While the stories are still unfolding here, so you can understand why my life is the way it is, there are things happening every day that impact my relationship with my kids. Today was another setback. In moments like this I find myself numb and distant, only able to think the same one thought over and over: "Isn't there any one, any where, who can fix this?"
Essentially, more than a year ago now, my husband told the court I was mentally unstable and he feared for our childrens safety. No evidence of harm or innappropriate behavior committed by me: to them or near them or indirectly toward them, just that one verbal statement that he had "serious concerns" and I have been viewed as a threat ever since.
At first, in September and October of last year, I had supervised visits with my kids. They were supervised at my husbands request, by a couple we jointly knew. This couple? I had cared for their children while that mom was in a mental health facility. I had listened to her, pre and post her hospital stay, tell me about screaming at her children, cursing at them, telling them to leave the room before she beat them. She told me how scared her kids were when she told them she felt like hurting herself and that she had to call a friend to help her. This was the woman who my husband asked the courts to assign as a guardian during my visits with my kids.
Initially she was willing, compassionate, and available. Then she wasn't. She had issues of her own, her husband was sick, her kids were struggling, etc. I was able to arrange, legally, for a friend of mine to be listed as an alternate so I could still see my kids. And then the restrictions were lifted, sort of.
In October I had moved into a house in our town with the parents of a girl who used to babysit our kids a very long time ago. We had stayed in touch (the mom and I) and she invited me to stay in the room her daughter, now all grown up and moved out, used to be in. The newest legal changes allowed for me to have my kids overnight and unsupervised, so long as the overnights were at that house, and that address, at my husbands request.
Everything happened relatively quickly and what came to light as I moved in and then the kids came to stay a weekend was that the house was filthy - real actual filth, mold, dust, animal hair, rodent excrement, etc. as well as very poor plumbing resulting in not much hot water available and only one usable bathroom. Additionally both the missus and the mister were entrenched in depression so thick that it hung in the air, a helpless hopeless despair of health issues, insomnia, financial ruin, unemployement: which is the reason I guess for all the filth. And then there was the drinking. Mister was a drinker of the sort that starts in the late afternoon and continues until he passed out in the late late evening but he would always rouse himself to drink more, sit in a bathtub of cold filmy water for hours sipping more alcohol, and then finally go to bed somewhere around 5am. After a couple of boozy inappropriate nighttime run-ins, I knew this would NOT work.
Nice people? yes. Generous to allow me to move in? yes. But it was not a place where I OR my kids would be safe, have a healthy environment, and the ability to settle in or experience some stability.
I moved - in late November of last year... and where I moved was where I could have a sound stable safe clean environment that welcomed my children and provided a foundation for me. Where I moved was where I could find employment, and a future. And where I moved was both where my husband subsequently refused to allow the kids to stay overnight, and was over an hour away. But with no other options I didn't know what else to do.
I felt like I was NEVER going to be able to get my kids on a regular basis and since ending my own existence wasn't a viable option (yeh, been there, tried that!) my next choice was to persevere with gaining a future that held something resembling hope and peace. So in spite of his refusal to let the kids stay with me, I stayed there... or rather here, where I am now.
I gritted my teeth and pushed my grief at bay through minimal visits with my kids in December, January, and February hoping he'd see that I was in a stable secure place, employed in the same job, and that the kids were enjoying our visits and not suffering any harm. I made it to soccer games, school meetings, and provided appropriate holiday treats. And then I petitioned the court to extend my visits at my new residence. March 2010. A year after I'd originally filed for divorce, 9 months since I'd lived with my children, and 4 months since I'd had them overnight with me.
My husband said that thing again, the "serious concerns about mental health" and the judge believed him. No matter my job, my stable housing, my compliance with every other restriction, my childrens health and well being - no evidence to support HIM or his statement, and with no credit for anything I'd done, I was refused.
I was ordered to undergo a mental health evaluation at a court clinic. Our next court date was scheduled for July 2010. A few weeks later I was told that the judge would be out on a county exchange in July so we wouldn't be heard until September. It took until July to get an appointment at the clinic anyway.
