It’s been sunny and warm, some days reaching 50 degrees, today it might reach 60 degrees—unreal. If people don’t think Climate Change is real by now, they need to! even we all can’t agree on what is causing it, we can accept things are not what they seem and haven’t been for a long time! It’s the way I feel lately. Some days I’m feeling really good knowing I survived the worst of it, even if they destroyed my financial stability. Growing up with nothing, financial stability was a constant goal and today I can say I achieved that before people involved in this horrible deception rained hell down on me. It’s been the most shocking, demoralizing experience of my life, but today I’m an “Abuse Survivor,” and that feels pretty good!
I’ve had to revisit so many old memories, traumas, and abuses. Some days I thought it would destroy me, but then I would wake up; cold, hungry, sad, and some kind soul would give me money for coffee, wish me well or ask me if I needed something to eat. There were also the stalkers; people out to show this was who I really was—“mentallyill homeless lady!” but for the most part, I’ve learned not to let those people get to me anymore. In the beginning it hurt deeply after all my hard work—I was told I did this to myself! I was a drunk, needed to get a job, didn’t want to work; a drug-addict, slut, violent, had mental health issues.
The problems with me were endless, according to all the people involved and the people connected that wanted to cover up for these others. Extremists are like that, I had dealt with them all before. My best-friend when I was a little girl was my cousin and they were Jehovah Witnesses. Every abuse; including me being molested by her brother was my fault. I was self-righteous, grandiose, and selfish! The abuse colluded with the abuse and beatings from my Mother, but it would take until midlife for me to confront these people, especially my mother. I can see how similar my best-friend and mother are, in the same way they had more in common with my ex-husband than me and lied about their relationships for years; all pretending they weren’t close. It made the isolation of me that much more easy to pull off. Finding out they all had sex was another surreal part of this—my mother? with my husband? my God!
The first time I was dragged to Social Services after growing up on it was after being violently removed from my husbands Aunt’s house. She was Manic/Depressive and had been on Lithium most of her life. She would alternate between talking repetitively in a jumble of words that didn’t make sense to the most morose depression I had ever seen when she wasn’t taking her Lithium, which she tried to go off numerous times, usually around holidays. Christmas was usually one of those times—often ruined. She would have one of her “Spells,” sometimes demanding to go to St Marys Hospital, complaining how there weren’t enough crosses in the rooms. She had crosses everywhere in the house; in dresser drawers, bathroom cabinets, between food items in the kitchen.
She had promised repeatedly for us to have the house in exchange for the care, management of her finances, and help with her home for 20yrs, but when the time came it was a scam they had setup from the beginning. What she didn’t know was they weren’t planning to keep her around either. She was taken off the Lithium she did so well on and put on a cocktail of other drugs she complained bitterly about. We were taking her back and forth to look at Assisted Living homes and also trying to set things up so she could stay in her home, but she was getting worse and worse; they said it was dementia.
Everything was a rush; a whirlwind of changes I didn’t have time to prepare as all these sisters were having problems at once. My MIL, her other sister and her daughter, and also this sister. They had all downplayed the money they had over the years, but now it was apparent there was far more than what I was lead to believe.
Everything was so beautiful, the garden I worked on for 20yrs was in full bloom; lush tomato plants, cucumbers, veins of lovely squash. My flowers, trees and shrubs, had all matured and grown into a healthy landscape. I had purchased most in the Fall from clearance bins, many looked dead, but I learned to nurture and care for them being amazed that with some care they would grow. Small twigs becoming trees, small brown leaves turning rich green and lush. I fell in love with Gardening. Watching it all being deliberately destroyed now it horrible. It’s like having your heart ripped out, especially learning how it was all planned from the beginning.
“You had a Psychotic break,” was said over and over as each place I was told to go said the same. I knew that I was in shock, I knew I didn’t totally understand what was going on, but I knew I was conscious, made sense, and was able to process my thoughts and feelings and knew exactly what what was being done to me even if I didn’t know why or know the full extent of the horror these people were going to inflict on me. Over and over I was told I was homeless and nothing belonged to me by my husband, which was why I made that first call to the police asking them what to do, thinking he was having problems with his meds.
