An American story:The violence we still allow

Written by: civillydisobedientbitch

Edited by: Good to be Queen.

This is the 21^st century. Like so many ugly aspects of our society, domestic violence has finally been recognized … understood … fought and resolved. Certainly that’s a widespread belief here and now, now that our modern society is so evolved, so socially aware, so enlightened.

Right?

Think again. Like so many social wrongs we think we’ve “fixed,” domestic violence still terrorizes men, women and children. Daily. And the remedies we thought we’d applied – the laws and awareness and organized groups waving signs – the things that let the rest of us sleep at night, secure in our advanced thinking, are failing. Daily.

My son and I are only one story. But I believe we’re a part of something much larger that’s only too easily overlooked by a complacent society that believes we’ve “solved” domestic violence, a society that only registers alarm when an extreme case – a husband shoots his wife on Main Street just before the evening news – jars our consciousness.

My story shines a light on the ongoing, pernicious misunderstanding – even ignorance –of the real face of domestic violence. I want to share my story so that the thousands of other abuse victims in our enlightened society who are terrorized and traumatized daily will know they’re not the only ones. That you don’t have to show up on the evening news to be a victim of domestic violence.

I live in Georgia. The state of Georgia has within its law code a provision that domestic abuse trumps all other concerns in divorce and custody cases. I only wish the state of Georgia actually worked that way.

I married my ex-husband in 2001.

The abuse began on our return from our honeymoon. I was pregnant at the time, but that never stopped him.

First the abuse was verbal. Then it became physical. He would browbeat me for hours and then block me from leaving the room, physically hold me down while I cried. He systematically terrorized me.

He also sexually abused me. He attempted to videotape us being intimate against my wishes. When I caught him, he didn’t see why what he had done was so wrong.

The emotional abuse was always the worst, though. He took painful, private confidences I’d trusted him with and used them against me as a way to control me. My mother had been physically, emotionally, and verbally very abusive to me when I was a child, and my ex would go back and forth between calling her crazy, and then siding with her, claiming that I was lying about her.

I was called a liar a lot. And crazy, unfit mother, a whore, you name it, every sick, misogynistic name in the book.

I left him in 2003. The lawyer I found was willing to get a restraining order for me. And my ex promptly violated it. Though the judge had written into the order that he could have “reasonable” visitation with our infant son, my ex decided that “reasonable” meant every night, and harassed me constantly to get it. He drove past my house, over and over and over. Tracked my every move. Accused me of having an affair. Threatened to sue for custody of our son. He was never arrested even though I called the police for help.

The judge had not included any provisions for child support in my restraining order. I was a student, and I had no income other than student loans. That money soon ran out.

I was scared. I was about to be unable to feed my child. Then my ex began what domestic violence support groups like to call “hoovering” … a reference to the vacuum cleaner. Trying to suck me back in.

He was so sorry. He was going to get counseling. Nothing meant more to him than his family. He would do anything and everything to keep it together.

So I went back. He promptly browbeat me into dropping my divorce case against him entirely.

And the abuse got worse. I now know that it almost always does, once a victim is talked into returning. The abuser, after all, knows that he or she must bear down even harder, escalate the abuse and control, ensure that the victim is terrorized into complete and utter submission.

And so my ex’s abuse escalated immediately. He added financial abuse to the list. He refused to allow me access to any money. I had finished school at this point and was staying home with my son. I had no income aside from occasional money my family gave me. No gas in my car, no way to buy any groceries while he was at work 45 minutes away, because he took the bank card with him every day. He would make me beg for five dollars to buy cigarettes. I was trapped.

When he browbeat me for hours, he would always get this sadistic little smile. He liked to buy extravagant gifts and then threaten to return them if he got angry with me. He would order me to beg for them.

In 2004, he physically attacked me in front of my son. He jumped me from behind, and when I swung my arm to get him off of me, I accidentally blacked his eye. I fled to my neighbor’s place and called the police and our local DV hotline. Amazingly, he ALSO called the police and claimed that I had abused HIM. They didn’t arrest anyone. All they did was ask him to leave for the night.

It still took me another year to get up my courage to file for divorce. I was terrified he’d sue for custody.

