I don't think WTF was a thing back then and I don't smoke, but if right then I would have had one of Christy's cigarettes, the big dark cloud of smoke that I exhaled would have spelled out WTF.
I should title this: Something Creepy this way comes or Truth is Stranger than Fiction.
'Cause like they say, you can't write this stuff.
In hindsight who doesn't look back and say to themselves:
I should have known better, I should have seen the signs, Had I known then what I know now...
or asks,
What the hell was I thinking?
In retrospect, without the cloudiness that comes with any particular moment in life, things seem clearer now. Especially in the now, when we are dealing with (or suffering) the consequences of past actions or inactions, we know what we would have done differently- what we should have done differently.
But at the time that its happening --if you're lucky-- all you have are brief moments of clarity, gut feelings, or hints of insight that, unfortunately, are dismissed too often for reasons that we later find hard to admit; I was lonely. I was stupid. I was drunk. I was insecure. I wasn't thinking. I was lying to myself...
I would like to add one to that list. One that we will be hearing about more and more about; I didn't know.
I didn't know what a personality disorders looked like. I didn't know about high conflict personalities, didn't know about parental alienation. I had no idea.
But thats just a lame excuse because this, I think you will agree, I should have seen this freight train coming.
'Cause like they say, you can't write this stuff.
In hindsight who doesn't look back and say to themselves:
I should have known better, I should have seen the signs, Had I known then what I know now...
or asks,
What the hell was I thinking?
In retrospect, without the cloudiness that comes with any particular moment in life, things seem clearer now. Especially in the now, when we are dealing with (or suffering) the consequences of past actions or inactions, we know what we would have done differently- what we should have done differently.
But at the time that its happening --if you're lucky-- all you have are brief moments of clarity, gut feelings, or hints of insight that, unfortunately, are dismissed too often for reasons that we later find hard to admit; I was lonely. I was stupid. I was drunk. I was insecure. I wasn't thinking. I was lying to myself...
I would like to add one to that list. One that we will be hearing about more and more about; I didn't know.
I didn't know what a personality disorders looked like. I didn't know about high conflict personalities, didn't know about parental alienation. I had no idea.
But thats just a lame excuse because this, I think you will agree, I should have seen this freight train coming.
The first thing you should know is my birthday is April 14. That’s important; the date, not how many there has been.
Then there’s this.
Among the things Christy kept from disclosing in our first couple months of dating was the fact that she had an older son. Yes, for the first 2-3 months there was no Josh, only Kaylee.
Christy would claim that she was a single mother of a cute little six year old girl, Kaylee. It was just the two of them because her ex-boyfriend, Brian, the father, was abusive and so she was embattled in court actions trying to get as much child support as possible. In child custody cases, time is money; the more time you have with your children, the more money you get. So for some parents there is a financial incentive to keep their children from dad or from mom. It's all about money in some cases.
In other cases there is a mental health component--a personality disorder.
Guess which type this one falls under?
Hint: Read on.
Christy has been in custody battles, in and out of court, since she was sixteen--she is much more experienced than most.
“It’s just me and my little girl,” she would often say, and then always add, “her dad is not in the picture; he's abusive.”
In fairness, while Christy and I dated, I was surprised how little effort was made by either parent for Kaylee to spend time with her father, Brian.
Honk and yell.
Kaylee would wait by the apartment window which faced the street. Her dad, who lived down the same street, drove by in the mornings on the way to work and honked hello. Christy would yell at Kaylee to get away from the window.
She's just saying hi to her dad, I would say to Christy.
He's abusive was her response.
But right now he's just honking at his kid, I felt like saying.
Okay, I thought, whatever. All dads are different. Some fight to see their kids, some just drive by and honk.
Kaylee’s dad’s birthday is April 14. That was a little weird.
Walk away Joe. Fate is handing you a brand new shiny pair of Nikes. Put them on.
I can handle a little weird.
No. I said walk away.
I got this.
WAIT...DID YOU JUST SAY “KIDS”? AGAIN.
Approximately 3 months after we began dating, Christy slipped up and referred to Kaylee as “kids.” As in: "I wish I had the time but with kids..."
So I mentioned it, hesitantly.
“Umm, Christy..." a pause, "you just said ‘kids.”
Then another pause before I added, “again...as in plural.”
Christy gets this distant look on her face when she is asked a really good question, like 'what exactly and specifically has Joe done to deserve being kept from his daughter for close to a year?'
