Brian's Abuse In Summary

First off, today the page views hit 90,000. How incredible! In only four months, this blog has been able to spread my sister's true story across the country (and even internationally). I wouldn't be where I am today without each one of you who has come to read this collection of my family's experiences. Thank you.

As I discussed in my last post, here is a summary of all the abuse that I've put on this blog thus far. It's taken me a while to get it together and put it in order of occurrence, which isn't organized entirely accurately since the majority of my father's abuse was continual throughout the years. (For example, the abuse listed under "After Custody Change" were things he had been doing before the custody change, too). I felt that it was important to refresh these posts, since there are so many facts and stories that have been forgotten with time. 

The list is long, but very informative. I recommend heading to each link for a complete description of abuse if there are any questions, since these are just summarized bullet points. Also, don't forget--there's a Documents tab, a Timeline, an About section, a Q&A tab (you can always comment with valid questions), a link to the Roby Report, the Custody Report, and a tab for the Random Memories.

Pre-Custody Change

-A very detailed list of the different ways our dad has abused us (from when we were toddlers til present day).

-The facts that show my dad is the alienator, and that my mom never tried to isolate us from him as he did to her. This one is a deep read, but I feel that it's definitely a post to bring back from the past since my dad continues to try and convince people that my mom is who he actually is.

-Our dad would repeatedly tell us about a naked woman attacking him to have sex with him on his mission in Brazil. He started telling us this story when we were 10, 5, and 6 years old. Sydney, Dani and I always got the feeling when he told it that he was getting some kind of sick thrill in telling us inappropriate things and forcing us to picture related images in our minds.

-My dad would often tell my sisters and me detailed and very graphic stories of crimes against women. These stories would terrify us and although we would ask him to stop, he took pleasure in making us uncomfortable and frightened.

Custody Change (May 2010)

Update on GoFundMe Account

I find it's necessary to keep those who are donating in the loop of where my legal expenses stand, and exactly where every cent of your generous donations to my GoFundMe is going.

By the way... thank you SO much to everyone who has donated since my last thank you post a couple of months ago. You have given me a kind of support that I wouldn't have without you. You are keeping the court litigation open, and securing a chance at the girls being heard through the "proper channels." I feel that if Syd and Dani were here right now, they would thank each one of you.

Here is a full accounting of my Esplin Weight legal fees to date: 

"I Had No Idea"

Here is an excerpt from a letter my grandma Judy wrote to my mom's lawyer dated Oct 2, 2004:

"Today, 17 days after her telling me that Brian served her with divorce papers & filling me in with so much that happened since they got married -- I am still reeling. I had NO idea. She told us nothing. I always felt she was protecting him -- but I thought it was just from "little stuff" -- nothing so devastating & humiliating as what he has put her through. I honor her courage, persistence, devotion, love, & loyalty & her clear clear vision & desire to help another human being. I haven't had a clue, however, all this time, as to the horrendous struggle that has been taking place. Not only was this an incredibly negative situation, she received no support from his family, as they apparently blamed it on "relationship problems" & were unwilling to deal with their son on a deeper level. Michelle, incredible as it still is to  me, was always supportive -- 100% -- & only said good things about him. That's why this has all been such a shock to all of us."

My mom didn't want to tell her family and closest friends that she was an abused woman--just like so many other victims of domestic violence do.

On Pain and Suffering

The past eight months have been full of lessons and blessings and extreme hardships. One lesson I have become familiar with is that you cannot have joy in life without pain. There are always lows and highs.

I have learned to let pain shape me into a better person, which can only happen if one embraces it. It's not something you can ignore or run from. You must rely on faith to work through it. The beauty in this is that trials that test your faith can become priceless experiences.

A quote that I love:

Here, then, is a great truth. In the pain, the agony, and the heroic endeavors of life, we pass through a refiner’s fire, and the insignificant and the unimportant in our lives can melt away like dross and make our faith bright, intact, and strong. In this way the divine image can be mirrored from the soul...

Into every life there come the painful, despairing days of adversity and buffeting. There seems to be a full measure of anguish, sorrow, and often heartbreak for everyone, including those who earnestly seek to do right and be faithful. 

