Crap

12 Apr

My ex used to complain about his dad. He had a lot to say about him. His dad lied. Lies. His dad beat his older sister and brother. His dad had them living in fear. He still feared his dad. His dad was a user, seeking always what he could get from others. He hated his dad, said he couldn’t wait until he died. He also said, sometimes, “poor Daddy.” And, close to when he attacked me, he said he admired his dad’s disciplinary techniques. Actually, that was the day before he tried to kill me. Scared the shit out me.

My ex also complained about his dad and his dad’s crap. Stuff. Old, dusty, used crap that he kept around his house and made a big show of giving as gifts to people. He gave me two old chipped plates once. He shipped a box of old used toys and random items to us for the kids for Xmas and then made a big show of being hurt when my ex didn’t thank him.

My ex hated that about his dad. How cheap he was. The shit he gave as gifts, with grandiosity, expecting deep gratitude from others, expecting indebtedness.

When my kids come home from their monitored visits with their dad, they usually bring home stuff … often items I left behind when I fled our home. 

Crap.

Old McDonald’s Happy Meal toys collected during our time together. A purple and silver case for glasses. Old bath toys, worn and perhaps even with still a little dried out mold in the creases. 

On the occasions that he has bought them things, he demeans them. He gave them each some electronic bugs for Xmas, new ones. The kids came home calling the gift “crappy” and “cheap.” I spoke to them. It is not ok to speak like that, to be ungrateful for a gift, to insult someone’s having given it.

But Daddy said it, it is how Daddy described the gift, they said.

My ex and his father. So broken. So deeply sadly broken inside, so vulnerable and scared that they have to give crap or call what they give crap so that should anyone insult a gift, should anyone actually be ungrateful, they can retain their sense of power. We gave crap consciously. We give crap and don’t give a shit.

My kids, being kids, love the gifts. They don’t care.

I wonder if he sees it, though, my ex. I wonder if he sees how he is his father. Broken, sad, violent, dangerous men.

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Vomiting Up the Bites

29 Mar

I threw up Friday. It was after my younger son went to sleep … my older son followed me into the bathroom. I tried to send him away … it was violent retching … but he stayed with me, he stroked my back. I believe that already he has all of the kindness, empathy, affection, and concern that his father lacks…

But this isn’t about him.

I threw up Saturday. Lots. I threw up Sunday. On and off. And I threw up Monday. I missed work because of it. Could not imagine going to work because there would be no place to throw up privately, and my students were likely to think either that I am bulimic or that I am pregnant.

I threw up Tuesday, too, but went to school anyways.

So, that is what happens when I take bite after bite after bite and keep it all in. Sigh.

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Smaller Bite 2

9 Nov

It has been a good couple of weeks (well, month) and a bad month / couple of weeks. If I ever start posting regularly, I will get to the bad part – a new judge in family court has changed the status of my ability to protect myself and my children from good to frighteningly fragile.

But, right now, I am grateful for another Obama term and for the fact that American voters showed their / our disgust for the various and sundry politicians who sought to redefine rape or reduce women’s rights in some drastic and frightening ways. Go country! Yeah!

The re-election of Obama, however, takes me back to four years ago. Four years ago, I will still with my ex. We voted together. We celebrated together. 

Warning – if you are a relative reading this (mom?), you might be a bit freaked / grossed out by what comes next. I apologize….

What I am recalling, though, is the evening of the inauguration of President Obama. That evening in January was the last time that I have been – wow, I was going to write intimate, but there was no intimacy, not even sexual intimacy, that night – that night he fucked me. And as loud and gross and unsexy as that sounds, that was what it was.

It was not making love. 

We were watching the TV, sitting on our king sized bed – on opposite sides of the bed. He looked at me and moved toward me. No words. No tenderness. Just movement.

I was so desperate for affection, though, that it was enough for me … sort of.

He kissed me. By then, I hated that. Hated being kissed by him. But I tried not to admit it to myself because it was too depressing. He undressed me.

But, though intellectually I missed intimacy, this was not what I missed. Not this. So my body demonstrated what I could not say – what my body had been demonstrating for months, for years. I was dry as a bone. My body rejected him.

So, he spat on me. 

I recall that with such deep disgust and repulsion. He spat on me so that he could get what he wanted.

He got what he wanted. And it was so so sad.

It was not rape. But it was close. 