What I got was more time lost with my kids: no spring vacation, no summer vacation, no sleepovers or extended vacations. Just alternate Saturdays from 8am to 10pm. No assistance with transportation for the 70 mile drive.
And finally my mental health evaluation and a court date of September 7th, 2010.
My evaluation was initiated and then, of course, that doctor went on vacation and didn't return until this week. That result is that the report on the evaluation, which the judge needs time to review, is not completed yet and so the court clerk was told to postpone and reschedule the Sept. 7 date for a couple weeks out. More time lost with my kids.
I still don't know when the date will be, only that it will be that much longer before I can see my children for any extended time. I don't even know for sure that this "evaluation" and this doctors assessment will be favorable and that I will even be granted the time I want with my kids. But in my heart I was counting on September 7, 2010 as the day I'd be exonerated and finally freed from the burden of this "mentally unstable" label my husband is using.
I try not to dwell in how unfair it's been from the start, on how much injustice has been forced down my throat, and on how much fear drives so many of my choices on a daily basis - anger? maybe anger looks unfounded and irrational so I better not be angry! grief? maybe crying looks over sensitive and irrational and unstable so I better not cry!
I try not to dwell on how, if experience were to be my guide, I maybe should plan on losing custody entirely, on being placed back on supervised visits, on being told I can't be with my children at all, or that we will have to postpone until November, or some other ridiculous date.
But it's hard. It's so hard not to dwell in those places. I keep moving forward one day at a time trying to adjust my expectations. But it's hard.
However hard it is for me? Think how hard it is for my son who started high school the other day, or for my daughter who is right in the middle of really needing a mom for 'girl stuff' right now.
Love, Mia
Showing posts with label emotional abuse. Show all posts
Showing posts with label emotional abuse. Show all posts
Thursday, September 2
Sunday, August 22
The First Part
In 2009, after well over a year, even longer really, of conflicted and frenzied emotional struggling, as my marriage slowly dissolved away under my feet and I helplessly watched my husband morphing into someone I couldn't recognize, I filed for divorce.
There is more to the story of course - the counseling, the blogging and journaling, the desperate pleas to my pastor and various friends and family (which came only after months of silent shame, fear, confusion, and frantic actions meant to salvage it all) but when it came down to that moment, the one moment when I looked around me and thought, "What do I do NOW?", all I could think of was to file for divorce.
The ensueing 3 months proved that things could always get worse. Well, what had I thought they'd be? Better? No, I don't suppose I believed that things would get better, but I didn't think they'd get worse.
Ultimately, I came to another pivotal moment where I was looking around at the carnage saying, "What do I do NOW?"
I think my biggest mistake (oh and I've made so many) was not looking ahead at what the ripple effect of my individual actions would be. Not looking far enough ahead and seeing only the one moment of chaos and crisis.
*see below, Note 1
A second mistake was in that I was so bewildered by the man my husband had become that any of my automatic expectations about his reactions, fed by past experience, were always wrong. I thought he would be honorable, honest, and do the right thing because that was how he'd always been. I thought he'd be thoughtful and devoted to open minded cooperation, giving benefit of doubt. He was no longer that man though, and that was, and remains so, the hardest thing for me accept, understand and remember.
So I left my house, moved into my own apartment; having decided that I could no longer continue to let my kids slink around in that volatile tense frightening confusing environment; thinking that soon we would finalize everything, that soon my kids, age 11 and 13 then, would be out of school and we'd sell the house and share the parenting from two different homes; thinking that physical separation would ease the palpable tension, thinking that I didn't want to pull my kids from their bedrooms, their pets, their routines and small comforts when there was just a couple of weeks left of school anyway, thinking it would be ok.
I was wrong.
That wrongness? That slap in the face wrongness of it all was shattering. I found myself financially broke - more than you might ever imagine and more than I could explain - with no legal representation and no means to gain any, with a bitter angry vindictive man holding my children hostage from me and asking me to jump through hoops of power plays and control with rules that changed randomly. Things did what they'd come to do: they got worse.
