Day 57

She finally fell asleep about 1 hour before we had to leave. I tried to rest but didn't dare move off the couch and risk waking her again. I decided we would skip stopping for breakfast since she was likely to remain asleep, and to give another 30 minutes of relative rest before we left. Then I had to carry her sleeping down the road to the bus stop where we caught a taxi to town. We were about 15 minutes earlier than usual so I waited in a park nearby holding her sleeping, then walked to the station when it was about 15 minutes until the pickup time at noon. Then when her father arrived and I handed her to him, she immediately freaked out and started crying and convulsing. He handed her back to me and then sat down to wait. So I waited with her still holding her while sleeping. He did not communicate to me what his intention was but he just sat and waited while scrolling or watching videos on his phone. This went on for about 3 hours. The lady showed up around this point and they greeted each other with a pda so clearly this is a romantic relationship as I expected. She went and said something to the woman officer in spanish which I couldn't make out since it was raining heavy at this point. I felt this was incredibly inappropriate. My phone had also died by this point and I had no translator to use. I don't understand why this woman who is still unnamed to me is speaking at these exchanges. But I don't know how to address that without causing a scene and possibly making it look like I'm being picky or something. But this is highly inappropriate. She's not his wife nor her mother or any type of relative, and she has only appeared recently. After she spoke to the officer, the officer told me to hand over my daughter, which I had already tried to do, and was not attempting to withhold her in any way. This is how it's being made to seem my fault, as if I can move the arms of a grown man to pick up his own child when he refuses. But since the officer said this, I tried again. I got up still holding her despite my own pain and exhaustion, walked over to them, held her there. His girlfriend said something to him about taking her and he refused. He said something like it's better if we wait. She sad something about putting her in the car. He still refused saying something about it's better if she's put down on the floor. At this point I pointed out that she is (obviously) sleeping. I'm not going to set my child on the floor while she is fast asleep. At this point he walked away for a moment so I took the opportunity to introduce myself, and give her my number. I said' 'hola. Hablas engles? (She said yes a bit so I continued in spanish anyway) Queria persentarme, soy kelly. Este es mi numero. puedes contactarme para cualquier cosa.' She took my number and said mucha gusta and ok. She didn't even tell me her name. I said something like 'No sabe tu pero creo que probablamente tu es una buena person. Creo que esta bien para mi hija, un mujere' meaning that I think it will be good for my daughter that have a woman there. She replied that 'she will be ok' and something like to enjoy 'my break/have a time for a break'. In the moment I ignored this comment spoken in ignorance. A break would be when a trusted adult or adults can take responsibility for your child for a period of time that won't cause undue stress to the child, and you know the child will be not in undue stress to go with them and with the situation. Her statements are not actually intended or for the sake of reassuring me, but are rather defensive implying that this visitation and her being with them is going to be fine for her. I am obviously the one who already deals with and witnesses the impacts of the visitations she's had. I am obviously the one who is intimately attuned to my own child. She is not in any way trauma informed or abuse informed, or yet aware of the truth of my abusive ex. To have a stranger tell me that my child will be fine is actually pretty insulting and crass in many ways, not least of all to my child. My child is the one who is affected or not and no adult can or ever should say 'she is fine'. Imagine if she went to a therapist and the therapist said, well, you'll be fine. In that moment though, I had to simply not respond to this comment. This is anything but a break for either of us. And I have not had a real break in the entirety of her life thus far. I am by far the healthiest most supportive person she has in her life.

Then I went back inside to at least sit down, and hoped the officer took note that he didn't take her yet again. Finally at 3:45 she woke up enough to stand up. She began to be a bit playful and it seemed that finally we would be able to make the exchange. Since it had been heavily raining, it had gotten colder and I had draped my sweater over her while she was sleeping but now she was just in short sleeves and shorts, and her sweater was in her bag which the father had put in his or her car. My daughter told me she was cold, and made the shiver sign, where she grabbed her arms and shook to show she is cold. Neither of them was noticing this and I told them, she is cold and she needs her sweater that is in her bag. I told her that it's in her bag and I think they put it in their car and I asked them to get it for you. He went to get the sweater and came back with it, then started to try to put it on her but was having difficulty. I was standing there as a mother to make sure her needs were met. Then he said 'you guys can go! you don't have to stand there watching me! I went back inside to get our things and as i came back out, my daughter still without the sweater on, came over directly to me with the sweater to put it on her, which I did. Then I said, 'I'm here for her. That's why I'm here.' Then I told her I'd call her later and in the morning and I'd see her here tomorrow.

