Justice for R and F

This one is about Mike.

He’s my adopted “brother” and was instrumental in hurting my children and ultimately leading me to this, where I am and where I exist now, waiting for death. 

When I was a teenager I met Mike, although I am sure that he knew me before that. (I blocked out most of my traumatic childhood.) He was my adopted mom’s son and he was someone who lived unconventionally.  He was never really around and he was strange. My mom would tell me he was off working on a fish trawler or for the circus. Who knows. The first time I remember I was in high school. He’d said some really skeevy thing to me about how I was developing, and then I kind of stayed away after that. 

When I was an adult and trying to care for my adopted mother he was around intermittently. I always kept him at an arms distance. My mother had always said there was something not right about him and although most of what she said was horrible in general, I felt like that was probably accurate given my history with him. My mother got worse, went to live with him, tried to escape, did a whole crazy thing like crazy mothers do, ended up back in my area again, and I tried once more to help her. It was a rough time. My mother was not a good person. Eventually I left her keys on the counter and walked away permanently. shed send me voicemailsnand texts but I rarely realded. I didn’t even tell her when I was pregnant with Rowan. She died a day or two before I gave birth. Sometimes I feel bad for not telling her but she wasn’t the type to have been ecstatic or happy. She would’ve told me I was stupid and that now that I had someone else to care for id abandon her. Like she’d done to me multiple times. My husband and I went to clean her apartment out when she passed and I over exerted myself and broke my water. Thus, baby Rowan born. 

I had intermittent contact with my brother through this. He came and visited me at the hospital and begged me to let him be a part of our lives. I agreed tentatively and cautiously. I didn’t have any other family, anywhere, and I really longed to have some sort of connection in that way so I agreed.

I still kept him at arms length, and he rarely ever visited to just see me. I counted around 7 visits in five years, as far as pictures and photo proof showed when I looked into it. Maybe there were a couple more but not many. It was always at arms length especially around my kid. He’d tell me weird stories about beating people up in front of a kid he’d taken in, tell me he was dangerous to mess with, then made some pretty horrific confessions to me about when he was younger that steeled my resolve to keep him at a distance. He was never allowed around Ro by himself. Never in a car without one of us, never for very long at all in general. There were rules. Even when he’d take Rowan to the park one of us would follow behind and keep an eye out. 

Looking back it was definitely a mistake to have him around after some of the things he told me. He was a predator. I don’t use that word lightly. I just had the blindness of wanting Rowan to have a cool uncle and desperately wanting some semblance of family that I think I didn’t fully understand it. After all, he would only come around once every six months for about a day. Maybe two. And every time it felt like he was hiding from someone (he was a con artist) or needed somewhere to go that wasn’t his tiny apartment. Half the time he didn’t even stay around to socialize or catch up. He’d disappear for coffee for hours and not come back till evening. Who knows what was going on. 

When this battle for my children started I had no one to turn to and so I called him. The very thought of the situation almost excited him. I cried and told him that my daughter had been injured and we had no idea how. I have the recording still. I was frantic and terrified and my world was falling apart and he was excited. 

Shortly after he violated the privacy of all four of us, and posted my face and the faces and info of my children on twitter (x). I called him and told him it was not okay to violate their privacy like that, and without even consulting me about it. 

Privacy is all we have left in this world and my kids weren’t gonna be stripped of it until it was their constant, informed choice. He was mad but took it down. 

Very silent during my struggle to fight for my kids. Didn’t wanna get involved. I had to assume it was because of the way he made money, and didn’t want the attention for that. (I’ve found a few people so far he’s scammed/conned. They’re pretty intense. He has enemies.) 

When it came time that the friend who had my kids could no longer take care of them, one of the people on the case contacted him. I was in shock and horror. This predator who was never ever allowed near my kids unsupervised was getting my kids and trying to be their foster. 

He posted a video which I have saved wherein he says a bunch of horrible shit and gives away details about my private case and then again, violated the privacy of my children by stating names and posting photos. He hadn’t even gotten them yet. Days before he had even gotten them he was already violating their privacy. And mine. 

I begged in court for them to go somewhere else. He’s a sixty year old con man who lives in a tiny apartment. He has strangers around all the time, no accountability, no experience with babies and kids, no patience and no real understanding of how the world actually works when you have children. I cried and begged and I told them what he told me, his confessions to being a predator and he did not deny them. In front of court, he did not deny them. And they gave my children to him anyways. This corrupt judge did not care. Her opinion was already set and she just didn’t care. (She did make him take the video down. Which he did. And then put back up, and I had to ask for them to take it down again. Everything he does is for attention.) 

He took my kids because he saw an opportunity. He can look like a saint online and post videos and gain more attention, more marks for his cons, more money. Like everyone else involved in this case, my kids were a tool or a bargaining chip. My babies. 

