Being heard: Sure's journey (thread 3)

[surereadyforchange]

previous (2nd) thread

What to say? Abusive rapist ex reported, Police Statement given over a month ago and he is still blissfully unaware, still messaging, and nothing has happened.

Sure: how are you? guess you have been slogging away at getting your school stuff caught up.

Hi all,
Badgers, hope you are ok, post on here if you feel like it, its always nice to know someone cares, and i care.
Myself, i am having a bit of a day, DS wants to get out to the railway so i cant be too long..
Been struggling with uni work, thankful for extension though. Got my research proposal in yesterday. Everyone else has finished all their assignments but i still have one more to go!
Baby course went well and last session was wed, evaluation was really good.
Uni a bit mad too, and always lots going on with DS. Still waiting for school.
WA sessions have been really good, will post on how they have been helping later probably. The lady is really direct and focused on moving me on and giving me tools to cope and for the future, rather than the counselling ive had in the past where we've talked at length about the past but nothing really happened.
Will prob post more about what WA lady said about DS dad later too ( get a solicitor).
I just wanted to come on and say that i'm still here.

'He' changed tack from being a victim (cause i went to the police and poor him got arrested and he's traumatised) to being all "i dont want this, i acknowledge what i did, i want you in my life, i love you".
He has been texting from different numbers and i know he has at least 3 diff accounts on each social media site as well as sn@pchat.
I woke up this morning after submitting assignment yesterday and thought about how i was 30 min from deadline on a previous one, he knew i was working on it that day and when the deadline was, and he rang me up telling me he was having a wank and wanted me to talk to him so he could finish. I hated doing that kind of thing anyway, and said dont you know i've got a deadline, he was like "oh yeah, you did say - but i'm hornyyyyy". I did it anyway :(
My educator is a christian and showed me a passage from the bible- corinthians I3 where it describes what love is, and it has really been on my mind lately. She said she is not sure i know what real love is and no one has shown me it (other than DS but he's little) and suggested i use it as a sort of guideline.

Also WA lady has been stressing that i HAVE THE RIGHT to decide who i want in my life and now i am getting away from him and have a better idea of who i am, if someone doesn't adhere to my set of morals (which actually are quite high! despite what i have accepted for myself) then i have the right to say no, i dont want you in my life.

I wrote 'the list', despite not wanting a boyfriend at this time, to set out what i will and won't accept, i'll take it next week to WA.

'He' rang again off a different number, guessing it was him and feeling confident i answered to explain that i dont want him in my life because he doesnt adhere to what I see as the standard for what i will accept (writing this i see how naive it sounds that i even bothered) and to leave me alone.
He then started a complete character assassination and brought up everything from the last 5 years - here's the thing- it was all made up!! It was his interpretation of it, i never did any of those things, and when i dumped him it was because he'd done some of the things i described in my 1st post and i was scared and upset. But that was "abandoning him".
It went on..
"Who the fuck do you think you are" "get over yourself" "you're a liar and you're untrustworthy"(because i went to the police) Imagined affairs, imagined 'other guys', it was frightening the level that he is willing to go to. I said i dont want you in my life, leave me alone, and hung up.

I feel like i am separating myself from him, the abuse, seeing it more for what it is, but its so hard.
Can i have a MN hug?

Definitely - here's a big hug!
I'm busy cleaning my holiday cottage just now but lots of good things in your post. You are moving forward. But you're also entitled to hang up as soon as you know it's him. Don't listen. You have the right to speak to whoever you want. I know you still have a small hope that you will reform him (for someone else's benefit) but it's not your job. Really it isn't. Let him go to hell in his own handcart. (I love that expression!)
Back to cleaning... [hug]

And another big hug here....massive hugs, wine, tea, choccie cake and whatever else you need. It is scary that he is still at it but I hope you are finding it in you to keep him away. You have hung up on him, please don't get sucked into further engagement now.....stay strong sweetheart, you are doing brilliantly.

Have to head out but will check back later xx

Hope you're ok Sure and will get a chance to relax this evening xx

First: glad to hear that school and WA counselling are moving forward andhelping you move forward. Hope thing with Ds and his dad can be resolved with a solicitors input, and nothing more.

Finally: Argh! Is anyone at the police still tracking his harassment of you? He is putting out real effort to distress you, and eventually, that adds up to documentable harrassment.

Sure

Hope rest of weekend went ok. Have re-read and been thinking about your last post....and to be honest, it is chilling. His behaviour, the fact that it is still going on, all of it. This is not normal. It is shocking stuff.

