I am not a 'victim' and I do not need pity. I am proud.
I am a survivor of domestic mental abuse.
I am angry. Deeply angry. And I have a right to feel angry. I own it. Anger at the unfairness of another's sin, deceit, collusion and ultimate aim of revenge, for 'assumed' slights'. Anger at the pain they caused and are still heaping at my children's door for years to come.I do not speak from a place of hate or jealousy.
I am strong, I am determined and most definitely I am a good, ethical and worthwhile person. I have integrity, immense inner strength and resources. Most importantly I am in control of my life, I make wise decisions based on what I know. I am enough, I do enough and I have my wise mind.
I recognise that last paragraph as 27 year old me.
The one who was there before I met Warden. What followed over two decades of a disastrous marriage, family break-up, horrendous divorce, was gradually healed by significant psychotherapy, introspection and the love and belief in me by my close family and friends. I'm thrilled to have reconnected with my true self some 24 years later.
Open letter to HIM.
Do you remember finding out my email passwords and checking out my emails to see if I was having an affair?
Do you remember endlessly charging me with infidelity, and 'flirting' when it wasn't true?
Do you remember all the times you were 'deeply' disappointed in our boys and would not speak to them for hours/days and a week?
Do you remember endlessly charging me with infidelity, and 'flirting' when it wasn't true?
Do you remember all the times you were 'deeply' disappointed in our boys and would not speak to them for hours/days and a week?
Do you remember not speaking to me for days on end for some minor 'misdemeanour' you had decided upon?
Do you remember slating my close friends and family to me. Treating them with utter disregard until eventually they no longer wanted to come to our house?
Do you remember throwing out my best friend, from our house, because you felt she was 'using you'?
Do you remember arranging for my best friend to babysit our children, so we could go out to the cinema, for the first time in 6 months, then having an argument 10 minutes from the house and insisting on driving home and sending my friend home?
Do you remember looming over me, (and the children) with your fierce angry face shouting 'don't make me angry' and me shouting back ‘you don't frighten me' even though I was so terrified you would hit out at me I thought my legs would give way?
Do you remember, on several occasions holding my arm up behind my back as you would a prisoner, to silence me or force me to move?
Do you remember forcing me to tell you my bank account numbers, pin numbers and then transferring the money to your account?
Do you remember buying car after car after car? Often never telling me, and always selling them at a huge loss. Sometimes doing this several times in a year; and running up huge debts, with the only way out for us to increase the mortgage?
Do you remember preparing the children and myself, in very realistic and frightening terms for the children, for what you thought would be the end of the world, buying all the survival kit and making us ready to drive to Snowdon at a drop of a hat (in winter) to survive?
Do you remember holding me up against a wall in the kitchen by my throat, in front of our youngest child, and threatening me over some minor misdemeanour. Quote 'you don't want to make me angry, you won't like me angry'and 'I can't be responsible for my actions once you make the red mist, come down over me'?
Do you remember kicking me, on the arms, on my legs, because in your words 'you provoked me, you shouldn't have provoked me'?
Do you remember making endless expensive purchases on books, magazines and DVDs in shops and online, which you would relentlessly hide from me?
Do you remember buying a car for yourself on several occasions without asking me and also white goods and furniture so that you could live in a separate room?
Do you remember thinking you would be able to broker peace in the Middle East conflict and seriously considering how you would go there with Tony Blair?
Do you remember being diagnosed with Bipolar Disorder by Angela R. and you looking for an escape from the room, in case they came to restrain you and take you away to a locked unit?
Do you remember being so angry with our eldest son's untidy bedroom and you went in and wrecked his room in front of him. A very frightening experience us.
Do you remember, when our sons were younger, when you decided the only way to treat them in the mornings, was to act like a sergeant major or a German prisoner of war guard, shouting 'RAUS, RAUS!' and then pouring a cup of cold water over our eldest sons head as he slept?
Do you remember all the family outings, with the boys so very excited, until someone in the car making a remark that upset you and you insisted on turning the car round to return home, leaving the children devastated?
Do you remember telling the boys there were certain 'things' we didn't 'share' outside of our family, resulting in very cagey behaviour when ever I sought external counselling help for them to adjust to the trauma of living with a father with Bipolar Disorder and a sociopathic, narcissistic personality disorder?
Do you remember when our eldest son at about 10 years of age getting into minor trouble with a bullying boy at school, and you telling our son you would be never speak to him again? Your disgust for him lasted for weeks.
Do you remember the days you woke up saying you felt 'invincible', literally?
Do you remember all the times you called me lazy, a slut, untidy, a poor housewife and so on?
Do you remember taking photographs of the sink, just to 'prove' how lazy I was.
Do you remember trying to 'control' every aspect of the boys life, including the exact, and I mean exact, walking route the boys were to walk home?
Do you remember taking off your wedding band for days and weeks as a passive aggressive way of demonstrating your withdrawal from me? Followed by forcing me to have sex with you as your libido was out of control.
Do you remember systematically isolating me from my friends and family, and accusing me of being belligerent after I had visited them?