He slowly and methodically cut every single one of my children’s friends and family members out of their life and spent the first months isolating them as much as possible. My children’s grandparents couldn’t even get in touch. Friends and family, everyone eventually got ghosted and he stopped responding to them. Even the friend of mine who had them who he had promised to stay in touch with got ghosted. The whole point of a kinship placement is so that the children have their support network and their lives and he was determined to strip it away. He did just that. 

I don’t know how my children are doing. No one does. No pictures or videos since February and those were given to me by a friend. I know that he asks for money on their behalf and makes Amazon lists to get strangers to buy stuff for him using my kids as a sympathy card, I know that the apartment they are in is tiny and messy and they are not getting their medicine or care that they were supposed to be getting, I know that Ro is not getting the intellectual enrichment he needs, being a top percentile kid in terms of grades and intelligence, that we worked so hard to nurture. I know he’s not getting his medicine for his severe, almost life threatening stomach issues (that have landed him in the hospital already.).

And no one cares. 

That’s the part that sticks. No one will respond to me. No one will reach out to me, no one will return my calls. My number is actually blocked for some of these people. State workers and I’m blocked.

The only thing I care about and want to know is that they’re alive. I already know they are not safe. They are so very not safe. And they don’t know any better because the only thing Mike ever was to Ro was “the cool uncle that came over twice a year”. 

It’s horrifying and saddening. I am slowly becoming numb to it as I prepare for the final steps of getting my life in order so I can wait for death without complicating anyone else’s life, but it still hurts. If I stop and think about it for more than a few seconds I spiral into grief again.

When Ro was born I looked into his eyes and promised him he’d never have the life I did. I grew up around abuse and surrounded by suffering and trauma and in the foster system and I promised him I’d never let it happen to him, and it happened anyways despite the fighting and the blood and tears and sweat I’ve put in to get them back, despite the spoiled, loving, fantastic life we gave him. ( I come with receipts on that one. Five years of photos and videos of a perfect little kid who was always happy, loved, doted on.) 

He’s gonna grow up thinking we were monsters because that’s what they spent two years brainwashing into him. A four year old boy, his happy life and past erased. By people who did it intentionally, cruelly, full of hate and jealousy. 

I’m gonna keep posting as much as I can. I was intimidated and threatened into silence for a long time, throughout this entire ordeal and I should have screamed and yelled into whatever social sphere I had. They made a point to terrify and intimidate me so the public wouldn’t be aware of the severe corruption and abuse that was happening to my family. And my brother contributed, helped, willingly. 

The only thing he ever saw when he walked into this house was a warm, inviting, loving home. 

Every single time. No exceptions.

And I don’t know what made him decide to help dismantle that. I don’t think he has a grasp on reality like normal  people. No grasp on actual empathy and loyalty. 

I don’t know what his reasons were for telling me directly that I was a horrible mother and person even though every single moment of interaction with us proved otherwise without a single doubt. I have to assume someone who can ignore reality that convincingly has severe issues. Deep seeded ones. 

My daughter’s birthday was in July. A day after mine. I couldn’t even send a present. I don’t know if my kids are okay. I know they’re not safe. And no one cares but me and my husband. No one cares. 

Mike is a brilliant people person and if you don’t know him, he can say things and make himself sound amazing and impressive but underneath that is a con man who spent most of his life pretending to be normal. He’s a sociopath who does not truly care about or love people except himself. That is the only explanation for hurting his family so bad, for hurting my family so badly. (The rest of his family had shunned him a long time ago. His siblings won’t even talk to him. I should’ve followed their lead.) 

I just sit here and I cry and I grieve. Knowing that my kids could be anywhere and left with any stranger ( he already tried to leave my daughter with random people from a church he didn’t even attend.). What kinds of people are shaping my babies little minds? What kinds of morals and worldview are they getting? Mike’s? 

The very thought is so horrifying to me that it takes me effort to even type this. 

I’m just … Broken. 

At least when they were with my friend they were safe. Safe was my bare minimum. 

My husband has given up. He’s numb and has pretty much already died inside. He’s going through the motions of life and helping me get our affairs together and I’m on the way to that too. I cannot afford to feel this grief anymore. 

I don’t even know how I’m still alive. And knowing my babies aren’t safe and that no one cares really makes it that much worse. 

I’m getting it out because if I don’t I might explode. Someone, even a stranger on the Internet, should know. 

Everyone should know. But I am one person and no one cares about me, this, us. 

I’m just so tired of this. The world is so much more bleak and horrible when everyone you trusted betrayed you, even someone you thought was family. 

Nothing is a positive outlook anymore. 

Food doesnt taste good, laughter feels hollow. I am hollow.