at-up-experience-event.html">Dr. Brene Brown shares her stories about shame at the <i>Up Experiment</i> event</a></b></div>
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CZBZhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09575206236892096611noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-825021343647347970.post-70165809788541985552012-11-16T16:56:00.001-08:002012-11-18T11:59:23.539-08:00"Is It Fear or Anxiety?" by Sandra L. Brown, M.A.<br />
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<b><a href="http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/pathological-relationships/201211/is-it-fear-or-anxiety">Is it Fear or Anxiety?</a> </b>(Part One)</div>
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<i>PTSD is preoccupied by both the past and the future</i></div>
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Women who have been in pathological relationships come away from the relationships with problems associated with fear, worry, and anxiety. This is often related to Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), or what we call High Harm Avoidance—staying on high alert looking for ways they might be harmed now or in the future. </div>
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PTSD, by its own nature as a disorder, is preoccupied by both the past (flashbacks and intrusive thoughts of him or events) and by the future (worry about future events, trying to anticipate his behaviors, etc.). With long-term exposure to PTSD, this anxiety and worry begins to mask itself, at least in her mind, as "fear." In fact, most women lump together the sensations of anxiety, worry, and fear into one feeling and don't differientiate them. </div>
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Fear is helpful and safety-oriented whereas worry and anxiety are not helpful and related to phantom "possible" events that often don't happen. To that degree, worry and anxiety are distracting away from real fear signals that could help women.</div>
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In the classic book on predicting harmful behavior in others, <i>The Gift of Fear,</i> Gavin deBecker delineates the difference between what we need fear for and what we need anxiety and worry for. In some ways, the ability to use fear correctly while stopping the use of anxiety and worry may do much to curtail PTSD symptoms. </div>
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The author, who is not a therapist but a danger anaylst, has done what other therapists haven't even done—nix PTSD symptoms of anxiety and worry by focusing on true fear and it's necessity versus anxiety and it's faux meaning to us.</div>
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The term fear was used by Freud (in contrast to anxiety), to refer to the reaction to real danger. Freud emphasized the difference between fear and anxiety in terms of their relation to danger: </div>
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–Anxiety is a state characterized by the expectation and preparation for a danger—even if it's unknown.</div>
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–While fear implies a specific object to be feared in the here/now.</div>
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(Anxiety is: "He might harm me" where fear is: "He is harming me with his fist, words, actions, etc.")</div>
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If you heard there was a weapon proven to prevent most crimes before it happened, would you run out and buy it? World-renowned security expert Gavin deBecker says this weapon exists, but you already have it. He calls it "the gift of fear." </div>
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The story of a woman named Kelly begins with a simple warning sign. A man offers to help carry her groceries into her apartment—and instantly, Kelly doesn't like the sound of his voice. Kelly</div>
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goes against her gut and lets him help her—and in doing so, she lets a rapist into her home.</div>
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"We get a signal prior to violence," Gavin says. "There are preincident indicators. Things that happen before violence occurs." Gavin says that unlike any other living creature, humans will sense</div>
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danger, yet still walk right into it.</div>
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"You're in a hallway waiting for an elevator late at night. The elevator door opens, and there's a guy inside, and he makes you afraid. You don't know why, you don't know what it is. And many women will stand there and look at that guy and say, 'Oh, I don't want to think like that. I don't want to be the kind of person who lets the door close in his face. I've got to be nice. I don't want him to think I'm not nice.'</div>
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And so human beings will get into a steel soundproof chamber with someone they're afraid of, and there's not another animal in nature that would even consider it."</div>
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Gavin says that "eerie feelings" is exactly what he wants women to pay attention to. "We're trying to analyze the warning signs," he says. "And what I really want to teach today and forever is the feeling of the warning sign. All the other stuff is our explanation for the feeling. Why it was this, why it was that. The feeling itself is the warning sign."</div>
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What happens over and over again is that women dismantle their own internal safety system by ignoring it. The longer she ignores it, the more 'overrides' it receives and retrains the brain to ignore the fear signal. Once rewired women are at tremendous risks of all kinds, risks of picking the wrong men, of squelching fear signals of impending violence, shutting off alarms about potential sexual assaults, shutting down red flags about financial rip offs, squeeking out hints about poor character in other people...and the list goes on. What is left after your whole entire safety system is dismantled? Not much.</div>
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Women, subconsciously sensing they need to have "something" to fall back on, swap out true and profoundly accurate fear signals with the miserly counterfeit and highly unproductive feeling of worry/anxiety.</div>
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Ladies—wrong feeling!</div>
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Then they end up in counseling for their forth dangerous relationship and wonder if they have a target sign on their forehead. No, they don't. They have learned to dismantle, rename, minimize, justify, or deny the fear signals they get or got in the relationship. As if their ability to "take it" or "not be afraid" of very dangerous behavior is some sort of win for them. As if their ability to look danger in the face and stay means they are as tough or competitive as he is.</div>
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No—it means they have a fear signal that no longer saves them. Their barely stuttering signal means it's been overridden by her. She felt it, labeled it, and released it all the while staring eye-to-eye with what she should fear most. </div>
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Then later, or another day or week passes and she has mounting anxiety—over what she wonders? She has a chronic low grade worry, wisps of anxiety that waif through her life. She can't put two and two together to figure out that true fear will demand to be recognized by her subconscious in some way—an illegitimate way through worry and anxiety that does nothing to save her from real danger. Her real ally (her true fear) has been squelched and banished. </div>
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When coming to us for counseling she wants us to help her "feel safe" again when actually, we can't do any of that. It's all in her internal system as it's always been. Her safety is inside her and her future healing is too. </div>
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She will sit in the counselor's office denying true fear and begging for relief from the mounting anxiety she is experiencing. She doesn't trust herself, her intuition, her judgments—all she can feel is anxiety. And with good reason! True fear is her true intuition, not anxiety. But she's already canned what can save her and now on some level she must know she has nothing left that can help her feel and react.</div>
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Animals instinctively react to the danger signal—the adrenaline, flash of fear, and flood of cortisol. They don't have internal dialogue with themselves like "What did that mean? Why did he say that? I don't like that behavior—I wonder if he was abused as a child." </div>
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An animal is trained to have a natural reaction to the fear signal—they run. You don't see animals 'stuck' in abusive mating environments! In nature, as in us, we are wired with the King of Comments, which is the danger signal. When we respond to the flash of true fear, we aren't left having a commentary with ourselves.</div>
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<i>"The future is not some place we are going to, but one we are creating. The paths are not to be found, but made, and the activity of making them, changes both the maker and the destination.” -</i> John Schaar</div>
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<b><a href="http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/pathological-relationships/201211/is-it-fear-or-is-it-anxiety-part-2">READ "Is It Fear or Is It Anxiety?" (Part Two) </a></b><b><a href="http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/pathological-relationships/201211/is-it-fear-or-is-it-anxiety-part-2">ON PSYCHOLOGY TODAY</a></b></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;">©2012 WebOfNarcissism.com</span></div>
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<br />CZBZhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09575206236892096611noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-825021343647347970.post-225711573807335112012-08-17T16:27:00.000-07:002012-08-17T16:31:57.656-07:00"Mistakes Mothers Make" in Child Custody Litigation<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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From the excellent <b><a href="http://www.thelizlibrary.org/"><span style="color: #45818e;">Liz Library</span></a></b></div>
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<b>Liz has embedded numerous links within this article, </b><i style="font-weight: bold;">so be sure to read her article on her website</i><b>. Click </b><span style="font-weight: bold;"><a href="http://www.thelizlibrary.org/site-index/site-index-frame.html#soulhttp://www.thelizlibrary.org/child-centered-divorce/mothers-mistakes-in-child-custody-litigation.html"><span style="color: #45818e;">HERE</span></a><span style="color: #76a5af;"> </span></span><b>to go to the Liz Library</b></div>
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<b>Mistake 1. </b><b>Making threats, complaining, antagonizing, provoking, telling the other side what information you have and what you know, and otherwise disclosing your plans. </b>Don't make threats. Don't complain. Don't exacerbate the situation pointlessly. The fleeting psychic satisfaction isn't worth it. And above all: don't tell the other side what you know, or what information you have and what you're going to do with it. The threats are particularly stupid when they're empty. All they will do is motivate him to better prepare his case. Even if they're not empty, you've lost the element of surprise, and given him a heads up how to prepare his case against you. (And be careful about what you tell mutual friends and coworkers. Too many of them end up being his friends. That includes what you put in writing or on-line or on other electronic devices that make records: email, Facebook, Twitter, cell phone bills, your vehicle's GPS and toll passes, your computer hard drive, all leave discoverable evidence.)</div>
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<b>Mistake 2. Failing to prepare. </b>Don't file a lawsuit (and don't threaten to file one -- and do everything possible to keep one from being filed against you) until you have copies of all information, especially all financial information and legal documents, that you will need stored with family or friend in a safe place, including a complete copy of the hard drives of household/shared computers (call a professional to do this). Also safely store away all jewelry and precious tangible items, as well as irreplaceable sentimental items such as old photographs. Carefully think through who controls what assets (and in the case of household utilities who has the power to shut them off.) Make a plan to segregate debts, and to assure that debts that will affect your credit rating will continue to be paid. Have at least one separate bank account and ready access to cash. Discuss your future case with a lawyer, or preferably several lawyers. Talk with an accountant (not the family accountant). Thoroughly consider what you will do for income, living arrangements, transportation, and other needs. Have your own medical insurance for you and the kids. Make sure that email accounts are separate and under passwords that only you know, and that you have private communications. Make sure that on-line social, financial and medical accounts are private and passworded. Get a post office box for private mail. (And forpetessake don't use the cell phone he gave you to talk to your lawyer!)</div>
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<b>(a) Failing to close joint credit lines. </b>Before "anyone" knows you're planning to get divorced, to the extent possible, close all home equity and joint credit card lines that can be run up and used to destroy your credit, fund litigation against you, and disappear your assets. Pay down the debts for which you are separately liable. (Even if debts are "assigned" to be paid by one or the other party in a divorce, that does not bind the third party creditor, who can still come after you.) This rule also applies to signing joint tax returns. See Mistake 9(a), below.</div>
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<b>(b) Filing for divorce near the 10-year social security spousal entitlement date.</b> If you're married for ten years, and you're the lesser-earning spouse, especially a stay-home spouse, this could mean a lot of retirement money in the future. Don't file for divorce in year 8 or 9 without making this calculation. </div>
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<b>(c) Not trading in the old car for a new one, not putting braces on the kid's teeth, or not obtaining that elective surgery "now".</b> These involve big ticket expenses that do not result in having divisible assets, but are or will be needed or wanted fairly soon, and may be far more difficult (or impossible) to purchase later on your own, when cash or credit is low, or when you need his agreement or a court order to obtain contribution. Buy them now with marital funds. Other big ticket expenses could be prepaying college tuition, the kid's tennis lessons, or for next year's summer camp. </div>
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<b>(d) Not living in the jurisdiction you want to live when you file for the divorce.</b> Don't relocate in the first place to follow the spouse to some remote, undesirable, or iffy new location. Maintain your permanent residence where you want to live, especially if he's got a temporary assignment. If your marriage breaks down in the new location, you and the children may be stuck there for a very long time. (And if you have minor children, do not ever, ever, ever move -- or bring them even temporarily for a visit -- to any country such as Saudi Arabia with Muslim sharia laws in which, because you are a woman, your freedom to travel, and your authority over your own children, including leaving with them, can be restricted.) </div>
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<b>(e) Having your baby in a state (or country) in which you may not want to live for the next 18 years.</b> The state where you give birth has initial jurisdiction over that child. If you're pregnant and not married, go home to mama. Do not be lured back to live with him while you are pregnant. Especially without having a job or substantial ties, family and friends, in the area. Even if his entreaties to become family or get engaged are not a ruse, if it doesn't work out, you're stuck. Possibly for the next 18 years. You can always do the "let's move in together", "let's get engaged" or "let's try it and see" later. Fewer and fewer courts these days are permitting women to relocate with their children.</div>
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<b>Mistake 3. Making the custody case primarily about how crappy the man is instead of about the children </b>(usually while professing to be "agreeing with" the proposition that the child "needs a relationship" with the father and/or pretending to be fostering this flimsy fuzzy idea). Not focusing on specifics of what the child needs and the observable tangibles: the child's developmental age, habits, temperament, needs for consistency or stability; the parents' work and school schedules; the child's work and school and sleep schedules (and extracurricular activities that are important and why); other persons in the respective parents' families, households and lives; the quality of the households and homelives of the parents; the parents' respective socio-economic positions, backgrounds, education, and particular things each can offer (or not); how the child might better benefit from this or that schedule rather than another and why; time constraints, the pragmatics of traveling and everyday life; the quality of the communications between the parents; and so forth.</div>
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<b>Mistake 4. Filing for child support, or a child support increase, if there is any way you can manage without it. </b>This is the number one way women end up in custody litigation, losing control of their lives, and possibly losing custody of their children. In too many cases of "custody switch", everything was going fine, and something (the ex's financial windfall, or her family) got her motivated to head into court for more child support. He frequently counters with a bid for increased time share, including a litany of accumulated wrongs she's ostensibly perpetrated as the primary custodial parent. The money is rarely worth it.</div>
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<b>Mistake 5. Going to a mental health therapist or psychologist.</b> Don't have -- and don't make claims of having -- any kind of emotional disability, disorder, anxiety, depression, inability to cope, or other dysfunction, if you can possibly avoid doing so. Especially do not leave a record of it on his insurance. Cry in the shower, go to church, meditate, or take up jogging. Exercise helps; therapy really doesn't. Drugs don't. Many lawyers endorse going to therapists because they don't want you wasting time and money venting to them, or you're rambling, unfocused, and using them as a sounding board. Some are just spouting the "common wisdom" promoted by mental health professionals. If you absolutely, positively must vent with one of these paid listeners for hire (therapist or psychologist) -- or a physician/psychiatrist but only if you're truly dangerously dysfunctional -- then do not tell anyone you are going, pay cash, don't get or fill prescriptions where any record of that can be discovered, and do not take any of their advice that remotely affects legal or financial issues.</div>
