“You’ve got to resurrect the deep pain within you and give it a place to live that’s not within your body. Let it live in art. Let it live in writing. Let it live in music. Let it be devoured by building brighter connections. Your body is not a coffin for pain to be buried in. Put it somewhere else.” Ehime Ora
“I thought you had to go to Iraq to get post-traumatic stress disorder. And you do. But you can also just come on over to my house!” Carrie Fisher
This is my story. I need to get it out, I need to put it down so somehow I can acknowledge to myself what I went through and survived. This is not a testament to say that men are bad, this is not to say that men are abusive, this is a story of a man who by his own family’s admission, had a mental illness that went undiagnosed and ignored. This is a story about an abusive man. Let me be clear, I feel no sympathy for him. I don’t believe he is capable of contributing any goodness to this world. Someone who corrupts their own child’s innocent mind from 2 years old, and is so full of rage and vengeance that he would stop at nothing to destroy me, my friends, family, is not someone I feel an ounce of compassion for. Up until meeting Brad,
I had been a very happy person, successful in my career, which was flourishing, and I had an outstanding reputation, although I had some traumatic events in my childhood that I believe left me with that lack of self-confidence to catch what was happening with Brad in the early stages, I had an incredible mother that always taught me anything was possible in life, and to dream big. The world was my oyster, and I was thriving. I was living in an apartment complex on the ground floor in the West End when the girl who had previously rented the apartment told me about a man who lived across from her that I may want to date.
When I first met Brad, he was very polite, very attentive, and gentlemanly like. He had asked me out a few times and told me that he was from England but had had some trouble there and relocated to Vancouver. The first time I thought things were off as he had called me one day in a panic telling me he needed to see me right away and ask me something – he had heard a rumor that I was dating two men in California….. what????? He was sweating and shaking and I thought this was very strange given we had only dated for a month or so and he was having this reaction and also believing such a strange rumor. We dated for another month or so and I invited him down to Mexico to meet my father for a vacation. I started noticing some very controlling behavior and began feeling very uncomfortable with him, and by the end of the trip, I knew I was going to end the relationship.
My best friend and I had always talked about moving down to California, and as I had my green card, when I returned, I broke it off with brad and my friend and I planned our move to California. My friend and I packed up everything we needed, including her two cats, and drove to the border, the strange thing was that we were questioned at the crossing, and Brad had known that I had kept my green card for years without actually living in California. I will never know if he sabotaged my trip.
While in California, the thought of being pregnant never entered my mind. I had been there for a few months when I felt a hard lump in my stomach, I was certain it must be a cyst so I had to return to Canada to go to my doctors. In my doctors office, she immediately took one look at me and returned with something that listened to a heartbeat, she let me listen and then told me that I was four months pregnant. I was in absolute shock. I had always had irregular periods and never ever thought I could have been pregnant. I told my close friends and then made a decision I still deeply regret. I told Brad. That was the beginning of my nightmare!
When I first told him, he immediately said we need to move in and get married. I told him that that was the wrong reason, we barely know each other, we are living side by side let’s take it slowly. We want for dinner with friends and during dinner he said ‘we should start looking at a place to move into. I was shocked because we had just had the conversation where I told him I was not ready to do this. Then one night my 8 year old niece came for a sleepover, she was so excited and was looking forward to spending time with me. Brad came over for a visit and left fuming because I told him it was inappropriate for him to sleep over when Gracie was there. It was very disturbing he did not understand this. He was furious that he could not sleep in my bed and Gracie should sleep on the couch. The thought really disturbed me. That is where his psychotic behavior all began to unleash itself, and no one will ever believe the extent of it. Or maybe now I am reaching out telling this story I will find I am not alone, that is my hope as I have felt like I have been living a nightmare and no one could understand what I went through.
