Another Visit to Court

 So, there I stood holding papers obviously filled out by someone other than DP, or DP had forgotten how to spell his name, as his first name was spelled incorrectly, just stunned.  Really? Full custody.  

Lord have mercy, this is the last thing I needed right now.  

I tried to read through the garbage and muddled print in the pages and finally gave up.  I called my lawyer in the morning and scanned the pages over to her.  She asked if they were delivered by someone certified.  No.  The papers were all a mess.  I was put in the plaintiff category, he was the defensive.  Several other things were incorrect as well and finally I had to laugh about it.  The reality though, nothing was funny.  

How could this man just walk into a courthouse and freely decide to do something like this? Again, dumbfounded.  The dates for this case were even before the one that we had scheduled, so we would be going to court quickly.  Also an error on his part as you need to give ample time to the parties involved.  I believe I had 3 days notice.  

There was nothing in me that thought the Judge would really give him anything that he was asking for.  But, here is the deal - the Judge had me completely guessing and I truly never knew what he was going to rule. So, I didn't know.  

Going to court is very odd, in that you can only talk about certain things at that particular time.  At this time we were going to talk about this ridiculous motion that DP had given to me to take Ellie from me.  Because it was specific to that, we could not bring up the fact that I was being harassed by phone calls or texts.  It was only about this stupid, useless, ridiculous, outlandish court case.  

I don't think I have talked about finances yet.  Going to court is not inexpensive.  Now, believe me, I would do anything it took to take care of Ellie in the proper way.  But, it is things like this that really chap my hide.  My lawyer has to now prepare for a preposterous case and I get billed for every hour, heck, every minute she does so.  We can talk more about finances later. 

I have yet to talk about DR and how she handles things in court.  She lives far away from the Hillsboro court house.  Our cases have always started at 9:30.  And, as I stated before,  I am always there around 7:30, just to be safe.  You never know what will happen in that two hours… oy.  So, when DR comes to court, she shows up at 9:30 and it drives me crazy.  It generally is because of traffic and I trust her 100% that she will be there, but I don’t do well with it. 

Sure enough, on court day, she was there.  I had my “lawyer suit” on, of course. 

We were ready and she was certain it was going to be fast.  The way she thought it was going to go was that the judge would simply throw his case out and ask to see us on the date that already existed in just a few weeks. 

DP showed up, no lawyer still.  Same posse behind him. 

We were the first people called to the front.  Above the bar we went.

Judge Raines asked DP if he knew what he had filled out and DP said yes.  He explained that he had filled out the wrong papers.  He also explained that he couldn’t fill any papers out right now because we (our team, so to speak) had already put something out to say that DP was in contempt of court.  That was what was on the table.  Nothing else could be heard.  DP didn’t understand it.  It had to be explained again.  I wanted to ask if Judge R could break it down as if he was talking to a 2^nd grader, but I held my tongue. 

DR asked for her time to be paid because this was a ridiculous situation (I am sure she put it in much more professional terms).  The Judge said no to that.  She would never see that money.  Was basically what he said.  It was true. 

He said that he would see us in a few weeks. 

******

Meanwhile therapy was continuing for Ellie.  She was going weekly and was making huge progress.  I was, and continue to be very proud of her.  We had found the perfect therapist for her.  

While things were painful, through much talking, play therapy, coloring and tough quiet times, Ellie let the therapist in enough to know that the sexual abuse was not a one-time thing.  Sadly, it was far from it.  She allowed me to sit in after the hour and Ellie told me as well.  That time when you hear it again and try to hold everything in is excruciating.  I didn’t want to get emotional, because I didn’t want Ellie to get sad. 

Part of the issue with Ellie keeping it in was that DP threatened to hurt me.  Whenever he put her down in that FM store and whispered in Ellie’s ear, the whisper was “if you tell your mom, I will hurt her.”

I’d like to stop and have you think about that for a minute.  Can you imagine that? He probably had just abused her, was dropping her off for the night and who knows when he would see her again and that was what he left her with. 

And then, my 6 year old (at the time) had to walk over and pretend that everything was okay.  She had to go on with things like it was okay, holding everything inside.  Can you even begin to imagine how much weight that puts on that little girl’s shoulders?  It breaks my heart.  How did I not know? The idea that something was wrong was there, I just didn’t know how big.  It kills me to think about. 

How could anyone do this to his own child?

The details were nearly too much to take.  But, I listened.  And I ached.  And I was so proud of Ellie for finally opening up and setting herself free and at the same time I wondered, how much more will there be?

We still deal with the physical repercussions of what he did to her on a fairly consistent basis.  UTIs and such are a reminder that sadly we live with. 

The damage of sexual abuse runs deep.  Physical, mental, emotional.  Once it happens, you can’t hide from it and you can’t forget it happened.  Constant reminders are always there.