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<b>Mistake 6. Taking the children to a therapist.</b> There is absolutely nothing therapy from a mental health practitioner can do to fix a crappy situation. Fix the situation; don't try to train children to cope with it. If children are having problems, then it's far more likely than not that it's the adults around them who are doing something wrong. If they need academic tutoring, then seek that; not mental health therapy and unnecessary diagnoses. Fixing the situation is the only "therapy" that will help. And don't make the mistake of thinking that shlepping the kids to a therapist is a way to "build your case", create "evidence", or get a third party to testify to the children's "disclosures". It isn't. Better they "disclose" to a teacher in school. Judges have become jaded about clinical therapist testimony, especially therapists unilaterally selected by mothers, who are seen as biased advocates with next to no credibility in court (assuming they're even permitted to testify.) If children are physically injured, see a physician. If children are abused, call the police. If you're abused, call the police.</div>
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<b>Mistake 7. Claiming that the children have physical, emotional, or academic disabilities, and therefore especially "need" you.</b> One thing that helps mothers lose custody is to emphasize or fabricate claims that children are dysfunctional in some way, and hence need them, the primary caregiver under whose watch the kids haven't done so flippin' well. If the children do have disabilities, then de-emphasize these problems, and document realistically how the children have improved, and how well they are doing academically and in all other ways. Judges like to see happy people and well-adjusted children. They're burned-out on complaints, have seen far worse (atrocities), and have hardened sympathies. The reality is that unless you or the children are at actual imminent risk of life or limb, your chances of getting primary timeshare will be greater if you appear to have a beautifully functioning life with beneficent feelings for all, than if you or the children are traumatized, victimized and needy. (If this is impossible, then at least project yourself as a capable well-adjusted parent who is managing optimally under the circumstances).</div>
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<b>Mistake 8. Claiming that the children prefer you as parent. </b>If this is true, and if you're the better and more attached parent, it should be obvious. Stating that the children want or do not want this or that also is poisonous to your case (if there are good reasons for what they "want", then the facts alone underlying those reasons should be sufficient -- leave the children's feelings out of it.) If he's abusive or incompetent, you may need to articulate the facts, but only in a balanced way (see item #13 regarding how) without harping and without exaggerating. Custody evaluators especially want to see that you have a rational point of view and can point out "strengths" as well as weaknesses. Also bear in mind that anti-mother fatherhood-exaltation custody evaluators and guardians ad litem (most of them) particularly recoil when women emphasize their super-close loving relationships with their children. Perhaps they resent that they themselves don't have these kinds of relationships with their own children (or any children at all), or as children did not have a good relationship with one or both of their own parents. These professionals too often seem to have their own emotional and family issues, or at best are in it for the money. Any mother who appears to be emphasizing the difference between how the children feel about her versus their father is setting herself up for charges of being a parental alienator, "enmeshed", overly protective, controlling, angry, depressed, vindictive, and other mother-dissing phenomena. Also for father-sympathetic increased timeshare or "therapy" to improve the father-child relationship.</div>
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<b>Mistake 9. Allowing your lawyer to make substantive decisions, or to pressure you into signing agreements without adequate time to think about it.</b> It's your case. Your job is to make it easier for the lawyer to promote your case, and to find out what you need to do to accomplish your goals, working together. Read The Good Attorney-Client Relationship, and the Custody Prep for Moms website (linked above). Do not ever let your lawyer attend any court hearing or conference without you, or make any agreements in your case without previously discussing the matter with you and giving you time to think about it and decide. (Unless you're more sophisticated in these matters than the other side, that includes pressuring you to sign agreements at mediation too. If it's such a great agreement, it will hold for a day or so.) Make sure your lawyer understands this and agrees. Don't cave to threats from your lawyer of withdrawing or future demands for big lump sums for trial if you don't settle. (That's extortion, by the way, and should warrant bar discipline.) Some common seemingly minor things agreed to hastily or under pressure, but which can have long-term bad consequences, include:</div>
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<b>(a) Signing, or agreeing to sign a future joint tax return.</b> Be very careful about doing this unless the assured benefits far outweigh the risks, especially if he is self-employed or cheats on his taxes. "Outweighing the risks" means that the money is not merely promised, but in hand. </div>
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<b>(b) Not being the owner of the life insurance policy.</b> There are three roles in a life insurance policy: the owner (the person in contractual privity with the insurance company), the insured, and the beneficiary. Being the beneficiary is useless if you are not also the owner of the policy with the ability to control who the beneficiary is, or even whether the policy gets cancelled. Too many women have discovered that they can't collect a cancelled insurance policy from a dead man's estate.</div>
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(c) Agreeing to a "right of first refusal" that's not well thought through. This rule also applies to anything of importance that is hastily drafted by a mediator or lawyers at a settlement conference. </div>
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<b>(d) Agreeing to a "temporary" timesharing solution -- or "temporary" anything else, such as a parenting coordinator -- that you know is difficult or unworkable, or as to which you have doubts.</b> Just don't agree to "try it and see". Say no. Temporary agreements have a way of becoming permanent, or at least extremely difficult to get changed. Contra, adequate temporary financial support if you easily can get it and it's not so much that it will motivate him to up his timesharing demands. </div>
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<b>(e) Agreeing that the family home is a "bad investment", or too expensive for you, and should be sold.</b> Many financial advisors will give this advice as a rule of thumb. But occasionally they're wrong. Everyone still has to live somewhere and housing costs are going to be incurred no matter what. So "it depends". It's not like you can trade the residence for a stock portfolio and live on the street. The financial advisor's assumptions may or may not be correct. Moreover, life is to be lived, and quality and neighborhood counts, especially for kids. There are value judgments here in addition to purely quantitative calculations. The decision should not be made based on shoot-from-the-hip truisms uttered by pencil-pushing strangers (or the other party's desire to minimize support obligations.) </div>
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<b>(f) Seeking supervised visitation when it's inappropriate. </b>Unless you and your lawyer both think that there's a good chance that he's going to be criminally convicted of domestic battery or child sexual abuse, or you and your lawyer both are pretty sure that you have or will obtain evidence warranting the termination of his parental rights or at least the permanent cessation of all contact (rare), or you can out-litigate and out-spend him until he goes away, or you're desperate to protect the children even for a short time (and after that come what may), or your situation fits within one of the other limited appropriate uses of supervised visitation, cavalierly seeking this remedy is a way to make an expensive complicated mess of your case, guarantee the appointment of a GAL and probably also a custody evaluator, and place yourself at a 50-50 risk of ultimately losing custody.</div>
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<b>Mistake 10. Failing to attend every single court hearing and case management conference.</b> The overwhelming most of the time when bad things happen to mothers in litigation, they happen, or the seeds are planted for them to happen in the future, when their lawyer agrees to something without consulting with them. These mistakes include the "innocuous" agreements for the appointment of or choice of custody evaluators, parenting coordinators, therapists and GALs. (See mistake #11, below). Two heads are better than one, and you know the details of your life and needs better than your lawyer does. At worst, a lawyer who says that you should not or may not be present, or does not tell you in advance about every single case event, is more likely than not deliberately or stupidly or lazily going to end up doing something you may not like. Alternatively he may sincerely believe that your presence harms your own case (in which event he should have the balls to tell you this outright and explain why). At any rate, if your lawyer does not adequately inform you so that you can be present, or tells you that you should not or may not attend, then be assured that he is unlikely to be doing so out of concern for your personal time and schedule.</div>
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<b>(a) Failing to insist on having a court reporter at every single hearing.</b>This includes short motion calendar hearings and case management conferences, no matter how ostensibly unimportant, and no matter whether they're supposedly "taped" by the court. Do not ever let your lawyer suggest that you do not need a court reporter. A lawyer who does this is not representing your interests. It's not a money saver; it's penny-wise, pound-foolish. When it's documented, everyone behaves better, and you have the record you might need on an appeal (or when you hire a new lawyer.) </div>
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<b>(b) Failing to keep on top of and understand your case.</b> It's your case. You need to understand it, you need to demand all information about it from your lawyer, you need to know exactly what is going on at all times, and you need to be making the decisions and receiving all information necessary for you to make the decisions, including -- after explanation, when you are so inclined -- allowing the lawyer to decide between thoroughly described alternatives.</div>
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<b>Mistake 11. Allowing a mental health professional, child custody evaluator, parenting coordinator, therapist, guardian ad litem, visitation superviser, or other court-appointed professional into your case. </b>Do everything you can to prevent court-appointed professionals from coming into your case, and resist if your lawyer appears to be making an ill-thought-through rote suggestion. The odds are far greater than not that the introduction of these people will exponentially increase your costs, complicate your case, and end up hurting your chances of prevailing. This includes seeking inappropriate supervised visitation; see Mistake 9(f) above.</div>
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<b>Mistake 12. Letting your own parents badmouth the ex in front of the kids. </b>You'll be blamed as the parental alienator. They don't understand that times have changed. They only know that their own child has been wronged, and too often, won't shut up about it. Sad fact of life. More and more these days, it seems as if it's the grandparents who indirectly are the parties in these cases. It's great if you have their emotional or financial support, but do make sure they are up to speed on what helps and what hurts.</div>
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<b>Mistake 13. Not learning the difference between telling people what to think and articulating the facts in a way that will induce them to come to their own conclusions that accord with yours.</b> If you're in custody litigation or any court case, you will be testifying as well as telling others such as your lawyer the facts of the case. Credible witnesses talk about what they saw and heard. People tend to be much more convinced by their own conclusions drawn from descriptions of what happened than by conclusory statements such as "he's abusive". When neutral people are told what to think, their minds start weighing and silently arguing with your conclusions. By contrast, when they are given facts, they may ask for more information, but they don't feel the same need to mentally interpose their judgment against yours for the sake of balance. Good testimony is when you paint a picture for the other person by describing what you saw, heard, felt, tasted or smelled. Bad testimony is telling others your opinions, whether formed from your personal observations or from what other people have told you.</div>
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<b>Mistake 14. Choosing a lawyer because he or she tells you what you want to hear.</b> (Usually, the lawyer who gives you this kind of sell job actually is letting you mislead yourself by using vague language -- but the written retainer agreement may "sound" very different, e.g. "no guaranteed results".) Also be wary of the lawyer who sets fees unrealistically low (a risk that the lawyer will not be motivated), or in the celebrity stratosphere (a risk that your case may be made unduly complicated, churned with crony referrals and unproductive shenanigans.) Conversely, you do not want to hire a lawyer who tries to impose on you the lawyer's ideas of what your goals should be, or what is in the best interests of your children. This is not the same as a realistic assessment of your case, or asking questions to elicit why you hold the position you hold. Listen carefully to what the lawyer says. Ask "why". A lot. When you interview a lawyer, you should be able to articulate a reasonable outcome that you would like to achieve, and, although some will disagree with me, I think that the lawyer is going to be more creative, certainly more convincing, if he or she cares about the outcome -- beyond "winning" -- and is in actual ideological agreement with you. Consider the lawyer's own personal background. Ask about it. The lawyer also should be able to explain to you how realistic or difficult or expensive or not it may be to achieve your goals, and your options. Your lawyer is not there to give you emotional support, or to terrorize and punish your ex. The lawyer is there to work for you, to strive to get as close as possible to your reasonable goals while also attempting to limit the amount of pain and cost for all concerned without compromising those goals.</div>
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<b>Mistake 15. Failing to set long-term goals, and not keeping the end-game in sight.</b> Don't allow your case to get waylaid and off on money-wasting, time-wasting, or counterproductive tangents. Disputes over relatively unimportant issues. Squabbling over minor financial matters. Visitation timing minutiae. Discovery delays. Getting sucked into the bog of a custody evaluation. Remember where you want the case to end up, and how you want your family situation to look in the short term and long term. Keep the lawyer on track by asking how this or that suggestion or strategy or legal maneuver may help move you toward your goals.</div>
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-- <b><a href="http://www.thelizlibrary.org/site-index/site-index-frame.html#soulhttp://www.thelizlibrary.org/child-centered-divorce/mothers-mistakes-in-child-custody-litigation.html">liz</a></b></div>
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<b><a href="http://www.thelizlibrary.org/site-index/site-index-frame.html#soulhttp://www.thelizlibrary.org/child-centered-divorce/mothers-mistakes-in-child-custody-litigation.html"><span style="color: #76a5af;">Visit Liz's website</span></a> for embedded links and additional information</b>
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Elizabeth J, Kates, Esq. </div>
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<b><a href="http://www.thelizlibrary.org/site-index/site-index-frame.html#soulhttp://www.thelizlibrary.org/child-centered-divorce/mothers-mistakes-in-child-custody-litigation.html">Primary Care Lawyer</a></b></div>
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CZBZhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09575206236892096611noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-825021343647347970.post-90754411596090629542012-08-02T18:25:00.001-07:002012-08-02T18:26:55.063-07:00Coping Tips for Siblings and Adult Children of Persons with Mental Illness (NAMI)<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<i>While the person with a narcissistic personality is not necessarily mentally ill, the tips in this article are still relevant. </i><i>How much support should we offer? When should we back away? Narcissists are notorious for off-loading guilt and responsibility so it can be confusing sorting "our stuff" from theirs. </i></div>
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<i>This handout from the NAMI organization reminds us that as loving as we might be, we cannot cure another person's mental illness or disorder. That applies to narcissists, too.</i></div>
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<b>From the National Alliance on Mental Illness:</b></div>
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<b><a href="http://www.nami.org/Content/ContentGroups/Helpline1/Coping_Tips_for_Siblings_and_Adult_Children_of_Persons_with_Mental_Illness.htm">Coping Tips for Siblings and Adult Children of Persons with Mental Illness</a></b></div>
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If you find it difficult to come to terms with your sibling's or parent's mental illness, there are many others who share your difficulty. Most siblings and adult children of people with psychiatric disorders find that mental illness in a brother, sister, or parent is a tragic event that changes everyone's life in many basic ways. Strange, unpredictable behaviors in a loved one can be devastating, and your anxiety can be high as you struggle with each episode of illness and worry about the future. It seems impossible at first, but most siblings and adult children find that over time they do gain the knowledge and skills to cope with mental illness effectively. They do have strengths they never knew they had, and they can meet situations they never even anticipated.</div>
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A good start in learning to cope is to find out as much as possible about mental illness, both by reading and talking with other families. NAMI has books, pamphlets, fact sheets, and tapes available about different illnesses, treatments, and issues you may have to deal with, and you can join one of the 1,200 <b><a href="http://www.nami.org/template.cfm?section=your_local_nami">NAMI affiliate groups</a></b> throughout the nation. (For other resources and contact information about your state and local NAMI affiliates, call the <b><a href="http://www.nami.org/Template.cfm?section=Helpline">NAMI HelpLine</a></b> at 1-800/950-6264.)</div>
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The following are some things to remember that should help you as you learn to live with mental illness in your family:</div>
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You cannot cure a mental disorder for a parent or sibling.</div>
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No one is to blame for the illness.</div>
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Mental disorders affect more than the person who is ill.</div>
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Despite your best efforts, your loved one's symptoms may get worse, or they may improve.</div>
