I examined a case, recently, of a man’s committing murder hours after being accused to the police. My familiarity with the case was, admittedly, shallow; I only had what was reported to go on (and that from a single, “raw” source). I have, however, heard from scores of people who’ve been accused—or scorned for telling the truth—in drive-thru restraining order proceedings, and expressions of fury have been more than a few.
This week, I shared an email by a highly educated, professional woman and mother of three young children that expresses an “almost homicidal enmity” catalyzed by procedural abuses. Note the elevated diction she uses to describe an impulse to bash, throttle, and gouge. Does her vaulted language indicate she “doesn’t really mean it”? No, it indicates how alien rage is to her character. It indicates she’s someone who shouldn’t have cause to feel this way.
Consider: How is it the police and the courts recognize the propensity for violence that interpersonal conflicts mediated by the “justice system” may arouse, but lawmakers don’t? Are they that “in the dark”?
Yeah, pretty much.
If you get into a spat with your neighbor, and the police intervene, parties are separated into corners. In court, complainants even merely of “fear” may be shielded by law officers in anticipation of a judicial ruling. It’s understood that emotions run hot in this theater.
Why, then, is it not appreciated that when the basis for rulings is false, the risk of violence is not only higher but infinite?
We like our games, and we like our fictions about how people should be and should feel and should react even if you trash their lives maliciously. Hey, we’re disposed to remind, it’s the law.
All well and good until somebody gets an ax in the ear—an edgy remark, maybe; honesty often strikes us that way (i.e., like an ax in the ear).
The wonder is that more people who lie to the courts don’t meet premature ends—or at least sustain some anatomical remodeling. False accusations, which have inspired a great deal of sententious deliberation in recent months, don’t just “discomfort” people or make them “justifiably [and transiently] angry.” At the risk of being edgy again: People who haven’t been falsely accused in a legal procedure don’t know what the fuck they’re talking about. I was collegiately trained as a literary analyst—I’ve studied and taught Victorian literature—and I’m normally more disciplined in my remarks, but this subject rebukes gentility.
Liars maim. That they do it with words in no way mitigates the brutality of the act or its consequences.
One would think that as people mature and progress through life, that they would stop behaviors of their youth. Unfortunately, this is not always the case. Sadly, adults can be bullies, just as children and teenagers can be bullies. While adults are more likely to use verbal bullying as opposed to physical bullying, the fact of the matter is that adult bullying exists. The goal of an adult bully is to gain power over another person, and make himself or herself the dominant adult. They try to humiliate victims, and “show them who is boss” (BullyingStatistics.org, “Adult Bullying”).
StopBullying.gov defines bullying as including name-calling, taunting, threatening, spreading rumors about someone, and embarrassing someone in public. Falsely labeling someone a stalker, child abuser, violent danger, or sexual deviant in one or more public trials whose findings are impressed on the target’s permanent record and are accompanied by menacing threats (if not immediate punishment) plainly qualifies. Among identified effects of bullying are suicide (“bullycide”) and violence, including murder. “Extreme emotional disturbance” is a defense for murder in some states (a finding that doesn’t excuse the act but does lighten the sentence), and a related murder defense is “provocation.”
Sure, character assassination is bloodless. What of it? If I circulate lies about someone and s/he snaps, I’m a bully, and I had it coming. Few people would say otherwise.
Ah, but if I lie and use the law as my medium to insult, demean, badger, intimidate, or otherwise persecute—hey, that’s different. I’m the “good guy.”
So suck it. And keep on sucking it, because the public record says my lies are the truth. Neener-neener.
A system that represents its purpose to be the curtailment of violence shouldn’t be promoting it by pandering to bullies, even “unofficially,” and its officers shouldn’t be serving as those bullies’ lieutenants and enforcers. If the system makes it easy to lie about and humiliate people, doesn’t hold liars accountable, and furthermore punishes the falsely accused based on lies, then it’s promoting violence.
This shouldn’t require social science research to corroborate. It shouldn’t even require this analyst’s observation.
Copyright © 2015 RestrainingOrderAbuse.com
TALKING BACK to restraining orders 
Reblogged this on .
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I can’t find help anywhere, FL is a 50/50 parenting state no matter that our kids are not even toddlers. My little one is a nursing baby, doesn’t matter. He’s only been an involved dad with his son from the prior marriage. But because I dared to try and make us a family I am the villain. Even though my ss and I had a very good relationship. Now he’s scared of me because of what my husband said to him. It’s sad. I known him for 5 years. I talked to other lawyers but the ones that can help are closed to $8,000. I just started working four weeks ago. Have no assets. How can I come up with this money? he never paid me for the expansion of our business and now claims I bankrupted him. He can’t say nothing good about our marriage. How is that possible? normal people value a relationship, the good parts the bad ones. But he has nothing good to say about me… nor the marriage. I feel helpless and frustrated. The babies are being emotionally damaged and no one can help.
