TW/CW: child abuse, current events, murder.
Excuse me while I make a tragedy about myself. But maybe I’m not the only one, so I’ll share it anyway.
Has anyone else been through the absolute bedshitting of the justice system failing to protect them? Even with evidence? Even with solid proof?
(You can skip this part)
I‘ve posted before about my situation but it’s been a while. A little over a decade ago I left my abusive ex. He was mainly emotionally and sexually abusive, so I never thought he’d hurt our child. Over time, the evidence started piling up that he was, indeed, physically, emotionally, and sexually abusing our child during visitation.
I fought for years. The stress made my body go haywire. I have CPTSD as a result. The justice system failed us both. Even with disclosures from my child, even with trauma-informed therapists backing us and the legitimacy of the situation, they failed to prosecute my ex and now he gets unsupervised visits with our child. I feel obligated to say: for various reasons, my child is safe. I don’t ever feel 100% comfortable when they visit my ex but there are factors that lead me to believe they are no longer being abused.
Today I watched bodycam footage of a mother being murdered. You know the one. I read comment saying “this will definitely clear things up. People can’t deny this now.”
And I don’t think so. Because it doesn’t matter what’s true. It matters who has power.
All this is just bringing me back to those long hours with my lawyers, hours spent in the courtroom. Having cps agents roll their eyes at me. Having the judge talk to me like a piece of shit. Having family members believe my ex and believe I coached my child into making false accusations.
I know I'm not alone because the justice system is a mess, so I guess what I want to say is that if you‘re also feeling this, I see you. I hear you. And I’m sorry.
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I will say, it is the perfect storm of variables to get a favorable outcome. 3+ camera angles, explicitly against policy, 4 blocks from George Floyd where his (main) killer got convicted of unintentional 2nd degree murder and sentenced to 20 years, white woman. It's all working in our favor, no guarantees though.
It won't matter to 50% of the voting population and that's what urks me.
Thank you for that perspective. I’m usually the “insufferably optimistic” type so this has been hard. I think, in some ways, it’s my way of coping with my own experiences of injustice and seeing that same injustice repeated again and again.
I also recognize that my shock at the justice system comes from a place of privilege. POC have known this always.
“Because it doesn’t matter what’s true. It matters who has power.”
Thank you. You’ve put into words something I’ve been fumbling to express. When people tell me that the video footage shows the truth, so I should “quit overreacting.” It matters who has power.
I’m with you 1000% sister. Sometimes I read posts on this very sub that I’m just scratching my head wondering if the responses were even written from the same planet I’m living on. It feels uncouth to do so but every time I hear a woman with minor children talk about leaving an abusive marriage I want to scream no!! If you do so, you need to be under zero illusion the family court or the police or ANYONE is going to protect your kids. I naively thought mine would just dip out completely because he had so little interest in being around us when we were married and avoided us most of the time. Instead, our kids have become the perfect tool to control and intimate me with for the next decade. It’s terrifying sending them with him but I have no choice. If I could do it all over I would have just rode it out maybe catfished him into leaving the state of his own accord so he thought it was his idea to leave because he can’t get over the need to punish me for leaving him (he told me himself I deserved to be punished and I’d get what was coming to me).