CW: Description of violent assault (choking), false imprisonment, incarceration, racialized violence (against a Black woman), police negligence, spousal abuse, misogynistic verbal abuse, abuse of minors, abuse of power, abuse of a disabled individual (medication withholding, multiple sclerosis), extreme financial abuse, narcissistic personality disorder (NPD), divorce and separation September 30, 2024 This photo was taken at the site of this participants' wedding to her abuser. A: “I think my story would probably be about my marriage. What I would want people to know about it is that things aren’t always what they seem. Behind closed doors, there’s a totally different person, totally different element of your relationship that takes place that a lot of times you feel like you have to suppress because you feel like people aren’t really gonna listen or understand where you’re coming from. I think being married to my husband, people saw a different side to him than what I did. Two of my friends experienced him abusing me, and because of that it then became known.” Q: “Wow, that’s really interesting.” A: “When I left, a lot of my friends were like, ‘He was so charming, he was so funny and so nice,’ and I was like, ‘Mhmmm, because that’s the side he wanted you to see. He didn’t want you to see his true side, which is the side that I saw every day and lived with.’” Q: “Mmmmm. How long did it take for other people to figure that out?” A: “I think I suppressed a lot of that for a lot of years. I made excuses for him because I didn’t want people to really know what he was truly about, which I never should have done, but until you get into therapy, you don’t realize exactly the type of abuse that you were under. You don’t recognize it when you’re in it. It was a lot of emotional abuse. It was mental abuse, and then it was physical. He ended up locking me up downstairs in the basement when the boys were one in their high-chairs eating. He had lost his job and I remember feeding them. They were laughing and stuff, and I kept saying to him, ‘How long are you going to sit down here and watch TV every day? I’m getting up and working, I’m taking care of the kids, and you just get up, come down here and watch TV. Are you even looking for a job?’ And he flew off the handle. Now, mind you, he’s like 6’6” so he’s bigger than me, taller than me, very threatening. He basically said to me, ‘Why don’t you just shut the fuck up?’ I can see it like it happened yesterday. And then I said to him, ‘This is what I’m talking about, you’re getting mad at me. I understand, you lost your job, but you’re not doing anything to solve the problem. You have to be in my shoes as your wife. I’m getting up every morning, going to work, doing what I need to do, coming home, taking care of the kids.’ It was like a vicious cycle, right? I was like, ‘Hello? All I’m saying to you is a logical question,’ and he flew off the handle. He came over and choked me over the table saying, ‘Shut the fuck up, just shut the fuck up. I’m tired of hearing your mouth.’ Then the boys started crying because they were scared. He was yelling, because think about it, he’s a big guy. So, then he let go of me. I remember I felt like I could not get my breath, could not believe that he had done that to me. Then he locked me in the basement. He left and he walked up the steps, then he shut the cellar door and locked it. So, luckily, we had the office downstairs, which was in my room. I didn’t have a phone, so I sent an email to my friend, told her what happened and said, ‘Hopefully you’re going to get this email. If something happens to me, at least you’ll have the documentation.’ I didn’t know what was going to happen. Thank God I had the office. I took a paperclip and tried to jiggle the door to unlock it to get out of there. I should’ve left his ass then, but at that point I really felt like I was trapped. I felt like I didn’t have anywhere to go. I didn’t want to tell my mom because she would’ve been like, ‘What the fuck is wrong with him and what the fuck is wrong with you?’ But I had a lot of other stuff going on in my mind, like, with my MS. I was like, ‘Can I really afford to leave with two babies by myself?’ No.” Q: “So, you had the diagnosis, at that point?” A: “Yeah I got diagnosed when I was 28.” Q: “Wow. I had no idea. How did they discover it?” A: “They thought I had diabetes and my bloodwork came back, so then they did an MRI and found a plaque on my brain.” Q: “Wow, Jesus.” A: “So, while being that young – you know, you’re 28 and you’re still loving life, going out, wanting to date, all that stuff. It got to the point where I was like, ‘I can’t let this disease control me.’ I just kept a positive attitude about it. I think because of that I…” Q: “Made it?” A: “Yeah. But I’ve been under a lot of stress with him. My friend brought up a good point. She said, ‘Your health has gone downhill even since you left him because he causes you so much additional stress,’ and then I have the stress from the boys. I feel like even now, my body is getting a little bit of a break, but I’m still dealing with all the particulars of my kids being in school.” Q: “Yeah, and I mean, stress is disabling, and if you’re already disabled, just adding that to it.” A: “Let me tell you how bad it was. The last year I dealt with him, I would be downstairs when I knew he was coming home from work, and I was the one taking the kids to practice all the time, so I would dread him coming upstairs and getting into bed with me. That’s how bad it was. It got to the point where I was laying there at night thinking to myself, ‘How do I know he’s not going to put a pillow over my face and kill me?’ One time I came home and we got into an argument – when I say controlling narcissist – the boys are 5 to 8, they don’t pick up after themselves. They leave their toys and stuff all over the place. He came home and saw my son’s trains that were still out. He was like, ‘How many times do I have to tell this boy that he needs to clean up when he’s done playing with his trains?’ I’m like, ‘He’s 7, he’s not going to remember. What are the trains hurting?’ He said, ‘I’ll tell you what they are,’ picks them up and puts them in the garbage can. Then he walks upstairs to the kids and says, ‘By the way, the trains you were playing with downstairs are no longer on the floor. They now have a new home in the garbage can.’ My kid is crying like, ‘Daddy, why did you do that?’ I had to deal with that all the time too, like, the trauma behind his punishments. There was a time when he and I were arguing about something – it’s funny, I could tell you to go online because you could see my house now because it’s on the market, finally – there was a hallway to our main bedroom and there was a bathroom. He locked that door and my medicine was in the bathroom. He locked the bedroom door so that I could not get my medication.” Q: “Jesus Christ.” A: “I can’t tell you how many nights I was in the bathroom crying to myself because I was like, ‘How can I keep dealing with this? What am I gonna do with my kids? They’re totally being affected.’ And that’s why it still hurts me to this day because they still are brainwashed by him. It’s almost like they know that if they don’t do what their dad tells them to do that he’s not going to love them.” Q: “Conditional support.” A: “Mhmmm, yeah, for everything. There was a time that my son saw me crying. He said, ‘Mommy, why are you crying? Are you sad? Is Daddy making you sad?’ What do I say? I wanted to say, ‘Yes, the fucking bastard is making me sad,’ but no, I’m like, ‘It’s okay honey, mommy hurt herself.’ We always make up lies as parents. We hate to do that, but we’re trying to protect you as kids. One time I was like, ‘Mommy needs her medicine,’ and my son was like, “Mommy, I know how to unlock the door for you and you can go get your medicine.’ So, he goes in his room. He had a little paper clip. He’s like, ‘Mom, I can do it,’ so he went and jiggled it. [My husband] was sleeping, so that’s how I went and got my medicine.” Q: “He actually got the door open, oh my God.” A: “Hence why he’s in engineering. I should’ve realized then that he was going to go be an engineer.” Q: “I mean, trauma builds ingenuity.” A: “My kid is, yeah. To be honest, it did affect them too because my son wet his bed until he was almost 9 years old. The one time he wet himself, [my husband] came in there and yelled at him to pick up his dirty underwear and go put it in the laundry. ‘I better never see that again.’ So, of course [my son] would pee in the middle of the night and hide his underwear. I go to change his bed one night. I look under his bed because I’m cleaning, there’s like 5 pairs of underwear under his bed. So, I call him upstairs and I say, ‘Why is your underwear under the bed, honey?’ and he said, ‘Mommy, I pee myself and I don’t want Daddy to know.’ Just stuff like that… when I think about how traumatized they are, the stuff that he did to the kids mentally and emotionally. But he would never admit to it. He would say, ‘There’s nothing wrong with that. I’m just trying to teach him to be responsible.’” Q: “Well, he’s not a very responsible adult, so how is he going to teach them how to be?” A: “Right. I have to tell you, it was very sad. I want to say that it was very mentally tough to be married to him. Emotionally, it wore on me. I didn’t realize – he would holler at me and call me all kinds of names. He would tell the boys, ‘Of course your mother did that. What do you expect?’ He always bad-mouthed me to the boys all the time, and he still does it. I know he does. And back then, they believed everything he told them. [One of my sons] actually didn’t have a good relationship with me until he was about 15 and I moved the second time after my mom passed. He started realizing that [my ex] was always lying to them about how I did this and I did that, I was the cause of that. He would tell him that I loved [my other son] more than him. He came out and told him that to the point where [my son] was like, ‘Mom, why do you always pick [my brother] over me? Daddy’s telling the truth. Daddy said you always favor him more. You like him more than you like me.’ Who the fuck tells their kids that?” Q: “That’s really sick.” A: “So, yeah, for the longest time all the way up until probably high school, [my son] used to say that to me. Just the fact that I would have to say to him, ‘Do you know how much stuff I do for you that your brother doesn’t even know about, and you want to say that I love your brother more than you?’ No. I had to point it out. ‘I love you both equally. There’s things that you demand of me and there’s things your brother demands of me. You two don’t even think about it, but it’s not a competition.’ I feel like I’ve always had to unravel everything that he has done. I’m always going back over to try and simplify or make sense of why he did what he did, even if it was wrong. So, the emotional turmoil of that type of abuse is never ending. I used to wake up and say, ‘What’s going to happen today? What is he going to say today? What is he going to do today?’ And he was the type of narcissist that would never do anything for me genuinely, which kind of ruined me for my relationship now. [My boyfriend] is the type that cooks for me, he helps me do stuff. He’d bring me a coffee and be like, ‘Here, babe, here’s your coffee’ and I’d be like, ‘What do you want?’ and he’d be like, ‘I don’t want anything.’ It took me a while. I said to him, ‘You have to understand, it was twenty years with someone who would never do anything for me, and when he would do something for me I’d have to say “What do you want?”’ And sure enough, he’d be like, ‘Well, since I brought you the coffee, do you think you could cut up all the vegetables for me so I can take them for lunch every day?’ So I’d go downstairs, cut up all the vegetables, put them in baggies for him, set them in the refrigerator. Ask me if he took that shit one day for work. No. I’d come home from work and it would still all be sitting in the fridge. And I’d be like, ‘Why the fuck did I cut up all these vegetables for you to just keep them in the fridge?’” Q: “To watch you dance.” A: “Yeah. It was just to make me do anything that he expected me to do, and I was doing it. But there was no appreciation behind it. [My friend] and I were talking and I said, ‘I don’t know that [my ex] ever bought me one piece of jewelry in the 20 years we were together. The boys don’t get me things for my birthday, they never buy me anything for Christmas, they don’t even think about Mother’s Day. It’s like it’s another day because [my ex] never made it — even though we’re not together, he’s not mature enough to say, ‘Your mother and I are not together but she’s got a birthday coming up.’ He would never do that, never in a million years. My friend said, ‘I can’t believe the boys don’t,’ but they don’t have anyone that taught them to do that. My mom used to be the one that would say, ‘Boys, your mom’s birthday is coming up, what do you want to get her online? Grammy doesn’t know how to do all that, but you pick something for her and I’ll pay for it.’ But I don’t have my mom to do that anymore either, so now it’s like they don’t even think about it.” Q: “I hope someone teaches them that.” A: “It’s almost too late, that’s what I think. I don’t know, we’ll see, but I just feel like so much damage has been done, not just to me but to them. But I didn’t realize that I was being emotionally, mentally, and physically abused until I would tell my therapist some of the stuff that he would do to me and the kids. Finally, she brought out a wheel and was like, ‘this percentage is what he’s doing to you physically, this percentage is what he’s doing to you mentally, this is what he’s doing to you emotionally.’ And I was like, ‘I never even thought that that was abuse’ because when you’re in it for so long, you’re like, ‘I guess that’s the way that person is. But you don’t realize that it’s abuse until somebody points it out to you. When you’re in it for so long, that’s all you know.” Q: “When did you start seeing that therapist?” A: “Since I turned 43, and I still see her. It was a good five years before I left after that. It was when I turned 50 that I left. I’m 55 and I’m still not divorced.” Q: “Takes a long time, the system is terrible.” A: “He put the house up on the market without me knowing.” Q: “… Is he legally allowed to do that?” A: “So, the last time we went to court, the judge deemed me 60/40 of the house based off of everything that he’s put me through. He agreed that he was going to have the house listed in July. July came and went, he never listed it. Then we come into August. He went on vacation, took the boys to Europe for three weeks.” Q: “On your dime.” A: “Exactly. They came back, and he was supposed to put it on the market then. An agent worked with him for two weeks and she said, ‘I can’t do this with him. He’s terrible. I’m going to give you somebody else.’ She gave me one of her colleagues who is a guy. Another week goes by, we’re getting into September. I’m like, ‘what’s going on?’ and he says, ‘I’ll be honest with you, I’ve been trying to get ahold of [your ex] and he doesn’t return my calls. I’ve asked for his schedule, he doesn’t want to give me his schedule. He tells me he works 7 to 7 then he works the weekends.’ And I know he doesn’t. He does not have hospital hours or bank hours where he is working 7 to 7. Really?” Q: “Does he even have a job?” A: “He works for the state. He’s a state probation officer. So, that even adds more to it. So, Allegheny county basic glosses over everything he’s fucking doing. In the meantime, he sends an email over to his lawyer that said, ‘The real estate agent hasn’t really got into contact. He’s returning his calls, never gets back to him.’ He flipped it. Everything that he was doing to my real estate agent, he said that my real estate agent was doing to him. So, I’m telling my lawyer, ‘He’s a fucking liar. Let me show you the emails I have from the real estate agent that says that [my ex] is holding it up.” Q: “Yeah, well also, they can look at a call log for the phone.” A: “Listen, after I sent that over to her, she says ‘At this point, he can get his own real estate agent. Maybe that’ll force him to get the house up quicker.’ And I’m like, at this point I don’t give a shit, just get the house listed because he’s already taken two months now, knowing that I took a pay cut. When the boys turned 18, because I’m on social security disability, I don’t get the money anymore. I was losing out almost a thousand dollars per month, 500 for both of them. Well, that’s gone now, so I still have my court process with my lawyer. I still have all my bills. I still have my rent, I still have my car, doing this all now on a thousand dollars less. He’s taking his time because he knows what’s going on with me, so he’s like, ‘What’s the hurry? I’ll take my time being in the house, I’m not putting it up on the market for her. She’s getting more money than me anyways.’ A couple of my friends that still live there — he didn’t put a sign in the yard so nobody would know — and he listed the house. He listed the house without me knowing what the price was, without discussing anything, without me signing any paperwork, which in his mind means, ‘If I list the house and she doesn’t know, I get the money.’ That’s how he’s thinking. My girlfriend calls me up and she goes, ‘Your house is on the market.’ I go, ‘What?!’ She goes, ‘I was looking this morning and your house popped up.’ I go back to my attorney and tell her, ‘The house is listed. A friend of mine found it on Zillow, here it is. You had already stated on one order that we had that he is supposed to be in communication with me, letting me know everything that is going on with the house. I would have to sign all the paperwork and it couldn’t be listed without me. He went ahead and did everything on his own.’ So guess what? My lawyer’s like, ‘I need to type something up, send a motion over to the judge.’ I said, ‘You give him until Friday to sign this so that I get documentation.’ I call his real estate agent and he’s like, ‘I sat there and I said to him, “Before we list this house, does your ex have to anything?” and he was like “No, her name’s not on anything. She’s not on the deed.” I said, “Are you sure?” and he said “Yeah.”’ So this guy says, ‘I’m so sorry, I had no idea, but I did ask him.’ I said, ‘I’m sure he lied to you, didn’t he?’ So, I had to sit down, 25 papers later, had to sign all the paperwork. He sent a copy to my lawyer, copy to his lawyer. The guy who’s selling it said to me, ‘I’ll be honest with you, he started to talk to me about you and I said, “Listen, I don’t care about what you have to say about this. My job is to sell your house and that’s it.” It might take a little bit of time to sell because he hasn’t done anything to update it. He hasn’t painted anything, there’s a leak in the roof, he didn’t fix it, so if someone wants to buy it’s going to come out of your pocket unless they decide to take it as is.’ It was a headache. And then after all that, the next week [my son] had a psychiatric appointment I had to take him to. I called the psychiatrist and told him I’d bring him out. Half an hour later, she calls me back to say, ‘I forgot to tell you, but his dad called down here two days ago and put in the file that he’s not paying for [your son’s] insurance anymore.’ So, if [my son] needs to see a psychiatrist, it’ll be $350 out of pocket. This is what I mean, like, he knows I don’t have money, so what does it look like to [my son] that Mom’s not taking him to his appointments because she doesn’t have the money? That’s the shit that he constantly does. It’ll probably be the phone next, take their phones off his plan, tell them they have to pay, and leave me to be the one to have to pay for that too.” Q: “That’s unreal.” A: “That’s why when I say, some days I don’t sleep because it’s constant — what’s going to be next? If my girlfriend hadn't been looking at houses, I still wouldn’t know it was listed. He purposefully didn’t put a sign there because he doesn’t want anyone to know. My attorney said, ‘If he had wanted to do that, he could’ve, but he would’ve had to give you the money back.’ There’s no way he would’ve been able to get away with it. Talk about sneaky, conniving, deceptive. That’s why I just want this to be over. Icing on the cake was that the attorney emailed me two days ago and told me that my divorce date is January 6th, 2025. You know how that worked out? When they went to court they talked to the judge, and when the judge said ‘I have a November date, December date,’ his lawyer was like, ‘Nope, I’m full until January.’ I guarantee you that he told his lawyer to not take anything before January so that he doesn’t have to be out of the house over the holidays. That’s why I’m praying that it sells before then because then he’ll be forced to go out.” Q: “It’s true, that’s a good point.” A: “I’m hoping that it sells by November. The way it’s set up is that they’re going to split it, put half and half in ours, and then the judge will decide later. If I get more, then he’ll have to give me more from his pocket. I was told that if was the one in the house, anything that he owes on the house comes out of his. That’s the only thing I have going for me because I don’t want to do an apartment anymore. I don’t want to rent, it’s not worth it. I’m tired of hearing sirens, I’m tired of street parking. I just want to have a nice little house where I have a garage and I don’t have to do all this nonsense anymore.” Q: “Well, that’s safety. You’ve been denied safety, so you want safety. It’s really simple.” A: “Yup. Another part of the abuse — once I found the house that I bought, when he would go to work at night, my mom would come over and stay with the boys, and I would have to pack up stuff, drive it over to my house, take it in, come back, do the same thing. I did that for a whole month before I moved. He had no idea.” Q: “He didn’t notice?” A: “No.” Q: “So you literally left without him noticing?’ A: “So, what happened was, this was probably a month before I left because I was trying to look for apartments — I came home from work one day and said, ‘This isn’t working.’ He had a brother and a sister, so he could’ve stayed with them, but I didn’t have anywhere to go because of the kids. My mom had a one bedroom, so I couldn’t go stay with her. He’s like, ‘This is my fucking house, bitch, I’m not going anywhere. If you wanna go somewhere, have at it. But I’m staying here, fuck you.’ That’s when I was like, ‘Okay.’ So, that’s when they say, you’ve reached your last straw? I had reached my last straw. The next day, I started making phone calls looking for apartments, looking for houses that I knew would have three bedrooms for the boys. The day I left, I called a couple of my friends and they were there. I was to the point where I called Verizon, told them when my move in date was going to be so that they could set up the internet. How about the day I was going to move, he called off work. I got up that morning and was like, ‘Why the fuck is he still lying in bed?’ I get up and now I’m panicking. He gets up and goes to the bathroom, was taking a shower, came out and goes, ‘I have a doctor’s appointment today.’ He left to go to the bathroom, so I called the movers asked, ‘Can we move this until tomorrow? There’s no way I can move today. He’s here.’ I told them it was an abusive case and I had to leave without him knowing. The next day, Verizon called the house. He goes, ‘Verizon called the house. What’s going on? They’re telling me that you don’t want Verizon here anymore,’ and I had to play it off, like, ‘I don’t know. It was probably a mistake. Let me call them back and find out. Did you pay the bill?’ The next day he got up and went to work. Ten o’clock, the movers come. Now, I left a lot of stuff in the house. I took all the furniture on the third floor because I paid for it. I took the bed, I took it the couch. All the furniture I have now is what I took. I left him everything else, including the stuff for the boys. If you look at the pictures of the house, the boys are eighteen but they still have the comforters on their beds from since they were five. [My son] still has a toy train comforter on his bed. He never bought them new stuff, and I was paying him $720 a month in child support.” Q: “For fucking what?” A: “That’s what I’m saying, he’s going on vacation all the time.” Q: “Alone? With who?” A: “No, there’s a girl, I think, somebody from work that he’s been going out with. I could’ve wrote a book, really.” Q: “You still can.” A: “The night terrors of a narcissist.” Q: “Forreal.” A: “Hopefully the boys will understand some day the reason because they kept asking, ‘Why did you leave?’ I said, ‘All I’m telling you is, a person doesn’t leave ‘cause it’s good. A person leaves because it’s bad. I don’t need to go into details with you.’” Q: “Do they not remember any of the times that he was physically abusive?” A: “No, I don’t think so because they were too little. They do remember some of the stuff that he would say. They remember some of the stuff that he did because there were a couple times that [my son] said, ‘I get it now.’ He’d say something to me and I’d say, ‘You don’t have to tell me, I lived it for twenty years.’ Shit just keeps trickling down. The day I moved, the boys were in 8th grade. After school, they went to my mom’s. I told them that I was going to pick them up there, that mommy moved to a new place. They were all excited about it. That day, [my son] was riding bikes before I picked them up and got hurt riding his bike. He comes to my house. I just moved all my shit in, didn’t unpack a box — ‘Mommy, my stomach hurts.’ I ended up taking him to the emergency room and he needed emergency surgery. I had to call [my ex] after I had just left to tell him that his son was in the hospital. I don’t know how I even survived that night. It just spiraled out of control. [My son] stayed with me, then the next week is when [my ex] realized I left for good. He changed the locks on the doors so I couldn’t get back in the house, which he wasn’t allowed to do because technically that was still my house. I couldn’t get in to get any of my stuff. He had the boys that weekend before we had the custody arrangements. He gave them $20 an hour to remove the rest of my stuff that was in the house, paid them. They came back to me like, ‘Mom, we made a lot of money this weekend.’ I go, ‘Why?’ They go, ‘Because Dad paid us $20 an hour to get rid of all your stuff.’ That was like telling them to get rid of their mother. They put it all on the front porch and he told me if I wanted any of it, I could come over and get it off the porch.” Q: “Oh my God, to involve the children in that…” A: “You see how sick that is? You’d think that would be the stuff at that age that they’d remember him doing, but they don’t bring any of that up.” Q: “Fascinating.” A: “My neighbors felt so bad for me. I said, ‘It’s ok, I’m sure it’ll be hell after this.’ And it was. I mean, going to jail for two days was… I wouldn’t wish that on my worst enemy. And then to have a record that could follow me? My boyfriend was mad that I pleaded guilty. I was like, ‘Listen, it was either leave guilty and take the classes or go to jail. I’m sorry, but I opted to take the second choice because I didn’t want to be in jail for something I didn’t do.’ Luckily whenever I did the classes, the judge saw that my record was impeccable, that I had never gotten in trouble for anything, never had anything in all my years of teaching, never had any complaints. The lawyer that I had for that time in court, she got it expunged for me. It was the most horrific experience I’ve ever had in my life.” Q: “That is kind of the bottom of the bottom.” A: “They were calling me grandma in there. They were like, ‘Grandma, whatchu in here for? You look like you didn’t do nothin.’ There were repeat offenders. There were these girls that had been there for drugs, drinking, every other week. One girl told me that was her sixth time in there. It was bad. What had happened was, the year before that I had gone through CYF for [my son] that investigation that his dad brought on. Because of that time, there was a warrant out for my arrest. [My ex] told the police officer to get me on strangling, simple assault, and reckless endangerment of a child. He had three counts on me, so there was a warrant out for my arrest for a whole year that I knew nothing about. I live right by the police station and nobody came to my house. Normally they knock on your door, put it in your mailbox with your hearing date. I never got that. [My ex] must’ve filed it and gave them his address so that I wouldn’t know. So, a whole year later, I’m in Robinson picking up [my son] from swim practice. It was raining, I was in the backroads, and I didn’t see the stop sign. Of course, a police officer was there. There’s flashing lights and I’m like, ‘Oh shit.’ [My son’s] like, ‘Mom, you went through a stop sign.’ I was tired. So, the police officer comes over and I roll down my window. He says, ‘Hey ma’am, how are you? Can I see your license and registration?’ He saw I was from the city. He goes, ‘Oh, you’re not from around here.’ ‘No, I’m picking my son up from practice,’ and he goes, ‘Listen, you don’t look like you’re somebody I need to pull over. I’m gonna let you go with a warning, just be more mindful, but I have to go look up your license.’ So, wait, wait, he tells me, ‘Ma’am, I need you to step out of the car.’ I’m like, ‘For what, officer?’ and he goes, ‘I really need you to step out of the car.’ [My son] is like, ‘What’s going on?’ From my perspective as a Black mother, that’s the last thing I want my son to see, me getting handcuffed and sitting in the back of a police car. That’s exactly what happened. I get out and he goes, ‘Ma’am, there’s a warrant out for your arrest,’ and I’m like, ‘What?!’ He said that Allegheny County had a court date two months ago and I didn’t show up, so he had to take me in. You know when you see this shit on TV? Nah, that does not happen. You do not get a phone call. They take you in there, they don’t give a shit about you. I was thrown into the cell with 8 other women. There was a public toilet in there — you have to pee and shit in front of everybody, so you wanna talk about humiliating and demoralizing? People are throwing up, there are drug addicts in there on the floor going through withdrawal. Men got thrown in there with me too. Oh yeah, for two hours there were two guys in there with us. They didn’t give a shit. There’s no windows anywhere. You don’t know what time it is because there’s no clock. You wanna talk about feeling like you’re isolated? And you are stuck. You are going fucking nowhere. They don’t feed you, you don’t even get water. You can’t ask for shit because they don’t give a shit. At one point, I had no idea what time it was, I just knew that I needed my medication, and there was a nurse that was in there. She came in and said, ‘Somebody will be bringing your medicine.’ I go, ‘How can they bring me my medicine when no one asked what I was on?’ Nobody came, they didn’t care. I went without my medication, they didn’t give a shit. There’s four guards that sit with their feet up and there’s a tiny window on the door that’s all you can see out of. No clock, no windows, just cement wall. The whole time I didn’t know what time it was. It was to the point where these two girls had to go to the bathroom but there was almost no toilet paper left, so I’m knocking on the door. There was an inmate out there mopping the floor. He looks over at me and I ask about toilet paper, and he shrugs, so we look to the guard. He’s like, ‘Yeah, ok.’ They didn’t get any toilet paper, he didn’t give a shit. He was sitting there with his headphones on, listening to music. I had no idea how long I had been in there. I held my pee as long as I could hold it until they called me out to do my paperwork. That’s when I went to the bathroom. And I was stuck in there for two days.” Q: “Two days…” A: “They had picked me up at seven o’clock on Friday night. They told me that I would see the judge Saturday. I started getting smart. Every time they would put someone new in our cell, I would ask what time it was when they came in. I still hadn’t eaten, no medicine, nothing. Same clothes, you’re not showering, you don’t get to do anything. It was terrible. They shackled my hands and my feet. They don’t care what you’re in there for, so I’m shuffling around. I really want to have a talk with the mayor to tell him they need to take a closer look at what’s really going on down there because they treat you like animals.” Q: “Oh my God, yeah, that’s disgusting. Also, frankly, it doesn’t matter what you did. No one deserves that. You could’ve killed someone and it wouldn’t have been acceptable.” A: “You’re all shoved in a cell, it doesn’t matter what you did, how long you were there. [My ex] has put me through hell because had he not pressed charges, this would’ve never happened. That’s what I’ve talked to my therapist about. What type of human being tries to set his kid up to get his mom in trouble and then act like it’s ok? The day that I got released, which was Sunday morning, the gentleman that sits next to the judge in the hearing came to me to unhook my handcuffs and goes, ‘You don’t belong in here.’ I look at him and go, ‘I know I don’t.’ He said, ‘Listen, when you go out there in front of the judge, just say “yes, yes, no, yes,” listen to what she says and don’t say anything. You can ask questions later. Your goal is just to get out of here.’ So, when my court hearing came up before I had to take my classes, the same bailiff that let me out of jail was there with the judge that day. [My ex] comes back and he sits behind me with [my son]. The bailiff walked down and I thought he was coming to me. He went back to [my ex] and I heard him say, ‘Man, you put your ex behind bars? That’s pretty deep.’ [My ex] said ‘Well, she should’ve never put her hands on my son.’ And he went, ‘Dude, I have no words for you’ and walked back to the judge. That’s when I put two and two together that he actually knew. He probably saw my name on the paperwork and knew that I was related to [my ex] because he works for the state. That’s why he was like, ‘You don’t belong here.’ Why would he say that to me and nobody else?” Q: “He knows.” A: “He knew. It made me feel good that he said that to [my ex].” Q: “It seems like some people are figuring it out.” A: “It’s all connected. I think one of the reasons he’s getting away with so much is because he works for the state, so people think, ‘How bad can he really be?’” Q: “Some of the worst people are.” A: “Oh my God, yeah. The abuse used to be tangible, things that are right in your face, things I couldn’t get away from. Now, I’m not there anymore but I’m still dealing with abuse to a degree. He’s still finding a way to abuse me, whether it’s through the kids or my personal life. He doesn’t care. The day [my son] came to me, he was off his meds. He was irate, cussing and swearing at me. And of course, I’m not gonna let you cuss and swear at me, so I said ‘Get the hell out of my car and go back to your Dad’s. I’m not putting up with this.’ Now, any other father would’ve been like, ‘What’s wrong with you? What did you do?’ He shouldn’t have been over there because it was his dad’s week. But instead, [my ex] used it like, ‘Oh, this is a good idea.’ He purposefully took [my son] to the hospital and told them that I strangled him. That’s how that became one of the crimes they arrested me for. That’s what they put on the paperwork, that I strangled him. And the reason why CYF didn’t charge me is because they went to the hospital and the doctor said that there was never a history of him ever coming there before for that and that they did not see anything legitimately on his neck. He made it up. He’s sick, this man is sick. I’m probably going to get a PFA against him.” Q: “That was literally my next question, are you able to?” A: “I will find a way to show them that I fear for my life because he has done this to me before, that he has physically harmed me and there's a record of it because of our therapist, so I’m glad I made him go to that therapist. He tried to tell the therapist that he accidentally locked the cellar door and the male therapist looked at him and goes, ‘Listen, dude, I’m gonna be honest with you. You don’t accidentally lock somebody anywhere, okay? You have to think about it. You have to put the key in there, you have to turn it. There’s a whole thought process, so own it.’ And after that he didn’t want to go back to therapy because the therapist was calling him on his shit and he didn’t want to hear it. That’s what I say I should’ve left him then.” Q: “How though? How would you have done it? That’s the thing.” A: “Yeah, it was too hard for me. I didn’t have enough money saved. That’s why I felt like I was caught because with my medical condition I needed to have insurance and I needed to be working to keep my insurance. I was too young to be able to retire and still be able to live, so that’s why I had to wait a couple more years so that I at least had enough to be on my own. But no, it has not been easy. And now the boys are in college and call me for everything because they’re not calling him. With the house, when he first found out he had to put the house on the market, he called the boys up and went, ‘Hey boys, just so you know, you can thank your mom that you won’t have anywhere to live. Your childhood house is gonna be gone now thanks to your mother, so you can thank her for not being able to have anywhere to come home to.’ So, they call me up and they say, ‘Mom, how could you? You’re taking our childhood home. Dad was gonna leave that to us.’ I wanted to say, ‘You honestly think your dad was gonna leave you that house? What was he gonna do, split it down the middle?’” Q: “That’s true, it makes no sense.” A: “But see, they’re not thinking. All he wants to do is get them mad at me all the time. Finally I had to put my foot down and I said, ‘Listen, you two can keep believing whatever your dad tells you, but I don’t want to hear about it. You’re not gonna come to me and yell at me, getting upset because of something your dad is choosing to lie to you about.’ But yeah, it’s all that constant stress. I was constantly waking up in the middle of the night. My mind was like, ‘How am I ever going to get out of this? When is this ever going to be over?’” Q: “Did any of your friends or anyone else in your family ever say anything to the boys about how he’s treated you?” A: “Yeah, but they don’t want to believe it. They’re like, ‘My dad would never do that.’ They’re so brainwashed by him. Here’s a prime example. [My son] played rugby last week and ended up getting six stitches. I went to pick him up last weekend because he wanted to go to one of the home games at [his old high school] with his friend, and I told him I was taking him back up to his school that night. So, he comes home and is like, ‘Mom, I need to get my stitches out.’ So, we go to the Urgent Care and I heard him call [my ex]. He’s like, ‘Dad, I’m here getting my stitches out and just wanted to know if I need my medical card.’ Never says, ‘I’m here with Mom.’ It’s almost like he’s afraid to tell his dad that he picked me to help him take his stitches out and not him.” Q: “Mmmmmm, probably.” A: “It’s so sad, the extent of his abuse. It went from the time they were little to the time they were in middle school, to me leaving, to me moving, to my mom having cancer, to my mom dying, to the boys going to high school, and going through all – still, he never stopped, he still kept going, never-ending. So, I feel if I get a PFA against him and he chooses to do something else to me, I’ll have better protection, if he shows up.” Q: “And he could. You never know with someone unpredictable like that.” A: “That’s what I mean. And now that he doesn’t really have anything to comfort him, for someone to be there – like, the boys were keeping him company – now he doesn’t have them there. I asked [my son] last week if he has seen his dad and he tells me, ‘Dad told me he was going to have lunch with me the other day. He called me and told me that there was nowhere for him to park so we’d have to make it another day.’ And I go, ‘Oh, okay.’ But I could find a place to park. See what I mean? Always excuses. And he goes, ‘It’s okay, Mom,’ but if that would’ve been me, they would’ve been like, ‘Mom, what do you mean you can’t find a place to park? What do you mean you’re not having lunch with me?’ I’m the one that does everything, but I’m the one that always gets the brunt of, the smack on the hand if I don’t come through.” Q: “And that’s why because they feel like they can expect it and are owed it from you but not from him because they have to pull it out of him.” A: “Yeah. They kept asking me for money and I had to go, ‘Guys, do you realize that I just bought both of you everything for college? I’m tapped out. Your dad didn’t do anything.’ I didn’t say that last part, but that’s what I wanted to say. Like, are you seeing that? And my boyfriend and I moved them both in [and then go to two different schools].” Q: “Oh my God…” A: “He didn’t even help them move in, let alone buy them anything. He could’ve said, ‘You move one in and I’ll move the other.’ Nope. Nope, your mom can do it.” Q: “It’s extreme.” A: “It’s really extreme and that’s why I just want to be done with him. My friend told me, ‘You don’t go into court and let him get away with all this shit. You demand some things.’” Q: “I agree.” A: “And she said, ‘Your lawyer needs to go to bat for you, that’s what you’re paying her for. You need to make sure you tell your lawyer that this is what your expectation is because he’s going in there doing whatever the fuck he wants to do, and everyone’s letting him get away with it.’” Q: “Take him to task, there needs to be a record of it.” A: “I told my lawyer, ‘By the way, next time he decides to bullshit like this, you tell his lawyer that he can pay you. He can pay the court cost behind it, whatever you had to do, he can pay it because it’s not fair for me to have to pay it to make up for the shit he’s doing wrong.” Q: “That’s true.” A: “He’s fucking up and I’m the one that has to pay for it.” Q: “Over and over and over again, and he knows it, too.” A: “That’s what I told her. I said, ‘He knows, that’s why he does it because he wants to see what I can do about it.” Q: “He does it because he can.” A: “Yup, that’s what I told her. I said, ‘He knows and for some reason the courts just let him do whatever the fuck he wants to do. Like, he took the boys out of the country. Was he allowed to do that without giving me any notification? No. But he did it. Did anyone say anything to him about it? No. Did he get penalized for it? No. But if it would’ve been me, I would’ve been held accountable.’” Q: “Oh yeah.” A: “It’s bad. That’s why when they told me it was January, I was like, ‘Are you fucking kidding me? Has four years not been enough?’” Q: “You’ve gotta have a party.” A: “Oh, my friends said we’re going to have a hotel party.” Q: “Yes!” A: “They’re like, ‘You’ve been through hell. We have to celebrate for you because this has been a long time coming.’” Q: “Absolutely.” A: “He’s been on, how many vacations, big lavish vacations, and I haven’t even been anywhere for a weekend in five years. Nowhere.” Q: “That’s insane.” A: “Is there anything else you want me to add or share?” Q: “If you were to tell younger people who’ve had similar experiences or just are starting out dating or even just having friendships, things like that, what would you say to them?” A: “I guess, to put it in more simpler terms, I would say that whether it’s a friendship or whether you’re dating somebody, don’t try to ignore the red flags because so often we see them and try to turn them yellow and then green to the point where we try to become accepting, using it as an excuse to have a turnaround. You need to keep your eyes open and realize that when you see a red flag you need to run. I think that’s what we do even with friendships. You have someone that you really like and they’ll do a couple things, you’ll see a red flag, and you’ll say, ‘Oh, maybe just this one time I’ll excuse it. Maybe they had something going on.’ You make an excuse for it. And then it happens again and you’re like, ‘Well, maybe I just need to talk to them. I want them to understand.’ And then you get to the green and you’re like, ‘Oh, what the hell? Is it really that bad? Nah, I can deal with it.’ It happens again and then it’s too late.” Q: “Then it’s a pattern and you’re invested, right.” A: “Yes. So, that’s what I would say. Don’t ignore those flags because you know deep down in your heart it’s a red flag for a reason.” Q: “Trust your gut.” A: “Yup, trust your gut. Absolutely. There were some red flags that I saw earlier on with [my ex], but I’d go, ‘But he does this and this and this and this.’ But then, I went out with my girlfriend one day. We were having a group conversation and he cussed me the fuck out in front of everybody. I was like, ‘Maybe I shouldn’t have said that.’ Later, my friend and I go to the bathroom and she goes, ‘I cannot believe that he cussed you out like that in front of everybody,’ and I was like, ‘Oh, he’s just not having a good day.’ She said, ‘No, fuck that, he was being an asshole.’ I should’ve realized. My friends definitely were privy to some things. I have a lot of friends that if we were to go to court, they could say, ‘We saw the abuse. She’s not making this shit up.’” Q: “That’s huge though.” A: “It is.” Q: “What kind of future would you want or imagine for yourself after all of this?” A: “Well, my number one thing I have learned is that you have to be happy within yourself first. I’ve also learned that being with a narcissist, because there’s so much trauma and damage, you really have to take some time for yourself to heal. Even with my boyfriend now, we’ve grown a lot in our relationship because we were able to talk about a lot of things. He was very genuine and listened to a lot of what I had to say and modified the things he was doing, knowing that they were triggers for me. I had to explain to him, ‘I want you to understand that there might be stuff that you do that I might handle in a different way, but that’s because it’s a trigger for me, and until I can get through that healing process, it’s going to take me a while.’ He was very understanding about that because a lot of times he’d be like, ‘I’m not him,’ but I’d go, ‘I’m not saying you are, but you’re acting like him.’ But was he? No, it was usually something he said that he didn’t mean, but to me was a trigger and it wasn’t his fault.” Q: “Still brought up the feelings though.” A: “Yeah. I would definitely say that I have grown in being more mindful of what I’m doing and willing to accept, and that I also realize going into this relationship that I’m not settling for anything, that when I see a red flag I either address it or I leave. I’ve definitely gotten stronger in that. You have to be strong enough within yourself. You know what you want, you know what you’ve been through, and you know what you’re not going to take.” Q: “Just been uncompromising and anyone who pushes on that boundary is an instant no. Very simple. And then people who pretend to be something they’re not, also a no.” A: “Exactly, and sometimes you have to dig a little bit deeper, test the waters and see what they do when you give them a scenario or say something to them, but yeah.” Q: “Well, and the more authentically yourself you are as well, it gives you more opportunity to show more of what you do want.” A: “Yeah. I told my boyfriend, ‘These are the things I’m willing to work on. These are the things I’m willing to deal with, and these are the things I’m not willing to accept.’ Don’t limit yourself.”