It was cold and rainy this morning, I didn't sleep all that well and was wet from the rain and wind hitting the porch making everything damp and cold. The pounding and digging from the new gas pumps being put in by the new Stewarts woke me early and I knew it was better to get going early instead of trying to sleep a little longer. I have only a couple of blankets and as nice as it was to have them given to me after I started sleeping on the abandoned porch, they aren't very warm. They are warm on the nights that aren't too cold, but it seems lately I have been even more cold than usual. It's been a cold June.
I know some of the anxiety is from not exercising. Working out always helped my sensitivity to the cold and seemed to make me better at dealing with it. Ever since I was a girl I have been cold sensitive. It was from so often not having enough heat or no heat at all as a girl. Having heat as an adult had been a goal ever since I had my first apartment. The landlady was so kind, the heat was included and it was always warm. It was my first little studio in Albany NY after college and I loved it. The rent was $175 per month and it was wonderful. I think now of all the fancy places I rightfully earned and cry in the morning when I wake at the injustice of all the horrible things people have done to make me homeless from homes I worked tirelessly on all these years. It's hard to get up. I used to love getting up in the morning, writing, and taking care of my dog Bentley. Men were lined up across the street doing work on the new Stewarts and I struggled to get myself together quietly and be discreet.
I was so grateful after all my linens were purposefully stolen from the storage unit to be given some blankets, but I miss all the pretty blankets, sheets, and quilts I had bought and collected over the years. I miss the beautiful brand new Queen size Sealy Posturpedic mattress and box spring I had bought before I was violently removed from my home. My ex was an awful snorer and denied it our entire marriage. I never slept well and found out he had been sabotaging my sleep all along when he went to the 2nd shift. He would deliberately turn up the volume on the TV and slam doors open, one time my dog almost fell off the bed. I would wake up, but the house would be quiet. I had no idea until I started catching him and still had no idea what it meant and how big of a deception it all was. I didn't know there was a name for this type of abuse—gaslighting. I had only accepted so often I had "bad luck," and there was always this dark cloud following me around. I have since learned that these people stalked me constantly. The people I knew intimately formed the dark cloud that followed me everywhere and caused me trouble—Tangled Webs of deceit.
I also bought a sub-zero sleeping bag and it was pretty cool; very small and would go like 10 below. I bought it after one night me and my dog Bentley almost froze to death it was so cold. I was so happy to have found it on sale online, but I had it in my car when cops took my car too. I had been sleeping in my car in between the constant evictions. Most mornings I wake up cold. It's been a cold June and it seems even colder than Maine, but then again I was in a Hotel there and here I have to remember I'm out in the cold most of the day except when I eat at McDonald's. I have been so grateful to them for having WiFi and the ability to charge my iPhone while eating. I ended up staying in another Super 8 after once again having no heat in the room I had rented in Maine and the landlord having me evicted. The evictions have continued "unrelenting," as my ex said they would. I have since learned a name for this type of abuse also—Post Separation Abuse.
It's healing to finally put a name to what I have experienced so long and didn't have a name for. It makes it seem like it's not real or as I was told by him so often, "where do you get these things?" In other words, I would make things up, he would say. It's what I was accused of when this all started. He told the psychologists at Hutchins Psych Ward in Syracuse NY that once "she turned 50, she fell apart!" They believed every word he said, ignoring everything I said. It was a horrible place that almost killed me from the lies. I had another seizure there and was emaciated when I left. My diet wasn't great and I was having trouble eating, but mostly it was from my reality being so completely taken over by the horrible lies I felt like I was no longer me. The me I knew I was and all these people were treating me like someone else. It was surreal and not because I was "hallucinating and delusional" like they accused, but because they were deliberately denying everything I said—denying the me that was me.
Not only do I no longer have my home, but Judges didn't care at all whether I could work after they stripped me of all my assets and thought it funny I would have to "start over." The ruling that I was an "incompetent mentally ill" Prostitute didn't acknowledge my professional career. My career at that point was a "delusion" according to Judges here and the violent Adlitem they forcibly assigned along with the psychologists I had to see.
