What CPS Is Actually Looking For When They Knock on Your Door

When Child Protective Services shows up during a high-conflict divorce or custody battle, the fear can be overwhelming. You might be terrified of losing your children, furious at your ex for weaponizing the system, and completely in the dark about what happens next.

In this episode, Lisa sits down with Sara Vandenberg, a trauma psychotherapist and former CPS caseworker in Texas, for one of the most practical, fear-reducing conversations we've ever had about what CPS investigations actually look like from the inside.

Here's what Sara wants you to know before anything else: about 6-7 million children are investigated by CPS each year in the United States. Only about 5% are ever removed from the home. CPS is not a custody agency, and they cannot take your children and give them to your ex. That's not how the system works.

Sara pulls back the curtain on the risk-versus-danger framework that CPS workers use when they walk into your home. Risk is the deer crossing sign on the road at night. Danger is the deer standing in the middle of the road. CPS is concerned with danger, not with judging you as a parent.

She also shares something critical that surprises most parents: CPS is not looking to see if you are a good or bad parent. They are looking to see if your child is safe. Understanding this distinction can completely change how you approach a CPS investigation and how the investigator perceives you.

🎯 In This Episode, You'll Learn:

- Why CPS cannot and will not award custody to your ex, no matter what they tell you
- The exact statistics that should calm your immediate panic (and why removal is far rarer than you think)
- What CPS workers are actually looking for when they enter your home
- The surprising reason documenting your CHILD's behavior matters more than documenting your ex's
- How your emotional reaction in the first minutes of a CPS visit can shape the entire investigation
- What to do if your child may be exposed to drugs - and the hair follicle testing fact that'll shock you
- How to prepare your child for a caseworker interview without it looking like coaching
- What an "unfounded" finding means and how to use it strategically in court
- The most powerful thing you can tell the caseworker if you have a trusted family member who could help
- How repeated unfounded CPS calls by your ex can actually damage THEIR credibility

📚 About Sara Vandenberg:

Sara Vandenberg is a trauma professional, psychotherapist, and the founder of Tonalli Counseling Services. She specializes in familial sexual abuse, incest, and complex betrayal trauma. Before her career as a therapist, Sara worked as a CPS caseworker in Texas, giving her a rare dual perspective on child welfare that few practitioners can offer. Her upcoming book, "Choosing to Love Again: Overcoming the Kind of Betrayal That Nobody Talks About," addresses healing from familial sexual abuse and other profound betrayals.

Find Sara at: tonalliservices.com

💬 Are You Facing a CPS Investigation or False Allegations?

Lisa and Chris at Been There Got Out work with targeted parents every day who are dealing with CPS weaponization, false allegations, and the overwhelming fear that comes with it. If you'd like to talk through your specific situation, we offer a free 30-minute discovery call.

👉 Book your free call: beentheregotout.com

Have you ever looked back at your relationship with your ex and wondered: how did I get here? Why did I choose someone who would eventually turn the courts, the kids, maybe even your own family against you? Why did this feel so normal... at first?

The answer might be encoded in your DNA.

In this conversation, Lisa sits down with Dr. Sylvia Kalachinsky — a PhD family therapist with 21 years of clinical experience, a faculty career that took her from Mount Sinai Medical Center to working with migrant families in the California fields, and a newly released book called “Lonely AF.” She is also someone who grew up with a narcissistic father and learned, in adulthood, to trace her own relational patterns back to their roots.

Together, they unpack intergenerational trauma — not as a heavy clinical term, but as the lived experience of patterns passed down through families across at least three generations. Patterns encoded not just in behavior but, according to the science of epigenetics, in your actual DNA.

In this episode, you’ll discover:

- Why we are often unconsciously attracted to partners who mirror how we felt emotionally with our primary caregivers, even if that feeling was painful
- The science behind “your nervous system will reject what’s unfamiliar, even if it feels good,” and why a healthy relationship can feel suspiciously boring at first
- Big T vs. little t trauma - why your pain counts even if it “didn’t seem that bad”
- How to do a genogram to identify the patterns your own family has been running for generations
- The BODY Skill: a 90-second grounding technique you can use silently in mediation, at a deposition, or while waiting for a call from your lawyer
- Why your healing is the single most powerful gift you can give your children and how modeling emotional regulation stops the cycle of transmission

Lisa also shares her own story about how, after 20 years in a high-conflict marriage, a loving, stable relationship initially felt “too boring.” Her nervous system had been conditioned to chaos. The moment you hear Dr. Sylvia’s response to that story might be the thing you share with a friend today.

