Been There Got Out Podcast
Episodes
379 episodes
Is Your Co-Parenting Conflict Fueling Teen Addiction Risk?
"A toxic environment is a toxic environment, whether the parents are together or they're separate." That's not a divorce coach talking. That's Dave Kopeny — a former probation officer, school counselor, and sheriff's department investigator who...
Why Men Don't Talk About Divorce Pain with Garth Haslem
"Force demands fairness. Power prepares for reality. Force chases. Power disengages when engagement is useless." That's the framework Manalizing founder Garth Haslem uses to explain why so many marriages, divorces, and co-parenting relationship...
Why Rage Is a Sane Response to Legal Abuse, Not a Character Flaw
"I would wake up every single morning, there'd be a moment when I'd forget who I was, and then I would just be furious. And it wasn't even at my ex — it was at the system allowing this to go on and on and on." If that sounds famili...
The Step-Parent's Side of Parental Alienation: a Therapist/Former GAL Speaks Out
"One hundred percent of what was reported back to me was untrue." That's what it's like to be the step-parent inside a parental alienation campaign — standing in the middle of a custody war that started long before you arrived.In this c...
Is Your Ex Gaslighting Your Kids? A Therapist Explains What It Really Looks Like
"That is gaslighting — because the parent isn't thinking about what the child is going through. They're just making the child question their own reality."That's how licensed Marriage and Family Therapist Pinkal Panchal describes one of ...
Fake Voicemail Apps Are Fabricating Court Evidence - Here's How to Protect Yourself
"Our Family Wizard is the single source of truth." That's how attorney and Guardian ad Litem Elle Barr describes the platform she helps educate judges and family law professionals on nationwide - and it's a line worth sitting with if you're cur...
How to Stop Obsessive Thinking About Your Ex: A Somatic Psychologist Explains
"Obsessive thinking is repetitive self-stimulation. It has movement in it — thought is a movement, it's an energy form." That's how somatic psychologist Annie Brook describes the loop so many of us get stuck in when life feels unsafe and unsolv...
Does Parental Alienation Backfire in Court? A Beverly Hills Divorce Attorney Explains
“The court doesn’t care who was mean.” That’s not a throwaway line, according to Beverly Hills divorce attorney Nikoo Berenji, it’s one of the biggest blind spots she sees parents walk into family court with, and it can quietly sabotage an othe...
A Family Court Insider Reveals the Custody Mistakes That Quietly Sink Good Parents
She spent five years on the inside of the family court system as a Connecticut Family Relations Counselor — the person who meets with both parents, talks to the kids, and writes the recommendation the judge leans on. In this candid conversation...
Why Does My Toxic Ex Get Worse After the Divorce Is Final?
Most people believe that once the divorce is final, the chaos finally ends. With a high-conflict, narcissistic, or unpredictable co-parent, the opposite is often true. As they lose day-to-day control, they learn to control you from afar—through...
Why 50/50 Custody Can Backfire Badly in a High-Conflict Divorce
Everyone walks into family court assuming the “fair” answer is to split the kids right down the middle. Fifty-fifty. Equal time, equal say, problem solved. But what if that instinct toward fairness is quietly setting your children up for years ...
A DV Nonprofit CEO on What Family Court Gets Wrong About Abuse Survivors
If you have already left an abusive relationship and you're now staring down the family court system, this conversation was made for you. Lisa Johnson of Been There Got Out sits down with Liz Ortenberger, CEO of SafeNest, the largest domestic a...
Nilaja Ford: The Voice of the Child in New Jersey Custody
New Jersey judges are now hearing from children directly in custody matters, and parents whose exes have spent years working on those children are alarmed. Nilaja Ford's counter is that the children were already in the middle of it. The revisio...
Anne P. Mitchell: Spotting a False Allegation Before It Lands
Anne P. Mitchell coined the term "co-parenting." Decades before that, she was one of the first two attorneys in the country to argue that children have a right to an ongoing relationship with their father after a separation, work she started be...
Ashish Joshi: Parental Alienation Cases That Hold Up in Court
Two labels get used for very different situations in family court, and mixing them up changes who the judge thinks is to blame. A "high conflict" case is two parents who can't agree on a pediatrician or a summer camp. A family violence case is ...
Religious Abuse & Parental Alienation: How Faith Gets Weaponized in a High-Conflict Divorce
What happens when your ex doesn’t just badmouth you to the kids, but tells them God is on their side? In this episode, Lisa talks with interfaith minister and trauma-informed therapist Sherri Heller about one of the most under-recognized weapon...
The Science of Self-Medication: Trauma, PTSD & Substance Use After Abuse
If you've been living in a high-conflict divorce or custody battle, you probably know that feeling all too well — the exhaustion that never quite leaves, the hypervigilance, the sense that your nervous system has forgotten how to relax. And for...
How to Stop Your Brain from Panicking at Every Text from Your Toxic Ex
You know that feeling. Your phone buzzes. You see their name. And before you can even read the message, your heart is racing, your chest tightens, and you can barely think straight.You're not overreacting. You're not weak. Your brain ha...
Ian Steinberg: Making Mediation Work With a High-Conflict Ex
Two parents cannot sit across a table without it turning into a fight, so the mediation moves onto Zoom. Each one waits in a separate breakout room while the attorneys shuttle between them, trading a religious holiday here for an extra week of ...
"Am I Going to Lose My Child to Alienation?" A Psychologist Answers
If you've ever found yourself paralyzed by the fear that your ex is slowly turning your children against you and there's nothing you can do about it, this conversation is for you.In this episode of Been There Got Out, Lisa Johnson sits ...
How to Survive a Parenting Coordinator When Your Ex Won't Cooperate
If you've been ordered into parenting coordination, or you're wondering whether a parenting coordinator could help your high-conflict custody case, this conversation is for you.Lisa sits down with Nicole Sodoma, a family law attorney wi...
What a Guardian Ad Litem Actually Cares About
What does a Guardian Ad Litem really think when a 10-year-old says they want 50/50 custody?Crystal Wright has heard it hundreds of times — and she can tell instantly when a child has been coached. As a family law attorney AND a working ...
Male Victim Jon: Four Years of Parental Alienation, Then a Text Back
Jon went four years without speaking to any of his four children. This episode is a follow-up: two weeks before recording, one of his daughters texted him for the first time since telling him, in her twenties, that she never wanted to see him a...
Lynn Price: How to Negotiate With a Toxic Ex
Lynn Price once walked away from a negotiation and left real money on the table on purpose. After twenty-five years and more than eleven thousand negotiations as a corporate attorney, she did it because the conflict was making her sick and she ...
Why Did the Judge Do That? A Former Family Court Judge Explains
What does a family court judge actually think when you walk through those courtroom doors?If you have ever walked out of a hearing asking "why did the judge do THAT?" — this conversation is for you.Peggy Walsh spent 18 years as ...
