Priority Check, eisle nine.

When I first sat down to blog,  armed with a glass of Sutter Homes and furious resolve NOT to die unwanted and alone with a brood of ungrateful and embarrassed offspring, I thought my mission was simple. Forget loser husband, poke fun at batshit crazy inlaws, find a series of outrageous dates and go on with my little dysfunctional fairytale ending with Mr. Right (for me).
Well, its been a while. Curious as to why? You all know you LOVE my chaos.
I won't dissapoint, I promise.
My family has gotten caught up in the normal flurry of day to day life. My eldest started school (thats a WHOLE other post!), we have had schedules to adjust, potty training x2 to tackle, trick or treating, first school dances to attend, and, oh yeah...their dad got tased repeatedly and arrested from my apartment for beating me, all with our kids right there.
Sordid drama. As you would expect. Blog worthy, the only people left dissapointed are my parents.
I could rehash every little detail of that awful night, but there is a local newspaper article (yup, it was that kind of thing), and I'm all about protecting privacy here. Even in the case of people I hate.
And really, it's the aftermath that matters.
This is a cautionary tale.
What a lot of people don't understand, myself included at one blissful point, is that domestic violence is so  much more than just a beating or fifty. It's mind control, with self confidence and mental health taking the brunt of the abuse. Add kids, shake it all up with the instability of the cycle of abuse, and you've got a family on the rocks. The courts, child protective services, therapists, all label me as "the victim". I'm not. I choose to engage with this guy. My kids are the only real victims. And they suffer.
Let me paint you a picture of what happens when you beat your kids mother, degrade her, insult her, threaten her.
My daughter stays up at night waiting by her window, afraid he'll come back. She tells me, social workers, teachers and anyone else who will listen that she is afraid he will kill me. She has called me a "stupid cunt". My son, his fathers namesake, told his preschool teacher that his daddy is a "monster" who hurt his mommy. They are  traumatized. Every day is a fight, as they attempt to proccess what they just can't. Every child is in therapy, even my two year old.
Here we insert the Batshit Clan.
What else would they do but, loudly proclaim his innocence. In one online post the phrase, "Mr. _____ is the real victim here." The police lied, I lied, the witnesses lied...poor Batshit husband. Clearly the only one to trust here is the guy who kicked the cop and got cuffed after five taser rounds. But thats the cards these people were dealt. And his sister waiting outside  the courthouse to threaten me and ramble about "karma" makes their case all the more compelling.
I owe my former inlaws a resounding thank you, though. I can look at them and get a comprehensive preview of what will happen to my family if I don't spartan up and end this. It's not very pretty, functional or educated. Sometimes it takes sobering reality through something drastic to show you what really matters. And I know that even marrying Jason Aldean will not make me happy if my kids grow in to a bunch of hot messes.
Worry not. My foundation remains. I'm still broke. Still have a tribe of kids, still love my cheap wine and eccentric friends. And I still have the worst inlaws ever pulled off an episode of cops. But is Kate overly concerned with dating? Nope.

The story of Domestic Violence: Yes, I am still alone.

At this point in my life, I mildly loathe all men.
It's unfair, biased, and ridiculous, but every time a man shows any slight interest in me, I go through what I like to call the "Kate downward spiral of romantic self destruction."
a. I assume he is trying to use me in some way. I'm broke, overwhelmed, I have little interest in sex...I can offer you nothing, buddy. Move on.
b. You're still talking to me. You must be crazy. As you speak, I am assessing you for signs that you are a sociopath.
c. Oh, you coach little league? Child Molester. You may be a decent guy, but I now hate you. I have convinced myself you have anger problems, are lazy and manipulative, and have a wife and children at home. I am looking for concrete flaws to pick out and use to mock you.
d. Enter sarcastic comments about: (clothing, job, name, facial features, mentioned interest)
e. You are awkwardly trying to deflect my insults and leave the conversation. You might have been interested in me a few minutes ago, but I'm not worth all this.
f. You leave. I assure myself that you were planning on killing me and eating me after the drinks you mentioned at the Sandbar, or that you wanted to get me intoxicated so you could move in to my apartment the very next morning and drain every last little financial resource I have.

I am such a freakin' charming catch. Why am I still single?!?

In my defense, you try marrying a guy that leaves you perpetually pregnant, rarely works, beats the ever-loving crap out of you for a few years and then "graduates" to just calling you a whore and degrading your genitals. His fidelity? Questionable. His I.Q.? Comparable to that of a piece of french toast.

Male half of the species, feel my wrath. I will punish you all for this mans misdeeds.

And behind my man-hating rage, I kind of feel like crap about myself, most of the time. Mission accomplished, Bat Shit.

He tells me I have a cavernous, gaping vagina. Now, I can assure you, the first thing that I do in the morning is NOT check to see how my vagina looks. But, eh, do I really want to venture into sexual relations with someone new when it is questionable as to whether or not I'm going to need to sell tickets for a mystical Cave of Wonders tour? He tells me I'm stupid. I'm probably not. In fact, I'm nearly certain that the combined IQ of his family tree is 47, legally retarded. I have more teeth in the right side of my head than his immediate family, total. But I can't always be certain that I'm really the one with the last laugh...twisted, right?

Domestic violence counselors will tell you about the cycle of abuse, about power and control, how the whole objective of these relationships is to wear the victim down until she (or even he) is a shell of who they were. Most people off the street can tell you that. What isn't so commonly known, is that a lot of time, the roles of aggressor-victim are blurred over time. The aggressor plays victim, and the victim gets aggressive...things spiral out of control faster than a bad night in Tijuana.
He has two arrests, you have countless bruises, he scares away all your friends and family...but you're the bad guy. He threatens to kill you, the kids you have in common and all your family, but you're the one who's crazy. He gets tackled by the cops after slitting his wrists and threatening suicide, but it's all your fault.
If you could just shut your mouth when he told you "enough", he wouldn't have to hit you. He's never hit any one before, it's something in you that brings it out. He hates you and wants you to die, he loves you more than anyone ever has or ever will, and he can't live without you.
The social workers come in and take your kids. Your daughter is throwing violent tantrums and calling her dolls "nasty whores". You cry every night, wondering what happened. You stay with him, because that's the only way he says you will ever see your children again. You make a move and leave him, and the social workers say if you hadn't, you never would have seen them again. But he still says YOU'RE the bad parent.
You have custody, and he doesn't. But you're the worst mother in the world.
The first rule of leaving the abuse behind, take it from me: live in reality. Because the aforementioned, is not reality.
The aftermath is, you can't trust yourself. How could I now? I lived like this for YEARS, people. I believed that every warped and twisted lie that came out of his mouth was truth, absolute. Living with this man was like looking at the world around me through a kaleidoscope. Everything is distorted, fragmented. Coming out of that, I have to imagine, is like kicking a hard drug. You question everything around you.
I try every day to live in reality. I try to remember that not every man that approaches me wants to control me, use me, murder me, or diddle my kids. But it's hard. Look at what I chose to marry, look at how I chose to father my children.
How can I really trust my own judgement??