"Ma'am, you're going to have to vacate the property," the officer said. Bentley and I had just headed down to the lake to wash up. I felt bad he had not yet been in the water. My other two dogs had played at the lake, but he hadn't been able to. This was going to be his first time in the water. I was happy that we were finally going to have a little fun. It was around 7pm and a pretty dusk, my favorite time of the day. It had been hard for the last few months. We had been staying at the Lakehouse and had no water or heat. It was the beginning of the Summer season and I thought we could enjoy a little time at the Lake. The locks had been put on the Lakehouse as soon as I was arrested out of our home, but because I again had no place to go and we hadn't even talked about the Lakehouse I thought it would be okay if I went there. Of course, I still had no Divorce Attorney, and the ones I was assigned and forced to take kept telling me to go to a "homeless shelter." I had asked for the key, but like everything else with the divorce, I was just ignored. I eventually had to break in after asking numerous times to be let in—I had no place to live.
I was still nervous to even go in the water as the neighbors had already called the State Police once and complained that Bentley had gone to the bathroom on their lawn. I had not been feeling well when we got to the Lakehouse. I had no place to stay and was violently forced out of another apartment in Northville NY. Bentley might have gone once in the Winter when I let him out because I was still so sick from not having heat and the constant noise harassment at the last place, was horrible. We also both had colds, but the idea that my dog just went on their lawn repeatedly was a total lie. In 20 years my dogs maybe went once on their empty lot between our two places and I immediately picked it up which always amounted to about two little pebbles, but like everything else lately, things were increasingly violent with everyone. I had tried to talk to the neighbors right before they had called the Police, but it got ugly. She grabbed her crotch repeatedly and kept calling me a prostitute. "You're a prostitute," she kept saying. She looked hysterical and on something, jumping around laughing in shrills and odd noises taunting me. I think over the years we might have had a handful of conversations. Her behavior that day was surreal, to say the least. They had been making threats as soon as I arrived. Again, I had no idea why so many people were involved in my divorce and why they felt like they could say whatever they wanted to me. It would take me another couple of years to piece it all together.
"If you go back into the property Ma'am, it will be a Felony arrest," the officer continued. I slowly came out of the water trying to cover up Bentley and me with a towel, he was still so small. I had been stunned numerous times to the point of a breakdown every time the Police came. I know this was the point. It was surreal the way I was being treated. What the hell was I supposed to do? By this time it was 8 pm and I was dripping wet in my bathing suit and again had no place to go. How many places can I be evicted out of and plead about housing and have them keep doing this? There were no words for this type of abuse. Stalking me from place to place. I continually had no place to live and was being forced out of all the places I tried to rent. Spurious excuses and outright lies about what I was doing, who I was, and private matters with my divorce. In every place, I rented there were problems with heat, noise, and neighbors calling the cops telling them I was a "Mentally ill Prostitute!"
I think back now and just shake my head at how nasty the neighbors were to come up with something like that after 20 years of being up there. 20yrs of faithfully coming here every weekend and working on this place. Every weekend, polite and kind to all of them and wondering why I was treated the way I was. I was rarely spoken to. When I was younger I chalked it up to just not being part of the same social circle, plus everyone usually had family up to visit and because I didn't I just thought it was a family place and I would just have to find my own way. I was stunned now these same neighbors who I rarely spoke to going on about my little dog. I have had 3 dogs and they were all Shih Tzu toy breeds. All lap dogs and rarely out of my sight. I treated my dogs like children. I loved them all dearly like family, in fact, because I rarely saw my family my dogs over the years became family. To have the neighbors go on about my dog was just too much, but then their behavior since I had returned was bizarre and violent. I thought of all the awful ways they had treated me over the years.
It had been a beautiful sunny day. Getting colder at night, but the days were still warm. There was supposed to be a couple inches of snow here in Upstate NY later this week, but for now, it's seasonably nice. I would love to be out taking photographs, but I haven't been able to photograph around Sacandaga Lake this Fall. Fall is such a beautiful time of the year to photograph. I've photographed the Lake for 20yrs, but like everything else in my life, the ability to do this is stolen. Without my car, it makes it hard. All part of the coercive control that continues post-divorce. I had hoped when I started my business to put all my photographs online and sell them, which I had started to do before everything was stolen, but that along with other dreams is over. All my photographs were now gone and all the paints and brushes I had collected since college. Beautiful Winsor Newton ones that were so expensive that I felt such pain every time I thought of them reminding me of not being able to pursue grants at college so I saved everything I could to eventually have my own studio. I had been painting regularly at the Lakehouse for years. It was all done deliberately as I was being put on the street as my cousin was launching her business, a scheme that I had to piece together as I thought of how competitive and vicious she had been all these years, starting when we were girls and I talked about having an Art Studio. In the rare times, I tried to again be friends, she would lure me to call her or visit then start a fight. "Why don't you see your family?" she would constantly ask me. Then she would of course being up her brother molesting me. I know now she knew exactly why they all refused to see me and had all set it up that way and why she kept bringing up her brother molesting me every time.
