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

Happy Anniversary, and Thank You, Captain Crazy!

(Or, the letter I know all of you wish you could write)

Today is my 3 year anniversary of going No Contact (NC) with Captain Crazy of the S. S. Melodrama.  Really.  3 years of no phone, no text, no email, no direct contact of any kind, and pure bliss over it.  The first two years were at my flat refusal and most of the third year…and for the rest of my life…is the result of a legal document.  There is a postal mail address he is required to use for all correspondence and I don’t even read it, someone else does and lets me know the bottom line.  But of course, there were the tens of thousands of dollars spent on attorney fees because of his obsession with destroying me, launched when?  Right after I went No Contact!  We’re not even going to talk about that, except to say that if anyone knew my real name and searched on Gwinnett County Georgia and Montgomery County Maryland Court websites, they would see precisely who the aggressor is and has always been.  The funniest part is that I have all of his phone numbers (cell, home, work) and email addresses (even the ones he doesn’t think I have).  Were I the person he portrays me to be…the crazy bitch who won’t leave him alone and move on, the one who is so consumed with bitterness and rage over the divorce I myself initiated that I can’t let go…don’t you think I would have availed myself of those communication methods many, many times?  Not once.  Not.Once.

All I wanted was OUT.  I mean out, gone, faint memory.  I was so glad when he moved away, even though it was his attempt to relocate and isolate me again, I literally danced around my house the entire day after he left.  I knew I had a lot of strategizing and careful planning to do, but I suddenly had a real future and so did my kids.  He still thought I was going to cave, as I had 3 times before.  But now, life held potential instead of imprisonment, possibility instead of entrapment.

So on this occasion of my third No Contact anniversary, I have made a list of things for which I would like to THANK Captain Crazy.  Seriously.  There are so many things to be grateful for in this godforsaken nightmare that I decided it was high time to give him at least a partial acknowledgement of all the things he has done for me and my girls.  Yeah, it’s long.  Yeah, it’s bitchy.  And, yeah, there’s some swearing just because it’s sometimes therapeutic.  But I tell you what, this is some steam I am ready to let off.  He will use it to say I’m crazy and bitter and blah, blah, blah.  I no longer give a damn.  I wrote this for me and for anyone who wants to read it.  Here goes…

 

Dear C.C. (M.P.P.),

Thank you for your crazy, screaming outburst at our children in the train station on May 31, 2009.  It was the wake-up call I needed to finally see that I had to get us away from you, no matter what it took.

Thank you for doing really stupid stuff that made it even more obvious that you were trying to “snow” me, like renting an apartment that didn’t take pets when we had two dogs.  Not the sharpest knife in the drawer, are we? 

Thank you for making the first words out of your mouth when I told you I was filing for divorce, “I hope you know I’m going to have a hard time with it when you start dating.”  The fact that you said that in front of my therapist gave him all the info he needed to properly coach me through the next couple of years of your crazy.  His favorite line to me every week after that was, “Stop trying to make sense of crazy.”

Thank you for threatening our daughter with taking her to court when she asked if she could go on a trip with a friend instead of coming to spring break visitation.  Because you needed her to make yourself look good to the newest victim, you shot yourself in the ass with that one.  By dropping your mask, you gave her the opportunity to stop trying to have a relationship with a lunatic, and she took it.  You’re lucky:  had she come to visitation, she was ready to “out” you because she had had enough.

Thank you for constantly attempting to track our movements by annoying the shit out of the kids’ healthcare providers and schools.  They know your game, have seen my evidence and court documents, and trust me…they only give you what they damn well feel like giving you AFTER they have talked to me.

Thank you for not knowing a thing about your children because you never cared to.  I used to think that was so tragic.  Now I realize that it is a great protection for them, because I bet there aren’t 10 questions a judge or custody evaluator would ask you about them that you could actually answer correctly.

Thank you for lying on your interrogatories by stating that your attorney did not withdraw from your case in Georgia.  When I whip out the actual documents from your attorney that include his Line of Withdrawal, it shows what a liar and complete con artist you are.

Thank you for telling the truth on your interrogatories when you explained how you had me found in Maryland.  Not only could I then subpoena all the records from the investigator you hired after you had already had visitation, I got another glimpse of just how bat-shit crazy you are and what precautions I have to take.  I still don’t think you have any appreciation for how utterly insane it is to hire a Private Investigator to find your ex-wife’s physical address when you have phone access and visitation access to your children, but everyone else sure does.

