June 16, 2025 • 52 mins
Welcome into the Young Dad Pod—whether you're stacking your kids’ snack drawer, figuring out who gets the houseplants in the divorce, or just trying to protect your peace—thanks for being here and tuning in.
Back with us today is Padideh Jafari, a family law attorney with 22 years of experience who made waves in our last conversation about narcissistic abuse and male victims of domestic violence. Today, we’re digging deeper into those themes—and opening the door to a new, often overlooked issue in family law: what happens when you're divorcing someone who is a narcissist and a hoarder?
From the emotional toll to real concerns about child safety and living conditions, this is the kind of conversation that more parents—and especially more dads—need to be having.If you are in SOCAL and need legal help for family law, divorce law, mediation or collaborative law- https://jafarilegal.com/
https://www.instagram.com/jafarilegal/
Check out the Website for Interactive Activity Guides, Resources, Full Transcripts, all things YDP- www.youngdadpod.com
Clink the Link for YDP Deals (Joon, Forefathers &more)- https://linktr.ee/youngdadpod
Want to be a guest on Young Dad Podcast? Send Jey Young a message on PodMatch, here: https://www.joinpodmatch.com/youngdad
Lastly consider a monetary donation to support the Pod, https://buymeacoffee.com/youngdadpodChapters
00:00 Introduction to the Podcast and Guest
02:43 Men's Mental Health and Narcissistic Abuse
05:33 The Impact of Hoarding on Families
08:31 Understanding the Dynamics of Narcissistic Relationships
11:16 The Role of CPS in Hoarding Cases
13:46 Legal Challenges in Hoarding Situations
14:20 The Emotional Toll of Hoarding on Children
16:13 Navigating Divorce with a Hoarder
16:47 Conclusion and Final Thoughts
25:01 The Impact of Visual Evidence in Court
28:39 Navigating the Aftermath of a Hoarding Situation
31:08 Understanding Narcissism in Family Dynamics
34:32 The Need for Psychological Insight in Legal Cases
38:49 The Challenges of Leaving an Abusive Environment
43:24 Finding Peace After Turmoil
Keywords
narcissistic abuse, male victims, hoarding, domestic violence, mental health, divorce, CPS, psychological impact, recovery, support
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:10):
And welcome back to the Young Dad podcast with your outside
grill in mowing the lawn, changing dirty diapers.
Or maybe, just maybe you got a moment to sit back, relax, grab
a cup of coffee or maybe an energy drink or whatever your go
to comfort food is. You got to sit down and listen
to your favorite podcast. Wherever you're at, whatever
you're doing. Thanks for being here.
And of course, thanks for tuningin back with me today is good
(00:31):
friend of the show, biggest fan.I think one of the biggest fans
of the show, Attorney Padina Jafari, 22 years as a practicing
attorney, a family law attorney who has made waves in our last
conversation about narcissistic abuse and male victims of
domestic violence. That episode is episode 178 that
I'm talking about. So you can go back, check that
out on wherever you get your podcast.
So today we're going to dig deeper into this though, but put
(00:55):
a little twist on it and openingthe door to a new, often
overlooked issue that I don't think it's been talked about
really on any podcast before. What happens when you're
divorcing A narcissistic hoarder?
I don't think that's ever been talked about really on any
podcast, at least not in depth. But we're bringing light to it
today because I feel like more men could be going through this
(01:18):
then suspect. They are very similar to our
last conversation, Petita, to where there was, you know, some
conversations I had post that episode releases like, wow, I
didn't even realize I was stuck in this.
I was in the situation kind of thing.
So you don't know until you know.
And so that's what we're going to jump into today.
So make sure listeners, make sure you grab your juice box,
(01:39):
grab a snack and let's jump in. Pedita, welcome back to the
show. Thank you so much.
Thank you for being, for having me.
I'm thrilled to be talking to your audience again.
Yes, it's, it's amazing to have you and thanks for reaching out
on this topic. It's an important topic.
And then you have also launched your own podcast, the
(02:00):
Narcissistic Abuse Recovery channel, if I recall from
memory. So Narc, which is a great, great
way to use that and tie that in,by the way.
So great podcast. You're doing some great stuff
with that platform as well. So it's really great to see.
But let's let's start here before we jump into the the
horror conversation. Is there anything from our last
episode that has changed, that still needs more attention when
(02:24):
it comes to supporting male victims of narcissistic abuse
and domestic violence? You know, I think it's great in
a way because I see the community expand in this area.
I see more and more people like yourself that are really
reaching out and helping these male victims of narcissistic
abuse. I can tell you, Jay, that 22
(02:46):
years ago when I started my practice, there was no
discussion about men's mental health.
I know June is actually men's mental health month, so I really
appreciate what you're doing forthe community.
And so we just want to build on that.
And if I could ever add value tothat, I'd like to do that.
(03:07):
Absolutely. I love that.
Yeah, it's, it's kind of crazy what all the things in the, with
our current political climate and everything what June brings
to the table, because I think we're starting to see a shift
away from, from pride and whatnot.
And there's some, I think there's really, this is the
first time we're actually seeingsome separation between the LBG
(03:29):
and then the rest of the the same acronym.
I think there's other divide andI think it's coming and I think
it's starting this year where people are falling away from
that because they don't want to be associated.
I mean, there's 13, is there 13 or maybe it's 12?
I think it's 12 of the 32 NFL teams did not do any kind of
(03:52):
pride post. They didn't change their logo or
nothing. And some of those are in hyper
liberal cities that didn't do it, like the Seattle Seahawks
didn't, the Baltimore Ravens didn't, just to name a couple
that I could think of up on my head.
So there's there's interesting divide.
And then I see more and more posts.
And maybe it's just my algorithmthat I trained it, but I see
more and more posts about men's mental health.
(04:13):
I see more and more male influencers, you know, seeing
the there's a viral post of a lady who's like dancing and
banging and hooping and hollering.
It's like when men when it's my turn to take a turn moment for
men's mental health silence kindof thing, our silence for mental
health. And like dancing and banging on
politics, things like that, justsuper disrespectful someone that
can obviously do better. And just so many male
(04:35):
influencers are, I think for thefirst time, you know, taking
that and being like, look, ladies, come on, let let me give
you the facts kind of things. And it it's really cool to see
that we're focusing more on thatand we're focusing more on the
veterans awareness month as well.
So we're prioritizing, in my opinion, with my platform here,
of course, we're prioritizing more of the right things versus
(04:57):
the things that are really just a matter of public opinion and
not really that truly, truly matter at the same length.
So I would say that there's far less, you know, people who are
celebrating pride that are dyingthan men who are dying from
their mental health every day. Right.
And you know what? I'm very passionate about this
(05:17):
topic because I was raised by two brothers and you know, I
went through a narcissistic marriage and divorce.
My husband. I'd like to say current and
final and only husband. You know, they're doing this
thing. I don't know if you saw Jay on
TikTok where where women are saying my current husband to get
(05:38):
the reaction. My God, I hate the baiting
culture women online. It's disgusting.
It's absolutely disgusting. I always say my current and
final husband, but he went through a narcissistic divorce
and relationship for 14 years. We're still, believe it or not,
(06:00):
dealing with the aftermath of that.
They were married for 14 years but divorced for 15.
And she still tries to come after him for just nonsense, you
know, just to disturb his peace.So people sometimes wonder,
like, why is this attorney so passionate about mental men's
mental health and narcissistic abuse?
(06:22):
It's because we never had a voice.
You know, 22 years ago when I started my practice, men didn't
have a voice. You know, they were the ones
that were mainly working outsideof the home.
And I would get a lot of female mother, you know, clients.
And they got the majority of thecustody.
They just did. And so the fathers would get,
(06:43):
you know, every other weekend and during the week, they'd get
like, you know, just a dinner with their child, right?
And that was the norm. And so because of platforms like
yourself, and I know I'm, you know, you're not paying me to
say this by the way, but I really, really appreciate your
platform because you use it for good.
(07:03):
And because of platforms like yourself, people are realizing,
no, this is like men's mental health is really an issue.
Men, I believe they're abused silently where I mean, I believe
women are too, but I feel like men are abused silently in the
home and nobody talks about it. And it's not cool or masculine
(07:26):
to talk about your mental health.
And so it's when they die or commit suicide that people go,
well, wait a minute. I think Johnny had some mental
health issues, or maybe, you know, it was because a result of
a divorce or maybe as a result of not seeing his child.
And so I think this is a great, great platform for people to
(07:51):
know that men, you're not alone.It's OK to cry.
It is OK to go to therapy. It is OK to go to a trusted
friend and tell them you have anissue you can't get out of your
own head. It's OK to do those things.
And there's no more stigma of men doing that.
(08:14):
What do you think, Jay? I I agree for with a lot of
that. I think it really goes to show
how much, how much we're we're changing and truly a, a true
progression forward, not just being progressive kind of thing,
right, but truly being progress,a true progressive forward.
And I think one there's a there's a friend of mine on
(08:35):
Instagram. His name is James.
He's a photographer. And one thing that you mentioned
that it brought him to mind was just like the suffering in
silence. As I want to share the screen
here, this is his Instagram pagewhere he highlights the men's
mental health, but he reaches out to people and he asked them
to take a photo of like duct tape over their mouth because
men suffer in silence. And so these pictures really
(09:00):
just, you know, highlight, you know, what men are going through
the suffering in silence that wedon't really talk about and that
journey. And I think it's just really
cool the how that captures really a lot of what, what men
are going through and what men are feeling.
And I had, I did something so simple.
I just put out one of those notes on Instagram and my like,
(09:21):
you know, those notes that you see on people when you look in
your inbox and things like that.And all I did some people was to
ask people to check in, other men to check in and just, you
know, let me know you're doing all right kind of thing.
And I had one man, I'm not goingto say his name because he, he
sent me some, some really personal stuff after, but he,
you know, he went through, he's gone through a whole story of
what's, what's his thing. It's very up this alley.
(09:43):
We're going to have a conversation on the podcast.
But he served survived a female narcissistic YouTube documented
the whole thing went away, went through the whole things,
documented it. And it's really cool to see his
recovery. And he sent me some some of the
the back end stuff that he hasn't posted and what not.
So I'm just like, wow, that's that's really cool to see his
story and that you know, all it takes is a little check in to
(10:05):
say, Hey, let me know how y'all are doing and then ban the the
rest is history after that. Yes, You know, actually it's,
it's funny because I do that with my brothers and they're
much older than me. And one of my brothers is a
LAPD. He's in the reserve now and he's
trying to get back into the LAPDfull time.
And I'm always checking in with him.
(10:26):
And it's just like either a textjust to say, hey, bro, how are
you doing? Or it's calling him just to hear
his voice. I mean, I think it's really
important. You know, sometimes it's the
strongest people. And I would say that that
brother of mine is extremely strong.
It's usually the strongest people, right, that are the ones
suffering in silence. So it's just actually on Sunday
(10:49):
for Father's Day, we're going tohis house, even though he's not,
he's not married and doesn't have children, but our family
just wanted to support him. You know, there's riots going on
right now in in LA and so we just wanted to support him and
show him love. And so it's, you know, it's just
one of those things where, you know, even if your listeners, if
(11:10):
you have a brother or a neighbor, I know my husband is,
is he's he's extrovert. I'm the introvert and he knows
all of our neighbors and one of our neighbors is actually a,
he's just a single guy, you know, and my husband's always
checking in with him and he's always talking to him about his
motorcycle. And, you know, actually he told
(11:30):
us, he told my husband that he almost got into a really bad
accident a couple months ago where he almost died.
