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I haven't spoken to my ex for a year. I moved and he had no idea of my whereabouts. He is friends with the police departments, Homeland Security, NSA, etc. He has many, many connections. I thought he was gone until last night. A long time ago he gave me a cell phone and when I severed contact with him he cut the service off. I thought it was over and done with. I called a friend of mine yesterday and she asked if I called her last weekend because my old cell number showed up @ 11:30 pm on her phone. I went to a pay phone and called my old cell number. He still has my service activated. He has apparently transferred the service to a phone of his, so now he is calling whoever had left a message for me. A few weeks ago I received an e-mail from a friend of his asking how I was doing. I thought it was innocent. Wrong!!! I am going to have to go to court to change my last name, so he can't find me. Someone broke into my daughter's after-school center and her file is missing. I am hoping and praying this is just a coincidence. Please say a prayer for our safety.
You have my prayers. Have you talked to the authorities at all, no matter how connected he is, they should help you? Changing your name will only hide obvious things. Most public records are tied by your SSN. As soon as your credit report is updated it will show your new name.
If you are afraid of the authorities then you might want to talk to a private detective or someone.
Do whatever you have to do to take care of you and your kiddo.
Take care of you!
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"Good judgement comes from experience... experience comes from bad judgement" - unknown
get someone involved -- don't just keep it to yourself and classify it as "paranoia". if that is what it is, it will be evident to you somewhere down the road. A's are the most manipulative people in the world... don't let your guard down if your gut is telling you not to.
with love
cj
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time to stop going to the hardware store to buy bread.
I am sorry for what you are going through. That can be pretty scary. My 1st AH was a police officer and before that was in the army (special forces), red or green bera (spelling?). Point is, after we seperated, long after. He would break into my house. Many, many times. Leave no trace of how he got in, none. He would leave enough to let me know someone was there. Put things out of place. He tied a knot in a sandwich bag, I have never tied a knot in a sandwich bag one day in my life.
I would call out the police, and I can imagine how this looked to them now. He was making me to look crazy to the police. I would call him and tell him what was going on. He had me so brainwashed and twisted into believing it was my boss. I came home one night with my kids. My garage light was on when I pulled in the drive. Went into the house and heard a noise from inside the house. Left the kids by the door and when I rounded the corner the inside garage door was open as it was always left when he would break in. I started to reach for the door and look in the garage, but then it dawned on me.....moments ago the light was on and now it is off. Someone was in that house at that moment. I grabbed my kids and ran to the neighbors as fast as I could. We lived in the country, this wasn't a hop, skip, and a jump. It was a lot of effort and a lot of ground to cover. We made it though.
So, police come. Several of them. Probably to take me to the looney bin by this time. There were police crawling everywhere. There was this one officer who had been out there before and he wasn't saying a word. Hadn't ever in the past either. He asked me what type of background my AH had before he was an officer. (mind you, I am thinking this is my boss still). I tell him what I know, what papers I have seen. He told me he believed it was the hubby. He also then told me he was very, very well trained in covering tracks, he was trying to make me to be crazy, etc. If I thought I was scared before, this man brought it very real and right home to me. He said he noticed a couple of the officers handle the last couple of times they had been out odd. That is when he started taking notice. He felt there were others keeping him from getting in trouble as well (on the dept.)
A month or so later my babysitter came home unexpectly to pick up something and they surprised eachother. I left that same day. It didn't matter where I went, he was one step ahead of me. He knew where I would be. Even people I never knew that he knew about. Sometimes he would let me get settled enough to think he gave up and he would start up again. No matter how many times I would change my number or address, including name, he would be there in some form to remind me, he promised he would kill me.
I got married about 5 yrs later. Moved to a town, I didn't think he would know about. I even thought he had given up on me. I came home in the middle of the day with my children once again. I heard a noise at the back of the house from inside. Inside garage door was open just like old times, even in a new house. Got out of there, got into car called police, by the time I drove around the corner, I looked down the alley just in time to see HIM jumping over the fence and run. It was a glimpse, but there was no doubt it was him.
