MFA Mama

like father like son

   I need to find a new pediatrician for my boys, because the one we've used for the past twelve years has incompetent office staff. Remember how this current financial clusterfuck began, when my ex was insisting I give him money before he'd pay the child support?

   Today the pediatrician's office saw fit to e-mail me all of his billing information (even credit card info!), including the fact that at the time my ex-husband was costing me late fees by withholding a substantial hunk of his court-ordered child support? He had given the doctor's office a grand total of 1/6 the amount he was demanding from me.

   My ex-husband made my rent and car payment late two weeks before the start of a new school year and a mere month away from my youngest child's birthday BECAUSE HE WAS TRYING TO EXTORT AN INTEREST-FREE LOAN OUT OF ME, UNBEKNOWNST TO ME. I'm sure his rationale was that he'd make all six payments, the bill would be paid, and it would all come out even in the end, but one way involved my household (including two of his three children) tightening our belts and paying fees so he could have some cash in-hand and the other would have involved his doing the right thing for once in his wretched, miserable existence.

   It's almost enough to make me want to speak to the motherfucker face-to-face, which I haven't in five months and generally try not to do since my ex-husband is a conniving, violent piece of shit, just for the sheer hell of asking him what the fuck he was thinking. I MEAN.  Crystallized Christ on a crostini, man, did you absolutely HAVE to take food out of the mouths of your own two younger children to pay the legal bills for your motherless whelp to act out his delayed oedipal crisis on the stage of the local courthouse? Couldn't you have just committed insurance fraud again if you need the cash that badly? Or maybe, oh, I dunno, not tried to turn the tragedy of your teenager's burgeoning psychosis into one more weapon to use against a woman who is so far over you she's been another man's wife for nearly eight years? I am embarrassed for you at this point, dude. Get your shit together.

   The pyrrhic victory of my ex being demonstrably proven  a liar in writing aside I'm pretty torn up about this whole thing. My oldest son may be a monster but it still goes against every maternal instinct to pursue the financial and legal downfall of a household that contains a child of mine. Before it was easy to say "screw you and yours" when "his" meant the yappy little dog my ex co-parents with his (ex?)G/Fiance and the screwing benefitted three children I held dear. But it doesn't feel as neat when it's me and two children I hold dear vs. him and a monster who looks exactly like the son I lost. It doesn't feel like something possible to "win" when even fighting the battle requires looking directly at that.

   I guess it's a good thing I have plenty of anger to bolster my fighting spirit when it starts to flag. Because not only did my ex try to extort money from me, but he also did it to support the kid who gave me the newly-diagnosed nerve injury I'm about to start months of PT for (yeah, that lingering rib pain flared to the point that I missed some work and it turns out I'm still not even all the way physically healed from what that kid did to me). There's nothing like spending a few days' missed income in exquisite pain help you stop feeling sorry for people who don't deserve your sympathy. And the prednisone for the pinched nerve picked up nicely where the pain left off.

   The two of them can fuck right off together into the sun.

   

mad

   Well, I did it, I got mad. And it felt good. Traditionally I have tried to take the high road with my ex, in hopes of looking like The Reasonable One. But I had a small epiphany the other day: yes, the best revenge is a life well-lived, but my ex has taken that off the table. My life? Is court, and legal bills, and pettiness, and getting yelled at by judges. And it will be for another four years no matter what I do.

   You can't break a peace that doesn't exist in the first place.

   When it was just my ex I was up against he was obnoxious and often unreasonable, but he still paid the child support and did close enough to abiding by the custody and visitation order that if you backed up and crossed your eyes he ALMOST seemed to be in compliance.

   Not anymore. And while there's no logic to mental illness, the change in my ex-husband's behavior coincided with The Sociopath moving in with him, and all of the false charges and saber-rattling have been to do with him, so maybe he has my ex-husband cowed (he's a lot bigger and despite being crap at throwing punches is strong enough to break bones and teeth). I can only operate on conjecture, and based on the little I know neither of them over there are getting any nicer (a couple of days ago I found out about a real humdinger of a fight they had in front of company, and my ex must have hated that because he likes to keep hostility behind closed doors), so...if this is the new normal, and I can't choose not to spend the next four years funnelling all disposable income into the courts and various lawyers' pockets? I'm damn sure not going to be the one so buried in summonses and overwhelmed and afraid for the future that they retreat to their car to cry and get interrupted by a process server. Fuck that. It's his turn.

   Knock knock, motherfucker.

   

karma

   I had a hard time sleeping last night.