And he's like, I would have nobody, not a single person
knowing that I was dead if that had happened.
He was on a camping trip in Big Bear and, and the car, the way
that it rolled, it's like he shouldn't have survived, but he
(11:51):
did. And so just things like that, if
you can reach out in June, because it is men's mental
health month, if you could just reach out to one or two men,
even a Co worker, just to say, hey buddy, I'm here for you.
If you ever need to talk, they might look at you weird.
Like what are you talking about?You know, but you never know
(12:11):
that you never know, right? So that's if I can encourage you
to do anything this month, that would be the one thing just to
reach out to a man that you know, just to see how they're
doing. Absolutely.
It's great to check in. It's great to take care of each
other. With that, let's jump into our
topic today, Petita. And it's a unique topic that you
(12:33):
brought to me that I wasn't expecting at all.
So let's jump in here. So we're talking about hoarding.
And I think when people think ofhoarding, they're going to go to
the TV show and think of like extreme hoarder kind of thing,
right? They're going to think of like
the stereotype that come in hoarding, like you just collect
everything. But I don't think people really
understand the damage that can be done with hoarding and the
(12:56):
damage that causes to a home to someone's psychological
well-being, to the kids as well-being overall.
And I don't really think we talked about it or we don't
we're not able to recognize it when it is a problem or when it
starts to be a problem. So I'm going to show some a few
videos and then we're going to jump in and we're going to talk
about it. So I do want to just, I don't
want to like warn the, I don't want to warn the audience
(13:18):
necessarily, but what you may see may be disturbing and may
feel kind of bad to be watching and bad to be looking at.
So just some viewer discretion as advised.
So this is the first one. I think this is the first one in
the order of the three you sent me.
So we're starting outside of thehome.
This what looks like a two or three bedroom home, fairly
(13:40):
small, probably about 1500 square feet or so with a decent
sized backyard actually, and a decent sized garage.
They'll just kind of picture that.
Southern California, I assume, right?
Yeah, Southern California. And so it's beautiful.
It's sunny. And then just kind of we'll take
a look from there. And listeners, I'm not sure if
you are able to hear the the commentary that the lady is
making during the video or not. So that's my apologies.
(14:02):
But that's where the kids were playing.
That's supposed to be their little play area.
Again, fairly large and the garage is huge.
That's the garage out there. That garage is is really big.
So now the next video that we'regoing to watch is them going
into the garage. Did you have any comments about
the first video there? Disgust.
I mean utter disgust. But go ahead, show the next one.
(14:26):
So I assume that's probably about a 12 to 15 foot ladder
there I'm looking at at a glance.
Yeah, she can just put 1 foot inthe garage.
That's that's it. Yep.
So there's literally maybe a foot, a human foot of clearance
in that garage to open the door and get in.
You can't get into it. The only way that that would be
(14:46):
possible to clean out is just emptying it from the front,
opening the door and letting it all spill out, I think.
And then just random stuff like that's such a beautiful little
patio to to host events, to hostfriends, family, kids, friends,
and it's just gone. Kids have nowhere to play
outside. They had space to play outside.
Like that's a big yard. It's just stuff on top of stuff
(15:10):
on top of stuff. You know a lot.
Of it's just trash, A lot of it's just trash or old toys and
stuff that no one would be using.
Someone could have used it at one time, but.
So this is the storage units. Yep.
So storage shed 2 or original? The original storage shed?
No, there's other. Yeah, it's actually 2.
(15:31):
So there's two big storage shedsand then there's the garage,
which is a 2 two car garage. Oh, OK.
So, yeah, so a lot of space, a lot of space back there for for
to play, to hang out to to put cars.
I mean, there is a car back there as well underneath the
(15:51):
tarp that she she mentioned. It was right there next to the
the first storage that she went into.
Let's see. OK, So this is the inside of the
home and this does get pretty gross.
Again, this home isn't huge. It's about a 1500 square foot
home. And so a lot of pieces of the
(16:12):
home flow together and we'll just go ahead and wash this one.
It's a living room. Wish I could rotate this, but I
can't. But you're going to have to just
kind of tilt, tilt your head a little bit.
You'll get it. You'll get the idea.
And that's a fairly large livingroom, good open concept and just
really, and it goes really nice I.
Mean there's a tire in the living room.
(16:34):
Yeah, I don't even notice. My God, it's just deep.
It's like 3-4 feet deep. They're going to the dining area
where they eat their meals. And they have a dog too.
More. And more and more I hear that.
I can hear that. Yeah.
I was wondering. There's just randomness
everywhere. Yep, what she just highlighted
(16:54):
was a hole in the ceiling that she was talking about.
On a rescue, the dog, That's thefirst thing I want to do, Jay.
Yep, brooches in the fridge, bugs in the fridge, mold in the
fridge. So yeah, that's the end of that.
That's the end of the three videos.
Gosh, it's just yeah. So the mom in that video, she's
not the hoarder, the dad. So this is kind of inverse the
(17:15):
situation talking about here. It happens on both sides, right?
I think that's important to highlight.
It's not always just men. We're not trying to highlight
that that men are the the ones here.
And we're not always trying to highlight it's just women.
But we're just using this as an example, as a case study here of
real life and what it looks like.
And I just trying to put myself in the in the shoes of that of
that woman is just like you. You're dealing with a narcissist
(17:37):
on top of that, like you are just so beaten down.
You are so defeated. You have no say, you have no
words to get out. You have no ability to speak.
You have no ability to clean. You have no ability to make a
change. You have just nothing, nothing.
Because every time you do, guesswhat, there's just going to be
more stuff brought back in. Every time you get rid of three
(17:58):
bags, 6 bags are going to show back up.
Every time you get rid of a carfool, 2 carfools are going to
come back kind of thing. And it's just a never ending
cycle of that, you know, hoarding and this abuse.
You know, honestly, my question is we'd even look at the
bedrooms and what the bedrooms look like.
That little area there in the front, that is where the the
(18:18):
abuser, the dad sleeps in his little area that he created.
I can't even imagine what their own personal bedroom looks like
where the mom sleeps. I can't even imagine where the
kids sleep. And I believe there's three kids
in this home, so I can't even imagine.
But those living areas look likeand the dad just shoving shit in
those rooms, the bathroom, taking a shower, trying to brush
(18:38):
your teeth, you know, you try tobrush your teeth and oh shit,
there's a cockroach on my toothbrush.
Let me just flick it off and rinse it and move on with my day
kind of thing. We'd even look at all that and
I'm sure it's absolutely horrifying to look in and.
Yeah, Let me just give a highlight of how we got this
case and sort of how it all happened.
So this case came to us about two years ago where, you know,
(19:00):
mom was saying where mom was saying, you know, dad has a
hoarding problem. You know, he's got narcissistic
tendencies. She had seen some of our videos
on social media. And you know, my thing is always
trust but verify. I'm a big trust but verify
person. And so obviously as an attorney,
(19:21):
I want to see pictures. I want to see videos.
I want to see all the things right that are going to support
your claim that your husband is,you know, narcissistic and that
he's a hoarder. And so she came with a lot of
pictures and we made a request for order asking for the house
to be sold, which is sort of a unusual request because usually
(19:47):
that request is done at the timeof trial and not prior to trial.
And so that request was made. Dad was adamant that he was
going to refinance the home. We, we said, OK, we'll give you
6 months to refinance the home. During that time, CPS was
called, you know, CPS is called anonymously.
(20:08):
They did go in. They did see everything that you
and I just witnessed, Jay, and they didn't do anything.
Such a problem in itself is that, I mean, that's kind of
where it is with CPS 2 that I think people need to also
realize in this because I live in Washington state, my field of
work, I work in mental health aswell document on this podcast,
as you know. And so I work with CPS as well.
(20:30):
And I've seen pretty, pretty vile situations and CPS still
does nothing because it's like, OK, well, there's still a
walkway. They're still running water.
They're still technically there's still food kind of
thing. The kids can still walk around
and they don't really a factor for them is if they have room to
play, you know, do they have a bed they can sleep on?
Great. Do they have floor they can walk
through? Yeah, as long as there's a path,
(20:52):
it's fine. And that's what I think people
need to realize here is like, Ohwell, CPS should have done
something. No reality of what CPS actually
is beyond what you think it is in like movies and what's
portrayed in modern media for the click bait stories that you
read and what not. The reality of CPS is exactly
this to where they go in and they looked and like, OK,
there's a path. You have food, you have running
(21:14):
water, you have electricity still.
The kids have beds to sleep on. You have clean clothes, you're
still able to wash and clean your clothes and great.
And then they're like, well, here's a couple resources, maybe
here's some, here's some cleaning services you could look
into and you have a good day. So that's what CPS does.
CPS is there to get in, get out.Same for APS, Adult Protective
Services. They're just there to get in,
(21:35):
get out, give you resources, getout, move on to the next kind of
thing and we'll answer the next call.
Do the same, same thing, unless it's like bloody or gory or you
know, physically abusive kind ofthing.
They don't do anything really when it comes to any of this
mental or emotional or psychological abuse here in in
this form. Right.
And so, so we finally get to court, right, Six months, six
(21:59):
months later, because we wanted to give dad enough time to
refinance the house. He couldn't refinance the house.
Dad is just mentally very unstable.
And so we couldn't get the refi docs together.
And I, when we finally got our day in court, I told the judge,
I said, your honor, this is not normal case where I'm coming
(22:21):
before you and asking you to sell, you know, the marital
home. This we have a real bad
situation. And the children have nowhere to
play. The children have nowhere to do
their homework. Their bedrooms, which we did not
show is their bedrooms are so filled with things, Jay, that
they actually sleep in the mom'sroom.
(22:43):
And that's against CPS policy cause because every child has to
have their own bedroom, their own bed.
Not especially because technically it depends on the
age as well. Depends on the state and age.
I'm pretty sure Washington, California are probably about
80% similar when it comes to this.
But as long as the children are under 12 years old, same
(23:06):
different gender children can sleep in the same bed.
Right. So in California, each child has
to have their own bed, not necessarily their own bedroom,
but you know, they were sleepingwith mom because there was
nowhere to sleep in their bedrooms.
They still have their own bed though.
Technically, that's what they'llthey see.
Right. They want separate though.
(23:28):
They want each child to have their separate bedroom.
So you can have in a bedroom youcan have, and I've had represent
sent it a father who had three children, but he had triple.
He had basically one bedroom. So he was sleeping in the
bedroom and the children were sleeping in the living room, but
it was a bunk bed with three beds.
(23:49):
They said that that was fine, but in this case, because
they're all sleeping in one bed,that would not be OK.
But again, they didn't do anything about it.
What the judge said, and I thinkthis was very interesting for
your listeners to know, is the judge said, I have a lot of
pictures, but I don't know exactly what's going on.
(24:09):
I need a video to kind of see, and I want mom to narrate what's
going on. That's why in this video, I hope
your listeners could hear. She's narrating.
And she said, And I want you to come back in a week.
And she and she sounds so shaky,she sounds so scared.
She sounds nervous doing it likeshe almost shouldn't be doing
(24:30):
it. And that's where the narcissism
comes in. That's where the narcissistic
abuse comes in because she's hervoice is so shaky and it's just
like, Oh my God. Right, you feel for her just
listening to her go through this.
