‘Do not let my demise be in vain’

A woman has ended her life because of the family courts

Six days ago, Catherine ended her own life in a facility in Europe. Her final words to us all were ‘do not let my demise be in vain’.

The reason she chose to end her life was not old age. It wasn’t a chronic illness. It was the family courts.

On the 19th March 2023, her ex husband sent an email saying he would keep fighting her through the family courts until he dies.

Instead, Catherine Youssef Kassanoff chose to die to end her suffering.

A former criminal prosecutor and special counsel to the governor of New York, Catherine wrote, ‘After I am gone, he will falsely tell everyone that I am ‘mentally ill’, a criminal and a liar.’

Catherine is right, of course. Her ex will be able to control the story from now onwards. He will, like many other abusers, tell everyone that she had ‘mental health issues’, was ‘psycho’, was ‘unwell’ and that he was the victim. Classic DARVO of a perpetrator.

In her final statement, she said, ‘Reach out, organise yourselves, use the facts of my case, make change.’

And so that’s what I am doing.

As a woman, a mother, psychologist, feminist, and influencer with a huge public platform, I couldn’t read her final words and let them lie. I write this article for her, and for all the other women who are being abused, controlled, threatened and bullied via and by, the family courts around the world. I also write this article for the women who have already ended their lives due to domestic abuse and the family courts, because Catherine is sadly, not alone.

Whilst Catherine’s story is devastating and heart breaking, her experiences are frighteningly common. Women in the US, Australia, New Zealand, Canada and the UK contact me on a weekly basis, absolutely destroyed by months or years in the family court process with their abusive ex husbands and partners.

It is high time we all realised that the family court process is one of the most effective ways to continue to abuse, terrify, control and humiliate women in the world. Abusive exes can accuse virtually anything in the family court process, which often leads to women being forced through psychological assessments, false psychiatric diagnoses, accusations of ‘parental alienation’, lawyers advising women not to disclose domestic abuse at all, removal of children, and in some cases, custody of children being given to domestic abuse and sexual abuse perpetrators.

The family court is an arena in which women can be deliberately and endlessly controlled and humiliated. I’ve spoken to women who have had their nudes shared in family court by their exes for no reason whatsoever, other than to humiliate them. At least 5 women I’ve spoken to have had videos of sexual intercourse or sexually explicit material shared in family court and with solicitors and barristers by their exes, in order to embarrass and shame them into submission.

Women who have tried to disclose abuse of themselves or their children have been diagnosed with personality disorders and bipolar disorder for no other reason than the way they sobbed and became angry in assessments and interviews with professionals who have been paid by their exes to discredit them.

I know of women who have completely lost their children, as Catherine did, despite following every single piece of advice they were given. They were simply no match for their manipulative, abusive, tactical ex partners.

In one case I know well, the infant child was removed and placed with a sex offender who cried ‘parental alienation’, only to be abused by Dad, and given back to Mum a year later once all professionals realised that Dad was in fact, everything Mum had said he was all along.

As many of you will know, some women are so desperate to escape the grip of family court that they run away with their children, and become fugitives of the family court. Even the fears of their own children are ignored, or are reframed as being ‘coached’ by Mum.

In Catherine’s case, the prospect of facing more years fighting her ex husband was just too much. With a recent diagnosis of cancer, she simply could not face treatment, illness, and surgeries whilst being dragged through the family courts at the same time.

She said something very familiar to me, which was that she used to believe that the best thing she could do for her young daughters was to attempt to stay in their lives in order to try to protect them from their Dad. But as time had gone on, she realised that her desperate fight to stay near her daughters was fuelling her exes abuse and control of her.

Sadly, I hear this every week. It’s a heartbreaking and life-changing realisation, that as a mother, if you walk away, and let the abuser win, even if that means never seeing your children, it might actually lead to a calmer life for your kids.

I can’t stop thinking about the the immense pain and trauma of Catherine as she realised that death must be better than more years in family court with her ex. I can’t stop thinking about her daughters losing their mother because a system is built so that wealthy and powerful men can abuse women forever.

I am deeply troubled by the fact that Catherine spent the last four years of her life being subjected to endless harassment, stalking and false allegations, constantly having to defend herself.

Despite all accusations and allegations being found to be malicious or faked, and despite police giving testimony in court that he had repeatedly lied to them, at no point was her ex husband prosecuted or even restricted from making more fake calls. He was able to falsely claim that he had a restraining order when he didn’t, and even told police that his ex wife was going to kill their children.

This isn’t the first time I have seen a woman hounded to death, and unless we work together to create urgent reform, Catherine will not be the last.

Finally, as an expert in this topic, I want to draw attention to the fact that pathologisation and abusive psychiatry played yet another central part in this story.

One of the most successful tactics employed in family courts is to reposition an abused woman as mentally ill, psychotic, neurotic, disordered, vengeful, obsessive, unstable, hysterical, and emotional. It pains me so much that some of Catherine’s last thoughts to us all, were about the way she will be positioned as mentally ill after her death.

Catherine, we do not think you are ill. We know you are not disordered. I wish you could know that. Thousands of women who will read this article will feel the same.

We MUST get control of the abusive use of psychology and psychiatry in the family court. It is currently a weapon, a tool of oppression, a tool of patriarchy.

We MUST work together - this can never ever happen again. Women cannot be abused through a justice process. This cannot continue anywhere in the world. I will support any work that brings this abuse to an end.

Rest in peace, Catherine.

My thoughts are with your beloved daughters.

Her final words are here, on her Facebook post https://m.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=10210295435139796&id=1758801180&mibextid=Nif5oz

Thank you for reading this today,

Jess.