I spent the better part of 7 years having nightmares. I couldn't watch freaking Bruce Willis movies! They looked so much a like. I catch one look at ol' Bruce and there would be 2 wks worth of nightmares. I scared the crap out of the new AH a few times. He would try to get into bed in the middle of night when I would be having these nightmares and I would scare him worse then he would scare me. I would flip out on him. I would do anything I could to put distance between us. Run screaming, hysterically from him. He would follow me. I wouldn't be awake enought to realize it wasn't the ex. Sometimes I would try hitting and kicking at him, other times just run and hide in the weirdest places.
At some point in my recovery, I realized he hadn't killed me yet. And I sure was giving him a lot of power over me. I really felt like this is what he was getting his thrill out of scaring me more than he wanted to kill me.
So, the way I reacted changed completely. When he would call, write, you name it. The way I reacted was totally different. It was an attitude of "I am unimpressed and you are no longer going to get my goat". Joke is over now. The more and more he would call the less scared I was he knew it. I didn't get excited. I didn't say a whole lot....just sounded throughly unimpressed. He lost a great deal of interest. He has left me alone. Didn't happen over night.
I no longer give that fear power anymore. I changed the way I reacted to him. I sleep at night and he is not in those dreams. I watch Bruce Willis movies again, and he is not in my dreams.
He contacted me about a year ago and asked how he could go about attending AA. I gave him the info to find meeting in his area. Was it another ploy to test the waters? Was he truly admitting he had a problem and going to actually go to the meetings. I don't know and I don't care. I pray that he gets everything that I would want for myself. I learned how to do that by taking the steps.
This is just a small part to my story. Part of yours, reminded me of part of mine. Do I think you should still keep yourself safe? You bet. One thing I would change about my past would be having a program to help through that time. Now I do have that program and I have made it through. Maybe if I had it sooner I would have a few less ulcers. Those ulcers remind me of where I came from and where I am today. Those ulcers, sure don't bother me today like they did all those years ago.
I know you must be so frightened. The thing that really sticks out to me is--your child's after school care program--break in--why would a thief take a file? I wouldn't consider that a coincidence-I would say better safe than sorry!!!!!
Good luck, you are in my prayers. Keep us posted and take care of you!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Ziggy said it all -- and I agree with the others to not keep it to yourself. Find a domestic violence shelter or hotline -- they'll help you think through a plan and will help you sort through the emotions. They should be able to help you raise a red flag in the appropriate place re your daughter's file, just in case it is not a coincidence.
About 6 states have an address confidentiality program that is very helpful -- not perfect, but it is a sign to you and to the authorities that someone who works with people like your ex understands what you are going through and believes you.
I found it was a process that I had to work through to be able to not get pulled into the hurricane of chaos that he works to create around me -- and the hardest part for me remains that he does stuff to the kids in order to pull me back into the dysfunctional relationship. It's taken me a few years, but with the help of this program, I have gotten better at not giving him a lot of power over me -- not reacting to anything he does. That's hard because of his use of the kids, yet I've come to see that it is best for them in the long-run, too -- cause if he does not get the reaction he apparently craves, then he has no reinforcement for "doing things" to me or the kids.
Or, as a friend of mine who still lives in his general area says to me, "He's going elsewhere to get his food." She told me recently that I must be doing a great job, cause he's now starting to exhibit his behaviors toward another group of people he interacts with -- since he wasn't getting "the food" needed for his illness to thrive from me, he found a new food source.
The way I react has changed dramatically -- totally different. Pretty much I don't respond. I don't get excited. I don't say a whole lot, if anything. The methods that he uses makes my nonresponse very risky and problematic for me -- which is why he uses those methods. But, through this program I've learned to detach, and I've accepted that I must accept the risk that goes with "not feeding him", .e., not responding. He has lost a great deal of interest. Just like Ziggy, it didn't happen overnight -- I didn't learn this over night, and he didn't lose interest overnight.
All our circumstances are different -- take whatever is useful above and leave the rest. Believe in and Take care of you.
If you're changing your name to avoid him, go to the Social Security office and see what the procedure is to change your Social Security Number. Under special circumstances (danger from domestic violence) this is done. Stay safe --- Jill