So, so we came and I told my client, you need to run home
right now and take the video. And I asked the judge, I said,
can can you make it a court order that she has to do this by
(24:51):
5:00 PM? Because I knew what was going to
happen Jay, because I know narcissist, right?
He was just going to clean up asfast as he could.
And she said yes, absolutely. And come back in a week.
So we went back in a week. My client sent me all of the
videos and we went back in a week and the judge said, OK,
play it, play, play the video. When I'm telling you, because we
(25:13):
had other videos of the IT. You know what you didn't see is
the bathroom doesn't have a door.
There's cockroaches in the bathroom.
What you didn't see is, you know, there was mouse traps in
the bathroom. That's what you didn't see.
And so as the judge is looking at this, right, looking at the
video in open court, I can see that she's having a visceral
(25:37):
reaction to it, just like you did, right?
Yeah, I watched it. I actually watched these last
night. The to prep after you send them
to me. I watched them and I actually
watched them with my wife. I was like, hey, look at this
right now, because I tell her about like the podcast, the
stuff I'm doing and things like that.
I'm like, look at this, you know, look at what I'm talking
about tomorrow. I'm talking to Pedita again.
And last time we talked about, you know, divorcing and I told
(25:57):
her all that. I told her what we're talking
about this time and I showed herthese videos and she's like,
that is disgusting. She was like cringing because
she like our place is so like even a little bit of clutter
sets her off. And it's great for me because
then there's never any clutter in the house unless it's like my
desk. I'm allowed to clutter my desk.
(26:17):
I don't, but that's besides the point here.
And she was just cringe. I I, I would freak out just
looking. I I'm just, she's like literally
like having a reactor to it, just watching it.
Yeah. And so the judge after seeing
all the videos and I think therewas maybe 4 total, she said I,
I've seen what I needed to see. She said, I am up here on the
(26:41):
bench in tears, literally. She said that Jay and I have in
22 years never heard that. And she said, your babies, I'm
quoting directly from the judge,your babies are living under
this condition. Why has CPS not been called?
Why hasn't the city gotten involved?
(27:02):
And I said, your honor, CPS did get involved and they they asked
the father to remove the ladder because they thought the the
children would get up on the ladder and fall.
And that was it. And so that was the extent of
CPS. And she said, I'm not joking
with you, Jay. She said if social media gets a
(27:24):
hold of these videos, she's likethey would tear them apart.
And so she said I want this house sold forthwith.
She made all the orders we were looking for because also she
said what's going to happen withthe stuff inside the house.
So she made the order. She did exactly what I had asked
(27:45):
her to do, which is have the house sold within a month.
Dad and mom have two weeks to take everything out that they
want to keep and then the garbage removal.
We already had a quote for that and you don't want to know what
the quote was. It's over $20,000.
Thank. God, no.
Actually, I would love to know what the quote is.
Honestly, Yeah. So.
(28:07):
Take out. I like those details.
Yeah, so take out the junk removal.
We contacted the junk removal company.
Wow. And so that the how?
Long thousand. How long did it take them to to
do it, do you know? Well, They, they, they in the
process of doing it because it takes, you know, obviously a
couple days. And so, and this is an active
(28:30):
case that my client allowed me to talk about.
So, you know, everything else gets removed that they're, that
they don't take in two weeks, right.
So everything gets removed and then the realtor can come in.
And we had a realtor that, you know, I've worked with in the
past come in and stage the houseand have it sold and, and, you
know, have it sold obviously as is because the bathroom doesn't
(28:52):
have a door and all the things. So it's it's really like,
listen, this is really traumaticfor the children.
Subsequently, mom moved out. She was able to get her own
place. She moved out because after she
heard what the judge said, she got really scared that if CPS
does come in again, that they would possibly remove the
(29:15):
children. So she was able to move out in a
week. And I told her, I said, please
don't take beds. Please don't take anything that
you know, because remember all these things have bugs on them
and and you know, rat traps and all these things.
So I said just even the clothes that you take, I said you're
(29:36):
going to have to sanitize them. And so she said, I'm not taking
anything. I'm going to start from scratch.
And even if that means, you know, my kids sleep on a
mattress, a brand new mattress, that's what's going to happen.
So she didn't take anything. So you see some, you know,
Christmas things and ornaments. She took nothing, Jay, because
all that stuff as droppings and of, you know, rodents and things
(30:01):
like that. So she took nothing.
She literally took the three children and moved out.
And so it was. Interesting CPS or anyone I'm
just curious here was CPS or thecourt order?
Was there anything to give them vouchers to restart to kind of
restart their fridge, restart their pantry, restart their
their clothing? Was any like that provided?
(30:23):
Do you know I'm. I'm literally just asking just
because I'm I'm curious. No, that was not provided.
We did not ask for that. Mother does work, so she was,
she was able to move out. But one thing that the judge
did, we didn't ask for this, butone thing that the judge did was
appoint minors council because, you know, there's an issue with,
(30:45):
you know, the best interest of the children, obviously, and who
who's looking after the kids, right?
So she did right then and there appoint minors council, which
we're, you know, absolutely finewith.
But I want to highlight one thing to show the narcissism
part because I think a lot of people listening are probably
like, OK, well, yeah, he's a hoarder.
(31:06):
We can see that. But where does the narcissism
come in? And I want to just tell you what
dad said in open court. The judge looked to him and
said, why haven't you cleaned? Why haven't you protected your
babies and at least cleaned their portion, right, like their
room and, you know, put things away and, you know, sold things
(31:28):
or gotten rid of things that they've outgrown.
And he said, and I quote, my wife doesn't clean.
And the female judge said, again, I'm asking you, why did
you not clean? I'm not asking her right now.
I'm just focused on you. I'm just asking you.
(31:49):
And he said, my wife doesn't clean.
And the judge, I mean, this should have been televised.
She took off her glasses and shelooked at me like literally her
face said, are you listening to this shit?
And I said, and I kind of, I think.
That's what my face says right now.
(32:10):
I kind of threw up my hands. I mean, he's saying this to a
female judge, don't forget. And I kind of threw up my hands.
And I, she asked my client the same question.
And my client said exactly what you said, Jay.
She said, your honor, if I take 3 bags out, first of all, he
accuses me of stealing from him.But if I take 3 bags out, six
(32:33):
bags come in. So I and how can I get rid of
tires and things like that? Like some of it she's like, I
don't know, does he need it for his work?
I mean, I don't know, right? So, and she's like, every time I
was able to remove something, even she said food from the
refrigerator, if I threw it out in the trash outside, he would
(32:54):
go get that food and bring it back in and feed it to our dog.
So there is no getting rid of anything.
And so, you know, that's where the judge sort of understood.
So I wish that, you know, here is the thing that I'm frustrated
with is that I wish that more judges were understanding and
(33:18):
understood, you know, narcissistic personalities
hoarding other cluster B personality disorders like
histrionics, like histrionics isa big one that courts don't
understand, you know, bipolar, all these other cluster B
personality disorders. But, you know, when she turned
to my client and and said that she kind of understood, OK, this
(33:41):
is, this is a real mental health.
And I and I said that Jay. I think a simple a simple
solution for that even is like why?
Why doesn't our system, and I think this is as part of the
problem too, in just our system across the state, is that judges
understand the law, right? They're very high end,
well-rounded, very experienced attorneys, more or less, right.
(34:02):
That's what the attorney appliesfor a judgeship and they get the
judgeship and what not because of their work as a as an
attorney, the track record, their success, things like that.
They run on it, they get appointed, things like that.
So they know the law in and out,up and down, but judges do not
know psychology. So why hasn't our system put in
place court, appoint A psychologist for the judges to
(34:24):
counsel with on these cases and say, Hey, is there any
psychological factors that I should be aware of here?
Is there anything with this casethat I should know?
And I know that there's different agencies that the
courts work with sometimes to get those records, but just to
have that person or that group of people there.
I was like, look, here's a, a female psychologist
(34:44):
representative, here's a male psychologist representative.
I want both your opinions on allthese cases kind of thing.
What do you see? Here's the evidence.
Here's the case. Here's what this person saying.
And then I want you to be in court.
You know, you sit right there off to the side so that you can
observe their body language, what they do with their hands,
what they do with their eye contact, what they do with all
(35:06):
their, their mannerisms and things like that.
And you let me know if there's anything weird because I think
judges can often tell when someone's lying judge.
And I think lawyers and attorneys have a pretty good
read on the body language aspectof it, but maybe not on what
the, the psychology and stuff that's behind that means and
what not. And what else that they maybe
they will miss that a psychologist will see because
their eyes are trained for it. Like I pick up on a lot of
(35:29):
patterns and a lot of things that no one else around me see.
My brother, my wife, they comment on all the time.
How do you notice that? How do you pick up on that?
How do you know? It's like, I don't know, my eyes
are just like, I'm just trained to, to see these things kind of
thing with my with my experienceand with my day-to-day.
I see these things that people don't see and how to use it kind
of thing. And, you know, I could provide
the interventions and they couldprovide the next steps and, you
(35:51):
know, help a lot in these familycourt cases and things like
that. And then when it comes to these
situations and things like that to help the judges identify.
So it's a, it's almost a too simple of a fix, you know, for
the system and they're going to deny it all day long.
Right and you know there are there are child custody
evaluations. We did did recommend that to the
(36:12):
court and so we might have to get one of them appointed.
They are very expensive Jay and they're anywhere from 5:00 to
10:15 thousand. We have minors counsel which you
know the judge, you know, each side has to pay for minors
counsel's time. The court, though, in this case
(36:33):
said that the county would pay right now for my nurse counsel
because this was such a big issue.
Yeah, well, when it's when it's involving kids though, like
that's why you have someone thatworks through the court, you
know, as a court appointed psychologist or mental health
therapist or whatever you want to call them kind of thing that
can, that understands the DSM 5 criteria for these different
(36:55):
disorders and can help the kids understand.
Like, look, you're you tell me what you've experienced kind of
thing. And then they are able to put a
clinical name behind it and theyare able to speak because it's
going to be someone totally separate that's going to help
advocate for the kid and be like, look, you know, I talked
to to Johnny and to Susie and toTimmy.
And Timmy now is experiencing, you know, PTSD because of the
(37:19):
situation with dad. Susie is now has disassociative
disorder because of that. And little Johnny, he's too
young. He's OK for right now, but there
is a potential for such as such down the line kind of thing.
Mom is experiencing PTSD. Mom is also now experiencing
intense anxiety and depression and what not as recommended that
she go for further psychologicalevaluation at a higher level for
(37:42):
possible medical or medication intervention to help her cope
kind of thing. That's where that person would
come in and it would offer a very, very simple solution here
to help in the situation becausethat person already works for
the court. They're already getting paid, so
you just, they're already there.No one has to pay for that extra
beyond what their their salary they're already making.
(38:03):
It's not an extra burden. But we don't do that because we
want to. The system as a set up is to
not, not lawyers or anything, not you, but I'm saying the
system is set up in a way to to burden families, especially
those that go through an abusivesituation.
I say the mom's very fortunate that she has a job that pays her
well enough to move on on her own, get her own place and for
them provide for the kid at A ata good level and without, you
(38:25):
know, additional assistant needed kind of thing.
But that's not always. That's rarely the case in the.
