Be the good girl, the good wife. Always be nice, be kind, explain, be a doormat—be a lady.
Accidents happen, natural disasters happen, things happen, but this wasn't one of those. This was all planned down to the smallest of details.
Everyday part of the ongoing nightmare. Forcing myself to get up, knowing I have to live this hell all these people have forced me into. A hell I didn't create, a hell created for me—deliberately.
This is who I have to be now—this is who they tell me I am. I even have a whole write up from the psych ward with their psychiatrists to tell me that my life was all a delusion. "They have a couple of psychiatrists," my mother contemptuously told me the night I went to talk to her before my ex-husband had me arrested the first time. She has since denied saying that, but I had no idea until recently what she was talking about. After I left her house, my ex-husband went on a rageful tirade telling me how "nothing was mine," everything was his that "I did nothing" and was going to be arrested. I sat in a chair trying to take it all in while he was on the phone supposedly calling the police who moments later 5-6 stormed in the door, forcing me to the ground, pepper-sprayed me and dragged me out in the night in handcuffs all the while he was still talking on the phone. It was to be the first of 14 arrests in just 3 years—so far that is. The threats keep coming like the arrests.
The destruction of my real self, the real me—complete. The "me" I was, gone replaced by their version. The sadistic one they relentlessly stalked me about since I was a child. Always covertly of course, behind my back. The sneers, the bullying, the laughing—the shunning. Today I have a name for this kind of abuse, but for so long I didn't—gaslighting. Maybe tomorrow something else as this monster is unwound, but at least today I have a name for this insidious, horrible abuse. As I take apart the tentacles and examine it. The same as looking at the people involved and making them accountable. Some will, some might never be. Some will drown in their own sorrow, some might "go crazy" after what they have done to themselves all these years by doing what they have done to me. The cleverness with which they operated snakelike all these years in secret, horrifying ways bringing to life the impoverishment of their own soul—a network of evil.
I woke up today reading Weinstein is guilty and will be going to prison. Some good news in spite of nothing going on for me the past 6 months I have been locked up here—confined.
"You have no chains on you, get on your feet and leave!" my mother sneered through the door. One of the many times recently I tried to talk to her about what is going on and it really goes nowhere, but then it never really has. I have not really seen her in 20-years. The Summer before last was the same. I stayed here a couple of months after thrown out of the Lakehouse I owned for 20years. Getting another apartment soon after, but only resulted in another eviction. She seemed to know about that too, but when questioned won't talk about it. These ongoing evictions keep piling up also. Another part of this ongoing smear campaign to make me appear as if I can't live on my own. Another sadistic game to destroy the fact I have been on my own since I was 17yrs old and lived as a married woman 20yrs in the same home we supposedly bought together when first married, but I find out now the home I thought I had was never supposedly mine. It was his from the start. The 12 grand I brought to the marriage after selling the Trailer my grandmother bequeath me after she passed was ignored. It was part downpayment for the house and money to pay for the wedding. I know she is right in some sense. I don't have chains on, but I also know that she knows and I do now that I'm unable to leave here, get on my feet—live my own life! After 10 moves and 14 arrests, something is very wrong here and it’s not me!
I'm locked up. It's like a jail—a cell. A small room in her garage. It's the size of the cell I was forced into at the jail after another arrest, that time for just walking down the street. The windows here similar in that way that speaks of confinement, solitary—seclusion. My days similar.
To know this was all planned makes my stomach turn each morning. My irritable bowel returning with a vengeance once again. The same one I had as a kid and young adult, but eventually getting over as I started my new life after college, but the same one that returned my entire marriage. Only when I thought I was finally free, living on my own again did it stop. It was to be short-lived and returned once again when I was violently put on the street from the home I owned, worked on, maintained and loved for over 20 years. At that time, finally living there by myself.
I can make coffee and it helps me get up. I turn on the coffee pot and try to make sense of another day here. I couldn't have coffee at the jail. I use to drink tea, mostly, but I need some motivation now. I need the caffeine. I'm tired more than I have ever been before—weak. It's hard to face the day here. It's hard not to feel so trapped. To have my freedom gone. To know everything I worked on and towards is gone. To process 20 years of my life and know everything I had created in my life is gone—destroyed. Viciously, on purpose with malice within inches of my life. I'm alive, I say, but what is life when you're walking around in one that is not yours. A forced identity that others made up for you. A sadistic nightmare that became real. A twisted version of their fantasy for you—stalkers dream sequence. Sadistic hell planned over 20-years of your life by people who told you all the time they loved you.
People would say, well that proves your free, you can make coffee, can't you? but they would be wrong. I'm learning there are many ways to take someone's freedom and do so while seemingly making it all seem so normal. House arrest comes to mind now. People might in years come to ask where they were and what they were doing when Weinstein was finally pronounced guilty. I've taken to doing just that too. My life so much less private and more part of the news cycle. I check periodically. Things have become so bizarre, so out of the ordinary that I check the news more often and look for clues when this nightmare might end, but it just continues day after day—getting worse. I read news stories about Trafficking and know that basically, that is what is happening to me. That it is also what happened to me a long time ago. A time I was lured back to this place.
When Weinstein, a celebrity rapist, and predator for decades was finally caught and found guilty, I was locked up in my mother's garage. In what I would call a "cell." Some might call it a room, but after having a home I worked on 20 years and being thrown out of it violently and put on the street, it's more like a cell. I'm grateful of course—I had to beg to be allowed to come home. Being left homeless in another city 3 hours away was not something I wanted to do. To think my life had come to this was just one more in a series of things happening that became so bizarre I had to periodically sit down. The room would spin and I would feel I was going to pass out. By this time, I already had 2 seizures, which mostly were ignored. Most people from people I thought I knew to the abusive psychiatrists at the psych ward were more concerned with labeling me delusional, could care less really about my physical health—it didn't matter how I felt.
I have been out once a month for groceries since being here, which is itself an ordeal. They also took my car and asking my mother to use hers is difficult. Psychiatrists and social workers always asked who is "they?" trying to infer that I'm making this up. That I was referring to some conspiracy theory, which of course proved I was in fact delusional. "They" aren't real was inferred. I would stop for a minute and just look at them knowing what they were doing, but sick of telling my story over and over and over and over! Do you want me to name them? "They" refers to real people. Real people I could name, I know now were all involved! Real arrests, real evictions—a real sexual assault that "they" continually try to tell me was a delusion. "Look right here it's on the papers," we have it all written down "they," say. Your ex-husband and his family and friends said you made it all up! So, of course, it must be true if my ex-husband said so! Are these people for fucking real?
I had a real apartment too! But "they" threw my things on the porch and supposedly told my mother I didn't have one anymore. I still am not sure why after not seeing her for 20 years, she is allowed so much access to my personal business and my life again, be part of the "they," but that's writing for another day—writing that will possibly give me the motivation to continue the fight. So much of my Divorce became a public circus before I even knew I was being "divorced"—read it on a police report. I suppose all that throwing my things around resulted in so much being missing when I was finally able to go through what was left, so much had been stolen, but I was told I didn't pay my rent so in other words deserved to have nothing left, my things stolen was happening on a regular basis, every single apartment "they" were stealing my stuff—hence no apartment this time either. Homeless, which resulted in another 2 months at the psych ward, of course for my safety. They couldn't release me to the street, they said, could they? No, that would be inhumane. The fact all the lies they told about my mental health didn't seem to matter. The lies why I was here in the first place also didn't factor in. The domestic violence in my 20-year marriage, the coercive control and economic abuse, all the recent assaults, evictions, and seizures the past 3 years were of no consequence either. No, it was because my apartment was gone and I was "delusional" about it all going back to when I was a child and "supposedly molested." No, no one did anything to me, I was delusional about it all—made it all up. My entire fucking life all made up!
