Was it really worth it?

When I became a dad for the first time, it changed me. The moment I looked in his newborn eyes, life immediately had a new meaning, a purpose. I was 26 years old at that time. Uncertain, yes. Scared, no. I was happy, I knew I will do anything for this kid.

Those days I came across a quote from one of the influential life coaches of that time, I’m just not sure that the quote was originally theirs, and it doesn’t matter who said it anyway. It said; “Don’t pray for life to be easy. Pray for it to be worth it.”

I didn’t just pray, I worked my ass off for it. And was it all worth it? I’m not sure, not at all as far as I can see and feel about it.

In the recent days I’ve just hit another wall that I didn’t wish for, but I still saw it coming sooner or later. When I reflect on my whole life, I’m not just surprised how I’m still even alive, I’m actually impressed by myself on one hand. On the other hand, I’ve never felt so depleted, so empty, meaningless, even worthless. Little by little, the chipping into the confidence, effort and personality starts to pile up, and after being pushed down into the ground so many times, falling and then getting back up, I just don’t see any point anymore.

I’m beyond overwhelmed with just trying to live. I’m not lazy. Whenever anyone offered me any work, I took it. What I couldn’t take is the people and their toxic habits that come along with the package. That’s just since February 2023 when I was brutally betrayed and kicked out of a “home” – a place that I earned, fought with the system to get it, laid the floor, equipped it all with furniture and appliances, and kept paying for rent and expenses also years before when we lived in the private rental property.

That home was supposed to be long term, it was a nonprofit apartment, albeit way too small for a family of 5 (2 small kids, one newborn). Fact is that if the social services, and the clowns in the municipality had really cared about the facts, we were supposed to be assigned to an actual house instead of a tiny apartment inside the worst possible building one can imagine – human excrement all over storage boxes hallways, elevators are nonstop out of order, vandalism, burglaries in the boxes, peeing in the elevators, etc. It’s worse than a whole ghetto itself – and they call that safe for kids. There’s even asbestos all over the building and they claim that’s not an issue either. Given the quality of construction, I bet that there are a lot of issues with that. We moved in there in the summer of 2021. Back then I had a job at a small local IT company – it sucked for me because it was a very routine type of job, and I was facing a massive burnout. The job was too easy, so life itself was too hard to not notice while I was at work. In the past I was definitely not under so much stress and pressure, especially coming from my own home and partner, so setting personal issues aside at work was not that hard.

Even now, writing this I can see how I don’t really know where to start, what to really say and put out there. That wall that I hit a few days ago was something I already knew would happen one day, but it still hit me slow and heavy. Kids have iPads, I’m totally against that, but since I was never respected as a person, or a father in that house, the moment I was forced out, they got those things. And I kept noticing how that is influencing them, and the addictions to “watching”. Even though we have reached a decision that I should enable parental controls since I use an iPhone (old one), those don’t work as expected because iPads are way too old.

What we were left with in the end is that I can manage kids’ Apple accounts, and this also opened the options for us to communicate via Facetime video and iMessages more regularly. Given that unlike the past two years before, when I was fighting streets and myself to survive and try to function again, the past three months I’ve spent time, money and effort to be around kids a lot more often, and have some small vacations with them, I thought we will be able to keep this contact and connection growing through time. And since kids love their tablets so much, at least that can also be used for good on top of their addiction to YouTube brainrot content.

I was wrong. For about a week or so, it went fine. Maybe even a bit too much when they kept calling or sending texts almost nonstop. At some point the responses to good morning, good night texts slowed down. Sure, play dates, birthday parties etc. No issues there. The kids even apologised for not replying for a coupe of days, all good. A week goes by, nothing, ten days go by, and I’d really love to hear my kids’ voices by now. It’s again all up to me to chase them, so I do, I call. I ask why there was no response for such a long time, and my 8 years old daughter replied; “I’m too busy.”

Too busy to even respond to text message for more than a week. I simply ended the call, and from that moment on it all went downhill again. I feel exactly like the image for this post shows, almost gone if not completely disappeared yet.