I wish my memory of the inauguration of Obama were not tinged with the memory of being spat upon and used. But, that memory reminds me of where I was and how far I have come. That, indeed, is reason to celebrate.

Smaller bites …

17 Sep

Hey there. So, I have not posted in a long while. My new job started about a month ago … for which I get up at 4:30 in the morning (sometimes earlier, sometimes later) so that I can pack lunches, make breakfast, dress the kids, shower and dress me, and get some grading or prepping done (usually the grading and prepping come first). It wipes me out so deeply that my brain is chopped liver by the time I get home so I drag myself through dinner, checking my kids’ homework, baths/showers, and bedtime and very often pass out with the kids when I put them to bed. Those times I push myself to stay up to prep or grade I get about 20 minutes of work done in 2 hours. I just don’t have the endurance of mind and body I did 20 years ago! Sigh.

So, this blog? Pretty much the bottom of my priorities list. But, self-care seems to be getting down there, too, and since I see this as self-care, I am going to force myself to keep writing. But, in smaller bites, now and then.

Moments in my present life bring to mind moments of my life with him. Painful moments. Or sad moments. Or confusing moments. Brief. Flashes of memory.

Smaller Bite One

Packing lunches. I packed lunches this morning. It was light out because it is a holiday today for us but I am sending them to camp. I need a day to work. I need a day to be alone. So, I packed lunches when it was light out.

Lately, though, I have been packing lunches in the dark. Alone. Peaceful. First one up. Heat up the pasta or the rice to go into the superhero thermos. Ice and water in the drinking bottles. Chocolate covered oreos for one, M&M cookies for the other. Dried seaweed for one. Peaches for both. I could pack carrots, but they just get thrown out. Chips. Goldfish. Forks. Napkins with notes. I love you. Have a good day. I am so proud of you.

Before I started packing lunches, he did. He always packed the lunches. Only him. He would sit at the dining table. Kids eating instant dino egg oatmeal or cold cereal. He on the other side of the table. Mixing tuna and mayo for a sandwich. Bagging cookies. Bagging fruit. Packing it all up. For his audience.

He said it was so that they knew what was in their lunches, so they felt they participated and thus would be more likely to eat it. I think he needed to be watched, seen, most of all, celebrated for his work. His work had to be visible. Daddy does this for you. Daddy loves you. Mommy is tired, no, she can’t join us, let’s be nice, let’s let her sleep in.

But I was not sleeping. Never. Not in the morning. I was curled up in a ball in pain. I think I told you this already, right?

My absence was part of his performance. Daddy makes lunches. Mommy sleeps. Daddy loves you. Mommy is tired.

A bite, every day. A wound. A little bit more of me ripped off.

But, I make the lunches now. Alone. When it is still dark outside and the boys are still asleep. No audience (well, but you now). I fry the bacon. I make the sunny side up egg. Sourdough toast for one. Whole wheat with cream cheese for the other. Sometimes oatmeal. Sometimes dim sum bbq pork buns. Sometimes soup. It is safe and quiet and I am free, not locked in a self I no longer recognize or a room I fear to leave.

Smaller bites do heal, but you have to beat away the beast.

Video

This Is My Body

24 Jul

I had to share this. Another poetic, brilliant, beautiful video of women speaking of our right to determine what happens to, in, with, on our bodies.

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“It’s not like he killed her.”

19 Jul

I should be writing more. I should.

Here is why: He filed some paperwork in court, my ex. That is what they do, abusive exes. They use the legal system as a way to keep their power and control – however much of it they can. They suck us as dry as they can. Make us pay legal fees (or incur legal debt if we can barely pay, like me). They shake us up.

Just when we feel like, hey, I am stronger now, I am doing ok … a surprise comes along, an OSC for a change in child support (if we are lucky enough to get it, as I am, indeed it is the upside of a Not Guilty from criminal court), or an OSC for a change in visitation (as this one was).

Today my attorney called his attorney, offered a “deal.” It sucks to have to offer a “deal” about your children’s safety, my children’s safety … but it might beat the lottery of the courtroom, might.

His attorney said it was not enough additional time. His attorney asked how my ex can move toward reunification, reunification, re-fucking-unification, with so little time.

My attorney reminded him of the charges. Child Abuse. Domestic Violence. Attempted Murder. Assault with a Deadly Weapon. This is not the kind of case that should head the perpetrator toward “reunification” … was his point.