Two dirty, black plastic garbage bags of basically a few clothes. This is all after 4 properties and housefuls of furniture, much of it new. Appliances, home brick-brack, a full office, a painting, art and graphic design studio, computer equipment, vintage photography equipment, lawn and gardening tools, snowblowers, lawnmowers and so much more. A vacation home—stocked! All remodeled. Cords of wood, outdoor items, lawn furniture, grills, bookshelves of books everywhere. I'm slowly coming to terms with how much more there was—stocks, bonds, investments! Rentals with new appliances and various “extras,” but today I eat mostly macaroni because I have no refrigerator after owning about 6 of them at the same time—all pretty new. 4 sets of washer/dryers, 3 sets brand new—all gone, I have not one! "Go walk to the dirty laundry mat," I'm told. I'm still grieving what all this means. Oh, my mother says casually, "like those disaster shows where the house is just swept away," laughing sadistically. I never minded walking, but I have had a car and washer since my 20's. This is not my doing, the result of my being "incompetent" or any of the other horrible adjectives viciously hurled at me and written up about me!
The most heartbreaking loss was my beloved dog, Bentley—taken! Still hard to write about him. My journals, 20 years, can I say that again—20 years—prolific! 5-6 pages a day in the morning, oftentimes at night, sometimes all weekend. 20 years of photography on the Sacandaga Lake I was going to try and sell. I thought when I got older and it was harder to commute I could try to sell my work, now will never happen. Not only the loss of revenue but the violation of privacy, identity and like another rape of my personhood. The journals go back 20 years! The threats came often, fiercely when the demolition started, my stuff would be "auctioned off" just like threats about my sweet dog. All taken with such swiftness, such brutality after I was assaulted, struggling to find a safe place to live after thrown out of just about all my properties that I still 3-years later struggle with the shock of it all. Slowly learning how it was all planned, all setup.
As one of the abusive psychiatrists declared—ludacris! You can't be arrested that many times and not have it be because of some "mental health crisis." Where are these people from? Do they even know any Black Americans who I'm told face this on a regular basis? One therapy aide told me just that. "Now you know what it's like," he said. Shaking his head to imply Black people face that all the time just walking down the street too. But it wasn't ludacris—wasn't a "mental health crisis." It was done to make it appear that way. It was done with such precision because it was all planned. It had been for many years. It was done as a smear campaign to make me look incompetent, delusional, "crazy" all on purpose, all to cover it all up and "they" went along with all of it for all of the 20 years I was married. Some involved going back as far back as when I was 5 years old. Many of the "they" were friends since childhood. Some now the children of the group in question themselves police officers—generational jobs. Common in small, rural towns with not much else going on. Literacy levels low, lack of jobs, opportunities—ability to leave. It was all done with precision because it was all planned, planned for over 20 years. Planned day by day, hour by hour, minute by minute.
In the time-spaces that any long term marriage unfolds. The days, minutes, hours of a life you spend together sharing, loving, creating a history together, but in my case, only one person was doing that. I was creating a marriage, my ex-husband something else entirely! I have to write fast. I never know how long I will have here or anywhere lately. Also a part of the PTS or PTSD, not sure I have the disorder, but how can you not have anxiety after all this? But, along with anything else remotely about me, what happened to me that was never talked about. Everything was a "Schizophrenic delusion" that I needed to be "drugged" for—possibly court-ordered if I kept up my delusions of talking about my so-called truth. The stress of having police bang down your door numerous times never discussed—10 evictions, 10 moves, never acknowledged. In fact, they were just here 2x yesterday. Not sure why they were here. So far it hasn't been me, but you can think it's not you then find in the next moment it is and you're in handcuffs. It's why my editing is so fast and not as good as I would like. Any moment they could bang down the doors and make another arrest. I have no idea if they will be back today. Communication with my family was never good, really nonexistent since I was a kid. Plus I haven't really seen any of them in 20-years and from what has been going on, I don't know them at all anymore, maybe never did!—I mostly sleep in my clothes now.
The lies keep piling up. "You have a criminal history," the vicious Judge said the last time I was in city court. Well, I thought, when you falsely arrest someone 14x it tends to create one. Of course by this time I was blocked to any real money from the marriage that rightfully belonged to me, and was given public defenders that had no interest in defending me. I would have everything laid out, papers, proof, documents and be told I didn't understand. Shocked, when then they would tell the Judge that "she doesn't understand." At first, I had no idea why they were doing that. It was obvious I was innocent, but I came to see that was not the agenda. Making me appear delusional, unstable, mentally ill, and incompetent was.
The false “criminal history” was also part of the delusion of course, instead of the organized, horrible plan made up by a group of people to destroy my life—stalking! Didn't I know I was a criminal? The first Judge sneering about a stolen pool ladder when I was 16. Shocked, I had no idea that was on my "file." I never stole anything! My mother gave me the receipt, told me to walk out—it was paid for! I did what she said, I knew not to question her. The charge was supposed to be dropped. I was just 16, had just gotten my learners permit and could not drive after dusk by myself, which was why my mother was with me. We went to the store to get some things. I had no idea she was buying a pool ladder. I had been so nervous driving that I locked the keys in the car. The store manager followed us out and asked to speak to us. I was assured when we went to court the charge would be dropped, especially because I never stole the ladder. Standing in front of this vicious judge all these years later being told I was a "juvenile delinquent" took some time to figure out what he was talking about. I had no idea the charge was there and was never dropped like I had been assured it would be—I don't steal, never have, never will.
This whole thing sounds too much like some murder mystery, quipped one police sergeant laughing, saying how he was going "to retire too" and it followed some made for "TV movie murder mystery." He thought that funny, but at the time I was dealing with the painful sting of pepper spray on the side of my face and the shock of being violently arrested out of my home the first time and was unable to see how vicious he was being and was actually making fun of me. I still at that time believed the police were there to "help and protect you." That was 6 years ago—seems a long time ago now and I know otherwise.
Yes, I thought my ex-husband watched those kinds of "murder mysteries" all the time lately, maybe always did, but it was lately I was catching his sadistic side more and more and realizing to my horror this was the real him, not the "nice guy" he always showed me and the outside world. It was so creepy he was watching these shows all the time that I finally asked him. "How can you continue to watch those every day?" I said—how to kill your wife. Those awful ones on late at night. Sort of news, but often much more gruesome, the outlay and plan of how a psychopath came to plot and scheme the whole sordid horrible murder—the wife reduced to some object he disposed of. Her story of no consequence or if mentioned, no one really knew, maybe just a few family and friends. It was all so surprising because of course, he was such a "nice guy." Often the "perfect family" they had no idea. No one knew what lurked behind the scenes—they seemed "such nice people" neighbors always said. Could not imagine—shocking. No one ever had any idea. Even though these "shows" run 24 fucking 7, I would eventually find out. I never was one for murder "shows" maybe because subconsciously they hit too close to home, to what I was experiencing in my own life, but could not face just yet—Not. Just. Yet. but I was getting closer. By this time learning my neighbors were not what they pretended all these years either.
After a while, I restrained from talking about much of anything. Group therapy was a joke in that psych-ward, not sure about other places. But, your "story" was just that—made up, of no consequence along with your feelings, thoughts, emotions—talking. Anything remotely resembling you! It might come as a surprise to some of these psychiatrists that at 56 years old I do have some fucking idea about who I am! But I know that just doesn't fit their agenda. Everything after a while was seen in terms of the "diagnosis" they had written up in my file about me. I tried numerous times to refute the lies, but it was of no use after a while. The diagnosis had been decided a long time ago. Long before being forced against my will into the psych ward.
