To those who have been waiting for it...
ell... i've been promising long enough that I would tell the gritty details of my family and the events surrounding us - about time i tried... again (warning - LONG post)So my big brother Allan (2 yrs older). Hes great. Intelligent, intellectual, creative, interesting, hilarious and when he makes the attempt, pretty hot (even from a sister's perspective)... that's him with our sister Tess on her wedding day in the pic :)
Allan had a tramping accident when he was 15. His head was squished between his backpack and a rock. The tramp supervisors assessed him as being fine and continued with the tramp - but they were wrong... he got scarring on the brain resulting in trauma induced epilepsy and diabetes. Pretty difficult to deal with at that age - for everyone. He also developed a tendency toward depression. He became a career student, not having the confidence to do anything else, and hung out with the hardcore "Dunedin students", meaning loads of alcohol, dope, curries, poverty and as little actual study as possible. This didn't help his situation much.
Then he met Jackie. I'll explain more, but for now define her as an escaped mental patient. When he met her, she *said* she had voluntarily released herself, and that she was in there for eating disorders, depression, anything she could think of that was minor and relatively insignifcant.... more on that later.
They fell in love "warts and all" and were married in 1995. Sinead was born about 6 months before the wedding, a beautiful, sweet-hearted little girl. So now they were a family and things seemed fine for a few years. In fact they weren't... Jackie ended up being one of Allans bigger mistakes.
Turns out everything about her was lies. It seems long before we ever met her she had some extremely serious mental issues - though the legal system here means that even if we had been suspicious, there was no way we could have known.
She regained custody of her older daughter (then age 8) a couple years after they were married. It was a battle, but she won... though through her family, we later found out the reason she had lost her in the first place was because she had attempted to burn down the house... with her baby in it. When she met Allan and said she had "voluntarily checked out" of the mental hospital - nope again... she was "sectioned" (committed by the courts) and had escaped - the police were searching for her.
So after a few years of seeming married bliss, Jackie started falling apart again. She had been working as a registered nurse in geriatric nursing homes, small ones where she could easily gain seniority. She was also claiming ACC (accident compensation we have here instead of the ability to sue) illegally, and was on a benefit for being a solo parent: claiming to be separated. Somehow, even with all those incomes, they were always short of money, and often moved house on Jackie's whim. Turns out that's because all the money went on her secret alcohol and drug habit and every time they moved, it was because she hadn't even paid rent, spent that too.
Then one day, she took the kids and left. No notice, didnt say where, just gone. Allan was confused and distraught, but after a couple of months of searching he found them. Jackie had left town - another whim. She asked him to move there with them, which of course he did, and things were good again for a few months until she left again, same thing. Again, after he found them, she asked him to join them and he followed. This time she didn't run, but asked him to leave, and take Sinead with him. They were in the same town and visited reguarly but were separated.... and this time the town they lived in was near where Mum and I lived.
We drove to see them once a week, sometimes bringing them here for weekends. Eventually they moved here as well, Jackie followed Allan this time. Big difference in the "game" she played this time though... Allan had Sinead - normally her bargaining chip. This time when Jackie asked Allan to come back, Allan said no. He had had enough of hiding the mental and physical abuse she had been inflicting for years, and was finally in a position to stay away, and to keep Sinead safe. Jackie had lost power and wasn't happy about it.
That's when the trouble started.... no.... that's when she stopped hiding it, when she started coming over to his house and beating him up in front of Sinead, abusing him in the street, calling him and our mother at all hours of the night with more abuse. She drunk more obviously, trashing several of the places she lived, scaring her housemates so badly they got non-trespass orders against her. At one point I was visiting Allan on the evening after some trouble she had caused during the day. we were outside talking and drinking coffee, Sinead was asleep inside. I heard what I thought was a hedgehog snuffling under the house... until about 10 minutes later when i still heard the noise and looked - only to find Jackie under there, rotten drunk, hiding under the house listening to everything we were saying. We called the police who apprehended her just around the corner - they witnessed her turning to run from them, falling and hitting her head on a fencepost, and then blaming Allan for hitting her.... That's about when they started to see her for who she is.
Eventually Allan petitioned the court for a full and final protection order adn was granted one. This meant that if she breached the conditions set by the court (no contact of any kind) she would be arrested rather than slapped on the hand. She breached it the night after it was served on her. She was arrested and sectioned to the mental ward at the hospital (deja vu?), from where she escaped and was on the run (and a huge drinking/drug binge) for 2 weeks.
After this going on for altogether too long, on lawyers' and police advice, Mum Allan and Sinead changed their names and moved cities.We don't have witness protection programs here, too much of a do-it-yourself country... so they did-it-themselves. I couldnt leave town, but still had to go into hiding in case I was subpoenaed by the court for information. I spent a year (i'm a little more relaxed now, but not much) petrified that Jackie would come to get their contact details from me. I'm not covered by the protection order, and can't be until she actually does something to me. So far nothing, but shes always unpredictable and is still fighting... fighting for the win rather than custody, she doesn't actually want Sinead, but doesn't like to lose.
She was assessed as having antisocial/psychopathic personality disorder. Unfortunately this means shes not going to get any better, so we just keep on looking over our shoulders, hiding and hoping that she stays away. Personally i gave up on hiding. Nothing better than spending an entire summer locked indoors, paranoid about personal protection, afraid to walk around to the corner store... to make you stop caring. If she comes now, so be it. At least that way, i'll be able to get some legal protection. That said.... i completely doubt she will come through me now, she's left me out of it too long to bother, so i'm not really worried any more
There may be more deatils on these characters in the story of my life, but they can be told as needed in future posts.
So enough for that story - my apologies for the length... but you were warned ;)
next part... Dad, and why I don't think I have one any more :\
posted by Jen at 8:29 PM
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