"They have a couple psychologists," lined up, my mother declared in a dismissive contemptuous way when I first spoke to her when all this started. I had been asking her what was going on with everyone and if someone knew what was going on with the threats I was hearing. I had seen my 1/2 brother, the younger one at the courthouse recently when I had to go there after first being arrested by my ex out of the home we were going to take care of his Aunt in or be given it if we had to place her in a Nursing Home. He and the friend he had been with had made the odd remark that a "group of people can get together and declare someone incompetent." I thought this was a strange comment and wondered why he would say something like that. I had no idea what he had been talking about, but asking my 1/2 brother who is Special needs was like trying to talk to my Mother. He would answer in wise-cracks or just shrug his shoulders and play like he didn't understand. I was to learn this was an act. I had always defended him even though he was Special needs, I never treated him as less than or not being able to do what others did, but I was to horribly learn he felt no such respect for me. Plus there were other odd things going on around that time too I was looking for answers for.
I hadn't seen my mother since I first got married 20yrs ago except for a funeral and a couple of other times she briefly stopped by up to the lake. I was hesitant to see her and she seemed uncomfortable with me showing up. I had found out where she lived after being told she never wanted me to visit, but it had been so long, and having my 1/2 brother show up at the courthouse seemed odd. I knew something was up but didn't know what. Her then-boyfriend had brought my 1/2 brothers' children over once, my mother had gotten custody of them I was told, and he told me she didn't want them to visit me at my Lakehouse, but he brought them for a few minutes. I had like I always did invite everyone anyway even though they never came. She had made that clear shortly after I got married that she never wanted to see me again, giving me a note that read "if I ever see you again, never will be too soon!" It was an awful note and I was really upset reading it, but I accepted her wish even though I had no idea why and would extend invitations anyway, but I knew not to question her demand too much. When she talked like that it was better to just do as she said—I was still very much afraid of her and her rages.
Shortly after we married we bought the Lakehouse and she moved to the same village in Broadalbin NY. I really didn't know she did and whenever I saw anyone, which was rare, they told me she didn't want me to know where she lived. I was surprised when I found out she had moved so close to the Sacandaga NY Lakehouse we bought. Once she and my Grandmother and I left the Lake when my Grandmother lost the land and divorced, I never went again with my Mother or Grandmother. I had been going with my Father to the Sacandaga Lake camping, but once I was no longer allowed to visit him, I never went again with him or my Mother. It wasn't until I married and bought the Lakehouse I returned to the Lake. I found out a few years later she had moved back close to the village she grew up in "Fishhouse NY," which was a short distance from my Lakehouse and close to the campground BirchHaven my father had taken me to. My Fathers brother and his wife also had a beautiful Lake home a short distance down the road from me also, but I was never allowed to see them after my parents divorced either.
I didn't take the comment about the psychologists too seriously even though I could hear the subtle threat. She had often bragged about my 1/2 brothers or others in their family whenever they did anything. My Father and his family and I were often the objects of her derision. My Father had been a successful musician and I was doing well in my career, but she never acknowledged any of what I did, and talking to her about him sent her into a rage and subsequent beating when I was a child. I learned to never ask her about him in any meaningful way as a little girl. I had thought it was just another one of my cousin's gossiping sessions with my Mother that I had grown used to over the years. She would often say she really didn't see anyone, but then I would find out that they had gotten together and they were always on the phone. She and my mother were always on the phone with someone. I never liked talking on the phone.