You can get locked away for Jaywalking, crossing the street, trying to navigate the streets. My freedom gone after police and the courts "they" took my car—stole actually more appropriate. Jokes were made about it all the time, one being "evidence," which was actually true, the fuel lines were cut, but that's a story for another day—nothing was done. Talking, writing too much can seem like your "thoughts are scattered" I was told. Another indicator of your illness and not part of having good writing skills, the ability to multi-task and trying to figure this all out on my own. Making it seem an "illness" of course was told to psychiatrists by an ex-husband who can't read—just skims, scams and makes boxes. Not that working on a machine isn't decent work, but when your wife is a professional and you basically have not shown the slightest respect for what she does, but hound her relentlessly for money. I've been chased down numerous times even for tips after eating out and always paying my 50/50 share, something totally denied in the court system here. I paid 50/50 of everything, in fact, we all know now more like 150 when he scammed everything—so much intangible I'm still coming to terms at what a "MasterPlayer" he is. He told me so himself! All his friends, family even various Judges fawning all over him. In these parts criminals like that are celebrities. Probably in other places too, but I never got out much and had no idea the criminals I seemed to be dealing with.
I had crossed the busy intersection as a truck came barreling down at a sharp curve, a blind spot, right before the lights changed. I wasn't arrested there, but further up the street. This is what landed me in the psych ward supposedly. That and the lie that I resisted the arrest. After 14 arrests, were they serious? I knew better by that time. I also knew to be quiet and politely try to assert some of my rights, which were often ignored, but I was trying to learn. I knew it was a blind spot, it was a small town I had driven on these streets numerous times. I was a good driver, but walking was getting to me, especially the inference I was a prostitute. This part of the smear campaign had been going on right from the start and it was finally after the past 3 years getting to me. I was sick and tired of it. I had thought of protesting now, a silent march or even something a little more deliberate. I didn't know what. I had done some advocacy work in communications, but front-line protesting was new to me. It was outrageous they could just take my car then tell me to "go walk the streets!" and "you're a prostitute!" it was like some sick version of a horror movie like the land time forgot, but this was real!
I had admitted I had been on my way to see my ex-husband, but when did walking become a crime? But I knew the answer to that. Whenever I went anywhere or did anything lately it was a crime. A crime to fucking live my life now. I hadn't by this time been able to talk to him in 5 years—all done on purpose. How do you have a divorce when you can't even speak to someone? It wasn't even that a Divorce Attorney was speaking for me–I wasn't allowed one of those either. I was just viciously abused by some hack they appointed, a lawyer ad Litem that made it a point to sadistically tell me often to "go to a homeless shelter" and that "all my personal belongings were going to be auctioned off!" This was basically all she said the entire 3 years I asked repeatedly to get my own Divorce Lawyer. "You don't get along with anyone," was usually their retort. Judges here had an excuse for every time I asked anything about my rights. I didn't have any rights I would come to see. Like some script in a movie, I was just shuffled around here and there and defined, denied and told to basically shut up—that I didn't know and couldn't comprehend what was going on. Oftentimes "explaining" repeatedly, but then having some assigned lawyer tell the Judge I just "didn't understand." At the time, it was so shocking, but now I know done on purpose. This was before I learned Criminal Justice was not only broken but working diligently to make sure many are locked up on purpose.
I wanted to ask my ex-husband to please stop, not that it would do much good. I knew how horrible he was being. How he was playing this for all it was worth. How the few times I did try to talk to him it turned into an arrest. Most times I was just sitting in a chair while he told me in that icy way I came to dread and shake from what was going to do down. Sitting often while he dictated his demands. It was often what was forced and coerced throughout our marriage—me being his assistant. So "this is how it's going to go," he would say as he would rattle off what was going to be done to me. A sick cat and mouse game where he was always so far ahead that it would take me months to play catch up with each horrible thing he had planned. Pieces of the puzzle were finally coming together, but it had gotten so bad, I thought appealing to him would help. I still at that time didn't know the entire marriage was all a scam. I would come to know that, but at that time I still considered myself his "wife." Our shared life, memories, times together meaning something, but I was to find out that none of it meant absolutely nothing—nothing! Which was why they all could destroy my life with immunity. His friends, his family, my family—everyone we knew. I had no friends or family since this started, but I was to horribly come to know they all showed up behind my back to make these false and horrible, life-destroying allegations.
"A group of people can get together and declare a person incompetent!" I was being told this often, like some sick meme. It was taking me a while to actually know and learn it was all so horribly true. Believing before all this started you could never do this to someone. Some kind of horrible identity theft. Something out of an old Hitchcock movie, only again this was all real!
I was arrested continuously now. I lost track at 14x now. It was probably more like 16x, but I wasn't in handcuffs a couple of those times. Like when I stayed with my mother a brief time last Summer and she called the police often, but all the other times I was. Accused of a number of things. So much bullshit the saying throw the kitchen sink at someone and see what sticks come to mind. All of them outright lies, but that didn't seem to matter at all, which put me into shock most times, especially because quite a few of the people making all these claims had been so abusive to me over the years—it became ungodly—unconscionable. Every police report, if I even got one, were lies, which also became so shocking. Each time I would try and tell the truth I would be ignored. Another abusive psychiatrist or Social Worker at the psych ward–gets confusing as there were so many groups you were made to attend—regular regimes every hour, just about every day. She, in front of everyone, when I first tried to explain the trauma I was dealing with contemptuously said, "you don't expect Justice to come riding in upon a white horse, do you?" In other words, how stupid can you be? Trauma does not equal mental illness, I thought. But, I would come to see her salary depended on it.
It was around this time, after my experience at the jail, I was definitely accepting that Criminal Justice was broken, bail reform a joke to these people and the horror that this was in fact what they all planned and were doing. Completely change your identity to fit some Frankenstein agenda they have. They already had their official story, testimony, version of events, diagnosis file and there was no need to talk to me about Justice—I could just forget about it! Their version of events was never even close to mine. I came to see because this had all been set up from the start, even my complaining was another part of my illness. "It's all in your head," my sadistic then sister-in-law told me all those years ago. Her being a Special Ed Teacher would come to make her the expert. Unbeknownst to me, she had made a "learning plan" for me when she first meant me. Eventually, I would come to watch videos of how these women would watch children in a 2-way mirror and take regular behaviors and deem them schizophrenic and in doing so able to get prescribed psychotropic medications, but this was our first "fight" it would take me years to see what she really did for a living. Our first fight was to be our last. She never visited me again—another story for another time.
After a while, you become what they continually hound, badger and abuse you about. Take everything away from a person, what the fuck do you think happens. Of course, they knew what would happen—psychotic break. But it didn't happen 20 years ago like they claimed and set up and it wasn't happening now. Her gaslighting and that of the others was now coming to light. By this time, I had also been catching what they were up to. Things missing, odd occurrences, things I never said. All the sadistic shit you can do to a person and then some to make them think they are losing their mind. There was no name for this type of abuse 20 years ago. I know with me it started when I was a kid. It started when I was 5 years old. Right around the time, I last saw my father before he left for Florida, our final Summer on the Sacandaga Lake NY, when I was no longer allowed to call him "Dad." Around the time I had been molested by a male cousin. So much right before I started school in the Fall, my first official photo outside our new apartment—I was crying.
Today Weinstein is guilty and going to Prison. I'm held hostage in my mother's garage. Enslaved by a web of lies and legal paperwork that basically says I no longer have a home, no longer my car, career or ability to live my life. How can you do much of anything when you're in a rural area and have no car? When your deliberately made homeless and after having been evicted 10x, the police do nothing about the constant stalking you endure, the noise harassment and ongoing abuse from a group of people, including family members that continue to do this. Lies that took my home, car, credit, and business away. What do you even do then? Walk? yes, that's what I had been doing until arrested again. Jobs? another joke here. Moving again? I was told to get out of the city by the Mayor, the one (2) mayors ago, one of my inlaws crony friends/acquaintances. She came to my mother-in-law's funeral, ignoring me, paying everyone else condolences, but me. I wondered why. I never knew she was a personal friend of my inlaws—highschool chums. There was so much I didn't know when I buried my mother-in-law, but so many people did. People who I trusted to tell me the truth, but thought to lie to me for 20 years was funny.
