It guess it's over. (They finished the investigation.)

The sergeant hasn't even sent me back the corrected statement yet. How can they be finished with it? Don't I have to sign it first?

The fact it says in this letter that it will be kept on file for five years says to me he will be keeping his job. I didn't know this was coming, in fact, this was postmarked August 31st, and I just got it out of the post box today, Sept 5th. When I picked it up and felt how thin it was... I felt worried. How can they be done when I haven't signed anything? When they made all those mistakes in the report? I haven't even heard back from the sergeant yet.  And it's over. This is it. This is all I get. I can't even get my friends to help me or return my calls, let alone the highway patrol or law offices. It just makes me want to give up... on everything. What's the use? There is no mention of the cuffing incident, or the forgeries, which I realize where off-duty but they included them in the report, so why include them at all? I feel so violated and just, abandoned, by everybody. My friends can't even deal with me.  I don't even want to deal with me anymore. Because I can't even help myself. It's over and there is no relief.

Things have been happening...

A new client (the groom) asked me today what would happened when/if his friends would hit on me at his wedding.

????

I gave a polite, silly, professional answer and quickly changed the subject.


I then spent an inordinate amount of time obsessing about that worrisome comment the rest of the day.

What exactly does that mean?

1.). Thanks, groom, for thinking I'm not too fat to be hit on. Really, with the weight I gained over LAST Thanksgiving after losing 20 pounds or whatever after not being about to eat for the first 4 months after everything happened last year, I have felt like a parade blimp. Really, that was nice of you to think anyone would pay any attention to me at all.

2.) ARE YOUR FRIENDS BLIND?

3.) ... Or just desperate?

4.) This scares me that he actually found this to be a big enough concern he brought it up. He either a.) finds me extremely attractive (is he blind too? His bride was pretty, was that just luck on his part???) or b.) his friends have some bad habits with flirting, or try to hook up with anything with girl parts. Eek.

Again, Me---> worried.

****

Next, I didn't have to meet with the investigator. 1.) Bullet dodged? 2.) Kind of wished we had. Now we are exchanging emails instead.... Eeeh.

I received the four page (five if you count his note on top) report of my statement from the sergeant. I was "excited" (if you can call it that) to get it, and it was a bit overwhelming/draining to read. Pretty thorough. But FULL of mistakes. Their timeline was all wrong, they were missing some dates... they didn't even mention that he claimed to be single but went into lots of details about Matt's online profile on the dating website where we met. Maybe that's not relevant? So when I emailed him about that specific detail I started off with... "Maybe it's not relevant, but I noticed you didn't mention..."

I also felt they severely downplayed the cuffing incident. Everything else was described to a 'T' so I don't understand why this was downplayed. They described how the cuffing took place in this way: "Mr. Matt had occasion to apply one handcuff to Ms. Emily's left wrist." What were we, casually trying on restraints while watching tv? He vertically wrestled me and restrained me to put it on. (As opposed to wrestling me on the ground, aka, horizontally.)  I wasn't comfortable with how it was described or how they discussed it in the interview either. I again, felt like they downplayed it. It was an awkward situation. Here was this great guy I was dating, had feelings for, everything seemed fine, and then SUDDENLY he tackles and cuffs me, and refuses to remove it unless I go with him out in public. What do you do? Everything was fine up until 5 minutes before... What just even happened? You argue some, he refuses... and then what do you do? For lack of any other ideas, I submitted. I did what he told me to do. About 20 minutes later we were back at the house and he took it off. I was pissed. He never did it again. It was bizarre. The entire thing was bizarre. I tried to forget about it. And I sure as hell didn't tell many (if any? did I ever tell anyone about that?) people about it. I was too embarrassed and shocked over his (and probably my own compliant) behavior. (ick)

They also somehow slipped in something which I have since learned was actually from Matt's statement into my statement. That's right. He's been interviewed. For sure. They didn't say he had been interviewed, but they might as well have. Somebody talked to him about the day I went into the house and everything happened. And they have record of it. How else they would have that? He has been interviewed. He knows.

In the summary, there is a paragraph about my going to the house. It's about half a page, which is apparently pretty brief because there is a notation about another "exhibit" which more thoroughly describes the entire incident. (::shudders::) In the paragraph, it says that Matt's wife calls him, "demands" he comes home, and he "FINISHED HIS SHIFT" and then "hastily" came home.

