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.