Emergency Protection Order

It was about a year after having my EX around constantly when I really started to question the relationship I had with my mother. I was getting tired of putting her on a pedestal while she’d beat me down and invalidate my efforts on a daily basis, so I started to take my rose-coloured glasses off. My mom had always made me think that we were the closest a mother and daughter could ever be, and at one point I can truly consider that to be true, but after becoming more independent, I started to see that we weren’t as close as I had previously thought.

As a child I was known for my big heart, especially with animals and family. I can thank these positive attributes for helping me become the confident person I am today, but that doesn’t stop the fact that at the age of 12 I stopped hearing kind words and started being verbally attacked. I didn’t feel good, and I was becoming the person I was once so afraid to be. Once I started to compare my life to the others around me, I noticed the patterns of crippling fear when going home to see my mother.

Working on my Gratitude this Thanksgiving

I met Jack and my outlook on life started shifting faster. I began to realize how toxic and unstable my home life was compared to Jack’s and friends around me. At this time, I was still brainwashed into thinking that my mom was a serial victim, but began being less empathetic and more numb each time she started with antics. I thought there was something wrong with me, my mom had called me cold and heartless over the last 5+ years so at this point, so I was genuinely convinced that I was a cold-hearted monster. I was slowly able to realize that I wasn’t lacking empathy and was rather becoming desensitized to my moms manipulation.

Although I was becoming more and more aware over the years, it was a year of dating Jack before I first caught a glimpse of my moms true colours. My mom had been going on camping trips with her life-long “best-friend’s” husband so for the first time in my life I had the freedom of being alone at the house while my mom was away for the weekend. Since I was always grounded I never really had the chance to feel independent without my mother guiding me or controlling my every move. I was getting closer to Jack and detaching myself from my mom. Jack clearly didn’t care to entertain my moms manipulation either so, without reason my mom began attacking Jack’s character. She would ground me for the smallest things just to prevent me from being able to text, talk to and see Jack. She’d pick a fight right before a date so I wouldn’t be allowed to see and on the odd time I was able to see him, she’d find any excuse take ground me and go off on him for “not taking care of me”.

It had been years of waking up terrified of what kind craziness id have to deal with. Each day, without failure, a fight was picked by my mom over anything. She had gotten to the point where she felt I was slipping away so her solution was to cause issues and set me up for failure so I’d have to rely on her. I started causing trouble at school with friends and was trying to get as much time away from home as possible, although being out was never really an option for me. These issues have my mom more confidence that I would need her by my side moving forward, but little did she know, I’d been much better off without her.

One day, just before the end of my last high school year, I got the usual meltdown from my mother. On this day, we took our issue a step further and I actually ended up pinned to the ground by my mom. As usual, her reaction to whatever I had to say was to get my phone from me and for the first time in my life, I didn’t hand it over. She did’t think twice before jumping at me, sitting on my limbs while ripping my phone from my pants pocket. She always loved to look through my phone to find something incriminating; she’d take it to my principle, blast it all over social media or even try to get the cops involved.

Invest – Pour your heart into whatever it is that fills it for you

I wasn’t as done with my lack of freedom as I was with being emotionally abused. The night my mom jumped at me was different than any other night. I remember getting random calls from family and friends; they were all concerned about my moms whereabouts. I wasn’t worried at the time because it had only been a few hours since I had last heard from her and I wasn’t too eager to find her after what had happened either. I took note that my mom hadn’t been around but honestly, it was exactly the distance I needed to realize how abusive my home life was. After a day of my mom being “missing”, I decided to call the police to file a missing persons report. The police officer asked me to wait 48 hours before filing anything as there were many reasons she could not be answering. I was starting to get worried later that evening because growing up, she’d take off for drives and would threaten or imply suicide. I didn’t want her to hurt herself and although I was certain that she was safe, I had her on the forefront of my mind the whole 48 hours later.

On day two I decided to stay the night at Jacks house because for the first time in my life my mom wasn’t actively tracking me or freaking out about me not being with her. I was woken up throughout the night with multiple phone calls from my older brother Jory. He didn’t seem to be too concerned about my moms whereabouts at all, instead he was furious that I wasn’t home and was instead with Jack. This raised red flags for me because #1 Jory didn’t care enough about what I did to call me in the middle of the night, and #2 He somehow knew I was at Jacks but he didn’t have any way to track me. Immediately, I knew that my mom was in contact with Jory and was forcing him to pepper me. I know because I had been that person for my mom hundreds of times before and because my mom had put a tracking device on my phone and my car keys.

The next morning we still hadn’t heard from my mom and it had been just about enough time for me to call the police again. I had spoken with my moms friends and my uncle who claimed they had still not heard from her so I did what any daughter would do and I filed a missing person’s report. The police had to dispatch someone out to come get a statement from me and my brother, but miraculously when the police showed up so did my Uncle. My Uncle Cris informed the officer that he knew where my mom was, he said she was safe and just waiting to see what I would do and if I would care that she’d gone missing. The officer left shaking his head in disbelief and pulled me aside to let me know that I should never have to deal with something like this, even if it’s inflicted by my own mother.

That was the straw that broke the camels back. I was ready to just distance myself before, but after she had gone missing “as a test” for me, I was mentally exhausted. I didn’t pack a thing before moving in with Jacks family, but even after leaving my mom still had my phone, car and my some “friends” as leverage against me. This is when all the lies, harassment and trust issues started. As mentioned in a previous post, this is when my mom reached out to Jacks mom to tell her that I was trying to get pregnant and ruin his life. Thankfully my mother-in-law didn’t flinch and honestly knew me better than my own mom did. I had her support through it all and I don’t think I’d have the courage to leave my mom if it weren’t for her and Jack.