Lies that force me to stay in my mother's garage unable to have an apartment of my own, not because
I'm incompetent like they are trying to make it seem, but because every place I rent, the stalking, harassment, and lies that result in eviction and or arrest continues. In a rural area without transportation, it's very difficult. I still have trouble physically. I tire easily. I haven't run since this started. I use to run 6-7 miles per week, getting so good at the gym I was running outside. My equilibrium is still off and as much as the trauma has subsided triggers come like a freight train if I'm not careful—20 years of lies is a long, long time. Without my car, I can't get a professional job. I need a full-time job with healthcare now that my business is gone. I can't retire, but my ex-husband can and did. My healthcare was viciously taken one day I wasn't even in court. The "plan we had together," but covered under his plan at work. Not that I used it much, he never let me—I usually had my own. It was for "catastrophic emergencies," he'd say, but I knew as the years went by he didn't care if I went to the doctor, it was just to protect his money if something happened, which of course I thought at the time, protecting our money was prudent. Believing, I was such a good wife!
His money was his, my money was his and our money was—his! Underneath the so-called concern was just flat-out disregard for me or my health. Our goal since we first married was to retire early. I had been forgoing so many things thinking that down the road when Art jobs became scarce that I didn't have to worry. I could freelance and start my own business—a dream since I was a young art student. He, on the other hand, was spending on his "Toys" quite frequently, he had absolutely no plans to retire with me—it was going to be all for him. Just like the boat, snowmobiles, motorcycles and vacation Lake home my money bought but ended up all his and "his money." Everyone thought that funny—deserving. You know how those "feminists" are finally getting a taste of their own medicine! All my money saved with his or so I thought. All my money invested in "Our" properties—all a scam. "Everything was his" because I had done nothing all those years—incompetent!—they all laughed and sneered. Men here I knew, even ones I didn't loved haughtily telling me they were going to retire too—ha haha ha!
Lies now that even prevent me from getting a part-time job. "No one wants anything to do with you," my mother yelled. I had just gotten here and was going on interviews, applying for jobs and doing the things you do to get a job. I had no idea what she was talking about. Who is "no one?" I haven't seen anyone in 20-years! Nieces I never saw, all grown-up now, have children of their own, I thought. I hadn't really seen her in all these years either. An occasional funeral. I had been a professional since graduating college, so her initial admonishment of "you have to try a couple times, keep following up," rang hollow—there was something more going on. I have applied for numerous jobs, went to numerous places, some even gave me an interview, but once I got there knew it was a game. I had never been able to get a job here. I applied to every place in town over the years. I was more than qualified—it was done on purpose. I was to learn the horrible extent of trouble these people had been causing me for a long time. Bullied out of a recent School Administration Job, watching the jokes and laughter by this time right out in the open—as was the taunts about how they knew and had also destroyed my business. Shunning me over the years had been constant since I was a little girl. Basically, you make friends in Kindergarten and those are the ones you keep all your life here. Because we moved often, I went to many of the grade schools, many cliques already formed. I was often bullied, called out to fight as the new kid. Mostly this group was bullies. Alone, they weren't all that tough, but together it could be hard—after a while, they mostly left me alone or so I thought. I would get settled just in time to move again. Another reason the current span of moving 10x after living in my home for 20 years is so funny to them. Most of them I knew as a kid, I moved a lot, was one of those "Welfare kids" and often a target because of it, especially because I have half-siblings, we have different last names, unheard of back then here. The same cliques from highschool run the various municipalities here now—I should have known.
I commuted to the next city, almost 2 hours per day, sometimes more depending on the weather. I did it for the 20 years I was married—working full-time. He always used the SUV—it was "his," always had car-starters in all his vehicles and new snow tires—he worked 10 minutes away the 20 years we were married. We had a total of 4-vehicles, he got 3, including a new Harley Davidson “we” bought. I still have not been told where my new entry-level car went—I paid for. The “rental income” and profit either. I never saw any of it. The vicious ad Litem last time I tried to talk to her, pretended “he” was losing money on “his rentals” even though it had been a joint business for 20-years. The properties after 20-years all in excellent shape—50/50! I'm forced to walk because they alleged I'm a prostitute and should "walk the streets." My career was up and down. "They" started trouble wherever I went. I didn't know it for years. It was extremely painful. I would be doing really good work and there would be one of those downsizings, restructuring, reorganizations, happening a lot in those years after 911. Art, Graphic Design and Communications can be that way even in the best of times, but I always got a better job with increasing responsibility and pay or good unemployment. Now they just don't hire you at all, not only me, but it seems a lot of people in this economy.
The fact the Stock Market goes up and up is touted that everyone is doing well and working. Same illusions I face here constantly. The disconnect between what they say is happening and what is actually happening. Again, I could name the "they," but at this point, I refuse to give them any more attention. I had been videotaping the various harassments at the apartments, but a psychiatrist at the psych ward convinced me to take them down. It was a mistake, another way for me to not have proof. At the time, I still thought I would get another professional job and I wanted to put it all behind me. 20 years of journals were also my proof, but once my storage unit was "auctioned off" they were gone. Nothing of who I was remains—all on purpose. All my art and photography portfolios went too. These people thrive on the negative attention also, so talking about them just gives them more attention. Some are family still trying to say being molested is just someone "getting fresh," no big deal—nothing to see here, just move along. Connected to businesses here. In a small town, everyone knows everyone. It's not hard to shun someone, freeze someone out—for some, high school never ends. My being a professional also a delusion—my business completely ignored. The business I had dreamed of finally coming true after years of hard work and was making money! A dream come true.
"Where do you get this stuff?!" my ex would say in that incredulous way that made my questions seem crazy, which was the point. So over the top, he would imply, that they couldn't possibly have any merit. After all these years, they all did—every single fucking one of them! Every fucking one of them for 20 years and with some people even longer. If it had just been him, I would have caught on sooner. The "why didn't you just leave?" would have applied in some way, but it was never just him. "What took you so long?" some now say mockingly. The inference that it became my fault because I should have just left. How could I have not figured it all out?
Because it just wasn't him! "They were a group!" Many I have come to see were "family." Real people, a real "them", a real "they." All taking part in the game of gaslighting. All for various reasons. Some were generational family wars that started way before I was born. Real people conspiring to make sure I ended up with nothing after a 20-year marriage. Real people who wanted to destroy my career and livelihood from the beginning. Real people who despised "feminists" especially ones from a poor family who supposedly thought they were so smart, as in "you think you're so smart!" A "whore" thinking she was somebody. A whore that made it on her own who could be successfully retied at 50 with her own home, car, savings, good credit and accomplishments she could be proud of. A woman that overcame the obstacles she was born into through no fault of her own in spite of these people's continual violence.
Today Weinstein is guilty and it starts a new chapter! Many women didn't make it the past 30-years, but I did and I feel a stronger responsibility. A deeper fight has been building. A call to spend whatever time I have speaking out, hopefully, one-day marching—protesting! I will continue to write about it as long as I can—I'm not suicidal. I have never really been suicidal and never will be. It's not that I don't get the blues, but it's not to that extreme. I won't give them the satisfaction. Plus my spiritual beliefs prevent it. I continue to get up each day trying to survive, put the coffee on and know that I will try to continue.
P.S. My dear readers, I know this is way more than a blog post, it's very long and I have to edit on the fly—please forgive me. Maybe we can think of it as the start of a novel. I'm just learning and thinking maybe it's possible to write one. Thank you so much for reading me, it means so very much to me. Please also visit my ads, the little extra income is very needed and would help—I’m trying to learn to monetize. Sincerely, Rhonda
Accidents happen, natural disasters happen, things happen, but this wasn't one of those. This was all planned down to the smallest of details.
