November 7, 2026
The best place to be, is in plain sight, and to just be oneself: transparent, has always been my authentic way of being, and I am realizing, that has not perhaps been the wisest decision.
The day I left what grew into 33 years of coercive control, with a friend coming to pick me up with a few belongings, leaving my entire life work as an artist behind, with the exception of some boxes of ceramic pieces, my Hawaiian language learning books, I began to take action to try and gather information about what happened in 2019, and also, to get a copy of any existing rap sheet for visa considerations.
I sent an email to the second attorney, asking for files, he stalled. The forensic psychologist also stalled. Nearly six months went by, and I still didn't have the records, so, I used my Ombuds training to realize, I need to bark up the food chain, and I filed a complaint with the California State Bar, and after I had these files, I sent one final note to the forensic psychologist to get those files free as well.
TIP ONE: Always create a paper trail.
This was grilled into my former mentor Dr. Geoffrey Wallace. You need to create a paper trail, and sending things by email, or certified mail with a copy of what you sent, this is self-advocacy 101. IF the organization is not willing to communicate by email, and only by phone, then, this is a major red flag. You will have to begin to journal phone calls, write down what was said, and archive it. I have been creating my own internal paper trail by using the online messaging system with my
TIP TWO: To get files from the attorney
Begin with attempting to get the files from the attorney first, and create your paper trail, once you have done your due diligence, then file a state bar complaint, at least, this is how I managed to get my files released in the State of California. What is important to know, in my lived experience, unless you have a bottomless pit with cash, and can afford to hire the best attorneys, with professional organizations, they will automatically side with their own. It takes an extraordinary type of person with high integrity who can see through the mess, and go, oh, yeah, what went down was really wrong, and yeah, something should be done. I have found in my years of advocacy, that instiutions protect institutions, tribes protect tribes, and if you file complaints, they might be completely ignored or not answered, or you will get completely blown off, such as the CA agency that you can file a complaint about a doctor. I was not able to discover that I had been taken to the hospital twice until I got the attorney and psycholgoist files and read a note, I had been taken once. In my view, it was gross medical negligence. It is doctor evaluation 101, super basic, if an older woman presents with an altered state, well, you have to check her piss. They didn't, twice, they failed to check my piss and sent me back to jail for treatment for a UTI with accusations that were not entirely founded in reality. By the time I thought to check my records with the local hospital, lo an behold, there they were! I had had a weird delerium dream memory of being in a hospital, but thought, no, that was just a dream, when actually, I indeed had been taken to the hospital from the jail, not once, but twice.
I filed the complaints, and I got word back, well, there are only a few months of time left before the statute of limitations run out, so, we can't investigate the complaint.
So, perhaps here, is a place to post the redacted correspondences between said characters.
It is too late to file a complaint with the first attorney, but in attempting to track down the photos and the footage of the event, I discovered the psychologist had received these documents, but she didn't release them. Last time I asked, she sent a message Dr. E has retired, and I thought, you know, I just can't go there with this person, what she did, and how she managed this was absolutely insideous, and while I could hire a forensic psychologist who specializes in coercive control, having connected to one, who would be happy to work with me, I am guarding my nest egg jealously. I only have a small amount I can draw from my savings and feel safe as I plan how I am going to live my remaining years, and how I am going to prepare for end of life.
Where will I live? Where will I go?
I can't couch surf I don't think for my remaining days, or maybe, I can.
For now, I have shelter, and there are a few paths forwards.
HOW TO FILE THE COMPLAINT
Just ask an internet search engine, and use tools that seem helpful to you to help form the complaint. Each person has their own process and their own way, so sharing my way, may not work for you.
For me: My search engine, when I asked, how do I fille a state bar complaint, it pulled this up.
Read through of course whatever you find, and yes, I found using not one but multiple AI platforms helpful, especially figuring out how to tap into the legal AI platforms, knowing, that AI makes a lot of mistakes, and takes you down trajectories not useful. One needs keen analytival problem solving skills is my lived experience. If you don't have these, then putting it out to the universe for help from someone who can help you, tossing that to the ethers, that would be my personal style.
PREPARING MATERIALS
You will have to upload your "evidence" or docoments and in hindsight, I would suggest sending materials that are redacted so you don't overshare. I overshared. There are tools you can use where you can upload your information and ask the platform to redact your document and it will prepare redacted documents.
RESPONSE FROM THE STATE BAR
In my response, the State Bar completely ignored many of the points I made, but they did manage to get the attorney to shake loose his files. In order to pursue the complaint further, one has to send additional information and continue to communicate with them. In that, this process is really about taking back one's truth, one's narrative, one's own energy, the simple act of achieving the goal may be enough, and one can let go. I felt like I needed to continue to pursue it.
