All the Kelly Rutherfords

Most, if not all of you, know that I write under a pseudonym.  In fact, this is my second pseudonym, adopted after my ex-husband topped off 30 years of abuse with a $2 million defamation suit against me.  He’s not rich or famous.  He lost nothing because of my writing.  In fact, he didn’t even lose any social standing because, as it turned out in our defense investigation, he has left a trail of other victims…romantic, social, and work…since my escape with my kids in November, 2009.  I have been working on rebuilding my platform under this name after shutting down a thriving set of sites with 6,000 hits a week in over 40 countries.

 

For the last 3 years, I have been an advocate for survivors of primarily non-physical abuse.  This is the abuse that finds its power in terror without crossing into physical beating.  None of his punches landed on me.  The table saw he threw missed me.  The various threats to leave me penniless with my children…HIS children…and the manipulatively-applied labels of “crazy” and “mentally unstable” were part of his scheme that kept me entrapped for a quarter century.  This is the abuse that Dr. Evan Stark aptly described in his book, Coercive Control, and frequently results in what Dr. Karin Huffer first identified as a PTSD sub-category, Legal Abuse Syndrome.

 

As I watch the Kelly Rutherford case take another direction, I have something to add:  as crazy, unlawful, mind-boggling, and utterly unthinkable as Kelly’s case is, she is one of many.  Tens of thousands, in fact.  I thank God that she is brave enough to keep this fight in the public eye. I also know that for every person in the news who has the fortitude to continue to battle Napoleonic judges with too much power and no oversight, there are hundreds of thousands who never make the news.  Until it’s too late.

 

In my journey, I have had the good fortune to meet some pretty incredible, high-profile people.  I am so blessed by their presence in my life and our shared purpose in attempting, in whatever way we can, to keep people talking about the egregiousness and randomness of the courts.  It isn’t just the family courts, either.  Abusers are known for their penchant to involve as many facets of the legal system as possible to continue to abuse.

 

As I understand Kelly’s case, she ended her marriage over infidelity (and there were zero claims of her being a bad parent).  Kelly also recounts very specific and horrific things her ex-husband said to her.  That, my friends, is abuse.  Study after study shows the devastating impact on the psyche of being belittled, verbally assaulted, demeaned, degraded, and even ignored.  The chemical impacts on the brain are real and proven.  Nonetheless, in Kelly’s case and in many others, judges are neither trauma-informed nor looking for signs of fear or abuse in a party to a divorce.

 

Make no mistake, I have had male clients, as well as female.  They are verbally emasculated, dodge a flying lamp or vase, even experience the threats of “you’ll never see your children again”.  But let me tell you about just a few cases I have personally worked on.

 

In Orange County, California, one client’s ex-husband is an attorney.  He and his father colluded to claim that the father had loaned the son and my client $300,000 and thus, $150,000 of it was her responsibility as “marital debt”.  She is a teacher who had been home raising their children.  Neither the father nor son could produce any proof whatsoever of this money changing hands.  No receipts, bank statements, loan agreement, cancelled checks…nothing.  Yet my client is now taking care of 3 children while her ex-husband refuses to pay his ordered support and she is expected to pay her ex-father-in-law $150,000 in addition to everything else she was stuck with.

 

In Virginia, one client has been repeatedly arrested and subsequently convicted for physical attacks against her ex-husband.  There was zero proof provided.  None.  In fact, the first time he claims she attacked him, she was at the emergency room and produced the discharge papers to prove it.  He has never demonstrated any injury.  Her crime?  Giving up her career as a nurse anesthetist to take care of two special needs children, and then divorcing an abusive cardiac surgeon.  She has now lost her clinical license after being convicted with no proof.

 

In New Jersey, a client’s ex-husband is the leader of a large company.  After she divorced him, he physically attacked her and broke her wrist.  She was awarded a large sum in a personal injury suit against him, which he then answered with a massive suit for defamation of character because she dared make him accountable for his physical attack.  Meanwhile, he continues to attack their children during visitations.

 

The list I have amassed is enough to make any rational person lose hope.  But the bottom line is, we must make judges and court systems accountable.  In the National Association of Family Court Judges’ Bench Book on Safety in Child Custody Cases, judges are specifically instructed to ignore any claims of Parental Alienation Syndrome (junk science, debunked about 30 different ways), to carefully assess claims of abuse, and to never, ever assume that an accusation of mental illness by the custody-seeking party is accurate. 

 

Yet this is exactly what goes on in courts all over the United States, every day.

 

And children die.

 

Let me say that again:  Children.Die.  (See www.cappuccinoqueen.com)

 

I am in awe of Kelly Rutherford and her continuing to pursue every possible avenue to get her children back.  I hope she will keep going.  I hope that everyone who watches her will remember that for every Kelly, there are thousands of others.  For every Hermes and Helena, there are tens of thousands more being kept from having a healthy and loving parent.