I was told that I wasn't worth anything, that I'd abandoned my children, bailed out, jumped ship. I was told I didn't have any rights. I was threatened with legal and police action if I argued about when I could have the kids or when I had to return them. I so desperately wanted to keep my kids out of the mess, out of the middle, away from the conflict. Desperate enough that I was easily manipulated. When threatened with police intervention if I didn't return my kids to my husband and the house I once lived in at a specific time (no, there was not any court order but I was trying to establish a cooperative flexible non-legal precedent that didn't scar the kids) I returned them because the thought of police showing up and frightening my kids went against everything I was trying for.
*See below: Note 2
Broke, broken down, defeated, harrassed and still under my husbands constant demand and orders in spite of not living together, still trying to meet those demands and orders, overwhelmed by loss and grief (I lost my marraige, my husband, my community, my church family, my life as I knew it, my role as a parent, my home...), tortured by missing my children and by seeing their own grief and confusion and wanting to help them understand while not hurting their love and respect for their daddy, I found myself holding onto that proverbial last straw.
I filed for divorce in March 2009. I moved into my own apartment just 3 months later in mid-June. A few weeks after that, in July '09 my husband told me that he was taking the kids out of state to visit his family (in spite of the week off I'd taken to be with them - a week off I couldn't afford with no vacation time to use) and that he didn't care if I had taken time off because I didn't matter - and then he handed me HIS proposal for our divorce.
His proposal included the following: he would allow me alternate weekend visits from Saturday to Sunday. He would allow me a midweek dinner visit. He would take my name off the mortgage (quit claim deed) in return for him assuming all the debt associated with our joint credit cards and home equity loan (we were, and are, in tremendous debt). I was not to receive alimony, any percentage of retirement, mutual funds etc but would not have to pay child support. I could have a one week vacation in the summer provided I give adequate notice of such by April of each year. I wasn't to have custody, just visitation.
And that last straw fell. I shattered completely. I was so full of shame, so humiliated, so alone, so 'without', and so beaten down emotionally that I couldn't see anything other than what he showed me: unworthy, replaceable, bad, incompetent, unreliable. My kids were better off without me, he was perfectly fine parenting them on his own, after all, I'd left them behind anyway right?
What do I do now?
Back in March, several people gave me advice. People are good at giving advice when they can go home to their own homes and their own husbands and their own children and leave you and your broken life behind. One person said something that was perhaps the most understanding comment I'd ever heard. She said, "I know what I would do Mia, but you aren't ME and I would never expect you to do what I do because it isn't in your heart. You are different and so you have to do things your own way." I loved her for saying that.
She'd said that back then, before March, but by July, she was no longer willing to be a part of my life in a way that supported me like I needed. Like nearly everyone else, she didn't want to "take sides". No one wanted to "get involved; create an uncomfortable situation; make it awkward". People wanted," to stay neutral; just keep it open and light; to stay connected for the kids sake". In theory, I get it. It's all very PC and grown up and reasonable. But in reality, by not defending me against a force I was unable to defend myself against, I was left defenseless and finally defeated. As had been shown to me over the past few months, I knew that if I called someone and asked what to do they would have grimaced sympathetically, hugged me, wiped my tears, patted my hand, prayed for me or with me, felt very bad for me, but nothing else because, you know, they didn't want to take sides.
*See below: Note 3
So there I was - alone and defeated and at yet another moment when I didn't know what to do next. The more I wondered what to do, the more I wondered why I should even do anything at all. And the more I tried to find a reason for doing anything, the more I felt like there wasn't one.
With all that in my head, and my heart, I chose to - and these are difficult, ugly, painful words to write, words that I can't yet say out loud - kill myself. A suicide attempt - I felt so worthless that suicide seemed to be a valid action.
And I am here today to talk about it.
I am here because I Am Still The Mom.
Love,
Mia
*Note 1: I have learned that a crisis will still be a crisis after a nights sleep, and chaos will remain until it's dealt with - no matter the emotions drowning me, no crisis or chaos I faced back then needed an immediate decision - no bleeding, physical danger, or loss of life was at hand. It felt as important maybe, I don't want to devalue the pain and fear, or the intense desire to fix something with just the right action, but I've learned now to sit on things a little more and a little longer, to try and map out the potential results of an action and weigh those all out to see the variations and their potential results.
