The Story

It’s not really mean to say that someone is sick if they are. My ex was/is sick. My ex struggled with depression and anxiety for most of her life (and now I know maybe even more), hospitalized for both, received anti-psychotic medications and was diagnosed with a personality disorder. I guess I should have known better? Not really. Because if you know anything about personality disorders you know that my ex was charming, adorable, a little neurotic, and highly impulsive. Medicated, my ex was fine. A couple of years into our relationship, my ex would stop taking her medication. Ir she would become depressed and OD on her medication and then beg me not to take her to the ER so I’d lie there holding up mirrors to her face all night making sure she was breathing. My ex was unpredictable, often selfish, and sometimes spacy. She was also very smart and committed to the children she taught. Unfortunately, she was not able to hold down her teaching jobs for longer than a year or two at a time because she was usually fired or let go because of being, “difficult to work with” or too anxious, or couldn’t manage a classroom. She’d come home, upset that yet again she’d been called to the principal or put on probation. I’d try to give her tips to be a little more laid back. It never helped. My ex was sick. I was beginning to see it but I wouldn’t fully realize it until September 23, 2010.

I mainly lived in our finished basement in order to not freak the kids out too much while we were working out our separation agreement. The previous evening, however,  for whatever reason I stayed at a friends house. I had given my ex an ultimatum months prior that she needed to either stay on her meds and get stable or I needed to leave the marriage. I began seeing how her depression and inability to be stable in a job was affecting the kids. She wasn’t able to take the kids to the store alone, she was overwhelmed by simple tasks like cooking dinner. I was working a full time job, dropping the kids off to two different schools and picking them up in the evenings, cooking, cleaning, and attending meetings and therapy sessions with both kids. I was done. There were other issues that were mounting, too. She suddenly decided she was “asexual” yet had a fetish for deaf people.  My ex started a curious friendship with a co-worker of mine and the two were spending more and more time together – without me. The same could be said for my a friend with whom I had been spending time. We were falling apart. It was obvious. Hence the separation agreement.

We agreed to put the kids’ needs first. We discussed the schedule and the way it would be and we’d both see the kids daily. We came to the realization that we would never work but we loved our kids. There was NEVER talk of custody, child support, or trials. We had a plan.

Until that fall morning.

I was driving our minivan from my friend’s house to our home to pick up our daughter for school in the morning. It was her 3rd day of kindergarten and she was still nervous/excited. When I pulled up and she got into the van I noticed that her hair was a mess. Now, my kids are African American and I know when her hair has not been done. Also, she was whining that she hadn’t had breakfast because she hadn’t slept at home the night before. I was concerned so I turned around and headed back to the house to get her a snack and a juice box and to ask my ex what was going on. I left my daughter in her car seat with the windows cracked and car off in our driveway. I walking into the house and my ex was standing in front of me with a bizarre look on her face like she was hiding something. I asked what the “hell” was going on. And she responded that it’s none of my business. As I turned toward the kitchen, I saw her cell phone on the coffee table. In what was a moment of desperation for me, I began to scroll through her texts. She immediately lunged at me clawing into my shoulder. (I have photos). I put the phone into my back pocket while my ex attacked me from behind bruising my arms (photos) and tearing my shirt (photos). I walked toward the door and asked her not to touch me as our daughter was in the car. She continued to hit me and chase me till I drove away. At this point, my daughter was late for school and I had an appointment with my therapist. So I took my daughter to my therapist with me with the thought that I was going to call the police while my therapist, who knows a lot about my exes unstable behavior, could calm my daughter.

I stepped outside to call the police and was told that my ex had already called reporting that I had beat her and kidnapped our daughter. WHAT????? I was so confused. I explained what really happened and he asked that I come to the station to file a report. I agreed to go there as soon as I got my daughter settled. Little did I know that police were at my work looking for me since my ex said I may have taken our daughter to work. Also, so much that I didn’t know was right there on her cell phone. I sat with my therapist and read text after text of my ex and my co-worker going back and forth about a what to do and say to get custody of our kids. The texts went back days in which they discussed filing a report with DCF so that when the set up happened on the morning of the 23rd, my ex could say that she had already filed an abuse report as well as telling our couples therapist that she was “scared” of me.

Sick. My ex is sick. And she gets sicker.

And this is where I’ll end for today.

The Waves

My fight comes and goes. I claw and spit and yell and shake my fists at the injustice of it all until I completely run out of steam and crawl back into my hole for a few months. I back down when I realize that, yes, it’s bigger than me. The whole Family Law System is bigger than me. I back down when I realize that I need my energy to work my day job with children with Autism. And I need my energy to finish my BCBA classes to be a Board Certified Behavior Analyst. Oh and I need to back down and feel awake and energized when I meet with my supervisor as I’m finishing up my LPC-I in order to be a Licensed Professional Counselor with a specialization in Trauma. And then I need to back down to wash my hair and my car, and I need to go to doctor appointments and take care of my dogs. I need to be a girlfriend, because I need to love and be loved. I really need to back down for that.