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If you feel extreme resentment, you are giving too much.</div>
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It is as hard for the parent or sibling to accept the disorder as it is for other family members.</div>
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Acceptance of the disorder by all concerned may be helpful, but it is not necessary.</div>
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A delusion has little or nothing to do with reality, so it needs no discussion.</div>
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Separate the person from the disorder.</div>
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It is not OK for you to be neglected. You have emotional needs and wants, too.</div>
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The illness of a family member is nothing to be ashamed of. The reality is that you will likely encounter stigma from an apprehensive public.</div>
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You may have to revise your expectations of the ill person.</div>
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You may have to renegotiate your emotional relationship with the ill person.</div>
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Acknowledge the remarkable courage your sibling or parents may show when dealing with a mental disorder.</div>
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Generally, those closest in sibling order and gender become emotionally enmeshed while those further out become estranged.</div>
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Grief issues for siblings are about what you had and lost. For adult children, they are about what you never had.</div>
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After denial, sadness, and anger comes acceptance. The addition of understanding yields compassion.</div>
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It is absurd to believe you may correct a biological illness such as diabetes, schizophrenia, or bipolar disorder with talk, although addressing social complications may be helpful.</div>
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Symptoms may change over time while the underlying disorder remains.</div>
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You should request the diagnosis and its explanation from professionals.</div>
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Mental health professionals have varied degrees of competence.</div>
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You have a right to ensure your personal safety.</div>
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Strange behavior is a symptom of the disorder. Don't take it personally.</div>
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Don't be afraid to ask your sibling or parent if he or she is thinking about hurting him- or herself. Suicide is real.</div>
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Don't shoulder the whole responsibility for your mentally disordered relative yourself.</div>
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You are not a paid professional caseworker. Your role is to be a sibling or child, not a parent or caseworker.</div>
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The needs of the ill person do not necessarily always come first.</div>
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If you can't care for yourself, you can't care for another.</div>
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It is important to have boundaries and to set clear limits.</div>
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Just because a person has limited capabilities doesn't mean that you expect nothing of him or her.</div>
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It is natural to experience many and confusing emotions such as grief, guilt, fear, anger, sadness, hurt, confusion, and more. You, not the ill person, are responsible for your own feelings.</div>
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Inability to talk about your feelings may leave you stuck or "frozen."</div>
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You are not alone. Sharing your thoughts and feelings in a support group has been helpful and enlightening for many.</div>
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Eventually you may see the silver lining in the storm clouds: your own increased awareness, sensitivity, receptivity, compassion, and maturity. You may become less judgmental and self-centered, a better person.</div>
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Copyright © 1996-2011 NAMI All Rights Reserved</div>
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<b>Visit the NAMI homepage</b> <b><a href="http://www.nami.org/">HERE</a></b></div>
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<br /></div>CZBZhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09575206236892096611noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-825021343647347970.post-29707561121646455512012-07-24T17:41:00.001-07:002012-07-24T17:47:28.767-07:00"Mothers on Trial: The Battle for Children and Custody" by Phyllis Chesler (updated in 2011)<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<b><a href="http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2011/08/05/read-excerpt-from-phyllis-cheslers-book-mothers-on-trial/">Read an Excerpt From Phyllis Chesler's Book</a></b></div>
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<b>"Mothers on Trial: The Battle for Children and Custody"</b></div>
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Published August 05, 2011 on FoxNews.com</div>
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This is a book that cried out to be written. I first heard that cry in the mid-1970s and, after years of research, published the first edition of “Mothers on Trial: The Battle for Children and Custody” in 1986. At the time, the book created a firestorm and was widely, if controversially, received.</div>
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In the last twenty-five years, there have been some improvements, but matters have decidedly worsened. The book you are holding has been revised and updated and brought into the twenty-first century.</div>
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Myths about custody still abound. Most people still believe that the courts favor mothers over fathers—who are discriminated against because they are men—and that this is how it’s always been.</div>
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This is not true.</div>
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For more than five thousand years, men—fathers—were legally *entitled* to sole custody of their children. Women—mothers—were *obliged* to bear, rear, and economically support their children. No mother was ever legally entitled to custody of her own child.</div>
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During the nineteenth century, pro-child crusaders gradually convinced the state that young children required maternal “tenderness”—but only if their mothers were white, married, Christian, and moral. The children of American slaves, of Native American Indians, of immigrant, impoverished, sick, or “immoral” parents—all were untenderly appropriated by slave owners and by the state. They were clapped into orphanages, workhouses, and reformatories or farmed out into apprenticeships for “their own good.”</div>
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By the turn of the century, a custodially challenged American mother enjoyed an equal right to custody in only nine states and the District of Columbia—and only if a state judge found her morally and economically worthy of motherhood. Until the 1920s, no American mother was entitled to any child support. Since then, few have received any.</div>
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The maternal presumption was never interpreted as a maternal right. The maternal presumption has always been viewed as secondary to the child’s “best interests”—as determined by a judge. This “best interest” was always seen as synonymous with “paternal rights.”</div>
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The contemporary fathers’ rights (or fathers’ supremacist) movement, which has been wildly successful in instituting joint custody and false concepts such as “parental alienation syndrome,” is also a throwback to the darkest days of patriarchy. It is not the modern, feminist, progressive movement it claims to be. Individual men may indeed be good fathers, and, like good mothers, they too may encounter discrimination and injustice in the court system. What I am talking about here is an organized political, educational, and legal movement against motherhood that has turned the clock back.</div>
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This book is about what it means to be a “good enough” mother and about the trials such mothers endure when they are custodially challenged. This book is not about happy marriages or happy divorces—it is about marriages and divorces that erupt into wild and bitter custody battles.</div>
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By now, many books have been written about the role of caring and responsible fathers, about male longings for a child, and about a child’s need for fathering. This book clarifies the difference between how a “good enough” mother mothers and a “good enough” father fathers. It clarifies the difference between male custodial rights and female custodial obligations.</div>
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Since Mothers on Trial was first published in 1986, thousands of mothers have called or written. “I’m in your book,” they say. “It’s as if you knew my story personally.” “You showed me that it’s not just happening to me, that it’s not my fault.” And, “Can you help me save my children?”</div>
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In the first edition of Mothers on Trial, I challenged the myth that fit mothers always win custody—indeed, I found that when fathers fight, they win custody 70 percent of the time, whether or not they have been absent or violent. Since then, other studies, including ten state supreme court reports on gender bias in the courts, have appeared that support most of what I say. (The Massachusetts report actually confirms my statistic of 70 percent.)</div>
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Although the majority of custodial parents are usually mothers, this doesn’t mean that mothers have won their children in a battle. Rather, mothers often retain custody when fathers choose not to fight for it. Those fathers who fight tend to win custody, not because mothers are unfit or because fathers have been the primary caretakers of their children but because mothers are women and are held to a much higher standard of parenting.</div>
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Many judges also assume that the father who fights for custody is rare and therefore should be rewarded for loving his children, or they assume that something is wrong with the mother. What may be wrong with the mother is that she and her children are being systemically impoverished, psychologically and legally harassed, and physically battered by the very father who is fighting for custody.</div>
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Today more and more mothers, as well as the leadership of the shelter movement for battered women, have realized that battered women risk losing custody if they seek child support or attempt to limit visitation. Incredibly, mothers also risk losing custody if they accuse fathers or physically or sexually abusing them or their children—even or especially if these allegations are supported by experts.</div>
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An ideal father is expected to legally acknowledge and economically support his children. Fathers who do anything more for their children are often seen as “better” than mothers, who are, after all, supposed to do everything.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
The ideal of fatherhood is sacred. As such, it protects each father from the consequences of his actions. The ideal of motherhood is sacred, too. It exposes all mothers as imperfect. No human mother can embody the maternal ideal perfectly enough.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
Given so many double standards for fit mothering and fathering and so many anti-mother biases, I wanted to know: Could a “good enough” mother lose custody of a child to a relatively uninvolved or abusive father? How often could this happen?</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
I first interviewed sixty mothers who had been their children’s primary caregivers, were demographically similar to the majority of divorced white mothers in America, and had been custodially challenged in each geographical region of the United States and Canada.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
On the basis of these interviews I was able to study how often “good enough” mothers can lose custody when their ex-husbands challenge them. I was able to study why “good enough” mothers lose custody battles and how having to battle for custody affects them.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
On the basis of these interviews and on the basis of additional interviews with fifty-five custodially embattled fathers, I was able to study the kinds of husbands and fathers who battled for custody, their motives for battling, and how and why they won or lost. </div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
I was also able to study the extent to which the custodially triumphant father encouraged or allowed the losing mother access to her children afterward.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
To repeat: Seventy percent of my “good enough” mothers lost custody of their children.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
Today the same experts who once tyrannized women with their advice about the importance of the mother-child bond appear, in the context of custody battles, ready to ignore it or refer to it, if it all, as of only temporary importance. They view the mother-child bond as expendable if it is less than ideal or another woman is available. Perfectly fit mothers are viewed as interchangeable with a paternal grandmother or a second wife.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
In 1975 New York judge Guy Ribaudo awarded sole custody of two children to their father, Dr. Lee Salk. Their mother, Kersten Salk, was not accused of being an “unfit” mother. It was clear that Kersten, not Lee, had reared their children from birth “without aid of a governess” and that Lee would probably require the aid of a “third party” housekeeper-governess were he to gain sole custody. The judge used an “affirmative standard” to decide which parent was “better fit” to guide the “development of the children and their future.” Kersten Salk’s full-time housekeeping and mothering were discounted in favor of Lee Salk’s psychological expertise and “intellectually exciting” lifestyle. Lee was widely quoted as saying the following: “Fathers should have equal rights with mothers in custody cases and more and more fathers are getting custody…The decision in Salk v. Salk will touch every child in America in some way. It will also give more fathers the ‘incentive’ to seek custody of their children”</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
This case swept through public consciousness; it was an ominous warning, a reminder that children are only on loan to “good enough” mothers. They could be recalled by their more intellectually and economically solvent fathers.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
Although mothers still received no wages for their work at home and far less than equal pay for equal work outside the home, and although most fathers had yet to assume an equal share of home and child care, divorced fathers began to campaign for equal rights to sole custody, alimony, and child support and for mandatory joint custody.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
Fathers’ rights activists—both men and women—picketed my lectures, threatened lawsuits, and shouted at me on television. “Admit it. Ex-wives destroy men economically. They deprive fathers of visitation and brainwash the children against them. </div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
Fathers should have rights to alimony and child support. Joint custody should be mandatory. We’ve already convinced legislators and lawyers, judges and social workers, psychiatrists and journalists to see it our way.”</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
Indeed, as we shall see, they have.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
By 1991, more than forty states had shared-parenting statutes in which joint custody was either an option or preference, and most other states had recognized the concept of joint custody in case law.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
The mothers began to find me. Would I testify on their behalf? Marta consulted me as a therapist. She said she was “depressed” and “wanted to kill herself.” Weeping, she told me, “For fifteen years my children were my whole life. I did everything for them myself. Six moths ago a judge gave my husband exclusive custody of our children. How could this nightmare ever happen? At first, I thought they’d come back to me on their own. But they haven’t. Why should they? I have a small one-bedroom apartment. Their father was allowed to keep our five-bedroom house. He gives them complete freedom and the use of their own credit cards. I work as a salesgirl for very little money. Is this a reason to go on living?”</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
Carol, a complete stranger, asked me for money. “My husband kidnapped our six-year-old son two months ago. It’s what they call ‘legal’ kidnapping. We’re only separated, not divorced. I need money to hire a detective to find them. I need money to hire a lawyer once they’re found. I only have six hundred dollars in the bank. And I’m four months pregnant.”</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
Rachel, also a stranger, mailed me a description of her custody battle. She entitled it “A Case of Matricide in an American Courtroom.” Rachel had a “nervous breakdown” after she lost her battle for child support, custody, and maternal visitation.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
In 1977, when I myself was six months pregnant, I decided to study women and custody of children. The theme had claimed me.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
Over the next eight years, I formally interviewed more than three hundred mothers, fathers, children, and custody experts in the United States and Canada and in sixty-five countries around the world. On the basis of these interviews, I conducted three original studies and six original surveys for the 1986 edition of this book. I wanted to understand why we take custodial mothers for granted but heroize custodial fathers, why we sympathize with noncustodial fathers but condemn noncustodial mothers, and why we grant noncustodial fathers the right to feel angry or sad but deny noncustodial mothers similar emotional “rights.” I also wanted to compare what noncustodial mothers and fathers actually do and contrast it with how they perceive themselves and are perceived.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
Must custodially embattled mothers be viewed only as victims? Can such mothers also be viewed as philosophical and spiritual warriors and heroes? Gradually I came to view them as such. Under siege, “good enough” mothers remained connected to their children in nuturant and nonviolent ways. They resisted the temptation to use violent means to obtain custody of their children. This is one of the reasons they lost custody. But they never disconnected—not even from children whom they never saw again.</div>
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<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<b>The 2011 Update</b></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
