**TRIGGER WARNING: Domestic Violence**
DRAFT
2011-2018
While Mr. Roberts and I lived together, I pursued mental health services for my complex PTSD (C-PTSD). The full toxicity of our relationship still hadn’t fully reached a conscious level until after we were married in 2018.
2021
During a six-month period of our marriage, from January through June of 2021, I dedicated myself to being a full-time caregiver for my 96-year-old mother-in-law, who was staying with us at the time. Jo was an independent minded gal who did as much as she could on her own, and Mr. Roberts and I did the rest. I volunteered to be on-call 24/7, and gave Jo two battery operated doorbell ringers to use in case she needed anything. One was kept on the tray of her walker, and the other one, she slept with. We all relied on this method as a means to communicate.
On July 27, 2021, Mr. Roberts came home falling-down drunk just days before our first marriage counseling session. I had implored him for months to find us a therapist outside of the Kaiser Permanente system, and he responded by sending me screenshots of therapists in the building where his tax attorney was located. This was inadequate, as I needed him to act in good faith to help save our marriage and not to be condescending about it. He finally made an appointment for us, and days before the appointment, he came home falling-down drunk with his assistant. This was after I had just spent six months caring for Jo.
It was the peak of the COVID 19 pandemic, and I took extra precautions by wearing a mask 24/7 for the first 10 days of being a caregiver. This was primarily because Jo was a vulnerable elder who had paid her dues in life, and I felt protective of her.
After the six months were up, Jo returned home to her daughter, Betty. I had implored Mr. Roberts for two months to find us a couple's therapist to deal with our ever-increasing marital problems. By this point, I had barely spoken to him for two out of those six months and was looking for answers. Mr. Roberts’ answer was to come home falling-down drunk with Michelle.
Prior to filing for a Domestic Violence Restraining Order (DVRO) against my ex, there was a lot of trauma surrounding that time period. What follows is the narrative I wrote while participating in Cognitive Processing Therapy (CPT) at Kaiser Permanente to help me process the event. After avoiding their Behavioral Health Department for approximately three years, I sought help through Kaiser Permanente again. These details are a very complex and intricate part of the story.
Beginning of Account:
2021
DVRO
I was traumatized at the time I filed for a DVRO on August 18, 2021. Additionally, I was traumatized because I had no idea the Sheriff’s Department was going to serve Mr. Roberts the papers so soon, on the morning of August 20, and that he wouldn’t have a chance to pack anything except for his backpack and a tool bag. For some reason, I thought he’d be notified, such as being given a three-day notice to vacate. Boy, was I wrong and very ignorant of the process. I couldn’t have felt worse about him having to leave until I saw him flip his rat tail of a braid, as though he was Samson from the Bible, while being escorted out by the two deputies. That made me cringe, but the cringing didn’t last; I went back to being mortified. I had been staying at a hotel and wanted nothing more than to be in an apartment with my animals. I was heavily invested in being reunited with them and enjoying them unencumbered. That was the bottom line. The fact that he came home falling-down drunk and wouldn’t accept any personal responsibility for it was also a factor for me.
I was so discombobulated that when I saw the surveillance footage two days later of what had occurred, I ran into a pole at the gas station. I was so upset that I didn’t know what to do with myself. I wanted nothing to do with Mr. Roberts at that point because he wouldn’t talk about what happened. When I told him to clean up the vomit from the bedroom wall, he installed new locks on two of the bedroom doors, effectively locking me out, including the master bedroom. So, he had, once again, locked me out of rooms, just as he had in 2020, but this time with real locks. He then threatened me with divorce via email, and two weeks later, he texted me offering me cash if I'd come to the house.
The psychological warfare Mr. Roberts waged against me was masterful on his part. He was playing chess, and I only knew how to play checkers. I don’t think he was expecting such a worthy opponent, though. My attorneys, however, let me down repeatedly in 2022 and 2023. If it hadn’t been for my first attorney, Lisa Mumford, I wouldn’t have gotten anything—not even spousal support. She was so good, in fact, that Mr. Roberts agreed to pay her a $5,000 retainer fee for me because the one I paid was quickly running out.
2020
While I was locked out of two bedrooms the first time, the wind blew some posters off the wall in the stairwell, and I had a perfect alibi for going in Mr. Roberts' home office and getting the ladder. Later on, I watched him looking at the surveillance footage of me. I outsmarted him repeatedly. I even found the credit cards in his office that he shredded with my name on them, and he was hiding my new driver’s license.
He later lied about all of this to the judge during the hearing, and of course, the judge believed the pathological liar over the person telling the truth. It turned out that the 5150 was not the most traumatic event anymore. It was the DVRO hearing the following year and its aftermath when Mr. Roberts claimed that I was conflating him with my family. Living with him, it was no wonder I had PTSD on top of PTSD.
