Dirty Work

The sequel to Clean Break, where it’s time for a reckoning

Last week, I wrote a little about the end of the custody battle in Clean Break, a final agreement that ended a years-long tug of war.

It was a story that resonated far more than I ever expected. I even asked ChatGPT what made that piece so special, and among other things, it told me it offered closure and a hopeful ending.

Well, all I can say is that while there was closure on paper, there’s still none in real life. Not yet, anyway.

That’s not to say things aren’t hopeful; they definitely are.

But this platform is my space to talk about things as they were, as they are, and how to work through what happens after in the best possible way.

That being said, I know this part of my story won’t sit well with certain people.
I don’t give a damn.

None of them get it, because they all got to live their normal lives. We took the blowups, the cleanups, and the wanting-to-give-ups while fighting those who pointed fingers at us for the mess we were all in.

That being said, my talking about it now isn’t about shaming anyone. This is me sharing my experience, the honest-to-God truth that deserves a discussion.

We talk about breaking cycles of abuse, but this is what it looks like when you become the next target while trying to stop one. That's what makes this so complicated.

The goal here is honesty, not blame. And certainly not martyrdom.

As with most everything I write here, I'm writing about it because I need to heal from it. And maybe, if I can be brutally honest about my pain, someone else might take away something that helps theirs.

You don’t get to challenge a story you never had to live yourself.

So let's continue where I left off.  

Our family of five, minus one, sat in the home office, our usual spot for family meetings. It’s where we talk through challenges, celebrate wins, pay allowances, discuss schedules, and air grievances.

They’re usually pretty lively, sometimes tense, and always productive. This time, however, the room was quiet, the absence of the youngest lingering in the air.

The mood was bittersweet—sad that she’d left, glad that she seemed happy, maybe even where she needed to be now.

And then my husband said it:

“It was a lot. I love her and I miss her dearly but it was a lot of work trying to help her through her struggles. And more than anyone in this room, Gigi took the brunt of it. She got the worst of the abuse.”

Abuse.

He’d said the word I’d never even let myself think. She was barely nine years old when she came to us, and I’m a grown-ass woman.

I'd refused to let myself believe any child could abuse an adult.

I mean, they can't, right?

“Break the cycle,” they said.
“It’ll be healing,” they said.

I thought I’d been through worse. I could handle this, right? I kept telling myself I was just tired. That she had trauma, or special needs, or whatever term made it easier to cope with. That it would get better with time.

Those were the stories I told myself just to make it through another day. Years spent questioning my own authority, my capability, and, frankly, my sanity.

That night, hearing him finally say it out loud, so calm and matter-of-fact, hit me like a brick. I felt equal parts validated and broken.

And before anyone tries to write the rest of this off as anyone's opinion, it isn’t.

From the very beginning, numerous professionals called it exactly what it was: scapegoating. And yes, clinical scapegoating is considered a form of abuse.

It’s a dynamic where one particular person is unfairly blamed for the problems within a family (or any group), often leading to deep psychological harm to the one taking the hits.

According to the National Institutes of Health, that kind of chronic blame can erode self-esteem, distort a personal sense of reality, and create the same patterns of emotional and physical stress found in other forms of abuse.

You better believe I can testify to that.

In families affected by developmental trauma, the maternal figure becomes the safest person to blame because she symbolizes the role that failed them first. There was a documented pattern that proved I was the target solely because of what I represented.

The deck was stacked against me before she’d even gotten there. I was perceived as a threat, even while trying my hardest to protect everyone involved.

Through it all, the child defended and excused everything that had happened to her, even the most deplorable of it, even when the truth was undeniable.

And that’s what made it so morally disorienting. She longed to return to what had damaged her, and we were the ones bound by the court to protect her from it.

Talk about living in a perpetual mindfuck.

What made his naming the abuse even more jarring was knowing that near the end, he (understandably) began to downplay what was even happening to make it seem livable.

He said things like “I didn’t see you get treated any differently than the rest of us.” I knew he didn’t really believe that, but at that time, he needed to.

It was how he was coping, justifying the behavior so we could keep helping her, keep believing we were so close to reaching that closed-off part of her.

Meanwhile, I was fed up, stressed out, and long past the point of wanting to manage it anymore. It had gotten so bad for me that I didn’t even want to come home anymore.

That’s not to say the behavior was ever tolerated or ignored, because it definitely wasn’t. We confronted it every time, firmly and consistently. Sometimes calmly, sometimes not.

Meanwhile, my husband was quintessential Balkan Storm, turning over every stone: more therapists, medication tweaks, second opinions, lawyer consults – all while I was just trying to make it through another day without losing my marbles.

We fought constantly at one point because we were coping in completely opposite directions.

He needed to believe we could still fix this.
I needed him to admit we couldn’t anymore.

Because by then I was hanging on by a thread, seriously torn between wanting to protect our marriage and wanting to protect myself.

The hardest part to articulate is the fact that it wasn’t exactly nonstop anarchy. Truth is, a lot really was fixed. She became stronger and learned how to manage herself more effectively. It wasn’t perfect, but it was something.

But those moments of progress could turn on a dime and leave you with yet another pain to shake off. Looking back, I think part of that was her survival wiring.

She’d learned how to go along to get along, but she was still fighting those same wars inside her head, still focused only on getting back to her mother.

So, two things can be true: it was abuse, and it was her way of holding on to whatever control she thought she had left.

And no matter how much we poured into her, she couldn’t fully heal in a place she never wanted to stay.

I can see now why my husband did it. It’s what good men do, keep fixing what’s broken until it’s “all better”. I understood his need to keep trying, I really did.

I still do, because the trust issues with the other parties involved are very real, given everything we’ve fought through.