My storage unit supposedly was "Auctioned off," but I know they just stole it all when I was jailed for resisting an arrest which I never resisted. Most of the time I was in too much shock to resist any of their lies and abuses. I was also lied to by the assigned lawyer once I was jailed that I would get 6 months probation and be released after I had already done 4 months, but I ended up doing another 4 months at a psych ward for being accused of not understanding the procedures. I was denied communication, wrote numerous grievances, and talked to just about everyone about my personal belongings. One of which was also my beloved dog, but all were taken. Threats were made about my dog numerous times even at the Jail. Horror stories told of using him as bait by guards who were friends with my ex and the brother of the cop that sexually assaulted me. My photographs, 20yrs of journals, portfolios, computer equipment, and software I could use to get work and clients–all gone. All done on purpose! All done by using the excuse I was in Jail! My car was an ongoing joke there also. It was funny to the guards the way the police took it, leaving me to walk everywhere. Between being homeless and not having transportation, it was an ongoing joke. It wasn't violence, domestic abuse, or coercive control–it was because I was a "crazy Prostitute" they said and I was to go "walk the streets!" It was all so unconscionable. I was barely able to get over one incident before they did something else.
It was May 2018 and I was looking forward to the Memorial Holiday, just swimming in the Lake would be nice. I was tired of sponge baths and swimming would be wonderful—I loved the water. The Divorce was ongoing and I was pleading with lawyers to help me, but nothing was being done. Even the post office here was giving me a hard time about packages being delivered, but of course, the neighbors next door had no problems, they never did and seemed to be even more suspiciously watching me than usual—one Sheriff was there all the time. I had just given $5,000 to a lawyer after the one they forced me to take did nothing plus the AdLitem I was forced with continued to threaten me about my stuff being auctioned and me going to a homeless shelter—it all made no sense. The neighbors had also been at McDonald's the one day I met with this so-called lawyer for 10min. The lawyer I was trying to get assured me I could stay at the Lakehouse, but then wasn't returning calls. I was now being told by the vicious Judge that time was running out. The lawyer ended up doing nothing and robbing me of $3,000 after a couple of phone calls and yelling at me when I complained about getting no itemized bill of what exactly they did. The bank was also no help as usual and gave them $3,000 and no itemized bill of what they did, which was nothing.
I was hoping to stay at the Lakehouse. I paid and worked on this place for over 20yrs plus taking care of my ex's Aunt that had previously owned it. She had gone back and forth about selling it and finally said she would offer it to us. That's when the fights started. Looking back I had no idea the fights would all be about preventing me from the place 20yrs later. I sit today typing in McDonald's again remembering the 10min one of their lawyer cronies scribbled some writing on a notepad barely listening to me as she went on about her vacation at Cape Cod. I knew something was odd about that. I went to the Cape for my Honeymoon thinking it was so close we could visit a few times, but I ended up never going back. Everyone would brag about going, but we had 2 mortgages to pay and it did seem a bit much to also vacation at the Cape—everything always had a plausible explanation. We paid $40,000 for the place and everything over the years had been replaced and upgraded. I glanced at the online sites listing the value and knew it had gone up, there was nothing on the lake for less than $200,000 and that's what it was approaching. I sat in shock remembering all the things that didn't make sense then but do now.
I'm eating a lot of meat lately, I say a prayer and hope the chickens are treated okay. I was a vegetarian for 20yrs and loved being in shape and working out, but getting food when your homeless is difficult. I love McDonald's—chicken sandwiches and McNuggets. I became a vegetarian because I didn't like meat really and I felt better with a more plant-based diet plus after reading about Factory Farming and how animals were treated it wasn't too hard to give it up. I was so weak after the seizure I had and the other assaults that I needed a lot of protein and without being able to get plant-based protein on the run I started eating some chicken. I also think menopause had something to do with it and eating meat grounds me more and makes me edgier—like a carnivore. I have to just accept the changes as they come. I'm very grateful to them and maybe they will get the "veggie chicken burgers soon." I love vegetarian food, but it's ok. I was too thin for a while after the horrible experience at the psych ward they forced me to, but now I'm too heavy. I know a lot of it is also stress and not being able to work out. I try to walk but I get winded very easily now and never sleep all that well at night.
