DIARIES FROM DOMESTIC VIOLENCE

To my mother on Mother’s Day!

Today is a day to consciously thank those woman who have left such a lasting impression upon us. For some it means they played a massive role in shaping the strong, independent woman and mothers they are today. For some of us a poignant reminder of just how cruel the human condition can be. You’ve never had a vicious backstabbing girlfriend quite like a mother.

I read an article yesterday from about this time last year as I mulled over this subject. It was called ‘My mother was a cruel and horrid woman’. The article surrounded a book of the same title by Angela Levin. This subject has always seemed taboo and almost fabricated. I never realized the devastating impact my mother had on my childhood until I had my own son. I can remember being handed this small creature and thinking ‘oh my god it’s face is so squished’. Yes I referred to my son as an ‘it’. Back in my room I remember wondering ‘why are they leaving him here with me, what have I done?’ He cried and cried and I cried and cried until about 5.30am when I picked him up and just put him in the bed with me. At that moment I realized, ‘something was very wrong with my own relationship with my mother’.

It suddenly became apparent to me that it’s not normal to feel anxious leading up to my birthday or another occasion as I would always think ‘oh no I’m going to have to hug her’. The hugs were always very awkward and over quickly. I remember thinking ‘it’s ok it’s over now’. Suddenly I knew I felt something she never had for me, unconditional love. From that moment onwards I didn’t leave his side for six months. My partner and I held off on buying a pram or anything and most of the time I had him in a sling so he could be close to me. It’s not until now that I realized maybe thats why he was so difficult when it came to sleeping on his own. I had a very expensive cot that wasn’t used once. I remember tearing my hair out trying to get some sleep as I constantly had to bounce him in a bouncer while listening to David Guetta to get him to sleep. His father wasn’t very much help at all and would say ‘I told you to have an abortion.’ But he was my everything so we plodded along.

Come December 2015 after months and months of heartless treatment over guild surrounding a long term affair by a man I don’t think I ever really loved. My perfect son preformed at 5 years old in front of a hundred or so people ‘My Hero’ by the Foo Fighters. He was to walk out on us hours after that performance. The irony and the shock gutted me and my heart broke for my son. His hero, a father who was never really interested in him was gone and we didn’t see much of him for the next 3 months. My mother tells to this day of how they sat together and cried the day that he left. That he was the reason I finally had my life together, I think her exact words were ‘He was the turning point and I finally proved to be a good mother’. Proved to be a good mother? I wasn’t aware my role in this life was to ‘prove’ anything to my mother. Also my sons father left us on the Friday night about 9 pm not the afternoon of the following day that she so beautifully resells in secret emails she sent to my ex mother-in-law as she attempted to conspire to take my son from me. He was no help whatsoever in the first at least 3 years of his life and she knew that because I confided in her. You see in my late teens and early 20’s I had a substance abuse problem. This magical man had come along and ‘saved’ me from myself is the opinion and story told by my mother now. In fact it was my son and finding out I was pregnant that made me clean up my life and for five whole years I was a law abiding, tax paying, straight and relatively happy mother of one.

I hate to admit this but after being left on the eve of my 30th birthday was the best time of my life! Although I did start seeing someone else briefly it was just me & him. No more criticism over the way I cooked, we could have midnight snacks, wear out pajamas all day and watch Bolt on repeat from our bedroom as I ended up moving us into the same room. You see we lived in my mothers granny flat so it was small but it was perfect size for just the 2 of us. I felt as if I had family support from my stepfather who retired that year. We would have pub lunches and play in the yard together. We were happy. My mother although she worked a few hours a week as a fitness instructor to elderly people wasn’t involved a great deal. You see the devil needs a disguise and hers is one of going above and beyond for everyone that comes into contact with her. To her own children though in her own words ‘she cannot be emotionally available to us’. One wonders why she cannot see the link between her own actions and the fact she has two heavily drug effected daughters. My favorite line to use on her is ‘it’s pretty hard to fuck up 100% of your kids most people only have 1 bad egg but you’re not like most mothers’.