-James E. Faust, "The Refining Fire"

In every trial, there is a choice we must make. We can let the hardship consume us, or we can let it soften our hearts. If you choose the first, you will become bitter and hateful; if you choose the second, you will become more spiritually receptive and understanding. 

I've made my choice to continually strive to allow pain and hardship make me the better person. I refuse to be a victim of my dad's abuse--my sisters and I will be victors. 

Sydney's Sufferings

There were many other effects Sydney suffered from my dad's abuse to her (besides his physical abuse of forcing her to eat gluten even though she's celiac). She would have awful nightmares on the nights my dad would lecture her. She had major issues with sleep and could never sleep longer than a few hours without waking up.

My dad singled her out in other ways as the "favorite child" and seemed set on making her be like him. He would always tell us that Sydney was the closest to him out of the three of us. It made Sydney sick. She didn't want that connection suggested.

There were times when Sydney would come to me (only when Dad or Angie wasn't around, of course) with the most pained expression on her face. "I just can't handle this anymore, Brittany," she'd say, and I knew that she was severely tormented by him. I recognized in her manner that she was thinking of taking her life, because she behaved and talked just like I did when I felt like taking my own life during the worst moments of Dad's abuse. It scared me like nothing else. I was so upset at my dad for hurting my sweet sisters.

Although I was the oldest and most targeted (probably because of the imminent threat of my moving out and being out of my dad's obsessive control once I was an adult), Syd became the new oldest of the children at home. She told me that he worsened his attacks on her after I left. It killed me to see that happen, because all three of us speculated that it would.

Sydney's Celiac Disease

For a while, I've felt the need to write a post dedicated to what my sister Sydney (now age 15) had to physically endure at the hands of my father, because what she has gone through is actual abuse.

Documented History

My dad physically abused my sister, Sydney, by forcing her to eat gluten despite her official celiac disease diagnosis. During her life, my sister Sydney experienced serious and painful problems whenever she ate gluten. My mom took her to around 80 doctor appointments over many years to try to find why she had so much pain. Finally, on February 28, 2006, Sydney was admitted to Primary Children’s Hospital and had a biopsy taken from the small intestine to conclusively confirm that she has celiac disease. Dad was informed of this on March 10, 2006.

Mom immediately completely changed Syd's diet and consistently ensured that she wasn't served any food that contained gluten. Because Dad refused to cooperate and, at times, insisted that Sydney eat gluten-containing food such as popular breads and doughnuts, Mom was forced to secure various notes (May 3, May 10, June 13, June 16, August 14 2006, and March 21 2007) and emails to Dad to inform and compel him to stop feeding Sydney gluten. My mom had to send him emails again from Dr. Harnsberger on November 15, 2006, confirming the celiac diagnosis and the importance of a gluten-free diet. Mom hoped it would lead him to stop undermining Sydney’s required diet.

Dad's Attempts At Alienation

My dad (Brian Wolferts) sought my total isolation from my mother and anyone in her life, hoping that I would discover for myself his idea that my mom (Michelle) was “mentally ill” and “damned.” It was obvious to me that he needed me to have as little time as possible with my mother in order to make his implanted ideas stick easier, because the reality of time with my mom was completely opposite to what he kept repeating about her.

He told me the only way that I would discover for myself that she's "mentally ill" is if I cut off every tie not only with mom, but with her family, her friends, anyone in any of my wards I’ve lived in, anyone from her work field or people she knows from the ward, etc. For me to even begin to know "what she’s done, and the kind of person she really is". Because “they’ll all defend her because she’s got them thinking she’s the victim.” He would also tell us that she wasn't a good mother, and didn't really love us because of the way she tried to destroy our relationship with him. I have endured countless hours of my dad railing and lecturing us about our mom about all these things and many, many more. Yet she never tried to alienate us from him like he claims. I find it absolutely mind-boggling how much he accuses her now of doing the exact things he has done my entire life. I'm thankful that his attempts to alienate me from my mom didn't work.

