Caged Bird: I thought I was free, but I need your help

You know me.  I've been here before.  I told you a tale of a battered and beaten woman at the end of her rope, dancing along the edge of a cliff.  

I am happy to share that I am out of that deplorable situation.  No longer a prisoner of angry words and hurtful hands.  I ran and I never looked back.  

I am safe.  I am surrounded by loving family and friends who support me as I move forward in my life and begin to heal all of the damage that was done to me.  What was left of me was a wreck, but who I once was still within me.  She was still strong, beautiful, and worthy of love.  I found her again and she is becoming me more and more everyday. 

I am ashamed to admit that the prison bars are still dark shadows that loom over my life, their pattern dances across my face and inside my eyes when I close them for sleep.  

All those miles, all this time, and he has found a way to slap cuffs on my wrists, to enclose me in, to hurt me.

I thought I was free.

I filed for a divorce and requested our children for half of the year.  

I thought that was fair. 

He did not. 

In his twisted way of thinking, in that narrow controlling mind of his, in his sociopathic way that he has, this wasn't fair.  

He found loopholes.  He lied to the courts, to the judges, on the paperwork.  Bold lies dripping with venom. 

I fought his loopholes.  I presented proof of the truth.  I showed medical records, court documents, and police reports dictating the history of the abuse.  I paraded so many pieces of paper through my lawyer's office I am guilty of the loss of at least one rain forest.

He found more loopholes.  He told more lies.  

The saddest part of all of this, I only ever wanted what was best for the children.  I love them so very, very much and I want them to be happy, living a life free of abuse, away from the drug use, and all the other terrible things they were witness to.  Away from a life that was not good for them, a fast road to nowhere.  

If he wants to take the road to hell that's fine, I just don't want him taking our children along for the ride.

All I want is what is best for the children.

All he wants is to hurt me. 

He has lost his control over me and he is desperate.  Grasping at straws, doing outlandish deeds, whatever he can to sink those controlling claws back into the woman he once played like a puppet. 

It scares me.

As it stands he was granted full custody of the children and I have only so much time before I am to return them.

Return them to that life. 

I must go, too, so that I can fight the decision in the courts there.

I have one chance to fight this.  My team of lawyers found a way. I am not trying to obfuscate, but I must be so very careful of what I say.  Suffice to say there is still a chance.

Because I can't send them back to those conditions. 

I can't go back to that place.  I won't make it out alive. 

I have until Monday to come up with the remaining one thousand dollars I am shy of for the retainer. 

I am a proud woman.  I do not like charity.

I am also an abused woman who just wants to be safe.

I am also a Mother who wants what is best for her children. 

So, today, I swallow that pride and ask with a lump in my throat, will you help me?