sayhisname – Truth and Recovery

Disbelief

He’s gone.

He’s in prison.

They carted him off in cuffs right in front of me and sent me PDF copies of the documents he signed acknowledging he is required to submit DNA samples, register on the sex offender list and abide by a whole host of other rules even once he is out of prison.

How long he actually stays in there will remain a trick of the system, but he was given the maximum possible sentence across the board for the charge he was convicted of and the summary election.

I can’t believe it.

Less than 7 per cent of reported cases end in…this. From bravely speaking to a police officer, to charges, to a trial, to conviction – less than 7 per cent of Canadian victims get…this.

If you were part of the other 93 per cent and you want a win, I’ll share mine with you. However happy or proud you may feel at reading he is now in prison, I would be equally happy and proud for you for any peace you find and the bravery you stepped into (however waveringly) to step forward.

I’m still in disbelief that we got this. I genuinely am.

I shouldn’t be, but I am.

I hope the amazement at this occurrence wanes not just because there are fewer victims but also because I hope the courts handle it better.

I’ve already submitted the form to get the publication ban lifted. I’m safe enough to do that. If it makes sense in your situation, and I know it is highly variable and personal, consider lifting the bans. When we tell our stories and share their names, it protects the next woman. It creates a resounding din of “not again” that makes would-be assailants think twice.

Nobody wants to be labeled a rapist.

If we can, we should take back our greatest weapon: our voice.

Vital dating advice for safety

As promised in a previous post, I know another fabulous blogger. She has also dealt with an abusive man and her blog details just a fraction of his exploits against her.

The key post of hers I’m sharing now will allow you to see if your prospective date or partner has any upcoming legal matters before the courts, civil or criminal. Civil charges can sometimes be frivolous and anybody can file them so you may want to take them with a grain of salt. “Consider the source,” as they say.

Criminal charges meet a higher standard though. I would pay very, very close attention to those.

Without further ado – please click THIS LINK for more details.

Clare’s Law

I wish I had known about this before today. I haven’t verified it, but watch the video.

https://vm.tiktok.com/ZMYvWFRTg/

Essentially you can, according to the woman in the video, contact your local police on their non-emergency line and ask about “Clare’s Law”. She said if you provide their information, police can look them up in a database and let you know about any assault or intimate partner style charges even if they are still before the courts.

In Ontario, you can also create a logon to the province’s judicial site and search it yourself. I know another blogger who has successfully done this and will link a post of hers describing the process.

Maybe on Monday I will test this tik-tokers advice and report back on the experience.

“My hands…

…are small I know, but they’re not yours. They are my own…”

They write this blog.

“…We will fight, not out of spite
For someone must stand up for what’s right
Cause where there’s a man who has no voice
There ours shall go singing…”
-Jewel

That’s funny…

It was too riské, he said. The conservative patrons would never stand it, he said. No, no, no – The Festival will never do that, he said.

It was my suggestion to put on a production of the musical “Rent” or “Avenue Q” or something like that. “Rent” is one of my favourite theatrical endeavors. He was Asshole, my now-ex, who claimed he was on his way to a dramaturg meeting as part of his role as a supposed music director for The Festival. He said they were planning which plays and musicals to stage at least two and three years out.

The year was 2021 and it was a fairly hot July.

So when The Festival released this teaser a few weeks ago, I couldn’t help but chuckle:

https://youtu.be/YUjDLjqL-1k

Wait – wait – wait! Replay that. What was the listing after William Shakespeare’s famous “King Lear”?

Yup; that’s right.

I stopped counting the lies a long time ago because I already have a full-time job, but we could add a few to the tally with this new development.

When it’s hard to leave

You should be able to check into rehab when you need to break a trauma bond.

When you’re leaving an abusive relationship, after somebody has love bombed you to insanity and then started to nitpick and whittle away at your self-image piece by piece until even just a smile or hug feels amazing, you’re basically addicted to their presence.

Leaving them feels like going into withdrawals.

It’s acknowledged by science that the hits of dopamine created by the unhealthy connections and then the lack of them mimic actual physical addictions and withdrawals but I would suggest maybe they are an actual addiction.

The parallels between giving up a toxic substance and giving up a toxic person are innumerable and the outside judgement is the same.

“Why didn’t they just leave/stop doing that?”

Because it hurt.

It hurt in a way that is hard to describe and was all encompassing and seemed easy to end. That’s why.