Situation, right? Yes, that's rarely the case.
Rarely the case, Absolutely. You know, the dad in these
situations doesn't get that samebenefit a lot of time.
They could still be working, butnow they're trying to deal with
the abuser. They're trying to deal with the
abuser, trying to deal with all the things, and they're trying
(38:46):
to work their way through it while also now paying for a
house that they're not in and things like that and all the
stuff. And they're still carrying the
financial burden. So they can't even get out on
their own kind of thing. So.
Right. I also want to say exactly what
you said. The house, the mortgage is still
being paid by my client, by the mom and she's having to pay rent
for a a new place. But she feared that, you know,
(39:09):
CPS would be called after this this, you know, these videos
came out and so she wanted to beproactive.
You know, it's really easy to sit back and you know, I see a
lot of people on social media dothis and judge people like, why
did she move out earlier? Why didn't she do this?
Why didn't? You can't you.
(39:30):
Can't. You can't.
You're stuck. You're stuck and and I will say,
you know, I've been representingher for two years.
The person that came to me in the beginning is not the person
I'm dealing with now. She was exactly what you said so
beat down. She would stutter her words
constantly even though she's a very you.
Can tell from that video, you can tell from that video that
(39:51):
she's, she's stuttering and she's scared and she's shaky and
I, it feels like she's almost looking over her shoulder right
every couple seconds to check it's like, oh, what's the, oh,
what's the noise kind of thing? And she's just like, she's so on
edge and you can feel the, you can feel the anxiety, you can
feel the pressure, you can feel the stress and like.
(40:14):
She's not even talking that loud.
She's talking very quietly because she doesn't want
neighbors to hear. She doesn't want anyone to hear.
She doesn't want the dog to be disturbed kind of thing.
She doesn't want anyone to hear it.
So she's talking like she's verymuch talking like this, like
this is, this is the, the, the, the, the look how it, how it's
up there. And this is.
And then when she's walking outside in between the homes,
because she can, you can clearlyhear people on the other side.
(40:36):
She lowers her voice even more. It's like you can see that
there's a, there's a car right there and there's a, there's a
thing here and a thing there. And she lowers her voice even
more. And that's that's I think the
highlight here, like you're saying, like when you're in that
situation, you're stuck, you're fucked.
You can't do anything. You can't do anything because
you don't, you don't know how toget out.
You can't get out. You feel like you can't get out.
(40:58):
You've been so beaten down. Your your psychology has been so
just defeated by the by the abuser that you you think
getting out is impossible because they've told you like
you can't get out. You can't survive without me.
You can't do life without me. These kids are going to struggle
without me kind of thing. And yeah, it.
Right. And So what I want to say in,
(41:19):
you know, in closing is that if you're in the situation where
you're dealing with a hoarder, and most of the times, I will be
honest, our cases, a lot of the times the female is the hoarder,
the mom is the hoarder I've seen.
I've actually seen this. I've actually seen this first
hand in a in a situation my dad was in when I was a teenager.
(41:39):
I'm not going to go into too many details just to protect
anonymity and anonymity within, within my family and things like
that. But it it got to the point to
where it was hoarding and their rooms were were cluttered and
filled. And I remember going back into
the home after I'd moved out andit was just the, you know, that
(42:01):
the backyard is over. Ran everything underneath the
pad underneath the patio was stacked up, ran shit on the side
of the house. And you know, all the every
place that could be filled, you know, outside and even the
dining room was pretty full. The little nook in nook place
where there was like a shower and a bathroom was really,
really full of stuff there. The living room that what was
(42:22):
the living room originally was, was overran with just books and
all sorts of things. And it was just a huge a huge
thing. The upstairs where us kids were
was was OK. There wasn't much stuff up
there, but downstairs was just cluttered, the backyard
cluttered. And yeah, it was just, that's
(42:42):
just how it, how it ended up. So I've seen this first hand and
I, I, I'm thinking about it now,putting all these pieces
together that we're talking about.
And I'm thinking about the how my dad was my dad just, he was
so stressed all the time. He, he hated because he
couldn't, he felt like he couldn't breathe.
He, he didn't want to be home. He, he would work, he would find
all the ways to get up, get out,get out, get moving and we get
(43:04):
out of the situation. And, you know, often, you know,
it just, it was a mess. And it was, yeah, I just think
about it now and yeah, I, I saw the impact that it had on, had
on my dad. I remember the impact that it,
that it had on had on those boys.
And yeah, it was, it was not a fun time.
But I just think back to how my dad went through it and how he's
still dealing with, with parts of it, you know, many years
(43:26):
later now. And yeah, it's something.
So the main thing is if you're stuck in this type of situation,
there is help. If you're going through a
divorce or contemplating divorce, there are attorneys
that will help you and believe you.
You know what pictures are great, videos are great.
Just, you know, keep the evidence.
We always talk about documentation and get, you know,
(43:50):
ask your attorney to have the house sold immediately.
Make a motion to have the house sold immediately.
There is sort of a rainbow at the end of all this.
My client is very happy. She's in her own space.
The children, she says, have room to play, and they can
invite their friends over. They just had, you know, a
(44:14):
school party in their backyard. You know, summer school is now
in session or whatever. So she had some kids come.
And so for the first time, she'sable to do that with their
children. And and she says that there's a
lot of peace. There's no more anxiety.
The kids are not anxious. And so, you know, just know that
(44:34):
there is light at the end of thetunnel.
But you do have an obligation assort of the normal parent, the
one that doesn't have a hoardingissue or illness to get your
children to safety because your children are looking to you.
You're sort of their only hope. And my client now is when I talk
(44:59):
to her, Jay, she's not shaky, she doesn't stutter.
She's sort of like as like a couple notches down.
And even though the divorce is ongoing and there's some, you
know, custody issues and I feel.Like this one's going to be
going on for for a while. Yeah, financial issues, but you
know, at the end of the day, it's like exactly what you said.
(45:21):
She has Peace of Mind. She can, you know, come home and
know, listen, I tell my husband this all the time.
Our house is supposed to be the place where you come, where
there's safety and peace. And so that's like the outside
world. We know it has chaos in it.
We all have like difficult Co workers and bosses and you know,
(45:43):
somebody cuts us off on the fourO 5 freeway.
We have all of that, right. But when you come home, your
home is supposed to provide two things, safety and peace.
And if you don't have that, thenit's time to strategize a way
out. I am not saying this because I'm
(46:03):
a divorce attorney and I think everyone should get a divorce.
No, if you don't have safety andpeace, go to a therapist, talk
to a psychotherapist, see how you can fix the situation in
your home. But if it's not fixable, life is
too short. Why are you?
Why are you in a home that doesn't have peace and safety?
So that's a question, you know, really for your audience to to
(46:26):
contemplate. But I can tell you for our home,
there is safety and peace. I mean, there has to be, right?
So I just hope that this sort ofvisual was good for your
audience today. I think so.
I think it was great. I think the conversation and the
the expansion of the conversation that we had beyond
it is also great as well. And Petita, it's always an honor
(46:49):
to have you. It's always to have our our
honor to have your fierce, your fierceness, your fire, your your
sharpness, your insights, your knowledge, your experience, and
everything that you share on thepodcast is always just so great
to have you. And it's great to be able to
call you a friend. It's great to send you funny
narcissist videos that we find on Instagram to each other.
It's great to to share those those actual friend things
(47:10):
beyond just the podcast. Yes, and I do want to say one
thing before we end today. You sent me you sent me two
stickers and a thank you note last November.
I actually have the two stickerson my laptop that I'm using
today. One said made with love and the
other one says follow your dreams.
And so those are on. And every time I look at it, I
(47:32):
think of you, Jace. No, thank you.
That's actually something. Yeah.
I started doing that that quite a quite a while ago where I
would send, you know, personal handwritten thank you cards,
tell all my guests because I felt that that was something
just really important to do to show like it's always going to
show appreciation, right? A little bit goes a long way.
And so I'm glad that that appreciate resonates with you.
I actually got the idea actuallythis it wasn't an original idea.
(47:54):
I stole this idea from her name's Chelsea.
She hosts the quiet connection podcast and then she hosts this
other kind of politicize the podcast with it's like mom's on
mom's on call or something. I don't listen to it because I
don't agree with the points of view at all.
I do list of things on points ofview I don't agree on often, but
(48:15):
I've just it was just too far, too far to the to the other
side. But she's a great person.
So I stole the idea from her because she actually sent me.
That's the same thing after I was a guest on her show Once
Upon a time and a little like sticker that's like a sensory
sticker, like the breathing sticker.
I think I put that in there as well, maybe.
And so I'm like, I'm going to dothe exact same thing.
You know what, why re why? Like listen, recreate the real,
(48:40):
right? I mean, listen, if if you loved
it, why not send it to your guests?
I mean, I think she'd be honoredto know that you are following
in her footsteps in that way. And this just shows gratitude.
I think every host should do it because I get so many great
messages from guests at the at in the back end.
There's just like, Oh my gosh, like I've done, you know, X
amount of podcasts, Like I've done 50 podcasts as a guest.
(49:01):
You were the first one to ever send me this.
You're the first one to ever to do this.
And I'm just like, that's crazy.Because I feel like it's it's,
it's super cheap. Like to get a thing of thank you
cards is 5 bucks on Amazon. To get a thing of stickers is 20
bucks on Amazon or stickers 20 bucks on Amazon.
The stickers themselves maybe 10bucks.
(49:21):
So now you're maybe 30 bucks in and then it takes 10 minutes to
write a card and pop it in the mailbox.
And so it's not like you're doing a lot of time and effort
to get these out. And it's, you know, that's just
the thing that where gratitude comes in.
It's like it doesn't take a lot to show gratitude takes a few
bucks and a little bit of your time and that's it.
And I have even funnier stickersnow.
(49:42):
So I'm going to have to get youraddress again because I have
even funnier stickers now. I have some meme ones and
they're really funny. But anyways, Pedita, this, like
I said, an amazing conversation.Where can people find you,
connect with you if they're in the state of California?
If they're in the San Diego Greater Southern California
area, they're looking for someone to talk to, legal
representation. Where is the best place to get
ahold of you to contact you? Well, first I wanna mention the
(50:06):
Narcissist Abuse Recovery Channel.
NARC is the acronym we're on Spotify, iHeartRadio and Apple
podcast. So that's number one.
And Jay is gonna be a guest. So definitely wait until you
hear what he has to say on my podcast.
And then Jafari legalyouknow.com, Jafari Legal
(50:26):
on all of our social media. This has just been such a great
conversation. I think both of us are a little
bit triggered right now. Yeah, so we need to go take a
couple of deep breaths and listen to the birds.
The birds are outside my, my office window right now.
So I, I really appreciate again what you do, Jay.
(50:47):
It's it's vitally important. And reach out again to the men,
the men in your life this month.Just check in with them.
So thanks for having me and hopefully we'll do this again
soon. Of course.
And to the listeners, thanks youguys for tuning in.
You guys are listening to a podcast.
You listened to plenty of podcasts before.
(51:07):
So go and do all the things to show your support for the
podcast. And something I don't mention
very often, but occasionally I do.
This is a free independent podcast.
So if you are ever inclined to show your support, show your
love, you can go over to the link in the show notes over on
or you can go to my Instagram, click the link tree.
You can actually support by buying me a coffee as little as
a dollar over on buymeacoffee.com.