Its less of a deer-in-the-headlights look and more like an 'I need a major fucking distraction right now.'
"He abused me too," she said. Ah, distraction city. Distraction city.
Christy said she needed a cigarette and that she had something to confess.
I don't think WTF was a thing back then and I don't smoke, but if right then I would have had one of Christy's cigarettes, the big dark cloud of smoke that I exhaled would have spelled out WTF.
Something to confess?
No shit.
That’s right; Christy told me she also had a 9 year old boy as she blew smoke out of the side of her mouth to keep it away from our space. Because, you know blowing smoke up in here I won't tolerate, but feel free to lie to me about how many kids you have.
I can hear my narcissist ex now, 'Oh my God, you're so caught up in people lying to you all the time. You have a problem. You lie too you know," and then she might add, "And you raped me."
Run Joe. Lace those puppies up.
Okay, this is weird. But no, maybe the dad has custody and that’s why I haven’t met him. The dad had custody? The fact that I had that particular thought is humorous and an embarrassing testament to my ignorance at the time, knowing what I know now about Christy and her unwillingness to share.
As flabbergasted as I was, I was more interested in how she had managed to keep him a secret for so long. Poor kid.
It turns out Josh had been a favorite grandson of Nancy, Christy’s mother. Kaylee being too much of a handful for the grandmother, but she would let Christy know that they would be willing to watch Josh anytime Christy went out on our dates. What’s interesting about this is that Christy thinks Josh is the one that is hard to handle so there is another reason to leave Josh at grandma’s house. What's disturbing about this is...well...do grandmothers have favorites? This was a new concept to me.
Kaylee would stay at her state compensated babysitter’s in the next city over from Lakeview Terrace. At times Kaylee would join us, as would my daughter. Somewhere there are pictures of us at Knott’s Berry Farm with me, Christy, my daughter, and Kaylee. But, no Josh.
It’s sad to look at those pictures and wonder where Josh was. I have to tell myself he was having just as much fun at his grandmothers and leave it at that.
Weird right?
Yes, weird. Now Run. Now.
But that isn’t even the strange part.
So, of course, there was a shitload of questions:
The answers were what you would expect: I was embarrassed to tell you that I was pregnant at 15, his dad is out of the picture and he is abusive; I didn’t think you would want to date me if you knew.
So you lied about having two kids because that wouldn’t send me running. I dumped her for the second time.
But here’s the thing. That is not the strange part either.
Not by a long shot.
Run Joe, Run!
But instead.
So months later we are dating again. I know...I know...
So anyway, birthdays come up in conversation. Mine of course, then Kaylee talks about how her dad’s birthday is on the same day and how she needs to buy two birthday presents for her two dads. Oh did I mention I was quickly being referred to as daddy?
Josh was always the quieter of the two kids, and kept to himself. In a way he still is and still does. As far as I know he isn’t part of the disparaging or alienating that goes on in Christy’s house. I asked Josh when his dad’s birthday was. Josh just shrugged his shoulders, looked at Christy and then down at the ground but didn’t say anything.
I kidded that his dad’s birthday was also on the same day as mine and Kaylee’s dad, April 14.
“Kaylee, you’re gonna have to buy 3 birthday presents!” Kaylee and I laughed.
But only Kaylee and I laughed.
Josh was still examining the ground. Christy was looking at Josh the way she is seen looking at our alienated daughter in some of the videos on my website. That look that says, okay, you know what to say-- or perhaps more accurately, you know what you better not say.
But he did say something. He did because he is a good kid. He said, “April 14th," and then he looked up from the ground and forced a smile that said he was okay with me and his dad sharing the same birthday.
Now I laughed, “good one buddy. See Kaylee your gonna hav...”
Christy immediately chimed in, “He’s just saying that..he doesn't know.”
There was something so eerily wrong with that moment, because Josh, he wasn’t just saying that.
Christy had asked Josh not to say anything and, I found out later, even tried to convince Josh that his fathers birthday was on some other day.
But Josh’s dad’s birthday is on April 14.
Kaylee’s dad’s birthday is on April 14.
My birthday is on April 14.
Three children, same mom, three different dads. All three dads share the same birthday.
RUN...Forget the shoes, Pull a Shoeless Joe...and run!
But you already know that I didn't.
I don’t know about you but I think there may be something wrong with a woman who decides to spawn with men based on their sharing of the same birthdays.