I appreciate that you might not want to hear this, but honestly Sure, I think you need to consider changing your number, sharing the new one with only those trustworthy folk who have no connection to him. Use it for uni, WA, DS school etc. Dont answer numbers that you dont know. If it is important, the caller will leave a message on voicemail. Keep it tightly under YOUR control.

I know it is shit. I know it is a hassle. I know you should not have to go to that length. But this mad bastard is going batshit crazy because he can no longer control you, and it sounds like his behaviour is escalating. It is truely chilling to read. He is determined to creep into your environment, seeping in like a poison - damaging your present and future as he has damaged your past.

You are the only one who can stop it.

I think that before now, you were so deep in the fog of the situation, conditioned to the treatment and almost in a state of addiction to being in the relationship that you could not consider changing your number as an option. It was too final a step to take. You are stronger now and have better support. Changing your number would cut him off completely and maybe end this nightmare?

Your WA lady is right: you abolutely have the right to say who you do and dont want in your life. And you have the right for that wish to be respected. You have made it abundantly clear to "him" on numerous occasions that you do not want him contacting you, that you do not want him in your life...but he is not listening, and continues to disregard your wants/needs. This is not a man who loves you, it is a man who thinks of you as a possession, as his to do with what he pleases. But you are not his: you are Sure and you are your own woman.

As long as he has a way of contacting you - ie has your telephone number - he will not let up. He will work at wearing you down and getting his own way. And that absolutely cannot happen. As long as he can get to you, this will not end. It is abuse, and I am glad you feel you are beginning to separate from him and see the cycle for what it is.

Why give him the option to cause you further grief and distress? Why leave the door open even that little bit: it only allows him to catch [metaphorical] glimpses and that just feeeds his desire to bring you back to heel. Why not sever the link once and for all?

Obviously all easier said than done, and you might not be at that stage yet where you feel it is something you can do, but maybe it is something you could discuss with your WA lady as you discuss the tools for taking you forward and how to cope as you move forward?

Sorry for the long post x

Hi all, just to say i am still here and read this every day, just haven't found the time to sit down and figure out what i want to say. I will soon..
Hope you are all well. Xx

Hey Sure
All OK here. Don't fret about keeping thread up to date, just focus on getting yourself through each week. You have loads on your plate. Just remember we are here.....if you need us ;-)

Post if you need us. We're still here.

Hi all,
I'm sitting in bed feeling really rough! Got some sort of bug, fluey body aches and can hardly swallow.
I have an assignment that needs to be in next week but I just can't face it at the moment.
I hear what you are saying Badgers about changing my number. I guess part of the reason I don't is that at least I know where he is/what he's doing/ thinking if he is contacting me, and I panic when I don't know that, as he may do something like he did before, come to the house, look through the window to "check up on me" - see who i'm "shagging" , what he can accuse me of.
A male friend came to visit me and DS this week (who I have known for years and haven't seen for ages) - I was actually shaking cause he came so far he stayed over downstairs on the sofa with a sleeping bag and I was utterly terrified the whole evening. I was constantly tucking the curtains in so there were no gaps and made us sit in the back room off the street. Even then, the next day I was so anxious I didn't want to do anything like go out for the day, and suggested he left early. I couldn't relax until he had gone.
Even though DS loved having someone around and cried when he left (friend spent ages playing lego with him).
This is a friend who commented on a profile pic of mine on fb, and 'he' has been going on and on about. I told friend and he doesn't comment or like anything of mine now.

Also, I am really really stressing out about my graduation.
I spoke to my dad on the phone last night - I rang him to tell him my cousin had had her baby (i'd seen on fb- bloody fb!!) and he said how is uni going?
I said a bit painstaking at the moment and he said it would be good when I graduate and he and his vile wife would be there. I acted non committal but now I am thinking that I am not going to go.

I do NOT want him there and I don't want his wife there. She will ruin it because she hates any attention I get because she cannot handle it. if she comes to my house she picks about everything - says its messy and dirty and they both take the piss. Its fine, its just her house is a showhome filled to the brim with nicknacks and she doesn't work as she retired in her 40s (my dad is a lot older).

They pick at and bully DS. My dad picks on him. I didn't see him for ages as he (my dad) had a tantrum about DS wanting to tidy a jigsaw himself and kicked him. He also ripped a paper hat DS was colouring at a restaurant because DS wouldn't show him.

My dad was NEVER around for me.
He was always working and when he was at home he would watch tv and ignore me.
He had my sister to live with him when my mum fell out with her but refused to have me when my mum and her bf were really abusive to me as a kid. Neither of my parents wanted me, at 13.
He had an affair with his now wife and fucked off when I was 11. But told me and my sister that she "hates us because we're the reason she couldn't have children" - my dad was older and didn't want any more.

