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Showing posts with label REFLECTIONS. Show all posts
Showing posts with label REFLECTIONS. Show all posts

Friday, September 13, 2013

SIZE 10 KNITTING NEEDLES RESCUED FROM THE PILE!

Divorce is tragic, not only because it destroys something precious, a marriage.  It is also tragic because it destroys a life--a life that once defined so much of who I was, that gave me a context. 
 
Even as I pull three ring notebooks from their shelves to review case law and search the internet for statutes that might help me in my court actions, I am still occasionally reminded of the life I left behind. 
 
It might be a crumpled picture left in a drawer with my ex and I arms around each other, staring at the camera as if we didn't have a problem in the world.  Or it might be something else, like the size ten knitting needles I rescued today from a pile of junk in the back of my closet. 
 
It may surprise you to know that I actually knit, and one of the first activities I had to leave behind when I divorced was knitting.  I'm just too busy taking care of a household as a single mother with children and earning a living.  There never seems to be any time for me to sit down and have the leisure to start up a new knitting project. 
 
Besides, after I filed for divorce everything I had seemed to implode--my books and papers went into storage, I outgrew my wardrobe because the stress made me eat more, and all my friends disappeared. 
 
Along with that went my knitting needles--all of them seemed to lose their pairs and disappear into random locations in my house.  It is really hard to knit anything with only one needle--very symbolic of course of what I'm going through now! 
 
Amazing then, that I came across this one intact pair of size 10 knitting needles all ready to go. 
 
Plus, for five years now I have had a sticky note with a pattern for a prayer shawl stuck on my kitchen wall.  That's it, I said today, it's a sign from God! 
 
So today I drove down to the local craft store and picked up some yarn so I could start my knitting project.  As it turned out the store didn't have exactly the right kind of yarn, but I just bought something equivalent anyway.  If there is one thing I've learned in the years since the divorce started it is to be satisfied with a fair approximation. 
 
The first thing I had to do was cast on 57 stitches onto one of the needles.  Most of being able to do this involves muscle memory.  I had to let my fingers remember the feel of the right movement required to put the stitches in place.  After a few false tries, I was able to get the job done.  Subsequently, I just had to keep going down several rows doing knit three, then pearl three.  And it looks as though the piece is coming together very well. 
 
There is a sense of satisfaction about being able to do something again that I had once done prior to the divorce.  It is as if in reclaiming what once was, I am restoring to myself all the scattered pieces of my life and personality that used to define me, that made me whole.  And along with that, in these recent years, I have added the strengths I have gained from learning how to understand and reject abuse and to make my own decisions. 
 
Yes, I lost a great deal in my divorce, but I did not lose everything.  There are simple, inexpensive actions that I can carry out which return me to myself.  Knitting is one of them. 
 
I can't say that I am great at knitting, only that I truly love it.  I learned about knitting from my British grandmother.  My parents are the first generation of my family here in America.  This means that I grew up without any cousins, aunts, uncles, or grandparents around, because we were the only ones from our family in this country. 
 
Still, every Christmas we would receive a large, brown box from Europe.  Inside there would be these children's almanacs full of graphic tales, poems, short stories, and newsy tidbits from abroad, along with sugary rock candy that was endlessly sticky and delightful. 
 
In addition, my grandma always included a brand new, hand knit cardigan for each of us four children. 
 
I once visited my grandma in England over the summer for a month when I was ten years old.  While I was there, she taught me how to knit, and gave me my very own knitting bag so that I could travel around with my knitting projects. 
 
The big challenge I found was to knit without losing any stitches!  Like the daughter of many immigrants I lost the rich heritage of the culture my parents left behind when they chose to leave and start a whole new life in America.  But the one treasure I was able to preserve from the old country was an interest in hand knitting. 
 
Now along with my notebooks, along with my court documents, and this computer upon which I write my blogs, I now have an enormous ball of yarn and two number 10 knitting needles. 
 
When things get tough, I will do what I used to do, drop everything, grab my knitting and solve my problems through my fingers.  Because as I wind and weave the yarn, I always find that a slow feeling of peace begins to overtake me, a serenity and calm settle around me, and whatever difficulty appeared to be so big eventually becomes more manageable. 
 
This is the gift my grandma left for me, the ability to understand that in the midst of turmoil, I can find strength within myself, a confidence that I will endure all these struggles and find my way to more solid ground, no matter how impossible that seems.  This is the gift that I renewed for myself today when I rescued my size 10 knitting needles from the pile, and it is one that I will forever be grateful for.   

Friday, August 2, 2013

HELP ME! HE'S DRIVING ME NUTS!

Have you ever had the experience of wanting to strangle the life out of the opposing attorney in your case? 
 
In the alternative, have you ever stood in a courtroom listening to the opposing attorney and experienced flashes of pure rage? 
 
I have. 
 
The fact is I've been in some pretty difficult situations in my life, but nothing can equal the difficulty of putting up with attorneys who lie, manipulate, and deceive on an hourly basis all day long, causing harm and damage, particularly to the ones I love. 
 
Because as we all know, our lawsuits in family court often mean life and death to our children, let alone ourselves.  That's when the Momma bear in us can rise up, ready to rip the heads off those disgusting attorney's in defense of our children. 
 