What’s changed since I first started researching and writing about custody battles?</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
Documented domestic violence does get factored in somewhat more than before. Where real assets exist, judges have the power to award more of them to mothers and children. Fewer mothers and fathers automatically lose custody or visitation because they are gay or because they have high-powered careers. However, certain injustices (crimes, really) that I first began tracking in the late 1970s have now gotten much worse. For example, battered women are losing custody to their batterers in record numbers. </div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
Children are being successfully brainwashed by fathers, but many mothers are being falsely accused of brainwashing. Worse: Children who mandated reporters—physicians, nurses, or teachers—report as having been sexually abused by their fathers are usually given to those very fathers. The mothers of these children are almost always viewed as having “coached” or “alienated” the children and, on this basis alone, are seen as “unfit” mothers.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
I understand that this sounds unbelievable. But it is still true. The mothers of raped children, who are also described as “protective” mothers, are seen as guilty of “parental alienation syndrome.” The fact that this concept, first pioneered by Dr. Richard Gardner and widely endorsed by fathers’ rights groups, has been dismissed as junk science does not seem to matter. Most guardians ad litem, parenting counselors, mediators, lawyers, mental health professionals, and judges still act as if this syndrome were real and mainly find mothers, not fathers, guilty in this regard. In 2010 the American Psychiatric Association was still fighting to include a new disorder in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders: the parental alienation disorder, to replace the debunked parental alienation syndrome.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
In 2009 and 2010 more than fifty mothers from twenty-one U.S. states and a number of foreign countries all shared their stories with me. Their cases took place between the late 1980s and 2010. Some cases are still ongoing.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
In some instances, I spoke with the mothers in person or at length on the phone. Some mothers filled out questionnaires, but many also sent additional narratives and documentation. Some mothers sent me eloquent, beautifully written, full-length memoirs. Some write pithy but equally heartbreaking accounts of their marriages and custody battles.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
Custody battles can take a very long time. They range from only several years to more than fifteen or twenty. They may have profound legal, economic, social, psychological, and even medical consequences for years afterward, perhaps forever.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
Going through a custody battle is like going through a war. One does not emerge unscathed. Yes, one may learn important lessons, but one may also be left broken and incapable of trusting others, including our so-called justice system, ever again.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
With a few exceptions, most of my 2010 mother-interviewees said that the system was “corrupt” and that lawyers and judges don’t care about “justice,” are “very biased,” or can be “bought and sold.” These mothers said that social workers, mental health professionals, guardians ad litem, and parent coordinators—especially if they were women—actively “disliked” and were” cruel and hostile” to them as women. (Perhaps they expected women to be more compassionate toward other women. In this, they were sadly mistaken.)</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
Also, many mothers found that female professionals were often completely taken in by charming, sociopathic men (“parasites,” “smother-fathers”), dangerously violent men, and men who sexually abused their children.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
Perhaps the mothers who sent me their stories were married to uniquely terrible men who used the court system to make their lives a living hell; perhaps mothers who did not write to me had the good fortune to have been married to and divorced from far nicer men.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
Good fathers definitely exist. Some fathers move heaven and earth to rescue their children from a genuinely mentally ill mother but do not try to alienate the children from her. If the mother has been the primary caretaker, some fathers give up custody, pay a decent amount of child support (and continue to do so), and work out a relationship with their children based on what’s good for both the children and their mother. These men exist. They do not launch custody battles from hell.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
And good fathers are also discriminated against in a variety of ways in the courtroom. For example, mothers who are independently wealthy or who come from powerful families can and do custodially persecute good-enough fathers. That is the subject of another book. And, when fathers do assume primary-caretaker obligations, traditional judges may view them unfairly as “sissies” or “losers.” Liberal judges will award them custody in a heartbeat.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
For this 2011 edition, I also reviewed hundreds of legal decision, which I obtained through LexisNexis and which all commenced and/or were resolved in the last quarter century. I interviewed lawyers and judges. I clipped articles about custody battles that appeared in the media from 1990 to 2010. Some were celebrity cases; others concerned high profile international kidnapping cases; some were about one spouse’s murder of the other during the course of a custody battle.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
When I was researching the 1986 edition of Mothers on Trial, joint custody was a totally new idea. Now, as I’ve previously noted, “shared parenting” or joint custody (defined in a variety of ways) is the preferred norm. Joint custody is seen as fair, progressive, feminist, and in the child’s best interest—even though a number of recent studies have shown that under certain conditions joint custody may be harmful to the children involved. Other studies conclude that we cannot prove that a particular custodial arrangement is either helpful or harmful to children.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
For example, according to a 1989 study, “a link was consistently found between frequency of visitation/transitions between parents and [child] maladjustment.” The study also found that “children shuffled more frequently between parents were more exposed to and involved in parental conflict and aggression and were more often perceived by both parents as being depressed, withdrawn, uncommunicative, and/or aggressive.”</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
A 2003 study found that “alternating custody”—for example, week on, week off—“was associated with ‘disorganized attachment’ in 60 percent of infants under 18 months. Older children and adults who had endured this arrangement as youngsters exhibited what the researcher described as ‘alarming levels of emotional insecurity and poor ability to regulate strong emotion.’” </div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
Nevertheless, from the 1980s on, the entire national court system and its various helpers believed that joint custody was the preferred way to go.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
As we shall see, joint custody research in the twenty-first century is a minefield of dangerous biases, conflicting conclusions, and outright lies.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<b>The View from the Bench</b></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
While lawyers and judges are quick to say that joint custody should not apply where there is domestic violence and incest, they are often the ones who do not believe that domestic violence and incest exist all that much. And, although lawyers and judges also say that joint custody may not work in “high-conflict divorces,” that does not mean that they still don’t encourage or even order it.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
From their point of view, if everyone walks away with something, there is less likelihood that their decision will be appealed or that the case will continue to stall. One judge said, “Maybe this will actually force these warring parties to grow up and learn to compromise for the sake of their children.”</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
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<div style="text-align: justify;">
Thus, the role of “parenting coordinator” and guardians ad litem has increased considerably. Many mothers view them as impoverishing agents because they are ordered to pay for their services.</div>
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<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
Talk to some good judges—those who are hardworking, experienced, and not corrupt—and you will find that their concerns are far different from those who consume the mothers who appear before them. Judicial concerns are not those of the plaintiffs or defendants. What you will hear is about how important it is to move the cases along, how huge the backlog always is, and how impossible it is to spend too much time on any one case. Judges are annoyed, even contemptuous, when rich people can afford to pay for a long, drawn-out trial. They understand that the working poor have no such luxury, and, at both conscious and unconscious levels, the judges may resent this disparity and despair over the arrogance of the rich. One judge said, “Rich people fight over everything. Even if they don’t need it, they will prolong the case in order to ‘win.’ It can be a second boat, a third home, a million dollar piece of art over another. They are spoiled children and I only pity their real children.”</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
Talk to judges and listen to them speak, and you will realize that judges do not feel responsible for the perpetual logjams that frustrate, enrage, and impoverish mothers. In fact, judges feel that they too are victims of a system that does not pay them that well. They feel it does not allot resources for the necessary number of judges. The system is beyond bursting at the seams. In addition, the matrimonial bench is utterly devalued because it concerns “families,” “mothers,” and “children,” all of whom are not high on the priority totem pole.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
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<div style="text-align: justify;">
Most judges are overworked and underpaid compared to what the lawyers who appear before them are paid. Judges are not given the proper time to really hear a case. They are forced into forcing plaintiffs and defendants to accept limited, far-from-perfect settlements, because that will close the case and get it off the judge’s roster. They opt for hard-and-fast compromises in the interest in moving a case along.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
From the point of view of a “protective” mother whose child is being molested, there can be no compromise. Allowing a pedophile father or a domestically violent husband to have access to his former spouse or child endangers both mother and child. Such mothers protest. They will not play ball. Their relationship to their children is not a corporate-like entity. It is “all or nothing” as far as they are concerned. They resist for as long as their money holds out—and then they go pro se. Their resistance to compromise is viewed as proof of “narcissism” or “mental instability.” The mother who insists on not compromising is also viewed as annoying, difficult, impossible, unrealistic, and perhaps even dangerous to the smooth functioning of an already overburdened system.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
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<div style="text-align: justify;">
Unless she has unlimited funds, it will cost her lawyer hundreds of thousands—maybe even millions—of dollars to fight for an uncompromised settlement. Some mothers fully expect their lawyers to do so, and when lawyers cannot, or refuse to do so, a mother will often turn on them and sue them for malpractice. “Protective” mothers view a lawyer who needs to make a living as a traitor and a sellout.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
Mothers do not understand how to divide a baby in half or share parenting with an absent, neglectful, or abusive father. Judges do not see it as dividing the baby in half at all. One judge pointed on, very reasonably, that in order to keep the nonprimary caretaker involved in a nonembittered way, the judge must give him or her some things to do.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
“But what if this father has never taken any responsibility and does not know what he is doing?” I asked.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
“All the more reason to bring him in. It can’t be good for a child to have no contact with the nonprimary-caretaker parent.”</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
Please note the careful, automatically gender-neutral language that one might initially view as a feminist step forward. And it is—except that such language usually “disappears” the much harder work that mothers (primarily caretakers) have undertaken, the higher standards to which they are held, and the nonprimary caretaker’s failure to take primary-caretaking responsibility during the marriage, not just after the divorce.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
The judge continued, “Why punish a child because their nonprimary-caretaker parent did not function as a caretaker in the past? </div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
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<div style="text-align: justify;">
As the child grows, nonprimary-caretaker parents can offer the child different opportunities.”</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
The judge was right, and yet she was absolutely committed to the following myths: (1) sane, good parents are ultimately going to do whatever’s in their child’s best interests; (2) all divorcing and custody-battling parents are equally crazy and have to be forced into better behavior; (3) mothers routinely allege battering falsely; (4) mothers are crazier and more difficult to deal with than fathers; and (5) mothers, not fathers, tend to “alienate” the child from the other parent.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
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<div style="text-align: justify;">
These are all myths.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<b>Myth 1: </b>Are divorcing parents really “reasonable grown-ups”? Many parents are far from ideal, even far from adequate. What is known as a “high-conflict” divorce does not involve parents who have their child’s best interests at heart. They are often more concerned with their own interests.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<b>Myth 2:</b> Sometimes a father is a charming sociopath. Just as we have no way of distinguishing rapists from non-rapists, we have no easy way to “spot” a pedophile, a parasite, or a wife beater. Sometimes a mother is genuinely sadistic, abusive, or bipolar. This is more quickly spotted, diagnosed, or even assumed by laypeople in the court system. Thus, if a mother has been losing sleep over the possibility of losing her children and/or is exhibiting the normal human response to being battered or terrorized at home, she may also be stigmatized by the belief that women are naturally “crazy” and “impossible.”</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<b>Myth 3:</b> Most mothers do not allege battering falsely. Some, a minority, do.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<b>Myth 4:</b> Mothers are not necessarily “crazier” than fathers; some are. However, facing the end of a marriage, the probable poverty it may entail, plus a possible custody loss, is a far greater stressor for mothers than for fathers. It does make them highly nervous, vigilant, overly demanding, unrealistic, and prone to engaging in self-sabotaging tactics. Men tend to recouple more quickly; women don’t.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
Many fathers, on the other hand, are more capable of treating a custody battle as just one more businesslike venture. This style is more compatible with what lawyers and judges need. Thus, even if the father is a secret drunk or drug addict, an embezzler, an active philanderer, and a whoremonger and/or treats his wife and children coldly, sadistically, and abusively, these facts will not necessarily come into play in a custody battle.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<b>Myth 5:</b> According to most research and statistical data and my own interviews, it is mainly fathers who brainwash and kidnap children, not mothers. Fathers falsely claim “parental alienation” when it is not true; yet they are believed. Mothers claim brainwashing when it is true, but they are not often believed.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
I do not view matrimonial lawyers as the main or sole problem. True—some lawyers are grossly incompetent and fail their female clients in every way: by misadvising them, sleeping with them, and prolonging their cases unnecessarily for monetary reasons. But it is also true that many lawyers serve their female (and male) clients effectively, even nobly.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
Lawyers do not cause men to impoverish, batter, or abuse their wives and children; lawyers themselves are often hobbled by a system of laws and by a courtroom pace that is glacial. One cannot blame lawyers because it is enormously expensive to wage a high-conflict divorce. Some women expect their lawyers to actually pay for their divorces and feel betrayed when lawyers will not or cannot do so. With some exceptions, our government will not and cannot subsidize the cost of high-conflict divorces for the parent, usually the mother, who is without resources in a country where money does buy one’s chance to obtain justice, however imperfect.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
Custody cases are also very stressful and difficult for the judges involved, many of whom try very hard to do the right thing. The law is not able to cure sociopaths or psychopaths; sometimes compromising with the devil is, unbelievably, the only possible solution. A judge might only be able to “save” one child—not all three. A judge might be able to save a child from the probable horrors of state care by allowing custody to remain with one far-from-perfect parent.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
Having said this, I would like to stress that both judges and lawyers, as well as the entire courtroom cast of characters (guardians ad litem, parenting coordinators, mental health experts, social workers, state agency employees, and the police) have acted in tragically anti-mother and anti-child ways. While feminist progress led to more women on the bench and to more female attorneys, many female professionals have shown very hard hearts toward the mothers whose fates are in their hands. So have their male counterparts.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
For this 2011 edition of <i>Mothers on Trial</i>, I have given honorable discharges to six previous chapters, although I’ve preserved some of the material throughout the book. I’ve also added eight new chapters in addition to this introduction. The new chapters include “Court-Enabled Incest in the 1980s and 1990s,” “Court-Enabled Incest in the Twenty-First Century,” “Legal Torture from 1986 to 2010,” “Contemporary Legal Trends, Part I,” “Contemporary Legal Trends, Part II,” “What to Expect When You’re Expecting a Divorce: A Private Consultation with Divorce Lawyer Susan L. Bender,” and a section of resources.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
