Today I am thankful for an a-ha moment.
It's easy for everyone to understand that stalking is done to create fear in the stalked. It's probably easy for most people to understand that the stalker derives a sense of control over the lives of the victims because it creates fear and limits the worldly activities of the stalked.
The following is based upon my personal experience.
Stalkers, if they don't get their way, will go on to harass friends and family. They'll go into workplaces and harass colleagues and clients. They'll even go into colleges and harass students professors, and academic advisers.
For the stalking victim, this results in the loss of academic opportunities, internships, jobs, and creates distance between friends and family.
I'm at an age where many of my friends are dying. There are regrets about distancing myself from them out of fear of getting them harassed.
A friend entered hospice a week ago. This is hard for me.
I first noticed the stalking in 1992 but I didn't consider it stalking. It was harassment. It was annoying. I had another ex, an auto mechanic, who cut the transmission lines of my car one day when I was subpoenaed to testify against him after he put me in the hospital (he beat me bloody with a hammer - I nearly died).
Of course, he destroyed my car in order to keep me from testifying and keep himself out of jail. His trick worked. Arapahoe County DAs and some of the judges seem to be a special kind of stupid.
He may have killed me if I testified against him anyway. It's probably better that he destroyed my transmission.
It didn't matter to me. I wanted to be free to live my life as I saw fit. I changed my name and hid under the radar. I kept my first name but changed the spelling, gave myself an insane middle name and took on a very common last name. I did this to give myself the exact same name as another woman in the city.
I figured this would make me harder to find.
Here's the problem.
That wasn't the only time my transmission lines were cut. It happened a couple of times in the years that followed. In fact, after that day, I started to experience a new kind of harassment. I lived alone and had consistent break-ins, property damage to my car, my landlord was called with complaints of bizarre activity and I'd get nasty messages on my phone answering machine.
My landlord, the police, my friends and my family blamed the ex who beat me up in a drunken rage.
Well, I did, too.
I did this despite the callers revealing their names within the nasty and accusatory messages. Within the first six months of 1992, I identified the callers as two girlfriends from high school, the mother and aunt of one of these girls, my future mother-in-law, my future sister-in-law.
Yes, a friend from high school had introduced me to her cousin. He seemed to like me.
I was in no position to date. It took him six months to a year to win me over.
After about a year of dating, we broke up due to the harassment from his family.
His aunt called to apologize. It ended for a bit. We got back together and eventually married.
The story goes on from there. It's long and boring. Over time, the behavior escalated. It turned into property damage which caused me to lose my apartment. I wound up living with him. The behavior escalated and caused me to lose my job and drop out of a doctoral program. I even gave up an internship with the Arapahoe County DAs office due to the harassment.
One of my stalker's friends wanted to beat a murder charge and asked me to meddle with his file. I told the assistant DA but she didn't understand. I know the guy murdered his baby daughter and I shared what I knew with the DA. He beat his wife daily. Some idiotic judge in Arapahoe County gave him full custody of the other three children.
When the calls didn't stop and when my ex started to scream insanities into the phone when my boss at the DAs office called, my boss and I decided that it would be best if I were to leave until I could divorce my abuser.
Yes, the DAs office staff were able to quickly catch on that this guy was abusing me. Years later, they would prove to be unwilling to prosecute the stalking.
I'm a libertarian pagan. It's up to me to fight to be free. It's what the Goddess Ishtar, the model for the Statue of Liberty, would expect.
Women were not made to tolerate the abuse of immature men.
*****
The story goes on. I'm now trying to fix the mess he created. Right now, I'm struggling to get health insurance for the kiddos. Yes, he got a huge child support discount to provide it
but
he's found that Arapahoe County will help deadbeats basically drop their child support to nothing.
Deadbeat dads, here is what you do*: you get a part-time job making minimum wage and provide those paycheck stubs to the county. Don't quit your day job. Don't give them those paycheck stubs. Don't follow the court order and share your income tax information, either.
If your ex can't afford an attorney, you're off the hook for more than the minimum of child support.
If she has a lawyer, you can use the county to bully her into mediating child support without her lawyer.
I told them NO.
They'd better pray I don't embrace the archetype of Kali should I ever run for office again.
I know who I'd destroy (Cough - CO-PEP - Cough). They should follow the protocols handed down by the feds when they received their funding and screen for domestic violence.
Oh well....it's not like powerful people are watching - yet.
Abusers can find flying monkeys in the most bizarre places.
*****
He has family members that harass me on his behalf. I've only caught my ex stalking me ONCE.
It's typically people I don't know - people that I eventually wind up learning are relatives and friends of his family.
Those are his flying monkeys.
The flying monkeys have ruined my life. I don't advertise my business. In trying to get health insurance, I've taken some very low paying jobs. I finally figured out that taking a low paying job as a behavioral health specialist can help me finish my doctorate. That's what I'm doing now.
Perhaps I should blog about the funny ways I've failed to get health insurance for the kids: most insurance agent jobs don't provide insurance, most health insurance companies like to keep people listed as perma-temps (promising insurance but never delivering it).
Let's see if the mental hospital helps me get insurance on the kids.
I made $1,400 this month. I really wish Arapahoe County could get wise to my ex's bullshit. If he could get caught - that would be great.
I could go about and get a REAL job, if I didn't have to hide under the radar, I could make more money. Whenever I advertise my business or am in the public eye, the stalking picks up considerably. There really is no way to drum up high paying gigs without being easily found.
The stalking and harassment handcuffs me.
Alas.....
It's a good thing I have things I can sell to get by.
******
This brings me back to fear.