When I say his attempts to alienate me from her 'didn't work,' I mean that they didn't keep me from wanting a relationship with her. I'm very thankful for that. But I didn't survive his alienation attempts without being affected. Dad tried as hard as he could to make us hate our mom. He found every excuse possible to sneak my mother into every subject, whether it was suggesting how awful a driver she was to accusing her of being mentally unstable and unfit to raise us. He always spoke negatively about our mom to us, and it was apparent that our dad wanted us to hate her. He incessantly channeled rage and abhorrence at us in hopes that we would channel it to her--it was apparent to me that the end goal of his raging to us was to get to Mom. It seems he wanted us to blame her for our pain he was causing us. It hurt us to have him talking about her so horribly (and I think it hurts any child to hear any parent talking bad about the other).

We knew Dad was not telling the truth. My sisters and I lived with our mom for six years, then visited her for the remaining four, and we never heard a negative remark against my father from my mom, even when we cried to her about the scary things he was saying and doing. She was gentle and kind our whole lives. I knew that his attempts to make us believe something untrue about Mom were wrong. The bad things my dad kept trying to convince us Mom was doing were almost verbatim what he was doing and had been doing for years. 

It was easy to not internalize the falsehoods about my mom, because there was such a stark contrast between her true self and what Dad kept trying to make us believe about her. With that being said, though: there were times that it seemed that it would be so much easier to earn our dad's love and stop his attacks if we started hating her, but we knew it wasn't right to hate our mom, and we didn't want to! All of this constant negativity toward my mom that my dad openly fostered ever since they first separated brought us all immense internal pain. 

In my personal experience (and I know Sydney and Dani feel the same way) I didn't want to be a vessel that channeled my dad's hatred to our mom--or anyone else for that matter--and so I turned the hatred inward. It seemed like the solution at first, but it didn't take much time to wear on me. My self-esteem, my faith in my talents, my belief that I was a good person--all of that began to decay. I've thought a lot about it, and I think that my dad fosters the idea in all of the people he lives with that they somehow deserve the horrible treatment he inflicts upon them. Because people with little or no self-esteem don't fight back. 

What motivates him to do this?

Comment Left in Moderation 1/14/15

This comment was left on my blog in moderation, and I felt it deserved its own post to address it, in order to give any readers a chance to address it too.

First of all, my dad called me into his room when I was a teenager and blindsided me with this discussion of child pornography. It wasn't because I was "lumping him in with people who were doing such abhorrent things" (whatever that's supposed to mean?). It was only after he put his own self and my baby sister in an example of filming child pornography that I considered him to be on that level. He painted a picture of himself engaging in child pornography with my baby sister. He looked excited when he talked about it for 20 to 30 minutes with me, as his unwilling and extremely uncomfortable audience. As I said before, he acted like he was gloating as he told me about child pornography.

Pretend that your kid randomly gets called into the principal's office in school for no apparent reason. Once alone with your child, the principal says, "A ring of people who made child pornography was busted, right here in our state! And what's crazy is that these people have made thousands of videos of doing things to children, even in schools like ours! Do you know what child pornography is? You need to understand how it works. What happens is that adults take children as young as your 2 year old sister and perform sexual acts with them. Those adults can be my age. Can you even imagine someone like me doing something like that with your 2 year old sister? Sometimes, they hire other people to come in and do it. But sometimes, it's actually principals and their own students!"

If your child came home disturbed by this, would your response to them be, "Did you ever consider that he was trying to explain how severe child porn is, because you were lumping him in with people who were doing such abhorrent things, and he was perhaps concerned you considered him to be on that level?" Would you suggest that the principal "was simply trying to illustrate just how terrible pedophiles can be, and that he was not in that category?" 

No; you would consider him a twisted threat to your child and all children. You would immediately seek for him to be removed as principal.

Sydney's Writings

I'm going to dedicate a couple posts on all of the alienation speculation going on, because not only does it affect me, but it affects my sisters.

There are statements such as "Brittany is the only one coming up with this stuff, so she's alienated", "Sydney and Dani haven't spoken about abuse", and even "If there was really abuse, Sydney and Dani would have come forward about it" circulating the internet. (And those are just to name a few.) No, I am not the only one claiming abuse. Sydney and Dani have spoken about it, in the ways that they could without facing Dad's wrath for doing so. This post is to highlight one of Sydney's writings, and also to encourage everyone to look at the Documents tab where there are multiple journal entries from both Sydney and Dani.

