I was ruminating over the douche-bag (for the lack of a better term) lawyer I met with in a week of the final assault, and how he told me any civil legal action was pointless unless there was substantial funds to be had. Oooooo makes me furious just typing it! Seeking what is right an just is pointless unless thousands are to be made? Is that what our legal system has been reduced to? Absolutely.
So a friend posed a question to me that in four years NOBODY had ever asked. "What do you feel should have happened?" Wha?...I have never logically thought about that. Oh sure for quite some time I thought he should have the shit kicked out of him so he was beyond recognition like I was. I thought he should sit in a jail cell with the darkest criminals and feel the fear looming in anticipation of the attack beginning. I thought he should never be allowed entitled to a career, social life, family, or friends. I wanted him to live in the dark shame I was buried so deep in.
I soon realized none of that would have made any difference. He would never grasp the devastation his actions had on my life. We returned to a courtroom 2 years after the assault to re-new the Order for Protection. During the hearing I had to testify as to why I felt the order should remain in effect. Why? Simple...people don't change, this was not the first time and whether is be me or another soul, it will not be the last time! I had to re-live the year of abuse and his sociopathic tenancies for over a half hour. Telling accounts of the verbal attacks, manipulation, stalking, and physical attacks seemed to just breeze past him. He sat stoic next to his attorney, never once flinching or hanging his head in shame.
Now it was his turn to take the stand in defense and request the Order to be lifted. He approached the bench with a strut and a smirk on his face, as if he was reenacting a mock trial back in college again. (He went to law school,and possibly now a defense attorney himself) When the presiding judge asked why should he ever revoke the Order my attacker began to depict himself as the victim. His defense began with "your honor, she obviously wants me in jail by what she shared with the police that night." "She is out to get me". ARE YOU KIDDING ME?...I had to do everything in my power mentally and physically to restrain myself from shouting DAMN RIGHT ASSHOLE! He continued to paint a picture of him living in fear, in fear of me! He said he was afraid I would violate the restraining order just to send him to jail. He claimed to have purchased a new vehicle so as that I would not stalk him and he claimed to have transferred Universities so that I would not have come onto the campus in order to report him in violation and have him arrested.
I could not believe it! He as doing just as every advocate and psychologist warned me he would do. He was making himself look like the victim and me look like the unstable one! He took every violation he ever committed towards me: the stalking, lurking in bushes, tampering with email accounts,recording of phone calls, tampering with food, threats on my family's safety,and physical attacks; and made them all seem as though I was the one who had committed them all! It was in those moments I knew....he would NEVER feel regret for what he did.
So what did I want, what do I want to see happen as his punishment?...Accountability.
I want him to be held accountable for the financial responsibilities my insurance company and I have had to take on for my years of physical and emotional healing.
I want him to have to be accountable to his family, friends, co-workers, employers, future significant others. I want this man to have to register the same as a sex offender would, mark it for the world to see, send it out as a warning signal to every woman and child! I want to take away the cloak of deception he gets to wear in public.
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