7 and a half years ago, I had no idea where my daughter was. She was around 6 months old, and her mom had taken her away. She had put a lawsuit against me for supposed psychological violence, which tied my hands legally - even though it was made up from beginning to start and was dismissed later. A lot later, because it's Ecuador.
Bureaucracy as its finest.
This time, it's already been 3.5 months that the same is happening. Same modus operandi by Lily's mom, no lawsuit, though. I, on the other hand, am handling things very differently this time. I am different this time.
Learn from experience.
Back in 2019, I was full of anger. Desperation. Sadness. The impotence I was feeling due to an careless legal system, no help from police or anyone, it built up and suddenly exploded into me threshing my fists against the tire stand I had built for martial arts conditioning until the knuckles bled.
I had no hope.
And I wasn't happy. For the first time in my life. I generally am happy, as an inner feeling, just something that is always there, no matter if I'm sad or angry or content. But back then - pure darkness.
Until rock bottom.
My therapist told me that I should start grieving. There was no way of knowing if I'd ever see my daughter again. And I did. At the same time, I started writing a blog for her. If she'd ever searched her name, she'd find it.
I moved on.
And things started moving. It wasn't so much that I was being a bad person. And yet, I was the worst version of myself. Paralyzed, in a way. Obfuscating every aspect of my life, numbing it all down. I wasn't working on myself, I wasn't looking for what I could do, what was within my power to do. I was totally focused on the bad things happening to me.
I victimized myself.
That changed over time. Though the trauma stayed, and I was easy to manipulate with it for a while, I started setting limits again. Step by step. The current situation is greatly because of that, because I put an end to the blackmailing. Lily's mom had announced it - "either you do exactly as I say and want, or I'll take her away again!" was literally what she said. "Okay, you'll only do her harm." was my response, and being able to say that was a huge relief.
It was unavoidable.
And it was outside my power. Sure, I could've gone out of my way to prevent it, giving the mother whatever she wanted whenever she wanted - but that would've ended eventually. It was inevitable, and the time was right.
It hurts.
But it's not destroying me, nor paralyzing me. Ironically, it has given me a weird kind of joy. I was right. Lily is fine, I know that. I'm fine, too, so much better than expected. The legal process is on track. This will most likely be the last time that this can happen. Which is a relief.
Everything is different.
It was a long road to get here. And I'm not at the end, not by a mile. But it's good to see the progress. And knowing that I won't go back there. Ever.
Please feel free to engage in any original way, including dropping links to your posts on similar topics. I'm happy to read (and curate) any quality content that is not created by LLM/AI.
Post written for the #weekend-engagement by 
This is my response to:
When have you been your worst version and why? Explain.
Thank you for reading!
