Hi there,

A long time ago I have posted on forum.

I have a 3.5 year old son. His father and I had a short relationship, I broke up with him, and found myself pregnant. Tried to involve him with his son. During pregnancy and the first months of my son his behaviour turned more scary and weird. He could be the sweetest person in the world, but also very manipulative, bizar and scary. He for example showed me extremely detailed plans to move to a remote farm in his motherland and told me he would take my son there against my will and tried to convince me to register our son there. He would chase a woman with a knife, believing she stalked us. He would have fantasies of setting his collegue in fire. He bragged that he would make me crazy and he could manipulate everyone. He nearly succeeded. He would hurt my son to scare me. In the end I was totally freaked out, ptsd-ed and exhausted and finally decided to quit contact. I don't know what he is. He is diagnosed with autism, but had a bad childhood and psychopathic and paranoid traits as well in my humble opinion.

Days after quitting contact he went to court and my lawyer got run over by a car (as he threatened would happen).

After many struggles and child care people that sided with him and a psychologist that first told me he is capable of truly scary things and then "changed her mind" all of a sudden...

...the biggest wonder happened. The Judge decided to ignore all child care advisors and psychologist and everyone:

He did not get to acknowledge my son. He is not legally his father.
He did not get custody.
He did not get visitation rights.
He has a new girl and leaves us alone now.

I KNOW I have to be the most happy and grateful person in the world.

But I am stuck. Memories pop up all the time. I have anger and frustration about the way child protection and psychologists lied and refused to protect my son. I have fear my son will visit his father when he's older and the whole thing will start over again. I am sad for all the things lost - i've lost a new boyfriend because I was still too hurt, I've lost most friends, my house, my job, am broke, my family has almost fallen apart over this, I have lost my trust in people, my joy in life, my sanity. Professional help just wants me to get on pills.

I KNOW I have still got the most important thing, my son is a safe and happy boy and that's all I fought for the last 3 years.

But does anyone have some advice for recovery? Did any of you here get "their old self back"? How?

Hi Marinade, first I want to acknowledge how great it is that after all this time, you finally did win your freedom for both, you and your son. Hopefully, your story will let others see that sometimes miracles do happen.

As far as you recovering yourself, that is the biggest one for sure. I suspect because it is quite common that these years have really given you a huge case of PTSD. Does any of the symptoms for this ring true with what you are currently experiencing?

I agree with your feelings to stay away from medications; I didn't know to avoid them and had a long road back afterwards.

Have you found any form of therapy that might work? I would for sure stay away from psychiatrists as they are the ones who can dish out the pills. Did therapists also try to get you to go and get medication?

Thank you for sharing your status, and hopefully we can help you get to the right place for some well needed help.

Di

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