After the police left with my children, I phoned my advocate. The judge based his decision to give full temporary custody to this father on the report from this social service worker. My advocate said she is not allowed to show/give me this report, it is highly confidential. If I want my children back, I have to go to the hospital and be evaluated to proof my sanity.
This meant I was proclaimed mentally unstable on rumours of this father and rumours in the social service worker’s report.
My children ages 5, 3 and 2 had just been driven away from me by police, around a month after I reported their molestation and I suspect a pedophile circle they are talking about. The police took my children, whom I had given birth to and nursed, away, as if I was a thief and my children were possessions that I had stolen.
I felt cross, upset, unhappy and angry, to say the least!
To my “court claimed mentally unstable mind” this sounded like an “ideal” situation in which to be mentally evaluated. Plainly others thought so as well.
I left the protection house for women and went to the hospital and waited there from about 17:30 until about 23:00 and still saw no psychiatrist. On enquiring how long it will be, I received the answer, “You have to wait.” The pastor kept phoning me, saying he will take me where I want to go and repeatedly asked me, “What are your plans?” In the manner the pastor talked it sounded as if I am not allowed to go home. I phoned my advocate and she told me I have to go home. They can say I deserted the house, if I do not. Around 23:00 I told the receptionist of this hospital that I am leaving. She jumped out of her chair, ran out of her office door and said the psychiatrist will arrive in 20 minutes, I have to wait. I ignored this woman and left.
The buses had stopped running and the trains from the city were stopping at midnight. When the pastor phoned again I told him I am going home, because apparently I am allowed to do that. He said, “Yes you are.” He and his wife came to pick me up at the main train station. I arrived home at midnight. As I climbed into bed, this father came to the bedroom and told me that I am not sleeping in the house, but have to go and sleep in the apartment.
He gave me back my keys for the front door of the apartment. My advocate earlier advised me not to fight. Being dead tired with no fight left, I went upstairs.
If I ever doubted that my Father in Heaven is alive and well, then I doubted no more.
I would feel like I cannot walk anymore. The thought in my mind was one foot at a time, and I walked again. When I looked around me and saw no compassion or understanding for my pain and anguish, I asked Him to comfort me and He did. When I felt defeated with no more strength, I asked Him for it. He lifted me and gave me strength. When my heart felt like breaking, thinking of my children, when it felt like I could not even take the next breath, because of the pain in my chest, I asked for peace and He gave it. I realised in amazement half an hour later, after I had asked Him, that what I had asked for, was given. He gave me willpower, strength and peace that I never imagined having. I knew my God the Almighty that wins every battle, was with me. I asked Him to be with my children and I knew He was with them as well. I felt His overwhelming love, I put my trust in it and I knew whatever happens, it is going to be ok. He will not leave me. He will not leave my children. We are not alone.
The next day I again went to the hospital to try to be evaluated as my advocate advised. I saw a psychiatrist and explained the situation to him.
He phoned this husband. When he came back, he said this husband says I have post natal depression. But this psychiatrist replied he cannot admit me, because he cannot see that I need to be admitted as an emergency. I phoned my advocate, telling her this, and she wanted a letter.
I went back to the hospital the next day, got the letter and asked this psychiatrist to admit me for an evaluation, because of my situation. If I do the evaluation in the hospital it would take a week and a half and an outside evaluation would take 6 half hour sessions over at least a month and a half. Time was an issue to me. This psychiatrist arranged an appointment with the head of admission at the psychiatric division.
On this day, these psychiatrists wanted to know why I had taken a hamster to the police station. My advocate also asked me this. I told them the children wanted to and I had allowed this. They needed this comfort and I gave it, seeing no enormously problematic reason not to.
[The country I was raised in do not have a law prohibiting travelling with animals. There is also no law in this country and there is no sign at the police station saying no animals. Or that it is criminal or illegal. Or that you will be proclaimed mentally unstable for breaking this unwritten law and your children will be taken from you.]
They informed me they don’t have a vacant bed in the psychiatric department, but they will put me on a waiting list. They estimated that I would wait two weeks for space.
This “news” irritated me. In trying to get into the psychiatric hospital for days, nobody mentioned that there is no vacant bed.
I then phoned the psychiatrists in the telephone book, but with all those I phoned could only find a first appointment after several weeks.
