Articles from March 2015

On Breaking Up with Kindness–College Memoirs: Life At Roanoke–March 1995, Part 7

On Sunday, March 12, I had at least 100–probably more like 200, 300, 400 or 500–pages of Middlemarch to read by the next day.  I’d been reading it all week, in addition to homework from other classes, work, classes and the occasional outing, but still had quite a ways to go.

Dr. Nelson had assigned far too many pages for me to read, since with NVLD my reading speed was slow.  I didn’t know if I could possibly get it done even if I read all day and night, but I was going to read what I could.

I stayed in the apartment all day and evening.  If I went online at all, it probably wasn’t for long.  I turned down all other activities because I didn’t want to disappoint my thesis mentor.

Cugan called to ask if I wanted to go out that day, but I turned him down because of the reading.  He cheered me on and said I could get it done, but I didn’t.  I believe I still had several hundred pages to read.  I hated telling Dr. Nelson; fortunately, he didn’t yell at me, though he did seem disappointed.

****

The night of Wednesday, March 15, I had my second date with Cugan: He came over for an 8:00 showing of the movie Maverick on RoanokeTV, which was channel 19.

After this date, I decided I couldn’t see Stimpy anymore.  It had been fun dating around–my mother even told me I should keep doing it–but I was falling too hard for Cugan.  I had a lot more in common with Cugan, and it wouldn’t be fair to Stimpy to keep seeing them both.

That meant I wouldn’t see Brad, either, whom I’d been writing to as friends since we met at the Superbowl party.  I was ready to get serious with someone again.

Though on the one hand I was happy about my decision, on the other hand it made me sad.  For one thing, I loved hanging out (and making out) with Stimpy.  And Brad’s letters made him seem quite nice with much in common with me, plus he was good-looking.  I think I could’ve ended up happy with him, too, but he was far away and Cugan was here.

I resolved to be nice to the guys when I told them, letting them know they were great people but I decided to be exclusive with someone else.  I determined to be nothing like the guys who had dumped me.

After talking about it with Stimpy, who seemed understanding, I spoke with one of the teenagers on TCB in Teleconference or Farwest Trivia.  I don’t remember how it came up in conversation, but I told him I’d broken up with Stimpy.

“You dumped Stimpy?  Cool!” he typed.

“How is that cool??!!!”  I typed back.

I have wondered ever since if this kid told Stimpy, “You know, Nyssa defended you.”

For the first few days or week after the breakup, though Stimpy had said he didn’t hate me, he obviously didn’t want to talk to me.  I paged him a few times to show him I didn’t want to ignore him, saying hi and, at least once, asking how he was, but got no more than short, clipped answers in return: “hi,” “I’m doing okay.”

Normally these answers would have been fine, but they took a while to arrive and he sent no others, a marked contrast to how he usually talked to me online.  So I respected his wishes and didn’t push him or ask any more questions.

But not only did he not talk to me, he ignored Sharon, Pearl and even Krafter, even though they had nothing to do with it.

Pearl got upset, saying, “But he knew it wasn’t serious!  You made that very clear to him.  So why is he acting this way?”

The song “Popular” by Nada Surf didn’t come out until maybe a few weeks later, so we hadn’t yet heard these lines:

Be prepared for the boy to feel hurt and rejected
Even if you’ve gone together for only a short time,
And haven’t been too serious,
There’s still a feeling of rejection
When someone says she prefers the company of others
To your exclusive company
—Lyrics

I don’t know why websites say this song came out in the summer of 1996.  I distinctly remember not only watching the video on Pearl’s TV in the apartment in spring of 1995, but also hearing it shortly after the breakup with Stimpy.  (Who knows–maybe the single came out on MTV long before the album was released.)

It told how to go about breaking up with a guy so that you’ll still be friends with him later.  I could have used this advice sooner, but it reassured me that I had done nothing wrong, and that apparently I broke up with Stimpy well enough that he would still want to be friends with me.

That was what I wanted; I didn’t want to hurt him and be mean to him like other guys had been to me.  Of course, the problem with dating even casually is that somebody often gets hurt.