Everyday part of the ongoing nightmare. Forcing myself to get up, knowing I have to live this hell all these people have forced me into. A hell I didn't create, a hell created for me—deliberately.
This is who I have to be now—this is who they tell me I am. I even have a whole write up from the psych ward with their psychiatrists to tell me that my life was all a delusion. "They have a couple of psychiatrists," my mother contemptuously told me the night I went to talk to her before my ex-husband had me arrested the first time. She has since denied saying that, but I had no idea until recently what she was talking about. After I left her house, my ex-husband went on a rageful tirade telling me how "nothing was mine," everything was his that "I did nothing" and was going to be arrested. I sat in a chair trying to take it all in while he was on the phone supposedly calling the police who moments later 5-6 stormed in the door, forcing me to the ground, pepper-sprayed me and dragged me out in the night in handcuffs all the while he was still talking on the phone. It was to be the first of 14 arrests in just 3 years—so far that is. The threats keep coming like the arrests.
The destruction of my real self, the real me—complete. The "me" I was, gone replaced by their version. The sadistic one they relentlessly stalked me about since I was a child. Always covertly of course, behind my back. The sneers, the bullying, the laughing—the shunning. Today I have a name for this kind of abuse, but for so long I didn't—gaslighting. Maybe tomorrow something else as this monster is unwound, but at least today I have a name for this insidious, horrible abuse. As I take apart the tentacles and examine it. The same as looking at the people involved and making them accountable. Some will, some might never be. Some will drown in their own sorrow, some might "go crazy" after what they have done to themselves all these years by doing what they have done to me. The cleverness with which they operated snakelike all these years in secret, horrifying ways bringing to life the impoverishment of their own soul—a network of evil.
I woke up today reading Weinstein is guilty and will be going to prison. Some good news in spite of nothing going on for me the past 6 months I have been locked up here—confined.
"You have no chains on you, get on your feet and leave!" my mother sneered through the door. One of the many times recently I tried to talk to her about what is going on and it really goes nowhere, but then it never really has. I have not really seen her in 20-years. The Summer before last was the same. I stayed here a couple of months after thrown out of the Lakehouse I owned for 20years. Getting another apartment soon after, but only resulted in another eviction. She seemed to know about that too, but when questioned won't talk about it. These ongoing evictions keep piling up also. Another part of this ongoing smear campaign to make me appear as if I can't live on my own. Another sadistic game to destroy the fact I have been on my own since I was 17yrs old and lived as a married woman 20yrs in the same home we supposedly bought together when first married, but I find out now the home I thought I had was never supposedly mine. It was his from the start. The 12 grand I brought to the marriage after selling the Trailer my grandmother bequeath me after she passed was ignored. It was part downpayment for the house and money to pay for the wedding. I know she is right in some sense. I don't have chains on, but I also know that she knows and I do now that I'm unable to leave here, get on my feet—live my own life! After 10 moves and 14 arrests, something is very wrong here and it’s not me!
I'm locked up. It's like a jail—a cell. A small room in her garage. It's the size of the cell I was forced into at the jail after another arrest, that time for just walking down the street. The windows here similar in that way that speaks of confinement, solitary—seclusion. My days similar.
To know this was all planned makes my stomach turn each morning. My irritable bowel returning with a vengeance once again. The same one I had as a kid and young adult, but eventually getting over as I started my new life after college, but the same one that returned my entire marriage. Only when I thought I was finally free, living on my own again did it stop. It was to be short-lived and returned once again when I was violently put on the street from the home I owned, worked on, maintained and loved for over 20 years. At that time, finally living there by myself.
I can make coffee and it helps me get up. I turn on the coffee pot and try to make sense of another day here. I couldn't have coffee at the jail. I use to drink tea, mostly, but I need some motivation now. I need the caffeine. I'm tired more than I have ever been before—weak. It's hard to face the day here. It's hard not to feel so trapped. To have my freedom gone. To know everything I worked on and towards is gone. To process 20 years of my life and know everything I had created in my life is gone—destroyed. Viciously, on purpose with malice within inches of my life. I'm alive, I say, but what is life when you're walking around in one that is not yours. A forced identity that others made up for you. A sadistic nightmare that became real. A twisted version of their fantasy for you—stalkers dream sequence. Sadistic hell planned over 20-years of your life by people who told you all the time they loved you.
People would say, well that proves your free, you can make coffee, can't you? but they would be wrong. I'm learning there are many ways to take someone's freedom and do so while seemingly making it all seem so normal. House arrest comes to mind now. People might in years come to ask where they were and what they were doing when Weinstein was finally pronounced guilty. I've taken to doing just that too. My life so much less private and more part of the news cycle. I check periodically. Things have become so bizarre, so out of the ordinary that I check the news more often and look for clues when this nightmare might end, but it just continues day after day—getting worse. I read news stories about Trafficking and know that basically, that is what is happening to me. That it is also what happened to me a long time ago. A time I was lured back to this place.
When Weinstein, a celebrity rapist, and predator for decades was finally caught and found guilty, I was locked up in my mother's garage. In what I would call a "cell." Some might call it a room, but after having a home I worked on 20 years and being thrown out of it violently and put on the street, it's more like a cell. I'm grateful of course—I had to beg to be allowed to come home. Being left homeless in another city 3 hours away was not something I wanted to do. To think my life had come to this was just one more in a series of things happening that became so bizarre I had to periodically sit down. The room would spin and I would feel I was going to pass out. By this time, I already had 2 seizures, which mostly were ignored. Most people from people I thought I knew to the abusive psychiatrists at the psych ward were more concerned with labeling me delusional, could care less really about my physical health—it didn't matter how I felt.
I have been out once a month for groceries since being here, which is itself an ordeal. They also took my car and asking my mother to use hers is difficult. Psychiatrists and social workers always asked who is "they?" trying to infer that I'm making this up. That I was referring to some conspiracy theory, which of course proved I was in fact delusional. "They" aren't real was inferred. I would stop for a minute and just look at them knowing what they were doing, but sick of telling my story over and over and over and over! Do you want me to name them? "They" refers to real people. Real people I could name, I know now were all involved! Real arrests, real evictions—a real sexual assault that "they" continually try to tell me was a delusion. "Look right here it's on the papers," we have it all written down "they," say. Your ex-husband and his family and friends said you made it all up! So, of course, it must be true if my ex-husband said so! Are these people for fucking real?
I had a real apartment too! But "they" threw my things on the porch and supposedly told my mother I didn't have one anymore. I still am not sure why after not seeing her for 20 years, she is allowed so much access to my personal business and my life again, be part of the "they," but that's writing for another day—writing that will possibly give me the motivation to continue the fight. So much of my Divorce became a public circus before I even knew I was being "divorced"—read it on a police report. I suppose all that throwing my things around resulted in so much being missing when I was finally able to go through what was left, so much had been stolen, but I was told I didn't pay my rent so in other words deserved to have nothing left, my things stolen was happening on a regular basis, every single apartment "they" were stealing my stuff—hence no apartment this time either. Homeless, which resulted in another 2 months at the psych ward, of course for my safety. They couldn't release me to the street, they said, could they? No, that would be inhumane. The fact all the lies they told about my mental health didn't seem to matter. The lies why I was here in the first place also didn't factor in. The domestic violence in my 20-year marriage, the coercive control and economic abuse, all the recent assaults, evictions, and seizures the past 3 years were of no consequence either. No, it was because my apartment was gone and I was "delusional" about it all going back to when I was a child and "supposedly molested." No, no one did anything to me, I was delusional about it all—made it all up. My entire fucking life all made up!
