One of the things that DV victims who escape learn is that you need to ask for help/ warn people in authority that you have this crazy person trying to do damage to you and your loved ones. You have to tell bosses so that exes aren’t allowed to stalk you at work (which can be problematic because they can fire you rather than run the risk of having a crazy person shoot up their job site) and you have to talk to your kid’s school.

Getting the kid a safe preschool, back when all this shit started, was a frightening. I ended up picking a school with a locked door/ buzzer/ video camera system for letting parents in. It’s a little freaky, cause as a parent you want to be able to drop in on a school anytime to make sure your kid is safe, and the getting through that much security eliminates surprise visits. But eliminating surprise visits from violent exes is a good thing.

This time around, I am not finding the school to be nearly as helpful as they should be. His counselor, who claimed to have a “well developed bulls hit meter” when we first talked about her supervising the Kid’s meeting with his dad, has apparently had NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO domestic violence training. When I sent an email to ask about safety at the Kid’s graduation, she told me that Kid’s dad “seems like a nice family guy who would never hurt anyone”. I then had to explain that they ALWAYS look like “nice family guys”. That’s their shtick. No one would sleep with them if they started out as violent asshats. Kid’s dad is absolutely the kind of guy that friends and neighbors will describe as “such a nice guy, I could never imagine him doing that” to tv reporters when they find our dead bodies in his basement.

That’s generally the kind of treatment DV victims get from people who are untrained. People who have been trained, like the judge who gave me full custody, and the social worker who did the family studies that recommended full custody and supervised visits, didn’t fall for his bullshit. But Kid’s counselor has no idea how to deal with shit other than try to discount my fear. There is a concrete history of physical abuse. Kid’s dad was arrested and made a deal with the prosecutor for probation for stalking me. He has a criminal record for this shit. But still I am dealing with a dimwit who thinks nice family guys don’t do this stuff.

Except that’s exactly who does this stuff.