Bodies and psyches have a way of allowing for these waves of productivity and joy. And then then holding us in its wake.

It took a long time for me to decide that my life would not end because of my Parental Alienation story. I remember a call I made to my mom from Boston, just before I decided that moving back home to the South was my only option. It was about 5 am and she answered, I could barely speak. I was just lying there looking out of my window and I said, “Mom, no one should have to hurt like this and still be alive to feel it.” I think she thought I was going to kill myself. But I wasn’t. I just couldn’t understand how any God would allow for so much pain and so many intact nerve endings all at the same time. I literally felt like my heart could just break in two if I moved. I knew what I had to do, I had to come home. And I knew the risk. Never seeing my kids again, or in the same capacity. I risked pre-schoolers who would not understand, grade schoolers who would ignore me, and teenagers who would never answer my calls. I risked my grown children saying “we have nothing to say to you.”  I risked missing it all – their whole lives. But if I stayed I risked my own self falling deeper into depression, alcohol, joblessness, and abuse and harassment by my ex and her friends. I risked dragging innocent kids into a legal battle that was escalating beyond even a wealthy person’s budget that in the end would harm them more than help them. I risked, by being there, a situation that wasn’t sustainable even for typical, healthy kids. I had to leave to give them a chance. It made sense.

I ride the waves of grief, of fear, and resentment. I ride the waves of putting it all behind me and hoping for a time and place. I mostly ride the waves of day to day obligations: meetings, commutes, clients who need me, more commuting, watching my weight, taking my blood pressure, relaxing with my partner of two years and our four dogs. I have ridden the wave of forgiveness.

I don’t believe anyone can fight without taking breaks. Unless they have no other obligations in life. But I do. I have obligations and then one day I wake up to yet another of my children’s birthdays gone by and I can’t call to say, “Happy Birthday 8 Year Old Girl!” That’s when I get the fight back.

What Happened

As a therapist, I always remind my clients that the Truth, with a capital T, lies somewhere in the middle. There’s your story, there is mine, and then there is what happened – an incident of behavior void of what we humans place there. Just for a few seconds, it’s just – What Happened. And then a force, likely our own ego, begins to deconstruct the action in an effort to give it some meaning. But the meaning applied is often learned self-talk from families of origin, or fears, or insecurities. And we each hold on tightly to these perceptions as they become our arsenal of defenses. We are defending ourselves from What Happened – an isolated, incident or incidents of behavior which, before two egos attached themselves, with all their stories and fears, and histories and anger, were as harmless as sleeping child.

As of today, I have not seen my children in three years, 5 months, and 16 days. Except for in my dreams where they are bigger and stronger and smiling. I do not like to call myself a “victim” yet I am not yet a “survivor” and so I will say I am enduring Parental Alienation at the hands of my ex-wife, who lives 3000 miles away.

To tell the story will take months. But I will tell it. I also want to raise awareness for what I consider to be child abuse – Parental Alienation. Because my children were adopted from foster care and already had a host of attachment issues, it was way too easy for my ex to set a stage for brainwashing, re-writing memories, false documentation, false allegations, and so much more. And the way she won custody was just this – setting a stage long before I even had an inkling I’d be leaving her. She knew exactly what to do, what to say, and who to say it to in order that I’d never have a chance to have joint custody of the children that I wanted, loved, cared for daily (even when my ex was too depressed to get out of bed or too suicidal to function), for whom I baked fresh bread, taught to garden on our urban farm complete with laying hens, and put to sleep with songs and stories every night after working a full time job. There was never, not once, in the whole investigation, a concern for my parenting. And though my ex had custody, the kids stayed with me every weekend for a year until I was forced out of town.

So how does a loving mom, a mom who attended every school IEP meeting, advocated relentlessly for her kids, attended therapy sessions, doctor appointments, trained future foster parents — How does a mom who wanted nothing but to see these two children grow up together with a forever family suddenly and without warning lose not only her kids but her job, her reputation, her friends, and her money. The answer, and the sad truth is that it was very simple. The plan was a long time in the making.

My mission – for Family Courts EVERYWHERE to read between these lines. To do more psychological testing (which I am convinced my ex would not pass), to read therapist reports and to gather more information before making a quick temporary custody decision that is so hard to overturn you may as well accept that you’ll die trying. Or at least develop high blood pressure and other illnesses related to fighting a corrupt legal system for something – someone – PEOPLE –  KIDS – who are yours AND your ex’s. To SHARE. Regardless of how hard or uncomfortable that may be for some exes. It’s not about you. It’s about what is best for KIDS.

I’ll stop here today – I feel the hives coming on. The stories I am going to share with you are going to seem unbelievable – but they aren’t, they happened. In this country.  And this is why they need to be written. They are my Truth. With a capital T.