Trigger warning: abuse, coercive control, loss, and family court trauma.
Some names may have been changed to shield the innocent, protect the traumatized, and spare me the drama of the criminally unhinged. Then again, maybe they weren’t. If you see yourself in these pages and feel called out… that’s between you and your god. 🤷♀️
Here’s the deal: this is long, brutal, and real. If you’ve got the heart and time, pour yourself a cup of something and settle in.
Let’s start with the facts.
When we split, I was 18. He was 26, about to turn 27.
But when we got together?
I was 16. Pregnant. He was 24.
Take a breath and really sit with that.
I had no support network—none. I came from a broken, violent home and had spent most of my childhood hiding from my mother, the original narcissist. While we were together, I wasn’t even allowed to apply for jobs. I wasn’t allowed to go out without the kids, him, or both. I wasn’t even allowed to buy shoes without a fight. When I left, all I had was a welfare cheque and a single bed in my 12-year-old sister’s room in our father’s tiny two-bedroom apartment. I was a junior high dropout with no experience, no money, and an abusive, drug-addicted mother who’d just up and left one fine day.
He, on the other hand, had two jobs—one full-time, one part-time that sometimes paid more. He had a house (his parents house, but basically his in the bigger picture), a car, two present parents with a shiny layer of respectability. A church behind him. A lawyer. And a curated tight-knit network of friends who believed whatever he told them.
Before I left, he told me that walking away would be the biggest mistake of my life.
He said I would be nothing and have nothing—and that he would make sure of it.
Full stop.
I left anyway.
Not because I had a plan, or options, or anything remotely resembling safety - but because I was suffocating. I was having anxiety attacks so intense I thought I was dying, or maybe already dead. Colossal meltdowns where I'd black out, even seize.
He didn’t want me going back to school. He didn’t want me getting a job.
He didn’t want me thinking for myself.
He didn’t want me living.
He critiqued everything I did: how I dressed, cooked, cleaned, parented, spoke. Until eventually, I stopped doing much of anything without first running it through the filter of what he wanted. Just to keep the peace.
I couldn’t go anywhere without the kids. Sitters weren’t allowed - except his mother, and only if it benefited him. He controlled every aspect of my existence. Just before my mother absconded (she was still clean, that we knew of) I had a doctor appointment I couldn't miss and out of desperation I asked her to mind the babies as his mother was unavailable. He was outraged that I didn't just reschedule or cancel. I was exhausted.
And by then, I was freshly 18. He was 26. We split only a few months after that.
I eventually had four children - but I only raised two of them. The other two were taken from me in a non-consensual adoption. I wasn’t even allowed to know them. To this day, I only refer to the two I raised as truly mine—not because I don’t love the others, but because I really don’t know them. And that burns. Every single day.
As my daughters grew, they were fed lies about me. Horrible stories - none of them true. I tried again and again to maintain court-ordered contact, but he blocked me every time. I’d show up for visits and find fresh tracks in the snow at the door, but no answer. There’s only so many times you can show up and be met with silence before your heart breaks for good.
I didn’t have money for taxis. I couldn’t walk them out of his place. I tried to take him to court but they told me I needed a lawyer. I couldn’t afford one. I couldn’t afford court fees. I was out of luck.
Eventually, nearly eight years later, the only reason I got regular contact was because CPS stepped in. The kids had been removed from their father's care due to abuse and neglect.
So I went through every test, every assessment. I jumped through every hoop they gave me because I was ready. And willing. And finally safe.
At that time, my youngest daughter was nearly 10. I was already pregnant with my son. I told CPS: “Whatever needs to happen, I will absolutely take my girls. I’ll even take the other two children removed from that home, even though they weren’t mine. One wasn’t even biologically related to my ex - just a stepchild. I didn’t care. They deserved safety too.”
That’s all on record. Every meeting, every file, every note from CPS to Family Court, is accessible. My girls know that. I’ve even offered to pay the $25 access fee to get them the records. One declined, saying I must have faked the whole thing, obviously.
Those records contain everything: my living and employment history, my income, and proof -proof- that the version of me told to them by their stepmother was a lie.
As for the fight in Family Court - it’s all there, too. The evidence I brought. The times he blocked visitations. The injuries I had to report after the girls returned from being with him. It’s not hearsay. It’s not a sob story. It’s fact. Documented, timestamped, filed away.
Back to CPS for a moment -
Once he completed parenting classes, there was a conditional agreement:
If he got a high enough score, and
If he agreed to leave his common-law wife and not return to her,
Then custody could be returned but only if the children chose it.
I allowed that choice. I didn’t block it. I didn’t fight them. I just wanted them safe and loved.
After that, things started to get complicated.
Yes, he separated from his ex.
Yes, the girls chose to go back to him. That’s the life they had always known, and to them, I was basically a stranger. CPS had mandated weekly visits, but that’s not the same as being raised by someone. You can’t build a bond on scraps and supervised hours.
Years before, when they were little, he’d sometimes show up at my place at 4 a.m. with them asleep in the car, after fighting with his girlfriend. Other times, I’d spot them randomly at a mall, for a few minutes here or there. I clung to those crumbs like a starving woman.
But the truth was, they didn’t know me.
Eventually, one of them began coming around a bit more. But she was angry and deeply bitter. She lashed out, viciously and often. Her words were sharp enough to cut bone. And I knew those words weren’t just hers, they came from years of being fed poison about me.