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Have you talked to a divorce attorney? Sometimes a ton of money isn’t required if assets or properties can be entailed that you should have an equal claim to.
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Yes.. several but they all want money upfront.and of course he wants control. He ends up with more than 50% of the kids because the business is a home based business. Our 20 month old has lost weight and has become sad.
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“How To Hire A Divorce Lawyer with No Money…” by Christina Rowe:
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Divorce attorneys put liens on things.
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I am so incredibly frustrated. The babies are sick I had to take them to the doctor yesterday. Then I had to send them to him today as sick as they were. My friend text me telling all the nonsense he keeps repeating about me. He’s using a book against me. I asked our counselor several times about his diagnosis. He has told me several times I am not bipolar. I guess since my husband is convinced I am I even started to believe him. I can not get my head around him. He wanted a divorce, he says he is happy without me, so why is he so angry? is it because he can not longer control me? what is it? I just don’t get it. What is it that’s fueling his anger? his hatred? He lies about things that have happened. He distorts arguments, he’s even told his son that I want to hurt him. I don’t have a violent bone in my body, yet he’s making up all of these stories. My lawyer asked for money so in retaliation he calls the state attorney and tells them not to drop the charges. For an accidental scratch when I fell down.
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These are hallmark qualities of someone with a personality disorder. Read anything by Dr. Tara Palmatier with narcissist in the title for a good intro. Also absorb this:
“High Conflict Family Law Matters and Personality Disorders”
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Did you appear in court, Izabella, to defend yourself against the restraining order allegations?
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Not for the criminal case, not yet. But for the one he filed.. yes, I did. We had witnesses and everything but he wanted to cut a deal. My lawyer suggested I take it because I am a teacher and this could prevent me from ever working again. The deal was 50/50 parenting time, even though the babies are just babies. That was the only way he would withdraw the charges. The book he claims our counselor gave him was written by our counselor whom is an expert on bipolar disorder. I asked him about it. He said my husband was asking questions about the book and he told him to buy it. It’s almost like he’s looking for the signs then assigning them to me. He’s trying to convince our close friends that I suffer from bipolar type II disorder. His texts are all over the place. He takes things from the book and literally assigns them to an argument we had in the past. I feel like I live in the twilight zone. He did this to his ex wife too. He said she was a psychopath. So he had me and everyone around him convinced. But she’s an introvert so she didn’t have friends. I am an extrovert so the people he knows, know me. Those people have witness many things, so it came down to it; they chose my friendship over his. And he’s furious that they see the things that he has done and have chosen to see him as the villain. So he gets mad and calls me a manipulator.
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I grew up with personality-disordered people. Their principle mode of “conversation” was analyzing other people and criticizing their behaviors.
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Wow.. I never been around that. Until now. I mean he has turned regular arguments that couples have to these distorted stories. He told my sister I suffered from bipolar, then he told my mom I suffer from a narcissist disorder. He has gone as far as to say that he doesn’t believe our first baby is his. I don’t understand the degree of his accusations. He keeps texting one of our friend’s and is still trying to convince her that she’s being manipulated by me. Because she doesn’t agree with him. She tells him how it takes two and so on. He wont take responsibility for anything of course. He thinks and truly believes in his own lies and stories. I feel so sad for my stepson. We had a great relationship, now he’s afraid of me because of his dad’s lies.
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Here’s Dr. Palmatier, by the way (she’s good on this stuff):
http://shrink4men.wordpress.com/2010/08/31/divorce-and-high-conflict-people-borderlines-narcissists-histrionics-sociopaths-and-other-persuasive-blamers/
If your husband’s accusations and theories sound zany and/or random, that would more likely suggest borderline personality disorder (BPD) than NPD. Narcissists aren’t mad; they’re evil. Borderlines will say any crazy shit they want. Narcissists are icy cold; borderlines are hot-tempered.
