a gift for us on Mother's day: Transforming after we hear the knock on the door: Post Traumatic Growth (Re-Posted from a 2014 post here on Not the Life.)

Post traumatic growth, (PTG) the other side of the coin from PTSD, Post traumatic Stress Disorder...PTG is not simply resilience but transformation.    Resilience may be when we've been blindsided and we just stagger on pretending.  But PTG?  Post traumatic Growth is when we Didn't give up. Didn't capitulate. PTG is Transform.  (You know like one of those little transformer toys you stepped on in your bare feet because your kid "forgot" to put it away. OnlyPTG is much, much better. And of course we will be way cuter than those things when we transform!)

PTG happens after we are rocked to the foundations.. After The Life we thought we had chosen, Implodes. When we  are betrayed in such a fundamental way that we can't just simply stagger on.  The pieces no longer fit when we try to pull the Life We Chose all back together. . So we choose to move beyond, choose to struggle and create a new life of our own instead of living the patterns once laid out for us by others.

We are transformed because we Choose to Create a different Life after the implosion,

But that  transformation depends on fundamental choices we make now. How we choose to continue will effect the rest of our lives...and perhaps more importantly, the rest of our children's lives.

1) First we have to decide upon our  fundamental response

    #A) we can close over the wound,  hide the shrapnel, develop gangrene, actually commit suicide instead of just wishing we could, or we can solve that problem and just go dead inside from Betrayal..       # B) Pick ourselves up and stagger on pretending that nothing fundamental just happened. We'll deal with the PTSD later.
    # C) Grieve what has ended. Give ourselves time to  grow our (new) selves back. Better than ever.  PTG. Transformer toy but way better because we are in charge of our transformation.

2) After that fundamental choice there are other choices to be made, especially if we chose #B) or #C) above.  We need to find friends willing to "understand." women willing to "be there" for us.
We need gather our team, our tribe. Like Evie says, we need to find ourselves in "good company"

We need (hopefully) three who will listen, offer inspiration, point out the bigger picture, explain "boat maintenance" help us row our kids out of harm's way,  row toward a better shore. We need women with whom we can discuss our and their transformation.

Some of our "advisers" may already be personal friends who stuck by us, they might be counselors,We might discover "sisters" out there in blogisphere, just other woman who know  about betrayal. We need sounding boards able to listen and sympathize without trying to take over. Friends we trust to tell stories of where they've been. What worked and what didn't, for them. And then we need to help someone else who  just heard the knock at the door.

It's our choice but we need them, They need us. Nobody really goes it alone.

In her book Sleeping With a Stranger, How I survived Marriage to a Child Molester, Patricia Wiklund highly recommends we find what she calls an "Administrator" who can accompany us to meetings, hearings etc. and keep track of  appointments for us in the first stages, when we feel overwhelmed. Later they'll bring the wine and  celebrate our successes with us. (And help us fend off those "Villagers with Flaming Pitch-forks" when necessary.)

These friends are the sympathetic women  Evie  referred to  in her "Pulling Back the Curtain of Shame" blog post. .

3) Rule # 3 is NEVER  Quit on Ourselves. (Remember we did not Choose #A to begin with and there is no going back now. We have already come too far to give up on ourselves and our children.)   Persevere. Look at Betrayal from a whole different angle ( Remember Evie's blog about how she is now actually grateful to the young girl who reported Jake? The girl Evie  said she once hated as the reason people found out and her world imploded... back then?)

Keep on keeping on. There will be other "new" angles No one can transform our lives  for you. Why should they? I'm not saying there won't be times when all we want to do is   just climb in bed and pull covers over our heads. The world will NOT go away  just because we  wish  it would. Wine does not take care of everything. Eating by the light of the refrigerator won't cut it. Besides we have to fit into our clothes. We have to "interview our interviewer" and clinch our future tomorrow.

4)  In some  ways we need to  take our time.  It's not time to "forget and forgive" just because someone else tells us we ought to. We need to Recognize our strengths.  Reward our own bravery. Remember PTG? Perhaps we can't wish away the whole world but with perseverance we can transform  our world and ourselves with it.

Steal one of your kid's transformer toys. Make that little plastic transformer a reminder. Carry it around in your purse. Don't we know that every Heroine has a Talisman and a Smile and a Sword? My talisman is a little plastic figure hanging off my file cabinet.  She's a  little Red Headed Disney Princess dressed in a long blue dress and cross bow  ...Just as a reminder that there is a before and after....

PTG!