Whether you’re in the middle of a custody battle, co-parenting with someone you can’t trust, or already on the other side and trying to make sure the cycle ends with you — this conversation is going to give you something you’ve been looking for.

Dr. Sylvia’s new book “Lonely AF: A Therapist’s No-B.S. Guide to Feeling Less Alone” is available now.

Find Dr. Sylvia at: Instagram @doctorsylviak | drsylviak.com | The Doctor Sylvia K Show podcast

Your child cried at your house about how much they hate going to their other parent's home. Then you found out they had a great time. Or they came home from your ex's house perfectly happy, when you expected them to be upset. Or they told you one thing — and told your ex something completely different.

It can feel like a betrayal. Or proof that something is wrong at the other house. Or maybe it makes you doubt your own perception of what's happening.

Here's what's actually going on — and it's less alarming than you might think.

Dr. Jill Leibowitz is a clinical psychologist and play therapist in New York City who works with children and families navigating high-conflict divorce and co-parenting situations. In her third conversation with Lisa and Been There Got Out, Dr. Jill unpacks one of the most confusing and emotionally loaded experiences in shared custody: why children behave so differently depending on which parent they're with — and what it means for you as the parent trying to protect them.

This conversation also addresses what happens when parents respond to the "two-faced" experience in ways that escalate conflict — even when they mean well. From reporting back what the kids said, to demanding consistency in rules, to getting pulled into a group text where the kids are being used to pressure a decision, Dr. Jill walks through the specific behaviors that keep the conflict burning and the concrete steps parents can take instead.

In this conversation:

- Why kids bring different emotional parts of themselves to each parent — and why that's developmentally normal
- What it means when your child complains about the other parent's home (and what it doesn't mean)
- The "code switching" concept: how kids adapt to different homes the same way they adapt to different classrooms
- Why demanding the same bedtime, diet, and screen time rules in both homes creates more conflict than it solves
- The group text trap: what your ex is doing and the precise way to step out of it
- Why children who seem to want decision-making power are often overwhelmed by it — and what to do instead
- How to be the parent your child brings their full self to, not just the brave parts or the scared parts

If you've been confused, hurt, or worried by your child's behavior between homes, this is the conversation that will finally make sense of it.

CONNECT WITH DR. JILL LEIBOWITZ:

Website: https://realtkseveryday.com
Instagram: @realtkseveryday
Facebook: Real Talks Everyday

#KidsBehavior #CoParentingHelp #HighConflictCustody #ChildTherapist #DivorceKids #ParentingAfterDivorce #CoParenting #ParallelParenting #NarcissisticEx #FamilyLaw

When Kasia Bukowska's horses refused to cooperate, she thought she was failing. What she discovered instead changed everything she understood about trauma, healing, and why we stay stuck.

Kasia is a Polish equine-assisted therapist, equestrian coach, and artist who has spent years learning how to use horses as healing partners for clients working through deep emotional pain - including survivors of narcissistic abuse, people in the middle of high-conflict divorces, and anyone whose nervous system has been shattered by years of coercive control.

But here's the most important thing she says right at the start of this conversation: you don't need a horse.

The lessons horses teach — about nervous system regulation, about authenticity, about the way your energy affects everyone around you — apply to your dog, your cat, a rabbit, even a tree. If you've ever wondered why you can't seem to calm down no matter how hard you try, or why you walk into a custody evaluation dysregulated even though you desperately want to present well, this conversation is going to give you a completely different lens for understanding what's happening in your body.

Lisa and Kasia go deep on how horses act as biological mirrors — literally responding to your internal state in real time — and what that reveals about the patterns keeping you stuck. Including a story about a giant shire horse and a little wooden pole that will stay with you.