Unfortunately, it is exhausting to maintain that level of emotional intensity.  It can destroy your mental and physical health, pumping stress hormones into your body and causing damage to your heart and destroying parts of your brain.  So none of us can afford to be that way for very long. 
 
Of course, these attorneys know this, and so they carry on with these kinds of tactics as one of their primary approaches to destroying our defenses.  It is as if the attorney acts as a team of guerrilla warriors, shooting away at the troops  (us!) from invisible perches in the trees, taking out the enemy (us!) one by one. 
 
It is a war of attrition that not too many of us are equipped to handle, particularly since so many of us are taking care of our children, trying to protect them and ourselves from the damage of a high conflict divorce. 
 
I am currently dealing with this in a legal matter I am involved in right now. 
 
I am supposed to obtain medical information in regard to one of my children. 
 
At first the opposing attorney said that I should be given this information--that indeed I had a right to it. 
 
Yet, when I formally asked for the medical information, he refused to provide it acting like to was the most intrusive demand ever made of him. 
 
When I finally obtained authorizations from the court to obtain the medical information, this attorney then sent me a series of medical release documents that were clearly defective and unusable. 
 
When I confronted him, he told me that I was wrong and that the documents were perfectly fine.  He told me repeatedly that he had used the documents on many occasions and that they had always led to successful results. 
 
He was clearly lying. 
 
Sorting all of this out and explaining the problems and how I recommended solving them took hours of my time as I formulated letters and emails that I felt would appear well before the court should I eventually have to submit a complaint about what was going on. 
 
After insisting that I deserved to receive the medical information, then moving on to provide me with flawed releases, this attorney then progressed to denying I had a legal right to see the medical information after all. 
 
I'm like, wait a minute, didn't you just say several times last week that I could see that information? 
 
What happened? 
 
Thus, in the course of trying to collect the medical information I needed to prepare for court I got jerked around in so many different directions, it was hard to know where I was. 
 
Still, no sooner have I gotten used to the discussion on how I don't have a right to the information, the attorney switched to how he now thinks I do have the right and adds to this new insight additional vicious and nasty commentary on how he believes that I am a person of poor character who is abusing the legal system. 
 
People like you and me, faced with this kind of vicious abuse respond with anger and indignation--how dare this immoral attorney accuse us in this way.  The injustice of it all, the wrongdoing, just wrenches us apart.  The lies are frustrating and outrageous, the obvious adopting and rejecting moral standards and court rules at a whim, seems to be more than we can stand. 
 
It is only after years of being in this environment that litigants in high conflict divorces come to understand that such behavior is little more than a high stakes performance.  It is meaningless. 
 
Nothing the attorney has to say matters. 
 
The only reason the attorney indulges in this behavior is to get you all worked up, to get you all rattled, to wear you out emotionally and physically, so that you are defeated well before you set  foot in the courtroom for trial! 
 
In these situations, I've heard friends say, "Well, the opposing attorney believes that I do not have that legal right." 
 
They don't want to hear the truth, which is, the opposing attorney doesn't believe a Goddamn thing.  The attorney only believes what is convenient for him at the moment. 
 
If it is convenient for him to shift ground a second later, he will quickly shift. 
 
Nothing an attorney ever has to say is grounded in conviction; it is simply grounded upon what suits him at the time.  
 
This means that you should never let yourself get into a state simply because an attorney has made a provocative remark.  If there is anything you need to learn as a litigant in a high conflict divorce, it is to have a very, very thick skin. 
 
You need to listen to the most ridiculous, twisted, stupid, convoluted statements, learn how to screen out your perfectly understandable emotional response of outrage, and find a way to hit back in an intelligent way that has impact without harming yourself. 
 
Don't allow these idiot attorneys to press your hot buttons or trigger a trauma response.  Learn to respond dispassionately and with reason.  Don't get angry. Get even, by continuing to launch a defense that shuts the opposing attorney down at every turn.

There will continue to be times when the opposing attorney will actually sucker you again or get under your skin, but don't get down on yourself about that.  It only goes to prove that you continue to be human whereas the opposing attorney turned into stone a long time ago.

RELATED ARTICLES:

http://divorceinconnecticut.blogspot.com/2013/01/why-am-i-not-surprised-study-reveals.html

http://divorceinconnecticut.blogspot.com/2011/10/bad-attorneys-bad-bills.html

http://divorceinconnecticut.blogspot.com/2012/01/going-going-gone-when-your-attorney.html

http://divorceinconnecticut.blogspot.com/2012/03/lawyer-joke-from-internet.html

Saturday, May 18, 2013

KICKING THE CAN DOWN THE ROAD!

I was sitting next to a friend during a hearing in her case.  The judge had raised some unexpected legal points regarding an aspect of the law that would have to be addressed before he could proceed with a ruling.  He concluded with a suggestion that we schedule another hearing for two months later.  My friend scribbled a quick note on a scrap off paper and passed it over to me.  It said, "Kicking the can down the road?" 
 
I smiled broadly and then quickly sobered up.  Her comment pointed out one of those things about being in family court that are funny, but then again, not so funny.  Specifically, time just doesn't seem to matter to these judges the way it matters to the rest of us folks. 
 
For example, when I first filed for divorce I had heard that it would only take three or four months to get a divorce.  So when my ex proposed a financial agreement that wasn't great, but which I could endure in the short term, I said fine.  Two years later, that agreement was still it place and had gone from not great to insufferable, with no end in sight! 
 