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I know his thing is to research people’s state of mind. With his other ex wife he looked and spent hours researching which mental disorder she would fit in. My husband is moody, he can be happy one moment… if something wrong happens he gets really upset pretty fast. Even regular day to day stuff would put him on edge. Business stuff was worst, if I made a mistake you would think he lost hundreds of dollars, while in reality was only a couple of bucks. Dealing with customers was a nightmare because he would take it out on me. He is cold, he reacts emotionally and then calls me the emotional mess. Every time he talks about the night of the scratch it gets worst. The one scratch becomes scratches, his verbal abuse never existed, he wasn’t drinking either. The man is 6″4, I am 5″3. He tells people I get mad easily and blows up. He looks for the symptoms online, now in the book and tells people that’s how I act. According to him I only acted like that with him. I mean never mind that I have two older boys from a prior marriage and have never seeing anything like that. I have friends that have known me for years and of course according to him they don’t know the real me. I honestly don’t know how to react to his accusations anymore. He tells people I am psycho. Even though I have not gone out of my way to cause him any harm. He has done everything to hurt me.
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This sounds more like BPD to me. Something is right or it’s all wrong. Inconveniences become potential tragedies. Anger is very close to the surface and can emerge because of nothing. Nothing. It’s their way or no way.
No one will suspect what people like this are unless they witness the cracks. This is true of both narcissists and borderlines. And both (but especially narcissists) are good at concealment.
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Check this woman’s referrals, Izabella:
http://onemomsbattle.com/resources-attorneys/
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He takes things to an extreme. Even the way he parents my stepson. He is the forever helicopter dad. The kid is 13 and he still lays in bed with him. That’s why the argument happened. You are so right… I mean he tells people he is my victim. How he lived in hell for four years. I have never been the type to research his flaws, I told him that once and he denied everything. He accused me of having no empathy, most of the people that know me think I am too naive and kind. So this allows other people to take advantage. He accused me of turning my stepson against him. Because he wanted to hang out with me. This is exhausting!
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This was the man I knew to a tee. He once stopped a city bus—halted it—to see if one of his kids was on it. His wife complained of the same sleeping arrangements, too. What’s mind-blowing is when you read this stuff and find out the people you thought there was no explaining are pretty much just types.
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This is BPD.
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“BPD Distortion Campaigns”:
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Since I was the one that was arrested the lawyers said the judge would probably believe him. This is exactly how I feel. He just throws whatever he can out there and because of the arrest, the legal system will believe him. It doesn’t matter that I don’t have a criminal record, a history of mental issues… what matters is that he accused me first. I heard the 911 call, he sounds intoxicated and relax. He accuses me of kidnapping our babies, plus according to him I was drunk. The police never administered an alcohol test. The officer said that he had to arrest someone and because he had a scratch, I was the aggressor. It didn’t matter that I happened as I fell down, it was an accident, and my kneed were bloody because when I went down I got hurt. Some lawyers said that I should had claimed he pushed me. I wasn’t going to lie, I mean I am not that kind of person.
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Here’s Massachusetts law firm Dane Shulman Associates writing about this game. Lawyers do know this stuff goes on. They know very well.
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Thanks!! I just sent an email.
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Cool. Let me know what you find out. That link to OneMomsBattle.com is worth a check, too. You might also talk with the blogger herself, who’s an author and has published pieces about divorce and NPD spouses. Here’s the homepage:
https://onemomsbattle.com/
Tina Swithin’s Huffington Post articles are in the bibliography to the right.
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I think I wrote to some attorneys. But I will check it out again. I will try to contact the author. Thank you!! You been an amazing help. I swear I thought I was going crazy.
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You’re welcome. This crap will drive kids crazy, by the way. It won’t show for a decade or two, but it does take its toll.
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I can tell you that I seen it in my stepson. I am worried about him. I am scared for my two little ones. I have to find a way to get them away from him. I see it in my 20 month old. He doesn’t sleep peacefully, he wakes up looking for me, he used to be extremely social now he is not. My 7 month old wants to nurse constantly. I need a better lawyer. I don’t know what else to do. He told a friend that he did whatever he had to do prevent me from kidnapping our babies. Even though he knows I work in a school in the same county we lived on. That’s the excuse he gave her for filing the restraining order. Which again he is mad that people look at him like the biggest a*&(le ….because people know I am a good mother.
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In his own head, too, he may genuinely want the best for the kids. A narcissist, by contrast, may just use the kids to hurt the ex.
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What’s crazy-making is that I wouldn’t know if you had a personality disorder, too. Or if I did.
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Would the person with the disorder know they had one?
or their therapist would let them know?
