Friday, April 30, 2010

Cinderella Gone Wrong

Back when I was in college in another state ("back in the Dark Ages", as my kids like to tease), an all-male organization on campus that I had a lot of friends in asked me to be one of their two "sweethearts". As their way of thanking us for the many duties we performed for the organization throughout the year, it was customary for the sweethearts to be "presented" (honored) at a formal ball near the end of each spring term.

About 2 weeks before I was to be presented at the ball, the other sweetheart for our group called to ask me who my escort would be. I told her I didn't have a date and had planned on just going to the ball by myself, since I was an independent sort. (It was not unusual for me to be the only female in many of my classes, for example, and at the time I was carrying two very different majors despite having been told by the heads of both departments that they couldn't be combined.) The other sweetheart informed me that I had to have an official escort whose name would be printed in the evening's program, and she asked if I minded if she arranged something for me with one of the members who also needed a date. I told her that would be fine, since I was friends with all the guys and knew I'd be hanging around with all of them at the dance anyway.

Soon after this, one of the guys in the organization called and offered to be my escort for the ball. I thanked him for being willing to do this, and we decided on what time he would pick me up.

Because it was an arranged date, I was surprised when my escort presented me with some beautiful flowers. I remember little about the ball itself, other than being presented with a red rose and an engraved silver tray during the program and just having fun hanging out. In fact, my most vivid memory of the entire evening is of something that happened about 20 minutes before midnight, when the dance was scheduled to end: my escort and I were out in the middle of the dance floor when one of the other dancers, a visiting professor from another college, suddenly collapsed from what was later determined to be a massive heart attack. Despite immediate CPR and the quick arrival of emergency personnel, it was very apparent that this man was already gone when he was carried out, which certainly brought what had been a very nice evening to a sudden end. My escort took me straight back to my dorm.

I remained friends with the other sweetheart and all the guys in the organization until graduation, when we each went our separate ways. As the years went by, I pretty much forgot about the one and only time I'd played Cinderella at the ball, but of course I would not have included this story here if there wasn't more to it (and it's probably not what you think!). As has happened to me so often in recent years, one day out of the blue I suddenly obtained additional information about something I'd always taken at face value that caused me to see it in an entirely different light.

My eye-opening occurred well after my husband had left and during my last visit to my father's house in the same state where I'd gone to college. A sibling of mine and I were attending a public performance in a major theater downtown in the large city where my father and stepmother live. We had just taken our seats when I suddenly spotted the guy who'd escorted me to the ball all those years ago taking a seat with a group of what were obviously good friends of his 5 or 6 rows in front of me.

I immediately pointed him out to my sibling, explained who he was and how I knew him, and marveled that I was able to recognize him after so many years. My sibling immediately began looking at me so strangely that I realized something was very wrong, so I asked what was going on and was told, "Don't you know who he is?" I assured my sibling that I did know him and that I even remembered his name. My sibling then proceeded to inform me that my former escort happened to be the son of a major organized crime boss in the city, that my family had been aware he'd escorted me to the dance that evening, and that they'd been chuckling among themselves for years about my not having a clue about having been set up.

As you can imagine, finding out I'd been treated like this was extremely upsetting. It also caused me to realize for the first time that mine was not the loving family I'd always believed they were and that various things I'd often been confused about could have explanations that were very hard for me to believe, much less accept. This slow, painful examination process eventually culminated in the confrontation with my father and stepmother detailed previously here in my 6/29/09 posting entitled "Family Business".

What sort of family would deliberately set up a date for their unknowing daughter/sibling with the son of a known organized crime figure as a secret joke and then laugh about it for years among themselves? The same sort of family who would secretly arrange a marriage for that same daughter/sibling/cousin/niece for the sole purpose of cementing certain secret business arrangements and relationships, all the while concealing the truth from her because they knew her well enough to realize she would never agree to the match if she found out the truth.

It's been unbelievably hard to find out that I've been victimized repeatedly since my marriage ended. It's been even harder to discover that the marriage I believed was loving was a lie from the start. It's been harder still to realize that my own family, the people I've loved and respected the most in my life other than my children, have been blatantly victimizing and using me for years. Hardest of all has been the discovery that every single person, organization, and agency, both public and private, I've turned to for protection and/or help with stopping the victimization of myself and my children has turned me away (including public agencies like the U.S. DOJ that are specifically charged with keeping innocent people safe from organized crime and preventing large-scale civil rights violations).

I'm now wondering if I will ever be able to find out what it's like to be free from being victimized, since my ex- brags about keeping me under illegal surveillance and harassing me wherever I go. It's very clear that my ex-husband and his associates (including my family) are having way too much fun openly and repeatedly victimizing me to ever stop on their own, and as my ex-husband's ugly and false comments all over this blog show, he's not at all worried about anyone making him and his friends stop. Thank heaven for my lifelong strong religious faith, my strength, my perseverance, and my great kids! These, plus my firm belief that there really are good, decent people in the world (yes, even lawyers!) all continue to give me the hope of finding some relief and freedom someday.