I know, at the time, there was something wrong with the guy who decided to stay with her.
In retrospect, I should have seen the signs, abided by and gone with my gut instincts to run, Run, RUN, as they say, like the dickens.
But then after all that there is still this:
Last night I sat and listened to loving voicemails of our daughter left at different stages of her life, long before the grips of her mother's brainwashing. I listened to them over and over in somewhat of a trance. Listen Here
I have come to be good at not crying and of feigning indifference to the incompleteness of our family especially in front of our other children. With them, I have become especially good at stopping (or at least delaying) the sobs that suddenly surge up in my throat and instead of releasing wails of pain and frustration I say, enthusiastically, "Of course we can go get a treat." or "Yes, we can go play in the grassy area."
But the sound of her sweet voice (long before the programming took hold) got to me, because all the feigning in the world isn't going to take away from the fact that there is a hole in my heart.
There are voicemails from years ago that I saved. If you know me, you know that I have a hard time discarding anything with an image, recording, or that was made by our daughters' little hands. I have numerous filled plastic box containers of school projects and, now, the digital mass-storage devices measured in terabytes to prove it.
In all the voicemails she says I love you and in one of the voice mails, Megan--Yes her name is Megan-- whispers, "daddy could you please, please pick me."
She sounds desperate or as desperate as a six year old can sound. There is no sound in the background so I can only assume that she is calling me without her mother knowing it. I had taught her my phone number at a young age and had therefor received calls at every time imaginable. One of those times included 3’clock in the morning call when she was seven and spending the night at her friend Julissa’s house.
“Daddy, can you please pick me up?”
...and of course, I came.
It does little to no good, I guess, to reflect on what I should have done; if I should have run, Run, RUN or not. The reality is that I am here now and I would not have our daughter to fight for if I had run.
I am here now.
It is going on a year since our family has been allowed to have any meaningful time with Megan. I have been shut out of her life first by a vindictive mother then a defective family court system.
Our daughter isn’t doing so well because of it. She has been in a downward spiral ever since her mother came home and shared the “good’ news that Commissioner Daniel says: "I can tell you that in my experience no law enforcement officer is going to force a teenager to engage in a visit."
'See honey, even the judge says you don't have to visit your father if you don't want to.'
Music to an alienator's ears.
Since then our daughter has fallen far and fast.
I didn’t run then and I am not running now. There is nothing more that her mother would love than for me to run. Run far and away so that she doesn't need to share. To placate her insecurities and ease her fears of abandonment.
I won't do that. Not because I know that nothing in the outside world will help her mother's internal, deep rooted issues. I could care less about her pathology. I am done feeling sorry for her not being allowed to have her own father.
I won't run because our daughter needs me right now. Especially right now that all she has is a disturbed and vindictive parent who fails to be just that--a parent-- because she is striving to be a best friend. All the while, a healthy, pro-active, and loving parent is sidelined forced to sit back and watch our daughter fall.
So no, I am not running. But this time I am not running for different reasons.
Our daughter has fallen and she needs her daddy to come pick her up.
Then there’s this.
Among the things Christy kept from disclosing in our first couple months of dating was the fact that she had an older son. Yes, for the first 2-3 months there was no Josh, only Kaylee.
Christy would claim that she was a single mother of a cute little six year old girl, Kaylee. It was just the two of them because her ex-boyfriend, Brian, the father, was abusive and so she was embattled in court actions trying to get as much child support as possible. In child custody cases, time is money; the more time you have with your children, the more money you get. So for some parents there is a financial incentive to keep their children from dad or from mom. It's all about money in some cases.
In other cases there is a mental health component--a personality disorder.
Guess which type this one falls under?
Hint: Read on.
Christy has been in custody battles, in and out of court, since she was sixteen--she is much more experienced than most.
“It’s just me and my little girl,” she would often say, and then always add, “her dad is not in the picture; he's abusive.”
In fairness, while Christy and I dated, I was surprised how little effort was made by either parent for Kaylee to spend time with her father, Brian.
Honk and yell.
Kaylee would wait by the apartment window which faced the street. Her dad, who lived down the same street, drove by in the mornings on the way to work and honked hello. Christy would yell at Kaylee to get away from the window.
She's just saying hi to her dad, I would say to Christy.
He's abusive was her response.
But right now he's just honking at his kid, I felt like saying.