 

I’ll keep talking.  I hope Kelly and all of her friends will, too.

 

AC

Fordham Stories

I've had the honor now of co-presenting at a social media and law class at Fordham University a few times and am always struck by one important thing: how completely foreign my experience is to people. Since it is my reality, and the reality of so many I know either directly or indirectly, it seems to me almost like reporting the news. But when you have to explain to a room full of college students how you ended up in the situation you did, and how that dynamic continues even 5 1/2 years post-escape, you realize that your life is the stuff of nightmares.

It's then when I see how woefully inadequate we are as a society at informing and preparing our young people for abusers, bullies and criminals they will likely encounter in some way on their life path. I'm a great example. Super-high IQ and a lot of common sense, but as a kid and even into my 20s and 30s, I had no idea what I was dealing with. It wasn't until after I divorced him that I saw the worst.

We are here among you, working, living, trying to get on with things. Our stories are painful and sometimes unbelievable, but they are our badge of courage, our way to say, "See what I survived? I will prevail!"

Standing tall,
AC

The Question of Rational People

At an attorney meeting yesterday, she was asking me questions about my ex-husband's behavior. I could tell she was trying to make sense of crazy. She said, "Does he not care what kind of impact this all has on the children?" So, I explained how he had lived for free with his current target (one in a long line), then got her to put him on the deed to her paid-for house, then took out $161k in "joint" loans against the home he paid nothing into. As she looked completely bew...ildered, I said, "Does that sound like someone who is even remotely concerned about how his actions impact others?"

And so it is with them...the malignant narcissists, sociopaths, psychopaths. Their existence is about using and then discarding good people.

So much NOT like him,
AC

An Open Letter on the Occasion of My Daughter's 17th Birthday

Dear MPP,

I thought it appropriate and even necessary to write this today. Whether or not you will see it is irrelevant, but I know you still actively stalk everything I do, looking for another court opportunity. This is for the little girl we brought into this world in 1998, whom you left in 2009, and lost completely in 2013.

You’ve missed a lot.

She is an amazing young woman. Despite the sometimes debilitating episodes of anxiety she experiences as a holdover from living with you, she pushes ahead. Last Saturday, instead of being at the mall or lying in bed, she was downtown distributing food to homeless people living under bridges and poor families in housing projects. She is quite the child magnet, too. Everywhere she goes, little kids flock to her and she treats them all as though they are her best friend. She and her big bag of gummies were really popular at the projects. She also volunteers with a street ministry who serve sex workers. They write cards for them, then go around downtown at night distributing cards and flowers to hookers to show them the love of Jesus. Your daughter understands that individuals are valuable and worthy of real love and kindness. They can’t do anything for her, but she doesn’t care about that, which is why she will never be anything like you.

You missed her first boyfriend, her first heartbreak, her homecomings and prom. You missed her confirmation and her concerts. I bet you have no idea what part she sings or what instrument she played in band. You missed watching her sit at the kitchen table for hours, determined to conquer the AP government class, which she got a B in. You missed her driving my car around a parking lot on a Sunday afternoon, practicing for the day when she can finally get a license without you stalking us through the records. You missed her coming back from her mission trips full of excitement and endless stories, and the many discussions about what she wants to do with her life.

More importantly, you have missed HER. The quick witted humor and dazzling smile she flashes when she makes someone else smile is something to behold. She has a laugh that makes other people happy and she uses it often. Her empathy for others sometimes leaves her frustrated and crying because she can’t help them. She is incredibly loyal and is a friend everyone can count on. When provoked, she has a temper of fire but it burns out quickly. This girl is introspective and always looking for how she can improve herself or do something for someone. She has big dreams and an even bigger heart. A loving and supportive big sister, she has spent the last 6 months creating an astounding relationship with her little sister, despite the massive wedge you drove between them from the start. They share a love of all kinds of music and the three of us can frequently be found playing air guitar with a song while in the car.

This girl is beautiful in every way possible. And you have missed it.

I grieve, but not for you.

So much time and so many resources have been stolen from this girl and her sister because of your single-minded, laser-focused insistence on destroying me. They have missed important opportunities because I was so broke from paying the lawyers and the doctors. We have missed time together while I worked 7 days a week trying to financially recover from your terroristic destruction of our life together, a life which was beautifully forged from the twisted wreckage of what we escaped when we got away from you.

But she keeps going, this girl. We keep going together, thankful that we were able to get out when we did. Statistically, if I had not gotten these children away from you, this precious blessing of my life would be a drinker (she left a post-prom party because there was drinking going on), a drug user, promiscuous, and utterly lacking in self-esteem.

Undeterred by your insanity, which became completely transparent to her as she got older, this girl is destined for great things. I’m sure that when she achieves something, you will brag about “your” daughter and how she did such-and-such, but anyone with any sense will know you have no right to any credit. This precious and wonderful girl didn’t become who she is because of you.

