One year ago today x filed an emergency ex parte claiming I was neglecting our daughter. I didn’t know it until days later, though. Until sometime the week after. It had already been denied by the time I found out about it and he had already refiled a regular motion. One year and two daysContinue reading “One Year Ago: The Boy Who Cried Neglect”
Category Archives: Post-Separation Abuse
Standing Solo
2021 Note: Last night, during a fun question and answer game, my daughter told me she wished her name was a middle name she should have no clue she used to have (Story of that name in post below from my personal blog in November 2019). This older post is about the first time IContinue reading “Standing Solo”
28 Pricks
And then it was Angelina’s turn to dance. Her heart started beating like a drum and she couldn’t remember what she was supposed to be doing. From Angelina and the Princess by Katharine Holabird This is what it’s like to ‘co’parent with a narcissistic parent (this is what it’s like when you’re free): you workContinue reading “28 Pricks”
Not Afraid (but still terrified)
I wasn’t afraid of the bulliesand that just made the bullies worse. – Fiona Apple, “Shameika” {As I work through a new post about the newest uptick in intimidation and harassment, I was reminded of this post from 4/28/2020 on my personal blog.Continue reading “Not Afraid (but still terrified)”
One Decade, Three Women
Ten years ago tomorrow, I stood, alone, in the kitchen of a man I thought I loved, after he’d already left for work, and looked around and took one deep, deep breath that I exhaled in several short bursts and said, out loud up toward the ceiling of his tiny, perfect little house: I can’tContinue reading “One Decade, Three Women”
Dissonance (& creating space for harmony).
Mama, can I ask you something? It was less than an hour after she got home from an overnight with x. That means it could be anything. Really: anything. The only sure thing is it would almost certainly involve something untrue about me. Sometimes she doesn’t ask until hours later. Or even a day orContinue reading “Dissonance (& creating space for harmony).”
Gratitude
A few days after Thanksgiving last year, I sat in my car, rain pounding on the windshield and my four year old daughter in the backseat, holding my phone to my ear as I explained to a police officer over the phone why the complaint that x was filing at the precinct right then wasContinue reading “Gratitude”
Obviously Contentious
The pounding on the door had been going on pretty much nonstop for more than twenty minutes. So hard that a painting in the stairwell had gone crooked. My daughter was covering her ears and asking when it would stop. She asked who it was. I didn’t know, in those long long moments, if tellingContinue reading “Obviously Contentious”
Slandered & Shell-Shocked: Silence is the Double Edged Sword
(This post is another from my personal blog from pre-COVID times – approximately six months out from the end.) …after my dreaded beheading I tied that sucker back on with a string and I guess I’m pretty different now, considering… Manhole by Ani Difranco Today I went for an early(ish) morning walk with my daughterContinue reading “Slandered & Shell-Shocked: Silence is the Double Edged Sword”
Sharing the Sadness
Sometimes something happens that you know you need to share with friends or family or anyone who can help you let go of the worst of it. Help you figure out how not to be paralyzed by it. And sometimes those same things make you want to shut your mouth for a long time. BecauseContinue reading “Sharing the Sadness”