I phoned the psychiatric department secretary at the hospital, who knew me by then, and asked her what the hospital procedure would be if I stood on a bridge, saying I am going to jump, will they make space for me at the hospital? She laughed and said they will send an ambulance and admit me, yes, but it would not be a good beginning. This made a lot of sense. Strangely enough, my advocate advised me the very next day to go to the hospital crying and screaming, so that they will admit me. The results of her proposition would be: not a good beginning.
A few days later my advocate found a psychiatrist to start an immediate evaluation outside the hospital, but this was going to take a month or more.
This psychiatrist also did not want to admit me, saying I am not ill. I assumed he also had the social service worker’s report and knew everything there is to know. Every one else asked me questions about things I had not told them, and so, I just answered his questions. My advocate had advised me to stop speaking about what the children had told me and to leave it. In my circumstances I did not want to repeat the children’s words either. It made me feel terribly helpless and sad.
I only slept in the apartment and was still allowed into the house by this father. I still had a front door key, but my garage remote was missing.
I went back to the neighbour to speak to the woman, who previously enquired about this father’s comrades and his profit from the children. This neighbour was very nosy and would always peek over the wall when the children and I were in the back yard. On such an occasion, while the children were swimming naked in the backyard, she told me to be careful of pedophiles. I had found this comment dramatic at the time. Thinking my children are playing in the privacy of their back yard. Only the immediate neighbours could see them.
When I asked this neighbour on her comment that day she replied that she do not want the police at her place. She also asked me why I don’t want my husband anymore? Leaning forward with a gleeful smile, she asked, “Or do you like women?” I stood up and said I am leaving. Half way down her stairs she started crying, saying she is not sleeping anymore. I left.
I tried speaking to the social service worker who had visited the house and she abruptly told me she was finished with “this case”.
One afternoon the second child was on his bed for his afternoon nap. He told me I must pray to Jesus. I said I will and told him he must too. He said he will. He turned to his father, who sat at the end of the bed, and told him, “ You do not pray to Jesus. Jesus did not make you good. You take me to other people as well.” This father replied with his cheshire cat smile, “Where does daddy take you to other people? Daddy does not take you to other people.” I turned to the child and told him, “I believe you.”
After I told the child this and had left the room, this father chased me out of the house, saying, “Out, out!” in his cold voice. He then told me I can only see my children one hour a day under supervision. I phoned my advocate in tears and her words were, “You have no rights.”
This supervision this husband referred to, it turned out, would be done by him and his eldest brother, who arrived in the country the following day.
Initially, when this husband’s eldest brother arrived, he said to me that if his brother is molesting the children, he would disown him as his brother. I laughed and told him nice try, but I have no wrong impression of what is happening. He told me it was the judge and psychologist’s decision to take the children away from me.
I repeated what I overheard this husband say to someone that night, after I had confronted him about what the children had told me of his family, which is, “She knows. The children told her.”
This eldest brother’s face went bright red. I said, “I thought it was you that he had phoned that night.”
The reason I thought this was, that it was very late at night. I had seen this husband’s eldest brother on Skype many times at that hour and this husband also used to phone him late at night. This eldest brother did not reply. After this he changed his tactics and even said that the judge the psychologists and the neighbours had no problem with it, only me. So maybe the fault lies with me. This husband looked extremely uncomfortable when his brother said this.
This husband changed the locks on the front door of the house. This was the only entry key to the house I had. He told me I am only allowed to knock on the door at night and work on my computer in the house when the children are asleep. This husband refused to allow me to go to the children to kiss them good night, even if they were sleeping. His excuse was that I was smoking. Many women and mothers smoke. This is not a crime. It also did not make their husbands act in this cruel fashion. I agree smoking is a bad habit and bad for your health, but it did not warrant this husband’s behaviour.
There used to be a laptop computer in the apartment that I had worked on before the Apple computer was bought. When I enquired on the whereabouts of this laptop, this husband said, “It is missing…”
Either this husband or his eldest brother was with me the entire hour they allowed me to be with my children.
One has to keep in mind that neither I nor my children had seen this eldest brother for more than two months in our entire lives and now this man acted as if he had total abusing control over us and owned us.
I was not allowed to breastfeed the youngest child anymore. If I tried breastfeeding him when he asked for milk, I lost my visiting the next day.
This father and his brother physically restrained the children several times, while the children were calling and crying for me, while they took them away.