I am so sad today because I feel like I am probably not going to go to my graduation. They will go mental if I say I don't want them there. In there eyes because they see me every 6 months or so and gave me their old car (which I didn't really want to accept and offered to pay for because I knew they would use it against me) they are amazing parent/step parents of the year.

I am absolutely gutted. I really wanted my graduation to be about my achievement, not ruined by my dads wife fucking picking and moaning about everything and making little comments (eg when I did hair modelling and showed them the pic...Dad: "wow, you look gorgeous" her: "yeah, you do, it looks nothing like you I wouldn't know it was you.")

I just wanted my friend from cornwall and my lovely DS there. Maybe my educator who has been so supportive.

But now I am not going to go because its just not worth it to have to deal with the fallout of saying I don't want them there. My dad has added fuck all to my life. He threw me to the wolves with my mum and her boyfriend, he used to beat me and be really proud that I wouldn't cry and keeps telling me about it.
He said recently: a cross word would be enough for your sister, but I would tell you not to do something and you'd go and do it anyway. I would threaten to smack you but you kept on.
And I would hit you, and you'd look at me defiantly and say "didn't hurt".
So I would say ok i'll do it harder, and I would, and you would still say "didn't hurt". So I would carry on and on, and I knew it hurt you because you had tears in your eyes but you would still take the beating, until I thought ok, if I carry on i'm going to break something, but still you wouldn't cry or run away.

He was proud of me for that. About the only thing, ever.

Sorry about the grammar.

Hugs for you - sorry you are feeling grotty.

In work but will be back.

xx

Actually, fuck that. I'm here now....all the "him" stuff is ongoing, so I'm just going to say some very important things about the graduation situation, so listen up!

I just wanted my friend from cornwall and my lovely DS there. Maybe my educator who has been so supportive.

If you want your friend there on your special day, then that is exactly what you are going to do. Sweetheart, you owe your dad and his wife absolutely nothing. I'm assuming that they need tickets for it. If you dont give them tickets, they cant come. End of. Hell, I would even suggest that you dont even tell your father when the graduation is. Certainly dont invite them. Do not engage

This is YOUR achievement. Yours alone. It has fuck all to do with them. You invite who YOU want at it. You are going to go to your graduation and enjoy YOUR day with lunch or dinner out with your DS, maybe your friend. Then you are going to come on here and tell us all about it and we are going to cheer and drink wine in your honour.

It is not about them. Not about your dad, or his wife, or even yon other arsehole. It is about YOU. and you have come so far and achieved so much and YOU ARE FUCKING AWESOME. And you are going to do this your way.

You can do this. I truly believe you can.

Exactly what Badgers said!

yep, I third what Badgers said. Don't tell him when the graduation is, and there's nothing he can do about it. You deserve to celebrate the way you want to.

Only problem is he can find out on the internet when it is. All the details for this years graduates are up there, I'm guessing it'll be the same for next years.
Where it is, what time etc.

I really appreciate your support.. thank you for making me feel more sane.
I would actually rather not go if they said they were coming. Its gonna cause so much shit though.
He is sort of the last remaining bit of 'family' left.
I remember last time i saw my dad he asked how 'he' was (my raping controlling ex), i said i hadn't seen him and he said ahh, what've you done to upset him? He does put up with a lot from you.

If access to the ceremony is by invite only then no invite = no entry, right? Or you could say you aren't going and then do. Or you could try and own the day and your achievement whether or not they're in the audience. I wouldn't regard your disgrace of a father as "family" either.

Sent you PM. Meanwhile, loadsa hugs and and and !

Jesus Christ. What an absolute bastard.
Tickets for graduations are very limited. I don't care what excuse you use but you must go.
What are you so afraid will happen if you either say there isn't room for the person you are referring to as your father, or that you don't want him and his wife to come? How can it possibly be worse than having your day spoiled?
Yes, I know it's easy for me to say, but I feel so angry for you.
Reading what you wrote about him telling someone what happened when he hit you has me in tears. But your strength as a child in standing up to him makes me so proud of you. Your spirit is uncrushable. It really is. So tap into it and tell him to fuck off.
Or else we'll have to form a SureSupporters club and come and sort him...

Just been getting ready to go for my Friday night swim and found myself drifting off into a fantasy where someone had overheard your 'father' relating his tale of abusing his daughter and written to him warning him that he was going be questioned about historical child abuse. And suggesting that staying away from his daughter in the meantime would be a good idea.

I agree Teeny, my reaction was also one of anger towards Sure's "father"..... she owes him nothing, just hope she can see that and have the graduation day she wants/deserves.

