I have been "absent" from the board for awhile. I have been here I have just been lurking.
I am now 90 days clean, and for now I still have no desire to use again.
I have been challenged over the past month. Whenever I am challenged, my energy goes inward, and I become quiet.
A little background about my situation. I am the mother of three daughters. 11, 9, and 5. I was married back in the 90's and got divorced in 2001. My oldest 2 daughters are from that marriage.
When I was first divorced, my daughters lived with me and their dad had unlimited access.
He is an alcoholic, and was fine with the arrangement as long everything was done his way. At the time I did not want to "make waves", so everything went his way.
Shortly after our divorce, I broke my ribs and consequently lost my job because I was unable to perform my duties. (I was serving in a restaurant and there were no medical benefits and my employer was more concerned with the bottom line than the welfare of his employees)
They gave me two weeks severance pay and said have a nice life.
I was down for about 3 months and unable to work, so I had to apply for social assistance.
When they opened a file for me I was required to sign over my rights regarding child support, and the government started to act on my behalf in this regard.
My ex husband had been paying, not what was federally required, but an amount I agreed to as not to piss him off. The government took him to court where he was ordered to pay triple what he was currently paying. At the time he said to me that one day, he would have the girls, and he would make me pay back every penny he ever gave me for child support.
Fast forward to now, and the girls do live with him. Also true to his word, he has somehow managed to convince the courts that I should pay child support on $6000 a year more than what I was actually making before I went to school. This translates to $700 a month.
In September, when I started school, my lawyer started negotiating with his lawyer to get an order to lower my support reflective to the money that I have right now.
My Ex filed the order with a branch of the government called Family Maintenance Enforcement. They are an entity all their own and make the most aggressive collection agency look like a newborn kitten.
Since September, I have paid $300 a month which is what I can afford, and the other $400 has been racking up interest. On October 26th this agency decided to take collection action against me. As a result, the stole all of my money from the bank. Conveniently for them it was the day after I had received my grant check for November.
When it first happened I called them, and was told that because I was behind in my payments, that they had the "right" to take all of the funds out of my account. In Canada, the truth is, if you are on social assistance (which is what my grant funding is....The government pays me to go to school) then you are protected from collection action of any sort. Realistically even if a person wasn't, creditors are legally required to leave a person with money to pay for their basic needs (shelter, transportation, and food). Also, they are all required to go to court and get an order. This action was taken against me without a court order and at the whim of someone sitting at a desk at this agency.
After arguing for two hours with these people, they finally acknowledged that they had made a mistake and that they would release the hold on my money.
The day that this happened, I had $2 in my pocket, and every other penny that I had was "tucked safely" inside the bank.
It is November 19th today, and I have yet to see the money that was stolen from me.
I call it stolen, because they did this action without an order from the court. Apparently, they send out a list of names to all of the banks in Canada. The banks do a search and if they get a hit, they just clean out the bank account and send it off to this agency.
I have not been able to pay my rent or any of my bills this month, and have been trying to be accepting about how truly powerless I am in this situation.
My friend told me this is happening because my higher power is testing me. I told her that my higher power doesn't test and that I don't think that I want to hang out with her higher power if that is how he works.
My higher power does not test, but works within the hardships as well as the good. This was a devastating month for me, and it was my higher power that gave me strength to get up every morning and go to school.
It was my higher power that kept helping me choose to live, instead of checking out when things really seemed too messy to clean up.
It was also my higher power, that helped me to feel sorry for my ex husband and all of his bitterness that he seems to direct to me and help cause destruction in my life. (This one was hard, my first gut-reaction was to hate-and hate with passion.)
Through all of this, God has been there, and I know that I would not be sitting here today writing if he wasn't.
There have been some blessings throughout this month. I had won a bursary in October, and I was presented with a check. Although I was going to use the money to pay for christmas, I was able to buy some groceries and a bus pass to get to school this month.
I live in a second stage domestic violence shelter, and I am moving out on my own in January.
There is a Christmas hamper program here, and the family that adopted our family had offered to furnish my new house. As I left my old life with nothing but the clothes on my back, this is a huge blessing.
So I am still trudging along, sometimes quickly, sometimes slowly, and sometimes I am being carried.
My name is Kathleen, and I am an addict
Thanks for letting me share.
-- Edited by kitizzy at 10:37, 2008-11-19
-- Edited by kitizzy at 11:28, 2008-11-19
-- Edited by kitizzy at 11:32, 2008-11-19
__________________
Yes, I bought a ticket on the crazy train.....Good thing it was a return ticket.
Kittzy you were one of the people in my prayers last night my hoppe was that you were well.
So so glad to hear back from you and that your getting support out there with your lifes troubles, just hang in there and keep YOUR faith in your higher power and stay close miracles with occur as they are.
kathleen i have been praying for you as well i knew you had something going on and i was worried about you we are here for each other you can talk to us if nothing else we can add ytou to are prayer list or maybe offer advice i to have had some experience with the child support stuff the a-holes took my currant wifes tax money twice and we had to fight it out to the bitter end we almost got divorced over it when everyone got their stim checks this year they took mine and half of our sons money and gave it to my x like you i had to work not to hate but we did get it back and what really pisses me off is i am not in arrears i am currant and sometimes ahead i have to pay for my daughter still she is in school till the end of the year then no pay no more but back to you i was real happy to see your post i thought about e-mailing you but when i prayed about it i got the felling that you needed to be left alone and you would get through it and come back to post how wierd is that well i am glad to see that you are back ((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((hugs)))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))
ROCKY
__________________
some of us win some of us lose with god and this program i will be a winner
Everything always goes back to "letting go" , I agree that it is important to turn to a person's family when things are tough. Alternately, I find that for myself, that if I spend too much time feeling sorry and moaning about things I have no control over, all I end up doing in the end is giving the problem more power than it deserves. Then it is easy to get stuck in the pattern of poor me, instead of getting off one's ass and looking for a solution. The power of prayer is a powerful force and the ripple effects that it causes reaches far and wide. Thank you for the prayers. Prayers are the magical arms in the spiritual realm that give us added strength when we feel we have none left.
__________________
Yes, I bought a ticket on the crazy train.....Good thing it was a return ticket.
Thanks for letting us know where your at today kath. Hang in there. I refuse to belive our higher powers are going to let us flounder. Your in my prayers.
__________________
The fundamental delusion of humanity , is to suppose that I am here and you are out there .
Hi Kathleen, Hope things go better for you. I have been somewhat in your position. A single father right at the beginning of my recovery. My son was almost 2yo. I paid about $7000 a year (plus clothing, medical bills, school supplies, food and toys etc...) not to mention my travel expenses for visitation, for 12 years on 1 child. My payments were in full and never late. I've always dreamed of going to college and maybe someday it'll happen for me. My son is 22 now and going to college himself. At 13 yo he came to live with me and my second wife. It was a gift that I am still very grateful for. I had the opportunity to have the state collect child support from my X for 5 years (I still could go back I guess) but decided it was better for all concerned to let it go (read that I never once asked her for it). Amazingly my x has zero gratitude about that. One of the things that I heard in the program early on, that helped me with acceptance was, "sometimes we get what we deserve, sometimes we get what we don't deserve, but we Always get what we get".
Thanks for sharing that Dean, It always gives me hope to see people talk about being greatful for what they have regardless of what seems to missing. That is the only way I can really be happy. Because there will always be something missing, I cannot afford to overlook that wich is there. Sometimes I actually need to be greatful for the missing stuff too.
Addict named Jay
__________________
It sure is eazier to get through the moment than it is to get through the aftermath.
it up...