Two dirty, black plastic garbage bags of basically a few clothes. This is all after 4 properties and housefuls of furniture, much of it new. Appliances, home brick-brack, a full office, a painting, art and graphic design studio, computer equipment, vintage photography equipment, lawn and gardening tools, snowblowers, lawnmowers and so much more. A vacation home—stocked! All remodeled. Cords of wood, outdoor items, lawn furniture, grills, bookshelves of books everywhere. I'm slowly coming to terms with how much more there was—stocks, bonds, investments! Rentals with new appliances and various “extras,” but today I eat mostly macaroni because I have no refrigerator after owning about 6 of them at the same time—all pretty new. 4 sets of washer/dryers, 3 sets brand new—all gone, I have not one! "Go walk to the dirty laundry mat," I'm told. I'm still grieving what all this means. Oh, my mother says casually, "like those disaster shows where the house is just swept away," laughing sadistically. I never minded walking, but I have had a car and washer since my 20's. This is not my doing, the result of my being "incompetent" or any of the other horrible adjectives viciously hurled at me and written up about me!
The most heartbreaking loss was my beloved dog, Bentley—taken! Still hard to write about him. My journals, 20 years, can I say that again—20 years—prolific! 5-6 pages a day in the morning, oftentimes at night, sometimes all weekend. 20 years of photography on the Sacandaga Lake I was going to try and sell. I thought when I got older and it was harder to commute I could try to sell my work, now will never happen. Not only the loss of revenue but the violation of privacy, identity and like another rape of my personhood. The journals go back 20 years! The threats came often, fiercely when the demolition started, my stuff would be "auctioned off" just like threats about my sweet dog. All taken with such swiftness, such brutality after I was assaulted, struggling to find a safe place to live after thrown out of just about all my properties that I still 3-years later struggle with the shock of it all. Slowly learning how it was all planned, all setup.
As one of the abusive psychiatrists declared—ludacris! You can't be arrested that many times and not have it be because of some "mental health crisis." Where are these people from? Do they even know any Black Americans who I'm told face this on a regular basis? One therapy aide told me just that. "Now you know what it's like," he said. Shaking his head to imply Black people face that all the time just walking down the street too. But it wasn't ludacris—wasn't a "mental health crisis." It was done to make it appear that way. It was done with such precision because it was all planned. It had been for many years. It was done as a smear campaign to make me look incompetent, delusional, "crazy" all on purpose, all to cover it all up and "they" went along with all of it for all of the 20 years I was married. Some involved going back as far back as when I was 5 years old. Many of the "they" were friends since childhood. Some now the children of the group in question themselves police officers—generational jobs. Common in small, rural towns with not much else going on. Literacy levels low, lack of jobs, opportunities—ability to leave. It was all done with precision because it was all planned, planned for over 20 years. Planned day by day, hour by hour, minute by minute.
In the time-spaces that any long term marriage unfolds. The days, minutes, hours of a life you spend together sharing, loving, creating a history together, but in my case, only one person was doing that. I was creating a marriage, my ex-husband something else entirely! I have to write fast. I never know how long I will have here or anywhere lately. Also a part of the PTS or PTSD, not sure I have the disorder, but how can you not have anxiety after all this? But, along with anything else remotely about me, what happened to me that was never talked about. Everything was a "Schizophrenic delusion" that I needed to be "drugged" for—possibly court-ordered if I kept up my delusions of talking about my so-called truth. The stress of having police bang down your door numerous times never discussed—10 evictions, 10 moves, never acknowledged. In fact, they were just here 2x yesterday. Not sure why they were here. So far it hasn't been me, but you can think it's not you then find in the next moment it is and you're in handcuffs. It's why my editing is so fast and not as good as I would like. Any moment they could bang down the doors and make another arrest. I have no idea if they will be back today. Communication with my family was never good, really nonexistent since I was a kid. Plus I haven't really seen any of them in 20-years and from what has been going on, I don't know them at all anymore, maybe never did!—I mostly sleep in my clothes now.
The lies keep piling up. "You have a criminal history," the vicious Judge said the last time I was in city court. Well, I thought, when you falsely arrest someone 14x it tends to create one. Of course by this time I was blocked to any real money from the marriage that rightfully belonged to me, and was given public defenders that had no interest in defending me. I would have everything laid out, papers, proof, documents and be told I didn't understand. Shocked, when then they would tell the Judge that "she doesn't understand." At first, I had no idea why they were doing that. It was obvious I was innocent, but I came to see that was not the agenda. Making me appear delusional, unstable, mentally ill, and incompetent was.
The false “criminal history” was also part of the delusion of course, instead of the organized, horrible plan made up by a group of people to destroy my life—stalking! Didn't I know I was a criminal? The first Judge sneering about a stolen pool ladder when I was 16. Shocked, I had no idea that was on my "file." I never stole anything! My mother gave me the receipt, told me to walk out—it was paid for! I did what she said, I knew not to question her. The charge was supposed to be dropped. I was just 16, had just gotten my learners permit and could not drive after dusk by myself, which was why my mother was with me. We went to the store to get some things. I had no idea she was buying a pool ladder. I had been so nervous driving that I locked the keys in the car. The store manager followed us out and asked to speak to us. I was assured when we went to court the charge would be dropped, especially because I never stole the ladder. Standing in front of this vicious judge all these years later being told I was a "juvenile delinquent" took some time to figure out what he was talking about. I had no idea the charge was there and was never dropped like I had been assured it would be—I don't steal, never have, never will.
This whole thing sounds too much like some murder mystery, quipped one police sergeant laughing, saying how he was going "to retire too" and it followed some made for "TV movie murder mystery." He thought that funny, but at the time I was dealing with the painful sting of pepper spray on the side of my face and the shock of being violently arrested out of my home the first time and was unable to see how vicious he was being and was actually making fun of me. I still at that time believed the police were there to "help and protect you." That was 6 years ago—seems a long time ago now and I know otherwise.
Yes, I thought my ex-husband watched those kinds of "murder mysteries" all the time lately, maybe always did, but it was lately I was catching his sadistic side more and more and realizing to my horror this was the real him, not the "nice guy" he always showed me and the outside world. It was so creepy he was watching these shows all the time that I finally asked him. "How can you continue to watch those every day?" I said—how to kill your wife. Those awful ones on late at night. Sort of news, but often much more gruesome, the outlay and plan of how a psychopath came to plot and scheme the whole sordid horrible murder—the wife reduced to some object he disposed of. Her story of no consequence or if mentioned, no one really knew, maybe just a few family and friends. It was all so surprising because of course, he was such a "nice guy." Often the "perfect family" they had no idea. No one knew what lurked behind the scenes—they seemed "such nice people" neighbors always said. Could not imagine—shocking. No one ever had any idea. Even though these "shows" run 24 fucking 7, I would eventually find out. I never was one for murder "shows" maybe because subconsciously they hit too close to home, to what I was experiencing in my own life, but could not face just yet—Not. Just. Yet. but I was getting closer. By this time learning my neighbors were not what they pretended all these years either.
After a while, I restrained from talking about much of anything. Group therapy was a joke in that psych-ward, not sure about other places. But, your "story" was just that—made up, of no consequence along with your feelings, thoughts, emotions—talking. Anything remotely resembling you! It might come as a surprise to some of these psychiatrists that at 56 years old I do have some fucking idea about who I am! But I know that just doesn't fit their agenda. Everything after a while was seen in terms of the "diagnosis" they had written up in my file about me. I tried numerous times to refute the lies, but it was of no use after a while. The diagnosis had been decided a long time ago. Long before being forced against my will into the psych ward.
