Have you lost a child? Either to death, stupid decisions, or circumstance? If you haven't, read this post so you will know what not to do. If you have, then read this post to know someone else on this earth feels your indescribable pain.
When someone loses a spouse we call them a widow/widower. When someone loses a parent we call them an orphan. You want to know why there is no name in the English language for when a parent loses a child? Because it is fucking horrible. Especially when you lose them to an even worse fate.
My oldest daughter hasn't lived with me since she was 14 years old. I saw her at Thanksgiving in November of 2014. I spoke to her two days later before she was suppose to come home for the week, and then I wasn't allowed to speak to her again until July 2015 when I saw her in court as I was forced to give up physical custody to the two people I wouldn't let raise a pet, aka my biological parents. That whole situation was described in another post I did, which you can read here.
All the components of how this came to be are a rather long and complicated story. The reader's digest version is that my insane addict parents for some reason always thought of my daughter as theirs. I was only 19 years old when I had her and we had to move back in with my parents on three separate occasions from her birth until she was 10 years old. I think they basically tried to use her as the daughter they never had to spoil her since they treated me like such shit my entire life. If you are at all familiar with psychology it is called the Golden Child vs. Scapegoat, except I used to be the Golden child then turned into the scapegoat after my daughter was born.
So anyway, my daughter always had a great view of my parents because she saw very little of the crazy dysfunction I grew up with and they spoiled the shit out of her growing up.
From the moment I found out I was pregnant, even as just a kid, all I wanted to do was be an amazing mother. Something I never had and desperately wanted my daughter to experience. Her father was not in the picture, so it was just me and her. It may sound super cheese but every time I watch the TV show "Gilmore Girls" that is exactly how I pictured our lives together. However, it turned out very different. I gave up my ability to go to college so I could work at home and take care of my daughter and provide for her. I was so young when she was born I lost all my "friends" because no one wanted to hang out with a "mom". I was very lonely, but happy that she was all mine. The only thing I thought about my entire pregnancy was that I would finally have someone I could love and that would always appreciate it! I was so very naïve.
Even though I didn't know crap about what I know now, I felt that overall I was a good mom. I was selfless, giving up my ability to go to college like I had dreamt about since I was 11. Giving up any guy that wanted to date me because they didn't want kids so young. When I did finally find a halfway decent guy I stayed with him for 9 years, even though I was miserable and he cheated on me, because my daughter thought that was her father. I basically got nothing I wanted out of life for 10 years because I was always more concerned about my child getting what she needed. Ultimately, all I did was set a bad example for her of how not to be happy in life.
Anyway the first thing I ever did for myself was marry my ex. I did this for all the wrong reasons, but I thought they were the right ones. When I first got sick and my 9 year boyfriend wouldn't help me, or even help me care for my daughter I knew I couldn't stay with him. I had first met my ex when we were 17, but we hadn't really spoken in 11 or 12 years. He told me that he had loved me ever since we first met, very convincingly. He told me he would always help me, and care for me, also very convincingly. He knew very well that I had some weird mystery illness happening, but he said it didn't matter to him because I always would be his Queen and he would do what a King should and make sure I was alright. He lied about everything. So I left my bf of 9 years, I drove to FL to see my ex and he proposed to me. I said yes because I thought either he would help me like he said he was going to or I didn't want to die alone, as I said before I had been alone my whole life. Making decisions out of fear will ALWAYS be the wrong decision.
At first I was very happy - 3 months it lasted, and I really had no basis for comparison, but it felt like heaven on earth. He was so kind, patient, happy, loving, and he was really great with my daughter too. He always helped her with her homework, involved her in anything we were doing so she would feel like we were actually a family and he was her father. Even though I was with 9 year guy for so long, the extent of his fathering to her was a few movies and baseball games and two science fair projects. After three months though everything changed for me. My ex's abusive father died, and it was like the dam that had been holding all that shit in just crumbled and I got hit with a tsunami of unresolved issues and feelings that he could no longer address with a dead man. It was awful. The very next day after we got the news I was in a ball on the floor crying my eyes out with my ex screaming at me like I had just done the most horrific thing. In actuality I had just suggested we drive to FL because he wanted me to go to the funeral with him and I was so sick from this mystery illness, and pregnant, and flying was a horrible thing for me. I was terrified of heights, small spaces, I have horrendous vertigo, etc. That suggestion earned me a dressing down that landed me in the fetal position on the floor wishing I was dead. I wish I would have gotten out right then and there. Instead I bought into the excuses of allowing someone to treat me like garbage, and forgave him.
So as you already know if you have read my past posts the abuse just became worse and worse over the years, but the majority of the time my oldest daughter had no idea what has happening. I was very good about making sure she didn't know. She would hear him yell sometimes, she knew he had a bit of an anger problem, but she never saw any physical violence. I tried like hell to hold us together as a family. I gave up every part of myself that meant anything in the hope it would show him how far I was willing to go to help him and make things great for us. It never meant anything to him. He never even tried to change. He just continued to lie, and manipulate each day, and I allowed it all to happen.