Okay, I thought, whatever. All dads are different. Some fight to see their kids, some just drive by and honk.
Kaylee’s dad’s birthday is April 14. That was a little weird.
Walk away Joe. Fate is handing you a brand new shiny pair of Nikes. Put them on.
I can handle a little weird.
No. I said walk away.
I got this.
WAIT...DID YOU JUST SAY “KIDS”? AGAIN.
Approximately 3 months after we began dating, Christy slipped up and referred to Kaylee as “kids.” As in: "I wish I had the time but with kids..."
So I mentioned it, hesitantly.
“Umm, Christy..." a pause, "you just said ‘kids.”
Then another pause before I added, “again...as in plural.”
Christy gets this distant look on her face when she is asked a really good question, like 'what exactly and specifically has Joe done to deserve being kept from his daughter for close to a year?'
Its less of a deer-in-the-headlights look and more like an 'I need a major fucking distraction right now.'
"He abused me too," she said. Ah, distraction city. Distraction city.
Christy said she needed a cigarette and that she had something to confess.
I don't think WTF was a thing back then and I don't smoke, but if right then I would have had one of Christy's cigarettes, the big dark cloud of smoke that I exhaled would have spelled out WTF.
Something to confess?
No shit.
That’s right; Christy told me she also had a 9 year old boy as she blew smoke out of the side of her mouth to keep it away from our space. Because, you know blowing smoke up in here I won't tolerate, but feel free to lie to me about how many kids you have.
I can hear my narcissist ex now, 'Oh my God, you're so caught up in people lying to you all the time. You have a problem. You lie too you know," and then she might add, "And you raped me."
Run Joe. Lace those puppies up.
Okay, this is weird. But no, maybe the dad has custody and that’s why I haven’t met him. The dad had custody? The fact that I had that particular thought is humorous and an embarrassing testament to my ignorance at the time, knowing what I know now about Christy and her unwillingness to share.
As flabbergasted as I was, I was more interested in how she had managed to keep him a secret for so long. Poor kid.
It turns out Josh had been a favorite grandson of Nancy, Christy’s mother. Kaylee being too much of a handful for the grandmother, but she would let Christy know that they would be willing to watch Josh anytime Christy went out on our dates. What’s interesting about this is that Christy thinks Josh is the one that is hard to handle so there is another reason to leave Josh at grandma’s house. What's disturbing about this is...well...do grandmothers have favorites? This was a new concept to me.
Kaylee would stay at her state compensated babysitter’s in the next city over from Lakeview Terrace. At times Kaylee would join us, as would my daughter. Somewhere there are pictures of us at Knott’s Berry Farm with me, Christy, my daughter, and Kaylee. But, no Josh.
It’s sad to look at those pictures and wonder where Josh was. I have to tell myself he was having just as much fun at his grandmothers and leave it at that.
Weird right?
Yes, weird. Now Run. Now.
But that isn’t even the strange part.
So, of course, there was a shitload of questions:
The answers were what you would expect: I was embarrassed to tell you that I was pregnant at 15, his dad is out of the picture and he is abusive; I didn’t think you would want to date me if you knew.
So you lied about having two kids because that wouldn’t send me running. I dumped her for the second time.
But here’s the thing. That is not the strange part either.
Not by a long shot.
Run Joe, Run!
But instead.
So months later we are dating again. I know...I know...
So anyway, birthdays come up in conversation. Mine of course, then Kaylee talks about how her dad’s birthday is on the same day and how she needs to buy two birthday presents for her two dads. Oh did I mention I was quickly being referred to as daddy?
Josh was always the quieter of the two kids, and kept to himself. In a way he still is and still does. As far as I know he isn’t part of the disparaging or alienating that goes on in Christy’s house. I asked Josh when his dad’s birthday was. Josh just shrugged his shoulders, looked at Christy and then down at the ground but didn’t say anything.
I kidded that his dad’s birthday was also on the same day as mine and Kaylee’s dad, April 14.
“Kaylee, you’re gonna have to buy 3 birthday presents!” Kaylee and I laughed.
But only Kaylee and I laughed.
Josh was still examining the ground. Christy was looking at Josh the way she is seen looking at our alienated daughter in some of the videos on my website. That look that says, okay, you know what to say-- or perhaps more accurately, you know what you better not say.