The first thing he told me that he had investigated if I had had another child before as he knew I had stretch marks on my hips and thought I might have done this to someone else. That was very bizarre to me. I had had weight gain in my teens which produced stretch marks. Then it just got weirder. He went through my receipts in my car, and then wouldn’t wear a condom while having sex ( he had an std and you can seriously harm the unborn child) He went from trying to be nice to rage full and frightening, and following me and contacting old friends, all the while I was pregnant. I finally told him I was so stressed by his behavior that I was going on a holiday with my parents and to please give me some peace. He sent a long email telling me that he had another child in England. The mother would not let him see the child even though he had been sending regular child support, this he explained was why he had been acting so paranoid and crazy. This, as I soon found out was completely fabricated. When I return, I am 6 months pregnant, and he promises he has calmed down and wants to try to be friends and make it work. I wrote long letters to him asking him to be more open intimately and talk and look at me during sex to which he shut down completely saying he would never say one word during sex and he was not into anything so complicated. He kept pressing to get married and move in, and when I told him I wanted to try to be friends and take it slow, he stood up and said ‘Im out’
I then went to see lawyers and get advice, one told me – move, get away, you are in for hell – I so wish I would have listened to this. I decided to move out of the west end but not too far away, but it would put a bridge between us so I could get some peace, I told his family again once he calms down I will talk to him, but I would not tell him where I was moving until so. On my moving day, my friends were all there trying to protect me, wondering if Brad would show up, then came that chilling voice, a friend telling me Brad was outside. I looked out onto the street and there he stood, shirtless, with a cardboard sign above his head, reading ‘1953 Cardero drive, I know where you are” At this point I was 7 months pregnant and I felt like I was going to die, it was so creepy and like out of a horror movie only it was actually happening. We called the police but he had taken off nowhere to be found. The next day he had turned himself in. You have to understand that when you are a normal person, you cannot comprehend that someone is crazy so you think that they must be just irrational, they can’t actually be evil. And don’t forget this is the father of my unborn child, no one wants this kind of life or craziness or drama. This is why time and time again I relented, thinking he would calm down. Biggest mistake of 15 years of living hell. A restraining order was put in place, but things would keep happening, all the while me being in contact with his family asking them to please have him calm down and then we can talk about how to co parent. He had also told me that he had fled England because a girlfriend had provoked him into hitting her in a bar and rather than face jail time he fled to Canada. This was true but only half the story. Turns out he beat her so badly she lost the child she was pregnant with (Brad’s), and to this day Brad cannot return to England or he will be arrested. He is a fugitive.
I didn’t know he could not return to England, and all the years of Alex growing up he would threaten that he was going to take Alex to England. Now his parents are dying and he can’t even go back to say good bye. He had tried to reach his ex several times to ask her to drop the charges but according to him she had gone all “women’s right’s” on him and refused. He even twists things so much in Alex’s mind that Alex would often talk about how unfair it was of her. Just like Alex would later say everything was my fault, I was provoking his father, I faked my bruises, I lied to the police. And that I tried everything to take him away from his father and thats why his father is broke and angry and I ruined his life. The drama and craziness and emotional turmoil continued, and I kept begging both him and his family to calm him down, I was not trying to take the child away from him I just couldn’t deal with his craziness especially while pregnant. He says it’s either that I’ve met someone else or that Im secretly gay or that I don’t have family values. He is incapable of accepting it is him. When I gave birth to Alex there was a restraining order because he had threatened my life, and we were set for a court date for him to be formally charged. Another massive mistake. When Alex was born, I was so distraught to bring him into this world with all of this happening, and I just wanted it to be all over, so I thought that maybe seeing his baby would put an end to his craziness. My mum and I contacted his family and told them that he should come to the hospital and see his newborn. It didn’t do anything to calm him down, and now he had ammunition to tell the judge I could not be that afraid of him. He told me I had to write a letter to the crown saying I was emotionally unstable and made a mistake. I didn’t do that but I did say that as I was afraid of him I was no longer, He flipped that I didn’t say I was unstable. He had supervised visitations for Alex. He told me he couldn’t take it anymore and had accepted a job in London England and he was leaving. Then, the next day a friend of his called me saying he is not leaving this was a fabrication. He then texts saying he is going tor full custody, then he phones saying he knows he won’t get it, I beg him to go to counseling together he says he won’t. “I will show you what you have to loose if you are a bitch and copping attitude to me, I will take you to court and burn your ass, then he hugged me and said do you think the reason why I have my finger on the trigger ready to pull is because of your super bitch behavior? Don’t make me do it. I will take Alex away from you to teach you a lesson.”
