All In
I don’t understand. I have said your name over and over again. I can’t look at any of your photos. When I see you - them. It hurts me so much I feel like I can’t breathe. I feel horrified that you would do and say all those things about me that weren’t true. When I see a picture of just you, you look familiar, but I don’t have that surge of feelings I always had before. When I see a photo of us together, I don’t recognize you. I don’t know who you are. You are a complete stranger to me. I have no idea who that is in the photo with me.
Where there once was such a strong sense and feelings of Love and longing, I have such incredible sadness and a hollow feeling in my chest and stomach.
Now, I try to just avoid pictures.
I feel such a mix of emotions; I feel things I can’t even describe, that you would try to use what happened with my son against me in any way.
It takes my breath away.
You tried to have me question my reality. You wanted people to think I was having a psychotic episode.
Some of the absolute worst years of my life were spent coming back to reality and knowing that I was responsible for taking my son’s life. Most days I don’t feel like I can ever really be forgiven. Not deep down inside. I usually feel as though I am living in purgatory.
I’ve dedicated so many years to educating myself and now helping others with Postpartum Psychosis and Maternal Mental Health. It’s how I honor my son.
The times I think about my son are a precious gift to me that I rarely talk about with anyone. You
encouraged me to share thoughts and feelings with you. I did, little by little. You have used what I hold sacred to me, not only against me, but as a tool. You have diminished and made light of the most important thing I do with my life. You have jeopardized my entire wellbeing, for your own self-serving purposes. You are trying to tarnish and diminish how I honor Hunter.
I have had many people not like me over the last 20 years. Some people have been wonderful and some hateful, most fall somewhere in the middle. Never in my life, have I ever had anyone do anything like what you have and are trying to do. That is a level of insidiousness and conniving I can’t even comprehend.
Jane now believes you targeted me from the beginning. That when you found out about my past, you set your sights on me intentionally. I was an easy target.
I feel like such a fool. I fell for it. I really thought I meant something to you. I can see from all your downloaded and saved interactions with other girls, that you were, at any given time, interacting with someone else. I can see your “To done” list and there I was, right there, like nothing.
Anytime a red flag was raised for me in our interactions I would say to myself, oh it’s probably because he’s European. I just didn’t know any better. I thought it was because I hadn’t really been around a lot of people from other countries.
My God, I loved you. As I reread old emails I sent you, I realize how much of my heart I poured into them and it was just a waste. I really believed it mattered, I really thought it would mean something. All that mattered to you was if I ever got upset, you might be able to use it against me later for your VAWA application.
You took advantage of how naïve I was. How much I didn’t understand, how ignorant I was about other cultures and immigration. I was trying my best. How many times did we talk about and did I struggle with racial stuff and not understanding what people were even talking about? How many times did I get approached in parking lots from people looking for money? How often did I give rides to people and give them gas money believing they were actually out of gas? I get it now. I have been corrected many times and this is the perfect example of being taken advantage of.
I believed you, that we were going to have a real Christmas Tree. I don’t even remember how many years it’s been since I had a Christmas Tree. Whatever I had for Ornaments I lost in my house fire four years ago. But, it was years before that, that I’d had a Tree.
I was so happy and excited. You said we could even get a real tree so it would smell like Maine. I was looking forward to that.
But none of it was real. The entire time you were telling me these things, you were badmouthing me to everyone, telling them how abusive I was to you, systematically paving the way so they would write you an affidavit for your VAWA.
I was just a token, something to be used and thrown away so you could get what you wanted. A means to an end.
I didn’t matter. You wanted a Green Card so you could do exactly what you wanted to do. You finally found someone that was a perfect target. A past riddled with trauma and complications, it would be easy to convince people that I was the problem and that I must have gone crazy right? I mean I went “crazy” 20 years ago. I took the life of my son. All you must do to get most people on your side is tell them that and there’s a good chance they won’t like me much from the start.
I used to look at you with such adoration and love. I had so much love in my heart for you. I thought you were so wonderful. Even up until recently, I still had my heart full of so much love for you.