Thank you for putting your delusional threats and aggrandizement to your work targets on email.  That was just freaking brilliant.  The one you sent to Shallamar was particularly great, especially given that you sent it months before our divorce was even final…to a newly single mother 20+ years younger than you who was your indirect report.  You couldn’t believe she wouldn’t want to “date” you with “all (you) have to offer”?  Pffffft.  When she rejected you, is that when you decided to tell me you had “made a mistake” and were “working on a plan to get back to Georgia”?  Too bad I didn’t fall for it, huh?

Thank you for pissing off enough people in New York that they all banded together in contacting me and continue, even 2 years later, feeding me information that helps me protect myself and my daughters.  Trust me, dude…I am the least of your worries.  You have an entire population of people in Schenectady, Albany, and Rochester, who are eager to see your entire world implode. 

Thank you for 27 years of ungodly horrible sex.  Sure makes me appreciate what I have now, especially my happy surprise in realizing I am not only not “frigid”, I am quite passionate.

Thank you for taking that job in New York, running your same, tired, bullshit lines on me to try to isolate me again, and then calling my bluff.  I know you thought I’d fold like I had before, but you gave me the one opportunity I needed to finally get away from you.

Thank you for having Robin in Florida and Lisa in New York at the same time and spending your money to travel back and forth rather than pay for your visitation with your children.  This one piece of information, received over a year after the fact, showed me and everyone else clearly just what your priority is, and it isn’t your children.  By the way, this doesn’t make you a “stud”…it makes you a pig.  On that note…

Thank you for constantly skipping, changing, and shorting your visitation times.  Another clear indication of where your priorities lie, despite your victim act about not seeing your children.  Are you really so delusional that you think I didn’t keep every single communication about visitation, including all the expenses I paid for while you said you were “broke”?  Rest assured, I won’t EVER let anyone forget how you were “too broke” to pay for your visitation but you went out and bought yourself some jet skis. 

Thank you for lying repeatedly under oath and in various court documents.  Since I have actual proof and documentation to demonstrate that you have lied to the court over and over, this means you have zero credibility.

Thank you for constantly making accusations about things I was or was not doing, because I know how your massively screwed-up brain works.  Each time you flapped your gums, all you did was tell me what you were doing by projecting it onto me.

Thank you for leaving that SIM card behind from the Palm Pilot you used at MVP Healthcare years before I divorced you.  It was lovely and reassuring to see your ad for a young woman “For a night or maybe longer, great opportunity for an upscale place, you must be 18 to 22, blonde, blue-eyed, small breasts…”  I mean, damn, if I hadn’t been convinced that I wasn’t the problem before this, you nailed it.  I never stood a chance with your brand of crazy.

Thank you for committing a felony in April 2014 (OCGA 19-5-45, look it up) when you sent our daughter alone to another state instead of where you were legally bound to return her, where I was waiting.  That statute of limitations won’t run out anytime soon and she is fully prepared to tell a custody evaluator the entire story, because she is still incensed by your behavior.

Thank you for stealing your current girlfriend’s house and then lying to the court about it.  No one but you is sucking up your story about the two of you “buying a house together”.  You got her to put you on the deed to the house she owned outright, then took out a joint mortgage of $105,000 and a line of credit for $56,000…while your kids were homeless because of your actions.  Know what that makes you?  A grifter, and a massive failure as a father.

Thank you for your smartass text to our daughter after we moved to Maryland.  “Well you kept that secret pretty good, didn’t you?  Your mother has taught you well.”  Do you think she is so stupid that she doesn’t know you moved away from them and never came back despite all your bullshit promises?  Funny thing is, she doesn’t even know that you were the chronic liar, cheater, and secret-keeper in our marriage.

Thank you for the things you have done to our children.  That might sound crazy, but once I gave them both their own voices to say whatever they wanted instead of continuing to “cover” for you, they outed your ass and now they won’t stop talking.  I can guarantee, your relationship with them is effectively over, because of you and you alone.

Thank you for not even coming close to adhering to the visitation schedule you agreed to.  Once I gave the girls the visitation schedule in print so they would know how to plan, they figured out pretty damn quickly how many times you had ditched them.  They are way smarter than you give them credit for.

Thank you for putting on the little show for my family law attorney in New York.  Your boo-hoo routine in the hallway, followed up by your refusal to settle the child support over ONE HUNDRED DOLLARS a month, gave her entire firm all the fire they needed to come after your ass.  Oh…and rest assured that you aren’t getting away from that ruling.  At.All.  Buckle up.