She did it in spite of you.

AC

If Only...

Out running my Saturday errands today, I heard a song that was popular my senior year of high school. I loved this song, still do. I turned up the volume and was transported back to a time before I was completely, totally engulfed by him. My chest began the familiar ache of deep regret.

What if I had made the choice not to marry him, as a scared, lost 18 year old? What if I had honored my inner voice when it said, "Don't do this"? What if I had stayed gone the first, s...econd, or third times I separated from him? Where would I be? What would my life look like? Surely, it would be better than this, a time when I have to worry over every dollar and don't know from month to month where the money will come from, as I live in someone else's home and work constantly trying to earn money and secure a good job. After a lot of incredibly hard work and even a graduate degree, I am left with nothing because he has chosen to continue to target me. My eyes began to well up.

The shame is not mine. It is his. He chose to do everything he did to me and to these precious girls I have. Each time I asked for him to be different, he turned it into another opportunity to abuse. Each time I succeeded, he turned it into an opportunity to demean me. Each time I lost weight by starving myself because he constantly told me I was "unattractive" (he was hugely overweight for many, many years), he turned it into another opportunity to degrade me for something else.

No, the hands of time can't be turned back and energy spent on the "woulda, shoulda, coulda" is wasted. But I want you to know that it's perfectly normal to have these moments, even long after the escape. I have been out 5 1/2 years and I still have times where I feel physical pain when thinking of how so much of my life has been lost to domestic terrorism, and how much has been stolen from my girls because of it. It's okay to feel it, then you move on.

This is a reminder from me to you, just to say, "It's normal, and I understand."

Love,
AC

Book Preview

Following is a preview of the Prologue from my forthcoming book, Bodies in the Basement, which is almost ready for publication.  I look forward to publishing my full collection of essays chronicling the journey from escape through liberation and deliverance from covert/coercive domestic abuse.

 

 

At the age of 15, I fell hard for a boy without even knowing what I was supposed to be looking for.  No one ever told me what made for a good boyfriend or the type of boy to avoid, except to the extent that he shouldn’t be a criminal or do drugs.  I was so fresh-faced and naïve, a girl who didn’t even understand what a boyfriend should be.  I married him at 18 and then suffered through 25 years of the most insidious, mind-altering, reality-skewing, soul-crushing abuse imaginable.  It wasn’t until my fourth attempt at freedom, with no job, two young daughters, and what I later learned was a misdiagnosed medical condition, that I was able to put distance between us.  1,000 miles of distance, in fact.  Geographically, I was free.  But I had no preparation for just how the abuse would continue and even escalate.

 

Ours was not, in any sense, a “high conflict” divorce, which makes my story all that much more baffling.  I told him I was filing for divorce, I presented him with a proposal, we worked it all out, and he signed.  Of course, this was my fourth attempt at doing this.  Neither of us hired an attorney (although he said he consulted one) and he didn’t even appear for the final hearing.  All he had to do was just go away and live by the terms he agreed to freely.  Abusers being what they are, however, this meant that once he realized I had actually gone through with it on my fourth escape attempt, the next years were spent fending off continued abuses, stalking, court actions, threats…in other words, worse than I ever imagined or bargained for.  What I didn’t realize at the time was there was freedom to be found in that, too.

 

More than three years after my escape, I learned of many horrible things he had done to others.  Dozens of others.  Even while terrorizing me and my daughters, and bankrupting us with legal proceedings which he filed on utter lies, he found a way to cost other people dearly.  Once I truly understood who and what I was dealing with, I was free to accept that I had spent a quarter century convincing myself that this illusion was the man I wanted.  However, being faced with this reality helped free me to accept that the abuse was never about me, but about a pathology I could not have changed.  It is a terrible thing to realize that the entity you believed you loved existed only as an ethereal concept created to keep you entrapped.  It is like finding out you were married to a serial killer when the police show up and uncover the bodies in your basement.

Funny Sidebar

So, yesterday, a friend sends me a link to an article. It was dated February 13, 2015 on the Discover MVP Healthcare Blog and profiled C.C. for climbing all 46 high peaks of the Adirondacks. While to the untrained eye that seems impressive, what they don't know is that the man is truly hated by those he works with. In addition, they don't know that he spends all this time and money on conquering these mountains while quietly financially destroying the person who is single-handedly raising the children he left.

I guess the most telling part was that he allowed them to take photos of the kids gym in "his" backyard that he "repurposed" to be a workout area at home. What they don't know is that 1. it's not HIS kids' gym, it's in the back yard of his girlfriend's house (you know, the one he stole) and 2. he hasn't even seen his older child in over two years and his younger one in over 7 months...because they both refuse to see him.

No matter. I hear that the folks who placed his photo over all the urinals in the office building on his birthday are hard at work letting MVP know just what they think of his being profiled. Karma has a funny way of working things out like that. I just make some popcorn and watch the show.

Rock on,
AC