But he did say something. He did because he is a good kid. He said, “April 14th," and then he looked up from the ground and forced a smile that said he was okay with me and his dad sharing the same birthday.
Now I laughed, “good one buddy. See Kaylee your gonna hav...”
Christy immediately chimed in, “He’s just saying that..he doesn't know.”
There was something so eerily wrong with that moment, because Josh, he wasn’t just saying that.
Christy had asked Josh not to say anything and, I found out later, even tried to convince Josh that his fathers birthday was on some other day.
But Josh’s dad’s birthday is on April 14.
Kaylee’s dad’s birthday is on April 14.
My birthday is on April 14.
Three children, same mom, three different dads. All three dads share the same birthday.
RUN...Forget the shoes, Pull a Shoeless Joe...and run!
But you already know that I didn't.
I don’t know about you but I think there may be something wrong with a woman who decides to spawn with men based on their sharing of the same birthdays.
I know, at the time, there was something wrong with the guy who decided to stay with her.
In retrospect, I should have seen the signs, abided by and gone with my gut instincts to run, Run, RUN, as they say, like the dickens.
But then after all that there is still this:
Last night I sat and listened to loving voicemails of our daughter left at different stages of her life, long before the grips of her mother's brainwashing. I listened to them over and over in somewhat of a trance. Listen Here
I have come to be good at not crying and of feigning indifference to the incompleteness of our family especially in front of our other children. With them, I have become especially good at stopping (or at least delaying) the sobs that suddenly surge up in my throat and instead of releasing wails of pain and frustration I say, enthusiastically, "Of course we can go get a treat." or "Yes, we can go play in the grassy area."
But the sound of her sweet voice (long before the programming took hold) got to me, because all the feigning in the world isn't going to take away from the fact that there is a hole in my heart.
There are voicemails from years ago that I saved. If you know me, you know that I have a hard time discarding anything with an image, recording, or that was made by our daughters' little hands. I have numerous filled plastic box containers of school projects and, now, the digital mass-storage devices measured in terabytes to prove it.
In all the voicemails she says I love you and in one of the voice mails, Megan--Yes her name is Megan-- whispers, "daddy could you please, please pick me."
She sounds desperate or as desperate as a six year old can sound. There is no sound in the background so I can only assume that she is calling me without her mother knowing it. I had taught her my phone number at a young age and had therefor received calls at every time imaginable. One of those times included 3’clock in the morning call when she was seven and spending the night at her friend Julissa’s house.
“Daddy, can you please pick me up?”
...and of course, I came.
It does little to no good, I guess, to reflect on what I should have done; if I should have run, Run, RUN or not. The reality is that I am here now and I would not have our daughter to fight for if I had run.
I am here now.
It is going on a year since our family has been allowed to have any meaningful time with Megan. I have been shut out of her life first by a vindictive mother then a defective family court system.
Our daughter isn’t doing so well because of it. She has been in a downward spiral ever since her mother came home and shared the “good’ news that Commissioner Daniel says: "I can tell you that in my experience no law enforcement officer is going to force a teenager to engage in a visit."
'See honey, even the judge says you don't have to visit your father if you don't want to.'
Music to an alienator's ears.
Since then our daughter has fallen far and fast.
I didn’t run then and I am not running now. There is nothing more that her mother would love than for me to run. Run far and away so that she doesn't need to share. To placate her insecurities and ease her fears of abandonment.
I won't do that. Not because I know that nothing in the outside world will help her mother's internal, deep rooted issues. I could care less about her pathology. I am done feeling sorry for her not being allowed to have her own father.
I won't run because our daughter needs me right now. Especially right now that all she has is a disturbed and vindictive parent who fails to be just that--a parent-- because she is striving to be a best friend. All the while, a healthy, pro-active, and loving parent is sidelined forced to sit back and watch our daughter fall.
So no, I am not running. But this time I am not running for different reasons.
Our daughter has fallen and she needs her daddy to come pick her up.
| 2004-5_megan_voice_messages_first_3.mp3 |
| | If you liked the Blog above, if it saddens you, disgusts you, or if--God-forbid--it resonates with your personal experiences please comment below. Also, if you would SHARE, TWEET, Pin It on PINTEREST, and LIKE on us on Facebook our family and thousands of other fathers, mothers, siblings, step-parents, and grandparents and especially alienated children will be forever grateful. I am committed to bringing awareness to this atrocity, this insidious form of child abuse. Thank you, |
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