As a girl, my mother was always on the phone with one of her friends. She would often have my Grandmother visit and then spend the entire time on the phone while my Grandmother was forced to sit alone until she left. It was always so mean, but my Grandmother always stood by my Mother regardless of the mean and violent way my Mother treated her. My Grandmother was often at a loss about my Mothers behavior, which could be extreme and violent at times for no reason. She could erupt into a rage over seemingly inconsequential things. She would often accuse my Grandmother in the same way she did me of doing things she didn't do. She always brought us all nice cards with money in them, but it was never enough for my Mother when it concerned "the boys!" She constantly accused us both of not "accepting the boys!" It wasn't true, but it became her excuse to be violent, especially around Holidays. My Mother had beautiful china and silver, but after putting it all out and getting everything ready she would start a fight over something and it would often get ugly. Then she would cry and carry on as if she was the victim.
I would hear her talking to her girlfriends about me and my Grandmother. They all would put me down also, but it was always up to me to "get along," because I was accused of not treating my Mother too well. It made me try all the more. I spent years trying to understand her rages and always tried to have compassion, but it never worked.
I was usually so busy I didn't have time to gossip on the phone. Often I was the target of the gossip and found it mean and cruel. I never really liked to do it. As girls, my cousin and I were "best friends," but after I left for college I was growing increasingly uncomfortable with the way she treated me, I just had no idea the deep-seated hatred she, her brother, and their family harbored. The revenge they plotted that would almost kill me. I didn't know until recently they had harbored such a hateful grudge and it had continued up until he recently passed away. He still had been plotting and involved in putting me on the street making me a "homeless Prostitute," even though they all had been saying he was in rehab and was trying to get clean after all these years. By this time, he was 60yrs old and had spent his life addicted to Heroin and Cocaine.
My cousin pretended to be my "best friend," and had also made remarks when I first married about "seeing someone." She had been picking fights along with everyone, but I didn't see the connection. When I did see someone around the time we purchased the Lakehouse and the psychologist "Peg," told me "there was nothing wrong you," that I just had very "traditional inlaws," and needed to "learn to get along with them," and that if I "wanted to pay her to be my friend I could keep coming," but there was no need, she got angry and started another fight, but I got off the phone and usually did what I always did—just try to avoid her rage that was similar to my mothers.
As little girls, she could also be very demanding and refuse to play if things didn't go her way. I had to always wait on her and go to the store to get the various items she wanted; things like shampoo, conditioner, various hair items, and other things she wanted before we could play or go to the new pool and ride our bikes. I always had to let her borrow my new clothes and they were usually returned ruined. I would save up babysitting money for months to buy something only to have her threaten not to play if she couldn't wear my new item. It was always this sort of pleading and sympathy. When she became a Teen Mother, it got even worse. Life was so much harder for her, she would say, but even as a teen mom, she went out all the time and had many in the family babysitting and helping her out, but it was never enough.
I had learned to defer to her also in the same way I did my mother and 1/2 family. I know now they had always been aligned. I was told repeatedly how they rarely got together, but I was to learn they got together all the time. My mother even bragging how one of the cousins a Doctor at St Mary's hospital where they had locked me up, "had always had her back!"
I had talked to my cousin when she first convinced me to move back to Amsterdam NY after college, but once I moved back she called me the night I was moving and complained about the girl that lived upstairs. Her name was Rhonda too she told me and she was fighting with her all the time about the noise. My cousin had just had another baby and everyone was giving her a hard time she had said. She had told me she wanted another child to "save her marriage," but even her mother was telling her it was a mistake. I thought it cruel to say that about a child and I once again had sympathy for her as I usually did, but she picked a vicious fight on the phone telling me she "never wanted to see me again!" I was distraught after moving home to have her do this because it was one of the reasons I moved back home. She had talked me into hanging out and being friends again and all the good times we could have going to the beach that Summer, but I was to horribly learn this was just to lure me home and set me up with a man that in spite of telling me he never saw my cousin or his friends had planned this nightmare all along to leave me "homeless and destitute," as some kind of sick revenge.