You can get locked away for Jaywalking, crossing the street, trying to navigate the streets. My freedom gone after police and the courts "they" took my car—stole actually more appropriate. Jokes were made about it all the time, one being "evidence," which was actually true, the fuel lines were cut, but that's a story for another day—nothing was done. Talking, writing too much can seem like your "thoughts are scattered" I was told. Another indicator of your illness and not part of having good writing skills, the ability to multi-task and trying to figure this all out on my own. Making it seem an "illness" of course was told to psychiatrists by an ex-husband who can't read—just skims, scams and makes boxes. Not that working on a machine isn't decent work, but when your wife is a professional and you basically have not shown the slightest respect for what she does, but hound her relentlessly for money. I've been chased down numerous times even for tips after eating out and always paying my 50/50 share, something totally denied in the court system here. I paid 50/50 of everything, in fact, we all know now more like 150 when he scammed everything—so much intangible I'm still coming to terms at what a "MasterPlayer" he is. He told me so himself! All his friends, family even various Judges fawning all over him. In these parts criminals like that are celebrities. Probably in other places too, but I never got out much and had no idea the criminals I seemed to be dealing with.
I had crossed the busy intersection as a truck came barreling down at a sharp curve, a blind spot, right before the lights changed. I wasn't arrested there, but further up the street. This is what landed me in the psych ward supposedly. That and the lie that I resisted the arrest. After 14 arrests, were they serious? I knew better by that time. I also knew to be quiet and politely try to assert some of my rights, which were often ignored, but I was trying to learn. I knew it was a blind spot, it was a small town I had driven on these streets numerous times. I was a good driver, but walking was getting to me, especially the inference I was a prostitute. This part of the smear campaign had been going on right from the start and it was finally after the past 3 years getting to me. I was sick and tired of it. I had thought of protesting now, a silent march or even something a little more deliberate. I didn't know what. I had done some advocacy work in communications, but front-line protesting was new to me. It was outrageous they could just take my car then tell me to "go walk the streets!" and "you're a prostitute!" it was like some sick version of a horror movie like the land time forgot, but this was real!
I had admitted I had been on my way to see my ex-husband, but when did walking become a crime? But I knew the answer to that. Whenever I went anywhere or did anything lately it was a crime. A crime to fucking live my life now. I hadn't by this time been able to talk to him in 5 years—all done on purpose. How do you have a divorce when you can't even speak to someone? It wasn't even that a Divorce Attorney was speaking for me–I wasn't allowed one of those either. I was just viciously abused by some hack they appointed, a lawyer ad Litem that made it a point to sadistically tell me often to "go to a homeless shelter" and that "all my personal belongings were going to be auctioned off!" This was basically all she said the entire 3 years I asked repeatedly to get my own Divorce Lawyer. "You don't get along with anyone," was usually their retort. Judges here had an excuse for every time I asked anything about my rights. I didn't have any rights I would come to see. Like some script in a movie, I was just shuffled around here and there and defined, denied and told to basically shut up—that I didn't know and couldn't comprehend what was going on. Oftentimes "explaining" repeatedly, but then having some assigned lawyer tell the Judge I just "didn't understand." At the time, it was so shocking, but now I know done on purpose. This was before I learned Criminal Justice was not only broken but working diligently to make sure many are locked up on purpose.
I wanted to ask my ex-husband to please stop, not that it would do much good. I knew how horrible he was being. How he was playing this for all it was worth. How the few times I did try to talk to him it turned into an arrest. Most times I was just sitting in a chair while he told me in that icy way I came to dread and shake from what was going to do down. Sitting often while he dictated his demands. It was often what was forced and coerced throughout our marriage—me being his assistant. So "this is how it's going to go," he would say as he would rattle off what was going to be done to me. A sick cat and mouse game where he was always so far ahead that it would take me months to play catch up with each horrible thing he had planned. Pieces of the puzzle were finally coming together, but it had gotten so bad, I thought appealing to him would help. I still at that time didn't know the entire marriage was all a scam. I would come to know that, but at that time I still considered myself his "wife." Our shared life, memories, times together meaning something, but I was to find out that none of it meant absolutely nothing—nothing! Which was why they all could destroy my life with immunity. His friends, his family, my family—everyone we knew. I had no friends or family since this started, but I was to horribly come to know they all showed up behind my back to make these false and horrible, life-destroying allegations.
"A group of people can get together and declare a person incompetent!" I was being told this often, like some sick meme. It was taking me a while to actually know and learn it was all so horribly true. Believing before all this started you could never do this to someone. Some kind of horrible identity theft. Something out of an old Hitchcock movie, only again this was all real!
I was arrested continuously now. I lost track at 14x now. It was probably more like 16x, but I wasn't in handcuffs a couple of those times. Like when I stayed with my mother a brief time last Summer and she called the police often, but all the other times I was. Accused of a number of things. So much bullshit the saying throw the kitchen sink at someone and see what sticks come to mind. All of them outright lies, but that didn't seem to matter at all, which put me into shock most times, especially because quite a few of the people making all these claims had been so abusive to me over the years—it became ungodly—unconscionable. Every police report, if I even got one, were lies, which also became so shocking. Each time I would try and tell the truth I would be ignored. Another abusive psychiatrist or Social Worker at the psych ward–gets confusing as there were so many groups you were made to attend—regular regimes every hour, just about every day. She, in front of everyone, when I first tried to explain the trauma I was dealing with contemptuously said, "you don't expect Justice to come riding in upon a white horse, do you?" In other words, how stupid can you be? Trauma does not equal mental illness, I thought. But, I would come to see her salary depended on it.
It was around this time, after my experience at the jail, I was definitely accepting that Criminal Justice was broken, bail reform a joke to these people and the horror that this was in fact what they all planned and were doing. Completely change your identity to fit some Frankenstein agenda they have. They already had their official story, testimony, version of events, diagnosis file and there was no need to talk to me about Justice—I could just forget about it! Their version of events was never even close to mine. I came to see because this had all been set up from the start, even my complaining was another part of my illness. "It's all in your head," my sadistic then sister-in-law told me all those years ago. Her being a Special Ed Teacher would come to make her the expert. Unbeknownst to me, she had made a "learning plan" for me when she first meant me. Eventually, I would come to watch videos of how these women would watch children in a 2-way mirror and take regular behaviors and deem them schizophrenic and in doing so able to get prescribed psychotropic medications, but this was our first "fight" it would take me years to see what she really did for a living. Our first fight was to be our last. She never visited me again—another story for another time.
After a while, you become what they continually hound, badger and abuse you about. Take everything away from a person, what the fuck do you think happens. Of course, they knew what would happen—psychotic break. But it didn't happen 20 years ago like they claimed and set up and it wasn't happening now. Her gaslighting and that of the others was now coming to light. By this time, I had also been catching what they were up to. Things missing, odd occurrences, things I never said. All the sadistic shit you can do to a person and then some to make them think they are losing their mind. There was no name for this type of abuse 20 years ago. I know with me it started when I was a kid. It started when I was 5 years old. Right around the time, I last saw my father before he left for Florida, our final Summer on the Sacandaga Lake NY, when I was no longer allowed to call him "Dad." Around the time I had been molested by a male cousin. So much right before I started school in the Fall, my first official photo outside our new apartment—I was crying.
Today Weinstein is guilty and going to Prison. I'm held hostage in my mother's garage. Enslaved by a web of lies and legal paperwork that basically says I no longer have a home, no longer my car, career or ability to live my life. How can you do much of anything when you're in a rural area and have no car? When your deliberately made homeless and after having been evicted 10x, the police do nothing about the constant stalking you endure, the noise harassment and ongoing abuse from a group of people, including family members that continue to do this. Lies that took my home, car, credit, and business away. What do you even do then? Walk? yes, that's what I had been doing until arrested again. Jobs? another joke here. Moving again? I was told to get out of the city by the Mayor, the one (2) mayors ago, one of my inlaws crony friends/acquaintances. She came to my mother-in-law's funeral, ignoring me, paying everyone else condolences, but me. I wondered why. I never knew she was a personal friend of my inlaws—highschool chums. There was so much I didn't know when I buried my mother-in-law, but so many people did. People who I trusted to tell me the truth, but thought to lie to me for 20 years was funny.
