Or is it?

A lot has been dropped on my lap in the last two weeks

A lot more is coming in the next few weeks

Will it change anything?

Will it make it better?

Or will it make it worse?

While a lot of the changes has been baby steps in the right direction…

While what’s coming has the potential of finally swinging things in our favour…

…I’ve been down this road before

Any thing that has the potential to do any good

Anything that has the potential to put us back on the right path

Anything that has the potential of starting the healing process

It all gets taken away

It’s made to feel like a carrot is being hung in front of the horse to get him to move

Only for the horse to be lead in the wrong direction

Giving false hope

The fight may not be over

And there may be small glimmers of hope

But if the past is any indication…

…is any of it worth believing?

But not enough words to say it with

When there’s so much to say

But you’re tired of it falling on deaf ears

When there’s so much to say

Because you see what’ll happen if you don’t stop

When you have so much to say

So you find a way to vent

When you have so much to say

Because you need your voice heard

When you have so much to say

And even if no one will listen, you speak anyway

There’s going to be a day that comes along where someone will actually listen

So you keep speaking

Even if you have so much to say

Speaking into the void is still better than keeping it all inside

Because there’s still so much to say

The nightmare happened

Whether you wanted it to or not

It happened

There’s so much to say…

For 2+ years, our movements were watched

Every interaction

Every conversation

Every. Little. Thing.

It would then be taken and used against us

My son going to bed? It suddenly sounded like an elephant was having a party upstairs

Watching a movie before you go to bed? The washing machine upstairs would come on. And ONLY in the evening, with the knowledge that it had a tendency to loud in our apartment

Cold outside (below freezing), but no one else home but me and the narcissist? Heat was turned off

Broiling hot outside, with the makings of a heatwave, but only the narcissist and us are home? AC began blasting and would be left to run continuously (12+ hours), forcing us to use portable heaters to keep from freezing

Outside temperature start falling, where it’s cool enough to turn on the heat? The AC would come on and stay on (10+ hours).

Bring in the city bylaw officer to help with the issue? Heat would be off/AC would be on after he left, even though it was too cold for the AC to be on

You’re home? You’re eerily quiet. So quiet, it would seem you weren’t home – even though your SUV was out front and we could you flush your toilet. If anything was said in our apartment, it would be used against us at a later date

When we moved, I made it a point to find a place where we could go on a regular basis to (hopefully) make friends. And we did.

Today, while visiting, it was mentioned that we were missed at the last gathering. From where I’m sitting, I honestly do not know if I should be flattered or scared. Coming from a situation where every little move was watched and used against us, it’s left me a little hesitant

It shouldn’t have

When you’ve endured more than you should have, directly from someone who made it a point to observe and use it against you…

And then to be in a situation where it was observed that we weren’t there…

Was it going to be used against us?

Probably not, but when that’s your first thought…

October 2022

It was a new beginning

As it turned out, it wouldn’t be the new beginning that I originally thought

What followed would be a test

A walk down a path that I didn’t even think fathomable

The mental health of my son and I ended up dragged through mud

Run through the gutter

Wrung out and left out to dry

I begged and pleaded as I watched us go down a path we shouldn’t have been on

A path we were forced onto because someone with a dark triad personality got caught in the act of pulling an illegal activity

I got questioned: ‘But why…?’

After all, why would someone go out of their way just to make the lives of others completely miserable?