Until I turned 18, the only way I felt I could express myself was through my private journal entries and by confiding to my close friends. My sisters have tried to speak about the abuse they suffered in many ways as well. They told me of it when we lived together at dad's house, and continued to tell me of it after I moved away. What they disclosed to me compelled me to get them an appointment with Dr. Hyde, who believed them. He stood up for them and agreed they would be severely emotionally harmed (see #10) if sent back to Dad's. Sydney and Dani also wanted to tell a judge. They ran away rather than go back to Dad's abusive house. They made a video, stating that they are not safe there and that they would rather live in a box than go back there (and they had told me that very same thing on both visits home to Utah between December and June). They stated they will run away again if forced to live there. They also wrote journals outlining their experience, as I had.

Here is what Sydney wrote, outlining what she heard our dad (Brian Wolferts) telling her on a weekly basis. I highly encourage you to read the entire first three pages.

Sydney writings and journal entries.pdf

If you're interested, the next page (titled "My Only Freedom") was something she wrote for school, which she won an award for. She hid it from Dad because that poem was her expressing how she felt living in his custody, but she explained the imagery of her poetic words to me. When she writes, "it's like talking to a rock. There is no significance to my voice." she is referring to our dad as the rock. When she writes, "...like I used to when I was three. Before the mix-up." She is talking about before the divorce. When she writes, "Everyone expects me to cope with it," She's talking mostly about Dad when he would repeatedly tell us to "get over" the custody change that altered our world. She also felt there were other adults he associated with that expected the same thing of her. The page after that is a poem Syd wrote for me after I moved out, "ancrer mon âme" ("Anchor My Soul"). I hold it close to my heart.

If Sydney saw what has been said about her and Dani being alienated by Mom, I know she would be offended and hurt. Here they have put everything on the line to speak out about what my dad said and did to hurt them, in the best ways they could, only to be shot down. Sydney is a passionate writer, and obviously chose her words very carefully. In her moments of deepest pain, she would write to express herself. Shame on anyone who claims her writings are false.

Stay tuned for the next post, and thank you for everyone's supportive comments!

Random Memory #10: Complete Disturbance

As I stated in my previous post, some of these memories are so difficult to write about. They give me a knot in my stomach and a lump in my throat. But when my dad made a public outcry to thousands of people to help him find my sisters back in August, I made a decision to speak out about the abuse, discomfort, fear, and everything else that we endured. It wouldn't be fair to those involved in the situation, fair to my sisters (who have needed a voice for far too long), nor would it be right to keep all these things silent. I feel that withholding the truth would be an act of dishonesty in and of itself. 

My dad often made me feel highly uncomfortable in ways that were hard to pinpoint exactly--ways that brought a creepy feeling of disgust. Sometimes he would look me up and down and comment about how he felt certain clothing items complemented my body. One time I got a new pair of jeans for school. When I got home he asked me to show him and Angie the pants, and when I did, he talked about the way my jeans hugged my hips and thighs. "Whoa, Brittany," He said, "I didn’t know you had hips. Those jeans really show them off. You shouldn’t wear those anywhere, they’ll make boys think bad thoughts." 

He would look at my body in a way that made me feel like he was undressing me with his eyes and made me highly uncomfortable. I immediately felt that I couldn’t wear those jeans around him, because he would stare at my hips and butt. After that, Angie wouldn't allow me to wear those jeans again... She seemed upset at what he said, and I didn't understand why.

My dad constantly told me I was 'putting bad thoughts in boys' minds,' whether it was the kind of bra I wore to my choice of pants. (And I feel the need to add that I was one of the most modest-dressed girls at school. You can ask any of my high school friends.) It didn't seem to matter what I wore or what I did--I was putting naughty thoughts in men's mind. That had an absolutely disturbing effect on me and the way I perceived myself. To this day, I can't decide what is worse--feeling like my dad wanted to see through my clothes or feeling like I was constantly walking porn to other boys.

What Most People Don't Realize

I have seen speculations that I haven't been following the proper legal channels in trying to get my sisters heard. I have also seen speculations that my dad is supportive of getting my sister's voices heard. Both are false, and this post will explain why.