It reached a point where I was afraid to have her around my young son. The things she said were disturbing. Unhinged.
I had to draw a hard line.
I called her father and said:
“She needs help. She needs counseling. She needs the truth. I cannot allow her to be around my other children in this condition, it’s just not safe.”
He said I was the one who needed counselling and she was just fine. I still worry about her and the poison festering in her heart, I hope she's broken the cycle. I hope her children never see that side of her that her father created with his lies and manipulation.
After that, she mostly cut contact. A few rage-filled messages came through over the years, but otherwise, she disappeared from our lives.
My oldest daughter came to live with me in her teens, after her father kicked her out. He claimed she was rebellious, wouldn’t follow any rules, running wild. Honestly, I didn’t know what to believe, I barely knew her. But I knew what he was capable of, and I wanted to give her a chance. I wanted to give us a chance.
At first, I was happy to have her. But I quickly realized how big of a job it was going to be.
She didn’t want structure. She didn’t want rules. She came and went at all hours, often intoxicated, and would break down over small things. I tried my best, but I was already raising other kids and barely staying afloat myself.
Then, one day, she told me she was pregnant.
I told her:
“We need to reach out to First Steps in the morning. Let’s find community supports. I don’t have the resources to support you and a newborn alone, but we’ll figure it out.”
She didn’t wait for morning.
She packed up and left in the middle of the night.
Later, I heard a very different version of that night: that I had thrown her out at 3:00 a.m., the moment I found out she was pregnant, with nothing but what she could carry. But the truth? She wasn’t even pregnant yet, not for nearly two more months.
It’s strange. In her stories, both of her parents threw her out at 3 a.m., with nothing but the clothes on her back. One of us was always the villain. She's told both tales to many of the same people and nobody ever questions why both stories are nearly identical, I mean - what are the odds? Really.
After she left, I’d see her occasionally. She’d act like everything was fine“Hi Mama! How are you?” no mention of the awful things she had been telling people about me behind my back. I tried to pretend I didn't know, hadn't heard, but it cut like a hot knife.
Later, she moved in briefly with her youngest sister, who had recently moved out on her own. She borrowed money she never repaid, took personal items, and eventually burned that bridge too despite her sister opening her home to her.
More time passed. Then, one night, she reached out again this time asking to crash on my floor.
I was afraid to say yes.
By then, she was deep in active addiction. Her kids were living with her father. Her boyfriend had recently been beaten and left for dead on a sidewalk by dealers over unpaid debts. His car had been stolen. It wasn’t paranoia - I had real reasons to be afraid.
Before that, there had been a brief window where we were trying to mend things. She’d been messaging me again, cautiously reaching out.
Then, her baby daddy’s mother found out we had gone to a Pride parade together.
She completely lost it.
She launched into a vicious social media campaign - public Facebook posts and private messages - calling me a child groomer, threatening to take my kids, saying I should be disemboweled and dismembered. She threatened to take the baby away if my daughter had any contact with me.
And my daughter?
She didn’t defend me.
She took that woman’s side.
She broke off all contact.
Until, that night, drunk and desperate, she called me asking for a place to stay.
I didn’t let her stay. I couldn’t. I was too scared - for her, and for my family.
Was I still drowning in unresolved emotions? Yes.
Was I terrified I’d wake up some night to find her people tearing my home apart to cover some debt she owed? Absolutely.
Was I still bitter about the things I knew she’d said about me? Without a doubt.
But more than anything, I wanted her to get real help. I think a part of me even hoped that if she got arrested or hit some kind of bottom, it might finally push her to get her life together. I don’t know. I was overwhelmed, exhausted, and tangled in emotions I didn’t even have names for.
In my heart, I still believe the final wedge between us was driven in by that woman -the one who gave her money, supplied her with liquor, and offered free childcare so she could disappear for days at a time. Maybe it felt like love. Maybe it was manipulation. Maybe both. I’ll never know.
What I do know is that not long after that, she handed custody of her two boys over to their father. Then came the spiral into full-blown addiction, into the chaos, into the arms of the man who’d eventually be beaten nearly to death by drug dealers.
There’s a story she tells now as part of her recovery journey.
She says she “almost became her mama.” That she was a teen mom who lost her kids to addiction. That she stripped to survive (and for the record, I’ve got zero judgment for that). She says she unintentionally lived out my life.
But that’s not my life.
That’s the version she was told. The version her stepmother handed her, thick with lies and bitterness and some strange twisted fantasy. It isn’t the truth, not even close. That version has been reshaped, retold, repurposed so many times it became her reality but I was never a dancer, never addicted, and never lost my kids to anything - they were taken from me by her father and he knows full well what really happened.
And every once in a while, it circles back to me. Something someone says. A post I’m shown. And it stings because I’m not even allowed to own my own story in her world.
The worst part? There’s nothing I can do to change her mind. That’s the part that’ll break your heart—if you let it. So I stopped letting it.
Today’s just another one of those days. Lies feel a little louder. Truth gets buried under projections and pain. But I’m not here to fix anyone else’s memory.
I have two children I raised. Two adopted away as babies, children I wasn’t allowed to know. I don’t fully know what version of me they’ve been given. I don’t think I'll ever know what they believe.
But I know the truth. And it is out there. Documented. Waiting. If they want it.
The rest? None of my goddamn business.
This post is public because I don’t play games. No cryptic subtweets. No vaguebooking. Just the truth, raw and honest, in my own damn voice.