Scheme
The Jekyll and Hyde of it all
The backroads that led us to Saskatoon paved his mind with schemes.
I can scheme, too; after all, I learned from the best.
The DVD player kept the toddlers' attention for more than five minutes while I stretched my left arm to the brink of falling off as I rummaged around in the infant’s bucket seat, searching for the pacifier to silence her.
“Please quiet down. We don’t want Daddy to get upset now, do we?”
I kept the volume of the children under control while I listened to the money-making scheme he required me to begin once we arrived home.
During his manic episodes, he believed he would hold office one day. The world's pressures were trivial, the ideas were perspicuous, and the money would flow mellifluously.
“Bre, you should become a sleep consultant. People pay through the roof for them, and it is easy work.” He quickly signed me up for more work; I wasn’t working hard enough, right? It was never enough; he played video games.
He signed me up to take the course, but there were insufficient funds after the first month when the second payment was due. I did not consume a single page of Sleep Consultant Training.
Christmas Break of 2020, as Bugs Bunny entertained the children on the drop-down screen in the van, he drove us on the backroads home after visiting his extended family in Saskatoon; I turned to him. I asked, “You would support the children and me if we divorced, right?”
Foreshadowing at its finest.
“Of course, I would,” he assured.
Today, he owes over $32,000 in child support and contempt, but “Of course, he would.”
The conversation once again turned to one of his schemes.
I had been speaking to him about my passion for writing for a while up to this point. Writing our cult story was the lightbulb moment. He was in it for the money. He continually plotted ways to monetize; if it helped just one person, it would be worth it for me.
I wrote the opener to the non-existent blog on the remainder of the drive home; about an hour and a half is all it took.
I sat on the opener for ten months, and then on October 20th, 2020, he and I sat in the same living room where I wrote this blog today and drank a healthy dose of liquid courage.
Since that drive home, he pressured me to start the blog. I had read from one of Canada’s prestigious influencers that your first blog would not succeed, and that, mixed with my imposter syndrome and lack of education, kept me in reserve, not to mention exhaustion and lack of time.
My grandma passed away in 1997; I had occupied Earth for a mere five years as she took her final breath. The lone memory I have of her is not of her at all; I sit on the floral couch of her duplex as my mom and her siblings discuss funeral details. All I know of her is through stories those who loved her tell. If there is a theme to each story, you did not want to mess with Grandma; she possessed strength and held her own, unlike most women of her time. I call her a fucking badass.
Sitting on the burnt orange chair on the south side of our living room, I felt my Grandma guiding me. Sitting apparatuses and the two of us; a bond since 1997. Her presence encompassed me, and I felt a damning emotional nudge of, ‘This is the right way.’ It would have been kind of her to warn me of what lay ahead after I pressed ‘Enter’ on the first blog post, and in the sincerest of means, “Fuck You, Grandma. I love you!”
‘Reset-ish’ was born.
On a Facebook mom’s group, I promoted my newly established venture of healing, as the cult I was from was located in their backyards. I did not expect the response I received, as I believed what I had read from that influencer: Your first blog will not succeed. Rapidly, word spread, and he schemed.
He ordered, “You need to write two to three blogs per week. “
He had built a computer piece by piece. It was his baby, his pride and joy. I was chastised if our children touched it; it was my fault. I was not allowed to write my blogs on it. I had to use my phone.
At times, I would sneak and use it, as it was easier to type on the computer than on my phone, but as soon as he caught me, I was removed; winning games of Apex Legends was of greater urgency for him.
“Do your fucking job and keep the children away from it,” he snapped, cheeks red in rage.
Imagine if I broke it?
I wrote two to three blogs per week. Every spare moment, which was few and far between, I scribbled words onto my Samsung notepad. More often than not, I combined bathtime with writing.
Shampoo, condition, paragraph, repeat. My hair was faultless.
Since he disallowed me from using his computer, I was forced to email my finished blogs to him to upload onto the website. He was the password keeper.
Six months later, the blog reached international status. I received hundreds of emails from cult survivors, empathizers, and haters. Our Facebook group, ‘Reset-ish,’ grew at an exponential speed. People from all over the world began to share their stories of survival without judgment. Cult survivors who left the same cult we did shared their truths after years of suffering from the rumours and lies started by the leaders who were supposed to shepherd us in honesty.
I hadn’t helped just one person; I was helping hundreds.
On April 16th, 2021, everything changed again. Nervous, I emailed one of our city's most prominent local podcast hosts, sharing some of our stories. I did not expect a response, but an hour after sending it, I received a reply as I pushed a couple of my dayhome children on the backyard swing set.