An example of my family trauma is that when I was approximately seven years old, my eldest brother Peter came home from high school one day while on a bad trip from drugs. He was 11 years older than me, and I admired him and thought he had superpower strength. He used to take my arm so that I'd start hitting myself, and he'd ask, “Why are you hitting yourself, huh?” making me giggle. Then he'd pick me up and dangle me by the ankles to make sure the blood would rush to my head, to be smart so that I'd get good grades. Then he'd make fun of my hairy legs, saying that mine were hairier than his. He thought he was so clever, and he was. But my legs were not hairier than his.
During Peter’s bad drug trip, he was confused and thought my mother was my father. He came home to kill my father because he had also abused my
developmentally disabled brother, Jimmy. "You even did it to Jimmy," he said. Jimmy was safe across the street being watched by a neighbor that afternoon. Peter shouted at my mother that he was going to stab her! I screamed, “NO!” as I was hunched over on the floor, holding our Chihuahua, when he kicked me. That’s when I took my cue from my mother, who continued to remain calm. I suddenly understood that it was OK to lie and say Jimmy was still at school, as my mother calmly told him.
Once Peter realized that my mother was not my father, he said, “Wait a minute. You’re not my Dad, you’re my Mom!” He then punched her, giving her a black eye, and kicked her in the stomach. Peter then made a guttural sound and started attacking the doorframe of the back door, damaging it. He went out the front door and began damaging the hanging fuchsias that my father was nurturing. My mother went to the phone and frantically looked in the church roster for someone to call. I shouted at her twice to call the police! She was badly shaken as she calmly called the police and told them what happened.
We then went to the back bedroom when my brother Lucas appeared. He took me outside into the yard and put me over the fence. I went into the neighbor's house and waited for the police to arrive. It took four officers to get Peter on the ground and to handcuff him.
My mother subsequently had a nervous breakdown, and suddenly, we were left with my father to care for us. I’d never been separated from my mother for that long before. My father took my sister Katie shoe shopping and bought her shoes with heels because she was to be our mother’s replacement while she was away. Prior to this, Katie wasn’t allowed to wear heels. She was approximately 11 years old at the time. Suddenly, my father wanted to make sure she felt like a grown-up.
My father and I visited Peter at a facility in San Francisco, Teen Challenge. Rumor had it that Peter had been raped while incarcerated with the adult population. I was grateful he was no longer in jail. He had a cast going all the way down his leg, though, and wouldn’t talk about what happened.
My family later claimed that I wasn’t in the house when the incident happened, so I allegedly didn’t witness any of it in the kitchen that day. But if I wasn’t there, how did I get kicked, and why did our Chihuahua yelp? This was the approach of my family established years earlier: Deny, deny, deny.
I may sound bitter, but that’s due to the hurt I feel caused by the years of denial and being labeled a liar, including to my face at a family reunion. I calmly and quietly walked away from my sister-in-law Rebecca as she came right up to me, looked me in the eyes, and emphatically said that I was a liar. If only I had lied. Think about how much better my upbringing would have been.
Getting back to the DVRO, it all led to my becoming homeless and to my suicide attempt. I couldn’t handle my Mr. Roberts' lies anymore, on top of the prospect of becoming homeless. I contacted a couple of people to see if they could take my animals, but that didn’t pan out. Two days later, I had my cat Lumi with me at the hotel I was staying at. I had attempted suicide on October 24, 2021, and my birthday was on the 26th. That’s when I got brave and arranged to pick up Lumi from Mr. Roberts. To my surprise, he agreed. I was afraid that he was going to hold her hostage, too, in addition to my other animals, particularly the three rabbits.
It was the hotel guest on the elevator I was on who spurred me to action with Lumi. The kindly older woman lived there with her dog, which she had recently adopted. I could tell by looking in the dog’s eyes that he felt loved, which brought tears to my eyes, and her face lit up as she spoke about the adoption. I had to get Lumi, my baby. She never liked her daddy and was strictly a mama’s girl. The rest of the animals were OK with both of us, except for my rabbit, Jelly Bean, whom I had spent a concerted amount of time bonding with. She was my little girl. Sadly, it would be a year before I was reunited with my bunnies, Houdini and Jelly Bean. Stormy had died while in Mr. Roberts' care, and I never found out why. Rabbits are very delicate, and I was traumatized for a year, not knowing if they were dead or alive. He kept the bunnies from me despite a court order. It wasn’t until my attorney, Gail, emailed my ex's attorney, Mr. Conrad, with talk of filing contempt of court charges. Mr. Roberts finally relented and made arrangements with my attorney to come pick them up. I didn’t know how much stuff they’d have at that point, so I rented a U-Haul van to transport them and their belongings. My friend Alex drove the van. By that time, I had a roof over my head again, albeit a temporary one, but it sufficed. It was a hotel converted into a shelter. We each had our own room and bathroom, but no privacy from staff who could walk in on us at any time.
I was shocked at the rabbits’ poor condition. They needed brushing; their nails were super long, making it hard for them to get around. Their belongings were in poor condition, and they were terrified. The good news was that they were in my care again, and they ended up thriving and being very happy. It took a couple of weeks, but they adjusted beautifully to being in my care. It was a joy and a blessing to be reunited with them.
END OF ACCOUNT”
