Cherry Pickers.

They’re grasping at straws now.

I’m really curious at this point as to why the entirety of my personal character is being judged on a single, isolated event, and yet when it comes to him, they ignore all proof I send to them regarding his behavior toward our daughter over years.

They ignore photos of bruises in suspicious places, they ignore her own testimony that she doesn’t get fed healthy food and that no one brushes her hair or teeth, they ignore the fact that I’m the only one who participates in her school activities and curriculum.

Instead, they tear me apart over me telling her that her hair isn’t getting proper care. She’s six years old. She’s old enough to be told what her needs are and to remind her so-called caregivers to help her meet those needs, which they shouldn’t even need to be reminded of in the first place, as they’re the adults and the ones who are supposed to be giving her that care.

They say they know for a fact that she’s eating healthy because they look in the pantry. As if that’s any sort of indication of what she’s actually eating. They say they’re not concerned about bruises because a traumatized 6-year-old who is terrified of getting taken away again tells them that everything is fine. They say that it doesn’t matter what evidence I give them of Ben’s behavior in the past because it’s in the past, which is a completely unfair double standard because the thing that happened with me is ALSO in the fucking past.

But they tear me apart over a simple statement that her hair isn’t getting properly cared for.

Okay. 👍🏻 It kind of seems like, at this point, they really only have positive evidence of my ability to parent, and because that conflicts with their plans to give custody to the parent that never sees her and constantly pawns her off on his parents, they’re really grasping for any tiny little thing they can try to hold against me.

It’s absurd.

She consistently tells me that no one participates in her academic needs. No one does her flash cards with her. No one helps her with her Seesaw or IXL assignments. No one else reads to her, they just sit her in front of the TV.

She constantly tells me that no one brushes her teeth, they rarely brush her hair, and she doesn’t get a bath much. She tells me that she gets fed cereal and PB&J.

So they’ll take her word that she’s definitely not getting hurt by anyone, but they won’t take her word that she’s being neglected.

It’s pretty obvious that they cherry pick what they want to. The whole thing is full of double-standards and grasping at straws to try to make me seem problematic, when in reality, she gets more care from me in the pathetic 9 hours I get with her per week than she does the entire rest of the time. They just don’t want to admit that they’ve made a mistake in judging me so harshly over a single, anomalous incident. They have to be right, just like everybody else in this situation.

I’m fed up with getting treated like dog shit over a one-time event that was not directed at my daughter and didn’t hurt her in any way, while the person who treated her like scum for years, called her a retard constantly, asked her why she was so stupid, shoved her around, and told her that she ruins everything gets to sit around and have his dick sucked by everyone just because he wasn’t taking pills to deal with someone like him.

They don’t seem to get that I’m a victim in this situation. I started taking the pills because they subdued my emotions and made me more tolerable to him. Because, as he specifically stated in a letter to me, he treated me like shit and purposely made me feel like it was my fault. So I felt like I needed to take some sort of action to make myself better for him, rather than thinking of it from a 3rd person perspective and realizing that I deserve to be loved and accepted how I am, and that maybe he didn’t have the right to treat me the way he did. All the times I could have (and admittedly probably should have) called the police on him for child abuse and didn’t, but then he calls them on me for yelling at people and gets my kid taken away.

One night, he drank himself into a stupor. I kept trying to tell him why I took the pills and I kept repeating it to him and asking him to repeat it back, but he couldn’t remember even when I’d only told him moments ago. The next day when I brought it up, he didn’t remember it at all.

What I told him was that I take the cold pills for the same reason they give Ivy Ritalin: so that I’m easier to put up with.

I hate saying that, but it’s true. Of course there are other things, like they help us focus, but let’s be honest. The main reason anyone gets force-fed medication is because people don’t like them the way they are and want them to be more tolerable. What I don’t get is why euphoria is considered an adverse effect and why people are forbidden from using things that make them happier. I’ve been on every fucking antidepressant and anti-anxiety and antipsychotic medication in the book, and all any of them have done is make me miserable. So I found something that made me personally feel better and made me more tolerable to those around me, but it was wrong and diabolical because it wasn’t a prescription drug. They’re all about cramming pills down my throat (in fact, they INSIST) as long as they’re prescribed. And who cares if they give me terrible migraines, make me want to kill myself, or cause psychotic episodes if doses get missed? As long as they’re prescribed. As long as they’re not actually making me feel better.

And because of one strange occurrence, my sanity is in question, and I have to go through all this bullshit of psychiatric evaluation, therapy, and medication management. Yet I can sit here all day and present evidence of his abuse toward both of us for years and years, and they’re just like “The past is the past, maaaan. You need to let that shit goooo.”

Why does he not need to submit to a psych evaluation? Why does he not have to get help? Why am I still paying for his shitty actions while he gets away scot free? And most importantly, why does he get to take the child that I grew inside my body and birthed through excruciating pain to bring into this world when he does next to nothing for her?? And after I already lost my other child to cancer!! It’s pure madness.

Last year around this time, Ivy came to me and told me she wanted to kill herself because she hates herself because of how her dad treats her. She was five at the time. That is not okay. But when I bring this up as evidence, no one gives a shit. Nothing I have ever said or done has ever destroyed her self-worth as much as the things he’s said and done. I never hit her, I only yelled at her if she was in direct danger, and it was always me she ran to for comfort when he did those things.

Who does she have to run to now? Because she’s not an idiot. She knows based on what’s happened in the last year that if she tells anyone about anything, it could be disastrous for her. And I don’t think that she should have her father completely removed from her life, but I certainly don’t think that he’s the proper candidate for custody and I absolutely think that he should get some kind of help if he’s going to continue to have her in his “care.”

There is nothing okay about any of this.