Speaking of REAL Apologies , Making REAL amends is more than "What do you want? I said I'm sorry (sorry I got caught out)."(not the 'sorry you feel that way sort of non-apology that just expects the person we harmed "to get over it" This is hurting me more than I ever harmed you?) There are 3 Components to a Real Apology:one that CAN HEAL BOTH THE PERSON WE HARMED AND HEAL US TOO.

Recently there have been a couple of people who 'commented' on Not the Life who weren't commenting but just relieving themselves of 'emotional overload" by attacking others here on the Blog. Even when they (sort or) acknowledged/ apologized realizing they might have gone just a tad too far in 'expressing their anger/ resentment (might dumped stuff  on us maybe because they were angry, resentful but too afraid to say their stuff to the people/ authorities / family members/ prison guards/ social workers/ neighbors and mothers and maybe even the "Offender who was arrested when they knocked on our door and the whole world feel apart ? All the people we/ they ARE  actually enraged at. (I do know the feeling, the rage and resentment that build up...It's NOT fair but if we attack each other?)

Some folks let their anger get away from them. They chose us to dump on us,  they troll Not the Life. Say WE we're 'not entirely honest" and Question others on Not the Life instead of actually apologizing for dumping their rage on others here instead of telling us their stories.)  Why? Maybe because they got hurt and thought we were a safe place to dump their anger and resentment. After all how dare the wives and families of Sex Offenders complain and who could we complain to anyway except each other?  So that left them free to rail and rant and hurt us and themselves here on Not the Life even though they were just hurt and MAD period and they had months/ years of 'unfairness' to dump. (Welcome to our world? I know the hurt. I lash out sometimes and need to go back and really apologize.  I've been dumped on before and this certainly won't be the last time but a REAL apology certainly helps both me and as well as the person who chose to harm me as it turns out.)

SO I want to talk about Real Apologies (not the yes but kind we all hear and offer so often) 

The 3 Components come from a book REVISIONING ACTIVISM bringing depth, dialogue, and diversity to individual and social change by David Bedrick J.D. He seems to think that those of us experiencing prejudice and injustice in the 'outside' world can learn to be the better person ( can learn to apologize and heal each other and maybe even begin to heal ourselves of the anger and resentment that led us to take advantage/ bully/ attack others when we actually recognize our part in causing harm, work through our anger and then be able to offer a real apology to those we have harmed

So here goes: 

Part 1) A clear statement of the offending action ( thus demonstrating that s/he knew what s/he had done and taken responsibility for causing harm.) A non-apology sounds like this: "I'm sorry you feel that way." which implies the offender has not done anything offensive and the problem is just in the eye of the offender  OR that vague old standby: " I'm deeply sorry for the actions that resulted in this circumstance" as though no person actually committed 'actions' and thus there's no one need for them to understand what led to their own actions,  take responsibility for changing and responsibility for not harming others in the same way in future.

Part 2) An expression of deep empathy for the person they offended. A valuable apology needs to consider the point of view and experience of the person they offended  NOT just I'm sorry YOU feel that way ( suck it up/ get over it..Can't you see I'm apologizing that you feel offended?)

Part 3) A deep and honest understanding of your own motivations for 'doing' the offending action...without this willingness to admit what you get out of harming the people you harmed/ offended  you will continue to apologize and apologize and continuing re-committing the actions that caused the offense.

What David Bedrick's "How to Apologize" chapter envisions is that by taking responsibility for and understanding our actions caused harm, by empathizing with those our actions/ words/ nasty looks harmed and by having courage to understanding what we got out of dumping/ disrespecting taking advantage of them in word/ deed we might just become a better persons than we used to be you know, back when we dumped on everyone around us because we felt so sorry for ourselves.

Making REAL amends is more than  "What do you want? I said I'm sorry (sorry I got caught out)."

Real apologies take work, and humility and they are healing. They allow us to go on. 

7 Myths and 7 Facts about the sexual abuse of boys continued:. .

Continued:  7 Myths and 7 Facts About the sexual abuse of Boys recently published on Not the Life I Chose and on Wind Harp Tree:

7 Myths and 7 Facts about the sexual abuse of boys and the men they become

The following is adapted and expanded from an online piece by Kenneth Singer M.S.W. The list of myths and facts along with many more resources may be also be found online. 

I have, before, focused on the 1 in 4 women who have been routinely abused and silenced because I am female and was researching and writing about my own personal story before I realized I was included  in America's gender Apartheid. Although as forbidden as it is to talk about the incesting of females it is infinitely harder for males to speak out about their own experiences as molested children. While mothers reluctantly recognize that males molest female children society focuses on stranger danger.