So many of us with mad, bad parents get our initial "being owned" mindset established in early years. I realise now how much my Mr Unavailable father influenced my choice of men and also seemed to "mark" me for the type who found and claimed me. If that is all the cosmos intends to offer me this time round, i'll stick with being the catlady thanks!

I mention this because, dear Sure, you are still attached to this grotesque creature called father who has abused you horribly. Perhaps you too are trapped in that early established pattern of "who owns me now".

True free will is hard won, it seems.

Teeny, it was me he was telling about how he used to beat me up and I wouldn't cry. It was cause I told him I don't hit DS, and he was saying yeah, well threatening your sister worked on her, but it never used to work on you even when I beat you as hard as I could without breaking anything.

He also told me about how he "never laid a finger on" my mum, obviously thinkin I was too young at the time to remember him hitting her, throwing things at her and calling her a "fucking whore" cause she changed the locks after he left the 3 of us for his now wife.

He did admit her grabbed her round the throat on one occasion and pushed her up against a wall because she had a go at him for leaving us.

The last time I saw him we were arguing because he genuinely thinks there is no gender pay gap, that women are worth less than men because they do things like lie to get jobs then go off on maternity pay.

He told me, in front of DS, that I should get his last name changed to mine because in his old job as a manager, he wouldn't have asked him for interview due to his last name not being typically British. DS' dad is not British.

He is basically against everything I stand for.

He thinks i'm a massive failure because I don't have a partner at my age. Even after I told him how 'he' slept with my ex-friend he still thought I should "hang on to him cause he's good looking and has a good job and is willing to put up with me".

He is obsessed with money.

He thinks women "don't get raped in this day and age" and that they "make up false allegations to get money off men". When I quoted rape statistics to him he said "yes but what about the men that get raped, what about the men that have their lives ruined by false allegations?

That women aren't regularly subjected to sexism, unwanted comments and unwanted sexual contact.
I have never told him that I lost my virginity at 13 when an older boy locked me in a room and pinned me down, that I have been groped everywhere on my body by more men than I can count since I was about 12, that men physically grab me to stop me as I walk past to tell me i'm attractive, that my married hairdresser told me he'd love to fuck me and he reckons i'm an amazing fuck.
That I've been called disgusting names, hit, shoved, sexually assaulted, raped, belittled and stalked, despite doing things like shaving my head to get men to pass me by ( didn't work, made them try and touch it) and not going out! He would make it my fault somehow. Everything is always my fucking fault.

When I commented about a perfume ad (where the guy clicked his fingers and got a car, then an attractive woman, then clicked his fingers and her dress fell off, then in the female version she got shoes and shopping bags, then a man giving her a ring) and I said "i'm glad I don't have tv or daughters because I would worry about them growing up thinking this shit is normal" we ended up having a massive argument because he thinks I WANT to be offended.
He thinks having a representational parliament is a ridiculous idea because "women and ethnic minorities don't have a right to be there just because they are female or black or whatever".
When I asked where he got his info from to back up his sexist and racist claims he said the daily mail said.... when I laughed and said dad, if I wrote an academic essay referencing a media newspaper I would automatically fail because its just not credible.

Cue a massive sarcastic tantrum because "well Sure, obviously i'm not as clever as youuuuu because I didn't go to university and therefore I know nothinnnnng etc etc.

Tipsy it is so true, even this morning I have been thinking, I have such ingrained beliefs that I almost cant get away from.
They include things like discounting nice men because they obviously aren't interested if they don't want to know where I am all the time or force sex or shout.
That its normal to have my life completely dictated by other people and if I don't do what they want its normal to be screamed at, belittled, have things thrown at me, slapped, verbal abuse, name calling, people telling lies about me, undermining my parenting, trying to take DS away, telling me how much they "fucking hate me", how awful I am, breaking my things, reading my diary, ruining my things, completely controlling me.

My mum has done it all my life, my dad intermittently when he was around and not off shagging, my sister most of my life ( she is younger).

Then horrible men, then DS dad, who totally changed after DS, then 'him', I am so sick and tired it isn't even funny.

I guess why the graduation thing upset me is that after everything, my dad has never been there for me or DS and he wants to claim and ruin something I have worked for by myself.
I am scared, Teeny, because my dad has always been terrifying when you make him angry. He explodes. He can be really nasty. He has got worse the longer he has been with his vile wide because they enable each other.

I remember him smashing my toys, lawnmowering over my plastic toy farm, breaking my fishing net I took to nannas cause it was in the way, smashing the hoover, the lawnmower with an axe, ornaments, anything that didn't cooperate.

Its so lonely when your mum, dad and sister all hate you.