My friend was trying to get a custody matter settled.  She didn't have two more months time available--she needed the children's situation addressed immediately. 
 
But that is the thing about time and how family court works.  Things drag on.  Things fester and suppurate. 
 
There are all sorts of ways that the trial court has to continue on with your matter.  And by continue, I really mean continue, as in Motions to Continue. 
 
-They can continue because the opposing attorney in the case didn't show up. 
 
-They can continue because your own attorney accidentally triple booked cases on that day. 
 
-They can continue because your witnesses couldn't make it to court. 
 
-They can continue because you didn't show up in court--maybe you blanked out that you were supposed to be there, or no one ever told you! 
 
-They can continue because your attorney is sick. 
 
-They can continue because the opposing attorney is sick. 
 
-They can continue because the judge is sick. 
 
-Or maybe the judge himself got triple booked. 
 
Here is a good one.  You arrive in court expecting to hear a motion to order.  But it turns out that over the weekend, the opposing attorney in the case had some brilliant ideas and filed two extra motions that very morning, and the judge thinks they should be heard immediately.  So your motion for order which you thought was going to be heard is now continued until a hearing date two or three months later. 
 
You think that is a violation of your due process right to advanced notice?  Probably you are right about that, but the judge is sick and tired of you and has now decided to use his judicial discretion to deny you due process rights. 
 
You don't like that?  Take it to appeal and you'll get the decision on that a year from now and then you can ask for a reconsideration of any improper rulings that happened while you were waiting for the appeal to ripen. 
 
Delay, obstruction,  convolution, confusion--that's the name of the game at family court! 
 
Another approach legal professionals love is to take an issue, break it down into its individual parts, and have a hearing on each part individually.  So you get an issue like a motion for fraud and attorney's fees. What you do is break up the fraud into each separate act of fraud and fight over threshold issues for each one.  
 
The legal proceedings can keep going, and going, and going, just like the energizer bunny. 
 
In the end, with many cases, people don't really try a case to its conclusion, they just give up. 
 
Then the judge will write up a decision talking about how one or the other party failed to make an adequate case in regard to his or her position. 
 
Plus, a judge who is afraid that his ruling in a particular matter might end up being reversed on appeal can simply delay making a decision for a few years so that by the time it comes out all the parties have exhausted their resources and cannot proceed to an appeal! 
 
And that, everyone, is all you need to know about the tactic known as "kicking the can down the road." 
 
It is a way that family court has devised to avoid all legal responsibility for the complete mess they have made of your life and the lives of your children. 
 
You know that constitutional right you have heard about on TV--the right to a speedy trial?  Trust me, it does not exist in family court. 
 
You see, the opposing side sent a marshall to get the documents from the bank, but the bank personnel failed to get the call, and the marshall got a flat tire on the way there, and after that the copy machine jammed, and then, would you believe it, all the statements from last year are missing their page twos so they have to be redone.  It is an automatic 60 day continuance to straighten everything out. 
 
Meanwhile, you are annoying your boss and your coworkers because you are continually absent from work since you are in court all the time.
 
So, if the opposing side ends up with custody through a legal error, or with the entire family fortune through deception, don't wait for the court to straighten the situation out, because by the time the court catches up with the problems, they will all be gone, the kids and the money!

RELATED ARTICLES:

http://divorceinconnecticut.blogspot.com/2011/04/something-old-something-new-something.html

http://divorceinconnecticut.blogspot.com/2011/05/when-was-my-last-appointment-beats-me.html

http://divorceinconnecticut.blogspot.com/2011/02/mighty-spreading-blob.html

http://divorceinconnecticut.blogspot.com/2011/02/bumps-bangs-smashes-and-crashes.html

http://divorceinconnecticut.blogspot.com/2011/02/when-time-is-right-representing.html

http://divorceinconnecticut.blogspot.com/2011/01/can-batterer-change-his-or-her-behavior.html

http://divorceinconnecticut.blogspot.com/2010/10/screaming-screaming-screaming.html

Saturday, November 24, 2012

THE SLOPER TAKE ON PAS, FOR WHAT IT'S WORTH!

Quite frequently, advocates for litigants in family court end up having discussions in regard to Parental Alienation Syndrome (PAS), i.e. asking whether it exists and if so what can be done about it.  I have been shocked by the draconian punishments PAS activists suggest for people they consider alienators, particularly since, at this time, in my opinion, it is hard to diagnose the  condition accurately.  
 
Others have written to me disagreeing, stating that a diagnosis of Parental Alienation Syndrome (PAS) is easy to identify.  One proponent of the theory wrote to me saying that it is possible to be quite accurate in establishing the presence of PAS stating,

 "The way parental alienation is exposed is by the 8 strategies that are used which result in 17 behaviors exhibited by the child". 


However, after spending as much time as I have in family court, I have zero faith in the ability of mental health professionals to observe families and children sufficiently well to observe anything.  So when you talk about strategies and behaviors, the question is, which professional is examining those things and is that professional reliable?  

Do you mean notorious Father's Rights Advocates such as Dr. Kenneth Robson, Dr. James C. Black, Dr. Sydney Horowitz, and Dr. Howard Krieger who do the vast majority of custody evaluations in the State of Connecticut, and for whom there isn't a child molester, or an male abuser they wouldn't embrace?  If so, you've lost my support right there!