The eldest child would come and ring the doorbell of the apartment, but either this father or his eldest brother took him away every time they found him.
If I said or did something during my “visiting hour” these two men did not agree with, I would be told to get out. Even if my hour with the children was not over. Or I would be told that so much time will be deducted off the following day’s visit or that I lost my “visitation” the next day. I lost my “visitation” several times for trying to breast feed my child. Sometimes I would be told in advance and sometimes when I phoned to find out when I can see my children, I would be told sorry you don’t see your children today. Examples for my punishment is, when the children asked me why I don’t put them to bed and I told them that daddy had changed the locks on the doors and I don’t have a key and cannot get in to put them to bed. It was the truth and what this father had done. But he did not want the children to know the truth of his involvement.
One evening I asked if I may bathe the children. This husband’s eldest brother sat outside the bathroom on the stairs. This husband came in and said my hour is up. I replied, “Ok, I just want to kiss my children goodbye.” He said, “Your time is up. You have to get out.” I was holding the youngest child in my arms and he took him from me. I kissed this child on his head. This husband reacted saying, “Every time you kiss the children I am deducting 15 min off your time for the next day.” I kept on kissing this child and lost my visitation for the next day. He kept on saying, “Out, out!” This happened in front of the children.
One day I heard, from inside the apartment, the second child throwing a tantrum outside. This father and his eldest brother were trying to force this child into the car. This child literally held on to the door, screaming. I called to him from the apartment and then ran down. This father’s eldest brother grabbed the kicking and screaming child and ran with him into the garage. This father stood in front of the garage. The other two children sat in the car. This father’s eldest brother held the screaming child inside the garage, restraining him in his arms. The child started screaming for me when he saw me. I asked this father if I can hold the child as he is calling for me. He replied, “No, if you don’t go to the apartment, I am calling the police.”
Apparently I had no rights. I could not protect my children or console them. I went upstairs and looked out of the window how this husband and his eldest brother physically forced this child into the car. The child was hitting the window and screaming, while they drove away with him.
I sat thinking how ironic that I, a court claimed mentally unstable mother, was pressed to her limit emotionally, having to watch emotionless and non caring people abusing her children.
On a Friday I arrived with the train and on the way home saw the eldest child walking home from school. I walked with him. This father no longer stood ready outside the garage with the trailer hooked onto his bicycle, asking the eldest child if he wants him to take him to school. He also no longer fetched him from school. He did not run with the children on their bicycles to school and back anymore. He had only done it to disturb us. He got what he wanted. That part of his game was finished.
The Sunday I phoned to the house to find out when I can see the children for my hour. This father said he wants to talk to me first. When he says this I know that I had done something “wrong” and was going to be punished. Somebody must have informed him over the weekend, that I had walked with the eldest child on the Friday afternoon. As a result I was not allowed to see the children that day. This father said if I want to walk with in this group of people, I have to arrange with either him or his eldest brother beforehand. They will supervise and this time will be deducted off the hour visitation.
Another day I arranged to eat with the children for my allowed hour’s visitation. The children had been playing downstairs in the garden. I was at the dining room table and heard the second child screaming hysterically,” No, no!” from the garden downstairs. I ran down. This father’s eldest brother, completely ignoring the child’s distress, held the child in the air and was forcefully pulling down his pants. The child fought and cried, “No, no.”
When this father’s eldest brother saw me watching him, he put the child down and walked past me into the house without saying a word. The child stopped screaming. His pants were wet. I took the child inside and helped him to put on dry pants.
I wonder what would happen if I forcefully restrain someone and pull pants down, while this person was screaming no. Would I be charged with indecent assault?
You might also think: This child’s pants are wet. He did not want to listen and was forced. This child needs to be taught to listen to authority, either by the parent or anyone else in authority or control.
I have a few problems with this father’s eldest brother’s behaviour. He needed not to have forcefully held this child in the air, in such a way that incapacitated this child. Thus making the child feel utterly helpless. It was also not cold, so the child would not get ill — if that was indeed a concern of his. This child is also capable of changing his own pants. This father’s eldest brother had no replacement pants with him in the garden.
Another day the children took the fire extinguishers that I had bought and sprayed the entire spare bedroom that this father had taken over from me and where he now slept.
The children did not misuse the fire extinguishers under my supervision. These people seemed to leave these small children to their own devises. They sat with their computers, talking to one person after the other on Skype. Creating their impressions in the minds of those they spoke to.