I didn't know what to do, I was basically being held hostage at the police station since he wouldn't take her. He obviously didn't want any more of a scene and witnesses to see him taking her while she's screaming and fighting. So he made me sit there for hours holding her, which I'm sure he took pleasure in. He would love to inconvenience me in any way possible. It's very likely that he heard his legal suit against me where he accused me of defamation in relation to my charges of abuse and was suing me for $70,000 in 'damages' was dismissed since my lawyer had submitted to psychological reports from the psychologists I had been receiving therapy from for the affects of the abuse since I left him. He may have already been salty about this.

I know that it's just a matter of time that inevitably it's not going to work out with this lady, and in the meantime she is in our lives to some extent whether we like it or not and it's unknown what will exactly happen to us as a result. But I trust in the inevitable. And I will immediately start looking for a new therapist since we have moved and can no longer see the former one. I think it is of utmost importance as it's our way to have an official account of what we are going through, and could serve as evidence to have the agreement modified for the sake of our daughter.

When I called her during the time window for our call, he put the phone on the floor near her, where she was playing with the lady with some stickers. This is pretty much the first and only time I've seen her playing with something. I suspect that the lady likely got the stickers herself and may have even paid for them. My daughter was also wearing a toy necklace. I was glad for my daughter that they are doing something, but also wary as if the lady makes things more comfortable for my daughter, it can also make it seem like he is doing a better job than he is, can make her suffering less obvious and distinct and possibly harder to document. Usually he will handle the phone because she is only 2. This time he only left it on the floor and the lady didn't pick it up. So there were times where my daughter was not in the video since she was moving around playing with the stickers and she's never managed a phone before during a call with anyone, nor should she be expected to at 2. I waited a minute or so, and since the calls are for her, and in this moment she was occupied, I said that I hoped she had a good night, I would call her in the morning, and see her at the station tomorrow, then said bye. I have no doubt that they were likely 'pleased' that she wasn't really paying attention to me, and I suspect they will likely employ more of this in the future if she's going to be around, to engage her specifically during a call to distract her, as is a common tactic to undermine calls. While I appreciate to an extent that I'm able to see that she's alive at that moment, and to some degree see into her life there and what is happening and what her environment is like, the call is not for me ultimately but is meant for her comfort in theory, though I find at times it seems more disturbing for her to be able to see me but not reach me, and I've noticed how several times she asks to go in the car during our call, possibly to come home. I want to consider the best approach in handling these calls and whatever may happen. I know that he will do anything and everything he can to undermine and 'punish' me as part of how he is in his accepted nature. I will continue to record the calls.

I know it is of utmost importance that I find a therapist who is adequately trauma informed, since he is so covert in his manipulation, for instance like at the station where he refused to take her. Often he manipulates by simply NOT doing something, and letting others have to pick up the slack and suffer by omission of his taking responsibility and always doing whatever he can seem to get away with that causes difficulty to others while making it appear like 'he's not doing anything' and 'it's not his fault'. This is what makes his abuse often difficult to point out or document. Often instead of telling an outright lie, though he sometimes does if he can get away with ie the person doesn't know the reality or have any context, he will rather lie by omission, or by implication, by implying certain things that he knows people will assume. Like claiming that he hand makes the drums that he sells, when actually he buys the wood shells premade, buys the hardware, and just assembles it. But people would often assume by how he presented it that he made it entirely from scratch and he would not correct them. He is a very 'skilled' manipulator.

While going through this yesterday and today I have again had feelings of wanting to give up, how can I go through this possibly for years, and with the chronic pain and little to no treatment options. But I know I can't give up. I just can't give up on her. I think about what would happen if I were to walk away and if she had to live with him somehow full time. I just couldn't do that to her. I'll die before I let that happen. Even if he managed to manipulate her to hate me or be mean to me. Even with all the negative and difficulty of dealing with the affects on her and myself of all of this. I just can't give up on her as long as there's a chance. That is who I am. I don't give up if there's a chance. Just like with my own life and my chronic pain. I will never give up. Either my body will be with me in this or it will be too much and I'll die trying. But I will never give up. I don't even know how long he'll be around for, considering his long term smoking habits and whether he is still using or had to stop, and the fact that his own father died of a heart attack at a fairly young age a few years before we met in end of 2018. I think the way he lives is not very sustainable and a friend of ours who had lived with us predicted he didn't have many years to live.