 

   The rib that my oldest son broke is bothering me a lot lately. It had healed, and then something happened a couple of weeks ago; it felt like the worst muscle cramp I've ever had and since then the area is painful. It seems to be getting worse instead of better. Sometimes I'll lean or reach for something and it takes my breath away. I don't really feel like this is something that can be fixed by a doctor, but what do I know? Maybe I need punishing still.

 

   That's what's really eating me is the guilt.

 

   My son should not be alive. And I am the only reason he is.

 

 

   When my ex-husband's mother was so awful that we retreated, mid-visit, to a motel (without bringing my birth control pills along), I thought about that for a moment then decided taking one pill late was fine--the package even said so--and went on with life. When I found out I was pregnant my ex was furious. But my dumb ass was all "a baby! Family!" and wouldn't discuss termination. 

 

   The first time I saw an OBGYN during the pregnancy, my ex-husband was waiting for me at the curb in our old neighborhood. I thought he had reconsidered sending me alone, and was pleased when he greeted me with an anxious-sounding inquiry as to what the doctor had said.

 

   "Well, she tested my blood and I'm not anemic but it's borderline. She gave me some vitamins and said--"

 

   "No," he interrupted, clearly annoyed. "Did she say you're pregnant?!?"

 

   I think I actually smiled and almost laughed. We'd only known each other a couple of months and maybe coping with humor would bond us together? 

 

   My ex was not laughing. "Well?"

 

   "Yes, she did a test, too, and her test is positive, too," I said, and he staggered and leaned against a building, then sat on a curb with his head in his hands. "But we already knew that," I reminded him.

 

   "No. This makes it real. Like, you find a bump, you think MAYBE it's cancer, you feel dumb for thinking the worst and see a doctor...but they rule it OUT! They're supposed to rule it out, our whole lives are ahead of us! Instead we have cancer."

   

   What followed was the pregnancy from hell. An early miscarriage scare (my ex came along to the hospital for that--I think in hopes of being asked to make some kind of decision) turned into bedrest from fifteen weeks onward. My ex-husband often stood over me while I cried, sing-songing "this is what you want-ed!" as I shook and curled myself around my belly. I talked the baby a lot, because I was scared and lonely. I love you, I want you, please stay, I told the squirming elbows and huddled rump every day.

 

   My ex-husband came to the delivery, and was unmoved. When they finally said we could take the baby home, that's when he fainted.

 

   Nobody but me wanted that kid, y'all. Even my body knew something was wrong and tried to rid itself of the invader. My OBGYN, at my follow-up appointment, smiled at the baby and said "look here, troublemaker, your mother brought you into this world through sheer force of will, so be good to her."

 

   We all know how that ended, don't we?

 

 

   I spent some time thinking about that "cancer" comment, and how my son spent his formative years watching his father kick doors down to hurt me, and wondering if I caused this by not taking that baby and running like hell, but I don't think so. I think that kind of monster is born, not raised, and while that still makes this my fault, I'm trying to hold onto hope that the two other children I wouldn't have had if I'd run will somehow redeem the decisions I made by what they do with their lives. They seem like good kids (I mean, I think they are, and other people think they are, but I feel the need to use qualifiers, now), and I am doing everything I can to foster that decency in them. That, and practicing as much kindness as I can, seems like the only way to heal the wounds bringing my oldest into society are bound to cause the rest of humanity. Maybe someday it will be enough to heal me, too.

 

   I'm not typically one to grasp for greater meaning, but as unpleasant as my son was to be around (the physical abuse made me give up, but he is also breathtakingly cruel and abusive emotionally and people can tell something is off with him--I once introduced him to someone very blunt who wasted no time in asking me what was wrong with the kid), maybe the universe is still unfolding as it should. 

 

   Because sixteen years late, I have come to see that my ex-husband was right. I should have terminated that pregnancy. It was absolutely like a cancer diagnosis. But now that I have signed over full physical and legal custody of The Sociopath to him (at his request--he is thrilled to have an ally against me and now that the court crap is all over with I don't mind telling you the two of them tried like hell to take my two boys AND FAILED), he is the one it will consume. 

 

Harvey

Is it okay to be thankful that my fellow Americans are finally in the news doing some GOOD in the world?* I'll admit it, my lifelong misanthropy is at an all-time high, and I'm guilty of automatically expecting the absolute literal fucking worst from a stranger if they are white and from a red state, particularly if they're outdoorsy and armed (yes, I know your husband/father/brother/pastor is a white guy in a red state who hunts and an absolute paragon of human virtue, I am not talking about HIM here). Used to be I'd see a "good 'ol boy" and now I see a christofascist militiamember or hoodless klansman.