(51:28):
Young Dad Pod. You can show your support that
way for the podcast if you want.No pressure.
I'm not asking for donations or anything like that.
I will still bring you great free content for your
day-to-day. And of course, always head over
to youngdadpod.com. Every episode does get a
interactive show notes or interactive show guide for
activities that you can do at home with your kids, with your
family, or with yourself. Every single episode has a theme
(51:50):
for that episode over on the website.
I think there's over 50 of thoseavailable right now and they're
all downloadable for free as APDF.
Also other things that I randomly add in there from work.
Then I'm like, I'm going to throw this on my website because
I created and I can't. So with that, until next time,
everybody will see you right here on the Young Dad Podcast.
And welcome back to the Young Dad podcast with your outside
grill in mowing the lawn, changing dirty diapers.
Or maybe, just maybe you got a moment to sit back, relax, grab
a cup of coffee or maybe an energy drink or whatever your go
to comfort food is. You got to sit down and listen
to your favorite podcast. Wherever you're at, whatever
you're doing. Thanks for being here.
And of course, thanks for tuningin back with me today is good
(00:31):
friend of the show, biggest fan.I think one of the biggest fans
of the show, Attorney Padina Jafari, 22 years as a practicing
attorney, a family law attorney who has made waves in our last
conversation about narcissistic abuse and male victims of
domestic violence. That episode is episode 178 that
I'm talking about. So you can go back, check that
out on wherever you get your podcast.
So today we're going to dig deeper into this though, but put
(00:55):
a little twist on it and openingthe door to a new, often
overlooked issue that I don't think it's been talked about
really on any podcast before. What happens when you're
divorcing A narcissistic hoarder?
I don't think that's ever been talked about really on any
podcast, at least not in depth. But we're bringing light to it
today because I feel like more men could be going through this
(01:18):
then suspect. They are very similar to our
last conversation, Petita, to where there was, you know, some
conversations I had post that episode releases like, wow, I
didn't even realize I was stuck in this.
I was in the situation kind of thing.
So you don't know until you know.
And so that's what we're going to jump into today.
So make sure listeners, make sure you grab your juice box,
(01:39):
grab a snack and let's jump in. Pedita, welcome back to the
show. Thank you so much.
Thank you for being, for having me.
I'm thrilled to be talking to your audience again.
Yes, it's, it's amazing to have you and thanks for reaching out
on this topic. It's an important topic.
And then you have also launched your own podcast, the
(02:00):
Narcissistic Abuse Recovery channel, if I recall from
memory. So Narc, which is a great, great
way to use that and tie that in,by the way.
So great podcast. You're doing some great stuff
with that platform as well. So it's really great to see.
But let's let's start here before we jump into the the
horror conversation. Is there anything from our last
episode that has changed, that still needs more attention when
(02:24):
it comes to supporting male victims of narcissistic abuse
and domestic violence? You know, I think it's great in
a way because I see the community expand in this area.
I see more and more people like yourself that are really
reaching out and helping these male victims of narcissistic
abuse. I can tell you, Jay, that 22
(02:46):
years ago when I started my practice, there was no
discussion about men's mental health.
I know June is actually men's mental health month, so I really
appreciate what you're doing forthe community.
And so we just want to build on that.
And if I could ever add value tothat, I'd like to do that.
(03:07):
Absolutely. I love that.
Yeah, it's, it's kind of crazy what all the things in the, with
our current political climate and everything what June brings
to the table, because I think we're starting to see a shift
away from, from pride and whatnot.
And there's some, I think there's really, this is the
first time we're actually seeingsome separation between the LBG
(03:29):
and then the rest of the the same acronym.
I think there's other divide andI think it's coming and I think
it's starting this year where people are falling away from
that because they don't want to be associated.
I mean, there's 13, is there 13 or maybe it's 12?
I think it's 12 of the 32 NFL teams did not do any kind of
(03:52):
pride post. They didn't change their logo or
nothing. And some of those are in hyper
liberal cities that didn't do it, like the Seattle Seahawks
didn't, the Baltimore Ravens didn't, just to name a couple
that I could think of up on my head.
So there's there's interesting divide.
And then I see more and more posts.
And maybe it's just my algorithmthat I trained it, but I see
more and more posts about men's mental health.
(04:13):
I see more and more male influencers, you know, seeing
the there's a viral post of a lady who's like dancing and
banging and hooping and hollering.
It's like when men when it's my turn to take a turn moment for
men's mental health silence kindof thing, our silence for mental
health. And like dancing and banging on
politics, things like that, justsuper disrespectful someone that
can obviously do better. And just so many male
(04:35):
influencers are, I think for thefirst time, you know, taking
that and being like, look, ladies, come on, let let me give
you the facts kind of things. And it it's really cool to see
that we're focusing more on thatand we're focusing more on the
veterans awareness month as well.
So we're prioritizing, in my opinion, with my platform here,
of course, we're prioritizing more of the right things versus
(04:57):
the things that are really just a matter of public opinion and
not really that truly, truly matter at the same length.
So I would say that there's far less, you know, people who are
celebrating pride that are dyingthan men who are dying from
their mental health every day. Right.
And you know what? I'm very passionate about this
(05:17):
topic because I was raised by two brothers and you know, I
went through a narcissistic marriage and divorce.
My husband. I'd like to say current and
final and only husband. You know, they're doing this
thing. I don't know if you saw Jay on
TikTok where where women are saying my current husband to get
(05:38):
the reaction. My God, I hate the baiting
culture women online. It's disgusting.
It's absolutely disgusting. I always say my current and
final husband, but he went through a narcissistic divorce
and relationship for 14 years. We're still, believe it or not,
(06:00):
dealing with the aftermath of that.
They were married for 14 years but divorced for 15.
And she still tries to come after him for just nonsense, you
know, just to disturb his peace.So people sometimes wonder,
like, why is this attorney so passionate about mental men's
mental health and narcissistic abuse?
(06:22):
It's because we never had a voice.
You know, 22 years ago when I started my practice, men didn't
have a voice. You know, they were the ones
that were mainly working outsideof the home.
And I would get a lot of female mother, you know, clients.
And they got the majority of thecustody.
They just did. And so the fathers would get,
(06:43):
you know, every other weekend and during the week, they'd get
like, you know, just a dinner with their child, right?
And that was the norm. And so because of platforms like
yourself, and I know I'm, you know, you're not paying me to
say this by the way, but I really, really appreciate your
platform because you use it for good.
(07:03):
And because of platforms like yourself, people are realizing,
no, this is like men's mental health is really an issue.
Men, I believe they're abused silently where I mean, I believe
women are too, but I feel like men are abused silently in the
home and nobody talks about it. And it's not cool or masculine
(07:26):
to talk about your mental health.
And so it's when they die or commit suicide that people go,
well, wait a minute. I think Johnny had some mental
health issues, or maybe, you know, it was because a result of
a divorce or maybe as a result of not seeing his child.
And so I think this is a great, great platform for people to
(07:51):
know that men, you're not alone.It's OK to cry.
It is OK to go to therapy. It is OK to go to a trusted
friend and tell them you have anissue you can't get out of your
own head. It's OK to do those things.
And there's no more stigma of men doing that.
(08:14):
What do you think, Jay? I I agree for with a lot of
that. I think it really goes to show
how much, how much we're we're changing and truly a, a true
progression forward, not just being progressive kind of thing,
right, but truly being progress,a true progressive forward.
And I think one there's a there's a friend of mine on
(08:35):
Instagram. His name is James.
He's a photographer. And one thing that you mentioned
that it brought him to mind was just like the suffering in
silence. As I want to share the screen
here, this is his Instagram pagewhere he highlights the men's
mental health, but he reaches out to people and he asked them
to take a photo of like duct tape over their mouth because
men suffer in silence. And so these pictures really
(09:00):
just, you know, highlight, you know, what men are going through
the suffering in silence that wedon't really talk about and that
journey. And I think it's just really
cool the how that captures really a lot of what, what men
are going through and what men are feeling.
And I had, I did something so simple.
I just put out one of those notes on Instagram and my like,
(09:21):
you know, those notes that you see on people when you look in
your inbox and things like that.And all I did some people was to
ask people to check in, other men to check in and just, you
know, let me know you're doing all right kind of thing.
And I had one man, I'm not goingto say his name because he, he
sent me some, some really personal stuff after, but he,
you know, he went through, he's gone through a whole story of
what's, what's his thing. It's very up this alley.
(09:43):
We're going to have a conversation on the podcast.
But he served survived a female narcissistic YouTube documented
the whole thing went away, went through the whole things,
documented it. And it's really cool to see his
recovery. And he sent me some some of the
the back end stuff that he hasn't posted and what not.
So I'm just like, wow, that's that's really cool to see his
story and that you know, all it takes is a little check in to
(10:05):
say, Hey, let me know how y'all are doing and then ban the the
rest is history after that. Yes, You know, actually it's,
it's funny because I do that with my brothers and they're
much older than me. And one of my brothers is a
LAPD. He's in the reserve now and he's
trying to get back into the LAPDfull time.
And I'm always checking in with him.
(10:26):
And it's just like either a textjust to say, hey, bro, how are
you doing? Or it's calling him just to hear
his voice. I mean, I think it's really
important. You know, sometimes it's the
strongest people. And I would say that that
brother of mine is extremely strong.
It's usually the strongest people, right, that are the ones
suffering in silence. So it's just actually on Sunday
(10:49):
for Father's Day, we're going tohis house, even though he's not,
he's not married and doesn't have children, but our family
just wanted to support him. You know, there's riots going on
right now in in LA and so we just wanted to support him and
show him love. And so it's, you know, it's just
one of those things where, you know, even if your listeners, if
(11:10):
you have a brother or a neighbor, I know my husband is,
is he's he's extrovert. I'm the introvert and he knows
all of our neighbors and one of our neighbors is actually a,
he's just a single guy, you know, and my husband's always
checking in with him and he's always talking to him about his
motorcycle. And, you know, actually he told
(11:30):
us, he told my husband that he almost got into a really bad
accident a couple months ago where he almost died.
And he's like, I would have nobody, not a single person
knowing that I was dead if that had happened.
He was on a camping trip in Big Bear and, and the car, the way
that it rolled, it's like he shouldn't have survived, but he
(11:51):
did. And so just things like that, if
you can reach out in June, because it is men's mental
health month, if you could just reach out to one or two men,
even a Co worker, just to say, hey buddy, I'm here for you.
If you ever need to talk, they might look at you weird.
Like what are you talking about?You know, but you never know
(12:11):
that you never know, right? So that's if I can encourage you
to do anything this month, that would be the one thing just to
reach out to a man that you know, just to see how they're
doing. Absolutely.
It's great to check in. It's great to take care of each
other. With that, let's jump into our
topic today, Petita. And it's a unique topic that you
(12:33):
brought to me that I wasn't expecting at all.
So let's jump in here. So we're talking about hoarding.
And I think when people think ofhoarding, they're going to go to
the TV show and think of like extreme hoarder kind of thing,
right? They're going to think of like
the stereotype that come in hoarding, like you just collect
everything. But I don't think people really
understand the damage that can be done with hoarding and the
(12:56):
damage that causes to a home to someone's psychological
well-being, to the kids as well-being overall.
