You Must Be Guilty of Something

[A psychiatrist describes his feelings over the loss of his children as a result of his wife's behaviour.]

Me? Guilty? Me??? Guilty???!!! You’ve got to be joking!

Actually, I’m glad you brought the subject up. No one’s had the guts before you. Now, it goes without saying that people have told me all along precisely what they really think. People have telegraphed it to me non-verbally. It’s been written all over their faces so to speak. What people think is: “GUILTY! THE SONOFABITCH IS GUILTY! I’M NOT SURE OF WHAT EXACTLY. BUT NEVER YOU MIND—HE’S GUILTY OF SOMETHING…”

Or carefully thought through sentiments to that effect.

There has not been a single exception among the people I know. Perhaps you’ve been more fortunate. Maybe I’m guilty and you’re not. Still, I have found that the only people who believe me are people solidly allied with this movement. The rest of the world does have an opinion. It just doesn’t say it.

 No profession has more thoroughly mastered the art of rambling on for hours without saying a damned thing.

Actually, I suppose I should qualify that. I’m a psychiatrist. No profession has more thoroughly mastered the art of rambling on for hours without saying a damned thing. Whereas most people are silent, my psychiatric colleagues are eager speak at length: “I’m certain, David,” they will commence, “that the way you view it, from your perspective, this must all seem terribly unfair…From your perspective, anyhow, so to speak, as you view it, you have done nothing to…Now, of course, you also have to try to…” Et Cetera. Blah blah blah.

I wish people were more direct. At least then I would know for sure. Then I could at ask: “Guilty of what?” This is one of the problems that bedevil target victims of Parental Alienation Syndrome. It’s death by innuendo.

First, the legal system finds you guilty (never mind of what). It takes your children away. It takes your rights away. It takes your dignity away. It takes your money away. It takes your health away. We all learn this sooner or later, but initially it comes as quite a shock.

Then, however, it is our neighbors and colleagues, even some of our relatives and friends, who ultimately brand us with a permanent Scarlet A (for Abuser).

Now, I need for you to look at something. Lean closer toward me for just a second, if you will. I’m short, so you may have to bend overt a tad. Look at my forehead. You can see the livid red-purple welt marks unmistakably. I’ve been branded all right. It ruined many aspects of my life if you want to know the truth. And yet really I can’t tell you precisely what I was found “guilty” of.

I’ll bet those who condemn me are often equally in the dark. All they seem to be sure of is that there’s something rotten, and it isn’t in Denmark. It’s in David. And I think that they think it’s in David simply because I’m a man with a psychotic ex-spouse who was determined to wreak havoc in my life.

there is something to be said for sticking one’s neck out

I’ve written a number of columns that are autobiographical and sometimes I wish I hadn’t. I took this stance because I believe that behind all of the angry invective and pseudo-statistics there is enormous personal suffering. I think that everyone has become benumbed by graphs and statistics. So, fools rush in. And I did. So, I’ve decided to take that approach one final time, here. I’ll give you the pertinent details frame-by-frame. It’s only my situation, but everyone who has been through this ordeal will see the similarities. And I must admit that there is something to be said for sticking one’s neck out: It is, alas, in the humdrum minutiae of what happens in court to thousands of people every day that the absurdity, and unconscionable cruelty, of what is going on around the world can be most clearly revealed.

It started with a phone call that I made to my ex-wife in late August, 2000. She had dumped me two months earlier. I phoned her when I knew she was not at home and I left a telephone message on the answering machine. The movers were coming the following day to haul off the chaotic mound of my possessions that she had shoved into a vacant bedroom. It had a sign on it, with an arrow: HIS STUFF

The movers had been unable to reach her on the day that they kept harassing me. I had tried and failed for eight hours to get through to my attorney. Then I left a polite message on the answering machine explaining that they would be arriving an hour earlier. “I figured you would want to know,” I said.

Stupid, I know. I was under a temporary restraining order at the time and I knew damned well how dangerous they can be. But my lawyer had phoned me the day before to say that my ex-wife had said she was planning to “relax” her requests at the hearing on permanent orders. As for my son, he was dropping all requests for any kind of restraints. “I never asked for them or wanted them in the first place,” my lawyer quoted him as saying. Foolishly or not, I left the message.

She dropped the tape into an envelope and stapled the envelope to the form. A warrant was immediately issued for my arrest.

That evening, my ex-wife took the tape out of the answering machine, went down to the City and County Building, and completed a form explaining how I had violated the restraining order. She dropped the tape into an envelope and stapled the envelope to the form. A warrant was immediately issued for my arrest.