One day my agent called me telling me that someone had hacked into my casting workbook site. She said “are you sitting down?” He had sent a letter across Canada to all casting directors posing as me saying that I thought all producers were fat jewish bastards and I wished they would go back to the states. I thought, oh my god, this isn’t happening One day my father in Mexico called me saying Brad had just shown up there and tried to turn him against me One day he hacked my website, posting a fake message from me, then put a flashing smily face beside it I knew he had a tracker on my car but we could never find it, it was only years later getting confirmation that he was listening to my phone calls through a bug he had hidden in one of Alex’s toys that went back and forth, and that he had a tracker on my car. Alex told me that his Dad had told him this. No one will ever know how crazy it makes you feel when you know someone is following you and listening to you and dropping hints but never enough to prove it and the police think you are crazy One day he called and said ‘you’re dead bitch’ He sent a picture of me hanging from a tree from a show I had done and asked if he could get a copy with a laughing emoji He stole all my journals then continued to send messages laughing He sent a cd to my sister with him talking to a psychic saying we are all witches He went after my career and my friends and all my ex boyfriends He sent a private investigator to my work on set He moved all my things out onto the lawn He went down to California and approached one of my biggest employers and someone whom I had written about in my journals that he stole and tried to turn him against me. He called my ex boyfriend and asked how his daughter was doing implying he knew about his daughter, just trying to cause trouble for me I was so utterly worn down that I couldn’t take it anymore, he told me if he moved in everything would end. I was so so so stupid. And, I began drinking to cope. My family stuck by me but I lost all of my friends. They just simply could not understand nor wanted anything to do with this evil man. I don’t blame them. Of course it only got worse. I can’t remember what happened but I went to to be with my family for a few days, and realized I had to move out, but then he locked me out of the house and started raiding all of my journals from the time I was 15. It was the most psychologically twisted and torturous thing I have ever experienced. He was texting laughing saying he was showing all his friends and commenting on private photos and everything and told in an affidavit that I had begged him to read them saying I was suicidal. Took over friends, family, phone bill, caretaker, isolated me tried to turn me against my mum, tried to turn my dad against me He said he saw me playing with Alex’s penis, and also I wanted to have sex with brad whilst Alex was in the room, all of this just so disgusting and horrific and all terrible lies. I went to the police station because I knew he had a GPS on my car, and as I parked outside I was talking on my phone when I heard a clanging noice, I looked up and there he was running away from my car with a motorcycle helmet on, he had tracked me to the police station and knew I was going in to tell them there must be a tracker on my car. I ran into the police station and tried to tell them what just happened and they looked at me like I was crazy. Then Alex started coming home saying the most disturbing things it was torture. He was telling Alex all the time that I would not let him see him and tried to not have Brad in life, this is what he tells everyone that he had to spend all his money to be in his sons life and that I ruined his life. Alex had to use my email address for a homework assignment and i was so naive, when he was at his dads, Brad sat for a whole weekend and read all of my emails and called me over and told me he had every right to do so, and then started calling me a slut and commenting on emails from my father and mother. I tried to leave and he held me down then called Alex down to witness it, I pushed him off me and he grabbed my arms again and i slapped him on the chest saying why are you ruining everything and he said Look Alex, your mother is hitting me. He said if you don’t say I allowed him to read my emails he will fight me in court and bring me down, a I am so beaten down and so tired now and if I go to the police its hell all over, do I just keep the peace? I am so tired.