I have to have faith and stick to what I know and who I am and who my daughter is, and know that 'all shall be revealed' even if in time. The reality of who he is and the affects of his behavior are here. I can't change that, only he is responsible for his behavior. I just have to keep going, keep growing ,keep supporting myself and my daughter to heal, and we will get through this. That lady is going to see eventually, he is getting older and hopefully less good at pretending. How long it takes will depend partly on how long he can keep up the act, and how aware she is, how long she stays addicted to the 'good side' and tolerates the 'bad side' how much she triggers him, etc. A lot of variables. How desperate she is for whatever she feels she needs and is getting from him. If she has her own income and a car it may take her longer since she is less affected by being trapped. She might feel validated and superior/successful for having a foreign/white male partner since she seems to be local panamanian. If she isn't stuck living with him full time, he might have all the time he wants to chat with other women online, or maybe she knows about that and accepts it to some extent. He will never be satisfied with one person though. He wants one person to be his 'partner' which is the one who does the life stuff for him, cleans, cooks, child care, but he will still have his porn and thai/foreign women addictions. He was incessantly addicted to scrolling women's profiles and chatting them for the entire four years we were together and from what I could tell in his previous relationships as well. It's a stretch to think this has changed and overcome this addiction even if it temporarily seems to improve while he's in a honeymoon phase with this woman. Most women are not ok with this kind of behavior. But the fact is that he always gets bored with a women when she inevitably 'lets him down' which is to fail to live up to an impossibly high standard of doing what he wants and only existing when he wants, while tolerating all of his addictions and never having any issue with it or bringing it up. He didn't even make an effort of pretense that long with me, but it was a different scenario where I was trapped with him and economically dependent in a foreign country. There was nowhere for me to go or another life to have nor could I get a job to be away from home for periods. So I worry that the situation with the current lady could take longer to work through the abuse cycle. For me it was four years, but mostly because i was trapped financially/economically and things seemed better when I had a job but then I had a child and lost my job, and then only got out with support from my parents.

I know now the priorities are to find a new trauma informed therapist locally, to recover from this brutal time as much as possible before my daughter returns, to continue working on developing materials to support us and that can provide us an income. When I am more financially capable it will go a long way to managing this. I could seek treatments for my chronic pain, I could get as much therapy as I need, possibly EMDR online, I could get a car to make life a bit easier day to day, I could more easily pay my lawyer for legal procedures, like settling the jointly owned property in some way.

I'm just trying to figure out what best I can do to protect us, to prevent this kind of post separation abuse. I want to have a plan for the next visit because it's possible that my daughter's insomnia will continue, and then what do I do again if she's asleep when we get to the station and he won't take her. It is so incredibly hard for me to hold her sitting there on a concrete bench for so long. The result is she gets a little more time with her mother in comfort and less time on the visit. But I don't know if it's best ultimately, as I can use the time during the visit to work on producing and developing content, but not so much if my chronic pain is flared up and all I can do is lie down until it's not totally unbearable, and now with my time and I am writing here to try to deal with what we're experiencing. I know that I am still recovering from just having moved last month, still getting settled, having food poisoning this past week and still having grey stools and difficulty eating, having a cold the previous week, and now this, sitting for hours holding my daughter in my arms after having had no sleep, and all of this, and all the year before, and the years of abuse and the nightmare it was living with him that I though I might be trapped in forever. I know I have come unbelievably far despite everything, but I'm still in so much pain and suffering and I just need to to get better because it's just accumulating. I'm hopeful that after a few months we'll be mostly settled though it really takes time to get used to a place, like a year I feel, at least, and to recover physically from these recent sicknesses and hopefully have some time without being so sick so that a night of no sleep doesn't hit me so hard. It's not even just one night, she starts having trouble maybe two or three night before a visit and there's two overnights every month, plus over new years. I hope with a therapist and documentation we could get this modified. Since we live in the same town now and he doesn't have to travel so far to return her, perhaps we could do no overnights and just some shorter visits, even if that would mean more trips to do drop offs and pick ups. It feels like even as some things get better, like our quality of life improves a bit by being in a town with better amenities, less travel time for visitations, having the legal suit against me be dismissed, it feels like there are still so many things that are still breaking me down. Having to deal with the new woman, my daughter's increasing stress and insomnia. Not only would she not sleep no matter what I tried, she was frantically playing with literally all of her toys, and getting extreme, as I already described, talking and talking, and if I tried to lay down just to rest and try to ease the massive headache I had, as soon as she saw me she would start grabbing me, pulling blankets off, getting increasingly agitated and insistent until I would just get up, and then she'd go back to frantically playing. I know her behavior is communicating things to me and I'm doing my best to understand though I'm not a trained and experienced play or child therapist, though I have books on my list to read if I ever get a chance. Even with everything I've been going through the last few weeks, I still kept going with organizing our belongings until I finally was able to set up her table for coloring and painting, because I know she loves to do this and she had asked several times, and I know it can be very important and supportive for therapy.