My dad seeks for Sydney and Dani to stay in hiding so he can continue to look like a persecuted victim to others. My sister's silence helps him spin his chosen narrative about them being brainwashed as they hide. He knows I've been telling the truth about him. What his supporters don't seem to know is that he is the kind of guy who can get angry at his own three-month-old (my sister Sydney) and throw her by the leg across the room. What does he care if the girls who dared tell on him have an inconvenient time while hiding from him?

He could have quietly faced us in court and avoided all public exposure of his abuse. Instead, he has chosen to use the system like a tool: delay and lie to make taking him on in court almost financially impossible. He has been using earnest people to verbally abuse my sisters and I so that he doesn't have to publicly expose his own abusive nature. A couple examples of how I know this: he doesn't discourage anyone from being nasty to me or from stalking me. He encourages stalker-like strangers to continue to search for Syd and Dani to be returned to him.

I am going to continue to speak up about what my sisters ran from while he forces them to remain hidden. He first forced them to run by avoiding facing them in court on a technicality, by fighting to get their TRO vacated, and by twice moving to remove their appointment of their own GAL. Those are facts. He fought from the start to get them returned to his house behind closed doors after they dared tell on him. Since they ran, he has also forced them to remain hidden by failing to offer them safe asylum, by failing to move the court to order them a safe living situation while proper authorities hear them, and by currently fighting to have my petition on appeal dismissed on another lame technicality. 

Random Memory #9: Crimes Against Women 1

My dad often told my sisters and me detailed stories of crimes against women.

One time I remember him sitting us all down, saying “I need to tell you what happened on the news today.” He went on to describe a story about a pregnant woman who was befriended by another seemingly nice woman in a grocery store. Dad told us that when the stranger offered to help the pregnant lady out with her groceries, she got in the car with her afterward and “sliced the pregnant lady’s belly open." 

I started asking Dad if it was necessary for us to hear all the details. I asked him politely to stop. He didn't care. "Then," he continued, "Her bladder and guts spilled out of her and the lady ripped the baby out of her tummy, and cut the cord. Then she cut the lady and left her to bleed out in her car.” My dad discussed with us all possible reasons and thoughts the crazy lady might have had that made her decide to kill the pregnant woman.

I attempted to stop his story multiple times, saying “Dad, I don’t think we need to know about this to this extent. I don’t think Sydney and Dani should be hearing this. I’m uncomfortable – all of us are uncomfortable.”

But instead of stopping, Dad told me that we needed to hear this. When I asked why,he said “if you don’t know about all of this, then how are you going to know to defend yourself against all those crazy people?”

Anytime I questioned my father about telling such grisly and violent stories against women, he would give the reason that when me or my sisters encounter this stuff, we need to "be prepared."

These stories terrified us, and I would think that if he truly wanted to "prepare" us, he would teach us self-protection or put us in a class. Instead, he chose to tell us gory details that made us wonder why he was thinking about the story so much. And why on earth he felt he needed to share it with us in extreme violent detail. Telling us that we needed to know what happened to other women to be prepared for when it would happen to us petrified us!

Focus

Some of you may have been following the strange and confusing antics happening on Facebook this week. Yesterday "Mel Bittner" re-opened the Facebook Cause page called 'Missing Wolferts girls - finding the answers.'. A brief description of this woman's role, for those who feel they are in the dark in this:

As soon as my family's situation became public back in August, "Mel" pretended to be one of my biggest supporters.  She gained my trust to help with my Facebook page, and informed me to stay away from the page to 'legally protect' myself. I believed and trusted her. In early November, she suddenly hijacked it from me and my uncle, removed all other admins, and shut it down just before openly supporting my father. Her lies, threats, misrepresentations, and disrespectful behavior are repellent to reasonable people, which is her aim. I am deeply saddened by the confusion being created by those like "Mel" who want to distract me and others who want to support the girls.