As a society and as mothers we are far more reluctant to acknowledge that the present male power structure encourages bullying and protects bullies almost as a "male child raising" practice which in which mothers participate. Mothers too believe the myths of "masculinity" and are afraid their son might be made into a homosexual if raised wrong or if over-powered and molested.   We see boys-will-be-boys behavior as the proving ground of male power, fitting victorious males to be Kings of the Hill, Titans of Industry, rich members eligible for membership in the 1%:   venture/vulture/hedge-fund Capitalist and perhaps, like Mitt, even run for president of the ruling white classes, certainly a good catch for a submissive wife.

(Hence the cat calls of sissy-boy, the runs-like-a-girl taunts heard but ignored on every Junior High sports field. Hence the pressure to keep secret  the long run of  sexually molested males bullied, even gang-raped into submission to "masculine" opponents. Or more subtly, the devastating grooming of children by priests in power positions  free to molest and then draw the cloak of secrecy over  themselves while we still teach the sanctity of "Traditional Marriage," preaching submission as the only role for women and nuns. Such behavior is as endemic in "polite" society as in the church or Mitt's prep school. Since 2006, the archdiocese of Los Angeles has paid more than $700 million to settle clergy abuse law suits by hundreds of victims. A victim might sue a church but what male or female child victim can hope to successfully force change by suing the entire Patriarchal system?)

It is abundantly clear that 1 in 6 boys are routinely molested by adults. They are abused and silenced by Societal norms that deny that a "real" boy could be molested in the first place. To be molested a boy must already have been not "actually" masculine at all, must have been in need of a "Hair Cut" all along. Yet the perpetrators in my life were also molested as children. In the blog Not the Life I Chose  which I now co-blog with Evie Pruett, Evie reveals that her ex-husband too reported being molested as a child after his arrest. But is being molested a free pass to sympathy or merely an inevitable destiny to secretly molest others? Traditional wisdom says: Once molested always a child molester? Once a child molester inevitably a child molester...and for always, cast with your family from membership in the "middle class" indelibly cast down into the fringes of society forever: an inevitable degression. Why would anyone ever dare report, ever ask for help? Ever speak truth aloud?

The great myth of inevitable digression persists: every male molested as a child shall grow up a perpetrator. Every woman married to a child molester, every family, every parent of a molested child shall be cast out if the truth be comes known. But the real truth is revealed in even a simple survey of the males in my family, reveals that the majority of  those molested do not in turn molest others although they live with the fear others may reject them because they were molested. Women too molest children, I was molested. I do not molest children. But the fear persists and silences many male and female. While some children are so harmed by being molested that they make the choice to molest others, prejudice and punishment and silence, being unalterably tarred, is not an adequate response to rampant epidemic.

First the 7 Facts: 

Fact #1) Boys and men can be used or abused and it has nothing to do with how masculine they are. (Just as my father claimed that it was my fault that as a 7 year old I "sexually attracted" his terrifying attentions, male children are told they somehow sexually attracted the "masculine men" who abused them.)

Fact # 2) If a boy liked the attention he was getting or got sexually aroused during grooming behaviors (grooming is termed "teaching her about sex"when focused on females) or even sometimes wanted the attention or sexual contact this does not mean that he wanted or liked being manipulated or abused.

Fact # 3) Sexual abuse harms boys and girls in ways that are similar and different, but is equally harmful.

Fact # 4) The sexual abuse of boys has nothing to do with the sexual orientation of the abuser. (Evies husband's psychiatric evaluation (Not the Life I Chose) revealed tellingly that he was sexually attracted to no particular gender. My own father does not seem to have been focused in his abusing.  He was a sexual omnivore focused not upon any other human being but upon himself and finding victims to gratify his own sexualurgencies.)

Fact # 5) A boy abused by a male is not necessarily gay nor has he been abused because he is gay, nor can the abuse make him gay. (although there are books and articles written by "experts" that persist in referring to male on male sexual abuse as "Homosexual." referring for example to the sexual abuse of  alter boys in the catholic Church as "Homosexual" abuse.  see Belief,   What's Really Behind the Catholic Church's Sexual Abuse Problem? by Harriet Fraad who says since the sexual abuse of males makes then homosexual it "engenders a  homoerotic internal culture that attracts homosexual men to the priesthood."  .....

Please note: Although Ms Fraad does says that one quarter of those victimized are female, she does not go on to extrapolate from the myth that sexual abuse makes them females attracted to nunneries!)

Fact # 6) Girls and women can sexually abuse boys. These boys are not "lucky" but are exploited and harmed. (Mic Hunter's book Abused boys, the Neglected Victims of Sexual Abuse  is one of the few books I came across in my research that discusses the affects of a mothers abusing sons and females abusing boys.)

