(If you’re emotional, you’re unstable. If you’re calm, you’re cold.)
Write. Laugh. Hope.
Raise your voice?
You’re irrational.
Hold your tongue?
You’re manipulative.
Show proof?
You’re obsessive.
Don’t?
You’re unreliable.
Welcome to family court—where your trauma gets cross-examined
and your abuser gets the benefit of the doubt.
You escaped the violence—
but now you have to explain it
to people who think joint custody heals all wounds.
They ask if the kids were hit,
but never if they were scared.
They ask if you called the cops,
but not how many times you were told it would “make things worse.”
They praise calm demeanor
and punish emotion.
Because here, tears are threats
and survival is suspicious.
And the person who spent years
destroying your mind?
Now gets visitation rights.
Because in this courtroom,
the abuser is “a co-parent.”
And you?
You’re just too angry to be believed.
Family court doesn’t serve justice.
It serves the illusion of fairness.
And it’s built to protect image, not innocence.
If you’ve ever left that building
feeling more endangered than when you walked in—
you’re not alone.
You’re just a survivor still on trial
for the crime of leaving.
Write. Laugh. Hope.
Because what the hell else is there?