Immediately after first publishing this book, I coordinated a Senate briefing in Washington, D.C., that was attended by some hand-selected custodially embattled mothers, as well as then Congress, now Senate members Barbara Boxer and Chuck Schumer. Together with the National Organization for Women of New York State, I also coordinated a national speak-out about women’s losing custody of children, which took place in New York City in the spring of 1986. Hundreds of mothers traveled from around the country to “speak out,” and many legislators, judges, and lawyers also participated in panels. I videotaped this event but, as yet, have not made these precious videos available to the public. I also appeared on network television programs together with “my mothers,” where we all said amazing things and were fairly well received. Women began organizing similar speak-outs elsewhere; I spoke at several in the United States and Canada the following year.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
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<div style="text-align: justify;">
In 1984 a new nonprofit organization, ACES (the Association for Children for Enforcement of Support), was launched. It now has forty thousand members and one hundred sixty-five chapters in forty-five states.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
In 1988 Monica Getz founded the New York-based National Coalition for Family Justice, which offers ongoing support groups for divorcing and custodially embattled mothers. Their mission statement reads in part as follows: “To identify problems and advocate for system changes in the divorce and family court systems in order to make them fair, user friendly, accountable, and affordable; to provide victims and children involved in domestic violence situations with crisis intervention, information, support, legal access, and advocacy.” They do not provide pro bono lawyers. But, in conjunction with the National Organization for Women in New York State, they have hosted important hearings and conferences.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
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In the mid- to late 1980s, “protective” and custodially embattled mothers also began running away from husbands who were sexually assaulting their child or children. Such mothers were almost all captured and jailed and lost custody of the children they were trying to protect.</div>
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By the early twenty-first century, custodially embattled mothers, including battered and “protective” mothers, had begun to form organizations that now meet annually and monthly. In 2003 Dr. Mo Therese Hannah began a new organization, an in 2010 Dr. Hannah coordinated and hosted the seventh national Battered Mothers Custody Conference. More than five hundred women travel from around the country each year to attend it. In 2010 they began a quilt project, Children Taken by the Family Courts, which is modeled after the AIDS quilt. They have asked mothers who have legally lost their children to provide a commemoration panel. Dr. Hannah has also published a book, Domestic Violence, Abuse, and Child Custody: Legal Strategies and Policy Issues.</div>
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In addition, many mothers throughout the Western world have created listserv groups and websites in which they tell (and keep updating) their own outrageous and heartbreaking stories in the hope that this information might help other women. Some ex-wives have become divorce coaches. Some mothers (including those whose interviews are contained in this book) became matrimonial lawyers and mental health professionals dedicated to helping mothers and children. Some researchers have tried to document ongoing injustices in family court.</div>
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Yes, custodially battered mothers whose children are being sexually abused have organized more visibly than mothers who have “merely” been impoverished and legally tormented and who must also share custody of their children with men who hate them as ex-wives and do not respect them as mothers.</div>
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On Mother’s Day 2010, a peaceful, silent vigil was held at the White House. In the somber spirit of the U.S. suffragettes, American mothers—along with the Argentine Mothers of the Disappeared, Turkey’s Saturday Mothers, the German Rose Street Women, and the Liberian women who stopped a civil war—gathered at the White House to “ask our President to meet with us and to help stop the systemic removal and oppression of our children by family court.”</div>
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<b>What Mothers Have to Say</b></div>
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<b>What to Do When a Custody Battle Invades Your Life</b></div>
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“First, take a deep breath and calm down. Save your strength for the long haul. Find out what all your options are. Find a therapist for some immediate support.”</div>
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“Any mother involved in a custody struggle is the one who’s on trial. You’ll need people to hold your hand, to hold you, to take care of your kids, to cook a meal, to say ‘I care.’ You’ll need people to keep telling you that you’re sane and that you have rights. Find those people now.”</div>
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“Never leave home without taking your kids with you—not if you’re fighting over custody. Don’t leave your kids behind to take a weekend vacation. If you’ve just been beaten up and you’re on your way to the hospital, you’d better take your kids along.”</div>
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“You’ll need to be on permanent good behavior in order to fight this fight. Your husband or someone will always be breathing down your neck spying on you and trying to make your life miserable.”</div>
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“I allowed things to get very bad before I started fighting back. I would never have waited so long if I knew what I know now: that for me not fighting was worse than fighting.”</div>
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“If you open up a power struggle with your husband, be prepared to learn how to win. Don’t go on believing that your husband won’t lie and manipulate to cheat you. He will. If he doesn’t, his lawyer will. In order to win on their turf you’ve got to be as rotten as they are. Being fair means you’re going to lose.”</div>
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“Keep a record of how often your ex-husband visits and whether he’s on time or late. Tape-record your phone conversations with him so you’ll remember everything. Record any threats he makes to you. Record what he does with the kids. Do they come back unfed, unwashed, late? Are they suddenly critical or distant from you? That could be a sign of brainwashing.”</div>
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“Organize your family photos into a ‘Mom and Kids’ showpiece album. Reconstruct a diary of what you did with and for your kids from your old calendars or appointment books. You’ll have to prove that you’re a good mother.”</div>
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“No matter what happens, no matter what they say, never let any social worker or lawyer or policeman make you doubt yourself or your self-worth.”</div>
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“Believe that you’re stronger than you think you are. Become very assertive about getting what you need from others, but depend only on yourself. You have the most to lose and the most to gain.”</div>
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“Once you’re married and a mother, it’s too late to think about how to win a custody battle. The time to think about whether and how you should become a mother is long before you’re pregnant and definitely before you marry.”</div>
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“Read the marriage contract. Talk to previously married or still married mothers who are living in poverty or who have lost custody of their children. Maybe it’s more realistic not to have children at all—or to have them through woman-controlled anonymous artificial insemination. But the state can still take your child away if you forge a check, work as a prostitute, use dope, sell dope, kill your violent husband in self-defense, or refuse to do whatever your state welfare worker wants you to do—if you’re economically depended on the state. If your own mother doesn’t like how you’re raising your child, she can call in the state against you. This happened to me. I won. But I never sleep easy.”</div>
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“Consider adopting a child as a single mother. I know a number of women lawyers who have chosen this route. And don’t marry or partner up. Not with a man, not with a woman.”</div>
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<b>On Hiring a Lawyer</b></div>
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“Get a copy of your legal bill of rights. Refer to it when you’re talking to your lawyer. Interview more than one lawyer. Be prepared to leave a lawyer who doesn’t treat you well and to sue him or her for legal malpractice.”</div>
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“Once you’re involved in the court system, you must ask your lawyer’s advice about everything. You can’t start a new job or love affair without first weighing the legal consequences involved. You must assume that everything you do can and will be used against you.”</div>
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“Your lawyer isn’t God. He or she is your employee. Don’t let your lawyer pressure you into anything ‘temporarily’ that you wouldn’t want permanently.”</div>
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“Talk to other women who’ve been through custody battles. Find a lawyer who’s experience in custody battles, not just in matters of divorce.”</div>
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“Don’t let your lawyer convince you that joint custody is the ‘answer.’ It isn’t. My ex-husband wanted to be the one who’d live with our kids in the house or, failing that, he wanted the judge to order that the house be sold. Then, once the cash from the sale of the house ran out, and I really had to struggle economically, that’s when my ex stopped paying child support. He told the kids that ‘he didn’t have to pay because they lived with him half the time.’ The kids had a much higher standard of living with him than with me. Gradually, they began to live with him full time. Then he moved two thousand miles away to take a very well-paying job. I still have joint custody. I just can’t afford to take my ex back to court or to travel four thousand miles a week in order to exercise my joint custody decree.”</div>
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“It’s important to find a good woman lawyer. Treat her with more respect than women usually treat each other. Don’t expect her to be your friend. Expect her to treat you with respect and to use the law vigorously and creatively on your behalf.”</div>
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<b>What to Tell Your Children</b></div>
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“In a custody battle, children challenge maternal authority right away. Don’t let them do this. Remind them that you’re still their mother, even if you’re fighting with their father.”</div>
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“If one parent is blatantly destructive to the children, it’s the job of the other parent to say so, loud and clear. I don’t believe that cover-ups are good for children.”</div>
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“If the state takes you away from your kids, tell them that you love them and always will. Tell them that you’ll always be their mother. Tell them you’ll be out looking for them as soon as you can. Tell them whatever happens, it’s not their fault.”</div>
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“I kept quiet for too long. I didn’t believe it was right to involve kids in private adult matters. But my kids needed to hear my point of view too. They needed to know that I loved them too and would fight for them. They also needed to know that I would keep loving them no matter what happened.”</div>
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“My children really want to leave me. I fought this for a long time. I should have let them go. They already had my love. They couldn’t have their father’s love if they lived with me.”</div>
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<i>Reprinted with permission from "Mothers on Trial: The Battle for Children and Custody," Revised and Updated Second Edition by Phyllis Chesler. Text copyright 2011 Lawrence Hill Books, an imprint of Chicago Review Press. Published by Lawrence Hill Books, an imprint of Chicago Review Press (distributed by IPG). Available in stores and online.</i></div>
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<i>Phyllis Chesler, Ph.D. is an emerita professor of Psychology and the author of fourteen books, including "Women and Madness" and "Woman's Inhumanity to Woman." She may be reached through her website at: www.phyllis-chesler.com </i></div>
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Visit original publication website: <b><a href="http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2011/08/05/read-excerpt-from-phyllis-cheslers-book-mothers-on-trial/"><i>Mothers on Trial</i> by Phyllis Chesler</a></b></div>
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<b>Amazon.com Link:</b></div>
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<b><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Mothers-Trial-Battle-Children-Custody/dp/1556529996">Mothers on Trial: The Battle for Children and Custody</a> </b></div>
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(Updated and revised for the 21st century)</div>
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<i>Mothers On Trial</i> <b><a href="http://www.facebook.com/pages/Mothers-on-Trial-The-Battle-for-Children-and-Custody/209469375756133">Facebook Page</a></b></div>
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<b><a href="http://www.rowan.edu/today/data/cast/WR20110721.mp3">07/21/2011 - The Women's Room</a> </b>Radio Program (about thirty minutes)</div>
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Gina sits down with author Phyllis Chesler to talk about her book "Mothers on Trial: The Battle for Children and Custody" as well as what drove her to write more than fifteen books relating to women's rights. They also talk about the history of custody and custody battles and how the have changed over the years. ~<b><a href="http://wgls.rowan.edu/episodes.php?feed=THE_WOMENS_ROOM">Link</a> </b></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;">© 2012 WebOfNarcissism.com</span></div>
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<br /></div>CZBZhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09575206236892096611noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-825021343647347970.post-36957616100926353672012-07-07T18:19:00.000-07:002012-07-07T18:20:20.806-07:00What You Need to Know About PTSD<div style="text-align: center;">
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<i>"PTSD is a label for a collection of symptoms" ~Peter K. Gerlach</i><br />
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A veteran family-systems and trauma-recovery therapist describes "Post Traumatic Stress Disorder," a set of common symptoms, and traditional and new ways of reducing the symptoms. He emphasizes that PTSD symptoms are widespread among kids and adults who experience parental abandonment, neglect, and abuse - so "trauma" can occur over years, not just one injurious event. </div>
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For more information, visit his website: <b><a href="http://sfhelp.org/gwc/m_illness.htm">Break The Cycle</a></b></div>
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©2012 WebOfNarcissism.com</div>
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<br /></div>CZBZhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09575206236892096611noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-825021343647347970.post-62484402461443815712012-06-21T17:31:00.001-07:002012-06-21T17:40:20.502-07:00Joan Borysenko talks about Resilience<br />
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Visit her website:<b> <span style="color: #134f5c;"><a href="http://www.joanborysenko.com/">Joan Borysenko</a></span></b><br />
Listen to Joan on her radio program: <b><a href="http://www.hayhouseradio.com/show_details.php?episode_type=0&show_id=53">Your Soul's Compass</a></b><br />
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Happiness is a choice of attitude. <br />
Resolve to choose gratefulness over<br />
regret until joy becomes your default setting.<br />
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Charles Dickens said it so simply:<br />
"Reflect upon your present blessings, of which every man has plenty;<br />
not on your past misfortunes, of which all men have some."<br />
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Make no mistake.<br />
This simple choice is your emotional magic wand.</div>
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©2012, WebOfNarcissism</div>
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<br /></div>CZBZhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09575206236892096611noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-825021343647347970.post-11684318411881694972012-05-20T18:38:00.000-07:002012-05-20T18:40:58.378-07:00Sandra Brown and the Sisyphean Commitment to Social Change through Public Awareness<br />
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<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sisyphus" style="color: #e06666; font-weight: bold;">Wikipedia</a>: <i>"...Sisyphus was a king punished by being compelled to roll an immense boulder up a hill, only to watch it roll back down, and to repeat this action forever..." </i></div>
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If you've loved someone with pathological behaviors that improve and regress without warning, you may connect Sisyphus with narcissism. You may view the narcissist as an unlearning fool, "repeating the same behavior expecting results to change." Up the mountain, down the mountain, up the mountain, down...never changing behavior and beliefs while expecting changed outcomes. </div>
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As the myth goes, Sisyphus was condemned to push a boulder up a hill. His hubris asserting himself as more clever than Zeus (as the rumor suggests), resulted in an eternity of unending and unrewarding struggle, his vision never achieved. His efforts never satisfied. The Sisyphean metaphor describes the pathological inclination for continual reinvention: chasing idealistic fantasies, losing interest (re: boredom); devaluing the fantasy; discarding it for another fantasy. </div>
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<a href="http://i610.photobucket.com/albums/tt188/CZBZ/Clip%20Art/sisyphusgivesup.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; display: inline !important; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em; text-align: center;"><img border="0" height="143" src="http://i610.photobucket.com/albums/tt188/CZBZ/Clip%20Art/sisyphusgivesup.jpg" width="200" /></a>This picture on the right is a good illustration of my marriage. I'm the littler boulder squashed between<i> a rock and hard pavement</i> when my x-husband took us down his path of least resistance. He's still pushing his Sisyphean boulders and so am I. Why am I? Because there's more than one way to read this myth.</div>
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<b><i>Interpretation #2: </i><span style="color: #134f5c;">The fate of</span><i> </i></b><b><span style="color: #134f5c;">Sisyphus mirrors the Boulder-Pusher's relentless commitment to social change </span></b></div>