I hoped he wouldn’t have a hard time letting go, but if he did, I intended to treat him the way I thought Peter and Phil should have treated me: not like dirt, but with respect and understanding that this was difficult for Stimpy.

I like to think that I would have acted in the following ways: If he wanted to talk, I would, and if he wrote me a letter, I would answer it nicely.  I would explain that I didn’t hate him, still liked him, and wished I could date him, but knew it would never work.

I hadn’t told him before that I couldn’t get serious with an agnostic, or that we had trouble talking, since I didn’t want him to feel it was his fault.  But if I had to tell him these things now, I would.

I’d say I cared a great deal about his feelings, and that breaking up with him now would be far less painful than stringing him along for weeks or months, risking that one of us might fall in love, and then breaking up with him then.

I would say I was sorry for hurting him, and that the breakup made me sad, too, but I had a feeling about Cugan and it would be unfair to date any other guys and give them false hope.

I would be kind, though firm.  I never wanted to be in Peter or Phil’s place, to be the mean one that Stimpy would detest forever for having treated him like dirt just because he still cared for me.

I never, ever wanted to be like them, just as I never, ever wanted to date them again and give them the chance to treat me that way all over again.

I was relieved, however, that instead I got the silent treatment (though I hated it) and then–well, that’s for later.  I don’t remember how much, if any, of these things I eventually told Stimpy, but I didn’t have to say more.

If Peter and Phil had treated me the way I planned to treat Stimpy, things would have been very different.  Phil would never have gotten an angry letter, and we might have actually been friends again because he would have shown himself to be a halfway decent guy.

(But for that to happen, he would also have to be decent enough not to treat me the way he did that summer.  But then, we probably would have gotten publicly married instead of divorced, because I don’t think he would break up with me after making such vows.  We would have had a pleasant summer and no reason to break up.)

Instead of being mad at Peter, I would have soon forgiven him and we would have been friends again.  I wouldn’t have spent a couple of weekends with my nerves on edge, wondering what Peter would say to my latest letter, only to hear nothing at all from him.

We would have actually talked, and I would probably have discovered that he wanted to try drinking and smoking and weed, that our ideas of religion were changing in ways I could not tolerate, and that we were best just being friends.

I was Stimpy’s advocate online.  Maybe a month or two later, some girl in tele didn’t know what kind of guy he was, so I said, “Stimpy’s really very sweet.”  Stimpy responded with an action word: I soon saw, “Stimpy is blushing for that you said!”  (The grammar on the action words wasn’t perfect.)

I’ve come to the conclusion that when you break up with someone, and it’s your idea, not theirs, you must be very delicate with their feelings.  Be polite, but don’t try to force them to talk, or go out of your way to be polite.

If you pass them on the street, say hi, but don’t act cheerful, because that will only make it look as if life without them is wonderful (which will only make them feel worse).

If you see them across a crowded room, don’t go over to them just to say hi, or if you see them through a window, don’t wave at them (like Charles did to Trina).  As someone who has been on both sides of the fence, dumper and dumpee, I believe this is the best way to act.

****

Krafter drove Sharon, Stimpy and me to the BBS bowling party on Saturday.  I don’t remember if Pearl went with us, though she did go.  Somehow, not at all by my design, Sharon ended up sitting in the front seat of the van, so Stimpy had to sit next to me when we got to his house.

We sat like two bumps on a log, not speaking, not looking at each other.  I felt extremely uncomfortable because I knew he was mad at me.  I wished I didn’t have to break up with him, because I missed him very much.  I missed typing the global action word “.cuddle stimpy” every time I logged onto TCB.

At the bowling alley, he sprang out of the van and ran off to find Misty.  Krafter joked to us that he was “running away,” and that he’d probably say to Krafter (or had said), “Yer next!”

Stimpy found an alley with Misty, and talked and laughed with him all night, ignoring me, Sharon, even Krafter.  I knew what he was doing, because I did it myself with other guys: trying to show me I didn’t bother him.