Please remember that all strange and confusing behaviors on social media are designed for three purposes:

• To create doubt about my integrity
• To deflect focus away from admitted pedophile Brian Wolferts (my father) by allowing him to hide behind other's excuses for him
• To cause me to lose focus on my desire to protect my younger sisters

I am not losing focus. I am still determined to get my sisters the help they need to be officially protected. I can still close my eyes and remember the look on their faces as they begged me to leave when I reached legal adulthood, so I could help them escape my father's abuse. I was the first one out of the three of us to have a voice legally for the first time in our lives. I am going to continue to speak the truth.

John 8:32 "And ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free."

I Do Not Make Up Anything

Here is a screenshot of the photoshopped email that "Mel Bittner" posted in the early hours of the morning on December 30 to try to paint me as a liar.

From "Mel":

Here is the actual email between the three of us.

From my Gmail history:

From Lisa's Gmail history:

My Sisters

For a while, I've wanted to dedicate a post to Sydney and Dani, my little sisters who aren't so little anymore. I think that there couldn't be a better time than the Holidays to do this. I'm going to write about who these girls are: their hobbies, their dreams, their goals, their fears. I'm going to write about them in a way that will portray them as the remarkable young women they are, instead of mere faces plastered to a flyer.

Syd is the second oldest to myself. She has a remarkable ability to round up people around her. She has a sense of genius sarcasm, and uses it in such a way that never offends her peers, but brings them together in many hours of fun and laughter. Syd also has a gentle, caring side to her which she uses to bring the spirit of peace into the lives of those she associates with. She has a marvelous poetic gift, and expresses herself through writing when she can. She has a high sense of fashion. She is absolutely gorgeous naturally, and I believe it is because you can see straight through to her stunning inner beauty as well as outer. Sydney has an exceptionally strong testimony. She may outwardly seem shy to some, but she is fierce in defending what is right. She has an innate sense of wisdom for her age--she has always seen a deeper side to life. She has always been great at making close friends that last, and she chooses those select people carefully.

Dani is the younger sister of the two. I can't believe how fast she is growing up. Dani's developed into a fine young lady, with amazing homemaking skills. She's better than me in the kitchen... and I've just learned to accept that! Even at her young age, I can see wonderful hints of what an outstanding mother she will be. She is also the family 'techy.' If Syd or I don't know how to work a new item, we'll call for Dani. Dani possesses this amazing ability to love all mankind. She's not naive: she exercises her love with caution. But she could fill all of the Pacific Ocean with her tender care. She loves people, as I do, and I could see her becoming a great many things in adulthood. Dani possesses a kind soul unlike any other, and she is constantly looking for ways to serve others, even within the walls of her own home. She has a gift for making many friends wherever she goes.

All of my sisters have a great sense of humor (that I just didn't seem to inherit) and outstanding artistic abilities. I'm so pleased that we all share the love of art together: it's a similar interest that binds us. They/we also love music and have all been blessed to have had a mother who was able to teach us piano when we were young. I can't wait to see what each of my sisters become in their lives. I love them so much. Syd and Dani are so different, yet so alike. They are smart girls. They are able to assess and understand situations way beyond what most kids their age could. They have experienced so much pain at such young ages, and yet they have risen above it and become stronger through it. I know they have yearned to be heard for so long.

You won't hear any of this from my dad's followers, because they don't know these amazing girls. They don't know that Sydney has a phobia of cold feet, and they don't know that Dani used to hate any food that was green. They don't know that Sydney wants to be an engineer, and Dani secretly wants to be an actress.

Dad's supporters don't know the hours I've spent trying to calm Sydney as she sobbed from the pain my dad caused her from feeding her gluten and emotionally shredding her through endless abusive lectures, all the while trying to hold back my own tears as I tell her that, "One day this will be over," even though I didn't see a way it would end. They don't know the years I watched Dani fight to hold in all the pain to appear strong, yet collapsing on the inside until she began falling into depression (which she had to keep from our dad who demanded we appear happy at all times).

Dad's supporters don't know how many tears my sisters have shed alone, because

Response to Anonymous Comment

I saw this comment in moderation a couple days ago. So many thoughts flooded my mind as I read, and I knew I needed to respond to it. Anonymous stated:
  

Dear Anonymous,

You misjudge the extent to which I have forgiven him.

