I'm so worried for my nephew :(

Hi my friends. This isn't really a Health Anxiety topic, but it's the place where most people visit on this site and I really I'm worried about my nephew.

He's only 3 years old to begin with but he's very smart. The docs said that he has the smartness of a 5 year old.

Long story cut short, my sister married a guy that was older than her when she was 16, he was 30(yuck I know!). Anyways she had 2 kids and after this she had an affair with someone closer to her age and fell pregnant with my nephew that I'm worried about.

I know this is going in story, but the reason she had the affair was because her husband was very abusive and I guess she was just looking for a companion that cared(I'm her brother so ofcourse I wanna be on her side).

He used to beat my sister for sex and abuse her both physically and mentally. She told my mom and she filed for a divorce and since last year August, there's been a huge custody battle for the kids. She gets them from Fri 7p- Mon 2p and on Wed from 4p-7p. The other days he gets them. He found out about the third child not being hid by going to a private person to get a DNA test.

My cousin has been desperately trying to get full custody over my baby nephew and visitation rights for the other two. Her next court date is June 6th.

She and my family suspect that my baby nephew is being abused since he has marks on his skin and he also lost some weight. Also, he wakes up everytime he's here with us screaming in his dreams like something is wrong. We called Child Protective Service and launched an investigation. He's(the step-dad) being watched very closely for the next 60 days(next court date will be by then).

Thing is that I'm just so worried for him. As I'm typing this, my mom is trying to comfort him and it's just so depressing seing him like this. He's my favorite of the three and to be honest, I don't like the other two(they're 6 & 4) because they both look so happy and healthy and my baby nephew is the opposite. I feel that since those two are his, he treats them better.

We took him to the docs for a check-up and they say he's fine and for us not to worry as since the step-dad is under investigation, he can't harm the baby. Child protective service randomly steps in there 4 times a week to make sure things are running ok with my nephew and so far it is.

The thing is that I'm just worried about him when he wakes up in the middle of the night. It's so heart breaking.

I'm sorry for the rant but I'm just so worried for him. We can't do anything because it's all under the court and like I said the next date is on the 6th of June. Child Protective set up an appointment for him to see a therapist to speed up the process, hoping that a therapist can pinpoint mental abuse. This could give my cousin the upper hand in winning custody over my baby nephew on the 6th.

I'm just so worried for him I feel like I can't function. Thank you so much alll of you for reading.