I was right.

When I finally did file, I wound up with a new lawyer, who refused to seek a restraining order for me. Despite numerous records of my calls to the police for help, my attorney told me that we couldn’t prove abuse. My ex refused to move out of the house, or to pay any of the bills. He harassed me constantly. I had to lock myself and my son in my room at night to protect us from him. Still, he’d stand outside the door and rant.

I briefly had a long distance relationship during that time. My ex snooped on my laptop and copied documents in order to “prove” my “adultery”. He emailed my friend. He emailed my family. He made outrageous, malicious accusations, calling me a slut, claiming that I had Borderline Personality Disorder, that I was violent and an unfit mother.

He taped me constantly. He attacked me again and I had to flee for several days with my son. I had to call the police just to get out of the house safely. One of the officers saw my bruises but didn’t say anything. And they didn’t arrest him.

This is so hard to type out. It brings back all these memories. I’m shaking.

When we went to court, he won. My attorney, inexplicably, didn’t even bring the pictures of me with bruises from his attacks. At the same time, my ex claimed that my son was autistic. My son was delayed in his speech, due to a medication he took as a toddler, too much ear wax that was eventually cleaned out, and his father’s abuse of me. Not one therapist has agreed with my ex. The physical problems are well documented by my son’s doctor. Even so, I still took my son to additional assessments, while my ex did nothing. Yet he claimed I was the one who hadn’t done anything to help my son.

The judge ruled that because I was in graduate school by this time, I wasn’t “stable” enough as a parent to take care of my son. He stated he believed my son had special needs that I was unable to handle.

During all this time, my ex had never paid for daycare, never took my son to doctor’s appointments, never put him to bed, never did much of anything that parents do. I was the primary caregiver until the divorce, and Georgia law states that the best interests of the child lie with that parent.

And Georgia law also states that domestic abuse trumps all other concerns. Yet a few earnest lies delivered by a skilled liar were all it took to sway a judge. And maybe even prompt my own lawyer to mail it in. I didn’t stand a chance.

My attorney filed a motion for reconsideration. The judge told him to re-file it as a separate motion to modify custody. While we waited, my ex made a habit of sending me awful, horrible abusive emails. He denied visitation when he was angry, he shut me out of any equal decision-making, even though I still had joint legal custody. In short, he behaved just as he’d always done.

And so we went back to court. My attorney once again failed to submit the emails as evidence of the abuse. I had remarried by this time, and my new husband was more than willing to testify to how awfully my ex had behaved. He flat out called him an abuser in open court.

We still lost.

You think the story’s finally over? Oh no. My ex asked for attorney’s fees on top of everything else. And we lost on that one, too.

The judge has ordered me to pay $5000 plus some additional expenses in monthly installments of $500 each. I can’t afford that. I already pay $400 a month in child support.

If I don’t pay, I can go to jail for contempt of court.

I filed for divorce in May 2005. I was finally granted one in October 2007. And I’m still caught in a legal system that seems more inclined to help my abuser abuse me, than to protect me and my son. Domestic abuse was simply meaningless to the police, my lawyer, my ex’s lawyer, even the judge. Just not on their radar.

I don’t understand this. I really and truly don’t. I don’t know how to make this system do what it’s supposed to do. Why has this happened?

This is, necessarily, an abbreviated version of my story, and it’s just one story. But I’ve learned that there are thousands of abuse victims just like me out there, struggling to get someone to take them seriously, trying desperately to find a so-called “authority figure,” a member of the “judicial” system, to hear us, to believe us.

Although I’m scared to death of the idea, I’m ready to go public with my story. I hope to find those other victims who have similar stories to tell. I’ve learned that only by sticking together, by shouting out loud that domestic violence is still alive, well and vastly underestimated by society and our legal system, can we get anyone to notice. And this is my first step. Talk to me.

Thinking about Sarah Palin

Written by: civillydisobedientbitch

I’ve been mulling over this for a while now. I’ve needed that time to process because, to be quite frank, this disobedient bitch was so incredibly pissed off when McSame announced her nomination to VP that I just about literally foamed at the mouth.