My ex’s attorney said, “It’s not like her killed her.”

Right, I lived, so, hey, he’s not that bad.

Another upside: my ex’s attorney disgusted my attorney. Disgust, as it turns out, can be energizing. That’s not a bad thing. Not for me, anyhow.

Right, he didn’t kill me. But not for lack of trying.

I should be writing more because my ex’s attorney knows that in family court, not having killed a partner is, all too often, reason enough for the court to pave the road to reunification. First more monitored visitation. Then more, then more. Then just visitation. Then … shared custody. This is based on the assumption that reunification with an abusive parent who has not recently committed violence is in a child’s best interest.

In too many cases, however, that is wrong. Dead wrong. Often literally. Too often.

I should be writing more because I have learned a lot about the legal system, about child custody, about trauma, about abuse, and about disordered personalities … especially about the prevalence of disordered parents in high conflict custody cases.

I am glad my children have not lost their father. But, I can’t help but wonder: why? I am glad that they have a father who demonstrates what seems to be an enthusiasm for seeing them – I feel that it is good for them. But, is it? What if, as I believe it is, it is all a sham? a con? What if it is all about him, all about his need to be affirmed as “the good father”? His need for them to feed his narcissism?

What does “monitored visitation” with a disordered, pathological parent offer to a child? Is it, indeed, better than nothing? I think it may be … as long as it does not become a path toward reunification. Reunification with a Narcissistic or Sociopathic parent is an almost certain sentence for a child to abuse, and perhaps (maybe likely) even to the development of a psychopathology like that of the abusive parent.

This is why I – and so many many others – need to write more about this. About our experiences with abusive, disordered ex-partners or partners as we seek to protect ourselves and our children. About our experiences with those unwell individuals in family courts. About our struggles, our failures, our successes.

“It’s not like he killed her.”

There is something seriously wrong with that logic. Deeply, seriously … wrong.

No, he didn’t. And he didn’t silence me either.

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Bruises (or, Since I Was Blogging About Guilt…)

2 Jul

A memory. My eldest, now eight and a half years old, was about a month old, perhaps even less. I am not sure. I could check the medical records. I could. But part of me is scared to acknowledge to the pediatrician that I was wrong, that she was wrong.

I went to change his diaper. Such tiny legs. Tiny little body. I can see him. And I can see the bruises. Less than a month old and bruises all over his upper legs and lower torso … in the very distinct pattern of fingers, like two large hands were holding his little legs, holding so hard and so strong, pressing with such aggression into those sweet, soft little legs that they left marks, not marks, bruises.

But, they could not have been bruises. He was only with me and with his father, my partner. Bruises were not possible. So they were … marks. Mysterious marks … in the shape of fingers.

I called the pediatrician. I was so scared, freaking out, but not about possible bruises—about a skin or blood disease. My partner left his job and met us at the pediatrician. I thought, maybe, the car seat? But the straps didn’t match the marks. Not the car seat.

The pediatrician checked the marks. She said they looked like bruises. She said they responded to touch like a bruise would. She said that in any other circumstance, with bruises matching a pattern that looks like fingers on the body of such a very young baby, she would call Child Services. But, she said, I know you two. These can’t be bruises.

I wonder if he was sweating, my ex. I wonder if he was nervous. I wonder if, as he drove from work, he felt his world falling in on him. I wonder if he believed he had been caught. I wonder if he showed up at the pediatrician’s to control our interpretation of the “marks.” I wonder.

He didn’t need to worry, though. He already had us so deeply fooled that we were both blind. I told her to do whatever she thought she had to do. My ex told her to do the same. To call Child Services if that was her professional obligation. But, she didn’t. Bruises were not a possibility.

Instead she sent us to a blood specialist and my poor little baby had to be held down while vials and vials and vials of blood were taken from his miniscule body. My ex watched this too. He must have known. He must have known that he made those bruises. Those marks were from his fingers. But his impulse to protect himself was so great that he sacrificed his child’s safety for his own.

The tests, of course, showed nothing. We were sent for more tests. Nothing. No genetic anomaly. Nothing wrong with his blood. Of course there was nothing wrong with his blood. The problem was his father.

The bruises, yes bruises, not marks, the bruises went away and never came back. My ex learned his lesson. Don’t leave a mark.

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