This hurricane is awful, but I needed reminding that these folks can do good things, too.* Because even if someone voted for Trump, if they're out there right now in their boat rescuing families and cages of wet cats and dogs I wish them safe sailing (and hope they are driven to some thoughtful reflection on social justice and the importance of competent government by what they will see out there).

 

* Because this is the innernet, no I am not saying I am thankful for the hurricane, or that my being reminded that there is good and bad in most of us warranted a devastating natural disaster on the part of our ailing planet. Harvey is an asshole and I am not laboring under any delusions of self-importance, and most of y'all don't need to be told those things but it does take all kinds, so.

sad

   School starts soon, and I should be shopping for supplies for three.
   Instead I've spent the past eight days freaking out, because my ex-husband has decided that paying support for the two children who may still turn out to be productive citizens is optional. You see, he wanted to get The Sociopath more acne meds, which the pediatrician would not prescribe without an appointment, which they would not make with a balance due.
   A balance was due because for a while my ex refused to give me the kids' insurance information, meaning that when he brought a child home with an infected ear and I took them to get some antibiotics shortly after the assault I couldn't pay a copay, because no one knew how much to charge me. So there was a balance due, which my ex-husband extracted from the office staff and paid, and now he wants a check for that.
   Except that's not the same as paying the child support. See, paying the child support allows me to feed and house the children, and I still do that when my ex-husband refuses to pay his share, I just can't do that AND pay all the other bills on time, and now the car note was late and we're unprepared for school and I'm a ball of stress UNNECESSARILY and I really, really, REALLY hate my ex-husband but he finally paid, late, and if the check clears things will be fine for my two boys (who still need new blog names). Eventually.
   Not so much for the son I lost. His father still hasn't enrolled him in school in his home district (he's had six months to obtain copies of the kid's Social Security card and birth certificate), as I learned today when I spoke with the school the kid attended here. I finally had to speak with the county school board's "Constituent Services" person, and tomorrow will be picking up copies of the custody order for them so that I can make sure the boy doesn't continue haunting the neighborhood acting like he has any right to be here causing trouble. I have to keep reminding myself that this is a bad kid, a tragedy of human genetics incapable of empathy or true kindness, a kid who hates me and wants me dead, or at least alone and broken and defeated. A kid who has no interest in getting better, just getting over.
   Because if I thought even for a moment that the son I wish I had had instead of the sixteen-year miscarriage wrapped around a gaming laptop in my ex-husband's basement was now getting ready to have the worst junior year in the history of adolescence, I'd be even sadder than I already am, and I don't really see how that's possible.

Busy

   I have SO MUCH TO SAY!

   Unfortunately, my ex-husband has decided to stop paying child support, so every minute I'm not at work I'm driving Lyft until it's been long enough for DCSE to get involved.

   I guess I should look on the bright side; while he's on the wrong side of the court order AND committing perjury to try to keep his scion in my school district illegally he's VERY unlikely to take me back to court.

   Or he may, because narcissism, but "wanted to save my money for frivolous lawsuits" isn't going to fly with a judge as an excuse for cutting off support to his two non-criminal children if he does.

   ONWARD!
   

PSA

Hey, a little PSA from your friend with the life that went sideways: go easy on the mothers, please. People are doing some really terrible things in the world right now, and we have this urge to strike back at the source, but the source probably isn't the woman who gave birth to the latest mass media monster. 

I mean, PROBABLY not. It's possible she didn't help matters, but women in the extremist groups (ALL of them, not just brown ones) who proudly spawn evildoers are (to my knowledge--correct me if there's a matriarchal, TERF-led terrorist cell somewhere raising their PGD-selected daughters to commit atrocities) universally so oppressed, isolated, disenfranchised, and dehumanized as be culpable on a very limited, perhaps even nonexistent, level for their sons' actions. If you want to demonize a woman with a grade-school education, no property or job skills, numerous small children, and a husband who feels it's his divine right to fuck her whether she wants it or not and makes all the decisions for not rising up and teaching her sons better, you go right ahead, I'll just be over here calling you an asshole.
But what about the ones who are just like you and me? They're educated, they drive late-model cars and vote, they have normal-seeming spouses or no spouses, speak articulately, and don't stand out as "other." THEY can do better, do all the things the extremists' wives can't, so if THEIR kid does this, THEN we can blame them, right?

WRONG.

Sometimes you're young and lonely and you fall for the bright, lucky spark of a disordered personality and end up pregnant. You write a birth plan and wear your baby and take your toddler to Gymboree classes and a NAEYC-accredited preschool and feed your kid organic food and you see all the warning signs and take them to neurologists and psychologists and therapists and you beg the courts and the doctors and the school counselors and police to help, counsel, treat, contain, and it all goes to hell anyway in a series of sickening thuds, hurled curses, and an hour of blood and sirens.

