An 11-year legal battle over a child’s custody arrangement is currently pending before the Washington Supreme Court, asking justices to answer a procedural question with profound implications for family law.
What stands out to me is how much weight seems to be placed on the earlier finding of “abusive use of conflict,” especially when one considers what it actually is: a weaponized label.
I have seen many cases involving legal findings of domestic violence, sexual abuse against a child, and other serious allegations. In those instances, there is most often a path forward, classes, evaluations, treatment, and other redemptive avenues. Yet in Washington State, “Abusive Use of Conflict” seems to supersede all of it. Once applied, it is often game over for a protective parent.
This case reads like many others, where the AUoC label effectively shuts down a parent indefinitely, often without meaningful cause, and usually against the safer parent. In my research, I have noticed a pattern where AUoC functions as a pseudonym for parental alienation. It is a finding so loosely defined and so ambiguous that, when combined with broad judicial discretion, especially within the special set courts, it becomes easy to weaponize.
Unlike findings such as abuse, neglect, or domestic violence, AUoC lacks any clear judicial test, objective standard, or meaningful scrutiny before it is imposed. There is no consistent evidentiary threshold, no uniform application, and often no real path to challenge it once the label attaches. That should concern anyone who values due process. A finding this powerful, with consequences this severe, should not rest on something so undefined.
The article reflects the same pattern I have observed. Once the AUoC label is applied, everything that parent brings forward later gets filtered through it. Even when concerns come from third parties, schools, medical providers, therapists, as in this case, it is still framed as a continuation of the same “high conflict” rather than examined on its own merit.
“High conflict” and “abusive use of conflict” seem to function as catch-all labels that overshadow everything else, often including actual abuse and neglect. Instead of protecting children, the label can become a mechanism for dismissing legitimate safety concerns.
This article raises an even bigger question: how does a parent arrive here in the first place? How was this parent granted sole decision-making authority, especially while denying the child’s condition and allowing that condition to deteriorate under one parent’s control? Those questions matter, and too often they are never seriously asked.
I’m trying to understand how the court got to this outcome based on what’s described here. This is an elementary school age child expressing suicidal thoughts, the school had to implement a safety plan, and there were documented academic and behavioral declines, how is that not considered a substantial change in circumstances when under the father it was getting worse? If services like an IEP were removed and mental health support wasn’t pursued, wouldn’t that at least raise the question of whether that authority should be reviewed? The child is young and struggling. This doesn’t read like a minor disagreement between parents. It reads like a situation where things got worse over time and the courts want to cover it up. So what would actually qualify as “enough” to trigger a hearing? Who is protecting this child?! There has to be more to this story.
11 year battle" - kids grow up under the grotesque abuse inflicted in and by Family Court. The longer the abusers can stretch out the abusive litigation, the more money the judges, lawyers, and mental healthcare workers make. The abusers don't care what it costs, their sole aim is to destroy their victims even if it means destroying the children involved as well.
In ugly fact, the abusers use the innocent children as pawns in their games to do the most damage possible to the child's protective parent, usually, but not always, the mother.
It's easy to determine who the protective parent is and who the predatory parent is by who spends the most money to destroy the other. Follow the money. Money is power, and abuse of power is abuse.
Professionals who abuse their power display a disgusting tendency towards sadism and psychopathy.
Anyone who really cares about the kids rarely involves the court in disputes, especially after they've been exposed to the truth of how abusive the systems are.
The fact that Frontier Behavioral Health's therapists, my former therapist, and my former best friend (an RSO) used their knowledge of corruption in the legal and law enforcement systems to cause me and my daughter the most harm they possibly could speaks volumes about the lack of integrity, courage, and empathy in our hopelessly broken systems.
My 23-year-old daughter and I are at odds because she has become one of "them." It's not her fault. Children who have been the victims of coercive control (psychological abuse, manipulation, cultishness) for years often follow the lead of the master manipulators as a survival response. When they have witnessed the destruction of victims who speak up, they live in mortal fear of the same retaliation. The go along to get along. They lack self-awareness, self-respect, and confidence. They are incapable of protecting themselves or anyone else from harm. In worst case scenarios, they turn against the people who actually care about them at the bidding of the people who don't. Unconditional love feels threatening to them as they confuse manipulation with love and abuse of power with agency.
When young adults turn "bad" at the bidding of their influencers, it's a form of Stockholm syndrome that is especially pernicious in our society. Denial, counter-attack, and playing the victim (DARVO) become second nature to these young adults because admitting to the abuse would bring down the whole house of cards. Their fantasy that they and their manipulators can do no wrong becomes so entrenched that they are willing to destroy anyone who attempts to hold them accountable - at an enormous cost to themselves and to the people who truly love them.
Anyone who genuinely cares about the wellbeing of children would NEVER use them as pawns.
It's time to fight for justice for protective parents as we hold predatory parents and their enablers accountable for the extensive harm they do to society.