It’s not pretty when I get to feelin’ rabid, but it’s not conducive to articulate communication, either. I had to sit on this one.

First up: Sarah Palin ain’t no damn feminist. She’s not a socialist, either. Why am I conflating those two political philosophies? Because one is defined in one’s public life by one’s policy, ok? For the less than literate, than means you ARE what you DO in the public sphere. You don’t get to lay claim to some label or another merely because it’s clever and politically expedient. I don’t get to call myself a neocon just for shits and giggles simply because I feel like it, yanno? I highly doubt that Dickless Cheney would fail to call ME out if I labeled myself a neocon and started some blog espousing Marxist feminist philosophy, all the while claiming that this was the REAL neocon philosophy. It’s what those of us with an education like to call incongruous, to say the least.

And let’s not forget, she has enjoyed all those advantages necessary to allow her rise to power ON THE BACKS of feminists who FOUGHT and BLED for HER right, and every other woman’s right, to operate in the world as a human being, not some action figure piece of meat.

Palin’s policies are about as anti-feminist as you can get. Plain and simple. If you want some proof, feel free to hit cnn.com, or msnbc.com, or any other damn MSM news outlet online for a laundry list of things she actually DID when she was in power. When she was actually DOING things, yanno, instead of hiring out administration duties to someone else.

So, now that we’ve disposed of this wrongheaded notion that Sarah Wolf Killer Palin is some sort of feminist icon, let’s move on, shall we?

I personally can’t stand the woman’s policy positions. I have no clue on Goddess’ green earth what she’s like as a person so I am just not going to even SPECULATE how I’d feel about her, person to person. Hell, I hear she’s quite charismatic. I might even like to do some shots with her or something. Until the issue of banning books came up, I suppose. Then we’d have to have a good natured bar fight, beat the crap out of each other, then stagger home together, arms around each other’s shoulders through some sodden, half-melted Alaskan winter twilight. But I digress.

I LIKE ballsy women. Except for when said ballsy woman would chain ME down with HER choices.

But I am SICKENED by the “cutesy” action figures, man, and let’s not even get into the VPILF jokes. Disgusting; it’s all just so damn vile. I don’t give a CRAP about her family life, her husband, her kids, or what she cooked for dinner or ordered in. It’s IRRELEVANT. And sexist. Not to mention the fact that there’s something really creepy about dolls made to represent real people. It’s like you’re trying to OWN that person or something, by having a simulacrum of them. Not cool. It’s a way of reducing her. Whether that person is some douchebag rethug frat boy wanking off to the “Sarah Palin Action Figure in a Catholic Schoolgirl Outfit” or some wannabe so-called “progressive” male closet misogynist Dem snickering about it, you’re still reducing her.

Do not reduce this woman. She is a real threat. Not for the reasons that she undoubtedly dreams about, but because she is an incredible conundrum with which the left must deal.

This is the Left’s bad Karma, methinks. They shat all OVER HRC and nobody, and I mean NOBODY called that bullshit for what it was until AFTER it was clear that Obama had won. But they failed to clean their own house and clarify their reasons for wanting B-Rock instead of Hillary in a CIVILIZED way. Instead, they talked about shrill voices, wrinkles, and pantsuits. And now they get the immense pleasure of answering for it in the face of Sarah Barracuda.

Remember, shall we, that the incredible baggage with which HRC was saddled, was a result of YEARS of slander and nonsense slung by the RIGHT, the Karl Roves of the world, and NOT the left. Does anyone here actually remember the Ken Star Witchhunt called Whitewater of the late 90s? Yeah, I thought so.

And the Left got so damn SCARED that they backed themselves into a defensive little pissant corner and sold one of the finest minds of the late 20th-early 21st century right down the river. Not that I’ve heard or seen HERwhine. The lady has class, folks. Major class.

So why am I ranting here on a blog about surviving DV in the face of a crap legal system, about Sarah Palin?

Because we need to get clear on some things, people. We need to get clear about issues surrounding equity and fairness. We need to DEEPLY examine how some women, like Sarah Palin, get the gravy by playing by the Boy’s Rules, while the rest of us get screwed.