Brad knew I had been sexually abused when i was five, and the person doing it used to play a game with me, and one night over a goodnight phone call I heard him say the phrase that the man who abused me said, and I began shaking so hard, I couldn’t believe Brad was that evil. He alienated Alex from my mum and told Alex when he was 7 that I had been sexually abused and my mother didn’t stop it. He sent me a text saying…“i have people who will do things for a price” Went to the supreme court of Canada April 2010 slimy lawyer with all my photocopied journals I sat there silently crying squeezing my mothers hand shaking the judge said after hearing the ‘highlights’ as brads lawyer put it she said this points more to Mr. ____ than the defendant and dismissed the case ruling it a gross invasion of privacy June 23rd my little 2 year old asks “Mummy do you say here comes the birdie to me?” It’s what was said to me when I was sexually abused as a child and Brad has got Alex to say this to me to creep me out. Brad knew thats what my grandfather said to me when he sexually assaulted me. So brad is using Alex to mentally torture me and try to insinuate I am touching Alex its so vile and disgusting its hard to even comprehend. Alex gets expelled from preschool because Brad does not want Alex there so he causes so much trouble for the school that they tell me they have to expel Alex because brad is threatening so many things and it is just too much. It is a new school and they can’t handle what he is doing. He teaches Alex at 2 years old to give the middle finger to my friend Alex is crying because daddy says you wouldn’t let him see me when I was born. When doing the handovers of Alex, Brad would say things to let me know he was listening in to my phone calls and conversations later found out that it was a device planted in Alex’s fav stuffed animal. He would say ‘say happy birthday to Mike’. Or ‘i don’t like the after school care either, when there was only one person I’ve told that to. Another drop off, he has his tape recorder out full of rage saying – you have been warned!
It all starts again March 1st he calls me suggesting he take me to Mexico for a year to re program me no cell phone put a GPS on my car and it would be for my own good. March 15th he sends photographs of me that were in my private journals to my boyfriend. July 24th 2012 Alex is 4 years old and he comes back from his dads and asks: ‘how come you had long boobies then short boobies?” My stomach turns over and I said “who told you that?”Alex responds ” My dad did.” Who tells a 4 year old their mother had a breast reduction “My dad says you used to dance and thats why you cut off your boobs.” A text from Brad: “bow down ditch. I am the one to tame you, I am the one to give you what you want” Alex came home from 5 days crying saying “daddy showed me photos on his phone of you drunk”. Alex is only 5!!
After a lovely day with Alex I picked up my phone and Alex said ‘ can you change your passcode to 1013? That was my friends company, it was just to creep me out. When I started a new relationship with David, at drop off Brad said ‘644 9898? Quoting Davids phone number, “If you don’t tell David to stop parenting Alex I will. ” He then called me saying he had his people look into David and he is a bad man and he knows things about David that tell him I should not be in a relationship with him.
Feb 16, 2017 Alex is 10, I called him one night he was at his dads and Alex was crying and said ‘my dad is talking to me about what the future looks like without you in it, I asked to talk to Brad and he began screaming and didn’t stop for a long time, saying I ruined his life and when he has the money he is going to come down on me so hard and find me in the gutter. Alex called me back crying asking me if I was okay as he had heard it all.
Mar 05 2017 text from Brad : my background check on your new boyfriend came clean, a much better choice for you than David”
May 25th Alex is starting to be scared of his rage, him blaming him for leaving things everywhere. Then one night Alex called me whispering begging me to come and get him because Brad is in a rage-filled fit and Alex ran across the street hiding from him. Alex locked himself in the bathroom, Brad broke the door in and came at Alex with his fists and smacked Alex on the head and Alex went running down the street and hid in a neighbor’s car. He then calls me drunk saying we should all move to England together for a year and try to make it work, all I wanted to say was you sick sick man , but I can’t because he still has control of Alex’s’ mind and he is terrifying. I hear now that Brad is drunk and stoned every night and Alex can’t wake him up. Brad calls me threatening if I don’t communicate with him they way he wants he will go for full custody He then says he is going to court to take Alex to England for 6 months.
May 31 2018 he texts at 10pm saying “call me,” I didn’t want to but its always about trying not to get him angry. He was slurring his words and started calling me a liar, I told him calmly I am hanging up. He sent a text saying ‘your kidding me, Im going to call in five minutes if you hang up on me again when I am speaking truths, everything changes. Threats, threats, threats, and more threats. He won’t let my family, who Alex loves go to his little league baseball games, and Alex is so upset and mad at me because his father convinces him its my fault because I have lied to everyone and created this whole situation. Brad tells Alex I faked those bruises on my arms when he had pinned me down and that it was justified. When he knew I was drinking during my non parenting time. He would drive Alex who is 11 now over to see me so he would implant in his brain a bad image. He made it so Alex did not want to see his nana and Bumpa anymore.