Already the fact that if I tried communicating with their mother, mainly because her wish was to patch up the painful past and remain friends for the sake of kids. I know I can’t just move on with everything like nothing happened. I was betrayed, in so many ways I can’t even wrap my head around it. And when the people continuously keep cutting you off, dismissing your own truth and pain, your whole life is too much and too difficult for me to process, what else someone to sit through it and hear me, see me, acknowledge me. Of course, even though she lied, cheated, ruined my life with twisting the truth to officials, made me believe she is someone who she never was, acted like a narcissist, claims it was just fear without any further context other than her own dark past she kept trying to hide. This was the only person that knew me better than anyone, clearly, I opened myself up only to see that being used against me. I did wish to make peace with her anyway. After all, for me this was not some bullshit attachment style. If I didn’t love someone, the kids, the family, and us together in the good and the bad, I’d not let myself get so destroyed. Insulted, yelled at, beaten up, having a full potty of baby excrements thrown in my face because I tried to hide my smoking habits – not to hide smoking, but to avoid the pointless conflicts that followed whether I lied or was completely honest about it – and that was my only sin in this relationship. Other than thinking the whole time that I’m stronger than her, and will handle both of us alone.

I wish she had more capacity than just telling me she doesn’t have the time to read, or respond to what I send her when I am reflecting back on everything. I thought that’s what “friends” do, talk, grow and work through pain together. Especially when one has betrayed you so much, and they still want to keep you in their lives and be friends, then I think it’s their duty to sit through those moments. I would do that because I am doing it, alone, without help or friends to talk to on a regular basis. I don’t have a mum to come watch the kids in the weekends while I hang out with my new date. I don’t have the time and money to attend yoga classes, pottery lessons and have so many friends, men and women just waiting for their turn to hop into those panties. Whether they were married, or not, those people didn’t care. Not their fault though, she has kept them around even since before we met. I was just one of the many options, but with kids we share.

Can I blame my kids for behaving the way they do? They miss me and love me whenever it’s all good times and fun days. But then it’s all about fun, good feelings, and suddenly daddy who can’t come around every week every month isn’t important anymore. That just sucks. It doesn’t hurt because after all the crap I’ve been through, I just can’t feel anything anymore. Let me put it into a perspective (as best and as short as I can):

