I wasn’t going to post this. I’ve deleted this post and dropped it back into drafts many times over. But you know…I just need to post it and leave it. It’s important. It’s rough, it’s not polished, it’s just truth.
I was re-watching – well re-listening to Amy Bradley is Missing on Netflix while drawing, and when it got to the part where Amy’s mother says that she thinks of her child every day, not every other day, not once a month but EVERY DAY, I had to turn the TV off and take a break.
Most people who know me in real life know that I am a Mom. However, not everyone knows that I have two kids, not just one. I have a thirteen year old and I have an older child that will be seventeen in December.
I have not seen my older child since January of 2016. Her Dad took her for scheduled visitation (I had full custody), and never brought her back. It was something he had threatened to do since I left him, and I had always been told ‘you have to follow the court order, we have to let him mess up, if he takes her, we can file kidnapping, and get her right back.’
That, I am here to tell you, is bullshit. Complete, total, utter bullshit.
Normally, I would not speak ill of my child’s father, however…with him, there is no benefit to softening the truth. He is a narcissist, the marriage to him was a nightmare, and he made my life hell during and after the marriage.
One would think that having certain behaviors, incidents, in regard to him documented would work in my favor. It did not. At all. He took her back to North Alabama where he is from, filed a bullshit order because our original judge had retired and we had a new one, and proceeded to take advantage of the fact that he had people bankrolling him and I had no money and no lawyer at the time.
I fought every day to get my child back. She would try to call me and contact me, and he would block it. Eventually, he finally alienated her from me and turned her against me. If I were guilty of the things he accused me of, I’d be the first person to say “well, I messed up, I did this and this and that and that and that’s why I don’t have my kid.” But that doesn’t apply. Which, I know is exactly what people who have something to hide say. It doesn’t matter; I don’t care if anyone believes me or not.
Eventually, the Judge awarded him full custody. I was there by myself, in the courthouse alone…again. No representation, I was not granted a continuance so I could find a decent lawyer, and I was legitimately broke. His lawyer told me “you might as well terminate your rights, because I’m about to impose child support on you and we can put you in jail for back child support.” The Judge didn’t grant that, he didn’t enter child support, but he did give her Dad full custody. Eventually, after multiple attempts to get my child back, her Dad filed a restraining order against me so I couldn’t contact her.
I haven’t seen or spoken to her in years. Not because I don’t want to, but because I can’t.
And this is all my fault.
My child paid the price for a bad decision I made – I chose the wrong marriage partner based on my being unhealed and unable to see and acknowledge red flags. I trusted that he would not follow through with threats he made to take her from me. I had faith in the family court system. I thought my Dad would always be there to help me, and he passed away two months after her dad committed Parental Kidnapping.
My failures affected HER. She is the one who has to grapple with the lie that I abandoned her or left her. She’s the one who had to grow up thinking she was thrown away. She’s been lied to and manipulated and made to think something that isn’t true, and that has undoubtedly left its mark on her.
Obviously, had I not been with him, she wouldn’t be here, and for that I am grateful, but had I really taken the time to understand how things worked and if I had just followed my gut, things would be different. But…I did not want to make my child feel like she had to choose between me and her Dad, because she had nothing to do with how he treated me. Children should have parents that can co-parent amicably and respectfully.
Anyway, this post subject has been in my notes app for a long time. I’ve actively rejected the idea of publishing anything or pursuing anything artistic, because if she were to ever see it, I never wanted her to think that I chose that over her and that she was abandoned in favor of a creative career. I didn’t want her to see posts and Patreon and blogs and think “well, my Mom chose that over me.”
Honestly, I don’t tell people about her because it invites questions that I’ve answered so many times, people want to give advice, people want me to “stand up and fight,” and honestly, I’ve fought to the point that I could. I’ve had over a dozen attorneys over the years tell me the same thing: “unfortunately, this situation probably is what it is, lawyers don’t like to get involved in long winded custody cases, and judges don’t change custody orders unless there is a material circumstance.” Most people don’t understand that, and why would they? It’s definitely a “you have to literally experience it” to understand, and I’d rather be alone in knowing how it feels as opposed to having someone who can empathize because no one should go through this.
I don’t care what people think about me, and as a matter of fact, they can most definitely think the worst. They should. I think the worst of myself, I don’t expect any different from anyone else at this point.
No child should be made to falsely believe that a parent threw them away. It’s intended as a punishment for the other parent, the one who left the narcissist, but it harms the child. They’re the ones who have to grow up thinking this, who have their formative years overshadowed by this bullshit. I’m an adult; I can logically compartmentalize my hurt – a child cannot. These are things that stay with someone forever and lead to all kinds of trauma.
I am a failure as a parent. I am a horrible parent, actually, and I won’t pretend to be anything otherwise.
My best friend, one of very few actual friends I have, has encouraged me to return to my writing and other things as an outlet of sorts. I guess it is. Much of it is, in ways, a love letter to my children, but mainly to her. It says all of the things that I can’t say directly to her.
Maybe I wrote this so in case she ever finds this blog, she will see this post. Not as a bid for forgiveness or atonement – but so she knows that none of this shit was her fault, and she should have never been put through this, and she has two shitty parents who both failed her.
But she is loved. And I hope she has someone in her life that shows her actual love. Not conditional love, but unconditional love that helps heal all of the cracks and broken places she has thanks to me.