And I don't really think we talked about it or we don't
we're not able to recognize it when it is a problem or when it
starts to be a problem. So I'm going to show some a few
videos and then we're going to jump in and we're going to talk
about it. So I do want to just, I don't
want to like warn the, I don't want to warn the audience
(13:18):
necessarily, but what you may see may be disturbing and may
feel kind of bad to be watching and bad to be looking at.
So just some viewer discretion as advised.
So this is the first one. I think this is the first one in
the order of the three you sent me.
So we're starting outside of thehome.
This what looks like a two or three bedroom home, fairly
(13:40):
small, probably about 1500 square feet or so with a decent
sized backyard actually, and a decent sized garage.
They'll just kind of picture that.
Southern California, I assume, right?
Yeah, Southern California. And so it's beautiful.
It's sunny. And then just kind of we'll take
a look from there. And listeners, I'm not sure if
you are able to hear the the commentary that the lady is
making during the video or not. So that's my apologies.
(14:02):
But that's where the kids were playing.
That's supposed to be their little play area.
Again, fairly large and the garage is huge.
That's the garage out there. That garage is is really big.
So now the next video that we'regoing to watch is them going
into the garage. Did you have any comments about
the first video there? Disgust.
I mean utter disgust. But go ahead, show the next one.
(14:26):
So I assume that's probably about a 12 to 15 foot ladder
there I'm looking at at a glance.
Yeah, she can just put 1 foot inthe garage.
That's that's it. Yep.
So there's literally maybe a foot, a human foot of clearance
in that garage to open the door and get in.
You can't get into it. The only way that that would be
(14:46):
possible to clean out is just emptying it from the front,
opening the door and letting it all spill out, I think.
And then just random stuff like that's such a beautiful little
patio to to host events, to hostfriends, family, kids, friends,
and it's just gone. Kids have nowhere to play
outside. They had space to play outside.
Like that's a big yard. It's just stuff on top of stuff
(15:10):
on top of stuff. You know a lot.
Of it's just trash, A lot of it's just trash or old toys and
stuff that no one would be using.
Someone could have used it at one time, but.
So this is the storage units. Yep.
So storage shed 2 or original? The original storage shed?
No, there's other. Yeah, it's actually 2.
(15:31):
So there's two big storage shedsand then there's the garage,
which is a 2 two car garage. Oh, OK.
So, yeah, so a lot of space, a lot of space back there for for
to play, to hang out to to put cars.
I mean, there is a car back there as well underneath the
(15:51):
tarp that she she mentioned. It was right there next to the
the first storage that she went into.
Let's see. OK, So this is the inside of the
home and this does get pretty gross.
Again, this home isn't huge. It's about a 1500 square foot
home. And so a lot of pieces of the
(16:12):
home flow together and we'll just go ahead and wash this one.
It's a living room. Wish I could rotate this, but I
can't. But you're going to have to just
kind of tilt, tilt your head a little bit.
You'll get it. You'll get the idea.
And that's a fairly large livingroom, good open concept and just
really, and it goes really nice I.
Mean there's a tire in the living room.
(16:34):
Yeah, I don't even notice. My God, it's just deep.
It's like 3-4 feet deep. They're going to the dining area
where they eat their meals. And they have a dog too.
More. And more and more I hear that.
I can hear that. Yeah.
I was wondering. There's just randomness
everywhere. Yep, what she just highlighted
(16:54):
was a hole in the ceiling that she was talking about.
On a rescue, the dog, That's thefirst thing I want to do, Jay.
Yep, brooches in the fridge, bugs in the fridge, mold in the
fridge. So yeah, that's the end of that.
That's the end of the three videos.
Gosh, it's just yeah. So the mom in that video, she's
not the hoarder, the dad. So this is kind of inverse the
(17:15):
situation talking about here. It happens on both sides, right?
I think that's important to highlight.
It's not always just men. We're not trying to highlight
that that men are the the ones here.
And we're not always trying to highlight it's just women.
But we're just using this as an example, as a case study here of
real life and what it looks like.
And I just trying to put myself in the in the shoes of that of
that woman is just like you. You're dealing with a narcissist
(17:37):
on top of that, like you are just so beaten down.
You are so defeated. You have no say, you have no
words to get out. You have no ability to speak.
You have no ability to clean. You have no ability to make a
change. You have just nothing, nothing.
Because every time you do, guesswhat, there's just going to be
more stuff brought back in. Every time you get rid of three
(17:58):
bags, 6 bags are going to show back up.
Every time you get rid of a carfool, 2 carfools are going to
come back kind of thing. And it's just a never ending
cycle of that, you know, hoarding and this abuse.
You know, honestly, my question is we'd even look at the
bedrooms and what the bedrooms look like.
That little area there in the front, that is where the the
(18:18):
abuser, the dad sleeps in his little area that he created.
I can't even imagine what their own personal bedroom looks like
where the mom sleeps. I can't even imagine where the
kids sleep. And I believe there's three kids
in this home, so I can't even imagine.
But those living areas look likeand the dad just shoving shit in
those rooms, the bathroom, taking a shower, trying to brush
(18:38):
your teeth, you know, you try tobrush your teeth and oh shit,
there's a cockroach on my toothbrush.
Let me just flick it off and rinse it and move on with my day
kind of thing. We'd even look at all that and
I'm sure it's absolutely horrifying to look in and.
Yeah, Let me just give a highlight of how we got this
case and sort of how it all happened.
So this case came to us about two years ago where, you know,
(19:00):
mom was saying where mom was saying, you know, dad has a
hoarding problem. You know, he's got narcissistic
tendencies. She had seen some of our videos
on social media. And you know, my thing is always
trust but verify. I'm a big trust but verify
person. And so obviously as an attorney,
(19:21):
I want to see pictures. I want to see videos.
I want to see all the things right that are going to support
your claim that your husband is,you know, narcissistic and that
he's a hoarder. And so she came with a lot of
pictures and we made a request for order asking for the house
to be sold, which is sort of a unusual request because usually
(19:47):
that request is done at the timeof trial and not prior to trial.
And so that request was made. Dad was adamant that he was
going to refinance the home. We, we said, OK, we'll give you
6 months to refinance the home. During that time, CPS was
called, you know, CPS is called anonymously.
(20:08):
They did go in. They did see everything that you
and I just witnessed, Jay, and they didn't do anything.
Such a problem in itself is that, I mean, that's kind of
where it is with CPS 2 that I think people need to also
realize in this because I live in Washington state, my field of
work, I work in mental health aswell document on this podcast,
as you know. And so I work with CPS as well.
(20:30):
And I've seen pretty, pretty vile situations and CPS still
does nothing because it's like, OK, well, there's still a
walkway. They're still running water.
They're still technically there's still food kind of
thing. The kids can still walk around
and they don't really a factor for them is if they have room to
play, you know, do they have a bed they can sleep on?
Great. Do they have floor they can walk
through? Yeah, as long as there's a path,
(20:52):
it's fine. And that's what I think people
need to realize here is like, Ohwell, CPS should have done
something. No reality of what CPS actually
is beyond what you think it is in like movies and what's
portrayed in modern media for the click bait stories that you
read and what not. The reality of CPS is exactly
this to where they go in and they looked and like, OK,
there's a path. You have food, you have running
(21:14):
water, you have electricity still.
The kids have beds to sleep on. You have clean clothes, you're
still able to wash and clean your clothes and great.
And then they're like, well, here's a couple resources, maybe
here's some, here's some cleaning services you could look
into and you have a good day. So that's what CPS does.
CPS is there to get in, get out.Same for APS, Adult Protective
Services. They're just there to get in,
(21:35):
get out, give you resources, getout, move on to the next kind of
thing and we'll answer the next call.
Do the same, same thing, unless it's like bloody or gory or you
know, physically abusive kind ofthing.
They don't do anything really when it comes to any of this
mental or emotional or psychological abuse here in in
this form. Right.
And so, so we finally get to court, right, Six months, six
(21:59):
months later, because we wanted to give dad enough time to
refinance the house. He couldn't refinance the house.
Dad is just mentally very unstable.
And so we couldn't get the refi docs together.
And I, when we finally got our day in court, I told the judge,
I said, your honor, this is not normal case where I'm coming
(22:21):
before you and asking you to sell, you know, the marital
home. This we have a real bad
situation. And the children have nowhere to
play. The children have nowhere to do
their homework. Their bedrooms, which we did not
show is their bedrooms are so filled with things, Jay, that
they actually sleep in the mom'sroom.
(22:43):
And that's against CPS policy cause because every child has to
have their own bedroom, their own bed.
Not especially because technically it depends on the
age as well. Depends on the state and age.
I'm pretty sure Washington, California are probably about
80% similar when it comes to this.
But as long as the children are under 12 years old, same
(23:06):
different gender children can sleep in the same bed.
Right. So in California, each child has
to have their own bed, not necessarily their own bedroom,
but you know, they were sleepingwith mom because there was
nowhere to sleep in their bedrooms.
They still have their own bed though.
Technically, that's what they'llthey see.
Right. They want separate though.
(23:28):
They want each child to have their separate bedroom.
So you can have in a bedroom youcan have, and I've had represent
sent it a father who had three children, but he had triple.
He had basically one bedroom. So he was sleeping in the
bedroom and the children were sleeping in the living room, but
it was a bunk bed with three beds.
(23:49):
They said that that was fine, but in this case, because
they're all sleeping in one bed,that would not be OK.
But again, they didn't do anything about it.
What the judge said, and I thinkthis was very interesting for
your listeners to know, is the judge said, I have a lot of
pictures, but I don't know exactly what's going on.
(24:09):
I need a video to kind of see, and I want mom to narrate what's
going on. That's why in this video, I hope
your listeners could hear. She's narrating.
And she said, And I want you to come back in a week.
And she and she sounds so shaky,she sounds so scared.
She sounds nervous doing it likeshe almost shouldn't be doing
(24:30):
it. And that's where the narcissism
comes in. That's where the narcissistic
abuse comes in because she's hervoice is so shaky and it's just
like, Oh my God. Right, you feel for her just
listening to her go through this.
So, so we came and I told my client, you need to run home
right now and take the video. And I asked the judge, I said,
can can you make it a court order that she has to do this by
(24:51):
5:00 PM? Because I knew what was going to
happen Jay, because I know narcissist, right?
He was just going to clean up asfast as he could.
And she said yes, absolutely. And come back in a week.
So we went back in a week. My client sent me all of the
videos and we went back in a week and the judge said, OK,
play it, play, play the video. When I'm telling you, because we
(25:13):
had other videos of the IT. You know what you didn't see is
the bathroom doesn't have a door.
There's cockroaches in the bathroom.
What you didn't see is, you know, there was mouse traps in
the bathroom. That's what you didn't see.
And so as the judge is looking at this, right, looking at the
video in open court, I can see that she's having a visceral
(25:37):
reaction to it, just like you did, right?
Yeah, I watched it. I actually watched these last
night. The to prep after you send them
to me. I watched them and I actually
watched them with my wife. I was like, hey, look at this
right now, because I tell her about like the podcast, the
stuff I'm doing and things like that.
I'm like, look at this, you know, look at what I'm talking
about tomorrow. I'm talking to Pedita again.
And last time we talked about, you know, divorcing and I told
(25:57):
her all that. I told her what we're talking
about this time and I showed herthese videos and she's like,
that is disgusting. She was like cringing because
she like our place is so like even a little bit of clutter
sets her off. And it's great for me because
then there's never any clutter in the house unless it's like my
desk. I'm allowed to clutter my desk.
