Just as a reminder, this is occurring in the past. November 2012.
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We had our power team ready and I was in my power Lawyer suit. All systems were go.
Unfortunately, the Judge saw it differently.
It was another day where the Judge didn't even hear testimony.
The Judge took my Lawyer, Ellie's Lawyer and DP's Lawyer in the back room. The update was simple. DP was suppose to have come up with the half the money needed to start talks with CS, the behavioral psychologist, to whom the Judge was turning the case over . I had already paid my half and this was the deadline for DP to pay his. The reality was he did not have the money (or was choosing to use his money for other things). He had, the day before, oddly enough, paid $100. 1/5 of what he needed to pay. The lawyer suggested that DP was doing all he could and that he needed more time.
Now, I don't get several things about this case. No money has come to me for child support. I was also raising a child. I was paying for Ellie's medical bills, which were astounding by this point and our legal bills (picture bills from 2 lawyers), and her therapy bills. Yet, when the fee to go forward was due... I paid it. Why? Because it was the law. It was what everyone said I had to do. It was what I needed to do to say out of contempt.
However, DP doesn't do it. Asks for an extension and ... gets it.
The Judge, the honorable JR, said that we would give him one more month to come up with the money, on that day in November.
I was frankly beside myself. It was incomprehensible to me.
How many chances does this "man" (a word I am using here very loosely) get?
As much as my Lawyer and Ellie's Lawyer argued, it didn't matter. Mid-December we would be coming back.
The Judge took my Lawyer, Ellie's Lawyer and DP's Lawyer in the back room. The update was simple. DP was suppose to have come up with the half the money needed to start talks with CS, the behavioral psychologist, to whom the Judge was turning the case over . I had already paid my half and this was the deadline for DP to pay his. The reality was he did not have the money (or was choosing to use his money for other things). He had, the day before, oddly enough, paid $100. 1/5 of what he needed to pay. The lawyer suggested that DP was doing all he could and that he needed more time.
Now, I don't get several things about this case. No money has come to me for child support. I was also raising a child. I was paying for Ellie's medical bills, which were astounding by this point and our legal bills (picture bills from 2 lawyers), and her therapy bills. Yet, when the fee to go forward was due... I paid it. Why? Because it was the law. It was what everyone said I had to do. It was what I needed to do to say out of contempt.
However, DP doesn't do it. Asks for an extension and ... gets it.
The Judge, the honorable JR, said that we would give him one more month to come up with the money, on that day in November.
I was frankly beside myself. It was incomprehensible to me.
How many chances does this "man" (a word I am using here very loosely) get?
As much as my Lawyer and Ellie's Lawyer argued, it didn't matter. Mid-December we would be coming back.
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In the meantime, things got harder on Ellie.
As much as I tired not to talk about the case or let my emotions show, Ellie wanted to know what was going on. And, I felt that I had to keep her in the loop as much as was right. Now, that point may be argued here and there, but it was our relationship and I told her as much as I felt she needed to know, with the expert advice of her therapist, JR.
She wanted it over. She started to struggle. She wanted this chapter of her life to be closed and frankly, she wanted to be heard. She felt that no one was listening to what SHE wanted and that was extremely hard for her. She asked, almost daily to talk to the Judge. No one thought that was a good idea. The trauma she would go through would be unbearable.
Nightly, numerous times a night, terrors started happening. Ellie became someone I didn't recognize while she slept. It was not easy.
She withdrew. She went through a period - pretty long - where all she wanted was to be home, with me. I believed she needed to do it, I didn't want to make her do things that caused more angst. She had been through enough. I always gave her options, but she generally opted to be a homebody; and I felt she needed that at that time.
School and home were her sanctuary. I am not sure I encouraged it, but I didn't try to push her outside her feelings of safety, either. Not given a handbook on these things, it is just how I decided to play it.
There were times when she talked about going back to the hospital. Those were the darkest, toughest times. She knew she had a safe sanctuary there. We spent many hours talking to JR about that. Hearing the despair and the hurt in her was (and, let's face it... still is) the hardest thing of all.
This needed to be over. For Ellie's sake.
I'm so sorry you were both in that place. I hope the night terrors have gone away now. :/
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