Why Doesn't Anybody Believe Me?!

Does it ever feel like nobody believes you when you talk about your abuse or your trauma? Or that judges, lawyers, and CPS go so far as to get angry with you and call you a liar when you bring up Non-physical abuse?!  There is actually a scientific explanation for this.

It's called Processing Fluency. If something is difficult for us to process, we are less likely to believe it. In some cases, our brains might just completely reject the idea and come up with justifications for why it is false. In other  words, something can seem so foreign to us, that we are literally incapable of wrapping our minds around it. This can be extremely harmful when child custody comes into play.

I get this a lot when I talk about my custody battle. People are really hesitant to believe me because they don't want to believe something that seems too crazy to be true. I used to get really frustrated, but it doesn't bother me so much anymore because I understand that it's nothing personal. It's just human nature.

Randomized controlled trials have shown that  people are more likely to believe things which they've been exposed to repeatedly.  Furthermore, the simple act of recalling a fact increases it's fluency and makes it more believable. This is why I believe that anybody dealing with a divorce or custody situation (I'm looking at you Judges), MUST receive sensitivity training, as well as training on personality disorders and non-physical abuses.

Narcissism, cluster-B personality disorders, psychological and emotional abuse are huge factors in the majority of complicated custody battles I come across. Judges are causing a grievance to the parties involved by refusing to acknowledge this exists, and it's time to change that. No judge should be allowed to serve in family court unless they are trained to recognize non-physical violence, and personality disorders.