Forgiving and trusting are very different things. If someone were to repeatedly ask you to borrow a very valuable, sentimental object of yours, and you let them, and they broke it every time, at what point would you set a boundary and not let them borrow it anymore? This has been a little what trying to have a relationship with my father has been like.

How can I fully trust him when he will not even accept accountability for his actions to me and other children? I lived in his home for three years, and all he ever did was accuse others for his actions. He never took full accountability for anything, especially not for his abuse of my mom, Angie, or any of these other sexually inappropriate actions with children.

I can forgive my dad to the fullest extent that I can, but I don't have to trust him. I can still be careful around him to protect myself. Forgiving someone does not mean accepting abusive actions toward myself or others going forward. Forgiving someone does not mean being naive to the possibility of him behaving the same way I've seen him behave for the past 19 years.

Are you saying that you also talk to your children often about sex and pornography, and place your youngest kid in the position of the child being sexually assaulted by the adult, which you refer to as yourself?? I sincerely hope not.

OF COURSE there are 'talks' every parent dreads having with their children, that need to happen at a child's appropriate age. What my dad did was not normal parent talks. And he often did them without another adult present. I think you need to re-read the instances of what I have referred to as, 'inappropriate sexual conduct.' (Not physical sexual abuse, as I believe you meant. Though I DO consider all hundreds of these instances of inappropriate sexual conduct my dad engaged in with us to be sexual abuse when considered all together, because of the extreme trauma and sexual discomfort it caused us.)

Then again, if you're convinced I'm coached, there is absolutely no point in even responding to you.

I hope that you're watching everything occurring with both eyes open. Please realize that although the courts claimed my mother to have coached us, most of the officials--officials who were trying to assess our situation so the court could have enough information to rule properly--never met with me. And realize that if you are calling me 'coached,' and you are wrong (which you are, but I will give you the benefit of the doubt), what you are actually doing is placing shame upon me for anything I say, as well as making an excuse for my abuser. I can't even describe to you the pain people are causing me by calling me 'coached.'

I have a voice. I am a human, not a pawn. I have memories. So many memories of trauma I lived through at the hands of my father. And I am choosing to share those memories. Because I would hate the consequences of holding anything back. Silence only enables abuse. I understand and empathize with those who don't want to find out my father has done such horrible things to children, but he has.

By the way, who has had primary custody of my sisters for the past four years? My dad. My sisters were isolated, monitored, and controlled so severely that they couldn't possibly have been brainwashed against him in the limited time they got with Mom. How could she have maintained her so-called "brainwashing" during her 15-minutes-or-less phone calls with my dad standing next to them the whole time? The idea is nonsensical. Those who call us coached are doing so out of such ignorance.

I appreciate this opportunity to thoroughly explain my position on forgiveness in this particularly complicated instance. I appreciate your thoughts and considerations. I realize that nobody who hasn't lived behind closed doors with Brian Wolferts can possibly understand the pain my sisters and I have endured. Nor can you fully understand the pain of re-living all these experiences. I forgive you for being blind to that, and I thank you for giving me the chance to hear your concerns and respond with my truth. Feel free to comment on my blog with any other legitimate concerns and/or questions.

Comment About Bear

This comment was left in response to my post about my dad throwing away my toddler sister's beloved Bear for a minor infraction when she was just two. I felt her comment was worth highlighting, with huge insight that both helps me personally and makes me want to wrap my sister up in my arms and protect her forever.

Custody Evaluator's Report

This is the document from my parents' divorce, that my dad apparently doesn't want you to see, even though it's the document that gave my dad custody of us. It's the document that shows WHY my mom was found to have "coached" us. I had not seen this document, nor had I heard of this document or the revelations about my dad, until this past week when I discovered it. Reading it makes me feel like I'm going to be sick.
 

