Modern Events in Historic Buildings

Youth Court: a historic place...

The Youth Court is situated in a new wing attached to the historic Municipal Courts building in the centre of the city. 

Just like going into a museum in a big city, there's the xray and bag search, efficiently done but the only person in my lot to have the buzzers go off was me.  The bracelet I rarely take off, that has Teen1's name and birth date engraved on it always sets off the alarms.  If I have to visit Court more frequently, perhaps I should get the engraving tattooed on my wrist instead.

It is a beautiful building, the block work created from locally and regionally mined bluestone and whitestone and designed in the grand style of the late Victorian period.  A statue of Justice is elevated for all to see (if they aren't looking downcast at their shoes during their visit).  Inside it is not unpleasant; the paintwork light and clean, the carpet tough and deeply coloured.  Toys litter one waiting room and there's plenty of places to sit.

There's a modern link through to the Youth Court wing from the older building.  It is rather more inelegant, a little tight for space, and the Courtroom itself not too imposing but certainly one knows we are there to do business.

There's a flurry of activity just before 9am, when the presiding Judge will step up to the bench.  Youth accompanied by parents or care givers shuffle in to the waiting room, their demeanour so different to what it might have been only some hours or days earlier when in the wee small hours of the morning they were out on the town, puffed up with gangsta pride and a chest led swagger.  Only when one or the other recognises someone, do the heads come up, the tough kid grin passes over their face, and then it is back to pretending to concentrate on what the Social Worker is saying.

The legal aid lawyers bustle in just after 9am, search out their new or recidivist clients, quickly read out the charges and give a summary of what might happen in the courtroom.  One lawyer prepares the youth and family for the likelihood of continuing detention in Social Welfare care: "do you understand what this means?" the lawyer asks, and the kid nods glum faced.  Another lawyer is perkier and tells her client that they are likely to be released with a few bail conditions that will continue for a month or so.  A Social Worker talks grim faced to another family.  One youth looks still off his face from the night before.  Another lawyer I recognise from a meeting some months back when my son was supposed to be witness to the Defence relating to a charge of wilful damage against one of his mates.  We nod to each other.

I catch the eye of the Police Youth Officer and he comes over to talk to me.  I hold out my hand to shake his.  He shows me the bail conditions he wants the judge to impose, and without anything else to measure them by, I nod and agree.  As I stand looking out a window waiting to be called into Court, I see another Police Youth Officer glancing at me.  He's a nice man, and been very helpful in the past, but I pretend for a while to be interested in the world going on outside these windows.  I'm not ready to engage.   Eventually, I look over and he approaches.  "I've been better" I respond to his question.

Teen1's lawyer is a pleasant, older man; I imagine him with grown kids and maybe a grandchild or two, a family man.  He talks with T1 and says... well, he says everything that T1 has heard before.  He delivers his message with a firmness and practicality I like and I am pleased to have had this person recommended to be on T1's end of the bench.  We aren't there to get to know each other though.  

The hearing is brief, some ten or so minutes.  As recommended by the lawyer, the judge  hands over a copy of Tom Scott and Trevor Grice's highly acclaimed book on drug education, The Great Brain Robbery, one that many counsellors recommend to their clients, and one that has been kicking around my house for some years (along with books on sex and sexuality, body changes etc...I'm not sure that any of them have been read).   The Social Worker later recommends T1 do an assignment on the book, but T1 puts the book on the floor of the car as we drive away, and I doubt it will be read by choice.  I've been re-reading bits of it today, when really I'd rather be reading any of the books on my night stand like  "How to be a Woman" by Caitlin Moran, which would be a lot funnier and a lot more relevant to me than The Great Brain Robbery.  Anyway, it might be useful to get on top of the homework.

Released into my care, under a curfew of 9pm to 7am, no alcohol or drug use, ordered to attend any and all Family Group Conferences, warned that police visits are made randomly as are breath tests, and should bail conditions not be met, there are consequences like lock up and Social Welfare custody.

It is 8.58pm on day two of curfew and he has 2 minutes to get in the door....

What are the chances?

Passive and Verbal Violence

Verbal/passive abuse is a bruise on the partner's spirit...

I have tried to avoid much mention of the role of the Ex, keeping instead to events as I experience them, and as they affect me and the boys.  However, a reader's comment on my blog last night asking about the role T1's father is playing, and a nasty and upsetting altercation again this morning when the brother-out-law came to my house to collect T1 for work, has opened some old wounds.