(26:17):
I don't, but that's besides the point here.
And she was just cringe. I I, I would freak out just
looking. I I'm just, she's like literally
like having a reactor to it, just watching it.
Yeah. And so the judge after seeing
all the videos and I think therewas maybe 4 total, she said I,
I've seen what I needed to see. She said, I am up here on the
(26:41):
bench in tears, literally. She said that Jay and I have in
22 years never heard that. And she said, your babies, I'm
quoting directly from the judge,your babies are living under
this condition. Why has CPS not been called?
Why hasn't the city gotten involved?
(27:02):
And I said, your honor, CPS did get involved and they they asked
the father to remove the ladder because they thought the the
children would get up on the ladder and fall.
And that was it. And so that was the extent of
CPS. And she said, I'm not joking
with you, Jay. She said if social media gets a
(27:24):
hold of these videos, she's likethey would tear them apart.
And so she said I want this house sold forthwith.
She made all the orders we were looking for because also she
said what's going to happen withthe stuff inside the house.
So she made the order. She did exactly what I had asked
(27:45):
her to do, which is have the house sold within a month.
Dad and mom have two weeks to take everything out that they
want to keep and then the garbage removal.
We already had a quote for that and you don't want to know what
the quote was. It's over $20,000.
Thank. God, no.
Actually, I would love to know what the quote is.
Honestly, Yeah. So.
(28:07):
Take out. I like those details.
Yeah, so take out the junk removal.
We contacted the junk removal company.
Wow. And so that the how?
Long thousand. How long did it take them to to
do it, do you know? Well, They, they, they in the
process of doing it because it takes, you know, obviously a
couple days. And so, and this is an active
(28:30):
case that my client allowed me to talk about.
So, you know, everything else gets removed that they're, that
they don't take in two weeks, right.
So everything gets removed and then the realtor can come in.
And we had a realtor that, you know, I've worked with in the
past come in and stage the houseand have it sold and, and, you
know, have it sold obviously as is because the bathroom doesn't
(28:52):
have a door and all the things. So it's it's really like,
listen, this is really traumaticfor the children.
Subsequently, mom moved out. She was able to get her own
place. She moved out because after she
heard what the judge said, she got really scared that if CPS
does come in again, that they would possibly remove the
(29:15):
children. So she was able to move out in a
week. And I told her, I said, please
don't take beds. Please don't take anything that
you know, because remember all these things have bugs on them
and and you know, rat traps and all these things.
So I said just even the clothes that you take, I said you're
(29:36):
going to have to sanitize them. And so she said, I'm not taking
anything. I'm going to start from scratch.
And even if that means, you know, my kids sleep on a
mattress, a brand new mattress, that's what's going to happen.
So she didn't take anything. So you see some, you know,
Christmas things and ornaments. She took nothing, Jay, because
all that stuff as droppings and of, you know, rodents and things
(30:01):
like that. So she took nothing.
She literally took the three children and moved out.
And so it was. Interesting CPS or anyone I'm
just curious here was CPS or thecourt order?
Was there anything to give them vouchers to restart to kind of
restart their fridge, restart their pantry, restart their
their clothing? Was any like that provided?
(30:23):
Do you know I'm. I'm literally just asking just
because I'm I'm curious. No, that was not provided.
We did not ask for that. Mother does work, so she was,
she was able to move out. But one thing that the judge
did, we didn't ask for this, butone thing that the judge did was
appoint minors council because, you know, there's an issue with,
(30:45):
you know, the best interest of the children, obviously, and who
who's looking after the kids, right?
So she did right then and there appoint minors council, which
we're, you know, absolutely finewith.
But I want to highlight one thing to show the narcissism
part because I think a lot of people listening are probably
like, OK, well, yeah, he's a hoarder.
(31:06):
We can see that. But where does the narcissism
come in? And I want to just tell you what
dad said in open court. The judge looked to him and
said, why haven't you cleaned? Why haven't you protected your
babies and at least cleaned their portion, right, like their
room and, you know, put things away and, you know, sold things
(31:28):
or gotten rid of things that they've outgrown.
And he said, and I quote, my wife doesn't clean.
And the female judge said, again, I'm asking you, why did
you not clean? I'm not asking her right now.
I'm just focused on you. I'm just asking you.
(31:49):
And he said, my wife doesn't clean.
And the judge, I mean, this should have been televised.
She took off her glasses and shelooked at me like literally her
face said, are you listening to this shit?
And I said, and I kind of, I think.
That's what my face says right now.
(32:10):
I kind of threw up my hands. I mean, he's saying this to a
female judge, don't forget. And I kind of threw up my hands.
And I, she asked my client the same question.
And my client said exactly what you said, Jay.
She said, your honor, if I take 3 bags out, first of all, he
accuses me of stealing from him.But if I take 3 bags out, six
(32:33):
bags come in. So I and how can I get rid of
tires and things like that? Like some of it she's like, I
don't know, does he need it for his work?
I mean, I don't know, right? So, and she's like, every time I
was able to remove something, even she said food from the
refrigerator, if I threw it out in the trash outside, he would
(32:54):
go get that food and bring it back in and feed it to our dog.
So there is no getting rid of anything.
And so, you know, that's where the judge sort of understood.
So I wish that, you know, here is the thing that I'm frustrated
with is that I wish that more judges were understanding and
(33:18):
understood, you know, narcissistic personalities
hoarding other cluster B personality disorders like
histrionics, like histrionics isa big one that courts don't
understand, you know, bipolar, all these other cluster B
personality disorders. But, you know, when she turned
to my client and and said that she kind of understood, OK, this
(33:41):
is, this is a real mental health.
And I and I said that Jay. I think a simple a simple
solution for that even is like why?
Why doesn't our system, and I think this is as part of the
problem too, in just our system across the state, is that judges
understand the law, right? They're very high end,
well-rounded, very experienced attorneys, more or less, right.
(34:02):
That's what the attorney appliesfor a judgeship and they get the
judgeship and what not because of their work as a as an
attorney, the track record, their success, things like that.
They run on it, they get appointed, things like that.
So they know the law in and out,up and down, but judges do not
know psychology. So why hasn't our system put in
place court, appoint A psychologist for the judges to
(34:24):
counsel with on these cases and say, Hey, is there any
psychological factors that I should be aware of here?
Is there anything with this casethat I should know?
And I know that there's different agencies that the
courts work with sometimes to get those records, but just to
have that person or that group of people there.
I was like, look, here's a, a female psychologist
(34:44):
representative, here's a male psychologist representative.
I want both your opinions on allthese cases kind of thing.
What do you see? Here's the evidence.
Here's the case. Here's what this person saying.
And then I want you to be in court.
You know, you sit right there off to the side so that you can
observe their body language, what they do with their hands,
what they do with their eye contact, what they do with all
(35:06):
their, their mannerisms and things like that.
And you let me know if there's anything weird because I think
judges can often tell when someone's lying judge.
And I think lawyers and attorneys have a pretty good
read on the body language aspectof it, but maybe not on what
the, the psychology and stuff that's behind that means and
what not. And what else that they maybe
they will miss that a psychologist will see because
their eyes are trained for it. Like I pick up on a lot of
(35:29):
patterns and a lot of things that no one else around me see.
My brother, my wife, they comment on all the time.
How do you notice that? How do you pick up on that?
How do you know? It's like, I don't know, my eyes
are just like, I'm just trained to, to see these things kind of
thing with my with my experienceand with my day-to-day.
I see these things that people don't see and how to use it kind
of thing. And, you know, I could provide
the interventions and they couldprovide the next steps and, you
(35:51):
know, help a lot in these familycourt cases and things like
that. And then when it comes to these
situations and things like that to help the judges identify.
So it's a, it's almost a too simple of a fix, you know, for
the system and they're going to deny it all day long.
Right and you know there are there are child custody
evaluations. We did did recommend that to the
(36:12):
court and so we might have to get one of them appointed.
They are very expensive Jay and they're anywhere from 5:00 to
10:15 thousand. We have minors counsel which you
know the judge, you know, each side has to pay for minors
counsel's time. The court, though, in this case
(36:33):
said that the county would pay right now for my nurse counsel
because this was such a big issue.
Yeah, well, when it's when it's involving kids though, like
that's why you have someone thatworks through the court, you
know, as a court appointed psychologist or mental health
therapist or whatever you want to call them kind of thing that
can, that understands the DSM 5 criteria for these different
(36:55):
disorders and can help the kids understand.
Like, look, you're you tell me what you've experienced kind of
thing. And then they are able to put a
clinical name behind it and theyare able to speak because it's
going to be someone totally separate that's going to help
advocate for the kid and be like, look, you know, I talked
to to Johnny and to Susie and toTimmy.
And Timmy now is experiencing, you know, PTSD because of the
(37:19):
situation with dad. Susie is now has disassociative
disorder because of that. And little Johnny, he's too
young. He's OK for right now, but there
is a potential for such as such down the line kind of thing.
Mom is experiencing PTSD. Mom is also now experiencing
intense anxiety and depression and what not as recommended that
she go for further psychologicalevaluation at a higher level for
(37:42):
possible medical or medication intervention to help her cope
kind of thing. That's where that person would
come in and it would offer a very, very simple solution here
to help in the situation becausethat person already works for
the court. They're already getting paid, so
you just, they're already there.No one has to pay for that extra
beyond what their their salary they're already making.
(38:03):
It's not an extra burden. But we don't do that because we
want to. The system as a set up is to
not, not lawyers or anything, not you, but I'm saying the
system is set up in a way to to burden families, especially
those that go through an abusivesituation.
I say the mom's very fortunate that she has a job that pays her
well enough to move on on her own, get her own place and for
them provide for the kid at A ata good level and without, you
(38:25):
know, additional assistant needed kind of thing.
But that's not always. That's rarely the case in the.
Situation, right? Yes, that's rarely the case.
Rarely the case, Absolutely. You know, the dad in these
situations doesn't get that samebenefit a lot of time.
They could still be working, butnow they're trying to deal with
the abuser. They're trying to deal with the
abuser, trying to deal with all the things, and they're trying
(38:46):
to work their way through it while also now paying for a
house that they're not in and things like that and all the
stuff. And they're still carrying the
financial burden. So they can't even get out on
their own kind of thing. So.
Right. I also want to say exactly what
you said. The house, the mortgage is still
being paid by my client, by the mom and she's having to pay rent
for a a new place. But she feared that, you know,
(39:09):
CPS would be called after this this, you know, these videos
came out and so she wanted to beproactive.
You know, it's really easy to sit back and you know, I see a
lot of people on social media dothis and judge people like, why
did she move out earlier? Why didn't she do this?
Why didn't? You can't you.
(39:30):
Can't. You can't.
You're stuck. You're stuck and and I will say,
you know, I've been representingher for two years.
The person that came to me in the beginning is not the person
I'm dealing with now. She was exactly what you said so
beat down. She would stutter her words
constantly even though she's a very you.
Can tell from that video, you can tell from that video that
(39:51):
she's, she's stuttering and she's scared and she's shaky and
I, it feels like she's almost looking over her shoulder right
every couple seconds to check it's like, oh, what's the, oh,
what's the noise kind of thing? And she's just like, she's so on
edge and you can feel the, you can feel the anxiety, you can
feel the pressure, you can feel the stress and like.
