When Courts Become Weapons: The Podcast You Didn't Know You Needed

Introducing "Legal Abuse Explained," a new collaborative podcast between Ingrid Dutton of the "1 in 3" podcast and Karen Tosoni, CEO of After Awareness. Together they're creating a vital resource dedicated to understanding legal abuse—a pervasive issue that remains shrouded in misunderstanding despite affecting countless lives.

• Partnership formed serendipitously when Ingrid and Karen met at PodFest
• Legal abuse often manifests disguised as legitimate legal action but with intent to control and harm
• The podcast will explore Legal Abuse Syndrome, a recognized psychological trauma many aren't aware of
• After Awareness uses the LEAF system (Legal, Emotional And Financial) to address all aspects of recovery
• Upcoming episodes will feature experts including therapists and legal professionals
• Content serves both survivors and the professionals who support them

We invite you to join us whether you're looking to understand, heal, or advocate—you are not alone in this journey.

For more information, check out https://afterawareness.org/

Chapters

• 0:00 Introducing Legal Abuse Explained
• 1:03 The LEAF System Explained
• 2:33 Podcast Mission and Audience
• 5:05 Closing Remarks and Invitation

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:11

Welcome, welcome, welcome to a brand new podcast that I am so excited about. I'm Ingrid Dutton, host of the 1 in 3 podcast, and today I am thrilled to introduce you to a collaboration that's been a long time coming. For years, on One in Three, I have shared stories that explore the hidden battles many face, often in silence, and in that journey, one pervasive and devastating issue kept surfacing legal abuse. It's a topic that touches so many lives, yet remains shrouded in misunderstanding and shame. That's why I'm so honored to be partnering with After Awareness, an organization dedicated to shedding the light on these critical issues and offering pathways to healing. Together, we've created Legal Abuse Explained. Joining me right now is CEO and co-founder of After Awareness, karen Tasani. Karen, how did we meet?

Speaker 2: 1:06

Oh my goodness, it was just a godsend. We were both at the same table at the PodFest and we were both waiting in line and we both looked at each other and started conversation. And here we are what a year and a half later when we met. We basically both have in common with domestic violence and talking about legal abuse and how it overlaps into domestic violence, and you were already doing your podcast, one in Three, which is wonderful.

Speaker 2: 1:35

I've been following you and After, awareness really wants to focus on legal abuse alone and since there's like nine forums, we felt a podcast was a really good way to get that out there. Legal Abuse Explains is not just another podcast. It's a vital resource for sharing multifaceted topics, of providing hope that experts can share to survivors on topics with our system. We have in place is called the Leaf, which is L-E-A-F, which is legal, legal, emotional and financial, and so with that balance in one, we wanted to build awareness on what that means and how this impacts the survivor, their family and the community. Thank you, and I'm so excited and thank you, podfest, and I'm looking forward to January's next PodFest.

Speaker 1: 2:27

Absolutely. And so, in these upcoming episodes, we're going to dive deep into the very core of legal abuse. We'll explore what it truly is, how it manifests, often disguised as legitimate legal action, but with the intent to harm, control and exhaust. We'll unpack the concept of legal abuse syndrome, a recognized psychological phenomenon that describes a profound and often long-lasting trauma experienced by those targeted, which many are not even aware of, let alone its effects. Right, Correct.

Speaker 2: 2:59

Yes, and it's very crucial for the audience to understand the crossovers and how legal abuse is a form, and can be a form, of domestic violence not always, but when it does, to understand how it fits. And it's just really all about being aware and hence, after awareness is when someone is aware that we are here to help them self-advocate. That is really the whole. You know, having our podcast helps with experts providing that information and so, yeah, I think this is really amazing where your expertise in podcasting has really come through and the topics can overlap, and I hope somebody would want to watch the one in three podcast, where the survivors are able to share stories and examples and our experts in our podcast can actually give some enlightenment to the topics, so maybe someone can relate to that.

Speaker 1: 3:55

Yeah, I'm really truly excited about this podcast because legal abuse, like I said, is something that's really not understood and I think that I'm going to learn a lot from all of the professionals, the therapists, the legal experts, everyone that's going to be coming on as a guest to Legal Abuse Explained. I think I will be learning a lot myself and hopefully I can carry over some of that knowledge to the one in three listeners. So really, this podcast is for anyone that might be experiencing legal abuse and for their friends and family or even professionals, right, Absolutely.

Speaker 2: 4:31

And I think that's really important to make sure that even professionals out there this is such a new. The history is this has been around forever, but we're really getting educated and experts alone are getting the information they need to help. Even, for example, counselors may or may not be aware of the term legal abuse syndrome, and this is like a growing learning and understanding how we can help each other. So as we learn, as we educate, as we meet experts, as experts can help each other through the directories and just being able to educate not only the survivors but the victim advocates and legal advocates and people that are there to help. This is such a collaboration and I hope our podcast can open that up.

Speaker 1: 5:19

Yeah, so whether you're joining to understand, heal or advocate, know that you are not alone. And thank you for tuning in to Legal Abuse Explained. Let's begin this important conversation. Awesome, thank you so much. Thank you.