I thought it was her making trouble again. My 1/2 brothers would often get together with her and start gossiping and now their kids were hanging out with her and her brother doing the same. In the past whenever I questioned the gossip she would dismiss it and deny any wrongdoing telling me I was the one that refused to see the family, which was never true. Then she would go on about rarely seeing my 1/2 brothers and they would do the same. It had all been a game, a horrible game. After I stayed with my Mother recently after having no place to live, my 1/2 brother's daughters showed me pictures of all the get-togethers including my 1/2 brother's wedding my Mother viciously said she never attended and other events I was hurt they all went to but I had not been invited. I never knew why. I didn't realize how deep the hatred had been because they would then reconnect all the time telling me they didn't do or say what they had or that they didn't mean it or I took it the wrong way. Of course, the idea was you could not cut your family out of your life and it was my responsibility to make it work—who doesn't see their Mother? It was always used as an attack to hurt me. I was often accused of not seeing them.
I was stunned when I saw numerous Christmas pictures that they had all been together all along at my 1/2 brothers. Things were getting so overwhelming when I showed my mother the pictures and she flew into a rage and attacked me. She had already punched me in the face and someone had sprayed me in the face with some kind of chemical. Her assaults were becoming normal again just like when I was a girl. She threw herself down on the ground at one point and my 1/2 sister called the Sheriffs telling them I had shoved her down and had "mental health issues and was a drunk" pissed off about my Divorce, but they had been trying to "help me!"
My cousin had just started a business when I launched mine. I started an Etsy shop for my painting and artwork and also started posting on Twitter around 2011—I just celebrated 10yrs online, but just about all of it has been destroyed. I had also been working with clients for my Graphic Design Freelance business that was to go along with the Art business. It was all going along so well and I was so happy to have paying clients for my work and to finally have the Art Studio I had always dreamed of all those years ago when I attended art school. I had heard of her business because one of the nieces had been bragging about having her picture done by her. I was surprised that she was doing this, but I had no animosity about her business. We never really had the same style and I didn't at that time know the full extent of her sabotage and deep vengeance towards me all these years along with her brother.
Her brother had recently bought the house for sale around the corner. I had no idea when he moved in he had been stalking me all these years and his sister had been involved right along and this had been a foreshadowing of the horrible nightmare I was to be forced into once their plot had gotten underway. The last time I saw him was recently when he showed up at my gym along with some of the others involved. Of course, they all didn't speak to me and when I tried to say hello, they did what they always do and snubbed me, pretending not to hear me. I had been to the local gym now run by Alpin Haus for the last 20yrs and my ex convinced me to go to the new one—Planet Fitness. He subsequently went back to the other one. I didn't care, the other one had all his friends that knew what was going on, but kept attacking me along with everyone else. It was better to be at a different place that talked of a no-bullying zone. I was surprised he showed up, but still had no idea. I had applied there for a job too but seems I could not even wipe down the machines after 30yrs of working out. I had been an original member of "Spa Lady," when first starting my career and had always been a member of local gyms, working out all the time. I had no idea so much of the trouble I was having at so many places was being deliberately done, from outright attacks to job loss to being unable to go anywhere without people attacking me.
I had gone to see my Mother initially to see if she knew anything about what was going on. Of course, she did as she always did, talking in some cryptic way that was a mixture of joking and one-liners designed to keep me confused or just shut down communication. I had grown up with this type of communication and was used to it. I accepted it as her way never thinking it was deliberately meant to hurt me. She had often used the excuse that she was "dumb" and not very smart. I used to feel sorry for her and she would so often call me "high and mighty" that asking her to clarify would just make her even angrier, so I would often just let things go. She would often say "you think you're so smart!" I often struggled to understand why she would say this. I never felt smart and often felt deeply humiliated by her.
I wouldn't get anywhere asking her too many questions though. I never knew this was done on purpose. It's extremely sad today to realize it started when I was a little girl and she really was never the Mother I thought she was. I made excuses for the cruelty and put-downs. I covered for her at school and constantly defended her whenever we were made fun of. I would often say raising 4 children by yourself is not easy. I saw my mother as a victim as a little girl of the various boyfriends she had and would fight with all the time. She had always accused my Father of being a "no good drunk," talking all the time that he had been the abuser, but today I know it was her—it had always been her! When I was a girl, I believed what she said while taking her abuse. It's sad how a child can do this. It has taken me so long to finally see the pattern. To finally be out of it and to see it.