The above screen shot from the report states: "Brian's infidelity and questions regarding any risk he might pose to his three daughters were major concerns of Michelle. These concerns led to a brief attempt at marriage counseling through LDS Social Services, individual and conjoint therapy with psychologist Dr. Sheffield from March 2004 through July 17, 2004, and extended individual and conjoint therapy with Dr. Hyde. Dr. Hyde, who was providing couples counseling referred Brian to Dr. C.Y. Roby for a phsychosexual assessment and eventually referral [sic] to Dr. Roby for treatment of his inappropriate sexual behavior. Brian entered into sex offender treatment with Dr. Roby and a therapist by the name of Cox. Dr. Ririe, Dr. Jensen, and this evaluator questioned the appropriateness of this treatment, which was designed to treat sex offenders though Brian voluntarily participated in this treatment for approximately 18 months." (emphasis added)

Dr. Blakelock also stated the following:

"In taking his second polygraph, Brian admits to a history of sexual contact with a child during his adolescence for which he was neither investigated nor charged with a crime." 

"Brian also admits that at the age of 23 he exposed himself to two young girls as he exited a shower, and that 'years later' he masturbated to thoughts of the older girl (11 or 12 at the time of the incident) by placing her in the position of the younger girl (6 or 7 at the time of the incident)."

Despite all this, Dr. Blakelock favored my dad even though the ethical guidelines he quoted clearly indicate that he shouldn't have! Instead, Dr. Blakelock excused my father's behavior and justified his decision to send three innocent young girls to live in my father's house full-time, with unsupervised visits.

Blakelock stated his "opinion is that Brian poses little or no threat to sexually assault his daughters" because of:
a) the significant length of the time since Brian's sexual contact with a child;
b) Brian's demonstrated control over any deviant arousal he may have experienced;
c) the fact that other responsible adults have been informed of his sexual history; and
d) that his daughters are of such an age where they are fully capable of reporting any inappropriate sexual behaviors on the part of Brian should they occur.

AP Impact: Abused Kids Die As Officials Fail To Protect

The AP published this article today after having conducted an eight-month study of all 50 states to determine that officials often fail to protect abused children. I beg all of you, especially those who keep suggesting that my sisters merely have to talk to DCFS to find safety, to read it and educate yourselves.

Here are a few of the statements made in the article that stand out:

BUTTE, Montana (AP) — At least 786 children died of abuse or neglect in the U.S. in a six-year span in plain view of child protection authorities — many of them beaten, starved or left alone to drown while agencies had good reason to know they were in danger, The Associated Press has found.

Many factors can contribute to the abuse dilemma nationwide: The child protective services system is plagued with worker shortages and a serious overload of cases. Budgets are tight, and nearly 40 percent of the 3 million child abuse and neglect complaints made annually to child protective services hotlines are "screened out" and never investigated.

Also, insufficient training for those who answer child abuse hotlines leads to reports being misclassified, sometimes with deadly consequences; a lack of a comprehensive national child welfare database allows some abusers to avoid detection by moving to different states; and a policy that promotes keeping families intact can play a major role in the number of deaths. [emphasis added]

Because no single, complete set of data exists for the deaths of children who already were being overseen by child welfare caseworkers, the information compiled over the course of AP's eight-month investigation represents the most comprehensive statistics publicly available. The data collection system on child deaths is so flawed that no one can even say with accuracy how many children overall die from abuse or neglect every year. The federal government estimates an average of about 1,650 deaths annually in recent years; many believe the actual number is twice as high.

"We all agree that we cannot solve a problem this complex until we agree it exists," said David Sanders, chairman of the federal Commission to Eliminate Child Abuse and Neglect Fatalities, whose members are traveling the country studying child deaths under a congressional mandate.

Direct Message To My Dad

I have provided much documentation to supporters (both mine and yours) to back up my statements and give as accurate a picture as I possibly can of what we are going through and what happened in the past to get us to this point. I've seen countless people use the fact Mom lost custody to support you. It seems to me that all they've seen from you is the published Appellate Court decision that can be found online.

I ask you to provide us all with the Child Custody Settlement Conference Report from 2010 that was used to determine that Mom coached us and that you should be awarded custody. It is time to see exactly what it is that Mom coached us about that was so egregious to lose custody. 

You've led your supporters to believe Mom is capable of brainwashing us, and you have influenced so many of your followers to want her prosecuted for possibly hiding with Syd and Dani and "emotionally abusing" them.

If you are in the right, you should have no reason to fear immediately producing that document for the public to see.

Thank you.

Brittany