What most people don’t get about restraining orders is how much they have in common with Mad Libs. You know, that party game where you fill in random nouns, verbs, and modifiers to concoct a zany story? What petitioners fill in the blanks on restraining order applications with is typically more deliberate but may be no less farcical.
Consult any online exposition about restraining orders or a similar legal remedy for harassment or threat like the law against telephone (or “telephonic”) harassment, and you’ll find it’s taken on faith that someone seeking such a remedy has a legitimate need.
And it’s not just taken on faith by expository writers but by cops and judges, too, who’ve been trained to react paternally, especially to allegations of threat made by women—as, in the age of feminist ascendency, we all have to some extent by dint of cultural osmosis and conformity.
I mention the law against telephone harassment, because its ease of abuse was recently brought to my attention by a respondent to this blog. What this law is meant to do is provide relief from harassing callers like cranks, heavy breathers, or hangup pranksters—or to get people off your back who are threatening you.
How, you might ask, does someone prove what was said or exchanged during certain telephone calls? S/he doesn’t. Unless the calls were recorded, there’s no way a third party can know what transpired. It’s presumed that someone who complains is telling the truth (and what’s supposed to be presumed, of course, is that the person who stands accused is innocent).
The insurmountable unh-duh factor here is that someone with an ax to grind and no scruples about lying to cops and judges can make up any story s/he wants: “He said he was going to burn my house down!”
Now, let’s say you have to defend yourself against an allegation like this and what you really said was, “Hey, Sally. I just called to say thanks. That fondue you sent over was delicious!” And maybe you called back later to get the recipe. And maybe you really thought the fondue—or whatever it was—was revolting, and you think Sally is certifiably bats, but your sister said to be nice to her. And maybe Sally asked you over to see her collection of porcelain ballerinas, and you politely declined and inadvertently hurt her feelings, and now Sally feels spurned and hates your guts.
How do you prove you didn’t threaten to burn Sally’s house down? Or to eat her cat with some fava beans and a nice Chianti?
You can’t. The burden of proof that should be your accuser’s is yours. Justice, which is supposed to be blind, is instead blindly credulous: “Yeah, yeah, and then what happened?”
Restraining orders work the same way and are just as easily abused by wanton frauds (in fact, they too can be based on telephone calls). Police officers and judges have very literally been trained to accept the stories they’re told like baby birds awaiting a regurgitated meal.
Any number of people have written in to this blog whose lives have been highjacked by vengeful liars, attention-seekers, embittered (ex-)spouses or (ex-)lovers, psychopaths, or flat out predators. Many, targeted by the particularly and devotedly malicious, have even been jailed on false allegations. Their personal and professional lives have been scarred if not derailed or demolished.
They plan to sue. They plan to seek media attention. They plan to write a book (or, um, start a blog). Being vindicated from obscene lies validated by a complacent judge or earnest cop becomes their mission in life.
Sound mad? If it does, that’s because the same thing hasn’t happened to you.
Copyright © 2013 RestrainingOrderAbuse.com
TALKING BACK to restraining orders 
My family is being harassed by someone using a spoofing caller ID application/ program where she can make any number appear on a caller ID. I am afraid for our safety. The person using this application is my x- brother in laws wife, he has a permanent restraining order for domestic violence. His wife has obtained a restraining order against my sister under false allegations. In her statement she is making up outrageous lies that my sister is threatening to kill her. She has a criminal record and is now using a spoofing caller ID program to make it appear as if she is being harassed through the phone by my sister and family. The police came to my sisters house with allegations that the restraining order was broken and my sister had called this person. My sister was arrested earlier today. They are abusing your system to fabricate these events. Please if any one has any information, let me know what steps we can take to protect ourselves. Things are only escalating and we are afraid for our safety. This is a dangerous person who has no respect for the law.
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I think my own accuser has done the same thing. I don’t respond to numbers I don’t recognize, so I can’t be certain who’s calling. Google tells me the numbers are “spoofed,” though. There’s also a way to call a landline through Skype.
Your sister has a restraining order against the man (her ex-husband) whose wife procured an order against her, is that right? So it’s payback.
If your sister didn’t call the woman, she should show the judge her phone records. If the woman called her, explain that, and figure out which was the number she called from. See if she will admit to the judge that she called your sister.
You sister might also consider obtaining a restraining order against her accuser.
What was the act of domestic violence that she reported that started all of this?
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Amen. So an update on my case, suddenly the police have tacked on 2nd degree assault and false imprisonment (WTF?) charges onto my two peace order violations, months and months after it supposedly happened. Based solely on her lies, apparently I caused irreparable damage to her back, or wait was it her spine?
Suffice it to say that she walked just fine, ran, laughed, drove her car, went to work, went running with me, and did other more physical extracurricular activities that wouldn’t be possible if she was “irreparably damaged” for several months after these claims.
How all of this has happened under the watchful gaze of the American justice system is beyond me.
All I can say is that I am completely numb from cutting away all unnecessary feelings and/or emotions since the beginning of this ultimate betrayal. I will probably never care or show affection for another human being quite the same way since my eyes were opened up to this amount of deluded hatred, attention-seeking, and other not nice things.
Michael
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It’s not PC to say, but I think of this kind of diabolical mischief as “white-collar rape.” A lot of women are completely closed off to or scandalized by anyone, especially a man, equating a psychological assault with rape. But if you consider the direct and proximal effects of this kind of abuse, there’s more than just the shadow of a correspondence. The reason victims of childhood sexual abuses by Catholic priests were able to sue decades later wasn’t because they were raped or groped or forced to perform lewd acts; it was because they “failed to thrive.” They were enduringly traumatized not simply from being mistreated but by the shame and stigma attached and having to live with corrosive feelings that were impossible to ventilate for years on end, because their abusers’ power and credibility were absolute. In other words, they became irremediably numb, distrustful, and distant. And life passed them by.
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