Mental Health Professionals are notoriously not reliable in diagnosing anyone.  For more details, read about the study done by the psychologist David Rosenhan as described in his article "Being Sane in Insane Places."  The link is below:
 
 
I would particularly assume this is true of Mental Health Professionals who work in the legal system where corruption reigns.

I am not denying that parental alienation exists, perhaps not exactly as PAS proponents currently theorize, but in some form.  Many men as well as women have noted that they have observed the effect of PAS on their children. Women often refer to the phenomenon as Domestic Violence by Proxy.  
 
However, the problem I have with the theory is that PAS as many advocates currently describe it is associated with a well known pedophile--Dr. Richard Gardener, and his theory of PAS, no matter how solid the theory may be, has been used by abusers, particularly child sexual abusers, as the basis for improperly removing children from the care of fit mothers.  
 
Until these issues are addressed in an effective manner, until proponents of the theory acknowledge the ways in which it has been misused--as a means to accuse good mothers falsely--so that it will have credibility when it is used properly, PAS within the context of custody battles will remain a tainted approach. I have read case after case where clearly abusive Fathers have been declared the better parent despite the serious abuse they committed and given sole custody of young children solely on the basis of accusations of PAS improperly levied at the Mother.  

It is well known that when abusive fathers no longer wish to pay child support that they yell PAS and sue for custody of the children and get that custody at least 70% of the time. These are frightening numbers.

My friend, the PAS advocate states, "We also know that the majority of alienation cases are perpetrated by the custodial parent, i.e. the Mom."  Well, who is doing the research?  Can you cite the research?  I know quite enough men who perpetrate Domestic Violence by Proxy (PAS) and clearly they are quite capable of the same behavior.  Isn't the presumption that primarily women are doing this fundamentally gender biased?  After a divorce, there is griping on both sides, we would all agree.  The idea that primarily the women continue on to develop PAS, but not men--I do not find that thought credible.

One thing I would say is that when fathers do not pay child support, I consider that behavior just as damaging if not more so than PAS.  Yet such fathers do not lose access to their children.  Why is it that mental health professionals propose restricting or completely cutting off Mother's access to the children if PAS is thought to be present?  What? Again, a little gender bias here?  Women are absolutely not allowed to cut off access to fathers when they refuse to pay child support.  So it seems that when children have no food, heat, education, clothing, that's ok, but if there is PAS, eliminate Mom? Right.  What a great idea--NOT!


I think it is very revealing that the APA consistently refuses to include PAS in the DSM.  I think such decisions are a clear statement that the Mental Health Profession itself, outside of the sphere of the judicial system, does not consider PAS a credible form of mental illness.  So, making claims that PAS is a mental health condition is false and misleading of anyone who makes such a claim.  PAS and DV by Proxy is behavior that people perpetrate as the result of a decision, as a result of a choice to perform one action rather than another.  Once we understand it as a choice and stop attributing it to some nebulous disease process, I think the solution to this kind of behavior, which destroys and damages relationships within families, particularly in regard to the parent child relationship, will be far more clear.  


The bottom line is, until we stop politicizing this issue, it will be very difficult to establish what we are dealing with when it comes to PAS.  At this point, I feel that we are prematurely drawing conclusions and that we need to do far more research and get beyond the anecdotal in regard to our understanding of this kind of behavior.  

I am also not satisfied that removing a child from his or her relationship with Mom or Dad is a reasonable solution for PAS.  When courts, as a response to PAS, eliminate the other parent who is seen as the perpetrator of PAS from the lives of the children, aren't they doing exactly what they are accusing that parent of, but justification for doing so comes under a different definition as protection the child?  Same action, different excuse!

In other words, If you commit what is essentially PAS, by demonizing the other parent with the label PAS, and then doing exactly what an alienating parent would do, which is eliminate that labeled parent from the lives of the children, what makes you better?

I particularly  deplore placing protective mothers in supervised visitation which indirectly eliminates these mothers from the lives of their children.  It does so because supervised visitation is well beyond what such mothers can afford.  Another reason is because such visitation is simply part of a thinly veiled plan to obtain more documentation to trash the mother.

As a final note, if you see many of the elements of what appears to be PAS, but it turns out there is abuse, "experts" say then it is not a situation of PAS.  But, as we know, the GALs and custody evaluators in the State of Connecticut have a policy of refusing to acknowledge abuse.  As a result, any attempt to make PAS law stronger, no matter how legitimate, puts truly abused parents at risk.  

Until this situation is corrected, and Mental Health Professionals and attorneys stop denying the existence of abuse, both sides will continue to suffer, and this is wrong.  Because I would agree there are situations where PAS is at play and should be stopped.  But until the corruption in family court ends, and women who are being abused obtain the protection they are entitled to, we cannot address the problem effectively as a community because current policies put us at risk of falsely accusing high numbers of women of PAS when they are actually simply victims of domestic violence.


What I see going on here is a situation where the judicial system is playing the politics of "divide and conquer".  They pit the DV abuse advocates against the PAS advocates and let us fight it out, then they gather up all the money and go home. 