Fact # 7) Although nearly 16% of all boys are sexually abused most do not go on to sexually abuse others. (Just as although nearly 25% of all girls are sexually abused, most do not not go on to sexually abuse as adults.)

7 Myths and 7 facts about the sexual abuse of boys because we seem to forget that boys/ our sons (sometimes our husbands) are/ were molested too

I have adapted the following from a post on my own blog WindHarpTree.com after I spoke to my son who asked me, "Doesn't it matter what happens to the boys who are molested." Evie asked if I would republish this blog on Not the Life I Chose. You can find the original here. 

Many of us in this blog's community have three challenging roles to fill simultaneously: 1) as spouses and ex-spouses of sex offenders; 2) as women; and 3) as mothers of molested children. And before "the knock on the door" came, we knew almost nothing about the facts of the situation we are now facing.

But I'll bet the issues around getting our children back and about dealing with their therapy and their issues as survivors of child sex abuse are really our #1 issue for a long time. At least it is the  #1 issue I grieve over in the middle of the night, even after all these years.

When I read that Chandra's son tried to hang himself and very narrowly succeeded (several days in ICU) I felt like crying with her.  I hope this information about the sexual abuse of boys is of some help.

~Janet

As usual, myths before facts:

Myth # 1) Boys can't be sexually used or abused and if one is he can never be a "real" man. (Males aren't victims is central to masculine gender socialization. Successful males are depicted as never being vulnerable, either physically or emotionally. Hence the male mantra, "Never complain. Never explain.")

Myth #2) If a boy experienced sexual arousal during abuse, he wanted and/or enjoyed it. (When I was young they used to say if a woman survived rape, she just hadn't fought her attacker (or her date-rape hard enough. Ergo she had "wanted it." Her rapists had just been giving her what she had implicitly or explicitly asked for.)

This myth continues that if a boy ever did even partly want the sexual experience which he had been groomed into then the boy not his attacker was at fault.

(As an aside...Isn't it interesting how society allows the attacker to turn responsibility on it's head? No matter that a boy is groomed into arousal, he not his molester is at fault. No matter that a young girl is raped, the attack is still about a young child betrayed by a more powerful person who has selfishly exploited the child for their own adult sexual gratification.

The gender myth is that the girl sexually attracted her male abuser. (For did not the blameless Mary, Mother of "God" somehow attract attention, was visited which she did immaculately submit sometime in the night. And the young girl who was thus impregnated was only "saved" from an inevitable stoning by irate neighbors when a very old man, the much venerated Saint Joseph, agreed to take her as his child bride. Once married, child brides cannot be victims if a  wedding ensues.  Wed they are respectable mothers submissively grateful to the husbands who saved them and their child from a scarlet letter, a life of shame... It is indeed confusing because on the flip side of this gender myth, patriarchal wisdom maintains that young boys cannot but be to blame for submitting and thereby causing their forever destruction as :Masculine" men now fit only to live on the fringes.)

Myth #3) Sexual abuse is less harmful to boys than to girls.

Yet the real and lasting harm caused by sexual abuse of children, male and female mostly depends on things not determined by victim gender. The harm flows from a) the abusers identity, b) the duration of the abuse and c) whether the child told anyone at the time and if so, whether the child was believed and helped.

Many boys suffer because adults who could believe them and help are reluctant or refuse to even acknowledge that boys can be harmed by what happened. This increases the harm, especially the shame felt by boys and men and leads many males to believe that the "masculine" thing is to tough it out on their own.

Myth #4) Most sexual abuse of boys is committed by homosexual males.

People who sexually abuse or exploit boys are not expressing homosexuality any more than people who use and abuse girls are engaging in heterosexual behavior. They are deeply confused individuals, who for various reasons, desire to sexually use and abuse children (among others) and have seen or created opportunity and then acted upon their desire.

Myth #5) Boys abused by males must be gay or will become gay.

Some males fear that due to their experiences as boys, they must "really" be homosexual, or that they can't be "real men." Also many boys abused by men believe (or are told by their abusers) that something about them attracted their abuser and will attract other males.

On the flip side of gender, my father told me something about me attracted him (therefore "it" was obviously my fault) but sick as it was, my molest fell into a more socially acceptable male-female context. I don't know if he told the males he molested that something about them had attracted the abuse he heaped upon them. I don't know if he was told something about him attracted his molesters either.)

One of the great tragedies of childhood sexual abuse is how it robs a person's natural right to discover his or her own sexuality in his or her own time. By definition child sexual abuse is about adult power. It has nothing to do with a child's preferences or desires. It is about adult advantage and gratification.