It wasn’t until I realized what you have been doing and for how long. After Indy when you spit on me, slapped at my face and swiped my sunglasses off my face twice. Called me more names than I can remember, tried to drop me off in downtown Indianapolis in my pajamas and YOU emailed the Whitlock Gray attorneys to say YOU were being abused. That was at the end of May.
I am so… I am not sure I even have the words for what I am feeling.
You were so completely awful to me that entire weekend. Made me beg to lie down in the back of the car so we could sleep.
The entire summer and everything that happened was a sham. So was our marriage. So was our friendship. I didn’t start falling in love with you when you took me to the hospital last year. I fell in love with whatever persona you were showing me at that time to trick me.
I can’t breathe. You’ve crushed the light that finally started to brighten since I came to Myrtle Beach to live. I don’t know who you are. When Stephanie said to me she thought maybe you also lied about your name too, I can understand why.
You have lied about so many things, not just to me but to everyone. You have taken things so far out of context and twisted them to only benefit you in whatever circumstance you are in.
I have had several people ask me if Karl is even your real name. Can you comprehend that you have lied to so many people about so many things now that they question even what you tell them your name is? You can’t keep track of the lies you tell anymore.
Occasionally I have thoughts run through my head that if I can just look at you, look you in the eyes and talk to you, ask you to please just tell the truth. If I can tell you once again, that I have all this stuff I don’t want to hand over, but you are tying my hands, and I am going to have to in order to protect myself against the things you are accusing me of. Maybe you will listen this time. But, every time I have said it to you before, you tell me I am threatening you with going to Immigration. I feel like no matter what, it’s a losing battle.
Then I remind myself I have tried repeatedly to say this to you and all you do is twist my words and try to use them against me. That every time I extend a gesture in good faith, an offer made from love, hoping you’ll grab onto it; you turn it into something ugly.
I’ve begged you to do things out of love and kindness for months and months. Instead, you have been doing things out of a place inside you that is self-serving and ugly.
I moved to Myrtle to be away from chaos. I loved living simply. The truth, no matter how ugly or terrifying is always better than a lie. I could never get that through to you.
You seem to thrive on Chaos and dysfunction. You love being the center of attention. In any form.
It’s devastating when you realize that someone you love is not the person you thought they were. That not only were they lying, they were cheating, manipulating and aren’t who they claim to be at all.
They were fooling you and everyone else all along. For their own personal gain.
You had your hearing a couple days ago about voluntary departure or being deported.
The prosecution was reading to me the letter Stephanie had written to get you kicked out of PTI on my way down to Georgia. I wondered if Mike had ever shown you the text I sent him with the screen capture.
It was just a reminder of how many things you have blamed me for that I haven’t done and have had nothing to do with.
I was so incredibly prepared to tell the Judge to please allow you to voluntarily depart. All I Needed from you was to stop lying. Maybe I am just still being naïve. Maybe you really are a sociopath. Maybe I am just a complete fool for even hoping that you believe you’ve painted yourself into a corner.
This is where I have used the expression “of two minds” before. The part of me that doesn’t want to believe you are just liar, holds out hope that you see no way out of this road you started down a long time ago now.
You started weaving this tale about abuse and attempting this VAWA, that you see no way to back out of now. You committed to it. That early on when there may have been opportunities for you to walk away from that choice, but, you dug your heels in. You decided to stay committed to the story you were telling and now, you think it’s just too late.
It's never too late to tell the truth Karl. I know, I absolutely know you do not believe that. I have seen you lie about just about everything. When I have confronted you about this, you told me you needed a backup plan.
I think you underestimate the power of not only forgiveness, but how much it could be of benefit to not just you mentally, to be remorseful, but to start being, remorseful.
Part of our justice system is built on remorse. You show none, and as a matter of fact, take no responsibility and try to blame others for your own choices.