• sexually abused by father at age of 3
• beaten up almost daily by the same person, mother crying how helpless she is and turns all the pain about herself every time
• sexually abused again at age 7 by the same mentally ill person who was never diagnosed with anything even after reports of being violent towards kids but not the woman
• bullied at school and local neighbourhood – thousands of people, not a village
• we lose our home when I turned 13, monster called father left on the streets. Me, 2 younger sisters and mum moved to a safe house.
• I take care of sisters, myself and self wrapped victim story mother for 4 years, and rent a flat out of my own pocket once we had to leave the safe house
• I fall in love at 16, her first summer vacation she ends up kissing another dude, admits it, but the sacred part of our love is gone and broken – we split
• I realise that I’m not a father, a mother, and if I don’t leave, it will drive me nuts. I drop out of current highschool, and bail out of home that I paid rent in advance for a year – mom and two sisters left there
• moved to a squat, and tried to get back into a new highschool – ended up being a national TV “star” – homeless youth and children’s rights advocate – I left a mark, but so did all the cops hating me for exposing them and how they treated us on the streets and in the squats
• realised again that I’m offering my head as a target while people can’t even remember what I was saying on TV, they just want to say they know me from there and feel good about that – clowns. I pull myself out of that public space, and at the same time the girlfriend I was with for 3 years finally comes clean about her cheating on me for over 6 months.
• I disappeared off the radar for 2 years. Living a bare minimum, working part time as a bouncer, part time as secretary of a youth political party.
• I met the person who later became my first ex wife, and the mother of my now 17 years old son
• 2 years after he was born, she never knew what she wanted before, but that day, out of the blue she knew she wanted to separate. Refused to seek couple therapy as the one step before divorcing. Moved 100km’s away to her mum’s, prevented me from seeing my boy every day and broke my heart. I weeped and cried for months.
• With all the hopes lost, I was still fighting with all I’ve got – some experience in Video broadcast engineering that I learned on my own by being pushed into a role I didn’t even know I can do so well, and a hard working attitude and 9 years of total working experience in IT and many different handy jobs up to that point. I broke through thousands of candidates and got a job in UK
• Left the country in 2011, and my dreams came all true.
• 2014 the employee assigns me to work in Amsterdam, not my favourite choice but it’s fun anyway. In summer that year I end up crossing paths with the younger woman who sweeps me off my feet.
• January 2015, I have to move to another flat, I offer her to share it with me. First few months it all goes fine, but then I really fell for her. The moment I told her how I feel, she also starts to show her red flags but I thought it’s just age, it comes with maturity etc.
• 2016 she breaks the news: I’m pregnant. – I’m not afraid of being a dad again, but at that point I as afraid of her and what she could do. We had many arguments, usually about stupid shit like my work, my friends etc. – which now I can see what it was – belittling and isolation. One night in 2015 I wanted to shut the door and tell her to pack, but I was drunk, and too much in love. We ended up arguing in front of the door, I told her to leave and stay with her mum’s for a few days. I needed space and time to think. She refused, and tried to force herself into the apartment (she was supposed to contribute to rent, and that happened only one month), I made a mistake and slapped her. Got arrested, charged, and then made to feel guilty and shamed about it ever since. I knew I lost when I did that, and once she said she was pregnant it was all up to her. I wouldn’t just leave a child alone with her or her mother, my intuition knew better than I was able to admit.
• We moved to Lithuania, but at the same time the company contracting me for remote work has faced financial difficulties, and they fired all contractors first. A year later I found a much better paid contract, and we were on our way back to Netherlands.
• Fast forward to 2020: I had a well paid job before that, a good offer on the table but I was burnt out. I refused the jobs, because at the same time I was involved with a group of people trying to establish a new business. One of them turned out to be a scammer, so when covid took over the news, it was far too late to fix the damage done by refusing to take that job I had offered.
• 2021 we finally get approved for government support and nonprofit flat. And we also have couple therapies, it seemed like we will finally have exactly what she said she wanted most – stability. And we did, but then she flipped and wanted and open relationship to explore her attraction to other women. I loved her enough to tell her many times if she falls in love, she is free to go and I want her to go and be happy. To my own shock and awe, she literally went for a “family” trip the same weekend. Came back, and told me a little bit about it. I even asked her is what she is telling me is really the whole story ( she was really convinced that she can still lie to me without me noticing anything – I’ve been observing for years, and waiting for when the truth comes out).
• 8 weeks later she admitted what really happened. And instead of acknowledging the pain and disrespect she has been causing us all these years through that exact same pattern, she used my reactions against me. I was selfish, controlling, manipulating, she screamed at kids that I don’t love them and don’t want to play with them. Truth is, I just wanted to die, and I wish I did.
• February 2023, after a week of 16h workday in Tallinn where I was taken by a sleazy German to literally save him from a disaster he created with his “live streaming solutions” proposed to European Billiards and Pool Federation running Eurotour pool competition in Tallinn. When I came back home, I was so exhausted and burnt out that I wasn’t able to sleep anymore. The skin on my feet was literally peeling off. I cam back home, looking forward to only one thing, hugging my wife, my kids. Celebrating our anniversary and then just fall asleep for a week.
• We “celebrated” by me trying to wrap my head around why everything felt so different, so cold, so distant. And why my room was changed so much that I already felt like it’s being prepared for my departure. My own duvet was gone, replaced by a thin blanket that was useless. The whole place was cleaned up, and sorted in a way that it confused me completely. Next day I ask her to tell me what’s actually the matter. I read her face, the energy in the room and it was terrifying.
  The words she used tore right into my heart: “While you were gone, our life here was really EASY.” – that was it, I couldn’t take it anymore, I felt disgusted, wanted to just get paid immediately for that Tallinn job as the German promised. Pay for the rent for the flat, and then use the rest of the money to go anywhere away from the EASY LIFE.
• The German decided to screw me over instead and tell me he will pay 90 days later when EBPF pays him. I lost my mind. Went back home, and something clicked inside me; for the first time I took her phone and went through the stuff she was hiding from me.
  I found videos of her smoking a cigarette and fooling like a child with it. For years she was beating me up and screaming at me how she hates smokers and smoking – it boiled over me. Then I saw pictures she was sending to the girls she was fucking around with while I worked – pictures of her and our baby being breastfed. Those family breaking whores could get that attention, but not me.
• She was screaming at me to destroy my PC if I leave the house with her phone, I had zero energy left, grabbed the keyboard and threw it towards the wall. She jumps right in between, and immediately runs out to show her “injury” and call the cops.
• I knew this was it, it was planned, premeditated but she probably just didn’t expect to get so exposed at the same time, so the war was on. She and her mother have told social services a line of shit that would and should have put both of them, and the people who blindly believed them, never spoke to me or the kids all to prison for a good time, and keep paying me for the lies and damage done for the rest of their lives. Instead it was me, I paid the price and became homeless.
• I thought leaving for the sake of kids was an option, after all, being highly skilled with 20+ years of great career behind me, and being honest, paid so much tax and all that. I thought I should have enough support to quickly get my own apartment, continue with therapy and coparenting. I was wrong, the amount of documents, formal complaints, evidence and yet no one is held accountable. While I ended up losing everything I had. The material damage itself is astronomical given that I used to make 6 figures a year, and now I can’t even fucking feed myself.
• I was attacked and had to fight for my life, when I called the cops, they closed the case within days. The attacker returned two more times, just too afraid to fight again. The guy almost killed me, and injured me badly, but he walked away.
  When another similar incident happened, I didn’t want to fight, or hurt anyone. So I bought a scare gun that shoots plastic balls size of a paintball up to 2 grams heavy. Loads 4 of those. I didn’t shoot, or threatened to shoot with it. A guy jumped onto my boat, full on, I saw him jumping off through the window. I asked him what was he doing and he started yelling at me, swearing. I simply told him I am prepared to defend myself, and his reaction was pulling out something out of a shopping bag he had with him – I flashed my “weapon” and told him to GTFO. He actually called the cops claiming I attacked and threatened to shoot him with a real gun when he was jus trying to pee near my boat.
  I was arrested by special forces aiming real rifles in my head, helicopter flying above my head and possibly around 30 other cops blocking off the whole neighbourhood.
• I was lucky and persistent enough to get rid of the first public defender who still had a damn covid shield on a desk in his tiny living room office. Clear sign enough I won’t get justice from this one. The guy who took me on is really one of a kind, and I’m still grateful for what he has done for me. And then above that is the actual parole officer I was assigned to after the judge decided to let me walk away under a condition to get therapy. That was end of last year, to this day I still haven’t received an intake call from the assigned organisation. And even if they did, what does it help when I don’t have any basic needs covered and no support other than from kind individuals themselves.
• Also end of last year, during the summer last year the deceived and retaliating social services that I’ve complained against due to their previous illegal, unprofessional and damaging actions escalated everything to child protection services. So while waiting for the decision to be made, I had no contact with kids or their mother for months. In November, my daughter was turning 7 years old, and I told them I can’t wait for them to see her for her birthday. We met, and then their mum says she wants to reconnect and talk.
• When she agreed to let me stay for the weekend before I travel to Slovenia for Christmas holidays to be with my own son, relatives and friends, we also had a lot to talk about. And of course, the defensive mechanisms had to kick in, and her need to control everything was again obvious. I knew something was going to happen, and I left my laptop in her living room recording the audio.
  She, and the same old team of social workers met, and she actually sold them a story how I appeared in front of the door when kids have to go to school, with bags, and asking her to stay in front of kids so she couldn’t refuse. It was a blatant lie, obviously I have kept screenshots of her messages and calls prior to all those days to prove that she invited me over.
  Among other horrifying things they discussed they also said they could send them all away to a safe place that I couldn’t find or know about. It literally killed me. I was crying and shaking in panic when I was hearing that audio, still in her flat at the same time.
  When I have told her what I know, and how I got to know it, I saw a face I never saw before. Defeat, and her only time she has shown a real emotion, when she felt exposed and caught so hard she couldn’t defend herself anymore.
• I offered her peace, she ended up manipulating and pulling strings with kids and everyone long enough to prove that all she wants is war.