After a series of very crazy events in July of 2014 (which I'm sure I will write about at some point), everything came to a head with my ex and I. He had been told by my only friend that I had an affair with the neighbor, he came straight home, never said a word or even asked me if it was true, but just belted me across the side of the head.
I was on the phone working at the time and had to excuse myself while I tried to collect myself. I threw him out and told him if he ever came back I would have him arrested for domestic assault. He smashed in the window of the house with a bottle as he left. For a few days it was really nice and quiet for me since it was just me and the kids there. His sister contacted me and asked if she could come with him to the house to get his stuff. I told her yes as long as she was going to be there. He showed up at my house without her and since I had most of his stuff bagged up I started giving it to him to just take and leave. Through the course of bringing things out to the car he cornered my oldest daughter in the bedroom and convinced her to leave with him to go to his mother's house where he was staying in Orlando.
I think she was kind of mad at me at the time, or maybe she was just fed up with having a sick mother, I honestly don't know since we never got to talk about it, but she said she wanted to go with him. This instantly put me into super protective mother bear mode because I never knew just how crazy he was going to be or what he was actually capable of. I was beyond enraged and told her not to leave, that it would be the worst decision of her life. She decided to go anyway. And to be rid of them both and the craziness I let her go. I figured I would just have my ex mom drive her back home in a few days. I refused to let him take our two younger children.
I found out a few weeks later, I think it was, that as usual my ex's motives were not only to try and hurt me by separating me from my child, but some of his dark twistedness was rearing its ugly head. Apparently, on the way back to his mother's house he told my daughter that he, "Loved her and wanted her to run away to Mexico with him." Even trying to type it just now confounds me in ways you can't imagine. As it did the same for her, that poor girl had really never had a father figure in her life, and when she finally gets one that she loves and trusts this is what he says to her.
My ex is all kinds of messed up from his own childhood trauma's, but this was a huge stretch even for him. I could hardly believe it when I heard it. I knew he could not mean what he said. Regardless it scared the shit out of my daughter. She wanted to stay at my ex's mother's house, and when his mother heard about it she gave my ex a few hundred dollars and told him to head for Mexico. For about a week my ex was not at his mother's house, and he wasn't at my house, we have no idea where he was. I was upset with my daughter for leaving, she was upset with me because I guess she thought I knew about what my ex said even though I hadn't before that. We didn't speak for a few weeks. However, in week two of my ex break, the only friend I had that lived across the street, she was upset with me for speaking my mind about a very touchy subject for her and we got into a fight. She had PTSD badly and was very violet sometimes. I offered to settle the fight by letting her punch me if it would make her feel better so we could just be friends again (stupid yes I know). Instead she body slammed me into the ground and kicked me in the head a few times (lesson learned there as well).
So turns out I had a major concussion, it was so bad the next day I couldn’t stop throwing up and could barely get off the floor. I called my ex to come and take the kids, I could not take care of them and there was no one else, like I said I couldn't even get off the floor. At the time I was too out of it to even be pissed off about all the crazy shit happening, but instead of him coming to get the kids and bringing them to his mother's house he came and wouldn't leave. I couldn't call the police because they would have taken my children seeing as I was too ill to care for them. So he stayed to care for the kids while I tried to regain my senses. After a week of things not getting better I had him bring me to the ER, the confirmed it was a bad concussion and told me a bunch of stuff to do to try and help it. I had been hit in the head many times before, so I was rather surprised this one was so bad. After about a month though it had barely gotten any better and my ex had basically moved back in without my consent. My oldest daughter was still at my mother-in-laws house. She started going to school there, had lots of friends, seemed to really be enjoying herself so while I tried to work out the issue of fixing my brain, and getting my ex out of the house again, I decided to let her stay there.
I honestly had no idea what to do, I was trying to figure out what was going on in my ex's head. If there was any truth to what he said to her, I mean after all how to do you believe anything a pathological liar says? The best answer he could come up with was some BS about how much she reminded him of me when we were younger, and how hard the past 4 years of our lives had been with me being sick and him deciding to be an abusive asshole instead of a man or husband… blah blah blah. He claims he didn't mean what he said at all - or it didn't come out right - or he just totally lost his mind at the time because of the trauma of finding out I cheated on him. I honestly don't know since I never did get a totally straight answer from him in this matter. All I knew at the time was I needed to get my brain working again, get rid of him, and get my daughter home. So I just tried to play nice while I devised a plan. But my ex had a much different plan in mind. That first month he was all sweet as pie trying to get back in my good graces. Then as it always did, it took a very nasty turn when he couldn't pretend anymore and he started torturing me, physically and mentally, night and day about my affair with the neighbor. I won't go into that now, because the horror of those events is a separate issue to address, but I was so very happy that my daughter wasn't there for that because I would never have been able to hide what happened to me during those months.
Even the reader’s digest version of this event is quite long so stay tuned for Part II tomorrow!
Questions, comments, shared experiences are always welcome!