I was so lost having my own mother lie like that about me… and even though I hadn’t talked to my dad in years, he was still the only person I wanted and trusted in that moment. I reached out to him, he picked up the phone as if he had been waiting for my call and drove across the city to get me. I didn’t have anything from my moms other than my phone and car but I also knew those were going to be gone very soon. My mom took things a step further after not being able to get in touch with me and she started lying to friends and family, as well as posting things on social media about my behaviour and personal life.

Things could be worse… you could be this stinky Alpaca

Things started to get invasive when my mom reached out to my friends to ask them to keep tabs on me by sending her photo/video updates throughout the day on my whereabouts. My mom even took it to the extreme of borrowing a family friends car to park in our school parking lot and spy on me during my spares or lunch breaks. I was unaware of this for a few weeks until my friends started to notice how poisonous she was and they spilled the beans on the crap she had them doing for her. My friends were pretty much drawn between being loyal to me, or loyal accomplices to my mom. I was hurt so badly by some so-called “friends” at this time.

By reaching out to my friends, their parents and our family, my mom was successful in planning an “intervention” at a hotel one day after my classes. A “friend” of mine and his mom had booked a whole room at the Carraige House Inn and convinced me that it was just dinner with his family. When I got there, I felt weird immediately. We went up an elevator, someone opened the door to a hotel room and the place was packed with people. My mom had convinced these people that I was on drugs. My grandma, uncle, some “friends” were all staring at me waiting for my mom to beg me to get sober, instead I was bombarded by false accusations. This behaviour opened a lot of peoples eyes and they realized what my moms true intentions were, but some still believed her… even after a close family friend had to put a stop to the nonsense 5 mins in and drove me home to my dad.

I remember this being a pivotal part of my PTSD. I was driving home with my dad after being dropped off from the attempted intervention when I went into a full panic attack thinking my dad was taking me somewhere against my will next. I asked him where we were going and although he was the only person I could trust at the moment, I lost all faith in him. My dad realized that I was having a panic attack and quickly reassured me that we’d be going home. Never in my life had I been worried about the intentions of someone who loved me, until my mom did that. You’d think it would end with me leaving my mom, but it didn’t.

Family isn’t always blood.

At this time, I had been away from my mom for a couple weeks but I still had possession of my phone and car. I was entirely ready to cough them up but I was occupied at the time with trying to avoid being harassed and stalked by my mom. There was a PCHAD order she had placed on me (an order from a guardian to restrain and confine a child under the influence of drugs or alcohol). Legally, because my mother was still one of my legal guardians she was able to place the PCHAD order as her last attempt to get me away from my dad and Jack. Luckily, as my other legal guardian, my dad was able to stop them from forcefully taking me away from his house, and my principle even took me out of school so I couldn’t be dragged out by cops. My dad took me to have the order terminated and thankfully the judge declared that I was in no way under the influence/control of drugs or alcohol and was instead in an unsuitable environment with my mother.

Since the efforts my mom made to force me back did not work, she felt compelled to resort to physically taking me from my friends house and detaining me with 3 men in her vehicle. During a birthday celebration at my friends house one night, my mom tracked my phone and showed up with my brother, uncle and Brandon. They came through the doors, each picked me up by a limb and carried me towards my moms car. I screamed, fought back and stuck my leg out the door so my family couldn’t shut the door, all while being restrained by my hands and feet. My mom called the police on me (silly mistake) and I was able to give my phone and keys back and got a ride home to my dad from the cops. They could tell that I was distressed and told my dad that even though my mom said I was on drugs, they didn’t catch any signs of me being intoxicated at all.

After this brutal night, I woke up with marks on my wrists and ankles from my uncle and brother forcing me into the car. All trust was gone, how could I trust my own mother, let alone friends and other family! It took me a few days but not much longer to decide that I wanted an EPO against my mom (Emergency Protection Order). I had my Grandma bring me to the courthouse one day after deciding what I needed to do in order to keep myself safe and my mind sound. I stood in front of a judge and made my best case, fortunately EPO orders can be granted immediately until reviewed later and after being reviewed, I was able to keep the order for its maximum term, a year. Once this year was up I was happy to cancel the order due to the fact that my mom has absolutely zero hold on me now.

The EPO was bittersweet, I was able to have the freedom I needed and the time away from all the drama and turmoil, but it was definitely not my moms last attempt at getting in the way of my happiness and success. At this time I developed my worst symptoms of anxiety, depression, CPTSD and BPD so my dad got me in with awell-qualified therapist. I had gone to see her only a few times when the Therapist let me know that due to intervention from my legal guardian, I was no longer going to be able to be treated by her. My mom had access to an old email of mine which was getting confirmations from my therapists office… she decided to reach out to let them know that my dad is brainwashing me and my therapist and that she did not give consent for them to see me.

Happy thanksgiving! 🤎🌻🦃🍂🌽🥧🦙🧡

After this, I felt hopeless. I had a protection order against my own mother, and still she was managing to find obstacles to throw in the way of my pursuit of a healthier and happier life. I never went back to therapy and went down the most unstable mental health spiral of my life. The experiences during a toxic relationship are terrible and can affect you for the rest of your life, but what I’ve learned is that the pain does not always end when the abuse ends. There is still a long and difficult process of grief, trust issues, relationship issues and more. From here on I went on to have very unstable relationships with Jack, my dad and a few friends. I’ve made the mistakes that I needed to learn from, but I also hurt a lot of people along the way. Hopefully soon I will have the chance to touch on how BPD got in the way happiness, relationships and self-awareness.