(40:14):
She's not even talking that loud.
She's talking very quietly because she doesn't want
neighbors to hear. She doesn't want anyone to hear.
She doesn't want the dog to be disturbed kind of thing.
She doesn't want anyone to hear it.
So she's talking like she's verymuch talking like this, like
this is, this is the, the, the, the, the look how it, how it's
up there. And this is.
And then when she's walking outside in between the homes,
because she can, you can clearlyhear people on the other side.
(40:36):
She lowers her voice even more. It's like you can see that
there's a, there's a car right there and there's a, there's a
thing here and a thing there. And she lowers her voice even
more. And that's that's I think the
highlight here, like you're saying, like when you're in that
situation, you're stuck, you're fucked.
You can't do anything. You can't do anything because
you don't, you don't know how toget out.
You can't get out. You feel like you can't get out.
(40:58):
You've been so beaten down. Your your psychology has been so
just defeated by the by the abuser that you you think
getting out is impossible because they've told you like
you can't get out. You can't survive without me.
You can't do life without me. These kids are going to struggle
without me kind of thing. And yeah, it.
Right. And So what I want to say in,
(41:19):
you know, in closing is that if you're in the situation where
you're dealing with a hoarder, and most of the times, I will be
honest, our cases, a lot of the times the female is the hoarder,
the mom is the hoarder I've seen.
I've actually seen this. I've actually seen this first
hand in a in a situation my dad was in when I was a teenager.
(41:39):
I'm not going to go into too many details just to protect
anonymity and anonymity within, within my family and things like
that. But it it got to the point to
where it was hoarding and their rooms were were cluttered and
filled. And I remember going back into
the home after I'd moved out andit was just the, you know, that
(42:01):
the backyard is over. Ran everything underneath the
pad underneath the patio was stacked up, ran shit on the side
of the house. And you know, all the every
place that could be filled, you know, outside and even the
dining room was pretty full. The little nook in nook place
where there was like a shower and a bathroom was really,
really full of stuff there. The living room that what was
(42:22):
the living room originally was, was overran with just books and
all sorts of things. And it was just a huge a huge
thing. The upstairs where us kids were
was was OK. There wasn't much stuff up
there, but downstairs was just cluttered, the backyard
cluttered. And yeah, it was just, that's
(42:42):
just how it, how it ended up. So I've seen this first hand and
I, I, I'm thinking about it now,putting all these pieces
together that we're talking about.
And I'm thinking about the how my dad was my dad just, he was
so stressed all the time. He, he hated because he
couldn't, he felt like he couldn't breathe.
He, he didn't want to be home. He, he would work, he would find
all the ways to get up, get out,get out, get moving and we get
(43:04):
out of the situation. And, you know, often, you know,
it just, it was a mess. And it was, yeah, I just think
about it now and yeah, I, I saw the impact that it had on, had
on my dad. I remember the impact that it,
that it had on had on those boys.
And yeah, it was, it was not a fun time.
But I just think back to how my dad went through it and how he's
still dealing with, with parts of it, you know, many years
(43:26):
later now. And yeah, it's something.
So the main thing is if you're stuck in this type of situation,
there is help. If you're going through a
divorce or contemplating divorce, there are attorneys
that will help you and believe you.
You know what pictures are great, videos are great.
Just, you know, keep the evidence.
We always talk about documentation and get, you know,
(43:50):
ask your attorney to have the house sold immediately.
Make a motion to have the house sold immediately.
There is sort of a rainbow at the end of all this.
My client is very happy. She's in her own space.
The children, she says, have room to play, and they can
invite their friends over. They just had, you know, a
(44:14):
school party in their backyard. You know, summer school is now
in session or whatever. So she had some kids come.
And so for the first time, she'sable to do that with their
children. And and she says that there's a
lot of peace. There's no more anxiety.
The kids are not anxious. And so, you know, just know that
(44:34):
there is light at the end of thetunnel.
But you do have an obligation assort of the normal parent, the
one that doesn't have a hoardingissue or illness to get your
children to safety because your children are looking to you.
You're sort of their only hope. And my client now is when I talk
(44:59):
to her, Jay, she's not shaky, she doesn't stutter.
She's sort of like as like a couple notches down.
And even though the divorce is ongoing and there's some, you
know, custody issues and I feel.Like this one's going to be
going on for for a while. Yeah, financial issues, but you
know, at the end of the day, it's like exactly what you said.
(45:21):
She has Peace of Mind. She can, you know, come home and
know, listen, I tell my husband this all the time.
Our house is supposed to be the place where you come, where
there's safety and peace. And so that's like the outside
world. We know it has chaos in it.
We all have like difficult Co workers and bosses and you know,
(45:43):
somebody cuts us off on the fourO 5 freeway.
We have all of that, right. But when you come home, your
home is supposed to provide two things, safety and peace.
And if you don't have that, thenit's time to strategize a way
out. I am not saying this because I'm
(46:03):
a divorce attorney and I think everyone should get a divorce.
No, if you don't have safety andpeace, go to a therapist, talk
to a psychotherapist, see how you can fix the situation in
your home. But if it's not fixable, life is
too short. Why are you?
Why are you in a home that doesn't have peace and safety?
So that's a question, you know, really for your audience to to
(46:26):
contemplate. But I can tell you for our home,
there is safety and peace. I mean, there has to be, right?
So I just hope that this sort ofvisual was good for your
audience today. I think so.
I think it was great. I think the conversation and the
the expansion of the conversation that we had beyond
it is also great as well. And Petita, it's always an honor
(46:49):
to have you. It's always to have our our
honor to have your fierce, your fierceness, your fire, your your
sharpness, your insights, your knowledge, your experience, and
everything that you share on thepodcast is always just so great
to have you. And it's great to be able to
call you a friend. It's great to send you funny
narcissist videos that we find on Instagram to each other.
It's great to to share those those actual friend things
(47:10):
beyond just the podcast. Yes, and I do want to say one
thing before we end today. You sent me you sent me two
stickers and a thank you note last November.
I actually have the two stickerson my laptop that I'm using
today. One said made with love and the
other one says follow your dreams.
And so those are on. And every time I look at it, I
(47:32):
think of you, Jace. No, thank you.
That's actually something. Yeah.
I started doing that that quite a quite a while ago where I
would send, you know, personal handwritten thank you cards,
tell all my guests because I felt that that was something
just really important to do to show like it's always going to
show appreciation, right? A little bit goes a long way.
And so I'm glad that that appreciate resonates with you.
I actually got the idea actuallythis it wasn't an original idea.
(47:54):
I stole this idea from her name's Chelsea.
She hosts the quiet connection podcast and then she hosts this
other kind of politicize the podcast with it's like mom's on
mom's on call or something. I don't listen to it because I
don't agree with the points of view at all.
I do list of things on points ofview I don't agree on often, but
(48:15):
I've just it was just too far, too far to the to the other
side. But she's a great person.
So I stole the idea from her because she actually sent me.
That's the same thing after I was a guest on her show Once
Upon a time and a little like sticker that's like a sensory
sticker, like the breathing sticker.
I think I put that in there as well, maybe.
And so I'm like, I'm going to dothe exact same thing.
You know what, why re why? Like listen, recreate the real,
(48:40):
right? I mean, listen, if if you loved
it, why not send it to your guests?
I mean, I think she'd be honoredto know that you are following
in her footsteps in that way. And this just shows gratitude.
I think every host should do it because I get so many great
messages from guests at the at in the back end.
There's just like, Oh my gosh, like I've done, you know, X
amount of podcasts, Like I've done 50 podcasts as a guest.
(49:01):
You were the first one to ever send me this.
You're the first one to ever to do this.
And I'm just like, that's crazy.Because I feel like it's it's,
it's super cheap. Like to get a thing of thank you
cards is 5 bucks on Amazon. To get a thing of stickers is 20
bucks on Amazon or stickers 20 bucks on Amazon.
The stickers themselves maybe 10bucks.
(49:21):
So now you're maybe 30 bucks in and then it takes 10 minutes to
write a card and pop it in the mailbox.
And so it's not like you're doing a lot of time and effort
to get these out. And it's, you know, that's just
the thing that where gratitude comes in.
It's like it doesn't take a lot to show gratitude takes a few
bucks and a little bit of your time and that's it.
And I have even funnier stickersnow.
(49:42):
So I'm going to have to get youraddress again because I have
even funnier stickers now. I have some meme ones and
they're really funny. But anyways, Pedita, this, like
I said, an amazing conversation.Where can people find you,
connect with you if they're in the state of California?
If they're in the San Diego Greater Southern California
area, they're looking for someone to talk to, legal
representation. Where is the best place to get
ahold of you to contact you? Well, first I wanna mention the
(50:06):
Narcissist Abuse Recovery Channel.
NARC is the acronym we're on Spotify, iHeartRadio and Apple
podcast. So that's number one.
And Jay is gonna be a guest. So definitely wait until you
hear what he has to say on my podcast.
And then Jafari legalyouknow.com, Jafari Legal
(50:26):
on all of our social media. This has just been such a great
conversation. I think both of us are a little
bit triggered right now. Yeah, so we need to go take a
couple of deep breaths and listen to the birds.
The birds are outside my, my office window right now.
So I, I really appreciate again what you do, Jay.
(50:47):
It's it's vitally important. And reach out again to the men,
the men in your life this month.Just check in with them.
So thanks for having me and hopefully we'll do this again
soon. Of course.
And to the listeners, thanks youguys for tuning in.
You guys are listening to a podcast.
You listened to plenty of podcasts before.
(51:07):
So go and do all the things to show your support for the
podcast. And something I don't mention
very often, but occasionally I do.
This is a free independent podcast.
So if you are ever inclined to show your support, show your
love, you can go over to the link in the show notes over on
or you can go to my Instagram, click the link tree.
You can actually support by buying me a coffee as little as
a dollar over on buymeacoffee.com.
(51:28):
Young Dad Pod. You can show your support that
way for the podcast if you want.No pressure.
I'm not asking for donations or anything like that.
I will still bring you great free content for your
day-to-day. And of course, always head over
to youngdadpod.com. Every episode does get a
interactive show notes or interactive show guide for
activities that you can do at home with your kids, with your
family, or with yourself. Every single episode has a theme
(51:50):
for that episode over on the website.
I think there's over 50 of thoseavailable right now and they're
all downloadable for free as APDF.
Also other things that I randomly add in there from work.
Then I'm like, I'm going to throw this on my website because
I created and I can't. So with that, until next time,
everybody will see you right here on the Young Dad Podcast.
Popular Podcasts
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com
Cardiac Cowboys
The heart was always off-limits to surgeons. Cutting into it spelled instant death for the patient. That is, until a ragtag group of doctors scattered across the Midwest and Texas decided to throw out the rule book. Working in makeshift laboratories and home garages, using medical devices made from scavenged machine parts and beer tubes, these men and women invented the field of open heart surgery. Odds are, someone you know is alive because of them. So why has history left them behind? Presented by Chris Pine, CARDIAC COWBOYS tells the gripping true story behind the birth of heart surgery, and the young, Greatest Generation doctors who made it happen. For years, they competed and feuded, racing to be the first, the best, and the most prolific. Some appeared on the cover of Time Magazine, operated on kings and advised presidents. Others ended up disgraced, penniless, and convicted of felonies. Together, they ignited a revolution in medicine, and changed the world.