Free legal advice from someone who is not a lawyer! If you have not committed a crime, do not admit to committing one. Even if you’re threatened with having to wait in a hot room for hours and then threatened to wait again later for an additional four hours under similar circumstances on a different day.
Also, some public defenders may not actually advocate for your best interests. And never agree to something you’re being coerced into.
Also, know your rights. It’s gross how screwed up the legal system can be sometimes when both parties are aware of what is true yet still pursue the incorrect path regardless of the truth.
That’s something my father taught me. Lawyers (some, not all) just want to crush their opponent. Whether it’s fair or right or neither.
I learned on my own never to give in under coercion unfortunately. So I will never again advocate against what is right. Nor will I perjure myself under pressure. So bring on the heat, the waiting, the threats….soemone who has committed no crime need not admit guilt for the sake of convenience. In fact, I would argue that doing so is actually unethical.
Oh, and what happened to “innocent until proven guilty”? And pleading the 5th? This is why we need more civics in school. People don’t know their rights as Americans. Rights that people fought and died for.
In England, there is no presumption of innocence until proven guilty. And I might be wrong but I think they are also subject to questioning without having access to an attorney.
Anyways, don’t be wanton. Stand for something or you’ll fall for anything.
Falling Down Movie Message
Finally, okay not finally because it’s been available since the 1990s, but anyways a movie that validates how potentially dangerous it can be to be rude to strangers.
You never know what other people are going through just by looking at them. Or driving behind them. Or interacting through the supposed safety of a screen so that there is little chance of meeting this person on the street. People have become more and more comfortable being rude to strangers because they don’t feel that there is going to be any consequences.
But some people are just barely hanging on to their ability to control their anger. Some people are polite with others as a rule and expect the same in return. When things aren’t going well, sometimes it can be the unnecessary cruelty of a stranger that tips the scales for an individual and unleashes the fury that is bubbling just beneath the surface.
So many of us do not take out our problems on strangers. We don’t tailgate, we thank people for things, we say “please”, we don’t try to skip ahead in line, we follow the rules. We know that there are those who don’t and it’s annoying. But it can be the difference for those of us who are just barely hanging on to our civility when we’ve had enough of being trod upon and are about to break.
Who doesn’t wish they could have a metaphorical gun in his hand when being rudely pushed aside in line or outright insulted by a stranger? The gun is a metaphor for the danger that any one of us could just snap at any moment and show how dangerous it can be to treat someone cruelly without thinking there may be consequences of it.
Offending people without trying
Happens to me a lot. Finally I have isolated the reason. It’s my tone of voice. Comes across as sarcastic so that any innocuous comment can be taken in a different non literal way.
I am going to work on this. Could be a life changer because I didn’t know I had this tone of voice really and wondered why people would sometimes inappropriately or unexpectedly laugh at some statement that wasn’t made in jest or become very offended over again, some bland statement. The delivery needs to be controlled.
I offended both my kids yesterday. Maybe someday they will read this and realize “hey, she really didn’t mean to be rude at all” hopefully they know this much sooner but sometimes they get offended and really I can’t blame myself because I go over it, and I’m like “okay, it makes no sense why this person should be offended right now. I put in all kinds of variables but still there is no reason”
And that happens right?? We are all sensitive in some way and that nobody else’s fault usually. So I am not taking all the blame but I’ll do my part to make it more clear when I’m joking and make sure it’s not a sensitive topic first. This feels very unnatural for someone who considers myself as an amateur comedian but I have to do it for the family. Will need to simply make friends who understand me and the humor.
And maybe this will also kind of push me into finally doing open mic. If I can’t joke with the kids, it’s got to come out another way.
Rant about Nations and War
Show recommendation for those into the whole “Middle Ages” stuff. Last week I binged The Spanish Princess which I expected to completely suck because I didn’t like the White Princess at all and I kind of thought I knew everything there was to know about Katherine of Aragon and Henry VIII- but this show surprised me by being almost as good as The White Queen- which has my favorites- okay my one favorite Richard III- that horrible crook backed usuper and likely murderer of the princes in the Tower (although I’ve decided I think it was the Tudors)- it’s Shakespeares portrayal of this two year usuper king that makes me not like Shakespeare so much.
Feel like he’s a propagandist for the Tudors- but who wasn’t at the time?
All this Middle Age stuff- I’ve been reading books too- makes me really really grateful that we do not have an insane tyrant closed up in a castle beyond our reach that we can do nothing about while he destroys our lands and overtaxes the people….😂 right??