Sarah Palin was LUCKY, or better yet, PRIVILEGED. She’s white, middle class, and insulated. She also had the good fortune and/or judgment to marry a man who clearly behaves as a partner and ally. Good for her, I say, in all sincerity.

Some of us, however, are NOT white, middle class, insulated, or lucky. SOME OF US, Many of us, grew up WITHOUT those privileges and as a consequence, ended up with abusive asshole men. And in the process of trying to be “good girls” we did the whole wife/mother thing, then realized one day that Asshole wasn’t going to get a job/was drunk AGAIN/Hit me again/Wants to KILL me and decided it was safer to go than stay.

Sarah Palin, do you hear me?

What I want to know, and what I don’t see this woman evincing, is ANY sort of understanding of circumstances beyond her own. Like I said, she GOT there on OUR backs – so what is she giving back?

Would Sarah Palin come down to Georgia and reform a corrupted court system that gives custody to proven abusers? Or come down to Kentucky like an Alaska blizzard with her talk of reform to make a damned homicidal maniac at least pay child support to his ex?

Sarah Palin, would you fight for me? For my sisters, for my friends?

I don’t think so. She made rape victims pay for their own rape kits while mayor of Wasilla, Alaska. I don’t know if this woman even has the heuristic framework POSSIBLE to know what it’s like to be where we are.

How I wish it wasn’t so. Because she’s a bruiser, no doubt. Still, the woman may have balls bigger than Texas, but she ain’t got no heart. And she ain’t got no soul.

May standard is, if a dude would get called an asshole for it, then fair play. If not, then shut the fuck up and go home.

See AlsoMcCain and Palin Don’t Care About Women

Welcome

Written by: civillydisobedientbitch

Welcome.

I’m staking out my own little corner of the internets for my own take on a few things.

Actually, I’m staking a claim on some cyber space to say some things that By Goddess need to be said.

First, though, an introduction is in order, I suppose.

I’m a lot of things, like most of us out there. There’s not a single one of those things that defines me; let’s just say it’s a synergy of them all.

I’m a scientist who’s endlessly agog at the neatness of the world. I’m an unrepentant intellectual of the populist sort. I read gossip mags and peer reviewed journals and JRR Tolkein and don’t really see any sort of disconnect between those things. I love culture and history and politics past and present, and classical Latin poetry. I even like the French and Goddess forbid, physics and chemistry. I am an unabashed combat boot wearing heavily tattooed radical feminist with post baccalaureate degrees happily married to the hottest and most wonderful MALE ever. I have a truly sick sense of humor. Deal with it.

I’m also a survivor of domestic abuse of the truly crazy-making sort. I got out, by Goddess, but thanks to the amazingly fucked up politics in family law here in the great state of Georgia, my abusive ex sought, and won, primary custody of our son.

Being a mother without custody is kind of like being biologically male without a cock, I think. There’s this overwhelming assumption that you have to be a child beating crack addict who burns kids with cigarettes for fun to lose said kids. Not true. But it’s always awkward for me to discuss this with acquaintances. I don’t like to explain it. It’s no fun, and if it’s not fun, then why do it, right?

I don’t cry about it anymore, but you bet your butter beans I’m here to raise hell about it. And many other things. Because if it makes other folks uncomfortable, then maybe they OUGHT to feel uncomfortable. Because there is something deeply wrong and sick and outside all realms of logic in a system when a man who threatened to kill himself in front of his wife and kid can go on to get the kid in a custody battle. And yes, there are police reports to that effect.

What you’ll be reading about the most here from me and my fellow bloggers is life after living with abusers. There are tons of common threads, and lots of uncommon ones, too. All of us here are unique, and many of us still have to deal with our ex-abusers. Some of us still have kids who have contact. Not one single person here that I’m aware of actually received the full protection of the law and the system the way that it’s written down on paper, though. Our society and our legal system turns a deaf ear and blind eye to an astonishing amount of abuse, and the so-called “Men’s Rights” Groups have made it amazingly hard to reach people in the legal system.

Dispose of forever, however, the notion that anyone here is a helpless victim. Oh, HELL no. We’re all here to raise hell and raise our kids and whatever it takes, we refuse to shut up until people listen and truly hear us.