What we need to do is fight gender bias against both men AND women.  We need to condemn both DV abuse and PAS, and we need to insist that the Mental Health Professionals and attorneys involved in family court step up to the plate and do the job they are supposed to do.  And, also, I really believe that more research is needed so we can make accurate statements about both abuse and PAS so that we can reduce instances where injustices occur because of the misapplication of the science underlying these concepts.
 
I think it is time for litigants and advocates who want the reform of family court to put aside the gender war which the judicial system is taking advantage of.  We will never have change if we are going to fight among ourselves. 
 
What do we really want? 
 
We want our constitutional rights. 
 
We want the right to due process.

We want court orders enforced.  An order for visitation is an order for visitation, and that's it. 
 
We want to have the decision making in regard to our children based upon real science not fake science. 
 
We want the mental health professionals involved in our cases to think seriously about the best interests of the children. 

We want an end to children for money exchanges. 
 
We do not want mental health professionals or attorneys playing politics or pursuing their own personal agendas or replacing us in our role as parents. 
 
These are concepts that all principled advocates can stand behind, and unite behind.  And we should stand together, because Connecticut needs the strength of all its citizens in order to overcome the corruption and injustice we face in the legal system today.  

Sunday, September 30, 2012

END OF THE ROAD HERE!

As a litigant, I am coming to the end of the road when it comes to my pursuit of litigation in the Connecticut Court System.  And I am afraid it is having somewhat of a bad effect. I am literally goofing off like mad.  Thus, in the last couple of weeks, I polished off Seasons 1 through 5 of Mad Men and I am now up to Season 4 of Entourage. 
 
Boy that Adrian Grenier can be so so charming! 
 
I do have one more document still to write and this is what I am supposed to be working on instead of writing this blog.  But, as I say, every time I try to focus on work, I keep on getting distracted by plain old fun. 
 
To be honest, I have been working on my lawsuit for such a long time now, I haven't really had much fun in like forever.  So now, fun takes me by surprise.  A long sunny day takes me by surprise.  Yesterday, I worked on a puzzle with my daughter, and we were able to get the moon done and the dragon done plus the frame.  I was like, this is so, so awesome. 
 
I sat around playing with the puzzle pieces, exclaiming over the successes of the project, laughed with my daughter, having a plain old good time, not worrying about this court hearing, and that court document, and this deadline, and that appointment.  I wasn't absent minded and disconnected like I often am because my situation puts so much sadness and heartbreak into my life.  I just enjoyed the moment and enjoyed the day. 
 
The problem with this, is that enforced not having that much to do in my case, just makes me so lazy and so unfocused.  So this is why I haven't written anything  valuable on this blog for quite some time. 
 
I wish I weren't like this.  Writing never comes easily to me.  I don't just switch on the faucet and flow.  There are times when I am able to write and other times when no matter how much I'd like to, I just can't do it.  I am not able to write for an endless amount of time each day.  Give me a couple hours or so, and I am done.  I wish it were different, but its not. 
 
Sometimes I really, really want to write, I walk up and down in my office,  I surf online looking for information, I hang around my computer staring at it longingly, but I am simply not able to get anything done with my writing. 
 
It doesn't help, of course, when I am in my current position, and anticipate that I am coming to the end of this chapter of the job. 
 
Of course, my plan is to continue on to federal court, but this remains a rather fuzzy, indefinite outline far in the distance. 
 
So I am in a situation where I'm inbetween things, sort of like that place where you have just graduated from college but haven't yet started graduate school.  I don't know how many of you recall "The Graduate" with Dustin Hoffman, how his life just drifted after he finished college.  I remember that when I finished college years ago, people would ask me what I intended to do with my life, and like the character in "The Graduate" I would say something like "I'm going to go into plastics." And the comment was always good for a laugh. 
 
In my spirit, right now, like Dustin Hoffman's character, I am lazing around on a raft in a swimming pool, sleeping late, mooching off my parents--maybe not quite having an affair with an older woman, but I must say I have been winking at my partner in a very meaningful way much more frequently than usual. 
 
It is a strange time for me.  Strangely quiet.  Strangely uneventful.  I will probably look back on this time as idylic when I am in the middle of my federal case, possibly well underway with my book on my experiences. 
 
We need these times, times to reflect on where we have been, where we are now.  And times to consider, are we doing what we want to do, what is right and what is best for ourselves and our families, for our communities. 
 
One of the special things about this blog, and about the work I do, and about pursuing my lawsuit, is that I know I am not just doing it for myself.  It is also a service to the community of other people who share my burdens, and also it is a service to my country.  I know that my hope and the hope of other activists is that by presenting these issues to the court for consideration, this country may find its way more clearly towards realizing the constitutional and humanitarian principles that it was founded upon. 
 
So my work is an avocation; it is a hope and a dream, a vision for the future which I share with so many people around this state. 
 
Sometimes I get frustrated because I feel like I don't quite succeed in what I am doing, or I may rub people the wrong way, but in the end, I know that if we can make even the smallest and most simple changes for the better, those small, simple changes will relieve parents and their children of so much pain and suffering, and that makes everything I am going through, writer's block, etc., worthwhile. 
 
Every day when I get up and do this work, I know that it is work that matters, work that makes an important difference in peoples' lives.  I know this is a big motivator for me, and also for my friends!  You know who you are!  So, today I am grateful.  I am grateful that I'm still standing, still writing, still hanging in there with my lawsuit demanding my legal rights, still holding the legal system to account.  One day, we will all have justice in family court.