Myth #6) If a female used or abused a boy, "He got lucky." and if he does not feel that way there is something wrong with him.

This definition of "Masculinity" says that "real" males can't be sexually abused but that sexual experiences with girls or women, especially older ones is evidence that he's "a real man."a case of preferring to focus on the sexual aspect and not on the abusive one. (and I cannot resist adding: who hasn't seen old movies in which fathers hire sex workers to "educate" young sons? Although, now, both prostitution and sex trafficking seems to be a less openly approved educational methods. Perhaps access to internet porn in the privacy of home is the new thing.) In any case the sexual exploitation and betrayal by a more powerful person, male or female, is Abuse not an educational experience.


In reality, premature, coerced or otherwise abusive or exploitative experiences are never positive whether they are imposed by an older sister, sister of a friend, babysitter, neighbor, aunt, mother or any female in a position of power over a boy. Whether the victim is a boy or a girl, to be used as a sexual object by a more powerful person, male or female, is never a good thing and can cause lasting harm.

Myth #7) Boys who are sexually abused will (inevitably) go on to abuse others. This myth is especially dangerous because it creates terrible fear in boys and men. They may not only fear becoming abusers themselves, but fear that if others find out they were abused they will believe those who were abused as children are themselves automatically a danger to children.  Boys and men who tell of being abused often are viewed more as potential perpetrators than as men in need of support.

Believing these Myths  is understandable but dangerous and harmful:

   * These are myths that everyone absorbs growing up and men (and women) who continue to believe them are harmed by them.

   * As long as societies believe these myths and continue to teach them to children, many men harmed by unwanted or abusive sexual experiences won't seek or get the recognition their abuse needs and deserves.

   * So long as boys and men harmed by unwanted or abusive sexual experiences believe these myths they will feel ashamed and be less likely to seek whatever knowledge, understanding or help they need to achieve the lives they want and deserve.

   * So long as boys, men and society as a whole believes these myths and males don't get the help they need, males are more likely to join the minority who end up hurting others.

   * So long as these myths are believed it increases the power of another devastating myth: That it was the child's fault.

It is never the fault of the child in a sexual situation... although some people are skilled at getting those they use and abuse to take on a responsibility that is always, and only, their own.

For any man harmed by unwanted or abusive sexual experiences...and for anyone who wants to support him...recognizing and becoming free of these myths is necessary to overcoming the effects of the abuse and to achieving the life he wants and deserves.

Shame, Blame, and Fear: What "Think" doesn't seem to realize about browbeating and blaming the women brave enough to post on Not the Life:

Recently "Think" posted several times on Not the Life. (commenting on the post "Elizabeth I Chose")

Think asked,"Am I missing something here?"  

Well, to answer your question, "Yes, I think you are." 

Not the Life is meant to be a safe place where all women/ sexual abuse survivors can share experience, strength, and hope. 
We share our stories (something which "Think" neglected to do) so others will know what happened to us and so we can make decisions about what choices to make next. It is a place to reach out, tell our stories, without fear. We have been browbeaten by experts. Trolls are unwelcome on Not the Life I Chose because this is a SAFE space.

Every woman's choice shared here is to be respected. Not denigrated. No browbeating no silencing anyone's story. Not allowed here on Not the Life. Maybe one person's choice is different than someone else's but it takes great courage to speak out and tell honestly what happened to us and to our loved ones. 

Until now most of us thought we were alone in this. We thought no one would understand (or even listen to us) as we made painful choices, worked through the anger and betrayal we felt and made choices we knew many would not agree with but which we on Not the Life Support because we too had to make painful decisions and we know what it takes to make such decisions (no matter which decision any one of us reached)  On not the life it's the speaking out the telling of our silenced stories that gives us all a chance to know we are not alone and frees us to move into a better future...

No one sharing their story here on Not the Life deserves to be labeled "child predator (no matter what you may think.) No one here deserves to be threatened "when you are older, your child will cut all contact with you." even if that's what someone you know did...perhaps out of past unresolved anger, fear or shame?  

No One here on Not the Life wants to continue the cycle of child sexual abuse into another generation, that's why mothers search the web to find some safe place share our stories, where we can know we are not alone and share our decisions going forward (whatever those decisions might be) without fear of condemnation.  

We are all here for each other and we are here for you if you want to share your story. We share our stories and our painful choices as a way of knowing we are not alone in this. It's a way to find healing choices for us and for our children and families going  forward. Please think before you decide to hide your own story while pointing fingers and condemning us.  