I'm amazed that being in these relationships I could not see the abuse clearly, it's only being out now for a while that I can finally say, my god how could I have put up with so much for so long. It seems so simple now and yet has taken me so long along with the loss of everything I had to know they never loved me. To accept they never loved me and to know in my heart I deserve so much better. To let go of ever believing my Mother can ever be a loving Mother. That she never wanted to and spent all these years deliberately trying to ruin my life. It's devastating, but healing to finally know the truth after all these years.
I finally know all the abuse was deliberate. That she had never wanted me and let everyone else know too. My 1/2 siblings and their family knew how my Mother really felt about me but I never knew the extent of her hatred of me. I have always forgiven her and my 1/2 siblings. Their 1/2 family knew just how to make me feel guilty. My cousin was always asking why I didn't see my family. Her family got along and saw each other regularly. Shunning me was done on purpose and making me feel blamed for it was part of the ongoing abuse and kept me agreeing to see them when they would call or invite me somewhere periodically. I was often desperate to show I did want my family in my life. My inlaws would make the same comments and ask the same questions all the time "why don't you see your family?" It was often humiliating at events we attended and my family would not be there. In the beginning, it was hard to explain why. Often the fights were over nonsense but grew worse over time. The violence also got worse as the years went by from all of them. They would always defend each other and that has continued only now I can see them as the group they always had been and I was prevented from seeing. My ex had been friends with all of them right along and having sex with my Mother was the final "hitting rock bottom" for me as far as continuing to forgive and accept their lies that they didn't mean it or that it didn't matter.
I had hit rock bottom with all of them and my own continuing to try to be loved by all of them. I was broke, homeless, and had nothing now. I had spent a lifetime trying to get these people to love me and it almost cost me my life. The cords I had to cut were old, deep, and extremely powerful. I was 5yrs old when it started and it has continued all these years. Five when we moved in with my Mothers new boyfriend after she left my Father. Her rages about my Father never stopped. She called the police on me repeatedly when I pleaded with her to stay with her when I was made homeless and still didn't know what was going on. She was involved with all the Slumlords I rented from telling them I was "violent and incompetent." Everyone I had rented from was either friends with my ex or had conspired with my Mother. I listened as she told psychologists at Hutchins that she was worried about me coming home and "being around children," and thought it better I stayed there. She had raised my 1/2 brother's children and now was raising his grandchildren.
I sat in shock that she would do such a horrible thing to me. I pleaded to come home and after not taking my calls repeatedly she finally said yes. They would only release me to a "safe place," and after throwing my things out of my apartment, I had no place to go again. Once home, they repeatedly called the Sheriffs on me. She along with my 1/2 siblings told the State Police and Sheriffs all kinds of horrible lies after numerous violent attacks towards me.
It was a game to them. They repeatedly called CPS on others also. Women were showing up fighting with my Mother just like when I was a girl. I was horrified to finally see my Mother knew exactly how to do this and had done it to me all those years ago preventing me from seeing my Father. Accusing him of being the Domestic Abuser in the same way she and my ex-husband were doing to me now. I was catching them all the time now; whispering on the phone, seeing each other at the store, and repeating things that were between me and my ex-husband. How did she know such intimate things? How did she always know things? How did she always wield such power in my life even as I tried to continually set boundaries and protect my own identity and life?