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It’s a clinical diagnosis based on tests (usually verbal) and/or personal testimony or the testimony of witnesses to the person’s behavior. No, someone with a disorder won’t necessarily know it and will only resent being told s/he’s weird by others. Therapists are easily snookered. My own accuser testified in court in 2013 that she had seen a psychiatrist and that the doctor diagnosed her with PTSD (because of the trauma I’d caused her by reporting her conduct). Therapists/psychiatrists fall under the spell of the people they listen to, and their patients of course only tell them what they want them to know (and even that may be false). Some people in the psych field pooh-pooh “personality disorder” as a diagnosis anymore, also. It may even have been removed from the DSM (Diagnostic and Statistical Manual). Narcissists are social adepts, anyway; they’re smooth. Borderlines are coarser, but they’re very forceful. Either may get the “diagnosis” that they’re looking for, i.e., they’re sane, and you’re an “abuser.” The only value, really, in these constructs is awareness. These people don’t act literally loony. They’re totally plausible, though some borderlines might seem “eccentric,” that kind of thing. Character oddities are easily passed off or ignored as your normal “foibles.” That’s why you hear about people who’ve been in relationships for decades and “never knew.” People spend their lives trying to “reason” with spouses, parents, and siblings who are constitutionally immune to reason.
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Well he is using the kids. That’s the only thing that he can use to hurt me. And he knows that. When we argued in the past I asked him, do you want a divorce? I know you didn’t signed up to having two kids. (he’s older than me) I can go back home. I told him I could survive without you, it would be hard, but I could. and then he would turn it around on me. How I didn’t want to try. Even now I wanted to work things out. I wanted to do the whole counseling thing. He at first didn’t know what he wanted to do. but now he’s completely gone to the other extreme.
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I spoke to our counselor yesterday. He pointed out that he is very angry. I still don’t know why. He said he’s acting out of anger. He is the one that wanted the divorce. I still don’t understand. He’s getting everything he wants. He just keeps telling our friends that he was a victim and gets mad because they don’t see it.
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Is there something you said that he perceives as a slight or a betrayal?
People with character kinks will consider this the end of the world, and it won’t occur to them how you feel.
Truth or lies don’t mean anything to these people, and your life and your feelings mean nothing. It’s all just about them.
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Not that I know of. I mean he wanted the divorce, he told my family many times. I filed because I was afraid after going to jail he wanted full control of when I could see the babies. I was so scared and the lawyer I met with pretty much said that was my only choice. He’s making all sort of allegations. About money mainly. I worked in our family business for the past three years and never got a penny for it. I expanded his business and didn’t even get a thank you. I don’t know why he’s so angry.
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There may be no “knowing” that makes sense. That’s how this stuff will drive you nuts. You can try to reason and to predict, you can appeal to everything you think you know about human behavior and everything you think you understand about or have reason to expect from your accuser, and you’ll be let down. All I know to advise is expect nothing you have reason to expect.
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Here’s a comment that came in three hours ago:
https://restrainingorderabuse.com/what-is-restraining-order-abuse/#comment-59924
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Oh yeah.. he called the police because I used one of our business credit cards. I had to tell the officer we are still married and I been using this credit card for years… He also told my mother he could get me arrested whenever he wanted to.
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How you considered getting a reciprocal (cross) restraining order of your own?
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According to the lawyer you can’t prove emotional and mental abuse. Plus the court will frown upon it.
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Yes, I’ve heard that. Feminists complain about it (that complaints of abuse bias the court against you in custody cases). What seems absurd is that everyone knows restraining orders are used coercively or tactically. Does the court frown on that? Something that seems substantive, though, is the comments you said he made to everyone (Facebook, etc.). You might see what an attorney has to say about those. They are material (concrete) evidence.
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My husband committed perjury and filed a bogus restraining order against me. He did the most despicable thing a man can do to a woman, he included our 7 month old and our 20 month old in it. He made all sorts of allegations. He took advantage of the fact that we had an argument where he verbally assaulted me calling me all sorts of names. He’s been verbally abusive before. I was an emotional wreck, I grab the sleeve of his tshirt pleading him to stop and I fell down when he moved his arm away. I guess I scratched him when I went down. He had me arrested. He claimed I assaulted him. After this he wanted to keep the control of when I could see the babies, mind you he’s never been an involved dad before. When I finally stood up to him he ran to family court and lied and got a restraining order. He blackmailed me into an agreement of a 50/50 temporary parenting plan. He committed perjury and because of this I now have to share custody with a narcissist that want to use the babies to hurt me. Not because he actually loves them but because he can still keep control of me. He tells me people that I am the psycho, the bipolar type II, by the way this is his diagnosis I been diagnosed with co dependency.