That is until he decided he wanted us back. Maybe it’s because the woman 20 years younger than him he was dating decided to find someone a little less her own fathers age who knows. He was always very charming to the world but behind closed doors he was extremely controlling. Don’t get me wrong I did try to at times work things out with him for my sons sake but honestly I think it was to work out the lies that were still being told and work out what was so wrong with me? Because I wasn’t submitting this time. In the past I didn’t want a fight but now I really didn’t want him back so his behavior turned from verbally and emotionally abusing me to full scale physical abuse. On one occasion he kept me almost hostage at the Stamford Plaza in Brisbane where he was a bar and restaurant manager. He stole my shoes, snapped the key to my car, hid my suitcase and chased me around the hotel like a crazy person. It wasn’t until I stole the keys to the other car of mine he had been driving and fled the scene. Let’s just say the Stamford Plaza has a lot to answer for when it comes to dealing with such matters. Although I called them after leaving the hotel to let them know about my car and explicitly explained he can be violent towards me so I’d prefer not to have the call mentioned they did anyway. To date he was never reprimanded for his behavior instead he told them I was mentally unstable.

Now that was only a mild incident in the overall picture. There was the sending me photos of his penis on our sons toys which unbelievably the police, child safety, commonwealth law courts and our family’s think are fine. I have been asked ‘how do we know it’s his penis?’. I’m sorry is that the point we want to be making? For starters there is a grown mans penis on my sons toys. I have made the point of trying to convey that ‘if it’s not his then I’m the horrible mother who accused my sons innocent father of lewd acts involving his toys and they will not give me my son back easily’.

How about bullying me into having sex with him or he wouldn’t pick him up from school like he promised. Only once I said no and learnt the hard way which was a sweet little boy in his first year at school sobbing on the walk home because his father who he idolized and wasn’t around very much anymore promised to be there after school. I did what I had to as best I knew how. I only cared that my son was spared from as much as possible.

Just like before life took a toll on me and what was a once in a blue moon suddenly began to creep back in until it found a permanent place in my life again. I refer to it as my ‘Band-aid’ solution, coping mechanism in the blog I started recently, Diaries From Domestic Violence (www.dvdiariescom.wordpress.com)

One if the most more serious incidents besides the day to day bullying, intimidation tactics, physical, emotional and verbal abuse, sorry don’t forget ‘mind games’ was the eve of my 31st birthday. He had finished an entire bottle of bourbon, I partook in the heavy drinking when we were together but at this point I had stopped drinking almost completely as on many occasions it was safer for me to leave. I sometimes left hidden recorders laying around so I could tell if he was still acting ‘psychotic’ when alone with out son. I realized that it was me that invoked that in him. He would pick him up while he was sleeping and threaten me but when alone it was more normalized interactions. This particular night drunk as all hell he told me to sit in the concrete kitchen floor. He collected all the bottles of alcohol and sat on the stool our son used to reach the bathroom sink in front of me. Our son sleeping in the connecting room about 2 meters always. Hurling abuse as he polished them off, smashing them at my feet. About 5 or 6 bottles in I slid slowly over towards my phone as I wanted to film him and show him tomorrow exactly what he looked like. He quickly realized what I was doing and as I looked at his face everything inside me said run. Run as fast as I can. He launched off the stool, slamming me into the kitchen cupboard and then dragging me by my hair as I wrestled with him. We ended up on top of my sons bed and him slamming my head into the window sill. I will never forgive my sons voice scream, ‘stop it Timmy’. At this moment my mother appeared yelling ‘stop it’ and grabbing my son. She raced upstairs with him. As I got up, I shook my head and went to leave but I heard the words ‘you did this’. I have never been so angry in my life and as I went to leave once again, this time armed with the lady remaining bottle of Bacardi I cracked him the head splitting him open everywhere. I helped drag him upstairs as he was so incredibly drunk. The house was a frenzy with my son, my mother and my stepdad all in disbelief at what had happened. Luckily even though when it comes to actual life I sometimes suck but in a crisis I’m your girl and being that my ex couldn’t path himself up I did it for him. Steristrips and the whole works. I cleaned it all and a surgeon later said it was an impressive job, I patched him up, dragged him to the couch, tucked him in and then left myself. I sat at the park on my own wonder why my 30’s were seeming to be getting worse and my plan last year and first entering my 30’s was to actually like who I was, no more annoyed about a fat roll or that I’m not perfect. Accept that I’m not perfect but perfectly imperfect.

