Hey, everyone. Um.
Sometimes as a therapist you lose sleep over things.
I don't like how close this is on my face, so I'm gonna back up the camera just a little bit.
Um a lot of things, you lose sleep over. Or at least I do. And this week
it is
why our system does so little to protect victims of abuse, whether that's sexual abuse or
domestic violence. Um I've worked with dozens or hundreds of victims of abuse, and
I have only once seen the abuser go to jail for
long time for his crimes. And even getting to that point was like really awful for the the victim,
the survivor. Um so in that situation, the stepfather had sexually abused his daughter
for like seven years. She finally leaves the house, is like trying to develop her own life,
start seeing, starts coming to therapy. Um we talk about the pros and cons of reporting
because now she's an adult, and eventually she decides to to report him. And her entire
family was furious at her. Her entire family was like, "What are you doing?" Um you know, her dad
got arrested. And um they said, 'Now your little sister won't have food because your dad's in jail.
Why did you do this?" You know. "You're" - and they blamed her for the abuse even. And so that's,
you know, emotionally, mentally miserable. Well, the stepfather then - the stepfather
then um confesses, full videotape confession, uh to all of it. And then um later pleads not guilty,
and they spend two years leading up to the trial. Well, a year leading up to the first trial,
and then it mistrialed, and then they had to wait a whole, almost another year for the next
trial. And in in the meantime, like her family's sitting on the side in the in the courtroom of
the stepfather, and you just can imagine the emotional turmoil this woman was going through
um while also trying to process her trauma, while also trying to hold a
job and live her life. Right? This man is now in jail, and he's, you know, he's gonna be in
jail for a very long time. So that's the one time it worked. Now, let's talk about
why I'm losing sleep. So a couple years ago a couple of women came to me and said, "Hey,
we've been sexually abused by this man." And - all three of them, right? And I'm like,
"Okay, wow, three people at once." They weren't my clients; they were acquaintances. And I was like,
"Okay, okay." And um they said, "And we have um indications that there are dozens more victims,
that he is a" - and I'm just thinking in my head, "This guy's a chronic like abuser,
worried about custody of their two kids. They were trying to protect their kids
from this guy. There was evidence of abuse from this guy uh towards their children.
And so uh they were they were trying to brainstorm, like, "What else can we do?"
They had filed reports, but some of it was beyond the statute of limitations.
Um they had um talked to police. They had hired um investigators. They had worked with uh local and
state police departments. And still like the kids were still going to this person's home. And um
he was also a practicing psychologist. And um I knew that he worked in programs with kids,
and as a psychologist he would often be alone with these kids. So I um I told them, you know,
I talked to them about their options. I said,, "Look, you know, you can keep going down the legal
route, which often fails people. Investigations often just don't go that well. You can keep
pursuing that, though, keep going with that, why not. Some of your other options are like,
let's put up a billboard on the I-15, the big highway in Utah. Let's put up a billboard, say,
"Have you been abused by this guy? Call this number," and let's get as much information as
possible. We could go to the newspapers and be like, "Hey, there's this psychologist with all
these accusations of abuse. Like, if you've been abused by him, call this number." We could compile
more evidence. Um and and the problem with those approaches were that they put the mom and the kids
in danger, in danger of more um retribution from this guy. So I talked to them. I said, "These are
some of your options. Let me know how I can help with them. I'm happy to help." And then in the
meantime I call up our licensing board and I say, "I'd like to file a complaint. Um three women have
told me they've been abused by this guy." And so I talked to DOPL, is what it's called, and
um they they open an investigation. Turns out this guy had some priors. He had some other like legal
issues that he'd had, some - um he had solicited a prostitute, some other things. And so - but
eventually DOPL comes back to me and says, "Hey, look, we see the smoke, but we don't have enough
evidence to do anything about his license." And I'm like, "Great, we're not protecting anyone
here. This guy's practicing sex therapy with minors. I mean, like he's doing all this stuff.