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You see how perfectly the bullying definition applies: “The goal of an adult bully is to gain power over another person, and make himself or herself the dominant adult. They try to humiliate victims, and ‘show them who is boss.’” That’s exactly how these instruments are often abused, and that’s exactly what it sounds like your husband’s goal was. I’m really sorry, Izabella.
Narcissists are masters at social manipulation. Even if their behaviors are saliently queer or cruel or infantile, people capitulate to them. Like you, I’ve tried to reason with someone like this, wanted to see good in the person, treated the person with sympathy, even—to my lasting harm. I think they do have a kernel of “something else” in them, but it’s overmastered by the dominant, “narcissistic” part. The mask—and it’s just a mask—works, though, as it would if you put eyes in a robot; your brain will keep identifying the thing as human. You’ll be moved, even though you “know” better.
That’s why dolls are so creepy. Freud wrote about this in an essay on the uncanny. We have expectations of the doll, because it looks lifelike. It messes with our heads.
Sociopaths “fool” our brains. Something you know, too, is that these people aren’t “ogres”; they look and sound like everybody else. They may even look and sound better than everybody else.
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I wish I could offer you some hope, Izabella, but these people don’t reform. Too, they surround themselves with toadies and lickspittles. Lawyers are the worst; there’s no spittoon (or toilet bowl) some of them won’t lap from if the price is right.
I waited for years for my own accuser or someone associated with her to develop a conscience. It doesn’t happen. They don’t respond to reason or “ethics,” just power. The only advice I have is don’t fall into the trap of “waiting” and thinking change will happen. You have to author the change.
Casting off the stigma of false accusations is really about putting yourself forward and confidently saying they’re bullshit. Defrauding authorities is actually a big deal; it’s criminal. Being lied about, in contrast, doesn’t make you a bad person. It’s only a big deal in your mind.
I’m looking into some avenues of redress. There may be ways for you to counteract what’s been done to you, too.
What does your husband do? I’m not a lawyer, but I’m wondering if you know (or at least know of) any of the people he’s told you’re a “psycho,” etc. Infuriatingly, any lowlife can say what s/he wants to a judge, and the court pretends it’s no-harm-no-foul. It’s a different story, though, if the lowlife badmouths you outside of court.
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He’s told our friends via facebook messages, texts, he even wrote to my sister and my mother. I can not fathom the degree of his accusations. I mean most of the friends I have now where I live were his first, and since the have seen the way he has treated me in the past they believe me and not him. So in turn he calls me the master manipulator. Even though I have not done a thing to hurt him. He’s 6″4, I am like 5″2 and he’s afraid for his life. He used the one incident that he got me arrested for. He finally dropped the bs domestic violence but he forced me to agree to a 50/50 parenting sharing plan. But because my lawyer requested child support he called the state attorney and requested for the charges not to be dropped. So the bullying continues. We are not even closed to been divorced. I am in a constant state of vigilance, I don’t know what he’s going to do next. Our babies are his pawns in his sick game. I don’t know what else to do. I spent my 401k and ira in lawyer fees. He left me completely destitute. I am afraid I won’t have the money to fight him through the court system. I
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I would gather and preserve anything you can: voicemails, letters, emails, Facebook messages, etc. You can use the PRTSC (print screen) key to copy your monitor’s screen contents while you’re looking at, say, comments left on Facebook. Then you just open Paint or a related image editor and paste the copy into it, and save/print it. You can also use the Windows “Snipping Tool” to copy selections from on-screen content and save them/print them. The friends he’s lost may also be called to testify for you.
If you were divorced, you might have grounds to sue for defamation, among other things. Isn’t there anything your lawyer can recommend that isn’t about “asking”?
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I’m just remembering, too, that this friend of my accuser who preyed on me while my dog was impaired in 2012 told me that a man was harassing her because he held her to blame for another woman’s suicide. I’m wondering, in retrospect, if this woman, the friend of my accuser, told me about this because she was proud. This “person” told me in 2013 how desperate she was to help me…and then lied in court and testified against me in another prosecution less than a year later. That was seven years after the first round of games.
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If friends of yours know about this business, also, consider asking them to comment here and elsewhere. Anonymously is fine.
To give you a glimpse behind the scenes, 3,154 people visited this site between Thursday the 5th and Thursday the 12th. That’s not “hits” or “reads”; that’s actual visits. Extrapolate that one week to one year, and that’s over 150,000 people.
More folks need to be heard from. Feminists say abused people don’t come forward unless they feel confident that they’ll be believed. About that much, at least, they’re right.
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