I've just pulled out from my bookshelf, "The Verbally Abusive Relationship - how to recognize it and how to respond" by Patricia Evans.

This is a book that changed my life some years ago.  When I read it, I scribbled in the margins annotations, personal anecdotes, ticks, crosses, and highlighted paragraphs. This book was my wake up call; it shattered the illusion that all was well, and made me confront what I knew already: I had to get away.  I'd spent years wondering what I was doing wrong, why he was so angry with me: the list of attempts to win his favour, keep him happy etc etc is sickening.  It was time to get a good counsellor, and get out while I still had my sanity.

I thought I would leave my relationship after finding out about the other women in his life, but really, it was the identification and the admission to myself of the extent of the debilitating passive abuse that had been going on for years, and witnessing the same being perpetrated on the children to the extent that I could no longer shield them from it, that helped me leave.  (That, and gross financial mismanagement, exacerbated by the GFC that meant losing the house).  This book helped externalise the abuse.  It was sad reading, but ultimately life enhancing.

The book lists ten characteristics of a passive aggressive relationship and says if two of those characteristics apply to you, then you are in an abusive relationship.  I ticked 9.  When I ticked 14 of the 19 characteristics of the verbal abuser as being those displayed by my partner normally behind closed doors but sometimes in public, I knew I was in deep trouble.

For anyone who even remotely feels like they are 'dreaming', 'going crazy', 'imagining' something is wrong in their relationship, then this book is essential reading.  It highlights the characteristics of verbal/passive abuse, the effects on the partner, the traits of the abuser, and the ways of getting through, out of and recovering from an abusive situation.  

Verbal/passive abuse is a bruise on the partner's spirit which noone sees but which hurts as much if not more than a physical pain.  When it is serious abuse (and any put down is abuse) the only thing that can change is the way the partner can react.  An abuser can not apologise for their behaviour as that would undermine the very essence of their identity.  

So when people ask, what proactive role is the father playing in my current situation, the answer I think is, he can't.  Because if he did play a healthy constructive role, it would be anathema to how he has ever behaved.  It would be the deepest transition possible away from his 'reality' into the other healthy Reality that I come from and connect to: the healthy Reality of empowerment of Self and empowering our loved ones, of connecting with the creative and nurturing aspects of life, of mutuality and co-creation, of personal security which has no need to exert power over another person.  

My Ex is a white collar Mr Nice Guy, well educated, carried the aura of success, quietly spoken.  But he is horribly flawed.  His loss of his businesses, job, home, partner and children are a small testament to that.  I believe people can change, but I witness my Ex being so locked into his false identity, to strip it away now would mean him living a whole new life.  For change to happen, it may require a process equivalent of joining AA; his drug or addiction being Power Over others, particularly over me and the children.   

Cast in the same mold, the brother-out-law provokes and goads with aggression and judgement, disparaging guffaws and twisted logic, and his five minute provocative, argumentative rant in my house this morning was a stunning example of his twisted Reality (the same Reality his brother, my Ex, inhabits).  I suppose if violence is what you know, have had in your growth years, has permeated your relationships, and is in your genetic make up, conquering all that requires some massive shock or shift.  A stint in jail didn't seem to bring about a deeper psychological awareness for him it seems.

Sadly, as I peruse Patricia Evan's book again today, I see the pattern of an increase in my Ex's abusive behaviour: he is so bitter and twisted over my having left him to set up a new life and be the independent woman he once said he was attracted to, that he has lashed out even harder.  Whether that be to be physically aggressive with his son, to change arrangements constantly or at the last minute, be late for picking up or dropping off the boys when he has them, simmering anger and cold looks, to texts and phone calls and emails to me that snarl and snap and bite,  threats of withdrawal of maintenance if I go to a lawyer/talk to the bank/impose restrictions on him to adhere to arrangements et etc, or put downs to the boys when they announce success at school -  often delivered with a "charming" chuckle.  (I recognised elements of my Ex in Marion Keye's novel, "This Charming Man", which  also explores domestic abuse - but in a more lightweight way than Evan's book.  Beware the charming man...).  

T1 has experienced verbal/passive abuse all his life from his father, and so much of how he is behaving now is mirroring the same behaviour.  Which makes me worry all the more for my boys, particularly T1 who seems to have inherited the key to his father's unhealthy reality.  I hope one day he discovers the other key I gave him at birth: the life long key to a Reality that is full of joy, abundance and healthy emotional wellbeing, a place from where we want the best for others because we know we are secure in our own sense of Self.

Which Reality are you in?