Do you remember the times I walked in from work and was met by a barrage of complaints. How badly behaved the cat and dog had been, how you wouldn't make packed lunches for the boys, how the house was untidy and so on? Until I dreaded coming home for fear of what mood you would be in.
Do you remember when you would get rapidly, intensely angry with me over very trivial things?
Do you remember harshly 'restraining' me because you thought I, at 5'2", posed some threat to you at 6'1"? According to you, as you pointed out, it was I who always brought down your ire on my head. It was always I who was to blame for your anger.
Do you remember trapping me in the kitchen and ranting and raging at me so much it terrified me, and I spent the rest of the evening sobbing?
Do you remember, when you were manic, the very overt flirting you would do in front of me with other women?
Do you remember asking me to take out a loan to cover £16,000 of yet another debt you had run up?
Do you remember admitting to me you would masturbate 'several times' in the day just to release the tension?
Do you remember making contact with an old girlfriend in Canada and your psychotic plans to abduct the boys and live there? This resulted in me having to report this to Border Control and secure the safety of the children's passports.
Do you remember hating our pet dogs so much, you beat them and kicked them to the point whenI had to remove them and find loving homes for their right to be looked after in a loving atmosphere, instead of in pain and fear?
Do you remember taking my dog to the cliffs at Perranporth and 'losing' her and leaving her there?
Do you remember the endless hours, days weeks you would submit me to the silent treatment?
Do you remember such erratic Bipolar behaviour, that your psychiatrist, your GP and the school felt you should not have unsupervised access to the boys?
Do you remember your increased libido and trying to have sex with me, even after we were officially separated?
Do you remember, screaming, shouting and being incandescent with rage, in front of the children, because I had discovered your 'online' affair with an old girlfriend?
Do you recall when I had to 'run away' to a safe place for the boys, and could only ensure this by not letting the boys know, in case they let the cat out of the bag, which could potentially make you physically and emotionally dangerous; and how you tried to block my car in and snatch the boys? An act so heinous, it affected the children's psyche for sometime after.
Do you recall how you worked on our eldest son, brainwashing him into thinking there was nothing wrong with you? That you didn't have Bipolar, and that I was entirely to blame for the situation?
Do you remember 'stalking' me at the house I had secured for the boys and myself when you would hide in the shadows and watch my movements? And hide in the lane behind the house to look into the kitchen, because you felt sure I would be having an affair. And park in a car around the corner from the house so you could monitor my comings and goings?
Do you remember the Domestic Violence Unit issuing me with a 'panic alarm' in case you did something dangerous to me and because they were very concerned with your erratic behaviour.
Do you remember telling me you had checked my mileage on the car, to see if where I said I was going was the truth?
Do you remember, with the children present, charging me with adultery and demanding I admit it to you, so you could forgive me?
Do you know the utter strength of my reserve it took, to not let the children see me cry, trying not to frighten them, and the numerous times they would come to me crying because you had broken their spirit?
Do you remember saying you believed that breaking a child's spirit was a parental duty?
Do you know how many times I defended you to them, trying to explain that it wasn't their real daddy who behaved so appallingly to them. That you couldn't help it because you were ill with Bipolar and as a family we had to discover coping mechanisms to ensure we didn't fall apart.
Do you remember during the year of our divorce sending the most disgusting, sexually explicit text to our youngest son which was meant for your Counselling Tutor, who you were having an affair with?
Do you recall the derogatory names you called women, 'like stupid bint', 'bunny boilers', 'bimbos' 'dumb blondes' and generally displayed general misogyny and disrespect for most women you came across especially your mother, the female members of my family and the numerous female counsellors we had ‘couples counselling’ with?
Do you remember promising that you would move out when we started divorce proceedings and were in mediation, and not doing so, and the months of unbearable pressure and tension you put me through when I begged you to move out as you had promised you would in mediation. And how I asked you time and again - when will you be moving and you wouldn't say until I went away one weekend and found, when I returned, that you had moved out and 'taken' the boys with you?
Do you remember, when we had 'separated' in the house, and you agreed not to visit the bedroom floor, when the children had gone to sleep and I to my bedroom, how you would creep up the stairs, and stand for long minutes on the landing, listening? This prompted me to put an internal lock on my door, as I truly feared your irrational behaviour. Explaining this to the children was upsetting as I tried, once again to protect them from your nightmarish behaviour which as children, I had a duty to protect. And then charging me with putting on the lock to keep the boys out.
Do you remember becoming the 'best dad in the world' down to your endless bribery with takeaways, big TVs, game consoles, games and toys and the endless presents and outings bought, especially during the time our divorce was in progress?
Do you remember encouraging them to stay with you day and night while our divorce was in progress, gradually driving a wedge between their relationship with me?
Do you remember I was the one to discover the 'Tall Ships' opportunity for our eldest son? It was also at the point we were on the verge of divorce. Do you remember that I agreed to pay half of his not inconsiderable costs for this once in a lifetime experience? The, yet again, I discovered, you had emptied my bank account which meant I did not have my half of the deposit. I was the only wage earner at the time and I asked you to replace the money to allow me to also pay all the household bills and my half for his trip.