In this episode:

00:00 - Introduction: Who is Kasia Bukowska and why horses?
01:45 - The one thing Kasia says immediately: you don't need a horse!
03:30 - Kasia's background: equestrian coach, equine-assisted therapist, and artist
05:20 - How she discovered the connection between her paintings and her horses' messages
08:10 - What actually happens in an equine-assisted therapy session
12:00 - Why Kasia works with horses at liberty (no halters, no riding) and what that makes possible
16:30 - How a horse responds when you're reliving trauma vs. when you're regulated
19:45 - "The way you do one thing is the way you do everything" - what this means for your healing
24:00 - The cavaletti story: what a ton of horse taught one client about softening instead of pushing
30:15 - How addiction, self-harm, and deep shame show up in equine sessions
33:40 - What to do if you see horses on the side of the road and can't stop
36:20 - How to use any animal (or a tree!) as a grounding tool right now
40:10 - Can you do equine therapy online? Kasia explains how
44:30 - How to find equine-assisted learning and equine gestalt practitioners near you
47:00 - Where to find Kasia: Instagram, websites, and upcoming webinars

Find Kasia Bukowska:

Instagram (coaching): @equestrian_kasha_bukowska
Instagram (art): @kasha_bukowska_art
Coaching & therapy: hearthorseexperience.com
Artwork: kashabukowska.com

Been There Got Out:

We are Lisa Johnson and Chris Barry: veteran high-conflict divorce, custody, and co-parenting strategists who help targeted parents navigate one of the most painful experiences a person can face. We fill the gap between what family law attorneys are trained to do and what therapists understand about the legal system.

If your ex has a personality disorder, if you're fighting to protect your relationship with your children, or if you're trying to rebuild your life after years of coercive control, you are in the right place!

#equinetherapy #traumahealing #narcissisticabuserecovery #nervousystemregulation #highconflictdivorce #equineасsistedtherapy #healingafterabuse #beentheregotout

No one believes you.

You've said it in every room. To every professional. To the judge, the GAL, the CPS worker. You didn't do this. The allegations are false. And yet — somehow — your children are not with you.

There's a tool that most people in your situation have never heard of. It's not new. It's not experimental. It's legally recognized, it produces a certified written report within 24 hours, and it has caused CPS cases to be dropped and charges dismissed before parents ever set foot in a courtroom.

It's a polygraph — and not the made-for-TV version you're thinking of.

Lisa brought polygraph examiner David Goldberg onto the show specifically because false allegations are one of the most devastating — and most common — tactics used by toxic co-parents in high-conflict custody battles. David has administered more than 20,000 tests over 25 years, many of them for parents exactly like you: falsely accused, emotionally overwhelmed, and desperately looking for something concrete to fight back with.

This conversation covers the practical reality of polygraph testing in custody situations: what it actually costs in time and emotion, what the report contains, how attorneys and judges interact with it, and — perhaps most surprisingly — how many people find the experience therapeutically transformative, not just legally valuable.

About David Goldberg:

David Goldberg is a state-licensed, advanced board-certified polygraph examiner based in Virginia. He spent the early part of his career in law enforcement, where he watched innocent people struggle to prove their innocence in a system that defaulted to suspicion. That experience drove him to open his private practice, where he now serves individuals outside the criminal system — people dealing with custody battles, workplace conflicts, past trauma, and more. With nearly 25 years of practice and more than 20,000 examinations behind him, David is also a court-certified expert witness. He is one of the few examiners in the country who takes a full-day approach to each client — never watching the clock, never rushing to the next appointment — because he understands that the conversations that happen before the test determine the accuracy and usefulness of everything that follows.

🔗 Connect With David Goldberg:
🌐 Website: www.executiveprotectiongrp.com
📞 Phone: 757-495-1301
(David will personally refer you to a vetted examiner near you if he can't serve you directly)

#NoOneBelievesMe #FalseAllegations #CustodyBattle #PolygraphTest #FalselyAccused #ChildCustody #NarcissisticAbuse #HighConflictDivorce #FamilyCourt #CPSInvestigation #CoParenting #ParentalAlienation

You know you shouldn't react. You know exactly what your ex is doing when they push, bait, violate the court order, or put the kids in the middle. You've read the articles. You've heard about grey rock. You're smart — you've built a career, raised children, solved genuinely complex problems.

And you still react. Every time.