But at the end of the day, it just wasn’t our battle to fight anymore.

Ironically, we were warned by the family member closest to this whole mess—the “logical” choice for emergency housing, the one we begged from two states away to intervene until we could make arrangements.

That didn’t happen. She told us straight out that our hands would be full.

And she was right. She knew exactly what we were taking on, and I think deep down, that’s exactly why she didn’t want to take on anything herself.

Prove me wrong, but despite being the closest blood relative, living in the same state, and having our promised support to help in every way, she still "couldn't" do it.

I’m not saying she didn’t care; I’m just saying she knew what it would take and chose not to accept the obligation.

I chose to help because even if some of his family refuse to understand anything other than their own opinions, I felt I had an obligation to do what was right for the family my husband and I have together.

Including the two innocent children who would’ve ended up in foster care without us. That's a fact.

And the fact that certain people can gloss over that as if it weren't true and still insist we were the 'problem' just baffles me.

I’m not even related by blood to these kids, and I still took the brunt of something I should never have had to endure in the first place. So when I finally waved the white flag, it was me saying, "Enough."

I'd done the work while everyone else got to keep their hands clean. I won't apologize for finally protecting what was left of myself.

You’re goddamn right I’m resentful. Of far more than just this.

So if anyone says, “You should’ve just let her go home sooner,” that misses the entire context of our situation. Perhaps from the outside, it seemed like control, pride, and plain stubbornness on our part.

But it was only about keeping two kids safe. For the record, there wasn’t even a home to send her to yet— at least, not one we could verify. Every attempt we made to confirm stability was met with silence and excuses.

The court violations were constant, our authority was undermined at every turn, and eventually, we were completely frozen out by the family.

The “stability” we were told about (again, by professionals) was referred to as borrowed stability. Against my husband’s better judgment, we let her go into that anyway.

Not necessarily because we believed in it, but because we’d run out of ways to keep fighting a system determined to wear us down.

And, maybe, just maybe, what that child needed most at that point was something only her mother could give, despite everything.

In the end, borrowed or not, mother and child are reunited, and I pray that this was the wake-up call they needed to get back on track.

But God knows I’ve prayed this prayer before.

That’s what makes this part the hardest of all to talk about.

The entire time leading up to the kids coming to live with us, I hoped and prayed our intervention would never be needed, even while my husband accurately predicted the inevitability of it.  

The CPS calls, the employment issues, the hospitalizations, the arrests, everything kept escalating despite his hours spent on the phone, encouraging them, equal parts ball-busting and loving motivation.

Every incident I prayed would be the one that made them see the light and take responsibility before we had to.

Every time we begged from two states away for someone to step in temporarily, just until things changed.

It never happened.

When the children’s father accidentally overdosed and died, I truly thought that would be the wake-up call their mother needed. I thought surely that tragedy would be profound enough to holistically smack her into clarity.

It wasn’t. It just kept on getting worse.

So I agreed to intervene, not because my heart was at peace with it, but because after everything I’ve just described, tell me, what choice did I really have?

Peace out, and let my husband face this all alone? Let this be the thing that destroyed our marriage after all we’d already overcome together?

Absolutely not. I made the choice to ensure the survival of the kids and us.

I chose this because I couldn’t have lived with what happened if I hadn’t.

And so, even now that it’s “over”, it really isn’t. The living arrangements are all spelled out in legalese, signed, sealed, and delivered.

But the wounds are still fresh and need their TLC.

Because the truth is, yes, a child can abuse an adult. It’s not popular to admit, and it doesn’t align with anyone’s preferred narrative.

But severe trauma repeats itself until someone comes along to stop it, and that person becomes the target. That's just the way it is.

And I write about this not to blame or shame, but because honesty is the only way forward if there’s ever going to be authentic healing in this family.

My husband grieves her deeply. She’s his blood, I see the ache in him that comes from loving someone you can’t always reach.

As for me, know she’s happy with her mother now, getting the care she needs, and that’s enough.

I’m too…I don’t know…pissed? Tired? Relieved? Whatever it is, I’m not in the headspace to continue to worry about things out of my control.

I can only hope this experience was enough for everyone to think hard on should the same patterns ever start to emerge.

Which I pray to God it won’t. Because I cannot go through this a second time.

My focus now is on strictly on the family still here: my husband, my daughter, and the teenager who chose to stay with us.

Like I said in the last article, both kids deserve the best of all of us.

And my household deserves the best of me.

But right now I’m dealing with something I don’t even like admitting to. Years spent in constant tension and under attack changed something inside me.

I spent so long handling every smartass reply, eyeroll, tantrum, and challenge that now, every little thing feels like another sign of disrespect to me.

An unanswered text, crumbs on the counter again, even honest mistakes. I feel sharper, harsher, and defensive…and I fucking hate it.

Because that’s not who I am, or ever was, so I’m working on it. Evolving and adapting are my superpowers, and if I could adapt to all that, I can damn sure adapt to this newer, better phase of life.

Saying all this doesn’t mean I blame her. I would never do anything to shame a traumatized child.

This is about how the experience has affected me, because right now, I’m just too numb to even care about being compassionate.

I’m not saying any of this to make myself a hero or a tragic figure.
The truth is that we were both victims of a system and a history that failed us long before we ever met.

Two things can be true here as well:
She suffered more than she should have, and so did I.

📨If you made it this far, you get it.
The work isn’t always fun, but it’s necessary, and that’s what we talk about here.
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Heather P. is an essayist and longtime ghostwriter publishing darkly funny, brutally honest stories about trauma, resilience, and healing.

Her platform, Unfinished Business, has been read in over 30 countries for its dark humor, emotional precision, and raw essays on reinvention, grief, and the absurdity of real life.

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