EXPERIENCE THE SHELL SHOCK
If you were never shown your complete files by the attorney, or a forensic psychologist that may have been hired, expect for this to really rattle your entire being, including, unearth the buried trauma, with flashbacks coming about as you read what was written about you, and face the shock, that the evidence was there all along, that it was a urinary tract infection, and to see with your own eyes even, a letter to a judge, that states clearly it is a medical crisis. To discover even later down the line, that the reporting party had this all along, they knew this, and even wrote to the attorney his brother hired to send this letter, and comment it was due to a UTI, that they knew this all along, and then also, to have sucess with retrieving the couple's counseling notes that were a part of a "protocol" I was to follow to go against my doctor's advice and enter a mental health diversion program.
I can see the timeline now clearly, and to lay it out, is painful.
give false testimony to the police which diverts a medical crisis to a jail.
go six days with the wrong treatment, with doctors prescribing anti-psychotics for a UTI delerium.
while you are out for the count, repeat and expand ont he lies to the psychiatrist, and then to the attorney, the person's story changes with the psychologist, and also, spread the lies through your community, convince them to move on without you and take over the organization that was your life work, which manifests as a deep soul wound. Give this news the day after this person sends the facts that it was a UTI to the attorney, but tell another story.
Begin the discard come back negotiation asking one to forgo the psychiatrist monitored plant medicine, and other bizarre requests, and say, sorry, I can't do that, I will go into a shelter.
Receive an eviction notice from what was then 27 years at that house with a 6-9 month separation from the first discard cycle.
Respond to the pressure from the center you are at to get housing, and make arrangements with PATH, a dangerous shelter for addicts, thinking, it might be more manageable than the religious shelter, given that religion is a complex-PTSD trigger. They say yes, it is a go.
Experience in crisis, essential abandonment, or what feels like abandonment by all those artist you helped over the years, taking from you, but. if you need something like a little phone call, or coming to visit, forget it: with the exception of two. There was one person, living in town, on the Board of Directors of the Foundation I started, and she never engaged, didn't visit, the two months I was recovering from what took three rounds of anti-biotics to clear in that the infection spread to my bladder in addition to addling my brain.
Make note of the pains you have while you are in custody, and attempt to advocate. I have a raging headache, what is wrong with me (the headache goes on for nearly a year in my memory, it was likely some sort of traumatic head injury.) Make note of the pain in the anus, and ask to be seen by a doctor, and not having success until you are out of the psychiatric hospital, and you bus it from Crestwood to a nurse for the county, and at least orders some STI tests are given: when you report the foreign objects you found inside of your female reproductive channel, suspecting something had happened. The body knows something happened, but at that time, beyond the delerium memories, there is no awareness of how the injuries happened, you can't take action to process until you are out of the situation.
The coercive controller realizes you are headed into a shelter, oh, I don't want you to go into a shelter, and one receives the classic "love bombing" email. One is terrified of the thought of going to PATH, and just this year, learn from a friend who worked there, that he was even afraid to enter, that it is a really dangerous place. I likely would have ended up dead is my guess and my body was drawn back in.
Go with the flow: at that time, I had to go with the flow of the coercive controller and his family's self-identification of being a narcissistic family system, with myself, and nephew M. seeing myself, and him, as the "scapegoats", and the coercive controller self-identifying as the "golden child." Never underestimate narcissistic family systems. On one hand my doctor is saying, don't do it, it was a UTI, it isn't true that it was caused by mental illness, don't do the mental health diversion program, and on the other hand, I thought, well, maybe I am supposed to trust, I think I'd be better off with a D.A., but the family wants to hire their attorney, and i say yes, and the mental health diversion ball starts to roll, to spite the crystal clear evidence that it was a UTI delerium, which would have resulted in NO CHARGES, instead, it rolled forward. They lied, they simply lied, and there is no paper trail of this lie other than the doctor's letter to the judge, the medication notes that clearly show the anti-biotic that helped me exit a bacterial dream.
Go with the flow - the hoops the courts lay out, which ends surprisingly quickly.
Begin to create new community.
Get early "retirement" income coming in, postpone the educational goals, focus on the therapy they are wanting you to do, both couples and individual, and do the work. Of course the couple's counseling fails, it is right there in the notes to the forensic psychologist, I note that my psychiatrist will not allow the coercive controller in the office, his view is, counseling does not work with narcissistic abuse. I now this, all survivors of narcissitic abuse know this, the psychologist who was hired for the ourts, she would know this, yet still, it was in the prescription. The boon to investing over $3000 I think, out of pocket, for specialized treatment, I realize, only now, 7 years later, that the person lied about things I knew he lied about, and in the places I couldn't remember, he told stories I couldn't refute, because I had no conscsious memory. The forensic psychologist had me sit and listen to his version of events, all while he was gloating, until I believed them. The therapy the courts advised, well guess what, we didn't find his lies there, so, given he lied about things I can factually prove by the paper trail of life I have collected, if he lied about these things I can prove with facts, why would he tell the truth about the lie that I had threatened to harm him. This is not my truth, I was in delerium, and I was in a self-protective mode, and the police cams, well, they show exactly this. A woman in a medical crisis experiencing fear that she is about to be taken away to be murdered by the police. She is not threatening anyone, she is in fight/flight, and this confirms her current psychiatrists view of what occurred. He will be delighted no doubt to see this layer of evidence.