Do you remember you presented this to our son as me being very unreasonable? To such an extent that you drove a very real and large wedge between our son and I that exists to this day.
Do you remember, only at the last minute, telling me his ship was about to sail, which almost preventing me from saying goodbye or wave him off properly?
Do you remember providing counselling/hypnotherapy to women and then telling me, how deficient they were - 'mad as a box of frogs', neurotic and how you felt sorry for their husbands?
Do you recall just how many times you threatened to report me, my friends, my family, including aged relatives to the Police, for trumped up allegations by you. The mark of an abusor/controller.
Do you remember portraying me as a drunk to the children? Despite this being far from the truth.
Do you remember the consent order legally agreed in court for the children, and never sticking to it. Something you had no intention following even as you agreed it?
Do you remember the weeks of mediation and brokered agreements which you had no intention of ever fulfilling. Even promising to meet part of my legal bill because you were receiving legal aid? This promise never materialised.
Do you remember promising not to change the children's schools and then doing just that as a fait-accompli?
Do you remember moving the children to another town without telling me until after the fact?
Additionally
Contemporaneous evidence of all the incidents above have been stored, over the years, with my solicitor. She now has a file several inches thick.
Single handedly you have mounted a one man character assassination of me to our children.
Now aided and abetted by your 'blinkered', puppet wife (who one day may have her eyes opened in an extremely painful way) you purport to live a big happy 'blended' family.I am only hopeful that the boys are not still being submitted to or suffering from some of your more erratic behaviours and that your 'counsellor' wife is helping you to keep the lid on your manic depression. I no longer know since you have completely cut me off from our children.
You blamed me for so many things, and it suits your current life to continue to believe this and to demean me to anyone who cares to listen: our children, your wife, your clients, the people you teach.
You live a Walter Mitty life,
and have built a tissue of lies for so many years
and undoubtedly you believe them.
You come across as credible, believable, charismatic, and compassionate. This is the persona you want to project. Skillfully you obscure your sociopathic personality disorder, and diagnosed Bipolar mental illness. People are taken in by your superficial charm, your modulated voice, your humour. They only see what you want them to see.
However people who have known you for many years: ex-colleagues, your own family and friends, are no longer part of your life because they have cast you off. They see through to the real you.
You live in a manic, bizarre fantasy world, where you are the God-head and, as you disdainfully refer to ordinary people, the rest of us as 'plebs' and 'sheeple'.
You live in a manic, bizarre fantasy world, where you are the God-head and, as you disdainfully refer to ordinary people, the rest of us as 'plebs' and 'sheeple'.
Your sociopathic nature means you coldly disregard the feelings of people you have no further use for, or whose agendas do not support your aim of putting you at the centre of the universe. You have a complete disdain for rules, authority and lie constantly.
I got out of this maelstom of horror and tried to secure a safe and loving and balanced future for our children. One where they could live and grow in an atmosphere of love, kindness and understanding, where their misdemeanours would not be met with over-reaction by you.
I believed I could help them unlearn their 'adaptive' behaviour, which had been reinforced by your emotional abuse of them from a very young age as a method of surviving such a manipulative, overbearing, controlling father. The term 'emotional terrorism' springs to mind as an apt description of the life you subjected, subjugated and normalised us to.
I do not for one moment think you will recognise or acknowledge any of this. In fact you will pooh-pooh it as the ravings of a demented alcoholic, self-centered bint. I would expect that. You have no insight, due to all your mental disorders and, as you know, psychiatrists will agree with my words.
I cannot change your distorted reality. I am resigned to being portrayed as the wicked witch. I do, however, have one advantage, I am not mentally ill. I have been abused by Warden, the King of Abusers - and survived! I am enough.
I know the truth and deep, deep down inside the children do too. I was lucky. I managed to extract myself, albeit at great personal sacrifice. I was not so lucky though because I was unable to save the children from you despite my concerted, strenuous and emotionally draining efforts through the 'system'; CAFCASS, schools, local protection authorities and the British legal system. All of these organisations are sadly lagging behind their USA counterparts in their recognition, and acknowledgement of Parental Alienation, which is the sick, devious and significantly detrimental abuse of children, by one parent, that is you, over the other, that is me.
I would never have subjected our children to making the heart-rending choice you gave them, overtly or covertly, to choose you or me. The children were not so lucky as me. Nineteen and thirteen years of exposure to your persistent, pernicious parental abuse has seen to that. Because this is the only life they know it will be an arduous, beyond imagination if not impossible, task for them to make the adjustment to becoming the men they deserve to be. The right to be free entities, free from fear of control, isolation, criticism, emotional blackmail and passive aggression. Free to be their beautiful, unfettered selves.
My only regret is that I have failed them. Failed in my duty as a mother to protect my children from harm. Something most mothers, including myself, would do even if it meant giving their lives.
Closing the Door.
I forgive you. I forgive you. I forgive you. If I could not do this I would have no peace. Your mental illness and your personality disorders distort the true and beautiful reality of this wonderful world. I hope you too find peace.
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