This is not a character flaw. This is your nervous system doing exactly what years of coercive control trained it to do — and no amount of willpower changes a nervous system. You have to work with it.

Dr. Jordin Wiggins is a naturopathic doctor, author of The Pink Canary, and fellow survivor who has spent years studying exactly this: why the people least likely to be fooled are the ones most likely to be targeted, what coercive control does to the body at a physiological level, and how to start reclaiming your regulation — and your identity — one small pleasure at a time.

Dr. Wiggins' clinical work began at the intersection of women's health and sexual dysfunction — and she quickly realized that a significant portion of the women she was seeing with libido issues were also living with coercive control and abuse. That professional observation, combined with her own experience as a survivor who didn't recognize her abusive relationship until the damage was deep, shaped an entirely new area of practice. She developed a healing model rooted in pleasure — not as a luxury, but as a physiologically grounded return to the self that coercive control erases. Through her book The Pink Canary, her Pleasure Collective community (founded in 2018), and her Pleasure Principles Podcast, she has supported thousands of survivors in reclaiming their sense of self from the inside out. She works with high-functioning, high-achieving survivors who carry the double burden of 'I should have known better' — and she has a particular gift for helping them understand why their very excellence made them a target.

00:00 — Introduction: The impossible co-parenting situation — and why smart people keep getting baited
01:45 — How Dr. Wiggins discovered the coercive control connection through clinical work in women's health
04:20 — Super traits: the qualities that make you exceptional — and that make you a target
07:10 — The professional's shame: 'I counsel people on abuse and I didn't see it in my own home'
09:30 — The boiled frog analogy: how coercive control escalates in ways that are impossible to detect in real time
11:45 — Why the violent incident model of abuse completely misses coercive control — and leaves survivors unprotected
14:00 — How small moments of deference establish power dynamics long before abuse is recognizable
17:20 — When the erosion is complete: Dr. Wiggins' personal turning point — 'I didn't know what food I liked'
20:10 — What chronic hypervigilance does to the body — sleep, weight, immunity, mood, thought clarity
23:30 — The MRI research on pleasure centers: abuse literally turns off your brain's capacity for desire
27:45 — Pleasure research: how discovering what you want — even in tiny ways — starts rebuilding identity
31:00 — Emotional baiting decoded: what it does to your nervous system and why your response is predictable
35:20 — A real case study: a male client being deliberately baited through court order violations in front of the children
39:00 — The wise owl, watchdog, possum model: how to identify where your brain is in a triggered moment
42:30 — Overexplaining — the most expensive mistake in co-parenting with a toxic ex, and how to stop
46:00 — Learning to feel your feelings: why victims of coercive control lose access to their own emotional experience
50:15 — The feelings wheel and why naming the precise emotion is the first step to regaining power
53:40 — Holding rage at an unjust system while still functioning — and not getting stuck in it
57:00 — The lotion challenge: five minutes,

There's a moment most people in our community know well. Your phone lights up with a message from your ex. Or you're sitting in the parking lot outside the courthouse. Or you're on the phone with your attorney and your voice starts shaking.

You know the response you want to give. You know the person you want to be in that moment. And then something happens — a thought spiral, a surge of adrenaline, a reaction you didn't plan — and afterward, you're sitting there wondering what just happened.

That's not a character flaw. That's dysregulation. And it is absolutely something you can learn to change.

Our guest today, Bonnie Butler, knows this from two directions: as someone who lived through her own version of emotional chaos — adopting six traumatized teenagers at once after years of fostering — and as a certified emotional regulation coach who has helped hundreds of clients transform the way they respond to stress, conflict, and the impossible situations life throws at them.
This conversation with Lisa is one of those episodes where you'll want to stop and take notes. Or maybe you'll just find yourself nodding along, because finally someone is naming what you've been experiencing.