It read, “Are you available Monday at 8:30 a.m. to appear on the show?”
My body shook in its entirety as I dialled my mom.
“Mom, Ryan Jespersen wants us on his podcast on Monday,” I shrieked!
“Are you serious?” she squealed.
We listened to him on the local 630 Ched radio station for years. Life was coming full circle.
The excitement halted when I told my husband. His wife’s intelligence was being noticed; people wanted to hear from me, and with that, a spotlight was shining brightly on his insecurities. For years, I was nothing more than his stay-at-home silent fuck toy, and now, the door to the loud and vibrant city had cracked open.
I closed the dayhome for Monday morning to provide my full attention to the interview. However, our children would be at home and wide awake. I woke up early and readied myself and the children. I fed the children breakfast, sent the school-aged children off to school, and set the toddlers up for morning quiet time success: I set out colouring books and reading books as Cocomelon played in the background.
But as I came to find out, nothing I could do was good enough. I never did it right, and when I was just three years post-cult, I did not understand projection; I braced, faced, and took his projection of self-criticism as my own.
Ten minutes before the call came in from the show’s producer, Sam, I was reprimanded, belittled and called a stupid fucking bitch. Moments later, live on air, his arms were around me, proudly showing me off as though I was a dusty first-place trophy he had buffed off and worked so hard to win.
Abusers are Jekyll and Hyde. They transform and perform for the masses, so when the truth of their abusive actions comes out, they aren’t believable, and the victim is made out to be the unhinged one.
A week and a half after Ryan Jespersen's interview, CityNews interviewed us, and again, for the duration of the morning, I was berated as he got high. Still, he held my hand on camera and camouflaged me as my biggest supporter.
My intelligence fueled his rage interview after interview, and the holes in the walls doubled.
“They all want you, and I am invisible in the background.”
During the five-day rescue stay I took to Saskatoon to bring my husband back home in the summer of 2021, we brawled in a screaming match outside in the front yard of his cousin's home right before I took the interview call from CBC News.
“You’ve become consumed with the blog; you have no time for me,” he complained.
“Oh, forgive me for working hard to provide a source of income for our family; do you forget that there are five dollars in the bank, and we need groceries? I don’t want to struggle anymore!” I screamed, exasperated.
“I just want a simple life with my family, relying on each other. Firepits, hotdogs and beer!!” he demanded.
Was this the same man who was continually scheming on those backroads??
It was.
The world's pressures were trivial, the ideas were perspicuous, and the money would flow mellifluously.
I watched as the same smile that appeared on his face when he was sexually exploiting me grinned again as he sat around with his cousins chugging beer, away from all responsibility, and it grieved me. He was content… without us.
I stood numb as his family accused me. They told me he was trying his best, and I was the obstacle.
“We will always choose blood before you.” his uncle threatened. He was their prodigal son. After twenty-six years of ex-communication due to religion, their nephew and cousin had returned.
He quickly ripped the pages of us; the adhesive of my love was undesired.
I kept gluing us back together while rewriting our future to continue his gaiety.
“We are moving to Saskatoon. This is where you belong.” I apprised.
I devised a plan. I did not put myself on the back burner. I took myself off the stove and tossed myself to the back of the cupboard, unseen and forgotten.
“You stay here, and I will go home, run the dayhome, pack up our home and single mom it for the next 30 days. On the last weekend of this month, you return with your cousins and move our belongings.”
With the plan in place, I left our nine-year-old son with him and drove six hours home with four children, aged 7, 5, 3 and 1.
Two weeks later, I received a dm from his aunt begging me to come and pick up my son as his dad was neglecting him.
Days later, my baby ended up in a nine-day stay in our local Children’s Hospital with a blood infection.
I begged him through cellular wires to come home.
“Our daughter is in the hospital.” I cried.
“ You ruin everything,” he replied.
I picked him up from the bus station, and he erased every word we had ever written regarding us with the following statement:
“I experienced the best day of my life while you weren’t here, better than the birth of the kids and our wedding day. My cousin and I met three girls down at the river.”
He claimed he only spoke to them. My gut tells me otherwise.
August 5th, 2021, his final word to me, after 10.5 years of marriage and the birth of our five children, was, “Ok,” as he shut the door behind me as I drove to the police station to report his assault on me.
Three weeks later, he drove those same backroads, this time alone.
His scheme?
Deadbeat Dad.
The thing is, I can scheme, too; after all, I learned from the best.
I have driven the same backroads twice in the past three years.
My scheme?
The service of Divorce Papers and Affidavits.
🫂 in awe of your strength. I am so glad you are where you are now. ❤️
♥️♥️♥️