It’s been almost ten years since this all happened. I still have pain and brain injury issues. I still have reoccurring PTSD issues occasionally. If anyone says the word strangle around me I freeze. Not sure this will ever leave my cells but all that said life is so much better. We have worked so hard to create a new life. I often wonder if it was an undiagnosed mental illness that is the reason that this happened.
This article gave me the idea that perhaps she doesn’t even remember what she did when it was when one of her personalities took over. We often say that you can’t make sense of this, and when you find yourself getting tangled up in their web, it is usually because there is an element of that person you cannot relate to, and the element can absolutely be mental illness.
https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/split-personality#causes
Domestic Violence changes everything and nothing is ever the same. Yes, you will make new memories, yes you do heal, and yes you can rebuild relationships but it’s like a mirror that shatters you can never see your old self again in it. Your old self your old family breaks and you have to rebuild.
For me, there is residual stuff. I feel like there is always something that hasn’t been said yet between me and the kids. I feel like there is a general lack of trust and for sure the closeness is different. There is love but it’s all different.
I had zero Domestic Violence or mental illness experience before this. I had zero violence experience before this. It’s been such a learning curve. But I won’t be able to move on until this is all out of me so I will continue to purge it out here and then maybe I’ll write a book about it. Then maybe somehow I can contribute to helping other women find healing and recovery post strangulation and domestic violence and allow them to step into a new life and not give up. That is my hope.
Carrying on…
I went back to work after six months, reading this makes my heart hurt. I was so injured and having to take on work was so hard. I was so overwhelmed and broken.
August 18, 2015 Tuesday
It’s been over a week since I put anything into this journal. Working is taking a lot out of me. Working with a brain injury makes me feel like my life is floating by like the fog was rolling in over the weekend. I spent the entire weekend with my daughter. Just loving her. She has been getting so lost in this shuffle over here now. It breaks my heart. But we are back. Took no time at all. I connected our heart centers by giving her as much undivided attention as I could. I do not feel connected to my stepdaughter any longer. We were definitely injured through this. But I guess that was the intention. I will need to tell her that people will try and tell her that it was me. My eyes well up and I get all caught up in my throat. I have learned how to cry silently there is a huge carven space inside of me that houses my waves of tears. My neck and head still hurt so badly at times. It’s 4:30 and my headache is getting pretty bad.
Reading this one was exceptionally tough. My stepson’s girlfriend is bipolar and his mom is likely battling a mental illness as well given her family history of schizophrenia. It seems she has multiple personality disorder if I had to guess. It’s a polarizing experience we have of her than her people have of her.
My husband’s ex recruited the girlfriend to be her runner to get Josephine from our house. She incorporated this and stressed her out so badly that she attempted suicide and was hospitalized. To this day she still tries to poison the relationship and we oscillate between feeling like we are healed and then dealing with suspicious looks from her occasionally requiring us to do more work all over again to rebuild this relationship.
August 19, Wednesday
My stepson’s girlfriend came barging into our house saying she was going to take my stepdaughter! So weird. She was yelling at my husband calling him a liar. Breathing really hard. My stepdaughter told us she was having a panic attack in the car.
She arrived pounding and yelling at our front door. Then she proceeded to OPEN our front door and enter our home. Then she tried pushing her way into the house, yelling for my stepdaughter. I asked her to please stop yelling (using a calm tone in my voice) and that this was inappropriate and irrational behavior you were having around my children. I asked her why she was there.
She was completely panicked and panting. She answered: “I have to pick her up!!” she yelled, and then said “ I don’t want Aurelia to go to jail! let me have her! THE VISITATION IS AT 2 PM!” I could see she was visibly very upset. I asked her to step back from the front door. She stepped back. I calmly informed her that the visitation was at 3 pm and that the pickup area was at the top of the stairs at La Jolla Scenic Dr North. She yelled “You’re a liar” “You’re just a liar!!” I asked her calmly, “What have I ever lied to you about?” She didn’t answer me she just kept saying it over and over again and she acted very erratic and said some mean things like, “You’re putting a mask over her head head” “You put words into her mouth” “You’re a horrible father” “Aurelia is a nice person!” “we all know what you did” “You’re a bad person” “You lied about everything”.
I said in a calm tone “Wow, you need to leave immediately, your behavior is scaring me. That’s when she began to walk back towards me and walk by me to enter our backyard via the side of our home. This was very scary, I asked her “What are you doing/!” She answered “I’m getting her,” I said, “STOP!” I had to say it several times…by that time she had entered our backyard, ignoring my requests. I had to say “Stop now or I’m calling the police!
Then she turned around and walked back onto the front porch area. She said she wasn’t leaving without her. I asked her to wait while I went inside to get the DVTRO that showed the court-ordered times for visitation. I went into the house. While I was in the house, the security cameras showed she was attempting to enter our backyard again. I didn’t know this until later after Jo had left for her visitation with her mother. When I came back outside to show her the time and location of the exchange she was gone. I walked out in front of our home and saw her down the street on her phone. She said she was talking to my stepson. I showed her the DVTRO court document with the time and location of the exchange. She left in a panic.