At least I knew one thing: Stimpy would not join the Zetas like my other exes!  He wasn’t a Roanoke student, after all.

Maybe a week passed.  One day, Sharon and Pearl logged in and found cyberflowers from Stimpy waiting in their e-mailboxes.  He apologized for ignoring them.

I hoped to find the same thing, but Sharon said that wasn’t likely.  However, when I logged in, I found one for me!  Stimpy wrote that he had a long talk with his friend Teri about how he’d been acting.  He apologized for ignoring me.

Soon after, I found him online and had a long chat with him.  We patched things up and became friends again.  We didn’t start dating again, because I knew that would be a mistake.  It would never work out, and I already told Cugan I was now dating only him.

Index 
Cast of Characters (Work in Progress)

Table of Contents

Freshman Year

September 1991:

October 1991:

November 1991:

December 1991: Ride the Greyhound
January 1992: Dealing with a Breakup with Probable NVLD
February 1992:

March 1992: Shawn: Just Friends or Dating?

April 1992: Pledging, Prayer Group–and Peter’s Smear Campaign

May 1992:

Sophomore Year 

Summer 1992:

September 1992:

October 1992–Shawn’s Exasperating Ambivalence:

November 1992:

December 1992:

January 1993:

February 1993:

March 1993:

April 1993:

May 1993:

Junior Year 

Summer 1993: Music, Storm and Prophetic Dreams

September 1993:

October 1993:

November 1993:

December 1993:

January 1994:

February 1994:

March 1994:

April 1994:

May 1994:

Senior Year 

June 1994–Bits of Abuse Here and There:

July & August 1994:

September 1994–Divorce: The Long, Dark, Painful Tunnel:

October 1994:

November 1994:

December 1994:

January 1995:

February 1995:

March 1995:

April 1995:

May 1995:

 

Just read something about being “truly Orthodox”….

A former Orthodox-convert-blogger, who was quite popular (and controversial) in Net Orthodoxy in his day, then became Catholic, is now becoming Orthodox again–and I discovered he lives near me.  And will be coming to my church.  😀

I’ve been checking out what traces are left on the Web of his old blog, to see what the controversy was in the old days.  I missed it somehow.  Either I encountered his blog many years ago and forgot about it, or he wasn’t mentioned on the Orthodox forum I spent time on, or it was during the time I dropped out from Internet Orthodoxy (after the Richard/Tracy crap soured me on Orthodoxy for a time).

I only found his newly-revived blog recently by accident, through another Orthodox blog’s post which included a link to one of his posts.  And discovered he lives very close.

Anyway, I found this comment by 123 on one of his old blog incarnations:

More practically, one hasn’t started becoming truly Orthodox until you’ve had your heart broken by the Church or someone in it, until you’ve found yourself at a a level pervasively well below what you strived for, and then you’ve stayed put for a few years.

That’s not something converts are prepared for, they aren’t prepared for the real heartbreak of conversion, of failure in the spiritual life (in oneself and others), they aren’t prepared for that ‘abandonment’ on the other side of the awe one experiences the first few years of Orthodoxy.

Yes, Orthodoxy is Pascha, joy, joy; but it’s also the Cross, it’s also pain, suffering, and all those things in the hymns and the lives of the saints we assume are far off, past, poetic hyperbole, or metaphorical.

No, Orthodoxy really the dumps, too. And then there’s also Pascha once a year. All that talk of struggle, the fact that clergy and monks are shown truly falling to their deaths from the top of the Divine Ladder, that’s really what the spiritual life is about.

It’s when you experience and know that that the converts starts shutting up, it’s then that people start assuming you’re foreign and were raised Orthodox (they assume you have an accent because you never speak, and you start looking world-weary like an Eastern European, or like someone going through the motions because it’s all you can muster, and you can’t stop doing even that because it’s simply what you are, even when you’re bad at it.)

And this gave me pause, because that’s where I’ve been for the past 4 and a half years.  Staying put in Orthodoxy even after discovering that my spiritual mentor and idol (Richard) had feet of clay, that he was an abusive narcissist and enabler of abuse.