*Note 2: hindsight - with good solid parenting, when you already have good communication with your kids, it is worth it to allow some legal or police intervention to establish a record. Nonaction based on fear will undermine every effort in the future.
*Note 3: I don't blame any one person or hold them at fault for or responsible for my life as it was at that time: devoid of support, defense, and validation; but the truth is that no one wanted to get involved in a way that backed me up, no one wanted to stand up to my husband and tell him to stop on my behalf, no one wanted to call him out, lift me up, or step outside themselves to speak up for me when I was speechless. And a year later they still don't. One 'friend' told me just today that whenever she sees my husband she wants to hit him, but she smiles instead and just avoids real eye contact if they speak. Another friend, who remains an anchor even now, validated my circumstances back then when she remarked, "When someone abuses you emotionally, they make you think you are crazy - that's what they do, it's how they work. Hold on to what you know." But it's hard to hold on when the only thing you know isn't honored or believed or validated by anyone outside.
There is more to the story of course - the counseling, the blogging and journaling, the desperate pleas to my pastor and various friends and family (which came only after months of silent shame, fear, confusion, and frantic actions meant to salvage it all) but when it came down to that moment, the one moment when I looked around me and thought, "What do I do NOW?", all I could think of was to file for divorce.
The ensueing 3 months proved that things could always get worse. Well, what had I thought they'd be? Better? No, I don't suppose I believed that things would get better, but I didn't think they'd get worse.
Ultimately, I came to another pivotal moment where I was looking around at the carnage saying, "What do I do NOW?"
I think my biggest mistake (oh and I've made so many) was not looking ahead at what the ripple effect of my individual actions would be. Not looking far enough ahead and seeing only the one moment of chaos and crisis.
*see below, Note 1
A second mistake was in that I was so bewildered by the man my husband had become that any of my automatic expectations about his reactions, fed by past experience, were always wrong. I thought he would be honorable, honest, and do the right thing because that was how he'd always been. I thought he'd be thoughtful and devoted to open minded cooperation, giving benefit of doubt. He was no longer that man though, and that was, and remains so, the hardest thing for me accept, understand and remember.
So I left my house, moved into my own apartment; having decided that I could no longer continue to let my kids slink around in that volatile tense frightening confusing environment; thinking that soon we would finalize everything, that soon my kids, age 11 and 13 then, would be out of school and we'd sell the house and share the parenting from two different homes; thinking that physical separation would ease the palpable tension, thinking that I didn't want to pull my kids from their bedrooms, their pets, their routines and small comforts when there was just a couple of weeks left of school anyway, thinking it would be ok.
I was wrong.
That wrongness? That slap in the face wrongness of it all was shattering. I found myself financially broke - more than you might ever imagine and more than I could explain - with no legal representation and no means to gain any, with a bitter angry vindictive man holding my children hostage from me and asking me to jump through hoops of power plays and control with rules that changed randomly. Things did what they'd come to do: they got worse.
I was told that I wasn't worth anything, that I'd abandoned my children, bailed out, jumped ship. I was told I didn't have any rights. I was threatened with legal and police action if I argued about when I could have the kids or when I had to return them. I so desperately wanted to keep my kids out of the mess, out of the middle, away from the conflict. Desperate enough that I was easily manipulated. When threatened with police intervention if I didn't return my kids to my husband and the house I once lived in at a specific time (no, there was not any court order but I was trying to establish a cooperative flexible non-legal precedent that didn't scar the kids) I returned them because the thought of police showing up and frightening my kids went against everything I was trying for.
*See below: Note 2
Broke, broken down, defeated, harrassed and still under my husbands constant demand and orders in spite of not living together, still trying to meet those demands and orders, overwhelmed by loss and grief (I lost my marraige, my husband, my community, my church family, my life as I knew it, my role as a parent, my home...), tortured by missing my children and by seeing their own grief and confusion and wanting to help them understand while not hurting their love and respect for their daddy, I found myself holding onto that proverbial last straw.
