EDITOR’S NOTE: This first-hand account from a local client of The Women’s Center at SSTAR details a domestic violence survivor’s struggles through the court system. The Herald News has verified the author’s name, but is withholding it due to the sensitive nature of domestic violence.

I am beginning what I call the “thriving” phase of my life, but it has been a long time coming and has been the result of endless hard work and the blessed support of family, friends, and earthly angels like the men and women from SSTAR Women’s Center, St. Anne’s Youth Trauma Program and Child and Family Services. Without them, my children and I would still be drowning in the abyss of domestic
violence and would have likely been snuffed out by the more-often-than-not nonsensical, callous, over-worked, under-skilled and broken “system.”

By system, I mean the legal system that is supposed to be there to protect us from harm and preserve our rights, and if nothing else, at least safeguard our children by doing whatever is in the child’s best interest. It has been my heartbreaking experience that the legal system is actually better built to
support and protect a batterer and, in the case of Family Court, it is the perfect venue for the batterer to continue his malevolent pursuit of power and control and simply feed his incessant narcissistic needs.

Like my ex, many abusers will use the court to continue to stalk and instill fear in their former spouse. When batterers feel abandoned by their mates, they get angry and seek to regain control and punish them. Once my ex was served with divorce papers, the emotional and psychological abuse increased 100-fold. And once he was removed from the home (because he wasn’t going to leave willingly, of
course), recurrent litigation became a means of terrorizing and draining me emotionally and financially.

He brought me to court for all sorts of things, and although he lost every time, it didn’t really matter to him what the ruling was. He was a ravenous beast relying on litigation to feed his need for power and control, and he never seemed to be satiated. He knew it was draining me and my family financially.  He knew it was disrupting my work. He knew it was wearing me down. I begged for him to “just stop” and be reasonable, but he wouldn’t; he was basking in the power and control he got from the constant litigation; he was getting exactly what he wanted.

In my case, where I was seeking a divorce from my batterer as means of relief for me and my children
after well over 10 years of verbal and emotional abuse, I entered the legal arena and was immediately saddled with “the burden of proof.” My word was not enough. After all… he has rights.

During divorce, the court often goes into the case with the incorrect assumption that both parties are equally to blame and judges often make the erroneous assumption that most domestic violence
accusations made during custody cases are falsely made for a tactical advantage. I’ve been told this is just the way it is. Courts are overcrowded and overburdened and how are they supposed to know who is telling the truth and who is not? Maybe so, but this needs to change and the burden of proof cannot and must not consistently sit solely with the victim(s).

My divorce instantly became a matter of “he-said, she-said.” My ex painted me as a vindictive, crazed, selfish, cheating woman. He claimed he was the one being abused and that I was using the children as pawns and he began to feverishly wave the parental alienation flag. He did everything in his power to prolong the divorce proceedings. Everything was a battle and everything a negotiation. It didn’t
matter what I said. He did enough to muddy the water that the judge quickly threw his hands up, not knowing who or what to believe. It didn’t matter that my ex had been arrested, that two of his children refused to visit with him, that he had a history of child neglect, or that all of his children had a documented history of PTSD as a result of witnessing years of domestic
violence.

That was not enough for the courts to just rule in my favor and mandate supervised visits.  I was just the “bitter ex-wife.” By entering into The System to gain relief, I was held hostage by the blindfolded Lady of Justice. The court sat back with the deliberate intention of sightlessness disguised as “neutrality” and waited to be presented with the “proof” it required.

It wasn’t just the courts though. Even my personal account of abuse wasn’t enough for my first attorney. He advised me that divorces simply bring out the worst in people and that my ex would calm down after the divorce.  And when my ex refused to agree to anything reasonable regarding visitation and threatened to take the divorce to a protracted and expensive trial, my attorney advised me to “cut my losses” and “just be done with it all.” It was death by 1,000 cuts. My ex successfully wore me and even my attorney down, and I surrendered again. And ultimately, in a crazy-making twist of fate, my ex walked away with more visitation than what is traditionally granted in divorce.

What followed after the divorce was simply an escalation of my ex’s battering that can only be described as psychological warfare at its best. He couldn’t directly abuse me anymore, but he could certainly do it by proxy through the children. It ultimately resulted in the deterioration of my children
as their PTSD increased to the point of raging somatic symptoms, hospitalizations, trouble in school, suicidal thoughts, and self mutilation. My ex may have been out of the house, we may have been divorced, but he was not gone. Using the court system and his time during visitation, drop offs and
pick-ups, and phone calls, he systematically and repeatedly fired emotional grenades into my home and it was slowly but surely killing me and my children. After all, I had the nerve to divorce him and dared to try to pull the veil of secrecy off of over a decade of terror, and he was not going down quietly. I was going to pay, and he was going to use our children to make that happen.

Watching my daughters become thin, fragile shells of themselves and realizing my son was growing up and adopting his father’s traits and tendencies toward “power over,” I realized I had to take control. I had to fight for my children and for myself. I continued my therapy, I got an attorney skilled in domestic violence cases, partnered heavily with the children’s therapists and DCF, and documented absolutely everything. If the court needed proof, I was going to give it proof.

The grueling and horrific part about it all was that it had to play itself out day after day, month after month. My children had to get hurt and abused repeatedly before the court would believe me. I had to
send my vulnerable children into the lion’s den week after week and watch them come home beaten down, confused, and abused. I had to piece them back together time after time, only to be broken again during the next visit. But it was my only choice, and eventually it all worked out. The court got the evidence it required to back up what I had said all along. My children are safe now and can
only see their dad in a visitation center, which should have been the case all along, but as I was told: “He has rights.”

It wasn’t easy and my children and I have suffered so much injustice, it’s simply repulsive. In the end, it was worth it. I am now in a wonderful relationship with a man that is amazing and he treats me with the love and respect I deserve. The children and I are happier than we have ever been and we are just so incredibly blessed to have a man who has seen us through the unending, costly court battles and walked by our side through all the trauma, craziness and pain.

For those women and children that are still stuck in the trenches of domestic violence and litigation, my message to you ultimately is that life does go on and you too can be set free. Seek help and support from places like SSTAR.  Become educated, because you are your children’s only true advocate in this whole process.

For over five years, I had walked with my therapist down the hallway of SSTAR Women’s Center many, many times. Each time we would reach the exit and would part ways in typical fashion — with the unspoken understanding that while my personal battles continued to rage on and my own personal hell awaited me beyond those walls, we would see each other again soon so we couldcontinue our work.

Just recently however, the last time I walked down that hallway was different. This last time was the last leg of my journey, my own personal finish line. We reached the exit together, and this time, my clinician looked at me with such joy and hugged me saying, “Now go have a wonderful life.”

As she said those words, I was suddenly struck by the gravity of the statement and the moment. I had done it! I had ME back! She had walked beside me for many years, helping me grow, supporting me, backfilling all that had been systematically ripped from my very being for over 10 years.

Now I was able to stand on my own, and I was walking out that door with my “Survivor” status securely in place. I was ready to take on the rest of my life, and as I did so, the steady voice of Maya Angelou came to me and I heard her wizened voice say, “Surviving is important. Thriving is elegant” and I felt a triumphant peace wash over me.

I have been set free not to just simply “survive,” but to thrive … and yes … thriving is truly elegant.