“A land of laws and not of men”? That’s us, isn’t it? Honestly I have a hard time defending this creed sometimes to my children. How proud they should be that we overthrew a monarchy and we almost the first ones to do it.
That the creators of our government foresaw the problems of all the power being concentrated into one group and thus divided the centers of power. Thank God for that! 🤦♀️At least they also knew that we would be our own destruction. Because that is human nature. We are not like the peaceful bonobos, we are warlike as chimps.
Anthropology taught me that. At the U of MN. They taught me we are screwed. Glad someone told me early.
I digress. Anyways, compared to the Middle East- with the notable exception of Israel- we are definitely better off.
And as the Art of War says “the best way to win a war is not to have one”. There is no practical advice in that book unless you are literally planning an invasion of a country or something. I thought I could use it as day to day sort of advice. Nope. It’s really mostly about war.
The Slow Loss of my Daughter to her Abusive Father
He didn’t want me to have a baby. That’s when it started. He tried to first convince me I was imagining the pregnancy, what purpose that would serve, I don’t know. Then once it was clear, he began to harass and pick at me, hoping I would become so anxious I would have a miscarriage. When that didn’t work, he tried to get to me take drugs and drink. When that didn’t work, he tried to have me committed to a psych unit.
Shortly after that point, I had no choice but to get a harassment restraining order. He called me, texted me, emailed me, showed up places where I went…all day, every day. My obstetrician told me that I was so stressed out by his stalking that I was going to lose the baby unless I got some relief.
I filed for the restraining order, which was granted immediately. And then he had the nerve to challenge it. Dragging me into court to defend my need to not be harassed.
It was absolutely no shock that the baby came a month early. In fact, I was proud that I was able to keep her gestated for that long. I had all kinds of health problems and I was still coming to terms with the trauma of having left and abusive relationship while pregnant. Many people told me to have an abortion. That my life would be hell.
After the way that person controlled every move I made and every aspect of my life, there was no way I was going to let him scare me into a decision like that. My daughter was a wanted baby. We bonded while she was in the womb early on. No way was I going to let this person bully me into aborting her.
I took the risk that maybe he would go quietly. But he did the opposite. He spent those months that I spent trying to have a healthy pregnancy plotting on how to punish me. Namely by taking what he knew I loved the most in this world- my children. Both of them.
He called child protection, claiming that I was beating my autistic son- not his child, by the way. I found out about this later on during the custody battle in which he literally sought to take the baby away from her mother and her brother completely. His stipulation was that I could maybe visit her in a supervised setting. But not her brother, whom she bonded with also during that first year and a half of her life.
He tried everything he could to sever the ties between “his child” and her family. In the end, he achieved moderate success through lying, cheating, and charming the court players. I was forced by my own crooked attorney to settle for no legal custody and 40% physical time with my toddler. It was a huge change for her and she did not react well. She was hurt and angry and confused and violent.
Her brother and I kept showing her love. We loved her back to us. She grew older and began to understand that her father was lying to her about me. He was telling her things like “your mother doesn’t love you” and “your mother doesn’t want to spend more time with you” and “she’s not your mother- the woman I married is your mother”. That is exactly what he told her. I know because she told me and I was horrified.
I eventually made a last attempt to gain more time with her and have some say in medical or school issues- but once again, he lied, he charmed and he convinced third parties that I was an unhealthy parent. This time, I lost another day with her. But I gained the knowledge that court and their minions will only make the situation worse. That I have to work with what I’ve got.
For awhile, I was able to finagle my three parenting days back. Using threats and guilt and sheer determination. But suddenly, after having taken my daughter to the doctor twice for bacterial infections, he felt entitled to snatch the Sundays away again. I don’t know if it’s legal. But I have learned that I can’t force him to hand her over on Sundays.
He seems to have also convinced people at her new school that I’m against education entirely. I’m not sure what he’s said, but they are not at all friendly with me. I have been polite, but it doesn’t matter when you have someone spreading lies so easily.
My fear is that now with only two days a week with my daughter- that she will eventually believe his lies also. She seems to secure in my love for her to believe them but I know how this person wears someone down. I lived with him for only a year before I felt like I was going crazy. I can’t imagine being his child. I worry about her mental health. A lot.
But I’ll never give up on her. Never. And I’ll never stop loving her. It’s a crying shame how an abuser can take something beautiful like a happy family and bonding between mother and daughter and destroy it, with pleasure. To me, there is nothing more evil in this world than hurting children. Nothing. He disgusts me.
