I nearly didn’t write last week’s newsletter about the connection between post-separation abuse and health. I was busy writing about another topic.

Then I got my diagnosis of hypothyroidism, and I thought, I have to write about this. I was sure I wasn’t the only woman who had to deal with health issues that were possibly triggered or exacerbated by abuse. In fact, I know I’m not. Almost every client I’ve had as a divorce coach has had to take sick leave or lost a job because of stress related to the trauma they’ve suffered.

So, I don’t know why I was surprised that it resonated so much. Not only was it the most opened newsletter in months, I also got over a dozen comments from readers who, in many cases, felt heard for the first time.

Some of them raised issues I didn’t address in last week’s newsletter. So I want to talk about a couple of them now, from one reader who is rightly frustrated about her situation.

She said:

She also asked these questions:

These are heartbreaking questions. There’s no easy answer to them. First of all, I want to acknowledge that documenting is already a burden on victims. You’re documenting your ex’s behaviour, their written communications with you, and the impact on your children. And then someone comes along and suggests that you document the impacts on your health—the very same health that’s probably already impacted by all these other things you need to document, not to mention by the burden of documenting itself?

I want to be clear: documenting your health doesn’t guarantee a fair outcome. Nothing does, really. You could have the strongest case and present it to a new judge who has no clue about how to apply the law properly and doesn’t like how you look. But there are good reasons to document the connection between your ex’s actions and the effects on your health.

First of all, sometimes there is compensation. Look at my own story. I took my ex to court for passing on intimate images of me to another person, who tried to use them to blackmail me. It was done before this became a criminal offense in Canada, so this was my only recourse. I couldn’t afford a lawyer to represent me in a civil suit, so I did it myself, through small claims court, which has a $15,000 ceiling on claims. In my suit, I brought up how humiliated and embarrassed I’d felt about the images being propagated.

But humiliation and embarrassment aren’t enough to get compensated, and I didn’t show proof of the effects on my mental or physical health. At the time, I’d lost my government health coverage because of my immigration status (open work permit holders are only covered when they’re living with the person whose closed work permit their permit is based on). I was providing for four children on zero child support (my ex was unemployed by then) and an income of under $20,000. I couldn’t afford a doctor’s visit, let alone therapy. I was awarded $4,000 in punitive damages.

A few weeks after my judgment, Jane Doe 464533 was awarded $100,000 in compensatory damage for extremely similar circumstances. Part of the reason for this award was that the perpetrator’s conduct was egregious and ongoing. He posted the video the same day he received it, showed it to friends, showed no remorse, and the video may still be in circulation.

In my case, I found, and submitted evidence to the court, that a month after I’d left my ex, he’d posted these and other images of me on his profile in various “adult” portals. They were still sitting there when I came across them three years later. It was easy enough for any half-assed internet sleuth to trace his identity and find out who I was.

So, I had a stronger factual case than a woman who was awarded $100,000, and I walked away with $4,000 in punitive damages and nothing else, because I couldn’t show what it had cost me. That’s the cost of not having the record.

To answer the second question, when you end up in court in a family matter, you WILL be profiled, as the reader put it, “as vindictive, alienating, unstable, etc. and him being seen as a fit parent.” Your health history, correlated with his abuse, is one possible way of taking control of the narrative and turning his claims against him. It’s up to you and your lawyer to decide whether to introduce this information, but if you don’t have it, you can’t use it.

Documentation doesn’t have to be hard, either, thanks to AI. If you have a paid account with Aimee Says, you can journal your symptoms, doctor visits, results, etc., as well as your ex’s ongoing abusive or blocking behaviour, and Aimee will create a timeline that shows the correlations clearly.

Or you can journal on your own, offline, and, when the time comes, pay for a subscription with Claude for a couple of months (making sure that you opt into them not training on your data) and upload it all and let Claude create tables for you and pull out the pertinent quotes/events.

One of my clients has done that. Her lawyers told her that she is the most organized and well-documented client they have. Her case is being heard in multiple courts, with 6 different lawyers involved. She was forced to represent herself in one of these courts earlier this year, where she was complimented by the security staff. They said she came across as way more organized than most family lawyers they’ve seen there. And yes, her health history is part of the story she’s documented and will be presenting in her child support application next week, as she asks for costs and damages.

As for the third question in this response, about gaining back your health while you’re under fire. You do whatever you can, both with regard to your mental health and your physical health. A mom I spoke to this week told me, “I take my anxiety pills because I would not be able to function without them.” Somatic practices to address the stress, exploring mindset shifts that reduce the stress of your ex’s constant attacks on you, and finding a group of people who really get it and you can vent to constructively are also part of this.

And then, like I did this year when I finally went to see a doctor and got blood tests, you can make sure that you don’t neglect your physical health and take every action available to you here.

In response to the last question the reader had: what about your children’s health? If your ex is blocking your attempts to take care of your children’s health, that’s part of the narrative you can take charge of as well.

You can’t control the outcome. You likely won’t get back what this has cost you, but you can make sure you’re holding the story if that opportunity ever comes.

If you’re feeling beaten down by your ex’s constant attacks on you, or you’re terrified that you’re going to be portrayed as a vindictive, alienating mom in court, I’m happy to talk through your fears with you and help you find options you haven’t considered. Book a 30-minute consultation, free of charge, and let’s talk.

Want to know more about what I do?

Body Scan Breathing: A Somatic Practice to Ground, Soothe and Regulate — a gentle guided practice to help settle the nervous system, accessible even when you're exhausted or overwhelmed.

I also want to mention that, although my book AI Armor: Your Digital Defense Solution to Coparenting With a Narcissist doesn’t address health issues, the last section of the book contains prompts to help you make mindset shifts that can reduce your stress responses to your ex’s attempts to dysregulate you.

If you haven’t gotten around to it yet, you can buy the book here on Amazon Canada (if you’re not in Canada, just switch to your own country’s Amazon or search for AI armor narcissist).

I’ve also started writing another book, with the working title of From Scared To Strong: 7 Secrets for Coparenting After Narcissistic Abuse. The aim of this book is to help women with coercively controlling exes stop living in fear and start living from a place of strength, as they reclaim their own power.

I have two asks for you, my readers:

Firstly, I’m looking for stories of times when your ex came across as supremely confident, but you realized that this was just a mask, their confidence a balloon that someone was able to easily prick.

Secondly, I’m looking for a group of beta readers for my new book. If you’re currently co-parenting with a high-conflict or narcissistic ex, or have done so in the past, I’d love to hear from you. Beta readers get early access to the material in exchange for honest feedback. No special qualifications needed. Lived experience is exactly what I’m looking for. If you’re interested, respond to this email.