Please, also tell us your story. It's Okay. we won't judge, shame, blame or browbeat you. We are open to learning from the choices you have made.  So share your personal journey with us just as we share ours with each other and with you on Not the Life.  

Sometimes the Police Knock on the door is a blessing: In divorce and family court, Mothers tasked with protecting our children from child sexual abuse find we are shamed, blamed and called liars by the very family courts we expected would listen and back up up...

Custody in crisis: How family courts nationwide put children in danger

In many cases across the country, family courts ignore evidence of sexual or physical abuse, putting kids in peril

LAURIE UDESKY AND 100REPORTERS

• .

(Credit: 100 Reporters)

Six years ago, in 2010, an appellate court in Tennessee affirmed a family court ruling that had awarded Darryl Sawyer primary custody of his six-and-a-half-year-old son, Daniel. (All the names of family members involved in custody cases mentioned in this article have been changed to protect the children’s privacy.)

The court ruled in favor of Sawyer despite evidence presented by his ex-wife that alleged he had sexually abused their child. Three years earlier, Daniel returned from a visit with his father with suspicious bruises on his bottom. His mother, Karen Gill, immediately took the three-year-old boy to his pediatrician. “Your instant reaction is that you don’t want it to be what it appears to be,” Gill said, choking back tears at the memory. “You really hope there’s another reason for why he has these marks on him.”

But the doctor, Victoria Rundus, confirmed Gill’s worst fears. Dr. Rundus reported to the Tennessee Department of Children’s Services that she found reddish blue bruises on the child’s buttocks that could only occur from an adult “holding his buttocks forcibly open.” Gill thus began a long, arduous battle – that continues to this day – to protect her son.

Gill expected resistance from her ex-husband, but was surprised and shocked to find herself facing an even more formidable obstacle to her son’s safety in family court.

By the time the case was heard by a Tennessee family court judge in 2008, the state’s Department of Children’s Services had already investigated and had determined that Sawyer “‘was indicated’ as the perpetrator of sexual abuse of [their son],” according to court records.

Nevertheless, the family court judge granted primary custody to Sawyer, warning Gill that if she wanted unrestricted visiting rights with her son, she had better quit talking with the boy about the alleged abuse by his father. What’s more, she had to stop taking her son to doctors to be examined for signs of abuse.

Why did the court give the boy to his father despite credible evidence of abuse? It turns out the family court relied heavily on the recommendations of William Bernet, a psychiatrist and court-appointed custody evaluator. He convinced the family court to ignore the medical report, stating that Sawyer was not a pedophile or child molester and should be awarded custody of Daniel.

Other factors played into the court’s decision as well. Gill had earlier tried to restrict Sawyer’s access to the boy based on allegations that the court deemed unfounded. Gill’s suspicions were aroused, she said, because Sawyer had told her of a family history of incest. She feared Sawyer, in turn, would abuse his own children. Other allegations included comments by her ex-husband that “Satan speaks to him,” physical and verbal abuse toward her and threats of suicide. None of this, the court said, could she prove.

Dr. Bernet declined to comment on the case.

Daniel’s case is not unique.

In family courts throughout the country, evidence that one of the parents is sexually or physically abusing a child is routinely rejected. Instead, perpetrators of abuse are often entrusted with unsupervised visits or joint or sole custody of the children they abuse, putting children in danger of serious, often life-threatening harm, according to children’s advocates.

Our two-year investigation – which includes interviews with more than 30 parents and survivors in California, Ohio, North Carolina, New York, Georgia, Texas, Tennessee, Maryland and New Jersey – uncovered stories of children consigned to suffer years of abuse in fear and silence while the parents who sought to protect them were driven to the brink financially and psychologically. These parents have become increasingly stigmatized by a family court system that not only discounts evidence of abuse but accepts dubious theories used to undermine the protective parents’ credibility.

“Protective parents are asking the authorities to step in and protect their children and they’re not,” said Kathleen Russell, executive director of the California-based Center for Judicial Excellence (CJE), a watchdog group that focuses on family courts.

In scores of cases, the consequences have been lethal. News reports alone, while not comprehensive, paint a startling picture. From 2008 to 2016, 58 children were killed by custodial parents after family courts around the country ignored abuse allegations by the protective parent, according to an analysis of news reports conducted by CJE. In all but six cases, protective parents were mothers who had warned family courts that their children were in danger from abusive fathers who later killed them.

“The authorities are blaming the protective parents and pathologizing them, and their kids are ending up dead,” said Russell.

How do family courts get away with these kinds of decisions?