Apparently all these “instructions”, on how to treat me and my children, were given to this father by the social service worker that had told me she is no longer involved in “this case”. I wondered if these instructions were aimed at driving me insane and to break my children. If it was, then this social service worker is very insightful and clever in torturing methods. I suffered, while listening to my children crying and screaming while they suffered.
I consulted my advocate again and once again she said I was given no rights to my children. I can say and do nothing.
The hamsters the social service worker showed so much concern over, were caged now and placed in the cold, dark garage on the floor. Nobody paid attention to them anymore. On passing through the garage, the children were told not to touch the hamsters, because they will only hurt them. I watched this in amazement.
This father kept on saying to me, “Do you want to see your children in an orphanage? If you carry on they will be put in an orphanage.” Initially the thought shocked me, but then I started thinking it would be better.
The wife of a friend of this father became a friend of mine. They lived in another country not far away. She contacted me a few days after the children had been taken away from me, wanting to know what is going on. She said this husband contacted them to write a testimony for him, but he did not say for what he wanted it.
She was shocked when I told her what was going on and asked if they could come over for a visit. I said yes.
In the week that followed this father kept asking me if it was ok if they come to visit and I said yes. I am just going to find out from my advocate if there are no legal ramifications. They wrote a witness statement for him, but will be staying in the apartment with me.
Then I received an sms from her, saying that if I don’t want them to come, she understood. I phoned her, upset, telling her I want them to visit. She told me that this father/husband created an impression with her that I did not want this. He did this by saying they had written a testimony for him and created the impression I was unhappy with them.
I knew exactly why he did this. This father/husband did not want them to see what he was doing.
They arrived the same Saturday 19 May 2012 as my sister-in-law, my eldest brother’s wife.
This friend was shocked when she saw this father and his eldest brother’s behaviour. How he kept the children away from me and changed the front door locks of the house.
What this father was doing did not agree with what he had told her over the years, which was that I am a good mother to the children. She also said he was not like the person she had known over the past years. She then wrote a testimony for me, based on what she saw.
This father showed this friend’s husband his correspondence with the “off the case” social service worker and her emailed instructions on my “visitation” with the children and how to deal with me in judging and punishing me with the 15 minute deduction in time.
On the other hand, my brother’s wife deemed this husband’s actions righteous. I asked her to be in the house and protect my children, to which she said, “Your children are fine. They are too comfortable with their father to be abused.” This also made me think and then do research. There is a common assumption, according to the internet, that a child would avoid someone that was raping or sexually abusing them. Would this be true if the child is a toddler/very small and easily indoctrinated with no knowledge of right and wrong? Would this child, that has a natural instinct of love and dependency on this person to teach them, perceived these actions as playful attention? Or would this small innocent child perceive it as harmful and wrong? I found to my shock that the internet listed molested children starting from the ages of 6/7 years old and up. No toddlers, according to these statistics, are molested.
This father, after giving me names of the people that he said spread the rumour of him “liking little boys”, started denying that any of this had ever been said. I mentioned his rumour to these friends during the weekend. The friend’s husband replied, “Yes, I remember the story.” Then he named the same two people this father mentioned. The friend’s husband said he recalled it was said as a joke in a bar. And, no surprises, this father told him of this rumour. Once again, this father is the bearer of the inglorious information about himself. In this process he also extinguish the rumour with an explanation. The explanations he used: it was overheard in a bar and said as a joke; they are trying to discredit him and want his job; an example of how a lie can ruin his life. These added “excuses” covered a lot of ground from a joke to ruining a life.
But there are no humorous qualities in this rumour. No one got his job and his life was also never ruined. Also strange is that these excuses always depicted him as the victim.
My brother’s wife did not agree that this situation was abnormal or abusive. On the contrary, she admired this husband’s actions and would say to me, “Look at what he has given you. Look at this nice house.”
A reality check would be: I worked very hard to built it, not for me, but for everyone to live happily and comfortably in. That was my only reason. But there was no happily and comfortably, and even this house and its content were used by this husband for oppression and control.
I had never before spent a great amount of time with my brother’s wife and had frowned when I heard she was coming to emotionally support me. She never showed interest in me.
