My Brush With Intimate Partner Violence
Part 4: Ex Parte; Latin for “Stay the *#$! away from me!”
To say the wheels of justice turn slow isn’t exactly true. Sometimes it’s more of a hurry up and wait situation. For example, first thing in the morning the day after John assaulted me I followed the steps on the paper I was given to file an ex parte, which is a temporary order of protection. It’s a matter of filling out paperwork and turning it in at the courthouse. A judge reviews it and if granted, the paperwork is served to the abuser by the police. If done quickly enough , an abuser will be served before they get out of the 24-hour hold.
A court date is set for both parties to appear in court. The plaintiff is asked if they wish to continue and the defendant is asked if they wish to contest. If the answer is yes from both, another temporary protection order is issued and another court date is set.
Court is an extremely stressful place to be even as the plaintiff. When the judge asked me if I knew I could have a lawyer I was dumbstruck. I thought this was all handled by the prosecutor. I had envisioned meetings with them and watching them discuss it with the judge. Haha that’s not how it works. I didn’t realize that this portion was all me. If the prosecutors office has been able to reach me, they would have sent an advocate to help me but again I had no phone.
So roughly a week later, I go before the judge and he kindly explained to me that I could have a lawyer. He also explained to me I would have to submit evidence and testify and possibly even have to speak to my abuser if I didn’t have a lawyer. It was too much. In the end I dropped it. I signed the paper to give it up.
Now full disclosure, there are a couple of ways I probably could have gotten a lawyer but I was almost paralyzed with anxiety, humiliation and a loss of hope. I couldn’t bring myself to ask family, it was just too horrifying. (My dad still doesn’t know and I keep waiting for him to ask about these articles and if he can read them. So if this is how he’s finding out, sorry Dad! I didn’t want you to worry.)
I just wanted it all to go away. John had been behaving himself and Blondie was on the scene. I thought it was over for me and I could just move on and pretend it never happened. Life has a funny way of spoiling your plans.
So this dear reader, brings us full circle to part one of the story. How Blondie was assaulted, how we met how we fought together and how we lost her. Temporarily.
You might be happy to know that she is out of the reach of our abuser now. She contacted her children and she has gone to another state. Her plan is to get herself back on track with her family and stay off drugs. She wants to do better and I pray for her everyday.
So what is next in this 12-part series? Well my story will unfold as time goes on but more importantly I am going to be speaking to people who commit these acts of violence and the people who love them anyway. We will find out what happened to get them to the classes and are they getting help voluntarily or by court order?
Which by the way, did you know that all of those classes for people who commit violence are open to the public? No one has to wait to be sentenced to get help. There are some limited community resources for people who experience episodes of rage. We need more. Much more.
I will tell you about an organization trying to rehabilitate men who have come from generations of family violence. Men who were taught to ignore and repress it when they felt emotional. Some who were told to ‘keep their ladies in line’. That’s a lot of brainwashing to overcome.
How does a guy even identify what his emotions are if he’s never been allowed to talk about them? There is so much to be learned from these men. How it starts, why it escalates, where is rock bottom? Did they recognize that it is wrong? Did they know before, how to get help? If so, why didn’t they?
Would people they know would give them a hard time about it? Would they be told they weren’t tough enough and need to suck it up and move on?
If this is speaking to your heart dear reader, hear me when I say this:
Those people who tell you to toughen up and handle your business, (even if it’s coming from a place of ‘tough love,’) those people are wrong. They don’t understand the science of genetics or epigenetics. Please, do not listen to them.
Join us next time for part 5. You might be surprised to learn that a lot of these men had no idea they were going to end up violent. It snuck up on them. In the wrong circumstances it can sneak up on anybody…
Read Part III
Read Part II
Read Part I
KG Farrell is an author, activist and artist living her best life in Northwest Missouri. She has previously published two suspense novels that you can find here here.
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