I’m tired, I just want a home, food every day, rest, recover my mind, my body, my life. And I want peace inside me.

It’s too overwhelming to live knowing my worth, but feeling and being invisible, worthless.

After having sent over 2500 CV’s within three years, I’m tired of 99% never hearing anything from them, or AI rejects me within minutes. But the worst ones I hate the most are the ones telling me how impressed they are with my CV but they decided to move on with others – younger, and more people pleasing candidates.

I give up, on kids, on love, on justice, on karma actually doing her job with others like she cleaned the floor with my face. I just give up.

I wish to fall asleep tonight and not wake up anymore.

I’m sick and tired of hypocrisy, world built on lies, deceit, abuse, exploitation and worshipping lunatics or dead spirits that told us that we’re supposed to actually fix the shit ourselves but pray for strength to fix it. I’m tired of people yelling: save us! But when you do, it’s your fault because in reality healing and awakening hurts like a bitch.

Being honest is hard and rare, because people choose fear over freedom, and they are triggered because someone like me doesn’t even try, we just are like we are, and clowns get triggered because they wish they could be like us, brave, willing to admit mistakes and own them, vulnerable and open. Wounded yet loving with all our hearts.

I’m tired of not having a single fucking hug from anyone while my own hugs are like love itself according to those who felt the, or used them for their own advantage.

There’s nothing left to give.

Goodbye, and thanks for all the fish. I’m done.