I now refuse to engage with him on any level. I will not beg him for time, that only feeds his obsession with me and how he loves to torture me. If I let him, he would go back to contacting me all day long every day again. But I can’t let him harass me anymore. I have a son to raise too. And my own mental health to consider.
I am hoping that he will eventually stop caring, or learn that he will get no reaction from me. I also hope that my daughter will find the strength to speak up about what he is doing to her. Maybe not yet- she’s only 7, but in a few years- people will be forced to listen to her. I hope…I hope…and sometimes hope is what keeps me going. Hope and love.
To Shoshana, wherever I May Find Her…
My only daughter. There were so many smiles, so many laughs, so much happiness until we learned that this was temporary. The love would always stay, but dampened, stamped upon, ground out like old pieces of wood…no longer useful to the owner.
And owner there is. Despite the life being harvested, nurtured and flourished by one, another poached her after her growth.
Kidnapped, lied to, manipulated, poisoned, used and probably to be discarded eventually as so much burned ashes.
For me, the ashes are a new beginning. A chance to replant, regrow, renew. A lost soul. A shattered soul. A soul whose only soil is the love of her mother. And the soil remains. Waiting for what is left after he has finished….and the hope that there is anything left of that happy, beautiful child I once knew.
There is no “sisterhood”. It’s every woman for herself.
Please don’t send me political stuff right now. I have way too much personal stuff to deal with, I don’t have the time or energy for anything else. Unless it’s advocating for abused children and the family court system- how they have no oversight and give kids away to abusers every single day. If you allege (proven or not) DV or even rape, they don’t care- give kid to the abuser. If you allege child sexual abuse- it’s even worse- mothers have had to run away from this and other countries to protect their abused kids because family court is bought and paid for by dirty money and everyone who works there, including the attorneys are part of this broken system.
One women fled to the Netherlands, whom we have an extradition agreement with, but was ultimately given sanctuary once she proved her case there.
And I NEVER post information about missing children when it’s a mother who has disappeared with the child. Because our family court system is so corrupt, there is an Underground Railroad- so I’m told- to help them.
And let’s be real here, it’s not “all men” but it usually is men. This is also not a condemnation of men generally. There are many females- judges, attorneys, evaluators, in the system who are as bad or worse than the abusive litigants.
It was when I went through the family court process (or wringer) myself that I lost my naive sense that women share some kind of “sisterhood”. That’s BS. That’s why women can’t get it together and stop anything else- like keeping men out of women’s sports. It’s every woman for herself out there. And sometimes it’s a man who helps, but you cannot, CANNOT, count on other women.
That whole “women’s march” a few years ago, those women were absolutely full of shite. I know a couple of them who went and asked them for help- family members even- one a witness that I needed to testify and the other a lawyer- turned on me. While I was still “liberal”. There’s no sisterhood, there’s no loyalty, and the “feminism” they preach is as fake as everything else they say.
People wonder why women don’t get the results that other movements do. We’re divided and selfish.
To see or not see….a therapist
I think I’ve overgrown any kind of counseling. I had a great therapist about 8 years ago but she moved so I have intermittently tried others here and there since then.
It’s no secret. I don’t find it embarrassing. But I will say I think I’ve outgrown it totally. It’s gotten to the point where the last couple (okay everyone since the lady 8 years ago who taught me cognitive behavioral therapy)- like I’ve been the teacher to the therapists.
This last one- well it got to a kind of embarrassing point, the stuff I had to tell her because she’s maybe 25 years old, no kids, I am not sure what her degree is in, but she doesn’t even have a basic understanding of medicine. And she has a chip on her shoulder I found out.
So we all know that I’ve been busy as all get out with therapies for my neck and back since the semi crash- it’s not even been three months believe it or not.
So I couldn’t sleep the other night because my neck was hurting so much, I finally fell asleep at 4 AM. I was not about to not sleep in after that. I skipped the stuff I was scheduled for in the morning of course. Because we all know that not getting sleep is bad for your health.
I get up in time for my therapist appointment though and even show up. Both my kids had strep last week- one in the throat and the other in a rash that had skin breakdown. So both of them are still recovering and on antibiotics. I don’t want strep- and I’ve obviously been very much exposed- so also I’m getting extra rest to try and prevent it.
All makes sense right?
So I’m doing my appointment with this therapist and she’s weird about the fact that I got up late because I couldn’t sleep until basically morning. When I told her about the neck thing- she says “what’s that sickness that causes neck pain? Mono?” I laughed and said “you mean meningitis?? No, I really don’t think I have meningitis. I think I still have pain from being hit by the semi and the whiplash diagnosis that I’m being seen for”.