I have wanted so much for you to just tell everyone that yes; you took this too far and you are sorry. Genuinely sorry. That you want to try and make up for the mistakes you’ve made and the people you’ve hurt.
I was so ready to stand up in that courtroom if you had told the truth and ask them to let you voluntarily depart. But, if you’re not remorseful Karl, I believe you will just do it again.
I wanted to defend you. To tell them I can clearly see now where you learned all of this from. I am sorry I never took your complaints about your mother as seriously as I should have. I can see now just how manipulative and controlling she really is. I am sure being your POA, while you are locked up while waiting to be returned to Ireland is just making her year.
Kit is under investigation for ethics violations. I filed them on your behalf and mine. But, I was very clear that I did not believe you would have ended up in a deportation center had you had a Therapist who hadn’t created so many boundary issues and ethical issues. A therapist who was qualified to treat you.
You needed someone long before we were together to help guide you, give you feedback. Not take advantage of you because you were a substitute for his son.
You will not see it this way and I wouldn’t expect you to until you get to know and have a therapeutic relationship with a therapist with appropriate boundaries.
Every time I suggested an evaluation to get you the help you needed, and the kind of therapy that would benefit you and Kit said you didn’t need that, he was jeopardizing your health. When you forwarded him my texts and emails suggesting a different therapist and he let that continue; when you tried to see a second therapist over the summer and he said he was going to close your sessions with him and “that would make Natachia happy” is such a manipulative move.
You deserved to get the help you needed. That was his job.
These are not excuses for the things that you have chosen to do or have done. We are all responsible for our choices. They’re just part of the reason you got to where you are now.
I can’t even remember how many times I begged and begged you to stop doing what you were doing.
The longer your mother has been here in America and I have seen all the different tactics and been on the receiving end of her manipulation and just plain old, entitlement and do as I please attitude, I have more and more empathy for you.
I feel like between what you learned growing up and how to deal with stressful situations maladaptively from your mother, and attempting to get therapy from Kit, who crossed so many ethical boundaries, you were bound to fail.
I wish I had seen the email communication between you and Kit sooner. I would have realized just how serious it was and how much more you needed. I would have filed the complaint a long time ago to get him away from you so you wouldn’t have ended up where you are now.
Natachia
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I feel bad because the same way that I was naïve about coming to the south, the Bible belt, and trying to understand racism (in the South) seems comparative to you struggling with what the United States was about and the laws in the federal government.
I feel like I’m stuck in an episode of Groundhogs Day sometimes. I get up every day and I have to work through my feelings of hurt and anger; resentment, being horrified and betrayed. All those things and more at times, to try to get back to that place of forgiveness and finding love still for you. It’s something I do almost every single day. I don’t remember a day right now that I don’t go through this.
I think about what can I do to help you still without completely re-engaging because I can’t put myself in that position. I can’t open myself up to being vulnerable that way again. Knowing that you were betraying me on every single level possible including trying to blame me for things that I didn’t even know about that involved your Ex. I mean, I don’t even know quite yet how to process that. But it’s when I think about all of those things that it just tears me up inside and I start crying because I think, how could you do and say those things to hurt me when I gave you the opportunity to have everything that you wanted and you just turned on me?
I don’t feel guilty for the choices that you made, or the things that you’ve chosen to lie about and tell people. You created the circumstances that landed you where you are and constructed an atmosphere that made it all but impossible for people to step in and help you in any genuine way.
I just feel guilty because I wanted to help you, and you wouldn’t let me because of the choices that you made. I feel awful because you were not able to see the road you were going down. I attempted to tell you what you weren't willing to hear. Or maybe you weren’t able. I feel horrible because I saw this months and months ago, and I kept telling you this was what was going to happen, and you wouldn’t believe me.
Natachia Barlow Ramsey; Postpartum Psychosis Survivor and Loser
~Be Loud, Be Purposeful, Be Strong, Be Courageous, Be Creative, Be Something~
This post first appeared on Postpartum Psychosis; A Story Of Survival And Maternal Mental Health, please read the originial post: here
