L.C. is the abbreviation for my child used in court documents to help protect his identity, which I’m carrying over here for similar reasons. However, while the court system seems to view him as just a label upon which legal transactions are based on, he is actually a human being with thoughts, feelings and needs. One of those needs is spending time with his father, which he is currently being kept from against his will while people in the legal system attempt to profit off the situation. He is effectively being held hostage from his dad, by the very people who were entrusted with ensuring his safe return to his dad after a separation due to legal conflict. Thus, I named this site and the associated initiative: Free LC and hope that you will join me in supporting this cause!
Following a timesharing dispute with my ex, my actual time with my children started being lessened more and more until I was barely seeing them. Of course, there were other circumstances and complicating factors that I won't get into here. However, after trying unsuccessfully for quite some time to resolve the dispute with my ex, I finally took the issue to the court for help - only that largely just created more issues on top of the original. Here I'll give a somewhat brief summary of the core issues that followed. Note that my older child is now 18 and since that was fast approaching the court largely did not consider him in this, so the dispute being reviewed by the court mostly focuses on my younger child - L.C. for short.
I'll begin at the point where the court assigned a Guardian ad Litem to look out for the interests of the child and a reunification therapist to help support the child reuniting with his dad after the period of separation. That seemed sensible and things started off okay and was progressing ahead of schedule, which unfortunately would have meant that those assigned by the court stood to make a lot less than they would have anticipated up front. Throw in my wanting to seek a settlement over going to trial, and it seemed they felt the need to take action to prevent that and fast. Suddenly progress toward reunification was brought to a screeching halt and placed in reverse by them blocking timesharing outside of therapy. (Also, with them now taking action against me, my ex ceased conversation about settlement - apparently because this made her feel she had no reason to compromise.)
Specifically, while I had been spending increasingly more time with my child successfully, they suddenly claimed that I could only see my child under close supervision of the Reunification Therapist, which of course I’d have to pay for. Even more, they now claimed that I needed to undergo a forensic psychological evaluation which could easily run tens of thousands of dollars. They made vague claims about being worried about my mental state but provided no basis for that claim or rationale for the psych eval. Additionally, the Guardian never made any effort to investigate the conditions around my being separated from my child in the first place, and the Reunification Therapist ignored statements the child made which corroborated my concerns about this. Further they:
• showed no willingness to negotiate, compromise and/or find a reasonable resolution,
• insisted I going along with all their demands if I ever wanted to see my child again,
• blocked me from even speaking to my child, so that the narrative with him could be fully controlled,
The Guardian also acted unethically by making deceptive statements, which create a false sense of urgency resulting in my timesharing being suspended without a hearing. The Reunification therapist acted unethically by distorting events from the sessions with her to support the same. But even with their deceitfulness, there was still nothing raised that would warrant taking my child away from me.
They were tasked with reuniting me with my child but forced prolonged separation instead. They are now effectively holding L.C. hostage from me with demands for his return that would require significant financial investment. Worse yet is rather than having a single "ransom" to pay to get my child back, they refused to provide me a clear and definitive statement on how I could get their support for resuming normal time-sharing. Instead they would just ignore such questions or give vague answers in return. By doing so, they put themselves in position to hold time with my child captive indefinitely.
Obviously, this is not okay. I tried to work with them and find a reasonable solution, but they forced this predicament instead so here I am – it’s past time to fight back! Please show your support any way you can by clicking the corresponding link below. You can also choose to read posted articles or submit your own story of this nature.
Thank you!