It was only this morning that I realized it was inter-generational fear.
I finally found the means to take my kiddos to therapy. One of them may not be able to get therapy because of the law. My uncooperative ex has joint custody. They need his permission.
I don't think they'll get it.
The other kiddo is old enough to sign up for it on her own.
One of the therapists broke confidentiality. By law, I'm supposed to report her to DORA. I won't. Maybe I'll ask my daughter to sign a release allowing the therapist to speak to me as to protect the therapist.
This therapist came to me to tell me that my daughter is terrified to do anything.
I told her about the stalking. Stalking creates fear. Fear creates a situation where people are frozen and immobilized.
The stalking may finally be over. The fear and the isolation bubble need to be broken.
I looked back upon the history of my ex-husband's family. They are horribly enmeshed. Every generation is enmeshed.
Kids don't leave home until they are in their thirties and forties. Marriages are short lived. The parents are in the middle of everything.
There is a sense of fear when it comes to stepping out of the world on their own.
It dawned on me that this behavior serves to keep the elders in control of their kids. This is one thing I was told during our marriage by my in-laws. I was supposed to have kids and abandon the family so that my ex and the kids could go back to his mother.
Over my dead #$@#$##$@@ body...…. It would make more sense for me to stick around and help my aging mother-in-law who seems to be in denial about aging and her life stage.
It must be about enmeshment so that the parents can stay in their role a little bit longer than what is socially prescribed. It's about power and control.
I'm seeing this in my own household. My kids are afraid of taking the driver's test, submitting college applications, dating and living life! They are afraid of individuating!!
Sigh....
This morning, I remembered a story told by my ex-husband's youngest uncle. He told me that he was expected to go on dates with all of his older siblings and report to his parents what happened.
This would play out thirty years later when I'd catch my husband's youngest sister watching us.
It would continue after my divorce. I caught his sister watching me in public numerous times and at least on one date.
I don't date anymore.
*****
I'm realizing that I have to break the cycle.
My kids won't even DATE!
So....
I'm going to have to live by example. They see me shrinking myself to hide from the ex and his family.
They are following my lead.
The buck stops here. I'm not hiding anymore.
The moment I stand in the sun, my kiddos will have permission to do the same.
Life is a daring adventure or nothing at all.
Pass on the out of state college applications!! I'll need four - one for me and three for each of my daughters!
College is the best opportunity they have to get out of state and away from my ex-husband's crap.
The narcissistic enmeshment trap can stop with him, too. He doesn't have to stalk. He doesn't have to break rules. He doesn't have to allow his family to do the same.
This behavior will ruin his relationships with each of the children and make it impossible to get them back.
There is a steep price to pay when refusing to allow your kids to grow up.
It's not worth it.
Love ya,
S.
*Abusers win because courts, GALs, therapists forbid their victims from talking about the abuse.
You know what? If we start talking about the games they play, perhaps their inadvertant flying monkeys will see the behavior for what it is.
If you want to take my deadbeat dad advice, understand that people like me are trying to educate the powers that be to what goes on at the dept of human services. Right now, child support services gets a subsidy if they collect a higher percentage of child support: dropping the amount of child support due makes it look like they're collecting more money. That is why the trick works now.
Deadbeats, I caution you to use it at your peril. It won't work forever.
Edit 4/6/19: So....my ex is lying. He's telling my attorney that I am demanding mediation. Nope. He wants to mediate with CO-PEP (unethical as they ignored salary data and represented him in a case to drop his child support) and during the divorce we agreed to use another service. Of course he wants to use CO-PEP, for some reason, they've given him the impression that he does not need to follow the separation agreement or parenting plan. He's giving me the impression that CO-PEP states he doesn't have to help with health insurance and can ignore our agreements.
I expected that he wouldn't want to help pay for their health care. I didn't expect the State of Colorado to support this. Colorado lawyers are basically arguing to lower his child support claiming it was set too high (no....it was set via the standard worksheet with a $500 per month discount for health insurance that he never provided). They also want me to agree to drop his arrears! I can't afford to do that after he raided the retirement and cost me $20,000 in legal fees.
Why is Colorado coddling deadbeats? It makes no sense. I need to speak to the Republican legislators I know. If they want to drop Medicaid rolls, they need to look into the abuses at CO-PEP. I wonder how many families are on SNAP, TANF, WIC and Medicaid due to the sheer number of men let off the hook for support by this organization.
The truth is that the kids shouldn't be on Medicaid. Colorado taxpayers shouldn't have to support the kids in any fashion at all. Child support is supposed to be based on earning capacity - not- earnings due to underemployment. Most people don't leave professional jobs to take hourly jobs as a bus driver as my ex did.
My ex now makes exactly what I make as an intern! What the heck?
I haven't worked for other people very much in my life due to the harassment. In order to get licensed as a therapist, I have to work for two years for next to nothing. I'm thankful I found someone willing to pay me to be an intern. They are willing to give me insurance 90 days after their new facility opens.
So.....I will get health coverage this summer should my new job take hold. It will cost me $722 per month in premiums.
I made $1,400 last month.
Maybe I should change my name again so I can start advertising my business. I need to support the children.
I can't believe CO-PEP swept in like an ill-advised wanna-be hero to help an abuser get away with ignoring court orders. They need defunded....yesterday!
I finally realized why CO-PEP doesn't want my lawyer around, they ignore the law!! My lawyer is supposed to send a statement allowing them to talk to me without her input. After all the abuse I've endured from my ex, I refuse to do that.
It all makes sense now. I need to talk to our lawmakers. This is INSANE!
Hugs,
S.