He’s the one who broke my heart, and he (at least in name) was Orthodox.

And here I am, often going through the motions, wondering how much of it is true, yet still here.  Too stubborn to leave, even though it is common for converts to do so.  According to 123, that makes me “truly Orthodox.”

And I get to see someone who also has had my doubts and frustrations, leave and then return.

First Date with Future Hubby Cugan–College Memoirs: Life At Roanoke–March 1995, Part 6

Just before the Dungeons and Dragons game and movie night, which was planned for the 11th, Catherine told me she’d sent Cugan two letters:

In one, she pretended to be in love with him, and used the terms she’d wanted me to use in my first letter–such as “coy wanton advances” and “sultry attractiveness.”

!!!!

Along with that letter she sent one that read, “Please disregard my first letter!”  She explained it was just a joke.

Despite the second letter, the first one still concerned Cugan, who didn’t know how to take it.  After all, Catherine was married!  He wasn’t yet used to Catherine’s flirty ways.

Catherine’s scheme for the movie night was to invite Cugan and me, Cindy and Luke, maybe Tara and Randy, and probably Sharon and Krafter.  But the only ones who could go were Cugan and me.

On Saturday morning, Catherine picked me up around 11am so we could get to the Dungeons and Dragons game in M– by noon.  The movie night was set for 5pm at her house, which I’d never been to before.

We got to MPB, a small gaming shop on one of the downtown streets of M–.

In the back, a screen hid a large table from the customers.  This was the gaming table.  The gaming area was cramped, the seats uncomfortable and hard to get to.  This was partly a storage area, and had an outside door and a vending machine.

A fabric and sewing shop was right next door and on the right, with an entrance in the wall of the gaming shop.  You went through this to the basement, to get to the badly maintained toilet.

The gaming shop was set up with sundry items you’d expect to find in such a store: miniatures along the wall, boxes and books belonging to various role-playing games (even Doctor Who).  All sorts of dice were on the counter with the cash register, along the wall shared with the sewing shop, and near the outside door.

The second time I went there, I brought money and started putting together my own collection of D&D things, replacing the ones Phil let me use during the summer of ’94: a gold nugget die, the Bard’s handbook, a player’s guide, and a die with red and pink flecks.

I would have gotten one exactly like Phil’s flecked die, with twenty sides, but Catherine begged for it, so I got the twelve-sided version instead.

I discovered a couple of years later that Phil probably got his nugget and flecked die from this very same store.  He used to go to it a lot, and even knew Cugan’s friend Laura, who either owned it or worked there at that time.  I believe that by now, she no longer owned it, though she still worked there until mid-1999, when she moved to Madison.  She sewed my wedding dress.

I also got my own starter set of blue dice, with every kind I would likely need, except for a hundred-sided die, which I got at my first Gen-Con in Milwaukee in 1996.

Having my own copies of all Phil’s cool gaming stuff,  broke my last ties with him.  I stopped longing to use his Bard’s handbook, player’s guide, gold nugget or red die, because I had my own.  Eventually I even bought a brownish-red, felt dice bag with a drawstring opening, my first step in personalizing my gaming gear.

But on March 11, I had to borrow some of Cugan’s dice.

The first time I saw him again, even though we’d talked on the phone, he was still practically a stranger.

As with all my past boyfriends, as soon as I knew he liked me back, I lost my crush temporarily.  I don’t know why that kept happening, especially since the crush came back shortly after I dated a guy a few times.

I also wondered how Cugan really felt about me.  He calmed–or maybe worsened–some of my nerves: He looked at my Halloween T-shirt, black with pumpkins on it, and said, “Cool shirt.”  I didn’t know his birthday was on Halloween.

I sat on one end of the table next to Catherine, and started rolling up my character.  The name “Thundina” for my thief/mage elf was a kind of variation on “Phoena” (my old character with Phil) and probably “Thumbelina.”  It just came to me.

I worked on that during most of the game.  I had to ask Catherine’s help with a lot of it: It was months since I rolled up Phoena and Fury, and I did not use standard character sheets for them, just sheets Phil made on Microsoft Word.  I recognized few of the terms and abbreviations.

