Last Friday night I sat with some friends who know me well and told them how I had shared my story and to around 400 people. (Why do anything small?) It seems that after posting my story, I seem to have an extra spring in my step and I am more focused on life in general.Why is this? Well, basically I have been living a double life so to speak.

Friends, neighbours, people I work with and for, etc have no idea what happened to my family and that is because I felt so ashamed and embarrassed. How could this happen to me? What would others think? Who could possibly understand let alone believe me?

But while hiding this I had to make up something. This caused me pain because I didn’t want to lie to these people that I liked and needed. What if they one day found out I lied? How could they trust me? So instead I shared as little as possible about my family and talk about something else. I was basically functioning physically but emotionally a mess.

We can talk about the cost of money that is paid to lawyers which is important but it is not the only costs. These custody battles affect our thoughts and emotions and we can’t properly concentrate on our jobs or we just don’t seem to connect to life and people as we had. We don’t sleep well and of course we try to take the pain away through liquor or medication. Anxiety and stress take over.

Oh, the insanity.

But getting back to my point. Today, tomorrow and the next day I intend to hold my head up high and be real about myself to everyone because I realise it isn’t and wasn’t me but the system. And not only that but heaps of others are going through or have gone through the same thing.

It is still sinking in that in the year 2006 our leaders are destroying our families and the law which is supposed to protect us is harming us and our innocent children.