“You can take the same amount of evidence to criminal court and a jury will convict beyond a reasonable doubt,” said attorney Richard Ducote, who represents protective parents trying to regain custody of their children. “And the appellate court will uphold the conviction and the sentence.”

But family courts have a different focus, explained Ducote, who also worked as a special assistant district attorney statewide in Louisiana prosecuting termination of parental rights cases. In theory they are supposed to consider first the best interest of the child. But in practice, Ducote said, “They’re concerned with the reduction of conflict [within the family] and getting along, which is good unless there is someone you need to protect the child from.”

Court records are often sealed, a practice intended to protect the privacy of children. As this investigation shows, however, it’s a practice that can put children in greater danger by blocking outside oversight.

Moreover, the high cost of litigation throws up a formidable obstacle for most parents fighting to get their children out of harm’s way. There is little research on court costs, but a preliminary analysis of a national survey of 399 protective parents by Geraldine Stahly, emeritus professor of psychology at California State University, San Bernardino, showed that, for some 27 percent of these parents who ultimately declared bankruptcy, the costs were about $100,000.

No government agency tracks the number of children nationally that family courts turn over to their abusers, and existing academic research is largely regional. Advocates have tried to put a number on it by culling statistics from primary and academic sources. They estimate that at least 58,000 children a year end up in unsupervised visits with or in the custody of an abusive parent. A 2013 analysis in the Journal of Family Psychology cited studies that show that anywhere between 10 and 39 percent of abusers are awarded primary or shared custody of their children.

However difficult it may be to quantify, high-level government officials recognize the breadth of systemic failure. “It’s a terrible situation,” said Lynn Rosenthal, who served as the White House Advisor on Violence Against Women from 2009 to 2015. Before going to the White House, Rosenthal personally saw the extent of the problem while working with many state coalitions on child welfare and domestic violence. “We saw this all over the country,” she said.

How do abusers get custody? A big part of the answer lies in the very experts that courts turn to for help in evaluating the fitness and safety of parents.

In sounding the alarm over her suspected abuse by her ex-husband, Gill ran squarely into an unexpected obstacle. Bernet and his colleague, James Walker, stated in a joint report that they used a battery of tests to evaluate Sawyer. They claimed that Sawyer tested as “low risk” for sexual offenses and was not a pedophile. These tests included a sex offender risk test known as the Static-99, the Minnesota Sex Offender Screening Tool, the Sex Offender Risk Scale and the Abel Exam for Sexual Interest.

But according to Anna Salter, PhD, who has conducted research with sex offenders for two decades, using such tests in family court is meaningless. “They can’t be used to determine if someone is a child molester,” explained Salter, who is the author of “Predators: Pedophiles, Rapists and Other Sex Offenders” and a consultant with the Wisconsin Department of Corrections. Instead, she said, the tests were intended to evaluate people already convicted of child molesting to determine the likelihood of recidivism. The Abel exam, which tests for sexual interest in children, does not yield meaningful results, she said. “It is based on how long you look at the pictures of the children. There are now sites that tell you how to fake it – ‘just look away.’”

Beyond the tests, Bernet also wrote that Gill, not Sawyer, was causing harm to their son. “Since 2003, [Gill] possessed personality traits of parents who make false allegations of sexual abuse,” such as “strongly criticizing” Sawyer. Bernet also ascribed “narcissistic tendencies” to Gill, stating that she “appears to lack insight into the strong feelings and motivations that are driving her current behavior in casting [Sawyer] as a child abuser.”

Among his primary concerns, wrote Bernet, was that if Gill were allowed to continue questioning her son about his father’s actions, she would “induce [Daniel] to share her false beliefs.”

Bernet dismissed Daniel’s claim that his father had “put a stick in my butt,” writing that the child was, rather, making up a fantastical story under prompting by his mother. Similarly, he contended that an interview with Child Protective Services did not show Daniel was “capable of giving a simple, coherent description of a past event.” Of the bruises on the child’s buttocks, Bernet noted that Sawyer said he thought they were from water slides at the two water parks that he and Daniel had visited two days in a row. His acceptance of Sawyer’s explanation at face value appeared to ignore a physician’s description in court records of bruises “shaped like thumbprints” that were “inside [Daniel’s] buttocks.”

Child advocates say they regularly hear of custody battles similar to the Sawyer-Gill case in which an evaluator deflects the court’s focus on potential abuse by alleging that one parent is brainwashing the children to believe that they are being abused. This behavior is known as Parental Alienation Syndrome (PAS) by those who embrace it and deemed questionable science by organizations such as the National Council of Juvenile and Family Court Judges and the American Psychological Association.