I did not find this out, however, until two the following morning. Three Denver County sheriffs entered my hotel room using a pass key they’d gotten from the front desk (I was living in a hotel because my ex-wife had filed the temporary orders). They shoved me around and made sarcastic comments while I hurried to dress. Then they slapped the cuffs on. If in the future you ever see someone grimacing in pain after being hand-cuffed, you can take it from me—he is not engaging in melodrama. I was dragged across the lobby of the hotel weeping from the pain. I was shoved into the back seat of a cruiser, pummeled with fists, and taken to the Denver County Jail.

I was brought into a courtroom manacled to a chain

The following morning, I was brought into a courtroom manacled to a chain. I was filthy from sleeping on the floor of an overcrowded cell. I was still weeping, not from pain now but from despondency. I’d known that my ex-wife planned to take me to the cleaners. That much was clear. But I had never dreamed that her vengeance would lead to this. Even worse, my son sat next to her in the courtroom. His face was wooden and pale. He would not make eye-contact with me. By contrast, my ex-wife was in excellent spirits. It was quite striking. Most of the time she looked depressed and, as she aged, her face became increasingly dour.

Having me thrown in jail appeared to have been just the tonic she needed. She chatted amiable with the three “Victims Assistance” advocates who had accompanied her and several times she laughed aloud. They turned and glowered at me.

what it took to do me in was an act of treachery so horrendous that I had never dreamt it would be possible.

I wept. It just felt like more than I could bear—this degree of betrayal by someone whom I had shared my life with for twenty-three years. I’m not talking about the pain of divorce here, or the humiliation of being dumped. I’m certainly not talking about the pain of no longer being loved by her. Those feelings were there and they were painful. But what it took to do me in was an act of treachery so horrendous that I had never dreamt it would be possible.

And yet, there I was, in manacles. Pinching myself did wake me up. I stood in that court room dazed, weeping, disheveled, and streaked with grime. Previously, I had never been charged with a crime, much less arrested for one or thrown in jail.

If you have never been in jail you will find it impossible to grasp how traumatic the experience actually is. If you have been, I needn’t say more. After everything that has happened since then, I’m hesitant to single out any specific occurrence as the worst thing that has ever happened to me. Let’s just say that this event wasn’t one of the best things that has ever happened to me. The most excruciating thing, of course, is that all of this unfolded in front of my son.

The hearing lasted seventeen-and-a-half-minutes. Fortunately, my attorney was there and he had lots of helpful suggestions. Here is what he whispered in my ear, “SHUT UP! So help me, if you make a peep…”

 I would never be allowed to contact my ex-wife or my son again, for the rest of my life. If I sent him a birthday card, I would be sent to prison

So, I was silent. The judge clacked his gavel and implemented the orders. I would never be allowed to contact my ex-wife or my son again, for the rest of my life. If I sent him a birthday card, I would be sent to prison. If I called him on the phone, I would be sent to prison. If he were ever mortally ill and I went to the hospital, I would be sent to prison. If a friend of his who also knew me contacted him, that person would go to prison, charged with being an accessory to conspiracy.

I was then hustled from the court room and reattached by my spur-chain to a longer chain of prisoners out in the hall. As I exited the room, I passed within five feet of my ex-wife and son. She was being doted on and comforted by the three Victim’s Assistance advocates, one of whom was hugging her. I wanted my son to look at me just for a moment, long enough for me to say to lip synch to him, “I love you.”

He turned away. The court room door closed behind me. Upon command, the other prisoners and I shuffled toward a Sheriff’s Bus and were returned to jail.

This was three-and-a-half years ago. I never saw my son again.

Why was I in jail?

You might assume that I could tell you what I had been charged with and convicted of. I can’t actually. You may, in fact, have missed a subtlety here. I had just attended a hearing and been slapped with permanent restraining orders. Why was I in jail?

 I was there because I’d been arraigned on criminal charges. Two supposedly separate matters. Believe me—I would not have been in that jail if there had been any way to get out sooner. I was not permitted, unfortunately, to post bond. Colorado has a special law created specifically for people of my ilk. To my knowledge there is no other alleged crime in which a similar statute applies. When a man is charged with any of several hundred infractions that are all now subsumed under the general category of “Domestic Violence,” he has to be incarcerated for two days before being allowed to bail out. So, I was there, well, by coincidence. I had been arraigned on a criminal charge and not permitted to post bond. “Well,” my ex-wife would later say. “He shouldn’t have committed Domestic Violence if he didn’t want to end up where he did.” If I had been charged with homicide, I would have been released on bail hours before.

On the occasion I’ve described here, I had not been charged with any crime. This was a hearing to determine whether I posed such a serious danger to the well-being of my wife and son that I needed to be enjoined form ever seeing either one of them again. Apparently, the judge decided that I did. I had never been charged in my life with a crime. I had never remotely abused either my ex-wife or my son. I hadn’t abused them physically, mentally, emotionally, verbally, spiritually, existentially, morally, horizontally, vertically, or sideways.

