I want to use this space to offer resources to fellow Filicide Survivors. One reason I am as passionate as I am about this research is the amount I have invested in my personal recovery. I have thought a great deal about my sister’s position and where other survivors may find themselves: unable to afford therapy or trapped within a system without proper experience. The financial burden was a lot for me to manage as well. My hope is that by raising awareness, in the long term, costs of recovery begin to come down.
Kelli Caldwell is an award-winning songwriter whose mixed-genre music weaves wit, warmth, and emotional truth, bridging the worlds of humor, healing, and humanity. Kelli has dedicated much of her work to shining light on and telling stories for children through song. Now, Kelli has begun to share her own story. In March of 2026, The Marshall Project published Kelli’s essay, "Mom's Last Gun," edited by Pulitzer-Prize winning reporters Leslie Eaton and Manuel Torres. In her essay, Mom’s Last Gun, Kelli documents decades of navigating a mental healthcare system and legal system that repeatedly failed to intervene as her mother cycled through psychotic episodes, accumulated firearms, and remained beyond the reach of medical intervention that was desperately needed. Kelli’s story expands the complexity of filicide survivorship to include a particular anguish when a threat comes not from cruelty, but a parent’s delusion violence will save their child (altruistically motivated filicidal threat), and the lifelong weight held by the child who survives it and spends adulthood attempting to prevent tragedy. New York Times Journalist Ellen Barry called Kelli’s essay “devastating” and noted it highlights “the crushing burden our system puts on families.” For more information on Kelli’s story, please see her interview with Dave Miller at Think Out Loud with OPB/NPR and her Armed with Reason interview with Eric Davidson, as included below.
https://www.themarshallproject.org/2026/03/06/gun-oregon-mom-mental-illness
https://play.cdnstream1.com/s/opb/think-out-loud/portland-resident-chroni-ceb3b8
As referenced in this site’s about section, Elisabeth Corey, MSW, serves as an advocate for survivors of childhood family-controlled sex trafficking and life threatening parental abuse. The website she founded to advocate and support survivors is available below and has been added to this site with Elisabeth’s approval.
The below article was first published by Victoria Balcom with the CPTSD Foundation on 1/21/26. It offers the first identification of adult filicide survivorship as a unique trauma category and one of the first adult survivor explorations from a research lens. It has become the beginning of a collaborative research and community initiative.
https://cptsdfoundation.org/2026/01/21/the-research-gap-filicide-survivors/
Per the CPTSD Foundation, “Complex Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (CPTSD) describes the results of ongoing, inescapable, relational trauma. Unlike Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), Complex PTSD always involves being hurt by another person. These hurts are ongoing, repeated, and often involving a betrayal and loss of safety.” The Vision of the organization is “to end the cycle of complex relational trauma by providing the safety, life skills, relational education, and reparative experiences a survivor needs so they can create new habits and experience optimum health in every area of life.” If you see yourself in this description and find yourself in need, I encourage you to visit the CPTSD Foundation.
Below is the one study I could find focused on seven children who survived filicide attempts. I was in search of adult survivor focused studies. However, I did gain a better understanding of myself and my siblings from this and wanted to include it here.
Download PDF - The Narratives of Abused Children Who Have Survived Attempted Filicide
Katz C. The narratives of abused children who have survived attempted filicide. Child Abuse Negl. 2013 Oct;37(10):762-70. doi: 10.1016/j.chiabu.2013.04.015. Epub 2013 Jun 2. PMID: 23735872.
I recently discovered after decades of investment in an insufficient mental healthcare system, that MSBP survivors, such as myself and my sister, Rose Balcom, require highly specialized care. My long term PCP has validated that while she cannot diagnose someone she has not seen, she can identify clinical vulnerabilities consistent with MSBP abuse that do not appear exaggerated. This study indicates that MSBP abuse can result in permanent harm or death, and often because clinicians use inaccurate information to develop assessment and treatment plans that lead to iatrogenic harm or direct harm due to induced illness or intentional or unintentional neglect of a genuine medical condition. While I have no intention to interfere with care, I do believe this is an important study on risk to be avoided, and I can provide you with further free resources if you have experienced MSBP abuse and therapeutic or psychiatric difficulty. This study identifies therapist engagement with records as crucial, neutral and curious treatment to gain safety and trust as a guideline, and therapist support for developing a cohesive narrative as essential. This framework was published after the creation of this site in the Fall of 2025, but identifies consistent themes already identified within this work.
2026 Individualized Treatment Framework for MSBP Survivors
Sanders MJ, Bursch B. Proposed Framework for the Psychological Treatment of Munchausen by Proxy Survivors. J Clin Psychol Med Settings. 2026 Feb 13. doi: 10.1007/s10880-026-10128-1. Epub ahead of print. PMID: 41686374.