This first puzzled me. I was in the house about 45 minutes. It took about 10 minutes for me to talk to his wife, communicate what Matt had done, present pictures (which I had left in my car, parked around the corner and had to walk back and get) and then for us to go in the house and for her to call him and start screaming into the phone at Matt. Matt was home about the last 15 minutes I was there. This gives him approximately 20 minutes to get from work to home. Which, on a good day, without traffic (and this was during rush hour, mind you) should take 35-45 minutes, minimum. And he "finished his shift"?  Talking about this with my mom she pointed out I never told them this and that it shouldn't be part of my statement because I had no knowledge of it. At the time I believed him to be unemployed. When I told his wife I was under the impression he had been fired 8 months back, she very wryly said with a sarcastic smile that they were still receiving paychecks. In the weeks following I questioned whether she stayed with him solely to maintain their lifestyle because of how she responded. (He makes quite a bit, over six figures.) I have to remind myself I am not a mind reader, and just like she shouldn't be judging or blaming me, I shouldn't be doing the same to her. Although that is extremely difficult, and even in typing that out, I want to point my finger and screech "SHE STARTED IT!" since she is the one, who, after all, called me the "b" word when I asked if Matt would answer questions for me to explain his behavior. (Now I am making the wry face.)

Anyway, I emailed the investigating sergant, and he emailed me back this:

Officer Matt was working the early shift in August of 2010 and upon receiving the phone call from his wife responded to the Area office and requested to leave early.  He was already nearing the end of his shift and upon turning in his paperwork, etc. left on time.  By his own admission he did drive home at a very high rate of speed.  

 This statement... it put me back in the moment. It almost put me in Matt's shoes, and yet, still in my own. I know that makes absolutely no sense but I don't know how to explain it. It was like I was watching him live out that day, and thereby back in the moment again. I broke out in a sweat and my entire body started to tremble. My shoulders, neck and back tensed and clenched up as tight as they could without me even realizing. I lifted my legs and hips of the bed with the increase in tension and started to shake, hard, uncontrollably, thinking about this, reading those words.

It made me wonder if maybe I shouldn't know more about what happened. Maybe I can't handle it. Thinking about him speeding home to get there before his wife and girlfriend could exchange more information and details with each other... Driving in that car, thinking about his girlfriend standing in his living room, crouched against his hallway, talking to his wife while she screamed and cursed obscenities at him through the phone line... Typing it... it's making me sick again. My whole body... just sick. Sick, sick, sick.

He's sick.

He's married?

Watching this wedding video on a videographer's blog. Starts off with a little speech from the FOB (father of the bride) about the bride and how she met the groom and sprung this whole marriage thing on him (the dad), and then it launches into a music sequence of the bride getting her make up on, the groom getting ready, bride ascending the aisle, goofing off with the groom, giggling during their ceremony, hanging out with the bridal party...

And I realize, with this sinking, sick feeling in the pit of my stomach... he already did all that.

Matt and HER... they had their wedding day. They had A WEDDING. He has memories of getting up and getting ready and putting on a suit or a tux and hanging out with "his boys" and marching in and standing in front of everyone, and she walked down the aisle... The took portraits and cut a cake and...

I don't know what to say.

We're back to the surreal, out of body, mind-boggling part of this again. How did this happen. He had been married a little less than two years or so, maybe 18 months when he and I started dating. Those memories were fresh in his mind. Those memories... they were still new when we sat in that sandwich shop and he took the straw wrapper off his drink, tied it around my ring finger and said he would try to contain himself until the next week to propose with a real ring.

He had JUST done that.

For real.

She wore a dress.. he wore a suit... they got married. They danced a first dance... maybe he danced with his mother... And one day he got up and thought... I don't like this, let's start over? And hit the mental "delete" key and deleted ALL of those memories right out of his head. The last four years of his life, five years? He just deleted her, everything about her, his wife and their relationship out of his life and life experiences. POOF. Never happened.

One of the pieces of material I turned over to the investigators was an instant messenger conversation where I asked him how long he has been single. No hesitation. "four and a half years... as long as I have been a cop." No wife mentioned there. He even asked, "define single... do shitty dates count?"  How do you delete an experience from your life as huge as a WEDDING? Especially when you're the freaking GROOM?!

My friend Paige said she couldn't believe that they- Matt and his wife were pretending that he hadn't been in this big serious relationship for HALF of their marriage, that they were going on, having another child like everything was wonderful.

Matt went on pretending with me like he hadn't been married the last two years. He's pretending now that he wasn't in a serious relationship with someone other than his wife for nearly two years, and then, he did the same with me.  The man likes to play pretend, apparently. And so does his wife, I guess, because she ignores it. I've been told repeatedly this is all going to blow up in her face but it's hard to feel sorry for her when I still look at her and see nothing but the life I lost, including, basically, my husband. He was the man I thought would be my husband. I never doubted it from the second I felt that first prompting. And I have had the hardest time shaking that conviction. I have never been more sure of anything in my life. ... And I guess, never more wrong either. How do you feel sorry for someone who has the life you dreamed of, wanted, and thought you would have?