The whole process was rigged from the beginning.

I recall fretting to my lawyer that I feared my pathetic condition that morning might have prejudiced the judge who was deciding if I could ever see my son again. He looked at me disdainfully and said “You’re just being paranoid.” I realize now that he was right. I could have showed up for that hearing in a Brooks Brother’s suit. The final determination would have been identical. The whole process was rigged from the beginning.

But back to the question of my guilt: In the matter of the State of Colorado versus David E. Rxxxx [censored by AH] on charges of violating a temporary restraining order, I was later found guilty. I pleaded guilty. Many men in my situation are advised to do this, as indeed I was. “Otherwise, you might have to go to jail,” my criminal defense lawyer had said (a different lawyer, a different thirty thousand dollars; same scam). “Don’t make waves.”

I had no grasp of the legal ramifications of doing this and my lawyer didn’t tell me. When one pleads “guilty” to a criminal charge, he forfeits virtually the entirety of his constitutional protections. Among many other rights that he surrenders, he gives up the right to any subsequent legal appeal. I wish he’d told me.

The offense to which I’d pleaded guilty is not a felony, nor is it a misdemeanor. It is classified under what are called (in Colorado anyway), “Municipal Code Violations.” These are offenses such as public drunkenness, shouting obscenities, and the like—not deemed serious enough even to be misdemeanors.

If one allows his dog to run loose in a Denver park off of his leash, for instance, he is charged with a Municipal Code Violation. Unfortunately, however, my “crime” and hundreds of others have been subjected to special legislation that reclassifies them as crimes of “Domestic Violence.”

Few people realize that there actually is no such crime as “Domestic Violence.” What happens is that legislators are lobbied intensively by feminists to continually broaden the umbrella category of Domestic Violence. In largely clandestine legislative sessions that are seldom reported in the media, legislators classify an ever-expanding list of minor offenses in this manner. Once this happens, the offense itself may be trivial, but its ramifications are grave.

I am permanently blackballed from working in the US in all fifty states

I have lost a Constitutional right.[1] My name is published around the world in various computers because I am on a permanent FBI black ball list. Every time I cross a border, someone can look the matter up. I am remarried to a Canadian woman and live in Canada. After two years, my application for citizenship here has not been settled. I am permanently blackballed from working in the US in all fifty states.

I’m not allowed to work in Canada until my citizenship application is settled. I have not yet even begin to consider the implications for practicing medicine up here yet. But not to worry. For an additional fifty thousand dollars, I have a barrister, as they are referred to up here, who is working night and day to ensure that justice is done.

I first learned that I had no rights of appeal from still another lawyer. But don’t worry, he said. He had certain connections, you see, and well, for a retainer of thirty thousand dollars he was pretty sure that he could get the system to budge.

I was found guilty of “disturbing the peace with a telephone.”

Ultimately, I achieved what he says is “an astonishing legal triumph.” I did take the conviction back to court. I had lost the right to have it appealed, but in some kind of jury-rigged proceeding, I received a new sentence. I was found guilty of “disturbing the peace with a telephone.” This is not a crime of Domestic Violence. Theoretically, my name should now be expunged from the FBI black ball list and I should be able to immigrate. I’ll believe it when I see it.

You must be guilty of something…

Perhaps so. Perhaps so.

The real crime that I am guilty of is piss*ing off my ex-wife.

Still, after spending hundreds of thousands of dollars on lawyers’ fees (I am completely broke) and getting virtually nothing out of it, it’s time for me to tell you the real crime. The real crime that I am guilty of is piss*ing off my ex-wife. Unfortunately, there are a lot of very pissed off ex-wives out there, people who will stop at nothing in their quest for vengeance. The legal system that panders to them is an enormous and highly profitable industry. It is also a fraud—a shell act.

There is no justice of any kind. Profiting from the ever-more destructive results of a shattered family (and finding new ways to shatter it more egregiously) is conducted by a huge multibillion dollar cartel of interlocking financial interests that rake in money by pandering to the insatiable wrath of people like my ex-wife. It’s a growth industry.

Nothing will ever happen in my life that will alter the most devastating blow of all. Because of one vindictive witch’s anger, I lost my son. Forever.[2] That the real motivator was money makes me ill.

David E. Rxxxr, MD  [Note from AH: I have censored the author's name.]

Also see, ...

Harriet Harman - L-I-E-S About Rape

... to get some idea how the statistics for domestic violence, sex-assault, rape etc across the western world are being distorted to a huge extent by feminist politicians - in this case, Harriet Harman.