Friday, August 3, 2012

MY FILE!

I spent a good part of yesterday going through my file making sure that I had all of the motions, letters, and court orders that should be in it.  I started with printing out my case detail and then went through my pile checking off what I did and did not have.  My stack of motions, etc. has expanded considerably since I started, but still I only have around 60% of my file.  How did that happen!  

I assume that this is simply because I am a litigant in a high conflict divorce.  As we all know, once you go over two years in family court, your brain becomes fully scrambled and you can no longer keep track of anything in your life.  Still, I thought I was better than that.  I have always thought to myself, I have had training as a secretary and so I have learned about organizing systems.  This won't be a problem for me.  

Unfortunately, it did become a problem for me because I relied on someone else to do the job.  Have you noticed how whenever you do that, the job gets f**ked up?

I have a friend who volunteered to come and help me.  She comes by every once and a while and gets busy with the court file, putting documents here and there, spreading them around on counters and floors, really looking like she is getting something done.  But really, the whole time she hasn't been doing anything else but getting the file more disorganized and losing more motions, etc.  

Deep down I always knew this was going on, but since I have been preoccupied running around going to hearings or putting together other motions, I never had adequate time to address the problem.  So while occasionally I would confront my friend and say, "What the heck are you doing?  I see no organization here, she would respond indignantly and say she had everything under control, and who was I to challenge that, knowing that she was my friend and supposedly on my side.  

However, I finally have had a stretch of good time to look into the situation, and boy have I been sorely disappointed to see what has been going on.  I am trying not to have a fight, so I am just calmly saying to my friend things like, we are missing the year 2007--that kind of thing.  Nothing judgmental, just stating facts.  But inside I am like, how can you lose an entire year, you complete and utter idiot!  

Of course, I should forget yelling at this friend.  She wasn't paid and she was trying to be nice and she just got lost in the shower of paper, the same as anyone would.  I should know better than to hand over this entire job to another person.  Ultimately, this is my file and I am the one responsible.  I know more than any other person how central it is for me to have an exact copy of my file.  Without such a copy, the opposing side can invent motions, rulings, and letters that don't exist or deny that I filed certain documents when I did and this have wreak havoc with my case.

Anything that I do for trial court requires a solid basis, and that solid basis fundamentally arises from a fully complete duplicate record of my trial court file.  I know that, so I should never have left this task to any other person than myself, because I am ultimately responsible, the buck stops right at my doorstep, and whatever consequences I have to bear because my file is not complete I will solely have to bear, not anyone else, not even my good friend who has been so hapless.  

This situation has caused me so much distress and anxiety that I stayed up late looking for missing motions until 2:00am last night and then I woke up fully aware and ready to go at 6:30am.  The real bummer is that if I can't locate most of the motions, I will have to go to trial court and request copies for $1.00 per page which could get to be expensive.  

I am so delighted when I find copies which are clearly stamped with the item # placed on the front.  Unfortunately, I am one of those people who created more motions than I filed and I did not think in advance to put a special notation on those motions that I created, but did not file.  So there are additional complications there.  

I would have been in such better shape if I had simply maintained my court file on a daily basis, keeping it constantly updated with every document verified as exactly the same as the original in the courthouse.  

But I am too hard on myself.  We all know how difficult it is to do the most simple common sense things when you are being pounded by family court.  

Still, for all you readers out there, I want to remind you, take another look at your copy of the trial court file.  Is it complete?  Is it exact?  If not, make it so.  The fundamental basis for a strong and effective lawsuit is a well kept court file.  

After that, take a look at your correspondence file.  Is that in chronological order as well?  Is it accurate and complete?  Make sure it is.  There is nothing more effective than being able to say with confidence, "I wrote you a letter on such and such date and said the following, and then you stated this, and I stated that."  Without such an ability your case will become crippled.  Again, if your correspondence file isn't straightened out, straighten it out now, without delay.  There is nothing more crucial to the health and success of your case than your ability to speak clearly and accurately.  

As for my friend, I will never trust her again with this task.  As they say, fool me once--shame on you.  Fool me twice, shame on me. 

Wednesday, July 18, 2012

GOING TO COURT AGAIN!

I recently found myself back at trial court, and what a bummer!  The anticipation began two weeks in advance when I looked at my calendar and was like, Oh My God! My mood immediately plummeted and I was so, so depressed. 

Even if I was the one who submitted the motions and got the ball rolling, I still hate to go to trial court. 

My process before going to trial court is quite intensive.  I usually take each of the motions that is going to be heard and I review them carefully, checking to see what evidence I will need in order to prove the facts that I have stated.  Then I get a large three ring binder with dividers and begin to collect that evidence and place it in the binder. 

Not only do I collect evidence, if there is any court document that I need to provide any kind of context, I will include that document.  Then I organize the documents by placing them in exactly the same order that I will be referring to them in my argument. 

Usually, I will place any of the important documents in my case that are referred to regularly right at the beginning of the notebook, even if there is only a distant chance that they will be needed.  Such documents would include the parenting agreement, the financial agreement, the prenuptial agreement, the custody evaluation, the psychological evaluations, etc. 

After that I ordinarily undertake a search at one of the law libraries for all relevant statutes, practice book references, and case law that will address the issues I have raised in my motions or by the motions on the other side. 