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Social change is a process of <i>again-ing</i>: doing the same thing over and over and experiencing minimal results. <i>Sisyphean</i> describes the challenges people face when writing and talking about pathology. It's as if we're pushing a massive boulder up a hill in the belief we're making progress, only to experience the inevitable roll-back. We push the rock again because we're committed to educating people about pathology. Why? Because pathology results in "inevitable harm." All of society suffers because of ignorance about human pathology. </div>
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Last week, <b><span style="color: #e06666;"><a href="http://saferelationshipsmagazine.com/">Sandra Brown</a></span></b> wrote about the <b><span style="color: #e06666;"><a href="http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/pathological-relationships/201205/my-anniversary-the-plunge-pathology"><span style="color: #e06666;">Anniversary of her Plunge into Pathology</span></a>:</span></b></div>
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<span style="color: #e06666;"><i>"Twenty-nine years ago, my father [Frankie Brown] bled out in a grungy gutter in Cincinnati after a psychopath plunged a knife into his aorta outside of his jazz club. I was initiated into a victim-hood that would turn my life and career in a direction I hadn't much interest in before that particular day. </i><i><b>Much like pathology in anyone else's life, you don't get to pick how it plays out in your life.</b> "</i></span></blockquote>
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We don't get to pick how it plays out in our lives. We may have chosen a pathological partner but the truth is: we chose a person, not a pathology. That person just happened to come with warts that didn't get better in time. No matter how harshly we're chided for seeing <i>changeability </i>in a beloved's <i>pathological </i>traits, we were not choosing to be harmed. We made choices based on what we knew. When we discover there's such a thing as pathological personalities, we felt a need to share what we've learned. </div>
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Conscientious people are driven to take action because we care deeply; we are motivated by our moral nature---<i>the desire to alleviate harm for others. </i>My effort to create gentle websites granting safe space for sharing, learning, and healing is the result of feeling isolated and lacking knowledgeable support when I didn't get to pick how pathology would play out in my life. </div>
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<span style="color: #e06666;"><i>"Every new blog that goes up," </i>Sandra writes,<i> "every newsletter, every website, every talk, every social networking post, every private moment of your knowledge shared with another victim...is another message to another ear that has heard the message. <b>You learned it because someone cared enough to make sure you learned it.</b>"</i></span></blockquote>
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Rather than mocking the absurdity of our Sisyphean labor, let's assume the ultimate goal of social change is worthy of successive failures. Many of us see the summit of public awareness, but few of us are willing <i>or able</i> to commit to the arduous process getting there. That's not a condemnation of anyone. I would never suggest everyone-who-is-affected-by-pathology enter the public arena. There are valid reasons for stepping away. You must be able to roll with the boulder when it descends---for it will. For those of us who are able to speak for others, we should buck up and do it. For those of you who are motivated to tell your story, don't expect a welcome committee for breaking the silence. The Gods will be angry! Ignore the God of Pathology undermining your voice, invalidating you & your efforts, remember: </div>
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<b><span style="color: #134f5c;">Speaking out is Meaningful Work. It is not pointless. It is not futile.</span> </b></div>
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You never know whose life you have touched because you dared push the ignorance boulder six inches higher before slip-sliding three. You needn't be a specialist in psychology or the social sciences, either. <b>You are the expert on your life.</b> Your story ripples through people's lives in ways you'll never realize. It takes faith to believe your life experience matters enough to make a difference in the future of a <i>more</i> <i>civilized and 'just' </i>society. Sandra Brown asks us to:<br />
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<span style="color: #e06666;"><i style="text-align: -webkit-auto;">"Help me celebrate my father's death anniversary in a way that brings meaning and hope to many. Tomorrow, share what you know with just ONE person—someone that you have felt in your gut needs to know about the permanence and the pain of pathological relationships...</i><i>His death should never have been for nothing—and as long as people have been helped, it hasn't. </i><i style="text-align: -webkit-auto;">"</i></span></blockquote>
Maybe all social change begins with a simple story: "Once upon a time, I believed all people were capable of change, if we only loved them enough. And then one day..........."<br />
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Sandra encourages people to email her so she'll know readers "Passed it forward." If you want to comment on her blog, I added her blog link below. If you'd like to post on my blog, I'll let Sandra know about your comments. We have a long way to go educating people about pathology, that's true; but already Sandra Brown's work has made a difference in people's lives and our children's lives, too.<br />
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Rest in peace, Frankie.<br />
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Hugs all,<br />
CZ<br />
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<b>RESOURCES</b><br />
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Sandra Brown's<b> <a href="http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/pathological-relationships"><span style="color: #e06666;">PsychologyToday Blog: Pathological Relationships</span></a></b><br />
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Sandra Brown's <b><a href="http://saferelationshipsmagazine.com/"><span style="color: #e06666;">The Institute for Relational Harm Reduction and Public Pathology Education Website</span></a></b></div>
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This article also posted on <b><a href="http://n-continuum.blogspot.com/2012/05/sandra-brown-and-sisyphean-commitment.html">The Narcissistic Continuum</a> </b>by CZBZ</div>
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©2012 WebOfNarcissism.com</div>
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<br /></div>CZBZhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09575206236892096611noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-825021343647347970.post-90881230861985941472012-04-25T19:13:00.004-07:002012-04-25T19:27:39.105-07:00iPhone & Android Safety Apps<div style="text-align: justify;">
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<span style="text-align: justify;"><b style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.circleof6app.com/index.html">Circle of Six Website</a></b></span></div>
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<span style="text-align: justify;">Winner of the HHS/White House Apps Against Abuse Challenge</span></div>
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<b><a href="http://www.onwatchoncampus.com/">OnWatch</a></b><br />
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"Washington, DC (April 18, 2012) - OnWatch™, the award-winning mobile safety app and winner of the Obama Administration's Apps Against Abuse Technology Challenge, launched today at the White House. The launch was part of a program highlighting the importance of the Violence Against Women Act."<br />
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<i>"The best way to minimize your chances of becoming a victim of violent crime (robbery, sexual assault, rape, domestic violence) is to identify and call on resources to help you out of dangerous situations. These five iPhone and Android apps put those resources at your fingertips quickly, and several of them have both free and premium versions. Whether you're in immediate trouble or get separated from friends during a night out and don't know how to get home, having these apps on your phone can reduce your risk and bring assistance when you need it. Although several were originally developed for students to reduce the risk of sexual assault on campus, they are suitable for all women..."</i> ~ <b><a href="http://womensissues.about.com/od/violenceagainstwomen/tp/Best-Apps-For-Women-Concerned-With-Safety-And-Security.htm?nl=1">Best Apps for Women Concerned with Safety and Security</a> </b>by Linda Lowen</div>
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©2012 WebOfNarcissism</div>
<br /></div>CZBZhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09575206236892096611noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-825021343647347970.post-84343528865983247302012-04-12T23:56:00.003-07:002012-04-12T23:59:27.429-07:00Miss Representation<br />
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"Like drawing back a curtain to let bright light stream in, Miss Representation (90 min; TV-14 DL) uncovers a glaring reality we live with every day but fail to see. Written and directed by Jennifer Siebel Newsom, the film exposes how mainstream media contribute to the under-representation of women in positions of power and influence in America. The film challenges the media’s limited and often disparaging portrayals of women and girls, which make it difficult for women to achieve leadership positions and for the average woman to feel powerful herself.</div>
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In a society where media is the most persuasive force shaping cultural norms, the collective message that our young women and men overwhelmingly receive is that a woman’s value and power lie in her youth, beauty, and sexuality, and not in her capacity as a leader. While women have made great strides in leadership over the past few decades, the United States is still 90th in the world for women in national legislatures, women hold only 3% of clout positions in mainstream media, and 65% of women and girls have disordered eating behaviors.</div>
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Stories from teenage girls and provocative interviews with politicians, journalists, entertainers, activists and academics, like Condoleezza Rice, Nancy Pelosi, Katie Couric, Rachel Maddow, Margaret Cho, Rosario Dawson and Gloria Steinem build momentum as Miss Representation accumulates startling facts and statistics that will leave the audience shaken and armed with a new perspective." ~<b><a href="http://www.missrepresentation.org/the-film/"><span style="color: #e06666;">LINK</span></a></b><br />
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Extended Trailer (nine minutes)</div>
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Reactions to film (six minutes)<br />
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"Jennifer Siebel Newsom is a filmmaker, actress, speaker, and advocate for women, girls, and their families. Newsom wrote, directed, and produced the 2011 Sundance documentary <i>Miss Representation</i>, which explores how the media’s misrepresentations of women contribute to the under-representation of women in positions of power and influence." ~<a href="http://www.missrepresentation.org/the-film/">Link</a></div>
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TedxWomen talk (17 minutes)</div>
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<b>Visit their official site: </b><b><a href="http://www.missrepresentation.org/"><span style="color: #e06666;">Miss Representation.org</span></a></b></div>
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Check their website to find a screening near you. If you are interested in hosting a screening, they have a link for more information on their site. </div>
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<i>Miss Representation</i> is available on Netflix although it's not streaming at this point.<br />
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<i>Miss Representation</i> <b><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Miss-Representation-Cory-Booker/dp/B006GRWCF2/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1334256590&sr=8-1"><span style="color: #e06666;">is available for purchase on Amazon.com</span></a></b> at a reasonable price of $12.99. </div>
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<br /></div>CZBZhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09575206236892096611noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-825021343647347970.post-64431429746090471842012-04-02T15:55:00.000-07:002012-04-02T22:44:37.167-07:00Emotional Sobriety by Tian Dayton<br />
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<i>'Bringing our thinking, feeling and behavior into balance" ~</i><b><a href="http://www.tiandayton.com/">Tian Dayton</a></b></div>
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"Neuroscience explains that emotions are experienced in the body and processed by “limbic systems”. The body, in fact, does not really know the difference between physical danger, like an oncoming car or emotional danger, like a drunk and raging parent. The limbic system will react either by pumping out enough stress chemicals, like adrenaline, to give the spurt of energy needed to flee for safety or stand and fight. </div>
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"But what happens when the family itself becomes the proverbial saber toothed tiger? Children cannot flee, where would they go? They cannot fight, they would lose. So they shut down, they freeze, they flee on the inside. But without somehow processing what’s going on for them, that numbed and frozen pain can live within the self system, an emotional accident waiting to happen, in what is now called <i>a post traumatic stress reaction.</i> That is what being an ACOA (Adult Child of Trauma and Addition) is all about. Years after the stressor is removed, the ACOA lives as if it is still there. As if some emotional threat, lurks just around the corner." ~excerpted from a fantastic PDF article: <b><a href="http://www.tiandayton.com/wp-content/uploads/pdf/paradigm_magazine_emotional_sobriety.pdf">Adult Children of Trauma and Addiction</a> </b>by Tian Dayton</div>
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Dr. Tian Dayton is a clinical psychologist and psychodrama trainer, author of many books most recently <i>Emotional Sobriety: From Relationship Trauma to Resilience and Balance</i> (2008). She is the director of the New York Psychodrama Training Institute at Caron, New York. For additional information, she may be contacted by email at Tian@tianmanhattan.com or by visiting www.tiandayton.com.</div>
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<br /></div>CZBZhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09575206236892096611noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-825021343647347970.post-22676632954132053302012-03-28T13:25:00.001-07:002012-03-28T16:01:51.967-07:00How Important are Psychological Evaluations?<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<b>Click to hear audio program:</b></div>
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<b><a href="http://www.divorcesourceradio.com/how-do-psychological-evaluations-work-during-divorce/">How do Psychological Evaluations Work during Divorce?</a> </b></div>
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<i>"On this episode of “Ask Henry” with family law attorney Henry Gornbein, a listener phones in a question regarding psychological evaluations. Henry answers the listener’s question and goes on to provide a better understanding of what psychological evaluations are and how they work during a divorce from the legal perspective." ~<span style="text-align: center;">From Divorce Source Radio</span></i></blockquote>
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<span style="text-align: center;">I'm guilty. I've crawled inside narcissists's heads. Not foolishly. Never without adequate research studies and enough anecdotal testimonies to avoid getting lost. I leave a breadcrumb trail when investigating narcissistic territories because the terrain is soooooo disorienting. Pretty soon, you don't know where you start and the narcissist begins. Be sure to leave a breadcrumb trail in order to find your way back to yourself. When it comes to the narcissistic brain, all roads lead back to narcissist. </span><span style="text-align: center;">If you still get lost even with a breadcrumb trail, don't waste time searching for a moral compass. Narcissists don't have one.</span></div>
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<span style="text-align: center;">All kidding aside (this picture is too weird not to add a comment) just in case you feel guilty about diagnosing without a license, remember this:</span><span style="text-align: center;"> n</span><span style="text-align: center;">arcissists figured out how your brain ticked long before you figured out what made narcissists tick.</span></div>
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<i>Now What?</i></div>
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<span style="text-align: center;">Let's say you've done your homework and you know beyond question that your soon-to-be-ex-spouse is on the pathological end of the narcissistic continuum. You've read through the criteria for a <i>Narcissistic Personality Disorder</i> and you've decided to end the relationship </span><span style="text-align: center;">because you've given up hope that your partner will change</span><span style="text-align: center;">. You are in the process of mediating custody. You are educated about the invalidating impact narcissists have on their children. You have learned that children are objectified by narcissistic parents---serving as narcissistic supply sources. This hurts your heart because you love your children. You believe it is your moral responsibility to protect them.</span></div>
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<span style="text-align: center;">Since your unprofessional diagnosis lacks credibility in court, you hope a Psychological Evaluation will prove your ex is mentally disordered and therefore: unfit for parenting. </span><span style="text-align: center;">You assume that in a court of law, your concerns will be vindicated; your time in the <b><a href="http://www.webofnarcissism.com/forums/">pathology library</a></b> will be rewarded. </span><span style="text-align: center;">You believe </span><span style="text-align: center;">a psychological diagnosis will protect your children by denying custody to the pathological parent. Court is about justice and doing the right thing for the children, right? </span></div>
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<span style="text-align: center;">Not So Fast! </span><span style="text-align: center;">I'm sorry to be the bearer of bad news. </span><br />
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<span style="text-align: center;">Recently, several court cases reveal that personality disorders have little-to-no bearing in child custody decisions. I've heard heart-breaking stories about parents diagnosed with at least two personality disorders. They were granted unsupervised visitation and in one case, full custody. </span><span style="text-align: center;"><b>In the eyes of the courts, a personality disorder does not prohibit parents from providing adequate care for their children.</b> Adequate care does not include subjective measurements of their empathetic bonding, quality parenting, unconditional love, and conscientious and moral guidance. </span><span style="text-align: center;">In my experience, the courts are interested in basic care questions such as the following:</span></div>
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Does the child have food to eat?</div>
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Does the child have a bed, a roof, a pair of shoes?</div>
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Does the child go to school?