There were two other gamers, J.J. (character name: Konig) and Casey (character name: Thorin).  Thorin had a dog named Lockjaw and a talking sword named Ethelmark.

Casey wore glasses and a long, dark ponytail.  J.J., our age but looking much older, was stunningly handsome.  He had longish, brown or blond hair and no glasses.  Both generally dressed like Cugan: T-shirt, jeans.

At one point, we took a break.  I had my coat, but it was so unseasonably warm outside that I didn’t need it.  Cugan, J.J., maybe Casey, Catherine and I went over to the door for a few minutes, then outside.  Catherine said to me when the others were out of range,

“I told you not to look at J.J.!”

We all chatted and walked down the nearby streets, which were closed off except for local traffic because of major construction.  Imagine the freedom of walking down the middle of a city street without worrying about cars.  This was my first exposure to M–, and I loved it.

Back inside again, while Cugan and I sat alone at the table, he came up to me and asked me to go to the March Haire Affaire, an SCA event, with him.

It was during Spring Break, however, so I didn’t accept right away; I thought I would be at home.  But when he asked me, my heart did that proverbial leap.  Of course Catherine was glad to hear about it.

I later checked with my parents; they said if he took me home to Indiana afterwards, it would be okay.  No, I didn’t need my parents’ okay for a date: It was just a matter of getting home for Spring Break without inconveniencing them.

After the game, Catherine drove me to her house, with Cugan following in his car.  Catherine pointed to his red, stickshift, ’92 or ’93 Saturn with license plate “CUGAN S” (Cugan’s).  She said, “Doesn’t he have a cool car?”  (It’s perfectly safe to put his license plate number here, because he changed it years ago.)

We got to her house a while later.  We watched all her brand-new tapes of Star Wars, The Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi.  I hadn’t seen them since I was a kid, so these movies were never associated in my mind with any other guy but Cugan.

These movies first entranced me in my prepubescence, when my younger brother bought them on laserdisc and I saw them for the first time.  He probably got Star Wars when I was in fourth grade–while Star Wars was still fresh and Return of the Jedi wasn’t even out yet.

(I can date this because I got glasses right before fifth grade, and have pictures to prove it.  Before then, I thought Star Wars was supposed to be that fuzzy.  Getting glasses made the movie so clear, that it looked “wrong” and a bit “ugly” until I got used to the new lines.)

I’d play them over and over–so much that my dad had to tell me to play Star Wars only once a week.

Back to March 11, 1995.  Catherine’s husband Glen was with us for a little while, but soon left us all alone.

Cugan and I sat on the couch, but he sat at the left end and I sat at the right end.  As the night went on, I began to feel more comfortable with him, and we began to joke about the movie.  Catherine saw us moving closer together.

Then, all at once, Cugan made a cute whining noise, put his arm around me, and pulled me close.  I didn’t mind.

I sometimes felt uncomfortable with some gesture he made, but felt more and more comfortable with and attracted to Cugan as the evening wore on.  At one point, Catherine left the room for a while.

She later said that she noticed we were cuddling, and being there without Glen, she felt like a third wheel.  We asked her if she’d fallen asleep, but she was just giving us some privacy.  She later said to me,

“When you got here you two sat on the couch like this–” she held her two index fingers far apart– “and in a little while you were like this–” she jammed the two fingers together.

Cugan drove me home.  At first we weren’t very talkative.  But finally, probably after we decided to not stop at Roanoke and soon got lost in the roads around it, we found the right topics of conversation, and became as talkative as we were in letters and on the phone.

We agreed that modern dance was boring; I said I wanted to dance like in medieval times, with ring dances and fun.  The SCA soon gave me that chance (though, actually, it was English country rather than medieval).

Dead Man’s Party by Oingo Boingo came on the radio, a song which Q101 played all summer 1994.  Because of that, I thought it came out in 1994.  It actually came out in the 80s.  I missed it the first time: Either it was too avant-garde for our local Top-40 station, or this was during a time when I only listened to Christian music (because a camp preacher told us rock music was “of the Devil”).

