If you are a victim of a narcissistic individual, you are dealing with excruciating psychological and sometimes physical abuse, which society often doesn’t see. If you are in the family court system with this individual, then you are dealing with an extraordinary injustice, which society often doesn’t hear about. To be trapped in a cycle of abuse and to be harmed and silenced by a cruel and unfair system causes you to suffer enormously; I know it will push you to breaking point on more than one occasion.

Dealing with narcissistic abuse concurrently with family court injustice is not just an experience you must tolerate; it is an experience you must survive. Your situation will force you to stifle your natural reactions of fear, frustration, and anger, as you learn that reacting to the abuse and injustice plays right into the hands of your oppressors and harms you further. Reacting gives them more power. Others misconstrue your justified frustration and anger and your instinctual defensiveness as hostility and bitterness. The oppressor latches onto anything that can be viewed as hostility or bitterness and uses it against you as evidence to support their false narrative; you are the abusive, unfit or pathological parent or your situation is not one of abuse, it’s just mutual conflict.

Over time, you learn how to manage simultaneous experiences of abuse and injustice and mitigate the damage to yourself and your children. You realise that when you remain angry, you suffer. You learn that instead of reacting, you must strategically respond to the abuse and injustice you experience. You stop communicating in the heat of the moment; you breathe and recentre. You realise that sometimes no response is the best response. If a response is necessary, you think to yourself,

“If I send this, does it benefit me or does it benefit my abuser?”

“What do I want to portray to the family courts and what is the best way to do that?”

“Am I coming across as calm, kind, reasonable and child-focussed?”

Over time, you learn how to communicate counter-intuitively; you realise that playing the game is necessary to emerge from your horror story with your sanity intact.

Moments arise when you don’t get an opportunity to respond and these are the moments that put your strength of character to the test - moments when avenues are exhausted and you are up against a brick wall or have reached the end of the road. The lack of control over your circumstances in these moments leaves you feeling scared, weak and helpless. You may feel overwhelming grief or despair; the uncertainty and unfairness your situation presents can be too much of a burden to bear. You feel left with few options and must go deep internally to find any seed of hope. Again, you learn how to do this over time as you run the gauntlet. You learn how to let go of the things you cannot control and decipher and focus on the things you can control; your thought process, actions, expectations, hopes and fears. You learn to analyse the coping mechanisms you use in harrowing situations and how to navigate them safely.

You contemplate all the times in your life you have faced similar traumatic circumstances and remind yourself that the storm always passes, eventually. You will emerge from the darkness into the light. You did smile again then, and you will smile again in the future. You gained strength of mind, clarity, and wisdom from the darkness; you grew as an individual and, most importantly, survived. Time and patience heal many wounds, traumatic situations evolve, and wrongs get righted when you least expect. Hang in there, my friend; you will survive this too.