Thank you for driving 16 hours with a piece of furniture I didn’t want, and a concealed firearm, then trying to get me to come over to your car.  Following that up with a text message pretending to be our daughter was just priceless.  You didn’t even think about the fact that a 9 year old wouldn’t know to put a decimal in front of the gun caliber, which is what let me know it was you.  The very best part was then you lying about it in interrogatories later, stating that the trip was “last minute”, when you had made arrangements through my attorney weeks prior.  In writing.  All of which I have.

Thank you for thinking you’re smarter than me.  It gives me the upper hand.  Every.Single.Time.

Thank you for assuming I don’t know how to do things like trace an IP address and preserve source codes, and that I haven’t saved everything.  Rename and “lock down” that YouTube channel all you want, but I can still get to it for the court.  The funniest was when you renamed it from “whosstinky” to “GFYBitch”.  Who’s the bitter one?  Still wondering why you like that Emily Osment song.  Or maybe it’s just because you have such a thing for teenagers.

Thank you for filing false contempt charges against me when I refused contact with you.  Not only did you clearly show me just how disordered you are, you entered some great testimony into the record which is at the ready any time I need it.

Thank you for filing a total of three frivolous court actions against me in just 2 years.  Bankrupting me and your children, costing me my health and my job, forcing us to rely on others for housing, and leaving us with essentially nothing, taught me one very, very important lesson:  no matter what you do, YOU CANNOT BREAK ME. 

Thank you for having your girlfriend’s daughter spy on our younger one and report back to you.  Sending our daughter a text message about something she didn’t want to discuss with you scared the crap out of her, but also gave her a healthier respect for social media.  Funny, I would’ve thought you learned something when you did that to our older one and scared the living crap out of her when she didn’t want you to know about homecoming.  Then again, maybe that was the point.  You sure do get a lot of sick enjoyment out of scaring and degrading females. 

Thank you for having other people spy on me and the kids.  It gave me an opportunity to teach the children important safety lessons.  Unfortunately for you, there are only a couple of people even still speaking to you and they are just as crazy as you are.  Besides, my “spy network” is way bigger than yours.

Thank you for being so arrogant about everything, your temper tantrums, calling me a whore and making accusations to others about me after I made it clear we were finished.  Those were so incredibly easy to disprove when people asked me about them that your credibility immediately imploded.

Thank you for lying over and over and over.  No, really.  You make it so easy to demonstrate how disordered you are.  I don’t even have to say anything.  I just produce an email from you or a document or a text message and it does the talking for me.

Thank you for being so paranoid that you insisted that all documentation in my possession never be disseminated after July, 2014.  It reaffirmed my much earlier decision in which I sent piles of documents out to over 60 people all around the country, Canada, the UK and Australia, including the expert testimony reports.  That way, if you do succeed in physically attacking me or hiring someone else to do it, you will be faced with an ARMY of people ready to point the finger at you and ensure you end up where you belong.

Thank you for putting yourself on the Warlock’s radar, because that shit’s just funny.  I’d bet real money that you peed the bed AGAIN after your little meeting.  You still pee the bed, right? 

Thank you for living in your little fantasy world of obsession, five years later, still trying to ruin my life.  It reaffirms for me that all the things that you did to me and to our daughters were not my imagination and not my fault.  You have shown the entire world exactly who and what you are and I guarantee that you will NEVER be able to keep your cover again. 

Thank you for your many years of negative messages, telling me I wasn’t worth a damn and that I would never achieve anything I wanted to achieve.  You gave me the fire that still keeps me going and will lead to me accomplish more than I ever thought possible, much more sooner than later.  The funny thing is, when you think you are doing things to break me, all you do is strengthen my resolve to prove you wrong.  So, to this “thank you”, I’ll add a “fuck you”, too.

Thank you for showing me with crystal clarity that you have absolutely no conscience, no remorse, no moral compass, and no empathy.  Essentially, you have no soul.  That made it a lot easier to finally let go of the illusion that someday you might see the horrific damage you have caused and try to make it right.  Also made it far easier for me to allow the girls to honor their own individual needs to be done with you.

Most of all, THANK YOU for assuming that everything you have done to me over the last few years would break me down and shut me up.  All you did was give me the resolve to keep talking so I can help others who have suffered through this same kind of hell on earth to understand that they can survive and thrive, regardless.  You started this war after years of watching me go on with my life happily and successfully.  You can bet your ass I’m gonna finish it.

Oh…one last little tidbit:  I recently consulted with Dr. Carl Gacono in reference to protecting the children.  I’d like to thank you for giving me so much documentation and a clear, 5-year pattern to present to him.  Made his job of assessing the progression from sociopathy to psychopathy much, much easier.

Happy Anniversary to me!

AC

P.S.  Hi, Steve!