Lies that force me to stay in my mother's garage unable to have an apartment of my own, not because I'm incompetent like they are trying to make it seem, but because every place I rent, the stalking, harassment, and lies that result in eviction and or arrest continues. In a rural area without transportation, it's very difficult. I still have trouble physically. I tire easily. I haven't run since this started. I use to run 6-7 miles per week, getting so good at the gym I was running outside. My equilibrium is still off and as much as the trauma has subsided triggers come like a freight train if I'm not careful—20 years of lies is a long, long time. Without my car, I can't get a professional job. I need a full-time job with healthcare now that my business is gone. I can't retire, but my ex-husband can and did. My healthcare was viciously taken one day I wasn't even in court. The "plan we had together," but covered under his plan at work. Not that I used it much, he never let me—I usually had my own. It was for "catastrophic emergencies," he'd say, but I knew as the years went by he didn't care if I went to the doctor, it was just to protect his money if something happened, which of course I thought at the time, protecting our money was prudent. Believing, I was such a good wife!
His money was his, my money was his and our money was—his! Underneath the so-called concern was just flat-out disregard for me or my health. Our goal since we first married was to retire early. I had been forgoing so many things thinking that down the road when Art jobs became scarce that I didn't have to worry. I could freelance and start my own business—a dream since I was a young art student. He, on the other hand, was spending on his "Toys" quite frequently, he had absolutely no plans to retire with me—it was going to be all for him. Just like the boat, snowmobiles, motorcycles and vacation Lake home my money bought but ended up all his and "his money." Everyone thought that funny—deserving. You know how those "feminists" are finally getting a taste of their own medicine! All my money saved with his or so I thought. All my money invested in "Our" properties—all a scam. "Everything was his" because I had done nothing all those years—incompetent!—they all laughed and sneered. Men here I knew, even ones I didn't loved haughtily telling me they were going to retire too—ha haha ha!
Lies now that even prevent me from getting a part-time job. "No one wants anything to do with you," my mother yelled. I had just gotten here and was going on interviews, applying for jobs and doing the things you do to get a job. I had no idea what she was talking about. Who is "no one?" I haven't seen anyone in 20-years! Nieces I never saw, all grown-up now, have children of their own, I thought. I hadn't really seen her in all these years either. An occasional funeral. I had been a professional since graduating college, so her initial admonishment of "you have to try a couple times, keep following up," rang hollow—there was something more going on. I have applied for numerous jobs, went to numerous places, some even gave me an interview, but once I got there knew it was a game. I had never been able to get a job here. I applied to every place in town over the years. I was more than qualified—it was done on purpose. I was to learn the horrible extent of trouble these people had been causing me for a long time. Bullied out of a recent School Administration Job, watching the jokes and laughter by this time right out in the open—as was the taunts about how they knew and had also destroyed my business. Shunning me over the years had been constant since I was a little girl. Basically, you make friends in Kindergarten and those are the ones you keep all your life here. Because we moved often, I went to many of the grade schools, many cliques already formed. I was often bullied, called out to fight as the new kid. Mostly this group was bullies. Alone, they weren't all that tough, but together it could be hard—after a while, they mostly left me alone or so I thought. I would get settled just in time to move again. Another reason the current span of moving 10x after living in my home for 20 years is so funny to them. Most of them I knew as a kid, I moved a lot, was one of those "Welfare kids" and often a target because of it, especially because I have half-siblings, we have different last names, unheard of back then here. The same cliques from highschool run the various municipalities here now—I should have known.
I commuted to the next city, almost 2 hours per day, sometimes more depending on the weather. I did it for the 20 years I was married—working full-time. He always used the SUV—it was "his," always had car-starters in all his vehicles and new snow tires—he worked 10 minutes away the 20 years we were married. We had a total of 4-vehicles, he got 3, including a new Harley Davidson “we” bought. I still have not been told where my new entry-level car went—I paid for. The “rental income” and profit either. I never saw any of it. The vicious ad Litem last time I tried to talk to her, pretended “he” was losing money on “his rentals” even though it had been a joint business for 20-years. The properties after 20-years all in excellent shape—50/50! I'm forced to walk because they alleged I'm a prostitute and should "walk the streets." My career was up and down. "They" started trouble wherever I went. I didn't know it for years. It was extremely painful. I would be doing really good work and there would be one of those downsizings, restructuring, reorganizations, happening a lot in those years after 911. Art, Graphic Design and Communications can be that way even in the best of times, but I always got a better job with increasing responsibility and pay or good unemployment. Now they just don't hire you at all, not only me, but it seems a lot of people in this economy.
The fact the Stock Market goes up and up is touted that everyone is doing well and working. Same illusions I face here constantly. The disconnect between what they say is happening and what is actually happening. Again, I could name the "they," but at this point, I refuse to give them any more attention. I had been videotaping the various harassments at the apartments, but a psychiatrist at the psych ward convinced me to take them down. It was a mistake, another way for me to not have proof. At the time, I still thought I would get another professional job and I wanted to put it all behind me. 20 years of journals were also my proof, but once my storage unit was "auctioned off" they were gone. Nothing of who I was remains—all on purpose. All my art and photography portfolios went too. These people thrive on the negative attention also, so talking about them just gives them more attention. Some are family still trying to say being molested is just someone "getting fresh," no big deal—nothing to see here, just move along. Connected to businesses here. In a small town, everyone knows everyone. It's not hard to shun someone, freeze someone out—for some, high school never ends. My being a professional also a delusion—my business completely ignored. The business I had dreamed of finally coming true after years of hard work and was making money! A dream come true.
"Where do you get this stuff?!" my ex would say in that incredulous way that made my questions seem crazy, which was the point. So over the top, he would imply, that they couldn't possibly have any merit. After all these years, they all did—every single fucking one of them! Every fucking one of them for 20 years and with some people even longer. If it had just been him, I would have caught on sooner. The "why didn't you just leave?" would have applied in some way, but it was never just him. "What took you so long?" some now say mockingly. The inference that it became my fault because I should have just left. How could I have not figured it all out?
Because it just wasn't him! "They were a group!" Many I have come to see were "family." Real people, a real "them", a real "they." All taking part in the game of gaslighting. All for various reasons. Some were generational family wars that started way before I was born. Real people conspiring to make sure I ended up with nothing after a 20-year marriage. Real people who wanted to destroy my career and livelihood from the beginning. Real people who despised "feminists" especially ones from a poor family who supposedly thought they were so smart, as in "you think you're so smart!" A "whore" thinking she was somebody. A whore that made it on her own who could be successfully retied at 50 with her own home, car, savings, good credit and accomplishments she could be proud of. A woman that overcame the obstacles she was born into through no fault of her own in spite of these people's continual violence.
Today Weinstein is guilty and it starts a new chapter! Many women didn't make it the past 30-years, but I did and I feel a stronger responsibility. A deeper fight has been building. A call to spend whatever time I have speaking out, hopefully, one-day marching—protesting! I will continue to write about it as long as I can—I'm not suicidal. I have never really been suicidal and never will be. It's not that I don't get the blues, but it's not to that extreme. I won't give them the satisfaction. Plus my spiritual beliefs prevent it. I continue to get up each day trying to survive, put the coffee on and know that I will try to continue.
P.S. My dear readers, I know this is way more than a blog post, it's very long and I have to edit on the fly—please forgive me. Maybe we can think of it as the start of a novel. I'm just learning and thinking maybe it's possible to write one. Thank you so much for reading me, it means so very much to me. Please also visit my ads, the little extra income is very needed and would help—I’m trying to learn to monetize. Sincerely, Rhonda
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-Sam