What stands out to me is how much weight seems to be placed on the earlier finding of “abusive use of conflict,” especially when one considers what it actually is: a weaponized label.
I have seen many cases involving legal findings of domestic violence, sexual abuse against a child, and other serious allegations. In those instances, there is most often a path forward, classes, evaluations, treatment, and other redemptive avenues. Yet in Washington State, “Abusive Use of Conflict” seems to supersede all of it. Once applied, it is often game over for a protective parent.
This case reads like many others, where the AUoC label effectively shuts down a parent indefinitely, often without meaningful cause, and usually against the safer parent. In my research, I have noticed a pattern where AUoC functions as a pseudonym for parental alienation. It is a finding so loosely defined and so ambiguous that, when combined with broad judicial discretion, especially within the special set courts, it becomes easy to weaponize.
Unlike findings such as abuse, neglect, or domestic violence, AUoC lacks any clear judicial test, objective standard, or meaningful scrutiny before it is imposed. There is no consistent evidentiary threshold, no uniform application, and often no real path to challenge it once the label attaches. That should concern anyone who values due process. A finding this powerful, with consequences this severe, should not rest on something so undefined.
The article reflects the same pattern I have observed. Once the AUoC label is applied, everything that parent brings forward later gets filtered through it. Even when concerns come from third parties, schools, medical providers, therapists, as in this case, it is still framed as a continuation of the same “high conflict” rather than examined on its own merit.
“High conflict” and “abusive use of conflict” seem to function as catch-all labels that overshadow everything else, often including actual abuse and neglect. Instead of protecting children, the label can become a mechanism for dismissing legitimate safety concerns.
This article raises an even bigger question: how does a parent arrive here in the first place? How was this parent granted sole decision-making authority, especially while denying the child’s condition and allowing that condition to deteriorate under one parent’s control? Those questions matter, and too often they are never seriously asked.
I’m trying to understand how the court got to this outcome based on what’s described here. This is an elementary school age child expressing suicidal thoughts, the school had to implement a safety plan, and there were documented academic and behavioral declines, how is that not considered a substantial change in circumstances when under the father it was getting worse? If services like an IEP were removed and mental health support wasn’t pursued, wouldn’t that at least raise the question of whether that authority should be reviewed? The child is young and struggling. This doesn’t read like a minor disagreement between parents. It reads like a situation where things got worse over time and the courts want to cover it up. So what would actually qualify as “enough” to trigger a hearing? Who is protecting this child?! There has to be more to this story.
I've read the amicus brief. This case should definitely be heard by the Supreme Court. This mom and child has suffered enough.
11 year battle" - kids grow up under the grotesque abuse inflicted in and by Family Court. The longer the abusers can stretch out the abusive litigation, the more money the judges, lawyers, and mental healthcare workers make. The abusers don't care what it costs, their sole aim is to destroy their victims even if it means destroying the children involved as well.
In ugly fact, the abusers use the innocent children as pawns in their games to do the most damage possible to the child's protective parent, usually, but not always, the mother.
It's easy to determine who the protective parent is and who the predatory parent is by who spends the most money to destroy the other. Follow the money. Money is power, and abuse of power is abuse.
Professionals who abuse their power display a disgusting tendency towards sadism and psychopathy.
Anyone who really cares about the kids rarely involves the court in disputes, especially after they've been exposed to the truth of how abusive the systems are.
The fact that Frontier Behavioral Health's therapists, my former therapist, and my former best friend (an RSO) used their knowledge of corruption in the legal and law enforcement systems to cause me and my daughter the most harm they possibly could speaks volumes about the lack of integrity, courage, and empathy in our hopelessly broken systems.
My 23-year-old daughter and I are at odds because she has become one of "them." It's not her fault. Children who have been the victims of coercive control (psychological abuse, manipulation, cultishness) for years often follow the lead of the master manipulators as a survival response. When they have witnessed the destruction of victims who speak up, they live in mortal fear of the same retaliation. The go along to get along. They lack self-awareness, self-respect, and confidence. They are incapable of protecting themselves or anyone else from harm. In worst case scenarios, they turn against the people who actually care about them at the bidding of the people who don't. Unconditional love feels threatening to them as they confuse manipulation with love and abuse of power with agency.
When young adults turn "bad" at the bidding of their influencers, it's a form of Stockholm syndrome that is especially pernicious in our society. Denial, counter-attack, and playing the victim (DARVO) become second nature to these young adults because admitting to the abuse would bring down the whole house of cards. Their fantasy that they and their manipulators can do no wrong becomes so entrenched that they are willing to destroy anyone who attempts to hold them accountable - at an enormous cost to themselves and to the people who truly love them.
Anyone who genuinely cares about the wellbeing of children would NEVER use them as pawns.
It's time to fight for justice for protective parents as we hold predatory parents and their enablers accountable for the extensive harm they do to society.