Freak collisions occur in life. So sometimes do collisions with freaks.
It’s difficult to impress upon people who’ve been spared from such collisions the damage their impact can exert on others’ lives.
Many of the respondents to this blog are the victims of collisions like this. Some anomalous moral zero latched onto them, duped them, exploited them, even assaulted them and then turned the table and misrepresented them to the police and the courts as a stalker, harasser, or brute to compound the injury. Maybe for kicks, maybe for “payback,” maybe to cover his or her tread marks, maybe to get fresh attention at his or her victim’s expense, or maybe for no motive a normal mind can hope to accurately interpret.
The restraining order process is free, nondiscriminatory, and can be abused over and over without consequence to the abuser.
Victims often preface the stories of their ordeals by insistently making it known that not only do they have no criminal record; they’ve never even had a run-in with authorities or any prior familiarity with the courts in their lives. More than one alleged perpetrator of domestic violence who’s responded to this blog is a vegetarian. And all of these vegetarian “batterers” have been women. People who “wouldn’t hurt a fly” are represented to the courts as monsters. And the label sticks.
Like hot tar.
The other day (less than a week before Christmas), someone was brought here wondering how s/he could sue a judge for approving a fraudulent restraining order. It’s unlikely s/he’ll follow through on a very understandable impulse, but if s/he were to go to the monetary and grinding psychic expense of pursuing this end, the likelihood is that s/he’d be run down mercilessly.
The point isn’t just that these things hurt; they don’t stop hurting. A victim of false allegations I corresponded with for some months in 2012, one of the aforementioned vegetarians accused of battery, wrote to me recently to report that she’s still smarting from the betrayal and humiliation over a year later. And this person prevailed against her accuser in court. Even “exoneration” isn’t a guaranteed salve.
And most victims of restraining order fraud aren’t so fortunate. They must wait in a state of constant anxiety for the term of the restraining order to run (a term that may be years), never knowing what new act of treachery to expect.
They’ll stew and fret. They may pursue a legal action of their own. They may employ an attorney (or more than one) to attempt to negotiate a resolution. They may shell out thousands or tens of thousands of dollars. They’ll stew and fret some more. And the probability is their attempts to recover their lives will be met with torturous silence from their accusers and further derogation from the courts. Some will be arrested. Some repeatedly.
A vicious impulse that takes mere moments to act on and satisfy may preoccupy or tear apart years of a victim’s life. Pointlessly. And there’s no “getting over it.” False allegations don’t evaporate or recede into the archives; they’re indelibly imprinted not just on their victims’ minds but on their public faces. Records are permanent, publicly accessible, and persuasive.
Victims of abuses whose toxic ripples are impossible to even quantify are moreover expected by judges and the public to maintain a stoical posture and reasonable tone in spite of them. A judge would evince palpable disgust, for example, at a victim’s expressing a feeling like this one:
WTF.
Copyright © 2013 RestrainingOrderAbuse.com
TALKING BACK to restraining orders 
Dear Todd,
Thank you so much for your posts. Please keep them coming and if there is anything I can do to help get the word out, let me know. I have at least one tangible idea I can start at a local level I’d like to run past you to help spread the word about the education your website provides.
My friends and family have been empathetic throughout this ordeal but your posts have done more to educate them about the details I have not been able to put into words. Thank you!!! I know you’ve been through the wringer. How are you doing?
Jill
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Still kicking with my good leg, Jill, thanks. Happy Christmas to you guys.
Whatever I know about this stuff is grudging. Obviously no one wants some parasite hijacking his or her existence. My whole life I’ve valued privacy and quiet. I even live remotely. The parasites, though, will find you! I’d certainly rather be thinking about other things, as I know you’d rather be.
It’s a shame there isn’t someone who knows the law inside and out advocating against these travesties vigorously. The few who’ve chimed in did it upon retirement. I was trained as a textual analyst, and analysis is about detecting patterns, noting contradictions, and being honest. Analysis is what science wants to be. Anything I know about law is from observation, cursory reading (that alternately provokes yawns and bile duct hyperactivity), and some shitty experiences.
Glad to help in any way I can. My energies wax and wane, and my Internet access is limited, so if I don’t respond immediately, don’t feel ignored. It’s me, not you!
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You can count me as someone who has had multiple restraining orders filed against me without a criminal record or even a point ever having been on my driver’s license. My only run in with a court outside of this is a cop pulled me over early on a Sunday morning without my seat belt on, less than a mile from where I had just left.
I am now suing her in circuit court civilly for defamation, intentional infliction of emotional distress, malicious prosecution, and abuse of process. Unfortunately for most, they don’t have the means to afford that. Hopefully a judgement in my favor might gain a little attention and serve as a warning to others who are interested in doing the same thing. I live in Wayne County Michigan, home of Detroit and one of the largest in the country so what happens here gets noticed.
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I’m glad you’re able to take the counter-offensive, Grant. You may at least bring the accuser to the bargaining table. I know how valuable just having a way to take action is to keeping your chin up, and I hope this works out for you.
Is an attorney representing you?
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Yes, I hired an attorney. We are still in the preliminary stages, having just swapped a complaint and answer at this point. It sounds crazy but the thing that I most desire is really just being able to tell my side in public. On the second PPO, which I fought, she didn’t even bother appearing at the appeals hearing so it was thrown out by a judge within a couple of minutes. Not that it didn’t take effect and that the mark on me doesn’t exist but I can at least say one of her attacks on me was terminated.
My favorite paragraph of her response is the one where she admits that a crime has never been committed. Huh, seems odd that my name has been sullied by a court twice then.
My degree is in economics, with a nice background in finance. Just to get a job as a stock broker, which was my top career choice, I am forced by law to disclose any political contributions I have ever made and enter my fingerprints into the federal FBI database (I’m 26 and have had to do this twice already just as a condition of employment). You can imagine what the background checks are like. Two PPOs is a death sentence for my career goals. I am now forced to alter the course of my entire life, invalidating all of the hard work I’ve put in in my life including internships and graduating with honors from an elite university. I’m in the middle of trying my hand as a writer, a novelist. That is quite the long shot, all because I have never committed a crime.
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Last year an attorney, possibly younger than you are, was desperate for help for similar reasons. She wanted to work for the FBI. She’d been seduced by an older male colleague (an attorney) who was married and wanted the affair hushed up. He completely derailed her ambitions just to indulge a libidinal urge. He petitioned for an emergency restraining order that she wasn’t able to convince a judge to quash. I haven’t heard from her since. God knows how many “walking wounded” there are out there who’ve had to discard their aspirations because of a bum rap born of a malicious impulse satisfied in a few minutes.
Obviously your attorney knows better than I do, but if you could bring this woman to the bargaining table (that is, by legal arm-twisting), the restraining orders could be vacated by a nunc pro tunc motion. This kind of motion effectively resets time (its Latin meaning is “now for then”). It requires the cooperation of the plaintiff, but this should be a real possibility. If you could have the orders expunged from your record, maybe you could resuscitate your goals.
Not that writing isn’t a worthwhile one. I can tell you, though, that the promise of monetary reward as a stock broker is a lot less dicey!
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