During her visit one afternoon she started screaming many things. I told her she can stop, after she screamed, “You will never see your children again.’’ I looked at this woman and thought what a wonderful way to emotionally support someone — in hell maybe. She sat crying on her bed, saying she is trying to protect herself. She appeared overly tired the entire time and I put it down to the sun going down late, which might have disturbed her normal eight o’clock bedtime regime, which had now become midnight.
She opened three small yogurts one morning and put them on the table. She started insulting me for not wanting yogurt and not eating them.
She kept repeating I am spoiled. This I had heard from her several times before in my life. This was the reason I frowned when hearing she was coming to support me emotionally. But it was a comfort to my mother, who kept on saying to me how much better she felt, knowing someone is with me. This resulted in me not telling my mother of my sister-in-law’s behaviour.
Later in my sister-in-law’s stay she told me that she has a form of psychosis and was taking medication.
This explained her behaviour. She had to my knowledge never been out of her country before, never mind on her own.
It annoyed me that my brother allowed his wife to come over in this stressful situation. No one in the family knew about his wife’s condition. Everyone had thought she is a naturally calm, relaxed, levelheaded person. My mother told me she was so relaxed that she even fell asleep in company.
Now this father/husband and my brother’s wife, both on different occasions, said that if I take medication I will be allowed to see my children more. My sister-in-law added to this saying this husband will take me back if I take medication.
I looked up major depression symptoms on the internet and tried to fake depression in front of the psychiatrist that was now doing a psychiatric evaluation. He looked at me and said he was not going to lie.
My brother’s wife accompanied me to one of his sessions. We could see her through the window. I told the psychiatrist that my sister-in-law says I need treatment. He asked me what her profession was. I told him she is a beautician. He replied he is a psychiatrist. He spoke of what had happened as only the first round. This gave me hope, thinking I will be prepare for the next round.
The only advice I received from my advocate during this time was that I have to proof that I have no mental illness. She continuously told me not to say anything of the molestation. I now had to leave that alone.
I knew it was only God’s mercy that was keeping me standing, considering the circumstances. I knew I was not capable of doing anything on my own. I also knew that He had a plan.
In this time I met an elderly couple from my country in the city. They were on holiday. They questioned me on what I was doing in this country. I told them I used to be a mother and housewife, but was fired. They asked why and I told them I had gone to the police after my children had told me they were being molested.
The lady told me the same happened with her sister’s daughter. Her boy, who was three at the time, spoke to his mother about being molested by the father. She lost custody of her child. She said 5 years had passed and the mother kept on trying to get her son back via the court system, but did not manage.
I researched on the internet and found several other women whose children had been taken away from them after saying their small children spoke of being molested by a spouse. The court gave this accused spouse full custody in most cases.
A lot of these mothers in the court’s own justification were labelled as having mental illnesses or being violent and abusive by using all means possible to create this impression. I remember reading a report from one mother in Australia that gave advice not to “freak out.” She said stay calm, because you will be labelled with having a mental illness. This had happened to her. She wrote her husband was anally raping her toddler daughter. She wrote one rape was so violent that he had to wash the bedding afterwards. This father got full custody of the child. She was a nurse by profession. The situation at the time had overwhelmed her. She could not function and lost her job.
Another mother’s daughter drew a picture of the father, at school, as a penis ejaculating. She took the children for professional assessment and the report said the children were being sexually abused. She filed for a divorce and the father got custody of the children. She was allowed to see her daughters, she wrote, one hour under supervision a month while the father had full reign.
I imagine every one of these husbands also walked around saying the children are doing fine. Exactly as this father/husband was doing.
With my situation: This father’s advocate had no scruples lying freely and exuberantly in court as it pleased her and her client’s cause. For example, while my children and I are being tortured by this father, according to the court transcription she said, “No, this father had not changed the locks of the house. The man could not, his wife had a fit! The wife is in the house the whole time.”
My advocate informed me that initially this father’s advocate told the court that this father was now going to stop working and take care of his children.
About a week after he got full temporary custody, this same advocate of this father handed a laughable false letter into court that stated this father earns $3500 per month as a chief pilot on a Challenger 604 private aircraft. She also handed in a mortgage document, dating back 6 years, stating an amount needs to be paid on a mortgage.
The court excepted these documents and the conclusion became: This was the reason this father “worriedly” left his children in the care of his “lost touch with reality” wife and why he also now needed to leave these children – to support his family.
