The Respondent Community
A Brand New Safe Space for People Suffering the Injustices of the Family Law System.
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When I first started writing my book The Respondent, I was writing it to clear my name, and more importantly, to let my children know that I was wrongly accused, and I hadn't abandoned them.
I did not want to write my book, create my podcast, record my audiobook, or take my story public—I had to.
When I was in the early stages of writing the book, I thought I was alone. I didn't know anyone else who was going through what I was going through.
I felt totally confused, isolated, lonely, and carried a deep sense of shame – ALL THE TIME – because I didn't know anyone else who was walking the same horrific path.
Nobody could understand this devastating feeling.
Then, as I got deeper into researching for the book, I learned that I was in fact, not alone. Sadly, there are millions of US out there globally. Whether you are an alienated parent, a child who's been separated from a parent because of their nasty divorce, or a grandparent, auntie, uncle, a family friend, who hasn't seen a child in years, there are millions of us suffering the same experience.
This is exactly why I started The Respondent Community, the expressed purpose of which is to empower people like us to create real human connections with other people who are going through the exact same thing.
It is with this intention that I invite you all to this safe space for conversation, information sharing, and connections with other Respondents.
Here are a few things that make our community special:
We've got polls, prompts, posts, and questions that can bring more people into conversation in a space that's all our own.
We've got Topics to organize our activity, Search to find what we're looking for, and Save Post for you to quickly come back to your favorites.
You can direct message. You can also post and have threaded conversations.
We can organize virtual sessions and events.
Oh, and we can keep conversations and messaging going before, during, and after our events.
If and when we want them, we can also organize smaller groups and/or our own online courses.
In other words, we've chosen a spot designed to grow with us over time.
I've found through all the years of work that I’ve done to get to a place where I can accept my devastating reality of existing without my children, that the BEST THING I can do to help myself is to meet other people like us. Connecting with other 1st Respondents makes me feel just a little bit better - knowing that I am not alone. We are not alone.
And I’m so glad that we now have a community platform where we can all join together. So please join us. Meet people, get involved. Be vulnerable. Because that is the only real way that we are going to start to heal, or at least be able to deal with our everyday lives with some semblance of sanity.
And finally, if you know another Respondent, or a family friend, please invite them to join our community. They may not be ready to join in a conversation or share just yet. That's ok. Let them connect in their own way, their own, time, so they can feel less alone... because that's what this is all about.