At this point, you might find it helpful to go back and read or re-read the very first post on this blog entitled "My Story" and the later post entitled "Illegal Surveillance Summary".

19 comments:

Anonymous said...

not again mary lou

i was at the theater event she writes about, the part about seeing her old date,and the organized crime talk from her sister are completely fabricated

she just wants to put her picture in the blog with a date to show that she at one time was able to live a normal life so she had to make up a story to fit it into the crime thing


i dont blame you, i wish you still had your old personality

Anonymous said...

in the last 10 years mary traveled by air 3 maybe 4 times tops

but not to louiville

1or2 times to florida
1 or2 to los angeles

she only leaves the house to pursue her 'enemies ' eg talk to lawyers pi's whatever
and rarely more than 70 miles away she did drive to amarillo once

ML said...

As usual, none of the statements in the above comments are true. I don't think I've ever even been to Amarillo!

Anonymous said...

you did look nice in the pic
it reminds me of the days you were healthy and productive

you could still be that way

Anonymous said...

mary lou no one wants to listen to your private life any more than wanting to see you getting medical procedeures and no one ever has

with the possible and unlikely exception of diop. my own belief is that diop never installed the "magnet security detector thing" you wrote about and that he simply ripped you off

Anonymous said...

maybe it was lubbock the post is othwise completely true about her travel, the point being is she never went to louiville after the separation

Anonymous said...

hey! you DID go at least through amarillo about 16 years ago lots of witnesses there

ML said...

I fail to understand what most of the above comments have to do with this post, but for the record:

If I've been to Amarillo, it's only been to drive through and/or sit on the ground briefly in an airplane and it had to have been many years ago.

I did see my father and stay at his home a number of times after my husband left; to say otherwise is simply not true. (I did not, however, say where he lives.)

I don't know why it's an issue, but I have made far more trips overall than are mentioned by my ex-husband in the comments above. For example, I took our two oldest children to other states to check into and set up their dorm rooms when they went off to college.

I did once make a driving trip to Lubbock, TX to take two of my kids to the state science fair so one of them could compete (very successfully!). It was a 3-day trip, and when we got home, our house had been broken into and certain items vandalized. (Calling the police here is pointless, because they're usually involved and in any case they don't do anything.)

Commentors, please limit your comments to the contents of the post.

Anonymous said...

hey mary lou i just had a v-8 moment isnt the guy in your picture your cousin bb? or was he a family friend.

anyway his family is most definitely not in organized crime as you well know


i stand by my comment that you never had the conversation with "your sibling" about this guy and organized crime,,you know you made it up just like you made up the marylouhoohoo.com
dually driveng drug selling granny etc

right?

ML said...

Wrong on all counts. For the record, as is usually the case with me, I happen to have a great deal of additional documentation regarding this post that I'm not going to provide here.

Anonymous said...

be sure to put some proof abouit the dually drivin drug seling mama

Anonymous said...

oh yeah and your dad threatenening to have you killed

Anonymous said...

lets see, talk about the drug filled portapotties

and very important; massive sasuage shaped "drug" transfers by the city in fron of your house

remember you said you have grainy pix

thats 3-4 felonies right there

Anonymous said...

massive drug transfer by the city workers, your ex in city work chlothes, surely you took a pic of that one!

Anonymous said...

lets see the grainy pics lets send the city criminals to the pen for decades


lets shut the hell up about your copious lying

Anonymous said...

curious to see you "prove" your felony claims in fact let's just pick one single felony claim against your ex, or your own family

you've 'bragged' about having evidence against your own father

lets see it

you dont have any do you mary lou, lets all agree you made it up and now lets all agree to stop the very ugly lying and start to try to get some redemption

im not so sure about the picturewill let you know soon enuff

Anonymous said...

this pic was taken maybe 74 -75 ot therabouts

at least 35 years ago

mary lou ;you cant be serious that your parents were yanking you around even then. up to now youve never spoken ill about your mother and now you are including her in your conspriricy( ml's mom passed away in 86)

some where some how you know this is absolutely absurd that your parents were conspiring against you you can obviously funcion enough to get by yet you ae lost without your enemies


who exactly are you talking to. you know all your former freinds the kids all your former in-laws know better

the only peoplei can identify are the lesbianleftistwellesly bunch and the been there's whe obvously dont know you or are recovering from their own psych issues


you are insulting the good name of your mom

it makes me sick

Anonymous said...

why do you hate your own family so much, didnt jesus say treat your neighbor as yourself wwas really important?

of course if you treat yourself like s&^$#
im getting the big picture

Anonymous said...

*uck you were and still are an ugly witch. I would be embarrassed to be putting 30 year old pictures up. Are you afraid that if you put new pictures up people will be able to identify you and kick your ass. Oh wait they already know who you are because you put maps up of your home and how to get there.