It is usually from this last exercise that I end up reporting results in my lovely blogs.  

After that, I usually have a bunch of miscellaneous questions that have to be answered by an investigation into my voluminous court file. 

To be honest, if I am lucky, the law will be clear on what I need to do or say, but sometimes it takes me months before I understand the meaning of what I've read.  There are legal points in my case that have taken me years to understand!

Once I have prepared everything in terms of the evidence and the legal basis for my motions, I then write up an argument by hand in my own handwriting, replete with underlining and daubed with various colored markers.  The argument is usually my final step. 

One of the real problems with this approach (even though it is essential to my process and thus unavoidable) is that it takes a lot of time and involves considerable shuffling and organizing papers, writing and revision of my presentation to the trial court.  It never fails to happen that I miscalculate how much time I need and I end up staying up all night the day before trial, so I come to court tired and crabby and then have to deal with the nonsense of the court personnel and end up wanting to bite off people's heads. 

And don't forget the buildup before trial court.  I would be interested to know if any of you get the buildup?  This includes my X staging confrontations that are unnecessary, putting the children deliberately at risk to upset me, failing to show up on time to pick up or drop off the children for visitation, so called "forgetting" to pay one of his financial obligations, or just sending me a bunch of nasty, accusatory emails. 

Another particularly annoying tactic is the opposing attorney will call the trial court and ask to have the hearing on the motions delayed or rescheduled for trumped up reasons, or even make it so impossible you end up not being able to have the motions heard at all.  My file is full of motions that never made it before a judge. 

Of course, the end result of the buildup is you are shrieking with irritation  by the time the court date arrives.  On top of that, you get the general rude and disagreeable behavior of trial court personnel.  You go to the clerk to find out which courtroom you are in and he insists that you step aside so he can help ten other people while the clock ticks closer to the time you are supposed to have the hearing.

Somehow you end up in family relations and these people are particularly hard faced and ugly minded.  Even though your X and his attorney are the source of the trouble by violating the law and lying bold faced, family relations will support your X and speak to you as though you are not only intellectually challenged but at fault for everything.  By the time you are done with them, usually you have a state marshall hovering around the entrance to the room. 

What gets me is the presumption they seem to operate with the YOU are bad when, in fact, it is the X and the attorney who are blatantly disregarding the law or any semblance of decency.  The disrespect and disregard does get to you.  So, of course, your blood pressure boils some more and you start having to work hard so you can maintain control of your emotions.  Because while doing everything possible to be incendiary, the Court will immediately refuse to work with you if you don't present yourself as cool, calm, reasoned and prepared. 

How do you get through it?  Well, a little benedryl doesn't hurt, but lots of deep breathing is helpful as well.  I have also learned to take my time during arguments before the court. I speak slowly and deliberately and if I have to find a document, I will say, "Just a moment, please" and take my time to locate what I need. 

As a rule of thumb, I would say that despite all law and all reason, I mostly lose, even when I should not.  Recently, I went to a hearing and, in a Motion to Sanction, proved irrefutably that the opposing attorney told outright lies in a pleading she submitted to the trial court.  The trial court denied my Motion to Sanction, nonetheless, stating that nothing the opposing attorney had said rose to the level of the Motion to Sanction. 

How much does a lie have to be a lie before you have violated your attorney's oath not to lie under any circumstances?  When is enough enough?  I'd love to hear it!

But that is the thing--you bring in what you think is enough evidence, and the trial court will say, we don't have enough.  Of course, you have more evidence at home.  I have multiple examples of the opposing attorney lying, but the opportunity for that motion is gone and I would have to file another motion in order to provide that additional evidence.  Whatever it is, judges always have an excuse not to do what the law says you ought to do. 

So, inevitably, a day in trial court is traumatic because you end up having done all that preparatory work and have nothing to show for it and you have been beaten over the head by the X, the opposing attorney, court personnel, etc., etc. and have nothing to show for it. 

Of course, every once in a while you may get an encouraging ruling, but that seems engineered as well, either for the purposes of continuing the litigation so everyone makes money, or to raise hopes, just to dash them again a few months later with a decisive denial.  The Trial Court, as well as other branches of the court, have multiple ways to deflect, defer, and delay the proper resolution of the cases that are put before them. 

If there is one phrase that I repeat to myself the most often it is, "Justice delayed is justice denied."  For example, with the Joe Watley case, there have been so many rulings, maneuverings, reconsiderations, appeals, and reappeals that almost a decade has gone by while the parents have been denied their parental rights.  I have no doubt that in many cases where this happens, it is done intentionally.

Trial court is no longer the scary place it once was.  I know when I go there that whatever happens I will survive and I will maintain my self respect.  It is interesting to see how many of the attorneys working with clients both inside the courtrooms and in the corridors are my former attorneys, or else they are attorneys I have consulted for second opinions along the way.  So there are so many familiar faces. 

The ones that have been the most evil unfailingly come up to me and wish to shake my hand and/or engulf me in a warm embrace.  Since I am unable to just say "fuck you" which is my most natural gut response, having been brought up to be considerably polite, I usually oblige while making suitably cutting remarks with a smile on my face.  In the days when mental health professionals were chasing me around trying to deny me custody of my children, they would call that kind of  behavior on my part "denied aggression."  I am not sure how they would define what the attorneys are doing.