I said “I am running a fever though so I’m trying to get some extra rest, make sure I don’t get sick too”. She says “are you going in? For strep? I thought you can only get that in the throat”. I said “no I’m not going in after one day of low grade fever. I’ve had too many viruses that can’t be treated, why waste my time? I’ll see if other symptoms develop and then go in if they do. And yeah strep can infect any open wound. It’s like staph. It’s just bacteria that can infect mucosa” I didn’t use the word mucosa because I figured if she didn’t know the difference between mono and meningitis- she’s not going to know what mucosa is.
Then, she says “what goals have you achieved this week?”
I rattled off a short list but hey I did get some things done.
She was like “I don’t know how to help you” and I was like “what do you mean?” And she says “you seem like you’re more depressed and sleeping a lot and I’m worried and you’re not using resources I’ve provided” and I said “hey, I think I’m doing pretty well mentally, all things considered. I told you why I slept in today. And I’m literally being treated for insomnia but the medication doesn’t work every night. It’s not a miracle solution”. And “both my kids were sick all week, how much extra stuff am I supposed to get done? I know you don’t have your own kids but are you at least familiar with how time consuming it is to be a single parent?” She like “of course, I work with single moms all the time” then I say “yeah well how about single mom who have recently been hit by a semi, who have one kid with autism that they just had to pull out of school because he’s was assaulted and another child who’s father is literally still abusive and counterparening against me?”
This lady can’t just admit she’s being unreasonable in expecting me to prioritize this crap that she’s suggested I do over more important things like treating the pain that keeps me up at night.
So this is when it got so I realized “okay I shouldn’t have bothered getting out of bed to waste my time with this lady”. She’s over invested somehow and she doesn’t know me that well and she is afraid for me even though I haven’t shown any inexplicable signs of increasing depression.
I also reminded her that I had a concussion. I think anyone working in the medical field at all- should know that a serious car wreck with injuries is going to cause extra fatigue. DUH. Also, just because the things I’ve done aren’t on her priority list for me- that seems weird too. Giving me a hard time for prioritizing my physical injuries and my kids. She even said “you pay too much attention to your kids’ needs” and I laughed at that too, I was like “she just doesn’t get it”. So at that point I finally just said to her “look seems like your expectations of what I’m supposed to be doing and the reality are not matching. Also I’m an adult and probably twice your age” (I’m not twice her age but whatever) so I said “I think you’ve got some boundary issues to think about regarding yourself and what is a reasonable way to treat an adult. Let’s take some time to reevaluate whether this is the right fit because you don’t seem to understand that the reason I can’t get more done is that there aren’t enough hours in a day”.
But really I was thinking “I don’t think she’s had enough life experience to be a therapist for me and she’s also kind of hysterical”. Like I am still an RN, I know when to go in and when not to. I know my neck pain is from the accident and not some sudden and ridiculous bout of random meningitis 😂.
So I think I’ve had it with therapists. This one was the most annoying but over the last few years, it’s mostly been me telling them what’s going on and why I’ve responded that way and I’m not getting any new coping skills being taught to me or anything. It’s just a waste of time right now. I’m glad that I don’t have to take the time to meet with her anymore but I also think she was the one who wanted to stop but didn’t have the nerve to end herself and made me do it. Which annoys me too.
Or it could have been that I was wearing a Scott Jensen shirt? Either way, she should have been paying me not the other way around.
A good therapist is super hard to find but more so when you’re older and more experienced than these kids who just got out of school and panic out of nowhere. She didn’t even ask me stuff like “are you feeling more depressed? Are you having thoughts of hopelessness or self harm?” I mean, those are valid questions to ask before assuming someone is actually depressed about their circumstances. And I’m too busy to be depressed anyways. Maybe I wouldn’t be depressed either way. But I don’t feel depressed- just like I have a lot going on and I have to prioritize and one of my priorities is rest. Along with watching comedy and of course- my kids and their health. Spending too much time on my kids! Crazy talk.
That’s the rant. Pick therapists wisely because I wish I hadn’t wasted any time at all with this one.
I refuse to go quietly
Because I have two children who need me, and so I will not retreat into depression, or otherwise, go quietly.! my children need me and they need me to show them how to respond
An update on the ongoing, or rather, never stopped, custody battle in which the abuser is successful in removing the child from the safe parent – a message to my daughter “Rose”:
I have written in the past the story of how as the biological mother of my daughter and a survivor of abuse by the man who impregnated me was able to convince family court that he should be primary custodian despite all kinds of evidence of abuse, not just towards me, but towards my older non joint son, towards other women he has been with, towards animals who have been in his care and towards strangers. I have no history of abusing others. I have a son 8 years old than my daughter whom I’ve been raising along side of her and is a well adjusted, successful young man who has a great relationship with both me and his father (who is not abusive).