I loved it because it reminded me of a story I read the summer of ’94 in a Gothic collection: A young boy, who didn’t know he was a ghoul, crashed a party and didn’t understand why everybody ran away.

Cugan knew the story, The Outsider by H.P. Lovecraft.  “Don’t run away, it’s only me,” a line in the song, matched the ghoul’s sentiments exactly.  Cugan also knew other Lovecraft stories, which I’d never even heard of.

At one point, Cugan said, “You’ve done something few people can do: You got me lost.”

I laughed, banged my fist against the car door, and said, “Yes!  Yes!  Yes!”

He laughed.  He soon found his way again, and we got to Roanoke.  I offered to pay for the extra gas used, but he said that was okay.

As we sat in the car in the parking lot just before I went inside the apartment building, we agreed to go out again.

He leaned over and gave me a peck on the lips–nothing spectacular, so I thought he’d never done this before.

(He told Catherine he never had a girlfriend before.  I didn’t know yet about the SCA’s cloved fruit game, a kissing game.)

Index 
Cast of Characters (Work in Progress)

Table of Contents

Freshman Year

September 1991:

October 1991:

November 1991:

December 1991: Ride the Greyhound
January 1992: Dealing with a Breakup with Probable NVLD
February 1992:

March 1992: Shawn: Just Friends or Dating?
April 1992: Pledging, Prayer Group–and Peter’s Smear Campaign
May 1992:

Sophomore Year 
Summer 1992:

September 1992:

October 1992–Shawn’s Exasperating Ambivalence:

November 1992:

December 1992:

January 1993:

February 1993:

March 1993:

April 1993:

May 1993:

Junior Year 

Summer 1993: Music, Storm and Prophetic Dreams

September 1993:

October 1993:

November 1993:

December 1993:

January 1994:

February 1994:

March 1994:

April 1994:

May 1994:

Senior Year 

June 1994–Bits of Abuse Here and There:

July & August 1994:

September 1994–Divorce: The Long, Dark, Painful Tunnel:

October 1994:

November 1994:

December 1994:

January 1995:

February 1995:

March 1995:

April 1995:

May 1995:

 

Walker is giving Wisconsin PTSD

Every day lately, I read some new horror in the newspaper.  Some new way that Walker is taking our wonderful state back into the Dark Ages.

Meanwhile, he takes big money from corporate donors and does them favors.  This guy’s a crook, as records on his investigation have proven, yet Republicans want to make it illegal to prosecute him.

He treats other Wisconsinites like terrorists, rather than listening to their concerns and the reasons why they don’t want these changes.

It really feels like PTSD.

And this guy wants to be President.

Which would turn the whole country into a wasteland, as domestic violence takes over (ending waiting periods for handguns=more murder in the heat of the moment), the environment falls into decay, and half of Americans are treated like terrorists for wanting a living wage, decent benefits and healthcare for all.

This used to be a wonderfully progressive state.  Aldo Leopold came from here.  Our recycling program makes us the envy of other states, who want to dump their trash in our dumps.  Union workers had the right to negotiate such things as working conditions.

I don’t want to live in Texas after seeing what the political climate is like down there, but Walker is turning us into Texas.  NO!!!!!

Now other surrounding states are leaving us in the dust economically, especially Minnesota with its liberal policies, while Walker brainwashes us into thinking we’re doing awesome and just need more conservative policies to get better.

He’s Svengali.

Meanwhile, in the comment section on newspaper articles online, I find disturbing voices which follow the extremist party line, insult those who disagree with words like “libtard,” and think intolerance of other religions/races/lifestyles is a “family value.”  They think policies which will hurt them, will actually help them.

They sound like zombie drones, repeating whatever FOX News and Rush Limbaugh tell them.

You make a plea for the civility Wisconsin was once known for, and get accused of trying to censor freedom of speech.

Years ago, I wanted to stay here no matter what, even though people said we may have to move to find jobs.

Now, I want to flee to Canada.