Later that day at 6 PM I was waiting at the bottom of the stairs for my stepdaughter. She arrived on time. I didn’t ask about her visit, I just said I hope you had a nice time with your mom. She started talking about it on her own. She said she saw the cats that my stepson’s girlfriend had brought in the car when she was picked up and that she was crying and saying she was scared as they drove to her mother’s apartment. I said I was sure she’d be ok, she just wasn’t informed about the pickup procedures we had agreed on with your mom.
Later that night I could see that my stepdaughter was very upset…she told us that when she was at her mom’s home my stepson’s girlfriend threatened suicide in front of her and was acting very scary and that she ran out of the house.
Aurelia asked my stepdaughter if Jose the step dad could come to conjoint therapy.
August 20, Thursday
Physical therapy today and now I can’t go anymore because we can’t afford it. My husband is so tightly wound up. He is so stressed, his hands shake. He bought some homeopathic stress relief. I can’t find a way to talk to him about it. It is stressful in this house now. I don’t see a way out of this. It’s making us feel like we are not going to make it. I am not sure what to do. When I look into the future I don’t see this getting any better. I feel like this is not working and I don’t know what to do about it. This is never what I wanted for myself, I saw my life being so different. My daughter is the only love and bright spot I have. My stepdaughter needs her mother that can’t be a mother to her and I am just the next best thing. My stepson hates me. His girlfriend thinks we are sabotaging all this on purpose, some people believe I am evil. It’s so toxic.
August 23, Sunday
My book needs to be two parts, my story and how I got myself back to normal and better.
August 24, Monday
Work is making it impossible to think about all this. I only think about it in segments. What it means for my stepdaughter, what it means for my stepson, what it means for their relationship with their father and their mother. How did I get so mixed up in all this….is there a way to not? How does one switch from mother to stepmother role? It’s a mother but not. It’s a mother but not if the other mother is around. It’s a mother of the worst kind? It’s a name that we just give the new female in your father’s life. Not sure what it is but at this moment it feels like a punishment. How does one go from almost having their life taken away, witnessing the passage of a near-death experience that is profoundly talked about worldwide to finding herself on the other side being accused of attacking her and people questioning the validity or extent of my injuries? I am in a twilight zone and it is difficult to see what is reality and what is not reality.
My stepdaughter will end up turning against me at some point (she did) or at least I hope not. That would be the worst. I get broken, bloodied, and beaten for a child who suddenly thinks I am the problem because she is so confused about what is going on as the pull of a mother’s love is extraordinary.
My stepdaughter is healing. We can forgive. It is beautiful to forgive. Holding onto things, and being resentful will only make you sick. I have to remember to honor my stepdaughter’s ability to heal and desire her need to feel close again with her mom. Until the next time she gets her feelings hurt and nothing is done about it. The next time she will most likely lash out in a big way and not return because she will be too old to force. This is not about me and Aurelia. This is about her relationship with her daughter and her blaming me for the lack of a relationship and it is suddenly my fault. My experience with this family is not one of tremendous mother/daughter love and bonding….that is not the most profound piece of this puzzle. Ever since the court, that’s their intention to make you feel like shit to break down your integrity. Can’t be done, I am unbreakable.
August 26, Wednesday
We had Dr. Volcani today the conjoint therapist. I feel like those conversations go nowhere at first. I do not connect with him although he is a very nice man. Saying comments like I am not your joint therapist but the relationship is his concern or his client. How they relate. The problem is her mom can fake it pretty good and Jo can fake it too. I see this all traveling into the same space but thankfully when that happens hopefully there will be protective orders in place because if I ever have to have direct contact with her again it will be too soon. How do you face the person that did that to you? See them, interact with them? It’s your worst horror story come true and you can never get away. My daughter will be connected forever to this. I feel so irresponsible for this. Work is an amazing distraction. The charge around this is lessening for everyone. But it is no less profound for me. I will be the last one standing because I am not sure I can ever get away from it. Got to have lunch with Deb, Colleen, and Susan today. Debbie reminded me about how she told me that I had to go through this for my stepdaughter to get the help she needed. I saved her, and this gives her a chance to get out of the muck between the homes. My stepdaughter came home from visitation feeling very happy about her mom, it should make us happy under normal circumstances but it seems like she is just brushing everything under the carpet. Just talked to the Kids Turn Step Parent Class I went it was not very helpful.
August 27, Thursday
We are starting to just get angry a lot of the time. It is really hard to move forward when we still have a lot of contact.
That was the worst part of having any contact it kept it alive for us. The good news is today we have absolutely zero contact outside of things we are told about from the kids but it’s just complaining about the same old stuff nothing has changed it seems in that household from the sounds of it. Their mom still denies she did anything. This will make her sick in the long run people who hold lies become acidic in their bodies, and the daily effort it takes to hold those things inside will make anyone diseased that is how energy works. She needs to come clean and apologize to her family for doing this to them, they deserve to be freed, I need nothing from her because she means nothing to me. I am almost free of it, every word that comes out of me makes me lighter and brighter.
Strangled In La Jolla 