Reality is: This father payed off the house a long time ago and he kept the mortgage account open with a low amount for the fixed interest rate on it. He paid the house renovations, that amounted to around half the current value of the house, in cash. He is financially very sound and has thousands invested in physical gold bars, gold coins and the stock market.
Reality also is: This father had earned well above average in recent years and did not need to work. The amount stated in the “letter” given to court was what he earned on a bad contract in 4 days.
My advocate asked for another court hearing in attempting to reverse the full temporary custody that was awarded to this father. The hearing was scheduled for 25 May 2012. I had seen the psychiatrist a few times (total of two hours) and he was prepared to write a certificate.
Then I found out this father planned on taking the children out of the country 24 May 2012, the day before the court hearing was scheduled.
This same court gave this father permission to take these children out of the country before the hearing. The court also gave this father permission to keep the children out of school, which is compulsory and punishable by law if not attended.
I went to court with a certificate from this psychiatrist that read that I reacted on my circumstances and did not suffer from a psychiatric illness and that I was capable of taking care of my children.
While this father, the same that told a court he was going to stop working, dropped my children off on his elderly parents’ farm in our native country and flew back to the house.
The smallest child had last seen these people, in whose care he was now, when he was 18 months old. During our visits to this farm, I had observed these people showing none to no interest in taking care of these small children’s needs. They even placed the children in dangerous situations or ignored them completely. These children were now left alone for the first time in there little lives in what was, for them, a nightmare.
On top of this, this elderly couple, in whose care the children were left, could not even pick one of them up. They both had back and various other health problems and even struggled to walk. This father’s unmarried youngest brother also farmed on this farm. These children were not going to be his highest priority. All this farm’s workers left around nine months before, because they were being unfairly treated and not paid as promised. This youngest brother of this father was doing most of the farm work himself.
None of the above seemed to trouble this father and he showed no concern for three small children’s emotional and physical well being or safety.
This father returned to the house for 2 days before flying to do his recurrent flight training as he claims. He stayed away for about 10 days (recurrent training is +-5 days) after which he again returned to the house for another 2 days and then only flew out to our native country. I am assuming to the children he claimed to care for and is concerned over.
While the children were on this farm, I only managed to speak to them a few times over the phone. Around the third time the second child started crying, saying there was a lion by his bed that night and he called me, but I did not come. He said I must come to the farm and help them and that his heart was sore. I told this child that there are no lions on the farm. The eldest child started teasing him and I told him to stop, there are no lions. This child’s crying was upsetting me and I asked them, “Where is grandma. Go call grandma.” I wanted someone to comfort my crying child.
This husband’s youngest brother, took the phone away from the children and said I upset the children. That I had told them there are lions on the farm and I am not going to speak to them again and he put down the phone. This father was in the house downstairs. I phoned there directly asking him to just make sure the child is ok, because he was upset. He told me that I told the child there is a lion, and I am not going to speak to the children again. I give them phobias, he said. I tried phoning the next day. This husband’s youngest brother picked up and told me that I am not going to speak to the children. That I should speak to the lawyer and psychologist and he put down the phone. I could hear my eldest child in the background saying, ”Hullo hullo.”
I knew phoning again will prove to be fruitless. These people had full control over my children and they had no empathy and no mercy, not for the children and not for me. Speaking to me in that manner, in front of my children also served to indoctrinate my children into thinking their mother is in the wrong. Even in saying “food” for a child from a penis is wrong. They were maltreating my children to gain full control and torturing me to get me flat on my back. Wouldn’t this then serve as proof of their “mentally unstable” claims? Being human I was flat in fact, until I went crying to God, who picked me up again.
Initially when this father was getting ready to leave the country with my children 24 May 2012, I could not find my passport anywhere. I arranged an appointment at an embassy to apply for a temporary passport and a replacement passport. This embassy was in another country and I had to travel there by train. While standing on the platform the wife of my brother kept on prodding me to say that she has to come with me.
She was a free person. So was I. I told her if she wanted to come with then she is welcome. This did not make her happy. She replied, “Where is your crying brother?” Meaning my younger brother, who was upset and had cried, when he heard what was happening. Then she added, “Where is your mother?” This made me cross.
My mother, a pensioner, had at that stage payed for her flight ticket, because my mother felt herself not being able to emotionally handle this situation. She was helping to take care of her grandchildren while my brother’s wife was supposedly here to support me. My mother was doing what she could and now this wife of my brother asked me sarcastically where my mother was?