The constant attacks towards my Grandmother had been the same—to keep me from seeing her too. Bless my Grandmother for never abandoning me. My Grandmother was there to the end and left me everything she had. I had no idea my Mother swore to get revenge and take the new trailer my Grandmother had left me. My Grandmother wanted me never to be without a home. She had been horrified my Mother had put me on the street after I was lured home to set me up with my ex-husband to eventually make me homeless. The first thing my Mother talked about when I finally saw her after all these years was the Trailer. She had been extremely angry when my Grandmother left me her Trailer. I gave everyone some money or personal items of hers, but it didn't matter. I gave my 1/2 brother a brand new barker lounger, but he barely said thank you. He never treated my Grandmother very well at all, but it never mattered how I tried, nothing was ever really accepted and they talked about her and me all the time. I know today that everyone knew how much they disliked me and they all knew that I didn't know the extent of the hatred that would get so bad it would come to the brutal turning point it was now with attempts on my life as I found out the truth and painstaking had to put it all together to survive and heal.
They were all either addicts or were selling drugs. My cousin's first husband had sold Pot, my ex sold coke and my cousin was a Heroin addict. My mother was an addict and all their cousins were alcoholics. I could finally see it all for what it was.
After my mother had put me on the street all those years ago after convincing me to move back home, they set me up with my ex-husband. I had just gotten home and my cousin wouldn't speak to me. She had called me the night I was moving and said she had a knife and was sitting there that night thinking about using it. The girl upstairs was continually bothering her and keeping her awake. She had a new baby to attend to and it was getting out of hand. She then accused me of not understanding and doing nothing but listening to rock music and with that, she said she "didn't want to be my friend anymore," and hung up. I tried calling her when I got home and talked to her 1/2 sister who said the same. She wasn't sure why she didn't want to talk to me, but it was better not to try and talk to her. I know now she also knew. She was my Godmother, but never once tried to help me or do anything for me. I had often wondered why she agreed to be my Godmother.
Today I know it was just another way for her and my Mother to hurt me. They had all been aligned from the start, but always were careful to act like they rarely saw each other and didn't like each other all that much. I left at 17yrs old for college and lived in Albany NY for a number of years, so I really didn't know. My Godmother and her husband are Jehovah's Witnesses and are extremely abusive. They don't acknowledge Godparents. She and her husband were extremely abusive to her daughter. I was invited over as a girl and watched the horrible way they treated her. The horrible way they treated their little dog that died and heard the many stories of how they also abused many of the cousins. The worse story I was told by my cousin was that they lined up all the male cousins and sexually assaulted all of them. We often were invited to stay there and I remember being there when this went on, but I was so young and didn't see the worse of it. I know today their abuse along with my cousin and his mothers' violent porn addiction contributed to her 1/2 brother molesting, stalking, and all of them continuing to take their anger and revenge out on me.
They had all been friends with my ex since I was 5yrs old and we had moved in next door to their friends on Academy Street that eventually moved to the Southside. All these cousins were allowed to live on the Southside, but I was told there were "many apartments on the Southside, but you aren't going to have one," by the then Mayors brother. All the real estate agents I tried to work with did the same. Either they were friends with my ex or friends who knew my Mother or connected in some way to my 1/2 family. It all flashed before me in a horrible way, all the years nothing made sense. I finally had the few pieces I needed to put it all together and like dominos, it all started to fall—one by one the lies revealed.
In the end, they all told the police such horrible lies about me even alleging the reason they didn't visit was that they didn't want me around their children. They all kept their children away on purpose, using the excuse I was not a Mother and they were often too busy raising their children to "party" up to the lake.
Today I know that if anyone is a Pedophile it's all these people that have been stalking me since I was 5yrs old. My cousin was in his 20s and so were all his friends, some even older when I was eating sherbert ice-creams on the abandoned porch I'm sleeping on now when my cousins lived there. They were all getting married and in each other's weddings. I was 12 by then and still a little girl. I had no idea the obsession my cousins would have towards me and each other. The filthy secrets that kept this all going. The incest that continued between them our entire childhood, but was covered up by their slut-shaming me. The incest all their family and friends laughed about.
Each decade the obsession to cover it all up got worse and worse and exploded in the recent violence. The incest is their crime, not mine. The drug addictions and drug dealing theirs, not mine. The revenge that keeps it all going and continues. The horrible setup of my 20yr marriage and the subsequent trying to force me to be a "homeless Prostitute."
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