Timestamps:

00:00 — Opening: the problem of knee-jerk reactions with a toxic ex
01:20 — Bonnie defines emotional regulation in plain language
03:45 — The pause technique: interrupting the thought spiral with a physical cue
07:10 — Why holding your breath makes rational thought impossible
09:30 — Bonnie introduces herself: from overwhelmed foster/adoptive mom to regulation coach
14:00 — The turning point: hitting a wall and learning the hard way
18:20 — Why no one ever teaches us to manage our emotions
21:40 — Her 12-week program and what transformation actually looks like
25:00 — Why clients resist the tools at first — and what happens when they try anyway
29:15 — Self-regulation explained: what it feels like when you've got it
33:00 — Co-regulation: how your state spreads to everyone around you
37:20 — The heartbreaking thing that happens when kids try to regulate their parents
40:45 — How modeling regulation teaches your kids to regulate themselves
43:00 — "Name it to tame it": why naming an emotion is the first step to releasing it
46:15 — "The anxiety I'm feeling" vs. "my anxiety": a small shift, a big door
48:30 — Meet Jim: how one client made friends with their anxiety to stop being controlled by it
51:00 — Our thoughts are not facts — and you don't have to keep every thought you have
54:20 — The thought closet: choosing what you keep and what you let go
57:00 — Change, loss, and grief — why healing always has a harder side
01:01:00 — "Paddles in the canoe": taking back the steering wheel of your life
01:04:30 — What you focus on grows: the profound shift in how Bonnie saw her own life
01:08:00 — From "what might have been" to "what could be"
01:12:00 — How to connect with Bonnie

Connect with Bonnie Butler:

Website & booking: bonniebutlercoaching.com
Instagram: @bonniebutlercoaching
Facebook: Bonnie Butler Coaching
Email: bonnie@bonniebutlercoaching.com

#EmotionalRegulation #HighConflictDivorce #CustodyBattle #CoParentingHelp #NarcissistEx #DivorceCoach #BonnieButler #BeenThereGotOut

If your spouse owns a business — or if you co-own one together — your divorce just got significantly more complicated. The business isn't just a job. It's potentially a marital asset, a hidden income source, and a leverage point all at once. And if your ex controls the books? You may have no idea what it's actually worth.

In this episode, we sit down with Sara Nanchanatt, a forensic accountant and founder of SN Forensics in New York City, to break down exactly what a business valuation is, why it matters so much in divorce, and what you can actually do — right now, and often for free — to start building your financial picture even when your ex isn't cooperating.

About Sara Nanchanatt:

Sara Nanchanatt is a forensic accountant and the founder of SN Forensics, a forensic accounting firm based in New York City that works remotely with clients across the United States. Sara and her team specialize in divorce-related financial analysis, including business valuations, income available for support calculations, and uncovering financial manipulation by business-owning spouses. Sara brings a practical, cost-conscious approach to forensic accounting — her firm offers multiple levels of service, from streamlined "indication of value" analyses used in mediation all the way to full court-ready expert reports. Her goal is always to make sure that whatever you spend on financial analysis actually makes sense given the value of what's at stake.

TIMESTAMPS:

00:00 - Introduction: Business and divorce — why it's uniquely complicated
01:20 - Sara introduces herself and SN Forensics
02:05 - When one spouse doesn't have access to the business financials: what to do
03:10 - The "check your mail" strategy for identifying unknown financial accounts
03:45 - What IRS tax transcripts are, how to get them, and why they matter
05:00 - What a business valuation is and why courts care about it
05:50 - How forensic accountants identify income hidden in business expenses
06:40 - "Instant poverty syndrome": when the business mysteriously loses money before divorce
07:30 - What happens when tax fraud surfaces in a divorce proceeding
08:20 - Using business valuations as leverage to push your ex toward settlement
09:10 - Service businesses and the "discount for lack of marketability"
09:50 - Free spousal labor in a business — and why it may not protect you in court
11:00 - Types of valuation: back of the envelope, indication of value, and full expert report
12:00 - How to find Sara Nanchanatt and SN Forensics

Connect with Sara Nanchanatt:
🌐 Website: snforensics.com
📸 Instagram: @snforensics (brand new — reach out directly with questions)

📸 Follow BTGO on Instagram: @been_there_got_out 📖
Read our blog: BeenThereGotOut.com/blog

#DivorceFinances #BusinessValuationDivorce #ForensicAccountant #HiddenAssets #HighConflictDivorce #DivorceStrategy #CoOwningBusinessDivorce #InstantPovertySyndrome #DivorceCoach #FinancialAbuse #NarcissisticAbuse #DivorceAdvice #BeenThereGotOut