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What the courts consider "good enough parenting" is similar to Rosanne Barr-Arnold's joke: "It's five o'clock and the kids are still alive. My job for the day is done." If your narcissistic-psychopathic-soon-to-be-ex provides for your children's basic needs and is not afflicted with a mental <i>illness </i>that may endanger your child, relying on a psychological evaluation to determine custody is an expensive exercise in futility. Attorneys get rich, psychologists buy new furniture, and all you have to show for your attempt to protect your children (be a GOOD parent) is an empty bank account. Make too many claims about your borderline soon-to-be-ex and you may even 'lose' custody as an alienating ex-spouse.</div>
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Please remember that personality <i>disorders </i>are NOT mental illnesses interfering with parental functioning. Examples of mental illnesses that may have bearing in court would be Axis I disorders, such as: schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, depression, severe addictions, etc. Any mental illness preventing a parent from meeting children's basic needs. Do they have food to eat? A roof over their heads? Shoes? Does their parent make sure they go to school? If a parent's mental illness puts the child at risk, then a psychological evaluation may be of value in determining the child's safety. As I said, we are talking about a child's <i>elemental </i>needs being met--not a judgment call on the narcissist's parenting skills or lack thereof. </div>
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(If you are new to Pathology Studies 101, you can read about the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders Axis I and Axis II mental illnesses <b><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diagnostic_and_Statistical_Manual_of_Mental_Disorders">HERE</a></b>. )<br />
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Did you have a psychological evaluation? Did your ex? What's your opinion on the usefulness of psychological evaluations in determining child custody? If you feel inclined to write about your situation, you can post a message on this blog OR you can post on in our <b><a href="http://webofnarcissism.com/">Grand Hall</a></b> on the WoN Forum. Every message counts. Your experience matters.</div>
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<i>"Inquiries need to steer away from personality descriptors such as narcissistic style, histrionic traits or obsessive-compulsive features. In fact, these aspects of functioning frequently are associated with mental health and not psychopathology. These terms tend to be misleading and con-fusing to judges, attorneys and non-mental health professionals due to the pejorative nature of these attributions."</i> ~ <span style="text-align: center;">by Steven Shapse, "</span><span style="text-align: center;"><b><a href="http://www.hgexperts.com/article.asp?id=18058">Child Custody Evaluations and Psychological Testing–Valid and Invalid Expectations</a>"</b></span><br />
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© 2012, WebOfNarcissism.com</div>
<br /></div>CZBZhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09575206236892096611noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-825021343647347970.post-5132908616988707712012-02-26T15:40:00.000-08:002012-02-26T15:43:26.412-08:00Turning negative self-talk into a song!<div style="text-align: center;">
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<b>Brain Rats</b><br />
by <b><a href="http://www.cdbaby.com/cd/mcafee06"><span style="color: #e06666;">Barbara McAfee</span></a></b><br />
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Chorus</div>
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<i>Brain rats...I've got brain rats</i></div>
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<i>A pestilential blight upon my mind</i></div>
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Brain rats are the wicked thoughts that prove my every flaw</div>
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And every hopeful notion gives them something new to gnaw</div>
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I hear them chewing in the night and on and off all day</div>
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They've really got my number . . . oh the awful stuff they say</div>
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Chorus</div>
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<i>Brain Rats I’ve got brain rats</i></div>
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<i>A pestilential blight upon my mind</i></div>
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My mother says she loves me but no doubts she’s telling lies</div>
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And friends are all just enemies in ingenious disguise</div>
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There’s no one to be trusted and that’s including me</div>
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The best approach to human beings is fierce misanthropy</div>
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Chorus</div>
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<i> Brain Rats I’ve got brain rats</i></div>
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<i>A pestilential blight upon my mind</i></div>
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I need a lot more money than I’ll ever live to earn</div>
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And late at night I count my debts as I fret and toss and turn</div>
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I’m one step from the poor house - I can’t make it on my own</div>
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I’ll be just like that match girl dying cold and all alone</div>
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Chorus</div>
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<i> Brain Rats I’ve got brain rats</i></div>
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<i>A pestilential blight upon my mind</i></div>
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They torture with such cunning like little Marquises de Sade</div>
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And wreak unstinting havoc beneath my cool facade</div>
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They tell me I’m worse than everyone - my problems can’t be solved</div>
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And I’m the piece of crap around which this whole world revolves</div>
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<i>Brain Rats I’ve got brain rats</i></div>
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<i>A pestilential blight upon my mind</i></div>
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<b>Excerpted from <span style="color: #e06666;"><a href="http://odewire.com/203581/taming-your-brain-rats.html" style="color: #666666; text-decoration: none;"><span style="color: #e06666;">Taming Your Brain Rats</span></a>: </span></b></div>
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</div>CZBZhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09575206236892096611noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-825021343647347970.post-26582967559229578602012-02-10T13:11:00.000-08:002012-02-10T13:27:17.341-08:00"Lessons in love: how volunteering saved my life" with Louise Gallagher<div style="text-align: center;">
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<i>"Louise Gallagher has a remarkable personal story that has turned tragic circumstances into a life filled with passion and joy. Her book 'The Dandelion Spirit' was turned into a documentary for the Oprah Network and has touched people's lives across North America. </i><i>Louise's work at the Calgary Drop-In Centre includes inspiring efforts like the development of the Possibilities Project that uses art in its many forms to keep people of the streets. </i><span style="text-align: center;"><i>She has the soul of a warrior poet and her story is transformative." ~<b><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PqXDbU76lgw&list=PL41E9A5C6E42C501A&index=4&feature=plpp_video">YouTube link</a></b></i></span></div>
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<b>Excerpts from her talk:</b></div>
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"It is in the human connection that we see each others as human beings on this journey of our life. Volunteering is an act of love. It is always first and foremost, <i>an act of love."</i><br />
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"When you believe you have nothing left to give, that's the TIME to give! It is time to share LOVE...In the virtual room of the Internet Forum, I began to give back more and more."<br />
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<span style="text-align: center;">"In our giving, we receive so much more than we give."</span>
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<b><a href="http://wonforum.blogspot.com/2011/03/interview-with-ellie.html"><i>An interview with Ellie</i> by CZBZ</a> </b></div>
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<b style="text-align: justify;"><a href="http://wonforum.blogspot.com/2011/02/golden-fairy-interview-ellie.html">Ellie's Page on <i>The WoN Connection</i></a></b></div>
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"In light of our individualistic societies, golden fairies counter the disconnecting impact of a self-admiring, self-promotional, fragmenting narcissism. Our Golden Fairy Award respects their compassion giving honor to their courage to care. As fundamental as connections were in our evolutionary past, they may be even more crucial for survival today." ~About <b><a href="http://wonforum.blogspot.com/2011/01/patrouillerpatrol.html">WoN's Golden Fairy Award</a></b></div>
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©2012 WebOfNarcissism.com</div>
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<br /></div>CZBZhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09575206236892096611noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-825021343647347970.post-30905631840999240822012-01-24T11:43:00.000-08:002012-01-24T11:43:18.875-08:00Chameli Ardagh: The Fierce Face of the Feminine<div style="text-align: center;">
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<i>"</i>In this talk Chameli Ardagh will speak on how to allow for a natural response towards injustice, without creating more hurt, how to embody the power and beauty of feminine rage, why we are called to step up and give voice to the power of the fierce feminine, and how anger is not intrinsically negative, only what we do with. Chameli will also show how an ancient goddess archetype of the fierce aspects of the feminine are highly relevant and illuminating for women and girls today." <b><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dcDCXzX_HQA">YouTube link</a></b></div>
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<i>"When we finally get in touch with our anger, it's as if a thousand years of suppressed anger begs expression." </i>Paraphrased from the TEDx video lecture.
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<b>Ardagh's website: <a href="http://awakeningwomen.com/">Awakening Women</a></b></div>
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<b><a href="http://awakeningwomen.com/tag/chameli-ardagh/">Posts by Chameli Ardagh</a></b></div>
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<br /></div>CZBZhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09575206236892096611noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-825021343647347970.post-58036266048054026392012-01-06T15:06:00.000-08:002012-01-07T13:00:02.198-08:00Don't ask WHY--- Ask "WHO does that" instead!<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://i610.photobucket.com/albums/tt188/CZBZ/WoN/PierrotGirl2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://i610.photobucket.com/albums/tt188/CZBZ/WoN/PierrotGirl2.jpg" width="304" /></a></div><div style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 13pt;"><br />
</span></div><div style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 13pt;">Sandra Brown writes:</span></div><div style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 13pt;"><br />
</span></div><div style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 13pt;">"Cluster B's behaviors are generated out of a complex interweaving of emotional, developmental, neuro, biochemical, and even genetic abnormalities. Obviously, this is not a ‘simple' disorder or there would be less ‘inevitable harm' associated with everyone and everything they touch and they would be cured or even managed consistently and well.<u1:p></u1:p></span><span style="font-size: 13pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div><div></div><div style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in; text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div></div><div style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 13pt;">"This complicated group of disorders single-handedly sets society on edge. It keeps us in court, in therapy, in prayer, in the lawyer's office, in depression, in anxiety, on edge, on the offense, ready to off ourselves to simply be away from such menacing (yet often normal appearing) deviancy.<u1:p></u1:p></span><span style="font-size: 13pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div><div></div><div style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in; text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div></div><div style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 13pt;">"Who wreaks more emotional havoc than Cluster B's? 60 million persons in the US alone are negatively impacted by someone else's pathology. It drives people to therapy, to commit their own petty acts of revenge to avenge their own powerlessness, drives people to drink, to run away, to take their children and run, and sadly leads to uncountable amounts of suicides every year...<u1:p></u1:p></span><span style="font-size: 13pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div><div></div><div style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in; text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div></div><div style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 13pt;">"...As each system deals with their own view of a specific act the person has done, we miss the wide broad category that these people fall under. We miss the bigger implication of what goes with that category. We miss the fact that those who fall under these pathological disorders have largely low, or no, positive treatment outcomes. Each system dealing with a behavior, only sees the person through their own behavioral specialty. Yet we are all talking about the same disorders in action.<u1:p></u1:p></span><span style="font-size: 13pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div><div></div><div style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in; text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div></div><div style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 13pt;">"When we ask ‘WHO does that?' we immediately become brothers and sisters in the same battle against pathology. We begin to see the ‘who' within the act, the disorder that perpetrates these same acts, behaviors, or crimes. It's the same sub-set of disorders that have different focuses but the same outcome: inevitable harm." ~Excerpted from Who Does That?<u1:p></u1:p></span><span style="font-size: 13pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div><div></div><div style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in; text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div></div><div style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 13pt;">Click here to read<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><b><a href="http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/pathological-relationships/201109/who-does-part-1">Part One</a></b><span class="apple-converted-space"> </span>and<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><b><a href="http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/pathological-relationships/201109/who-does-part-2">Part Two</a></b><span class="apple-converted-space"> </span>of Sandra Brown's article, "WHO does that?"<u1:p></u1:p></span><span style="font-size: 13pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div><div></div><div style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; text-align: center;"><br />
</div><div></div><div style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 13pt;">* * *<u1:p></u1:p></span><span style="font-size: 13pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div><div></div><div style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; text-align: center;"><br />
</div><div></div><div style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 13pt;">Check out other topics addressed by Sandra Brown on her blog<u1:p></u1:p></span><span style="font-size: 13pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div><div></div><div style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; text-align: center;"><b><span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 13pt;"><a href="http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/pathological-relationships">PathologicalRelationships</a></span></b><span style="font-size: 13pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div><u1:p></u1:p> <br />
<div></div><div style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; text-align: center;"><i><span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 13pt;">Dealing with a problem partner</span></i><span style="font-size: 13pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div><u1:p></u1:p> <br />
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</div><div></div><div style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 13pt;">* * *<u1:p></u1:p></span><span style="font-size: 13pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div><div></div><div style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; text-align: center;"><br />
</div><div></div><div style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 13pt;">Visit Sandra's website:<u1:p></u1:p></span><span style="font-size: 13pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div><div></div><div style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; text-align: center;"><span style="color: #45818e;"><b><span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 13pt;"><a href="http://www.blogger.com/goog_1166350872"><span style="color: #45818e;">The Institute for Relational Harm Reduction</span></a></span></b><span style="font-size: 13pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div></div><div style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; text-align: center;"><span style="color: #45818e; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 13pt;"><a href="http://saferelationshipsmagazine.com/"><b> <span style="color: #45818e;">and Public Pathology Education</span></b><span style="color: #45818e;"> </span></a></span><span style="font-size: 13pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div><u1:p></u1:p> <br />
<div></div><div style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; text-align: center;"><br />
</div><div></div><div style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 13pt;">* * * </span><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 150%;"> </span></div><div style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; text-align: justify;"></div><div style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in;"><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 13pt;">Sandra L. Brown, M.A., CEO of The Institute for Relational Harm Reduction & Public Pathology Education is a psychopathologist, program development specialist, lecturer, and an award-winning author. Her books include <i>Counseling Victims of Violence: A Handbook for Helping Professionals</i> (1991, 2006), <i>How to Spot a Dangerous Man Before You Get Involved</i> Book and Workbook (2005) and <i>Women Who Love Psychopaths</i> (2008). </span><span style="font-size: 13pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div></div><div style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in;"><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div></div><div style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in;"><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 13pt;">Sandra is recognized for her pioneering work on women's issues related to relational harm with Cluster B/Axis II disordered partners and specializes in the development of Pathological Love Relationship clinical training and survivor support services. Her books, CD's, DVD's, and other training materials have been used as curriculum in drug rehabs, women's organizations and shelters, women's jail and prison programs, school and college-based programs, inner city projects, and various psychology and sociology programs and distributed in almost every country of the world. </span><span style="font-size: 13pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div></div><div style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in;"><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div></div><div style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in;"><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 13pt;">Her collaborative research on <i>Women Who Love Psychopaths</i> was recently presented at the Society for the Scientific Study of Psychopathy as well as the Ruth Ginsberg Lecture Series Women and The Law on Domestic Violence, and Domestic Violence Provider and Batterer Intervention Training in which her unique focus on Pathological Love Relationships has been featured. </span><span style="font-size: 13pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div></div><div style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in;"><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div></div><div style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in;"><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 13pt;">Under her direction The Institute has developed a comprehensive on-line psychopathology magazine interviewing some of the country's leading researchers on personality disorders and neurobiology, a Therapist Certification Program in Pathological Love Relationships, a Peer-Support Coaching Program, and a Model of Care Approach for Treatment Centers. The Institute's first hospital inpatient treatment program opened late summer of 2009. </span><span style="font-size: 13pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div></div><div style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in;"><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div></div><div style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in;"><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 13pt;">Sandra's previous work included the founding and directing of Bridgework Counseling Center, a multi-faceted mental health treatment center for Trauma Disorders, Treatment of Personality Disorders, and one of the country's first long-term residential programs for women with Dissociative Identity Disorder. She was also a pathologist on a Woman's Trauma Inpatient Hospital Program. She facilitated groups on PTSD and Dialectical Behavioral Therapy as well as individual treatment. Sandra holds a Master's Degree in Counseling. ~<b><a href="http://www.psychologytoday.com/experts/sandra-brown-ma">Psychology Today</a></b></span><span style="font-size: 13pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div></div><br />