I told her that I prefer them, crying in another country, above her being with me. She left the train station without saying a word. I suppose she did not really want to go with me after all. She could have said so. The afternoon when I came back from the embassy she had left. Then my eldest brother started saying his wife was scared of me that is why she left. Apparently she was not scared enough to not taunt me.
I received the ruling of the court, which read: It is too early to decide on my mental stability; that I am considered a danger to the emotional and physical welfare of the children; that this father is worthy of the trust of the court.
In this ruling extracts of the social service worker’s report was quoted. For example: She locks her children in a room at night; she had lost touch with reality.
When in reality: No lier is worthy of any respectable person’s/institution’s trust or respect and there are no locks on the bedroom doors in the house.
My advocate kept on saying I need to try to be admitted into a hospital for an evaluation. I went back to the psychiatrist, who is the head of admission at the psychiatric division of the hospital, asking him what happened with the waiting list? He told me that the emergency is over. I told him I still have an emergency. He replied, “No, you have social circumstances”.
They had removed my name from the waiting list without informing me. I was not going to be admitted in this hospital, neither for an evaluation, nor for “treatment” of my “court rumoured” mental instability that apparently made me “a physical danger” to other humans.
I went to another police division and other organisations to find help, but was turned away with the words: If there is a court order we can do nothing.
This father and the children had been gone for two weeks already, with the children missing compulsory school. This father had also now done his apparent recurrent training for his profession. The court showed immense concern over this financially well off, grown man’s income. They even created more emotional trauma and abuse for three, small, vulnerable children in this process.
I knew this father could not stay out of the country and had to come back. My eldest brother started phoning me saying that this father booked a flight ticket for me for 11 June 2012 to fly to our native country. This father told him that he would not be able to be refunded for this ticket if I do not use it. I asked my brother to email me this flight ticket. It turned out to be just a reservation number, booked within 24hours of the flight, fully refundable and changeable. My mother and eldest brother kept on insisting that I fly. I did not have the proper travel documentation. I could go out of the country, but had to apply for a visa to get back in. I had applied for a replacement residence permit, however they needed a copy of the new permanent passport and I was waiting for this. I told my family this and told them to calm down. My eldest brother repeatedly said, “This father is saying he will help you. You are just making excuses.” I thought, in which reality is this eldest brother of mine living? This father is not going to help me with anything. He is trying to destroy me and make my life as difficult as possible. The fact that he had bought me a flight ticket, which impressed this brother of mine and probably his wife as well, did not make this husband an instant nice man. I knew he only did it because it served a purpose for himself.
My eldest brother started to say that I was going to kill my mother and that I was going to be the reason she has a heart attack.
My mother was hysterical. Hysterical about everything, which included the fact that this father would not be able to be refunded for the ticket if I don’t use it. This was ridiculous. I phoned the airline on Skype and had her listen in while they said I can change or cancel this ticket without repercussions of any sort. She was also afraid that this father’s lies might cause trouble for me and then I would be alone. This husband over the phone had told her he was going to send an ambulance to take me away. I myself could not even get into the psychiatric ward of the hospital.
I refused to fly, saying I want to be at home when my children arrived. I knew it was this father’s plan to keep me away from them and so alienate them from me. My mother phoned me, begging the entire morning. I lost my temper, after which I felt bad. I also thought I do not want to be the reason for my mother’s heart attack and then decided to take the flight.
This father flew back into the country with the children the same day I flew out. I can only imagine what my children felt when they realised their mother was not at home anymore.
This father/husband did not care in the least what his children needed or I felt.
The last time this father and I spoke, I told him I will never ever stop trying to save my children. He replied, “You will never see your children again,” and he put down the phone.
The thought that I could never see my children again nearly broke me. I knew this husband was capable of meticulously working out his game plans, manipulating and making an impression on the people he needed, to get what he wanted.
In the meantime, however, this man had full control of my children. That to me meant he held a knife that reached right into my heart. He knew this, simply because he knew I love my children. He had made me powerless. He had control and he revelled in that. Up to that point he had succeeded in silencing all of us.
This father’s “diary”, that he had handed into court as his proof, was filled with lies, deception, manipulation, leading statements, repetition of accusations and creation of impressions — all against me. In some cases he had taken his own abusive actions and attributed them to me. I had no idea how to combat it and it made me feel so lame and frustrated that I struggled reading it.
