SpiritSong High Conflict Divorce Coaching, LLC

"That feeling you’re feeling right now—as we collectively witness our own government harassing, disappearing, and killing people in the street—is not all that different from what a protective parent feels trying to protect their children from an abuser in family court."

We've all been forced to see it--and the question now becomes "What are we going to do about it?" Read the rest of blog here:

When Power Denies Reality: Institutional Betrayal in the Streets and in Family Court That feeling you’re feeling right now—as we collectively witness our own government harassing, disappearing, and killing people in the street—is not all that different from what a protective parent feels trying to protect their children from an abuser in family court.

I've covered this topic before with my blog, but it's an important one. Mediation in a "high conflict" (aka, divorcing your abuser) can be scary. Here's what you need to know.

Mediation With Your Abuser: What to expect Many states require mediation before trial, especially when child custody is disputed. In theory, mediation can be a useful tool when both parties are reasonable and acting in good faith.

Exploitativeness and Rage--the final pieces of the DIMMER model of coercive control and narcissistic abuse. My blog today focuses on the impact of exploitativeness and rage post-separation, esepcially as it impacts the kids.

Exploitativeness and Rage: The Final—and Most Dangerous—Pieces of the DIMMER Model Over time, children exposed to exploitativeness may internalize the belief that their worth is tied to what they provide rather than who they are. They learn to monitor, manage, and accommodate adult emotions to preserve connection.

Manipulation is hard to unpack when you're an adult. Helping our kids navigate manipulation with their coercive controlling parent is so important to their development and to maintaining their healthy connection to you.

Manipulation: Protecting your children post-separation In short, manipulation is the knock-out punch after the emotional erosion of minimization. If minimization makes you doubt your reality, manipulation tells you what to do with that doubt.

This. This will be the difference in helping your kids manage through the trauma and stay connected to you. 💙

A coercive controller does not only target the protective parent. They target the entire family system, including the child. Their goal is simple. Break the child’s attachment to the protective parent and replace it with dependency on themselves.

Children learn this quickly because the home environment teaches them how to adapt. Some days the predatory parent is calm. Other days they are explosive or unpredictable. The child never knows which version is coming, so they start watching every detail. They adjust their tone, their behavior, even their needs, just to stay out of danger.

This is not a conscious choice. It is survival. Their nervous system is doing the job of keeping them safe.

Over time, the predatory parent uses well-worn tactics to pull the child closer and push you out.
➡️They gaslight the child about your intentions.
➡️They use the child as a messenger or spy.
➡️ They withdraw love when the child pushes back.
➡️They become the “fun” parent or the “wounded” parent, depending on what keeps the child close.
➡️They make the child responsible for their emotions.

When you add it all together, the child is left believing the safest place is with the parent who holds the most power.

This does not mean the child cannot attach to you. It means the abuser has created conditions where aligning with them feels necessary.

The attachment you have with your child is still there. It is fractured, not gone. And connection can be rebuilt when your child senses they are safe with you, even when their behavior does not look like it.

If you are living this, you are not failing. You are witnessing the exact tactics coercive controllers use with every protective parent I work with.

What tactic showed up first in your home?

The metaphor continues. We're all in Family Court now. 💔

Buckle Up, America: The Narcissist in Chief and the Family Court of a Nation The parallels between what’s happening in our nation and what happens to victims of abuse in family court are stark.

The first M of the DIMMER model of coercive control (Dr. Ramani) is Minimization. What makes it different that dismissiveness or invalidation? A quick 2-min. read will help explain.

M is for Minimization: The DIMMER model of coercive control. Minimization slowly erodes your confidence in perceiving what’s happening to and around you. For victims of coercive control, it often happens in private, with no one else around to validate your experience.

Ever been told you were being too sensitive or that what you experienced didn't really happen? The second piece in my series unpacking the DIMMER model of narcissistic abuse. Today we talk about invalidation and how it goes hand-in-hand with dismissiveness to erase you--dim your light. It's a quick 4-min read and just might open your eyes a little to the insidious ways this kind of abuse works to erode your sense of self. https://www.spiritsonghighconflictdivorcecoaching.com/post/i-is-for-invalidation-unpacking-the-second-layer-of-the-dimmer-model-of-abuse

My blog today unpacks dismissiveness in coercive control or narcissistic behavior patterns. We're diving into the DIMMER model of behavior patterns, as described by Dr. Ramani--dismissiveness, invalidation, minimization, manipulation, exploitativeness, and rage. Dismissiveness is often disguised as "teasing" or "just having fun", but there's nothing funny about it.

D is for Dismissiveness: Unpacking the DIMMER model of narcissistic behavior patterns “He was ‘just joking.’ He was ‘just teasing.’ He was ‘just stressed.’ But the truth? He was dismissing you. And dismissiveness is never harmless—it’s a tool of control.”

I saw a TikTok video the other day of a woman asking for advice after leaving her abusive partner with nothing but her and her child's documents and hope for a better life. It made me think about what advice I would give, if I could only give one piece. I felt like it was important enough to turn into a blog post.

You Left Your Abuser. Now What? Do the work to identify your own core wounds and heal the version of you that ended up in the abusive relationship in the first place.

This is something I have come to realize over this past year through my journey of reconnecting with my own absent father. I realize how much the hurt of my own abandonment set me up to stay in an unhealthy marriage for so long. And how grateful I am that though his absence hurt me deeply, he was not a harmful influence in my life otherwise.

The post Mother's Day blog took a different turn that I expected going into it. Isn't that the way life is though? This is what coercive control looks like. They're devaluing you and holidays, your motherhood are the most opportune times to make their point.
Inspired by a real mom on TikTok but represented here as the collective. You deserve better.

To the Mom at the Sink on Mother's Day He doesn't value you. You told him what you needed and he told you that you were wrong. Silly. Your kids are watching all of this.