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</span></div>CZBZhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09575206236892096611noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-825021343647347970.post-60416201286232619642011-12-05T11:25:00.000-08:002011-12-05T11:43:38.870-08:00Fighting Smart by Talia<div style="text-align: center;"><br />
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<div align="center" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in;"><b><span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 13.5pt;">Fighting Smart</span></b><span style="font-size: 13.5pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div><u1:p></u1:p> <div align="center" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in;"><br />
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</div><div style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in; text-align: justify;"><b><span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 13.5pt;">Define your goal and keep this at the forefront of your mind at all times as you consider your actions. </span></b><span style="font-size: 13.5pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div><u1:p></u1:p> <div style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in; text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 13.5pt;">A:<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span>What is the end result that you're striving for? Make a list, define everything on your list. From the best financial security possible for yourself/children to freedom, health, happiness and everything between.</span><span style="font-size: 13.5pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div><u1:p></u1:p> <div style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in; text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 13.5pt;">B: When considering what course of action to take, ask yourself if it's in alignment with your goal. Will the course of action/decision help or hurt you. Know the laws, know yourself, know your narcissist. Consider all the possible outcomes of your decision based on the knowledge you have and choose wisely.<u1:p></u1:p></span><span style="font-size: 13.5pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div><div style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in; text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 13.5pt;">C: Don't make decisions when in an emotional state. Recognize the signs of being emotionally triggered. If this happens, take care of yourself. The narcissist has an irrational mind. It's imperative you are in a rational state of mind so you can make good decisions. This is not the time to follow your heart, this is the time your head must take the lead<i>.</i></span><span style="font-size: 13.5pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div><u1:p></u1:p> <div style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in; text-align: justify;"><br />
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</div><div style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in; text-align: justify;"><b><span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 13.5pt;">Don't make the fight personal. It's not about winning against him; it's about winning for you. The fight is about achieving the best possible outcome for yourself/and or children.</span></b><span style="font-size: 13.5pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div><u1:p></u1:p> <div style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in; text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 13.5pt;">A: Accept that there will be no restitution for the emotional pain that was caused you. Attempting to even the score, exact justice, cause the narcissist emotional injury, etc. is fighting a losing battle. This is not what the battle is about. The Narcissist is psychologically defended against understanding your reality. Get your angries out somewhere else, in some other manner. </span><span style="font-size: 13.5pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div><div style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in; text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 13.5pt;">Understand and Accept that you will never be compensated for your emotional injuries.<u1:p></u1:p></span><span style="font-size: 13.5pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div><div style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in; text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 13.5pt;">B: Verbal confrontations with the narcissist will set you back. Any and all criticism (no matter how slight) translates into a threat in the mind of a narcissist. Narcissists will feel the need to defend themselves, causing them to be on the offensive in order to establish control. You cannot predict what manner of behavior the narcissist will choose to get back at you.<i> </i>In the court room, this will add more fuel to the fire that already exists. Outside of the courtroom, it could possibly escalate abusive behavior - emotionally, physically or both. <u1:p></u1:p></span><span style="font-size: 13.5pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div><div style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in; text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 13.5pt;">Be smart, your safety is at stake. Again, you cannot predict behavior in the mind of a <i>disordered </i>person. They may not be able to control their impulses before going too far. If you have children, they need an emotionally and physically healthy parent to care for them. Don't lose sight of your goal. You've got plenty to deal with already, don't make your job any harder.<u1:p></u1:p></span><span style="font-size: 13.5pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div><div style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in; text-align: justify;"><u2:p></u2:p><span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 13.5pt;"> <u1:p></u1:p></span><span style="font-size: 13.5pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div><div style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in; text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in; text-align: justify;"><b><span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 13.5pt;">Arm yourself with knowledge and use it to your advantage.</span></b><span style="font-size: 13.5pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div><u1:p></u1:p> <div style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in; text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 13.5pt;">A: Educate yourself on the divorce laws in your state.<u1:p></u1:p></span><span style="font-size: 13.5pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div><div style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in; text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 13.5pt;">B:<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span>Search for an attorney who is knowledgeable about personality disorders/high conflict people. You may have to educate your attorney/assist them with your knowledge.</span><span style="font-size: 13.5pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div><u1:p></u1:p> <div style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in; text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 13.5pt;">C: Educate yourself on protecting yourself financially.<u1:p></u1:p></span><span style="font-size: 13.5pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div><div style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in; text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 13.5pt;">D: Keep the battle confined to the courtroom. This does not mean the narcissist will do the same. Be prepared for that and to act/react accordingly to what's in your best interest.<u1:p></u1:p></span><span style="font-size: 13.5pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div><div style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in; text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 13.5pt;">E:<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span>Whatever evidence you have to use to your advantage, this is the place to use it. You are in partnership with your attorney so work with your attorney and keep the evidence private. Don't threaten the narcissist with it. Narcissists will not show you their cards, and neither should you show them yours. </span><span style="font-size: 13.5pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div><u1:p></u1:p> <div style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in; text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 13.5pt;">F: Seek advice and support from knowledgeable and objective sources. Find a support group that will offer sound advice while <i>you </i>construct a plan that achieves your goals. <u1:p></u1:p></span><span style="font-size: 13.5pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div><div align="center" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in;"><br />
</div><div align="center" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 13.5pt;">Be strong. Be smart. Carefully consider the choices you make. </span><span style="font-size: 13.5pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div><u1:p></u1:p> <div align="center" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in;"><br />
</div><div align="center" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in;"><i><span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 13.5pt;">Know when to hold 'em, </span></i><span style="font-size: 13.5pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div><u1:p></u1:p> <div align="center" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in;"><i><span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 13.5pt;">know when to fold 'em, </span></i><span style="font-size: 13.5pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div><u1:p></u1:p> <div align="center" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in;"><i><span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 13.5pt;">know when to walk away, </span></i><span style="font-size: 13.5pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div><u1:p></u1:p> <div align="center" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in;"><i><span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 13.5pt;">know when to run</span></i><span style="font-size: 13.5pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div><u1:p></u1:p> <div align="center" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in;"><br />
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</div><div align="center" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 13.5pt;">Love,</span><span style="font-size: 13.5pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div><div align="center" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 13.5pt;">Talia</span><span style="font-size: 13.5pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div><div align="center" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in;"><br />
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</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">©WebOfNarcissism.com</div>CZBZhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09575206236892096611noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-825021343647347970.post-24424666891877837562011-12-01T10:10:00.000-08:002011-12-01T10:14:46.112-08:00How to Help Older Divorcing Women Avoid the Bag Lady Blues<div class="Default" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: justify;"></div><div class="Default" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: center;"></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://i610.photobucket.com/albums/tt188/CZBZ/WoN/ClockLadycopy.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://i610.photobucket.com/albums/tt188/CZBZ/WoN/ClockLadycopy.jpg" width="305" /></a></div><div align="center" class="default0" style="line-height: 14.4pt; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in;"><b><span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 13pt;"><br />
</span></b></div><div align="center" class="default0" style="line-height: 14.4pt; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in;"><b><span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 13pt;"><a href="http://spwfe.fpanet.org:10005/public/Unclassified%20Records/FPA%20Journal%20June%202006%20-%20How%20to%20Help%20Older%20Divorcing%20Women%20Avoid%20the%20Bag%20Lady%20Blues.pdf">How to Help Older Divorcing Women Avoid the Bag Lady Blues</a> </span></b></div><div align="center" class="default0" style="line-height: 14.4pt; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in;"><span class="apple-style-span"><span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 13pt;"><br />
</span></span></div><div align="center" class="default0" style="line-height: 14.4pt; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in;"><span class="apple-style-span"><span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 13pt;">by Carol Ann Wilson (2006)</span></span></div><br />
<div class="Default" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: center;"><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 18px;">"I don't want to be a bag lady!" This is a common refrain these days by millions of women across the country. And no wonder. Seventy-five percent of the elderly poor in the United States are women, according to the U.S. Department of Human Services. The majority of these women are single, due to divorce or the death of a spouse. Divorced women are swelling the poverty rolls. Why? The courts are trying to split the marital property 50/50, yet they traditionally overlook one major asset of a marriage: the husband's career. Unfortunately, many courts don't recognize career assets as property. These assets include:</span></div></div><div class="Default" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div class="Default" style="line-height: 150%; margin-left: 0in; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-align: justify; text-indent: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span style="font-size: 13pt;">•<span style="font: normal normal normal 7pt/normal 'Times New Roman';"> </span></span><span style="font-size: 13pt;">Health insurance <o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="Default" style="line-height: 150%; margin-left: 0in; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-align: justify; text-indent: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span style="font-size: 13pt;">•<span style="font: normal normal normal 7pt/normal 'Times New Roman';"> </span></span><span style="font-size: 13pt;">Life insurance <o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="Default" style="line-height: 150%; margin-left: 0in; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-align: justify; text-indent: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span style="font-size: 13pt;">•<span style="font: normal normal normal 7pt/normal 'Times New Roman';"> </span></span><span style="font-size: 13pt;">Disability insurance <o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="Default" style="line-height: 150%; margin-left: 0in; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-align: justify; text-indent: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span style="font-size: 13pt;">•<span style="font: normal normal normal 7pt/normal 'Times New Roman';"> </span></span><span style="font-size: 13pt;">Vacation pay <o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="Default" style="line-height: 150%; margin-left: 0in; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-align: justify; text-indent: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span style="font-size: 13pt;">•<span style="font: normal normal normal 7pt/normal 'Times New Roman';"> </span></span><span style="font-size: 13pt;">Sick pay <o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="Default" style="line-height: 150%; margin-left: 0in; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-align: justify; text-indent: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span style="font-size: 13pt;">•<span style="font: normal normal normal 7pt/normal 'Times New Roman';"> </span></span><span style="font-size: 13pt;">Education and training <o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="Default" style="line-height: 150%; margin-left: 0in; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-align: justify; text-indent: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span style="font-size: 13pt;">•<span style="font: normal normal normal 7pt/normal 'Times New Roman';"> </span></span><span style="font-size: 13pt;">Seniority and networking <o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="Default" style="line-height: 150%; margin-left: 0in; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-align: justify; text-indent: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span style="font-size: 13pt;">•<span style="font: normal normal normal 7pt/normal 'Times New Roman';"> </span></span><span style="font-size: 13pt;">Potential earning power<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="Default" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><span style="font-size: 13pt;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">In creating a financially equitable settlement, it is important to remember that <i>property is divided just once, but career assets continue to produce income regularly for years..."</i></span></span><br />
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<div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: 13pt;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><b>To read this pdf article, click on the title or <a href="http://spwfe.fpanet.org:10005/public/Unclassified%20Records/FPA%20Journal%20June%202006%20-%20How%20to%20Help%20Older%20Divorcing%20Women%20Avoid%20the%20Bag%20Lady%20Blues.pdf">HERE</a></b></span></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: 13pt;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><br />
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<div class="Default" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: justify;"><i><span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 13pt;"><b>Carol Ann Wilson</b>, CFP®, Certified Financial Divorce Practitioner®, in Longmont, Colorado, has been a recognized specialist in marital financial issues for more than 20 years and is a pioneer in the field of divorce financial planning. She has served as an expert witness in court in over 120 divorce cases nationwide. She is on the board of directors for the Academy of Financial Divorce Practitioners, which trains financial professionals. Information is available at <a href="http://www.academyfdp.org/">www.academyfdp.org</a>. Wilson is also the author of </span></i><span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 13pt;">The Financial Guide to Divorce Settlement <i>and </i>40 Tips for Surviving Your Divorce, <i>and co-author of </i>The Survival Manual for Women in Divorce, The Survival Manual for Men in Divorce, The Dollars and Sense of Divorce, <i>and </i>ABCs in Divorce for Women.</span><span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 13pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="Default" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 13pt;"><br />
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