It's May again 2021, I'm in McDonald's again—stronger and braver than I ever thought possible. I might have to head back to Maine, but I love Maine, I miss it already. I'm thinking now how they forced my Grandmother from the Sacandaga Lake, they kicked out my Father, a successful musician with a band that played around the lake, and now have violently removed me. For my Grandmother she would refuse to talk about it, getting visibly upset whenever I mentioned her and the family land there. All she would say is how they argued at the funeral of her Mother and how disgraceful it all was sold. My family was never "Low class," like they sneer at me now. My Grandmother had such exquisite taste that my cousin and his friends even after all these years were obsessed with the hot pants she bought me at 12 making jokes about them when years later I was invited to a party at their house. Crushed material like velvet but nicer, half purple my favorite color, half cream with gold buttons instead of a zipper. A pale purple gauze blouse with ruffles down the front. I had long wavy brown hair and was always honey tan. I never knew my older cousin was obsessed with me. He read Playboy all the time plus his mother read these awful violent dirty cop magazines about women being tied up raped abused—he scared me at times. Handsome, older, but dangerous. He had already been in trouble. I was often afraid, having no father makes you nervous around men. My mother had numerous boyfriends and my 1/2 family seemed to sexualize everything. Looking back I was right to be afraid, but when you're a little girl you have no idea really how men can be. You only know to be careful. I wish I had been far more careful than I had been.
I'm not going to miss out on another Summer up to the lake. I have spent all of them since that time being at the Lakehouse confined inside. My ex and the plumber we had who also had me arrested played games with the heater we had. We had started to stay there in the Winter for Holidays, talking when we retire it would be all year round but would leave after a couple days, my ex saying it was because of the heater. It was never the heater it worked fine when I was there, 10 minutes the place was toasty warm, but that was part of the Gaslighting. He did it with the car and SUV too. He had to have a "Car starter" in all his vehicles. His job was 10 minutes away, I had a commute of over an hour away in Albany NY, but I had no car starter. Whenever I got into his car it didn't work. It was the same with the SUV we had and he only used it. I realized recently in horror that so many things I trusted him for or other people turned out to be lies. This plumber would come every winter and fuss with the heater and declare it inefficient or having problems. I know now it was so I didn't stay there and go skiing while they all bragged about skiing and my ex went snowmobiling. I stayed home and did all the snow for us and the neighbor who also turned his back on me in the end. A school Superintendent that I know now is an extremist. I'm learning more and more about White Supremacy and how despicable it all is. How these people had always been Racist, Classist, and Sexist. Today I know and so do so many others protesting these vile people that pretend to be decent but only enriching themselves off other's misery and hard work.
I'm proud to sit in McDonald's because there would be nothing for the inner-city without them. We should have a grocery store and we should have housing, but this is what these horrible people do and always will. It never goes away, they just go in hiding pretending to be decent while plotting the next overthrow of our Capital. Thinking about this on a day devoted to those that gave their lives for our Freedoms makes me want to vomit, but I survived and plan on continuing to "Peacefully Protest." Figuring out how to do it up North will be part of my next journey. I also rented a place in Northville and was told by the gang that descended on me at Stewarts there that I was not welcome and to "get out!" Some had been so-called friends when we kept a boat on the lake all those years when visiting Cranberry Bog marina. Their friends tried to force me into Prostitution there too. A few houses right by the school with people that try to trap you into large bills, things that don't work, and calling the State Police and evicting you. The same schemes that I was dealing with in Amsterdam NY—Forced Prostitution and Trafficking.
The Lake belongs to the people! The wealthy put these big mansions up North, property values go up increasing taxes, but they don't invest in anything but driving others out. Then the people can't keep what they have, buy anything else or have access to the Lake, which should be for all. My place was stolen by their scams that also forced my Father and Grandmother out. If God wills, I will be heading up to the Lake to Raise Awareness about Homelessness, Trafficking, and the sick filth these people are involved in. Many of these people are family and I had no idea. My Grandmother never succumbed to this evil, but her sister and others did. I will never see my mother again. She never took us to the Lake, but as soon as I bought property she moved in and got her boyfriend's family and friends to attack me. There are places that Pedophiles go, way back when marrying 3rd cousins was not unheard of and there is history, but today it's havens for despicable people. I was one of those young women seduced into a marriage that was set up. I was sold by a mother that never wanted me and knew all about how this is done. Today I can face her evil and stand for victims like myself of this kind of evil. My new sign—NOT FOR SALE!
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