After this event I decided to have time out. 4 days, this would give him time to move out and be gone by the time I’m back. Whistle away, distracted by the black eyes and the distress on my sons face, not to mention trying to get my head straight so I could come back and fix what I needed to fix, I forgot to watch the one person who would do the most damage, my mother. While away the mice will play, or more so my mother would set in motion her plan to take the one person I love while humiliating me at the same time. Here I am sending her text to see how there going and she is replying saying ‘take your time we are fine’, she is telling everyone I’d run off. When I came back I spoke with my my ex had thrown me under the bus and my mother was keeping my son. Always keeping one step in front while relying on the fact that the world only sees her as a woman who does everything for everyone and the fact that I did not want to traumatize my son by having the police help me remove him from her care. With my ex onside this battle still at times seems hopeless.

Fast forward to today. I no longer have my son and only see him once a week through the use of a contact center, that is if I don’t get sucked in by one of her games which leaves me in a blubbering mess or on the verge of suicide. Homeless, staying at a friends place which this coming Friday will be ceased by the police, it is a haven filled with satchel bags and syringe bins but it has a shower which shore as hell beats the park down the road as it’s getting colder. I received paperwork the night before an operation for cervical cancer, this was after weeks of being told that drugs must have made me paranoid because my mother was not trying to take my son. I lost my job of 4 years as a medical typist due to the fact I found secret emails on the work computer between my mother and mother in law who I worked with. They were grotesque, one making sure that I do not see my son before my operation as ‘the judge might not see Carly as such a risk if we let her see him and that the legal fees are very high, although it may help my state of mind without my ex’s support they might as well not go ahead at all’, this was written by my own mother not my mother in law. She convinced my councilor who was a family friend to put false clinical notes in his subpoenaed documents. Family court was 4 days after my operation and due to being still fairly effected by my surgery I managed to drag myself into court only to be bullied and tricked into signing that I be supervised by my mother herself which has led to my mental heath declining to the point I suffer from panic attacks and have twice now attempted to hang myself from a door handle. In court although I was staying with my grandmother she called me homeless after kicking me out. I signed a 12 lease on a 3 bedroom apartment for Evan and I only too lose it due to further domestic violence issues. I started my own business making mirrors out of old windows for which she thinks is nothing and that I shouldn’t care about it and go to rehab. She had paraded the fact my violent ex partner can have our son when ever he wants and made my life a nightmare. None of my family other than my grandmother even bother calling me or have anything to do with me. I have been stalked by my ex partner and by my mother who when I apply for non contact conditions to be added to the Protection Order slapped me with further allegations in family court. I had a nervous breakdown when having to go back to domestic violence court so asked a friend to stay with me until the DV service put cameras in and when that happened this friend turned obsessed and raped me while I was unconscious, filming it for me to find on my phone after he went to prison for breaching separate Protection Order. Breached by my realestate for having these cameras even though upon signing my lease I made them aware of my DV past. I have been robbed, taken a mother and her 2 children in rent free for months only for her to let me stay with her for less than a month and then ask me to leave and honestly the list goes on. It’s probably as long as the list of services I’ve accessed, members of parliament, well known advocates, and organizations I have either accessed to further my case, better my recovery and try to get someone to listen. When you have such a broken family court system that in 17 months has not bothered to look at one response only see me for my addiction. The constant stalking & humiliation drives this and it has become worse as time has gone by. Twice I have attempted suicide this is after calling an ambulance and asking to be taken to hospital as it is had all become too much only to be released hours later with a referral to the worst psychiatrist registrar in the world. I am on a high priority with housing But nothing comes up & I’m about done. I run away from my stalker who helped make me now homeless and the list goes on. I was told by the DVConnect that I need to call the homeless hotline & then ‘there’s nothing and good luck’ by the Homeless Hotline.

I currently sit after having a nervous breakdown last night in a mental health department bed at the Prince Charles. This is my last resort before I totally give up. This in my opinion would not have gotten anywhere near this had I only received support or at the very least just spared the torment and humiliation. The impact from my mothers lifelong cruel and unusual punishment will last a lifetime. The benefit of never having had a mother who cared for me emotionally means I developed a tough skin. I do not think anyone else would be able to put up with this much torment so for that I am grateful. I love my son enough to never give in! I will lose my mind and fight until there is nothing left in me just so I can hold him and tell him I love him so that he knows that no matter who or what he becomes, mummy will always be beside him, whether I agree with his decision or not. He is my boy, my world and my everything and that it’s not what you do it what you do about it. We are all perfectly imperfect in our own special way.

So spare a thought for some this Mother’s Day. At least mine has true meaning since I had my boy.

Carly