On the way home, my advocate and I have a debriefing session where we go over my presentation and review what was said.  Even though it probably isn't the greatest time, I talk about the mistakes I made, any incongruities in the trial courts ruling, and then just to relieve the pressure I make fun of everyone I dealt with and laugh like hell.

When I get home, I usually take all the court documents I took with me and throw them in the corner and ignore them for several days until I'm emotionally capable of managing what happened.  I normally order transcripts of the hearing, and then all of it gets put into place as a resource to consult with for my next court appearance.  It's exhausting and stressful and probably not worth the trouble, but still I am not defeated because, as T.S. Eliot once said, "I keep on trying."

Saturday, June 16, 2012

LIFE WITH OR WITHOUT FATHER, THAT'S THE QUESTION ON FATHER'S DAY

I was sitting in Starbucks a few days ago and it all of a sudden hit me. I turned to a fellow at a neighboring table and asked, "Is father's day this upcoming weekend?" 

He told me "yes".
 
I'm not sure why I chose that time to ask. Father's day had been breathing around the corner for quite some time by then. Just around the middle of May I began to feel that tense feeling in my stomach, the feeling that I have to do something and I'd better not forget. 

Trying to be good ex wife, I immediately sent a quick email to my ex asking him if there was anything special he would like to do for father's day and could I help with the arrangements to get him and the kids together for a celebration. You see, this weekend is not his weekend, so technically based on our parenting plan (clearly this is not everybody's parenting plan), I don't really have to let them get together.

We put together an arrangement which involves me doing a lot of driving I'd rather not have to do. Then I got a snippy email from him telling me to make sure the kids pick out a nice card for him as if that is apparently my job. And by the day before, which is now, I'm wondering whether this is what I really wanted to do

It is kind of a difficult dance here. On the one hand, my ex is the kids' father, but then, on the other hand, look at what he did. If I help get the kids together with their Dad, am I endorsing all those things that he did to hurt me and the children? Am I somehow saying that it is acceptable what he did? 

What kinds of messages am I sending and what lessons do I want my children to walk away with after this weekend of celebrating father's day with their Dad. Early today I said to my daughter, "I'd like you to pick out a very nice card for your Dad when we go to the store." "But he doesn't deserve it." says my daughter. 

So what do you say to that. Now, from that comment, please don't get the idea that I spend all my waking hours bad mouthing their Dad. In fact, I would like them to get along with their Dad and have a relationship with him. On the other hand, certain truths are pretty clear to the children.

They have figured out that when the electricity has been cut off in the past it isn't because some drilling in the street broke a cable; it's because I didn't have the money to pay the bill because Dad didn't pay child support. They have figured out that when I walk away from the house to talk to Dad on the phone outside of their hearing, it isn't just that I need privacy, it is because I am crying when I'm talking, or I'm upset about some new outrage that I have no control over because I don't have any attorney or a family court system to protect me. And I don't want them to know so that they get caught up into the situation. And these are the milder things that have happened.


They are old enough to see the situation very clearly and it is harder to pretend. So when they make remarks acknowledging the problems with Dad, and when they refuse to get something nice for Dad on father's day, should I validate their feelings and let them do what they want to do, or insist that they act like good citizens regardless of what is going on or how they feel.



Sometimes I feel as if no matter what I do, they are going to be harmed nonetheless.



One approach I often take is to say, yes, Dad has disappointed you in the past in regard to this or that particular area, but do you remember what a great sense of humor he has, or wasn't that fun to go on the field trip to the museum together. 

Of course, this would be much easier for me to do if what my ex had done wasn't so severely damaging. So I'm not lying, but I am ackowledging whatever strengths he has, no matter that privately I think those strengths in no way make up for all the harm he has done, and he has done considerable harm. For example, they already know that we have no money to pay for their college education because it took every dime I have to make sure that I would have residential custody. 

I have heard that it is important for children to have a father in order to grow up properly, but seriously, does it make sense for them to maintain a relationship with a father who is a schmuck? What do studies say about children who maintain relationships with schmucky fathers after divorce? I'd really like to know the answer to the question. 


Of course, I can't be sure whether my kids are telling me everything they feel about their father. To what extent could they be trying to play up the negative in a mistaken attempt to please me. Aren't there areas of relationship between these children and their father that is unique to that relationship and that I may never fully grasp? Even though I find it hard to believe that this special space still exists between my children and their Dad, aren't I obligated to make these meetings happen just in case it does, just in case it matters? Or am I just kidding myself? 


There are many occasions that happen like this, the confirmations I remind my ex of, or the graduations and award ceremonies, where I send an email saying, "Don't forget..." and provide times, locations, and directions, acting like I used to when we were married. "Don't forget your golf shirt, and do you have your cell phone, and pick up a box of donuts when you go." Maybe it is time for me to stop arranging, to stop taking responsibility. 


For this year, we will still all pack into the car and I will drop the kids off at our meeting place. For this year, I have been able to convince myself I am doing the right thing. It is a statement I am making that there is still hope for our kids and their Dad. And no matter how bad it gets, it means something to me to be able to preserve that hope. Without it, I would feel as though there was a death in the family.  So, next year, I may feel differently, but for now, I'm not going to think that far ahead.