I got questioned as to why we didn’t just leave

Or why I didn’t try to ‘reason’ with the dark triad personality

It was implied I wasn’t doing enough

Despite drowning from being put in an unimaginable situation

Despite not being able to come up for air

Despite being forced into survival mode

Despite roadblock after roadblock after roadblock

Despite being doing everything by the book to try to get the psychological abuse to stop

But it only got worse

People started walking away

Leaving my son and I to fight a war we were never meant to be a part of

A war we didn’t even start

We were gaslighted

Told to ‘get over it’

We were forced to leave on terms that were less than desirable

Into another situation that proved to be just as traumatic

We didn’t see that coming, either

But it was there

We reached out for help again

Only to be passed around

Told to go one way

Then the other

Until we ended up running in circles

A few glimmers of hope popped up

Only to be overshadowed by the bigger picture

Then a chance encounter

It came as a suggestion at first

A phone call later and a stranger now is helping create a path

Coming from experience…

Knowing what it takes to leave abusive and toxic situations…

One step at a time…

One day at a time…

One breath at a time…

When a stranger does more in 30 minutes…

But will it go anywhere?

But I don’t

‘Do A, B & C’

I already have and it went nowhere

‘How about X, Y & Z?’

Tried that, too, and same result

‘Have you tried…?’

Every single thing you’ve mentioned…

‘And…?’

Dead ends

‘But what about…?’

Every single path

Every single avenue

Every single possiblity

But we don’t qualify

We’re in the wrong jurisdiction

We’re talking to the wrong people

We’re being directed to talk others

The back and forth

The red tape

We may be drowning in the aftermath of someone else’s vendetta

But it doesn’t follow societal rules for receiving help to fix it

It’s ingrained

All you have to do is ask

But then you do

And the excuses start flying

So you start to withdraw

You get asked why

If you get asked at all

People start dropping like flies

You’re left looking at the big, gaping hole left behind

You move forward anyway

You have to

The hunt is still on for a village

Despite knowing one will probably never show up

Now matter how hard you look

If I had a straightforward answer, I’d already have given it

But…why?

It’s not my responsibility to psychoanalyze why bad people do bad things

But…why?

Because we don’t live in a world full of good people

But…why?

Because not everyone has a built in support system

But…why?

Because it’s not a ‘What you see is what you get’ type of world

But…why?

Because evil people exist

Because people know how to bend the rules to get away with things

Because bad things happen behind closed doors

Because people know how to cover their tracks

But…why?

Does it really matter?

No matter the explanation

No matter the response

No matter the behaviour

No matter the aftermath

Evil people do evil things

Sometimes, you need to believe the victim

Put your own experience aside

Remember your situation isn’t the same as the next

Put yourself in someone else’s shoes

No questions asked

There’s no need to revictimize and add more trauma to an already difficult situation

And I want to do is scream

For no matter how hard I try

All my efforts end up in the gutter

And I’m only given is a bandaid to fix it

The behaviour of my son and I SCREAM we need help

But it keeps getting misconstrued and misunderstood

I keep getting made to feel like a failure

Despite every effort on my end to dig us out of a hole society shoved us into

When misconceptions and perceptions still lead the way

When the world see black and white but we’re drowning in gray

When ‘But Why…?’ leads the charge

When an explanation is needed for the other sides behavior

When you’re the one being looked at like you’re the one who did something wrong

When all I did was point out the problem and the person who caused it

And as I sit here, on Christmas Eve, trying to figure out how my kid still gets a Christmas

Even when we have individuals trying to help us

But it keeps falling flat because of the unique situation we’ve been put in…

…and I sit in the dark trying desperately to make it work!

…I wouldn’t have been stuck in the situation I was with the psychopathic neighbour

If it was that easy…

…I wouldn’t have been forced out due to circumstances beyond my control

If it was that easy…

…we wouldn’t have been forced into the situation that we’re in now

If it was that easy…

…I would have left on my own terms

If it was that easy…

…but it’s not

All everyone sees is black and white when we’re drowning is gray

All everyone sees is what perception tells them

All everyone sees is what CAN be done if you have a village in place

All everyone sees is what CAN happen if you have the means

What NO ONE sees is what happens when you have your rights stripped away

What NO ONE sees is what happens when a malignant force intentionally derails your train

What NO ONE sees is what happens when it’s so calculated and cunning that people doubt the story

After all, if YOU wouldn’t do it, why would they?

If it was that easy…