As far back as 1996, a Presidential Task Force found a “lack of data to support” the diagnosis of Parental Alienation Syndrome. Citing this report, the American Psychological Association in 2008 declined to take a position on the “purported syndrome.”

Bernet, however, is among a faction of family court professionals trying to get PAS accepted as a recognized disorder in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM), the bible of mental health practitioners. So far, he and other advocates of PAS have not prevailed. Bernet said in an interview that “the actual words are not in the DSM-V [the latest revised version], but the concept is,” pointing to what he describes as three new diagnoses that each have features of PAS.

Dr. Darrel Regier, vice chair of the DSM-V task force, said that the DSM acknowledges that alienation can figure into relationship dynamics. But “we were very careful not to include in there a diagnosis of PAS,” he said, adding that “the international community isn’t buying PAS as a diagnosis either.” With respect to how it’s used in family court to discredit abuse, he said, “If there’s evidence of abuse, then that’s what should drive the courts.”

The National Council of Juvenile and Family Court Judges cautions jurists in custody cases “not to accept testimony regarding parental alienation syndrome or PAS,” according to the guidebook Child Safety in Custody Evaluations. It adds, “The theory positing the existence of PAS has been discredited by the scientific community.”

Many courts, however, have paid little attention to these recommendations. “There’s this myth out there that there’s over reporting of abuse when in fact, statistically, there’s an underreporting of abuse,” said retired  Kentucky Judge Jerry Bowles, a co-author of the guidebook.

Judge Bowles, who trains his fellow jurists in domestic and family violence matters, said that it’s common for courts to believe that mothers press for no contact with their ex-spouses for reasons other than safety. He ties this misconception to lack of training and understanding among jurists about violence in families.

A pilot study by Joan Meier, a professor of clinical law at George Washington University Law School, supports Bowles’ observations. In analyzing 240 published rulings in an electronic search for cases involving custody and alienation, she found that more often than not, accusations of abuse did not block access to children in family court settings. In some 36 cases where a mother accused the father of abusing their children, the court nevertheless ruled in the father’s favor 69 percent of the time. The tendency to discount the mother’s accusation was even more pronounced where sexual abuse was alleged: In the 32 such cases Meier identified, the father prevailed 81 percent of the time. She is now working on an expanded study examining the same issues – including intimate partner violence – in some 5,000 cases with a grant from the National Institute of Justice.

Bernet’s characterizations of Sawyer as the good guy and Gill as mentally disturbed are consistent with a troubling pattern that organizations fighting to reform the family courts see in these cases. They include the Center for Judicial Excellence, the Domestic Violence Legal Empowerment and Appeals Project and The Leadership Council on Child Abuse and Interpersonal Violence.

“The research shows that the family courts are a perfect place for abusers to get custody,” said former White House advisor Rosenthal. “They can manipulate the evaluator; they can manipulate the [court- appointed] guardian; they can manipulate the judge. They make themselves look good and they make her [the mother] look crazy.”

Cynthia Cheatham, a Nashville-based attorney who represented Gill in her appeals case and whose practice involves helping protective parents fight to regain custody, agreed.

“They have Mom, who looks like she just stuck her finger in a light socket, and the perpetrator, who may have stuck his finger in his kid’s vagina, who looks like a very normal guy.”

Some custody evaluators appear to go to great lengths in their effort to normalize perpetrators’ behaviors. Thomas Hanaway, PhD, also in Tennessee, wrote that a father who had already been substantiated as a perpetrator of sexual abuse by the state’s child protective services “appears to be very fond of his children and even if he were engaging in sexually inappropriate behavior with them, in my opinion, he would be doing it in a kind fashion.” (Emphasis added.) Hanaway did not respond to requests for interviews.

Alina Feldman, 16, of Dallas, Texas, wishes that disclosures of abuse she first made when she was four years old had been taken seriously by the court’s therapist and custody evaluator. Had they done so, it might have spared Alina what she describes as years of severe abuse and misery in her father’s care while separated from the mother she loved.

“He would hold a knife up to my neck and threaten to kill me,” Alina recalled. “He would take a knife and cut my arm. Sometimes he would choke me until I passed out. He would snap my wrists.”

Instead of taking her to a doctor, she said, her father would put her wrist in a brace until it healed. He would also twist her arms in different directions, she said. As she began puberty, he would sit on the toilet seat and watch her while she showered, she said. If she cried about missing her mother, she said, he punished her by withholding food.

Laurie Udesky is an award-winning San Francisco based reporter. An earlier article she wrote for Salon, “No School Nurses Left Behind,” earned an award from the Association of Health Care Journalists.

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Custody in crisis: How family courts nationwide put children in danger