I had been taking him back and forth to Albany NY, for eye-surgery; he had Glaucoma, and the Doctor kept changing his eye-drops being unable to stabilize his pressure. He took many over-counter medications too and I was worried that his drinking had been increasing along with all these pills. He was sneaking more and more shots, just a little he would say when I asked; usually around Christmas along with his regular few cases of Budweiser on the weekends. It was way too much, but he always lied about how much he drank. Two was always six, 6 was a case; usually 3!
I had been working tirelessly keeping our Lakehouse in order, the Aunts house we might assume, and his mothers house; she was blind, and figuring out our own 20yr home I always thought of as mine. “It’s just a rental,” he would say. I thought he meant we would retire to the Lakehouse and rent it out, but as the deception unfolded—I was not to be included in any of it.
I was slammed down and arrested—pepper-sprayed by more than 6 police officers that almost broke my leg as I sat in a chair. The Sergeant involved later telling me repeatedly I had to go to Social Services, shouting that I was Homeless and had nothing! I ended up walking to a park in my neighborhood sobbing uncontrollably after the violent arrest wondering what to do after being told I couldn’t go to any of our properties.
I thought I would pass out when I was told this. “I can’t go to my home,” I mumbled, barely able to articulate this. It just didn’t fit into my reality. I had spent my entire marriage focused on my homes. My whole life revolved around them, making sure everything was upgraded, paid for—stocked. I knew the Art jobs might not last into my old-age, being a Graphic Designer, sharp cutting-edge computer skills were a must plus my husband might be eventually blind. Our goals when we first married were to retire early, to off-set both of these things. I was grateful for the career I had built, but there were always problems. I know today it was all deliberate! The Sexual Harassment was a constant.
The police came often to each apartment I tried to rent and then to each place I tried to rough sleep after everything was all gone. My new car was also taken, which was another demoralizing event. I bought both new cars myself—by myself! My husband had tagged along for the first one, but berated me for wanting a Nissan and refused to support me! He also thought it excessive, but he had use of the SUV we had, car-starter we got him, and was 15min from work. I had upwards of a 2hr commute in the awful Winters we used to have back then. I struggled to keep up with how fast things were ripped from me to keep ahead of it all and to hang onto my life, which was being brutally ripped from me.
I remember wanting to buy a new car in my 20s, I was making good money and find it now suspicious all these years later they wouldn’t give me a car loan, but today I know it was done on purpose. My cousin got a new one at the same time and berated me for not complimenting her on it when I came to visit her after I was denied a car loan. I only went to one place, my bosses brother worked at a dealership. I called her Christmas awhile back. She was dismissive and lying about it all. The woman that forced me out of that job as Manager in a retail Photography studio was a relative of the Superintendent that would also fire me from the School District when all this started after my neighbor convinced me to apply.
I had no idea of her extremist views or that Mr Perillo, the YMCA camp Director when I was a kid, would have me fired again! It was constant stalking by these people that I know today are family, friends, and connected; repeatedly violent to me, sabotaging repeatedly until they accomplished what they said they would when this started. I was to be made; homeless, destitute, sleeping on the side of the road or forced into a place to be locked up—mentally ill. Extremism following me since I was a little girl terrified of this same group of people that never included me even thought we were family—like my own mother!
It’s been absolutely harrowing, but today the pieces are finally coming together; more and more makes sense. Gangs? yeah, those too. I was told repeatedly by neighbors at my Lakehouse, even my own husband about threats from “The Mafia,” I thought he was having his own Psychotic Break, especially when my mother was doing the same thing. What? I thought, what was going on? I had no connections to them and thought it a joke. Do they even exist? My reality turned upside down. Who were these people? and what was going on? I was still struggling to put it all together. It had started so long ago, but I was getting a lot closer!
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