 

Marking an anniversary: reporting my bullies to Social Services

My entire website needs revising yet again because of a recent WordPress theme change.  It screwed up my quotes, so I have to go through every single post and page fixing them.  Again.  (I spent ALL LAST YEAR fixing formatting, and thought I was finished.  ARGH!)

While revising this post just now, on the first time I pondered reporting my abuser Tracy to CPS, I realized something:

As of several days ago, March 1, it has now been exactly four years since I did finally report her and Richard to CPS.

My, how time flies as you age.  I could swear these people only just moved into my house a couple of years ago, but now even that is 7 and a half years ago.

!!!!!

Anyway, I remember how frightened I was.  I remember I was scared even to let my husband know I did it, so I left off the return address of my letter, just in case it got returned for some reason.

I didn’t want him put in the position of having to lie for me if my abusers came around and gave him the shakedown.  (Richard is 6’5 and 400 pounds, and used to be a Mafia thug.  Tracy is also very large, bigger than me, and scary when she gets into a rage.)

I was scared that Tracy and Richard would find out I did it, and do something horrible to retaliate.  (See above.  Also, the fear of Tracy making a false report to CPS.)

I was so afraid that I didn’t even tell CPS who I was, though I did give them an e-mail address in case they had further questions.  I did not want to give them a phone number and have them call while my husband was home.

It was all done in secret, except for an e-mail I sent to an old college friend.  This friend has worked in this field for years, and lives right here in Wisconsin, so she could give me expert, experienced advice.

The e-mail described all the abuse I witnessed and that Richard told me about.  I later adapted it, first into an e-mail, then into a letter, sent to CPS.

She replied, “They both sound very abusive.”  “Your concerns are very valid.”  She urged me to PLEASE report them to CPS.

I sent the e-mail to CPS over the weekend before March 1, but heard nothing back.  So I sent the letter as follow-up.  (It was far too long and detailed for a phone call, which would require somebody typing or scribbling down everything and me trusting they get it accurate.)

I typed it late at night, printed it, addressed it, stamped it.

Then with shaking hands, I put it in my mailbox the following day, after my husband left and before the mailman came.

Then later, I found it gone.

It was done.

That same day, Tracy responded to the Facebook post of a mutual friend, “lol.”  This made me think she had no clue, that the e-mail or letter was not received, or was ignored.

Three months later, I checked via e-mail to make sure CPS received the letter.  Yes, they did.  Now I told them my name, so they wouldn’t dismiss the report as fake because it was anonymous.

A month after that, I checked the state’s free public website to see if any charges were filed.

YES.

I found more information the following September through a search of the local newspaper’s website.  On the exact same day I mailed the letter, Richard was formally charged with choking his step-daughter in 2010.

This was unrelated to my letter, but the results of an investigation into my letter probably helped bolster the state’s case, because it showed a pattern of abuse.

My report certainly must have been given more weight with CPS because of the court case.

I realized that CPS probably already knew at least some of what I wrote, from working with the police to investigate the choking incident.  Locally, CPS and the police work together on such things.

I also realized that Tracy wrote “lol” on the exact same day her husband was formally charged with child abuse.

Which blows my mind.  If I were in her place, I certainly wouldn’t be laughing at stuff on Facebook the very same day my husband was charged.  Was it a joke to her?

Four years later, I am glad I did it.

Obviously my instincts were correct: Richard and Tracy ARE child abusers.  The court case proved that beyond a shadow of a doubt.

I have never reported anyone before or since for child abuse.

The one time I did, I was proven correct because one of them was convicted of choking his child.

Because of this proof, I have the support of friends, family and even the web Forum where we all used to hang out.  This gave me added credibility, especially for Forum users who have never met me in person.  They all rallied around me in mutual disgust of child abuse.  My priest believed me because I had proof.

My husband often wonders if this child will run away and show up on our doorstep one of these days: On one hand is a deadbeat dad, and on the other is an abusive mother and a stepfather who nearly killed her.

I fought my fear and did what was right.

And I would do it again if I had to.

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