Money, Control and the Price on my Head

The pain was below my left shoulder, radiating down my left arm and up to my jaw. I ignored it for a few hours and convinced myself it was muscular when I began having shooting pains through the center of my chest. I was at home with my daughters, who were 4 and 8 at the time. Their father was at work downtown, about a 40 minute drive away from home. I didn’t dare call him because I didn’t want him to think I was being a drama queen or making a big deal out of nothing, as had been said before. I successfully fooled myself for a few hours until it eventually became so frightening that I got light-headed and clammy. I decided the smartest thing to do was call 911 and have the paramedics take a look. The smartest thing, yes. Easiest? No. I knew that meant some big bills would potentially come our way and I was not eager to be fussed at about it.

I called 911, talked it over with them, then while waiting for their arrival, I called my neighbor across the street and my dear friend Ann to come get my kids. I think my neighbor made it from his house to mine in 3 leaps, despite being in his 60s. I’m fairly sure Ann broke some sort of land speed record that day and I was grateful for a lack of police presence on her route. Still, I had not called my then-then-husband at work. Even as I was carted off in an ambulance I told Ann she should probably call him to let him know where the kids were, but that she didn’t have to rush about it. I calmly told the kids I would be okay but it was just the smart thing to do to go have a doctor check it out.

Over the years I had a number of health problems that I have now linked to the stress of being in an emotionally, psychologically, sexually and financially abusive relationship and the constant environment of worry and anticipation. I had chest pains, occasional panic attacks, chronic gastrointestinal problems, headaches, sleep issues…and I’m not entirely convinced that my 3 miscarriages weren’t at least partly a result of extreme physical and emotional stress. What made the physical situation even worse was the constant work to keep the horrors of our home life a secret, to put on the pretty family face in public. The shame, the embarrassment, the juggling act to try to keep things calm at home and look nice to the outside world took a huge toll.

Ann told me a few days later (after she calmed down from being furious about it) that when she called my now-ex-then-husband, he angrily said, “Let me understand this. My children saw their mother taken away in an ambulance? Whose idea was THAT?” When he arrived at the hospital, he wasn’t the slightest bit nurturing or concerned, he was mad. He kept commenting on how much the ER bill was going to be as I lay there apologizing. He quizzed the nurses about when I could be released. Fortunately for me, a dear friend from high school turned out to be the charge nurse that day, so I was well informed. As it turned out, they couldn’t find cardiac problems (thank God) but strongly suggested I see a gastroenterologist for possible gall bladder problems. I had to negotiate an appropriate time—financially—to go to the doctor, who ordered a series of tests. It took another month before I had the guts to tell my then-then-husband about the tests and schedule the appointments. When the bill came, I read it, hid it and was nauseous for days until I finally showed it to him. His comment, “Do you know what we could’ve done with this amount of money?” I dunno…Buy you another $1200 watch, a more expensive motorcycle or trade your Mercedes in for a newer model? The gastroenterologist could find no problems with my gall bladder or g.i. tract in general which, to my ex, meant that I was making up the entire thing. In Captain Crazy’s view, I was just a lazy hypochondriac who was trying to get attention and sympathy.

Emotional abuse is about the abuser being more important, in his or her mind, than those around them. It is about the desires and urges of the abuser, who has a completely skewed view of how the world should operate. The worst part is that, as you are desperately trying to hide the fact that you are being abused, you internalize all the pain and anger which will manifest in physical and psychological illness. There is a cost to your life, your happiness and your bank account. It becomes a vicious cycle where you frequently feel too physically ill to participate in things you enjoy doing and you fall more and more under the control of your abuser. I gave up doing many things I enjoyed because I just didn’t have the energy to do them.

Once I escaped my multiply-abusive marriage, I became healthy as a horse, started playing sports again, hiking, kayaking and many other things I love. Although my time is limited by other responsibilities of life, I am not limited by someone else’s influences. I received confirmation that my previous illnesses had been a result of abuse when I had one more episode of severe chest pains followed by faintness and sweating. It was shortly after my ex-then-husband began to threaten to come take my home and sell it out from under my children and me so he could take the money. Although I knew the house had been deeded over to me and his doing that was impossible, I suffered the same reactions as I had before. I knew then that I could never let his vicious attacks, especially now that we were no longer married, take up residence in my body.

Be good to yourself. Nurture your body and your spirit. Find ways to laugh (America’s Funniest Videos never fails me). Pray or meditate. Breathe deeply. Shoot, pound the crap out of the ground with a hammer if you need to. Most of all, don’t forget that you are an awesome creation, of great value and worthy of respect.

Fly free,
AC