Some people are just wired for hate, and usually their first and saddest victims are their mothers, and when that is the case I promise you those poor ladies are already blaming themselves and feel terrible, and did everything in their power to prevent this. Whatever mistakes they made along the way are not what made their sons, OUR sons, our fellow Americans, storm a college with tiki torches and run a car into a fleeing crowd of people who disagreed with them. 

I don't claim to have all the answers as to what DOES make these men do these things, but I can tell you with sad authority that their mothers are already suffering, and couldn't have stopped this, either.

The uncomfortable truth is that hate is everywhere now. It's not just in the newspapers and on the other side of the world, it's in our hometowns, at our dinnertable, and for some of us, the cells of it are quite literally in our bloodstreams* even after the monsters we birth fade from your memory.

* Article here: http://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/babys-cells-can-manipulate-moms-body-decades-180956493/ 

howdy

   I am not doing so great at blogging lately.

   Most of that is that I'm still trying to wrap my head around having brought a fucking monster into the world, having a new one snapping at the edges of my life, adjusting to this way of living a hunted life, again. There were a few good years there with The Narcissist dead and The XY brought low by his bankruptcy and getting laid on the regular, where I felt free.

   I really miss that. Now I have The Sociopath out there fanning the coals of my ex-husband's fury...well. Maybe? See, that's the truly maddening part. There's no way for me to know who's perpetuating the hostilities. Maybe my ex wanted to let it drop but the kid insisted on pursuing false charges after the police declined to press any, and the ex got pulled along for the ride and all the stress made him (more) belligerent, and he now sees having lived with the kid that the boy isn't right and regrets not listening to me but doesn't want to lose face...or maybe the kid wilded out because of hormones or an undiagnosed brain tumor or organic mental illness but felt awful when he heard the list of injuries and is scared and needs help he isn't getting because he now lives with his father, who...has his own problems, let's say. Their relationship prior to the kid assaulting me was pretty adversarial (to the point that they came to blows), and having to live with his dad may have been a much-needed rock-bottom moment. Maybe if given the opportunity the kid would apologize, and with a lot of therapy and some rock-solid boundaries I could safely have some type of relationship with him again and be a force for good in his life, but we'll never know because my ex is filling the kid's head with lies.

   Another possibility, and what seems most likely by far, is that the two of them have formed an unholy ouroboros of hatred and keep each other outraged, and regardless of which scenario is closest to the truth I CAN'T FIND OUT and I have to assume the dastardly duo are brainstorming new ways of making me broke and taking my boys away.

   It's a lot of emotional work having a nemesis. And it's hard to know what, if anything, one can safely vent or crow about. And it makes for sparse posting, but I miss y'all.

   How are all of YOU?

dull

   I'm around, y'all.

   Life is just a blur of work, work, and more work. I'm still loving the Real Job, and also driving for Lyft pretty much daily. I'm raking it in, honestly, and have almost totally caught us up from my losing my job/the assault in February (and the resulting medical and legal bills). I barely SEE my children, but they have plenty of electronic joy and new clothes and unlimited wireless data, and if their father and biological brother sue us for custody I'll be able to afford representation, and that's honestly as good as it gets. It would be nice to plan family vacations and college funds, but instead I'll not be deprived of at least sharing a household with my remaining children.

   I'm trying really hard to come to a place of peace with that.

bonus

   Well, I did it. I gave 150 Lyft rides in twenty-six days and collected that $500 bonus. It was there within hours. Boom!

   So I'm taking the family out to dinner at the local Red Robin to celebrate catching up the phone bill and paying the car insurance, haha.

   Actually we are almost entirely caught up, thanks in large part to the new job being just SO very lucrative. It's more than I've ever made for the same work, and life seems to finally be almost entirely back on track, if not better than ever before by objective standards. 

   I was going to relay a conversation I'd had with Hotter to y'all, and then when I saw that The Sociopath and/or his little friends were sniffing around was going to refrain, and then decided that I hadn't invited any of 'em, and couldn't abide by having my first-amendment rights curtailed here on this blog that I pay for on the www. 

   I was just saying to Hotter as we discussed our dinner plans that our family is so much better as a four-person unit. Brainwashing from their father and/or brother aside, my two boys are such great kids and so much fun to be around. We can all go out in our nice safe little car that comfortably seats four and sit in a booth and enjoy a meal together like A Typical American Family. While I don't recommend the method of removal we are so much happier lighter by 165 lbs and safe in our home, and I am sad but also just so grateful right now.