And um so then there's all these programs that I know this psychologist is working with with these
youth, and I know some of the people in these programs, so I start sending emails and making
calls and saying, "Hey, just so you know, I've received reports from three people that this man
has sexually abused them. You may not want him to be alone with your clients." And um
and after I did that, here's the thing, right? After I did that I had this horrible feeling of
like, "Oh my gosh, what if he comes after me? What if he comes after me for defamation? What
if someone in these programs is buddies with him and says, 'Hey, this this lady is out to
get you,' and then he sues me for defamation? Now all of a sudden my family's in the crosshairs for
retribution. So it's scary to speak up to these things. And I was - I didn't even directly know
this guy. He didn't know who I was. Right? It's really scary to pursue um action against abusers
who are like really bad actors, and I think that's one of the reasons why it's so hard for so many
victims to speak up and make claims, um to make accusations or to file charges. Not only that,
but the legal expenses and the emotional expenses are really hard and really heavy for people.
So I think that's one of the reasons. And obviously in our society and in our justice
system, we want to have, you know, evidence beyond reasonable doubt. Um I think that's one of the big
reasons. And I think another big reason is people, even really well-meaning people, inherently doubt
that people could be so bad. They doubt that like there are such bad people in this world.
Um and I can I can admit to this myself. One time I was working in a program, it was an outdoor
program, and um a few weeks after some of these kids had left the program one of them came back
and and said, "Hey, this one night where we were camping in this one place, one of these other kids
uh forced me uh into some sexual activities." And the director came and he said, "Hey, Emma,
what do you know about this? Like you were staffed that day." And my initial thought was - this is
what I said, and I I regret this. I deeply regret this. I said, "Oh, that that couldn't
have happened. We were all sleeping within five feet of each other. I am a very light sleeper.
I don't think that happened. And um my supervisor, who was on point, said, "Emma,
always trust when someone accuses it. You default you default to believing, because
most people aren't going to make it go through all that pain of an accusation for, you know,
to make a lie." And I do believe that. Like the vast majority of accusations are true, and people
need to default to believing them, not doubting them. And I think a lot of well-meaning people and
hard-working people and good people who are trying to help protect people don't understand like
that most people most people would never want to make a false accusation because
of all the pain and suffering associated with it. It's hard enough to make a true
um statement about what actually happened. So long story short, here's the awful thing that happened.
Um this man, this psychologist, his wife has been continue - there's been open
investigations against the psychologist. Um going back to the psychologist,
there's been opening investigations against the psychologist in multiple cities and counties.
His wife has been continuing to struggle to get full custody to protect her kids from this man
and was on the verge within the last few weeks of, from what I understand, getting custody.
And on Saturday, um this this man um shot his son and then ended his own life. So.
This is why like I am so upset about our system and the victims
I've worked with and this boy who lost his life. His name is Om. And um gosh,
he he died with his saxophone. Like, he was a teenager, right?
And his dad killed him. And people - his his mother has been trying to protect him for 15 years
and has been prevented been prevented from doing so by the system. So
what can we do about it? Number one: I would just say believe people. Like believe people
when they have accusations of abuse. The second thing:
um if you would like to support this individual family, there's a GoFundMe. They are um
they are trying to pass some legislation called Kayden's Law, which is a system-changing piece
of legislation that helps support um families who are trying to escape domestic violence and abuse.
so they're trying to raise uh fifty thousand dollars. All that money goes straight to
legislation to protect families from abuse. So if you're interested in contributing in that way,
that would be great. Um if you can find any other way in your communities to advocate for
victims of abuse or violence, please do so. And um let's hold our government as well accountable
to keep people safe. So there you go. That's what's keeping me up at night. I hope we can all
take some action to make the world a better place for victims of abuse.
Let's not just get better at feeling; let's take action, like making the world a better place.
Okay. The end.