D.V. Survivors, myself and my daughter

by K.L.C
(USA)

My daughter and I are survivors of domestic violence! I would like to share my story, but for now I need to vent about my current situation. We have just relocated from our second DV shelter due to my first relocation being jeopardized. My ex found us. I tried going to the courts, lawyers, judges and the attorney general for help to protect myself and my child with nothing but all the wrong advice. I was told to go to the courts where we were located for a new restraining order which I did. This was the absolute wrong advice to give to a DV victim/survivor. It put us in even more harm because now here I was, sitting in the same court house with my abuser side by side in front of a judge. He now knows my location! Here I was informed by the DV hotline lawyer {who's daughter was murdered by her ex-husband after a horrid child custody battle) to go back into a shelter and relocate again. How heart breaking it was to move my child again... we have had to relocate a second time. This time I was placed in a postion to have to change my whole identity. Now I no longer hold the birth name I was given by my parents. I can have no contact with them at all. No contact with friends. No one from my past at all. I am saddened by this feeling of being alone. I feel as if the abuser always gets to move on with their lives with no conscious and no regrets to their turmoil. Where myself and my daughter have to pay with the pain and

left over scars and psychological damage. Also the physical damage. Suffering, while they get to keep their lives. I can no longer show my face or tell anyone new I met that the name I give them isn't my "real name".

I have such a hard time identifying with myself now. Everyone thinks its so great and exciting to get a new name and identity, but it isn't. It is hard to understand, to form to a new self. I look in the mirror and I do not see the name I am now. All I had worked for in all my years in my life... gone. No work history, credit or past relationships to give as references. Also I have learned that when I do share my story; example being my new doctor... I am criticized, judged and made to feel as if I am unbelievable. It is a horrible feeling. I see myself suffering and trying hard to make a good life for my child and myself once again and I do not understand why we the "victims" continue to pay for the actions of abuse by someone else!!
I dont even wish to form new friendships because I feel everytime I say my new name I am lying to them. What a place I am in today. I would never have thought this abuse would have continued. I have been away from my abuser since 2007. Yet here I am still trying to get away from him. Control, the fuel for the abuser.
Will it ever end? Will he just let us be in peace and live our lives? Will I ever recognize myself as my new identity?