After you have new support networks, after you have deciphered if there is any biological relations that can at least send a supportive email, once you have the retirement income coming in, once your small investiment nest egg has grown a bit, then, and only then, can you brave stepping into professional couch surfing/travel, and the arduous work of healing, which requires, in my experience: self-advocacy, and going into the places where the lies were told, and walk directly into the fire, that chaos of change, and say, okay, let's do this: trauma bond detox. Seeing what a shit they really were, seeing the facts, seeing how he was calm as a cucumber while the police report he was crying and breathing heavily, but as you watch the police footage with no sound, you know body language because you are an elite dance athlete with an international career, and you can see he is calmly talking to the police. So, the police say one thing, but the audio and visuals say another, and even between the two reports, they describe different things.
There is no roadmap or much information about healing from coercive control and dark trait abuse. When I made an exhaustive inventory of things that I had normalized, and did my research, running the "data" through possible machiavellian traits, possible psychopathic traits, possible narcissistic traits, possible sadistic traits, possible anti-social traits, self-described and obvious narcissistic traits to myself, my then grief counselor, my then psychiatrist: well, it was a cocktail of everything, a dark tetrad, and now that I have looked at all of the factual evidence I can gather, it something other than chilling, it is this deep knowing now, that he was capable of anything in a dark way, and that he is a very dangerous man. I already surmised with his anti-social choice of career to enter an illegal agricultural woker field, when the operators of the business were caught and sent to jail, the day he was supposed to be working, he wasn't there, and attributed it to something. Well, he started up his own plantation, had his own dealer called Mae West. I will never forget him taking me to meet his former boss, once he was out of jail, and we would go to his regular market. The way he looked at me, there was something there. Probably a lot of people knew about him and didn't let on, for sure, my then dance mentor must have known, but still, she introduced us, knowing perhaps what would have happen, at least, in the runaway novel of my own life, this seems to be what occurred. I read that predators do their intelligence work, and he certainly would have had ample opportunity. I was working for free as a student in her creative work, which went on to win her film a Cine Golden Eagle award (now defunct I believe), and he at that time was collaborating with her on projects, like, since the 80s he had been collaborating with her on and off. I worked as her babysitter. I remember him calling her house when I was a babysitter. I made a poor choice, to step into homelessness to get away from a problematic roomate and was part time at a friends and part time in the dance studio, living out of my school lockers, I didn't want to stop pursuing my education. I was growing weary of the rhythm after only 6 months. I did the lighting for their concert. Within a month and a half he invited me over to meet his parents. I had shingles the night I met them, he separated me from my friend, and I moved in to his place to recover over the summer, and never left.
My body knew on our first, or maybe second date.
He had breeched my then very rigid moral boundaries the night of the concert, instant seduction, coercing me to take my clothes off and go swimming in the ocean with him while his best friend played wing man, holding his tuxedo, but not holding my clothes.
Afterwards he took me to probably one of the most expensive places in town and bought me dessert, and we had a glass of wine. I wasn't much of a wine or beer drinker. I had lived in Paris for nearly a year, and we had watered down wine at lunch, but I really didn't like it. He had an impressive taste for fine wine, as did his brother, and I experienced in this time frame, bottles of wine that would run $500-$1500 a bottle. I became absorbed by his family, his upper crust superstar socialite father who had written speeches for a former president, but my body knew.
The love boming, the hormones, this drug was stronger than what my body was telling me.
While in previous writings, I presented this person as the love of my life, and my knight in shining armour, I see now it was all sleight of hand, a very simple tactic of intermittent positive reinforcement.
The first cut came with the first dinner.
I was wearing a beautiful "Christian" type conservative dress with rich plum florals. I had only recently "divorced" my family, and had "divorced" an esoteric truth searching path aligning with my sense of purpose and passion, so I was already culled from my usual support systems and building support base on common passions/interests: the arts, all of them.
He said "I don't like your dress" and I felt the stab to my heart.
He began to drive up a mountain road I communicated I did not want to go up. I don't remember this 1st (or second) encounter tiff, but I was so upset and frightened of him, that I literally opened the door and tried to jump out of the car.
My body knew and it would take over 33 years for the mind and intellect to be able to dismantle the narcissistic family cult programming installed by this family.
I could actually calculate the exact days, but leave that for another time.
It feels good to be writing this down.