March 2020 Brad has his roommates call the ministry saying he is not fit to look after Alex and he is drunk and stoned all the time, and because I am so terrified of him, and the alternative is terrifying, I try to keep the peace, so he said I had to come with him to the ministry to help him defend himself. So I am in the meeting and I am sitting there shaking
May 02 2021 I am shaking, I just did a drop off and he stopped me at the gate and said he was five ciders in and he wanted to make a video to send to his ex girlfriend in England. Who he beat up and still cannot return to England because of. Who is telling him that she will have him arrested for assault, if he goes back to England and I find out she lost a baby when he beat her, and he wants me to say on the video that he is not abusive, and he would hold up cards off camera of what I would say. Oh my god he was serious!! That is why he never went back to England,. because he would get arrested. He is saying now, she has gone all ‘women’s rights.”
Shit is deeply effecting Alex now, he has massive melt downs because he has all this rage towards me, yet loves me so much. So he is so confused, and is also seeing Brads irrational behavior. Alex got pushed at school and Brad sends the vice principal a very disturbing letter basically threatening the parents of the boy who pushed him. The VP calls me and says “he may go to the police about the letter.” Brads sister sends me a letter telling me his whole family should have diagnosed Brad a long time ago with a mental illness.
Brad has a new roommate and he sends her to me for a coaching, I am so torn because I want to say ‘run’ but if I do and she tells him then all hell breaks loose for me. A month later she calls me she is terrified, she said he is leaving guns around the house threatening her following her in his truck then giving her a hug, then threatening again. She has gone to the police and victim services but he always does it in a way there is no real proof. I have tried for years and years to get police involved and the ministry, and to get Alex in to see a therapist but Brad has cemented in Alex’s brain it is for weak damaged people. Brad was always outsmarting the police and the ministry.
Dec 2021, Alex and I go to palm desert for Christmas, and the tension and the meltdowns finally come to a head, and we have our very first completely open conversation where I finally tell Alex a lot of what his father has done and Alex tells me everything he has been poisoning his mind with since he can remember even as young as 2 or 3. We sit in the car driving up to Nana’s place on our first night and talk for over an hour. He told Alex that he had a GPS on my car. That he had a listening device and listened to my calls, and that Nana had let me be sexually abused. It went on and on and on, and that I had been with women and slept with a married man,. Who tells a child these things?!??!?! I told Alex I never ever tried to take him away from his father.
I finally have the strength to block Brad’s emails and phone, something I wish I had done years ago. I get an email from him in my spam about wanting to communicate for the sake of Alex but “watching the Depp trial has not made my wish to communicate with you grow.” It reminds me of career and financial atrocities committed against me because of what some other penis did years ago, Guaranteed Amber Heard was diddled by a family member will be the result that comes out over time.”
One night Alex calls me from the park saying his father hit him and he needs me to come and get him. I race out in my car and get Alex and ask him if he wants to report it. May 25 2022 we sat in my car and Alex was so distraught and then he told me – last night Brad was drinking Alex had just mentioned to him because his back was bad that I was doing yoga and he started on a rampage calling me a cunt swearing and that I ruined his life so then Alex brought up some of the things he had done to me and he lost it he had had over 11 ciders he was so drunk he was slurring his words and acting like a crazy person one minute laughing hysterically then going into a rampage then he took Alex down into the basement and tried to show him naked photos of me in my 20’s. When Alex told me this I didn’t know what to do do I call the ministry and if I do that then all hell breaks loose. I just don’t know the right thing to do because I am so afraid of Brad and Alex tells me he doesn’t want me to call the ministry. But nothing broke my bond with Alex. It’s a miracle but we are so close, and just last night Alex was at his Dads, and he called me saying he was coming to my place because his Dad was on a rampage swearing and calling him names and screaming at him. Alex is now with me and we are figuring out if he will not go back anymore to his Dad’s.
Somehow I made it through the 15 year nightmare, and now Brad has lost all of his friends, family, and now his son, because he is incapable of any kind of self reflection or insight.