I filed for divorce in March 2009. I moved into my own apartment just 3 months later in mid-June. A few weeks after that, in July '09 my husband told me that he was taking the kids out of state to visit his family (in spite of the week off I'd taken to be with them - a week off I couldn't afford with no vacation time to use) and that he didn't care if I had taken time off because I didn't matter - and then he handed me HIS proposal for our divorce.
His proposal included the following: he would allow me alternate weekend visits from Saturday to Sunday. He would allow me a midweek dinner visit. He would take my name off the mortgage (quit claim deed) in return for him assuming all the debt associated with our joint credit cards and home equity loan (we were, and are, in tremendous debt). I was not to receive alimony, any percentage of retirement, mutual funds etc but would not have to pay child support. I could have a one week vacation in the summer provided I give adequate notice of such by April of each year. I wasn't to have custody, just visitation.
And that last straw fell. I shattered completely. I was so full of shame, so humiliated, so alone, so 'without', and so beaten down emotionally that I couldn't see anything other than what he showed me: unworthy, replaceable, bad, incompetent, unreliable. My kids were better off without me, he was perfectly fine parenting them on his own, after all, I'd left them behind anyway right?
What do I do now?
Back in March, several people gave me advice. People are good at giving advice when they can go home to their own homes and their own husbands and their own children and leave you and your broken life behind. One person said something that was perhaps the most understanding comment I'd ever heard. She said, "I know what I would do Mia, but you aren't ME and I would never expect you to do what I do because it isn't in your heart. You are different and so you have to do things your own way." I loved her for saying that.
She'd said that back then, before March, but by July, she was no longer willing to be a part of my life in a way that supported me like I needed. Like nearly everyone else, she didn't want to "take sides". No one wanted to "get involved; create an uncomfortable situation; make it awkward". People wanted," to stay neutral; just keep it open and light; to stay connected for the kids sake". In theory, I get it. It's all very PC and grown up and reasonable. But in reality, by not defending me against a force I was unable to defend myself against, I was left defenseless and finally defeated. As had been shown to me over the past few months, I knew that if I called someone and asked what to do they would have grimaced sympathetically, hugged me, wiped my tears, patted my hand, prayed for me or with me, felt very bad for me, but nothing else because, you know, they didn't want to take sides.
*See below: Note 3
So there I was - alone and defeated and at yet another moment when I didn't know what to do next. The more I wondered what to do, the more I wondered why I should even do anything at all. And the more I tried to find a reason for doing anything, the more I felt like there wasn't one.
With all that in my head, and my heart, I chose to - and these are difficult, ugly, painful words to write, words that I can't yet say out loud - kill myself. A suicide attempt - I felt so worthless that suicide seemed to be a valid action.
And I am here today to talk about it.
I am here because I Am Still The Mom.
Love,
Mia
*Note 1: I have learned that a crisis will still be a crisis after a nights sleep, and chaos will remain until it's dealt with - no matter the emotions drowning me, no crisis or chaos I faced back then needed an immediate decision - no bleeding, physical danger, or loss of life was at hand. It felt as important maybe, I don't want to devalue the pain and fear, or the intense desire to fix something with just the right action, but I've learned now to sit on things a little more and a little longer, to try and map out the potential results of an action and weigh those all out to see the variations and their potential results.
*Note 2: hindsight - with good solid parenting, when you already have good communication with your kids, it is worth it to allow some legal or police intervention to establish a record. Nonaction based on fear will undermine every effort in the future.
*Note 3: I don't blame any one person or hold them at fault for or responsible for my life as it was at that time: devoid of support, defense, and validation; but the truth is that no one wanted to get involved in a way that backed me up, no one wanted to stand up to my husband and tell him to stop on my behalf, no one wanted to call him out, lift me up, or step outside themselves to speak up for me when I was speechless. And a year later they still don't. One 'friend' told me just today that whenever she sees my husband she wants to hit him, but she smiles instead and just avoids real eye contact if they speak. Another friend, who remains an anchor even now, validated my circumstances back then when she remarked, "When someone abuses you emotionally, they make you think you are crazy - that's what they do, it's how they work. Hold on to what you know." But it's hard to hold on when the only thing you know isn't honored or believed or validated by anyone outside.
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