1 year ago today, on July 4. Days after escaping him. I contacted him. Let me tell you why.
First of all, he had been violating the order of protection. He was served and told the sheriff, “oh yeah I’m done with that, I’ll never see her again.” And the next morning he texted me from a fake number.
July 4, Mat and I had planned to go back to the Wisconsin Dells. But I escaped him first. In that week that I escaped him, I was very much stuck in the trauma bond. I felt guilty and sometimes, I missed him. There is so much psychology behind that but it’s true. I was hurt that he was moving on and talking to other girls. It was hard that I escaped him and never said another word to him. The last message I had sent him was that I couldn’t come down to his house because I had a headache and wasn’t feeling well. I sent that message when I was at the courthouse waiting to go before the judge and be granted the emergency order of protection.
In that week that I escaped him, the police were investigating and telling me everything I already knew. Nobody knew who his family was. In fact, the police kept coming to me to find out all these details. Who were his parents? Where was he from? What was his family like? Was he really in foster homes? I had to provide all the answers to them.
And I wanted to know for myself. He had lied to me more than I can even express. Legitimately every single word out of his mouth was a lie. I wanted to know the truth. I wanted to know if my family really was in danger.
On the Fourth of July, Mat was posting pictures on his Snapchat story in the Wisconsin Dells saying how much he missed me and loved me. It got to me. The trauma bond, remember?
So that night, after fireworks, I laid in bed and posted a message on my private Snapchat story, one that only he could see. I was vague in all of my messages (and I say “all of them” but I only sent maybe 4-5 messages). I posted the first message, a black screen with nothing but text, and wrote, “Nothing is true, I don’t know what to believe.” He bought in. He posted a message back to me on a private Snapchat story to me. He was driving back from the Dells so he was posting pictures of his dashboard as he drove. He responded and told me that he’d tell me anything I wanted to know. I responded and vaguely said, “everything is a lie, family, everything” and he responded saying he’d tell me anything. I wanted to know who his dad was, and so I posted a message asking who his parents were. He didn’t want to tell me. So I said goodbye. And then he responded and told me: Scott and Lydia. Lydia, yes, I had known. Lydia, the adoptive mother who works for the Illinois State Board of Education in the Special Ed department. That much was true. Scott. I finally had a name. My friend and I had been running background checks on Mat and everyone in his life he had told me about. There was no Scott. It never came up. I had my answer. Mat doesn’t have a dad. There was no threat of the Russian mafia or his dad coming to kill me and my family. It was all a lie. A debilitating, paralyzing, life-changing lie. I still feel fear at the thought because how can I be 100000% certain, but Mat doesn’t have a dad.
The next day, Mat kept posting messages to me. I would view them and not respond. I never contacted him again after sending him that final “goodbye” message on Snapchat on July 4, 2020. I told my sister and she came up with the ingenious idea of taking a picture of the messages he was posting with another phone, that way he wouldn’t be notified of me taking a screenshot. So I did. And the police took it as evidence. Evidence which led to him being arrested. Evidence which led to him pleading guilty to violating the order of protection.
When I was providing my statement to the detective, I vaguely mentioned that I had posted messages to Mat. I didn’t say it was on a private story, just to him. They arrested him as I gave that statement. When they went to interview him, he wouldn’t say a word about the dogs. The only thing he said was, “She posted the messages to me first.” A few weeks later, the detective called with a couple other questions. She asked if I had posted messages to him. I said yes. She said it would be hard to convict him now because of that. She didn’t speak to me again for 7 months after that. My attorney had said the same thing. She understands trauma bonds but the court doesn’t, so this looked bad for me. Ha! Ha, I mean… the man killed both of my dogs, every expert tells me this is one of the worst cases of abuse they’ve ever seen, but now the court won’t convict him BECAUSE of the abuse, because of the trauma bond? Ha!
But he pleaded guilty. He made a deal with the prosecutor and pleaded guilty. He pleaded guilty to two counts of violating the order of protection: one for sending me the messages on Snapchat, one for driving past my parents’ house, a protected location on my order of protection. When his attorney was speaking to the judge, and the judge asked if there was anything else he would like to add, his attorney said, “just that she posted the messages first.” The judge did not even bat an eye. He didn’t respond. He carried on with the sentencing.
Thank you, to that judge. Everybody had told me this would be my fault and he wouldn’t be convicted, but you didn’t even bat an eye at that statement. Thank you.
Mat was sentenced to a year of probation (I saw his probation officer at the courthouse ha), mandatory domestic violence counseling, 20 hours of community service, and a court-ordered mental health evaluation. I would be so curious to see the results of that evaluation.
Since then, I have not spoken to Mat. He hasn’t tried to contact me, to the best of my knowledge. He occasionally posts memes about me on Facebook, like how he was so good to me and I took advantage of that or how I’m spreading lies about him to make him look bad via the news stories. Some of my friends and followers had contacted him through fake profiles. He responded to them saying I was not allowed to contact him through a third party. Wrong-o, buddy. YOU are not allowed to contact ME through a third party. It’s mandated in the order of protection I have against you. Technically it’s fair game for me to contact you. I won’t, but I don’t have an order of protection against me. I think my therapist would call that projection. Some of his friends have accused my friends and followers of being me, creating fake profiles to message them. Baby, you’ve got it all wrong. If I wanted to message you, I wouldn’t have to hide behind a fake profile. But I don’t want to message you or anybody else in his life. It’s deplorable for me to think of anybody standing behind them. I mean ew, that’s so gross for you. Defending a known dog killer and woman abuser? Baby are you ok?
I don’t have a need to reach out to Mat. I do think I’d like to say my piece to him, most likely in court. It will be extremely gratifying to state my / the truth in court in his presence, to his face. I don’t know if they allow it in civil court, but I think it would be very healing to read a victim impact statement to him and the court. All of that is TBD but if nothing else, I’ll include an open letter to him when I publish my book.
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