So – from this woman to you – you can do this. I’ve been out for over a year and the first week was the hardest. Then, one small success or triumph after another, I started to smile again and life got better and better and better. Now it is better than it was before I even met him.

If you’re trying to leave somebody toxic, keep going. When reality seems a little fuzzy around the edges and you get headaches, keep going. When all you want to do is sleep but you have such vivid dreams you don’t want to do that either, keep going. When you start to rationalize that maybe it wasn’t so bad and remember those good moments, centre yourself in your own literal physical pain in that moment which is being caused by dopamine withdrawal and keep – fucking – going.

One day it all just goes away. It does. I promise.

One day, you sleep without night terrors and your muscles unclench. One day you smile again at something small and see hope in the future. One day you do something difficult (even if it’s small) and feel proud of yourself.

One day, you get the you that you know back.

Take yourself back now, by force, and you’ll get to fall in love again – with yourself.

In the meantime? Give yourself grace and give yourself patience. Forgive yourself for what you did not know and trust you did the best you could.

Just keep doing that. Keep doing your best with this new insight you’ve gained. Your best will get even better with time.

This is hard. You should be able to check yourself into rehab. You can do it though. You can break this addiction.

Maybe someday you can help another person.

Easter 2019: By Ladybird

Easter 2019

When we started dating, I gave you three rules to be followed before you met my kids.

Rule one: We had to spend a weekend just the two of us at my house.

Rule two: We had to spend a weekend just the two of us at your house.

Rule three: We had to be dating for a while and rules 1 & 2 had been met.

Easter weekend 2019 was approximately one month after we started dating. That did not constitute “a while” in my books. I had also never seen the home on Brown Street that you claimed you owned. Mind you, with the schedule that I had with my children at that time, there simply had not been time for me to see your supposed home on Brown Street.

I had been very clear that we could not spend all of Easter weekend together, as my kids were home part of the weekend, and you had not met my rules for meeting my children.

Enter Master Manipulator Mr. [Asshole], and somehow against my better judgement, you convinced me to allow you into my home one month after meeting, on a weekend my children would be mostly home.

On the Wednesday before, you told me about the items that you had for my children as “Hi my name is [Asshole], nice to meet you” gifts. Small tokens, just to show you were interested in them. Then you arrived empty handed. Apparently in your hurry to leave, they were forgotten. Oh well, no big deal.

We picked Malcolm up from daycare together, and at 2 almost 3, he was eager to meet anyone new. Fast forward through the weekend of attending church services at both Catholic and Anglican churches, Saturday was a break to prepare for Sunday. You had your heart set on this chocolate cake that was supposed to look like a bird’s nest. Or rabbits nest, since it had chocolate eggs from the Easter Bunny in it.

Saturday night, I measured and whisked and baked the cake, while you sat at the kitchen table watching, chatting and reading cooking magazines.

The cake was a masterpiece, but I knew it would be. I am an excellent baker (when I want to be.) The cake itself was ok. It wasn’t my favourite recipe that I have made, but it looked awesome. It lives on forever thanks to your posts on the interwebs, and rumor has it, you tell people that you made it yourself. What a feat?!

You looked at my Kitchen Aid mixer in awe and fear. Or was that just weaponized incompetence?

I made a vow

This is getting hard.

Maintaining this blog is no longer therapeutic or an act of reclaiming.

Now it’s like peeling open scabbed over wounds and slicing back into long scarred-over injuries.

It’s hard precisely because I’m not actively bleeding anymore.

I don’t even want to testify anymore really, except if I don’t, conviction will be much harder and some other woman may become a victim.

I vowed to myself to keep it active until he wasn’t a threat anymore so there could be some trace, some remnant for the next would-be victim.

And I will.

But, hot damn, the second he’s behind bars again this thing will likely go dormant. If you still like my writing and want to engage with me, check out peskymuses.wordpress.com

That’s where life is moving on.

Yes, I know this is a shitty post and unless Asshole gives me some SUPER interesting inspiration, it will likely remain so at this point.

I have a few more posts stored which I haven’t been brave enough to publish yet…but that might not change.

This is essentially me throwing my hands in the air and saying “I’m trying”.

Guest v/blogger: a video project.

This is how it starts. Where it leads depends on many things, but this is how it starts. Kind-hearted people have their totally normal sense of reality eroded until other abuses creep in and create more trauma.

The topsy turvy world the victim/survivor lives in due to the gas-lighting is such an integral part of the trauma bond. When you feel like you can’t even trust your own perceptions, you cling to the person supposedly helping you.

Be careful. Trust yourself first.