Today, I don't think I have ever felt more strongly that I don't want to be married. Ever.  I don't even feel sad about it right now, as I usually do. I feel... disgusted.

In therapy today I was asked what I wanted to happen with Matt and his job. Every day I have a different answer. Some days I am wracked with guilt and I just want him to [continue to] live (my inner deluded belief is that they are ecstatically happy) in la la land and have nothing come of it, and for all to be well. Some days a letter will suffice. Others, a suspension, paid or unpaid. I dream of his wife's smugness over a paid suspension because then he could be home to help with the baby. A paid vacation! Today I had a new answer for my therapist. I wanted him fired. She asked why. It took me twenty minutes to go through all the ways in which he had personally victimized me through his job and how he could do it to others. A pathological liar on a witness stand? Using your position of authority to gain trust and power in relationships? Using highly personal information, to manipulate someone for your own benefit? How do you put someone like that in a job as high powered as a police officer? He should be fired. He should never be permitted to work in law enforcement again.

That's how I felt today.

I may or may not meet with the investigator tomorrow. I don't feel so sick, just sickly exhausted/tired. I'm actually sleeping at night and my body doesn't know what to make of it. Nothing is nailed down yet so I don't know what's happening.

Are you kidding me?

The investigator just emailed me out of the blue and said that he needed to meet with me- this week preferably to have me sign some memoranda from our interview. He said he could mail it, but he would prefer we meet. My head is spinning, I feel dizzy and sick, so tired. I have questions for him; I'd rather meet him in person too, but I keep having visions of vomiting in a trash can outside a Starbucks when I see him while my friend who I have conned into coming with me (why, hello Amanda) looks on horrified. I kind of had a big dinner tonight, turkey sandwich and urban fries... I want to go throw them up. I just feel so sick. My anxiety is so high.. it's like I drank a ton of caffeine, but I am not shaky, just.. my head is spinning. I feel SO sick.

Holding On.

But I don't know why I kept holding on...

Why did I?

I don't know.

For reasons I won't go into, I kind of feel like smacking him in the face right now. I feel... miffed... angry.  He either doesn't know [about the investigation], or he knows and it wasn't a big deal at all.

Either way I feel bitter.

I was talking to my mom tonight about PTSD- Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. It's something alot of soldiers get when they come back from combat. I have it.  She also told me that she spoke to another therapist about me. (Because me seeing my own therapist twice a week isn't enough, right?) That woman recommend EMDR, which is the second time I have been referred to that type of therapy. My sister had a really nasty dog bite- more like attack, that left her leg ripped open and landed her in the hospital and she has never walked with a dog again. That was 10 years ago. She did an EMDR session once, but it was too "out there" for her. Being the judgmental person she is, I'm surprised she tried it at all, but, right now I almost want to say I am proud of her for trying it. It's way out of the box for her personality.  That said, my mom is an MFT and even she called it a bit of hocus pocus, but the point of the therapy is de-sensitization to the trauma, so anything that helps, right?

I don't know, it was just something we talked about so I thought I would mention it here too.

Ughhh.

 Source: http://www.etsy.com/listing/73739086/8x10-recycled-art-print-never-go-with-a

As far as I can tell, they are still working on the "investigation."  As far as I can tell, anyway. 

The last email I had from the sergeant he said that they were at a"pivotal point in the investigation" and that they were  approaching the point of "active engagement." That was a couple weeks ago.

I emailed the sergeant last night some dates he requested- he wanted to know the exact dates that Matt had pulled me over "for fun," and I wasn't sure so I had to research it. I was able to narrow down the dates using email and calendars, but couldn't go beyond that without further help. I ended up having to play hardball with the cell phone company to get my records so I could go through them day by day to pick out a conversation I know I had with my friend Kristin in Utah the day the pull-over/stop happened. She and I were talking on the phone while I was driving out to meet Matt for a lunch date and Matt kept beeping into the conversation. I went through the records day by day within the narrowed down dates until I found a series of calls that matched up with my memory, which I did. I passed that information along to the sergeant. 

He responded to me today, thanked me for the research and said that he would check it against what they had already uncovered- something like that. 

So I'm not entirely sure at this point if Matt knows or not. The good thing is nothing has happened so far if he does. I am getting more comfortable and confidant in leaving the house and I am not so afraid. The bad thing is I have had a number of hang ups from a blocked number on my cell phone. It could just be my Mom, but it's making me uncomfortable... The first three weeks following the interview my phone was broken and I was, for all intents and purposes, protected from the outside world because of it. No calls from parents, investigators or friends. No client calls. No text messages. No middle of the night calls from my night owl buddy to startle me out of sleep. It was like being in a cocoon of safety. And an excuse to keep everyone at an arm's length too. I needed that space. Not only could I "not" talk to anyone because my phone was physically broken (drowned in the dog's water bowl) but I wasn't really capable of doing so, and having this 'excuse,' if you want to call it that, protected me. Fewer questions, more hibernating. I needed that for myself. 

