The Garden of Roses: Stories of Abuse and Healing

  How to Journal to Document Abuse or Conflict I went through eight-plus years of intense co-parenting conflict with my ex-husband that lasted until both our children were over 18 and still resurfaced whenever there was a reason for us to communicate about our children.          It was hell. The most important piece of advice I can give any parent going through co-parenting hell is to try to make life as happy as possible for your children. Try not to burden them with your problems, but that is the advice everyone gives. It is true, but even better is to make sure you and your children have fun together, whether it is buying art supplies and a giant pad of paper and making pictures together, cooking a special meal together, walking in a park, or playing in a stream together. But if you are going to go to court before a judge and assume that you will, if your relationship with your co-parent is filled with conflict…then you have to document your case...

Documenting Child Custody Battles and Abuse (c) V. Jones   I went through a high-conflict child custody battle that included false accusations of abuse and other wrongdoing made by my ex-husband against me; I won despite the accusations. How? I obtained the best documentation I could to cope with false accusations of abuse—a therapist for my children and a court-ordered Parenting Time Coordinator for my ex-husband and me. My ex-husband resisted obtaining a coordinator and using his health insurance to pay for my children to be in therapy, so I had to pay for our children’s therapist out of pocket while I waited for our court-ordered mediation to fail so the case could be heard by a judge. My ex-husband had found the therapist, but he rarely took our children to therapy and, even more rarely, went to therapy with them and the therapist.  Guess which parent the therapist testified in support of? Me, obviously. What do you do when you can’t afford therapy? Well, yo...

Date rape is incredibly humiliating.  Date rape also destroyed my already fragile sexuality. I write this for men as well as for women, especially survivors.  My son is short and on the autism spectrum. Like many other young men of his age, with his diagnosis and short stature, dating just doesn't happen for him. He made peace with that. He lives with me, and we have a great relationship because we both like hiking and gardening. Neither of us is lonely. He also knows what rape did to my sexuality. He's in his third decade of life on this earth, so he can take that. My favorite job in wildlife and fisheries is a tie. I had an internship with the Bureau of Land Management in northwestern Nevada. Among other things, I assisted with the banding of Golden Eagles, Prairie Falcons, Red-tailed Hawks, and a variety of small passerine birds. Because I am small, I have small hands. Guess who was recruited by more senior biologists to stick their hands into holes in trees where birds wer...

 I have a Bachelor of Science degree in Zoology, so I often think of animals, whether they are mammals or arthropods, in terms of their scientific classification. I have been at war with other mothers recently, but they have all been from the phylum Arthropoda — two insects and one spider, aka arachnids. Yesterday, I was watering the strawberries I planted by my front door when I noticed what looked like a giant black-winged ant trying to pull dead bulb-flower leaves into the siding of my house. So I turned the water hose on the insect thing and pulled the leaves out of my siding. I looked it up this morning. It was a Grass Carrying Wasp that builds nests in the crevices in the bark of mature trees, but it will try to do the same thing in the siding of houses. It is not aggressive and will only sting if provoked. My washing out of the crevice in my house's siding and pulling out the dead flowering bulb leaves it had pulled into the siding was not aggressive enough fo...

 I woke up this morning with one thought on my mind: awe heals trauma.  So I googled it and found that there was a lot of research showing that awe does, indeed, help heal trauma. First, I will list some of my recent hiking experiences. My son and I hiked up Lookout Mountain east of Mt. Hook a few weeks ago. Truthfully, I almost hiked up Lookout Mountain. My son hiked the whole way, but I hiked up far enough to see the mountains and landscape for so many miles, I can only guess. 50? 100? You can see my experience on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fNnX13EAF5A&t=18s We also paddled a boat across Ollallie Lake a week later and saw 6, yes, SIX, Bald Eagles. Or was it one pair that kept following us? Either way, it was amazing Then we went on a wildflower walk on the edge of a wilderness area. The place was not only filled with wildflowers but also with butterflies and lots and lots of bee species, not just honey bees. You have to get away fro...