05/25/2026
I have been fighting to be a father for almost four years.
Not fighting to win. Not fighting for leverage.
Fighting for the right to exist in my child's life — something that should never have required a fight in the first place.
I want you to understand what that has looked like. Not in the abstract. In real terms.
What the Court Just Asked Me to Do
A judge has ordered me to complete a full-panel forensic psychological evaluation.
The cost: somewhere between $5,000 and $15,000. The retainer alone — due upfront — is $8,000. The timeline: thirty days.
I am on food stamps. I struggle to make my mortgage every month. I do not have $8,000. I do not know many people who do — not $8,000 that can appear from nothing in less than a month. And even if I could somehow produce that money, there is no forensic evaluator in this state who schedules, completes intake, processes paperwork, and delivers a finished evaluation in thirty days. That process alone takes months under normal conditions.
So I am being ordered to do something financially impossible in a timeframe that is practically impossible — and if I fail to comply, I go to jail.
Let me ask you something plainly: what is the purpose of putting a father in jail for failing to comply with an order he cannot comply with?
He cannot generate income from jail. He cannot pay for the evaluation from jail. He cannot be a father from jail. He cannot build anything, provide anything, or become anything from jail. The only thing jail accomplishes in this situation is destruction — of income, of relationship, of future. And the court knows this.
What the Evidence Already Shows
I did not come to this hearing empty-handed.
I brought four separate psychiatric evaluations. Four independent clinical assessments, conducted by licensed professionals, submitted to the court.
Every single one of them said the same thing: I am a man who has been traumatized — by this custody case and by a system that has been deliberately weaponized against me.
Not one of those evaluations mattered to the judge.
She ordered a fifth evaluation anyway. A more expensive one. A more invasive one. One that I cannot afford and cannot complete on her timeline.
At some point you have to stop and ask: what is this actually about? Because it is not about my mental health. Four evaluations could not satisfy whatever this is. No evidence I produce seems to be the right evidence. No documentation, no testimony, no record is sufficient — but every allegation, every accusation, every word spoken against me by one person requires no documentation at all.
That is not a system designed to find truth. That is a system designed to wear someone down until they have nothing left.
The Asymmetry
This is the part that most people do not want to say out loud, so I will say it.
All a woman has to do in family court is say something.
She does not need evidence. She does not need documentation. She does not need corroboration. An allegation is received as gospel. A man's response to that allegation is received as aggression.
I am not speaking about all women, and I am not speaking without experience. I am speaking about a structural reality inside the family court system that has been documented by fathers across this country for decades — and nothing has changed, because the people with the power to change it benefit from keeping it exactly as it is.
Attorneys bill by the hour. Evaluators bill by the hour. The system generates revenue the longer cases drag on. A custody dispute that resolves in thirty days is not profitable. One that stretches across four years — with motions, hearings, evaluations, continuances, and endless filings — is very profitable indeed.
I am not a conspiracy theorist. I am a man who has watched this machine run in real time. I have watched it cost me money I did not have, time I cannot recover, and access to my child that I will never get back.
What I Actually Want
I want to be a father.
That is it. That is the entire thing. That is what I have been fighting for, spending money I don't have for, and losing sleep over for four years.
Not custody strategy. Not leverage. Not to win something. I want to be present in my child's life. I want my child to know that I fought. That I showed up. That I did not walk away when the system made it unbearable — because the system was designed to make it unbearable.
I have written about healing. I have written about freedom from the patterns that break us. I believe in those things. I have lived those things, imperfectly, in real time, while this case has tried to take everything I have built.
But I will not be quiet about what is happening. Silence is not healing. Silence is compliance with a machine that is destroying families and calling it justice.
The Question I Want You to Sit With
If a man is honest, hard-working, not violent, not dangerous, clinically evaluated four times and found to be a trauma survivor rather than a threat — and the court's response is to demand $8,000 he does not have in thirty days or face incarceration — what is that system protecting?
It is not protecting a child.
It is not protecting a family.
It is not serving justice.
I don't have easy answers tonight. I have a deadline I cannot meet, a bill I cannot pay, and a child I am not allowed to see.
But I am still here. Still writing. Still fighting. Because the moment I stop, I become exactly what this system has tried to tell my child I am.
And that is a lie I refuse to let stand.
Michael Brandon Galbreath is a father, author, and barber based in Winterville, NC. He is the author of Freedom From Self and Letters to Lila.
Follow his work at michaelbrandon.org.
Please help meet this demand and raise the money for the evaluation at https://gofund.me/65020b649
https://gofund.me/65020b649
In Pitt County, NC, a family court has ordered me to complete a fore… Michael Galbreath needs your support for Urgent Help Needed for Court-Ordered Evaluation