It's been a month now, and I'm starting to come out of my hole. I only worry that I'm becoming comfortable with a false sense of safety- if he doesn't know yet, if his family is unaware, this could blow up at any time and I won't be prepared. 

(Of course, that's why I have an attack beagle.)

My secondary worry with the situation at present time is whether they will be able to verify what I have told them [the investigators]. I hope so. That's one my top 5 list of worst nightmares- not being believed. I want them to find everything I have told them, just as I said it would be. I want to be a good eyewitness. I want to be accurate in everything I remembered. Part of me is terrified I have remembered things wrong. I question myself, it's all so serious, you can't help but do so. Did he really sign his name with the fake name on the credit card receipts? Did he really wear that name tag? Yes, that's what I remember... I can picture him signing the slip in my head... I can see the name tag on his uniform now even... But what if they go and find the receipts at the restaurant I told them to go to and it's not signed with the fake name? What if it's signed with the real name? What if I just thought it had the fake name on it? What if he altered the way he signed his real name to make it look like he was signing his pretend name? Or what if I had the restaurant wrong? What if it was a different restaurant where he signed with the pretend name and I sent them on a wild goose chase? I am so worried they won't be able to verify what I have told them.  And I don't think I can ask if they have been successful so far. Mentally, I just don't think I can... and even if I could... I don't think they would or could answer.

I am so worried.

That Name Tag

If you don't know the story of what's going on, you can click HERE for the synopsis, or go to the "Notable Posts" on the right hand column and start at the top to get a gist for what's going on. There's also a summary in my "About Me" and on the topper to this blog.

Part of this interview, and part of my complaint to the CHP about Matt is that he wore a name tag on his CHP (California Highway Patrol) uniform that had the name he was using at the time- Timmons. This turned out to not be his real name as I horriffically found out after 18 months of being together. He had stolen, borrowed or swapped out that name tag with another officer who really does have the last name Timmons.

During the interview, the female sergeant asked me to describe the name tag in as much detail as possible. She told me that in their department, the name tags have decorations on them depending on how long they have been in service, their safety record, etc. All I can really remember about the tag is that it was gold or silver- shiny (I lean more towards gold, but it was dark, so I don't want to say anything for sure, but I thought it was gold.) Anyway, it was shiny, had black or dark lettering and was about the side of an address label- the long skinny kind. (I showed them with my hands the size.)  I remember it being plain.

After the interview, my mind started rolling on this. If they get special new name tags that correspond with their achievements, I bet they don't confiscate or turn in their old name tags, right? I wonder if Matt has an old name tag of Timmon's that he just has, that he was given or borrowed or kept and he just uses or used as his. He didn't have to take the current name tag off Timmon's uniform if that's the case. He could have just used an old one. Anything that had a name on it would have been sufficient. That would have made this alot easier, simpler... logical, don't you think?

And dirty.

I didn't really process these thoughts until afterwards so I didn't mention it in the meeting. So I wonder if the investigators had the same thoughts I did. I hope so.

****

So, I don't know if I should have or not, I'm kind of wishing I didn't, but I googled the CHP name tags and the first few that came up didn't look how I remembered. But then I saw a few that did, so I felt better. I also saw the decoration the lady was talking about, I don't remember that  part of it.

This part upsets me. In the pictures I looked at, the people are all wearing the name tag on their right side. I remember Matt wearing it on the left. Now I feel worried. What if my memory is wrong, or if I"m not remembering it right? Maybe I have it all wrong. I shouldn't have looked at the pictures. I don't want to taint my memory. But that's what I remember. I remember it being on the right hand side when I looked at him, which would be his left side, and his radio being on that side too. I remember looking at that same side of his shirt when we were in Baja Fresh a few weeks later and noticing there wasn't a name tag and noticing there weren't any pin holes in his shirt from the tag either. (Which made me think at the time that maybe he didn't need to wear it or something, if he didn't have pin holes).  After the interview I wondered if maybe it had a magnet back and that's why I didn't see pinholes. But maybe I was looking at the wrong side. But I looked at his uniform all over and I do not remember him wearing a name tag that day! I don't! There wasn't one there! And in that first meeting in Kinder's the BBQ place, when I saw the name Timmon's on his shirt, I remember it being on his left side. But what if I am wrong? Now I feel so worried and anxious. Now maybe they won't believe me because I got this wrong, but that's still what I remember. When I look at these pictures of the uniforms it doesn't look right. The tag goes on the other side, his left.

I shouldn't have looked it up. Why did I do that? :(