Somehow this man, the father of my daughter, was able to convince everyone of his innocence in spite of all the evidence and the initial court battle ended with me having to settle for him having 60% physical custody and full legal custody because my attorney refused to go to trial despite the dozens of upstanding community members who were prepared to testify on my behalf. Who INSISTED on testifying on my behalf.
Since then, I attempted to “play the game”- that is, ignore the ongoing harassment, name calling, attempts to distance my daughter from me and her brother, his negligence of my daughter which resulted in some serious injuries and ongoing threats of omnipotence on his part. I “played the game” because I was taught that family court punishes women who bring abuse to light. I was terrified to do anything further. Terrified to admit what was going on. Terrified to admit the past. Or the present.
6 years later, my daughter is speaking up. About the abuse she is suffering at the hands of her father. I don’t feel like I can ignore this. But I don’t know how to handle it. I’ve spoken to lawyers who claim there is nothing to be done. Every lawyer I’ve spoken to so far has stated that either I can go back to painful and abusive mediation with him (and likely continue to lose time) or live with the current circumstances.
After the abuser used all the professionals he knew that knew both of us to slander me and I unluckily broke my foot, the abuser gained an additional day with our daughter. Now I only have 2 days with her per week. Following the mediators decision to not return the day that was supposedly temporarily given to the father as a result of my injury- which has healed a long time since- the mediator made new restrictions on my parenting time. I never went back to mediation.
Part of the reason was that mediating with my abuser for hours at a time twice a month was hurting me emotionally. It was painful, difficult, I cried a lot (only a couple times during the mediation) but it seemed an unfair an unnecessary torture for me. After all, I have to function too. If not just for me, for my children- both of them. Mediation is explicitly NOT recommended for cases in which violence has occurred. Yet there I was.
Many women that I know, mothers- have been completely estranged from their children when the father is an abuser. I look at what’s going on and I see how nearly every institution seems to allow and support this.
I recently stated that I would not participate in a joint conference at my daughters school due to wanting to minimize contact with my abuser. The teacher immediately refused further contact with me and I was sent a somewhat inappropriate letter from the principal of the school telling me that I am trying to inappropriately put the school in the middle of “personal problems”. While I was addressed as Ms. (Last name), in the letter the abuser was addressed by his first name. That did not go unnoticed by me.
My daughter has yet to have her own way to independently communicate with me. I have no idea what her father is telling her on the Sundays that he’s told me not to show up. Or what else he’s saying. In the past, she has told me that he told her that I don’t love her and don’t want to see her when my foot was broken.
How long can she resist the brainwashing? When every institution seems to support his narrative? He is claiming I’m mentally unstable, but I am not. He has been claiming this for many years. It’s been proven untrue. My hope is that in writing this, someday my daughter will see how long and how hard I have been fighting for her.
I now know that what I’ve been experiencing is called “post separation violence” and it’s very calculated and very easy to spot when pointed out:
To my daughter, I am still fighting for you. I have tried so many different things but it seems that no matter what I try, the system is set up for him to “win”. I don’t know what to do right now. I’ve spent hundreds of thousands of dollars on lawyers who made things worse. Every time I try to go to court or mediate, things get worse. I don’t know if I can try anything else or I’m going to lose our two days a week together now, rather than later if he keeps brainwashing you and you eventually believe him.
Know that your brother loves you. I love you. Your grandparents love you. I have all the information together to give you to prove all of these things. I am scared that our time is limited because the abuser has been validated so many times now, he seems invincible. I hope that you will be more successful fighting him than I have been. I know he tortures you too. Being called names and made to cry and being micromanaged in every way is NOT the behavior of a normal and loving parent.
He is stealing your childhood. And in a way, he’s stolen Kieran’s, also. As he has had to sit by and watch both of us suffer for years now.
Please don’t give up. On yourself or on me. I’m always here for you. Always. Someday soon he can’t control you anymore. I know it will feel like a long time but once you’re 15 or 16, his power will decrease and by the time you’re an adult, he will have no way to control you at all. Unless you continue to let him.
I need to find a way to keep in contact with you. I will look for a way. But you must MUST learn to read and communicate with others. If you don’t, he will keep you locked up and you will suffer more.
Short Stories, Political Commentary, and the Information the Government Does Not Want You To Find by Kristina Tehrani 