Mom Faces Criticism For Saying She ‘Won’ By Giving Up Custody Of Her Daughter — ‘I’d Never Stop Fighting For My Child’
She made a difficult choice in an impossible situation.
fizkes / Shutterstock A woman named Vishnia shared a vulnerable side of herself on TikTok as she described how she finally put an end to an ongoing custody battle with her emotionally abusive ex.
The mom faced criticism for saying she ‘won’ after giving up custody of her daughter.
“I just gave up custody of my daughter,” Vishnia said. “I was just in a court meeting, and I told the judge, ‘Can you please just give this man whatever he’s asking for?’ The man being my daughter’s dad.”
She explained that she gave up legal custody of her 9-year-old daughter, noting that “Ever since she was 2 years old, he effectively had all the decision-making power.”
While the court recommended they split custody of their daughter, Vishnia described the reality of her scenario, saying, “He was disregarding my existence and making my life a misery and trying to discourage me in my attempts to be a mother to my daughter and to take care of her or do anything for her.”
“He was the one who was making all the decisions about what school she’s gonna go to, what kind of food she’s gonna eat, what extracurricular activities she’s gonna have, if she’s gonna go to church or not, what doctor she’s gonna see,” Vishnia said, sharing that any time she attempted to make a decision for her daughter she was “met with a lot of verbal and emotional abuse.”
Despite losing custody of her daughter, the mom was celebrating the fact that she got her life back after escaping an emotionally abusive relationship.
“I’ve been fighting with this man for 9 years,” she said. “9 years of constant threats.”
Vishnia explained how her ex would call her parenting into question, saying, “Oh, you’re a bad mom, I’m gonna take away your custody, you’re a bad mom, you’re breathing wrong.”
“If you’re a mother, you know that somebody talking about the [kind of] mother you are is probably the most hurtful thing anybody can do to you,” she added.
She then described the interplay between her role as a parent and the abuse she suffered. “I just wanted to be the mother to my daughter and give her whatever she needed to receive from me,” Vishnia said. “The more I tried to do that, the more I was facing abuse by him.”
She also noted the extreme imbalance of power between her ex and herself, as she was without legal status in the U.S. and her ex refused to help her obtain papers like he said he would do before the birth of their daughter.
“I’m struggling just being a single mother in a foreign country, without a job, without a driver’s license, without any friends or family there with me, just by myself,” she said.
“He was not giving up,” she continued. “He was absolutely not gonna give up. He focused so hard on building a case against me, and he was threatening me and surveilling me and putting pressure on me for so long, for 9 years, that at the end, he managed to build a case.”
“I was alone and illegal there, and he had his mom and his sister and a bunch of family there to support him, so he could afford the time and money to deal with the legal matters,” she explained.
“I fought and I fought and I persevered… And the more I tried, the more I was getting hurt all the time,” she said.
“He also taught my daughter that I am the mom he claims that I am,” Vishnia said. “That I don’t love her, that everything I do for her is bad for her. But what she knows more than anything is if she has a relationship with me, she’s gonna be in trouble.”
Vishnia explained that her daughter was put in an impossible situation: As a young child, she was forced to protect herself the only way she knew how which was by rejecting her mother and treating her like her father did.
“I don’t hold [it] against her because she’s a child but it is a reality of life,” she said.
Vishnia described how the emotional abuse took its toll on her mental health, saying, “At some point, I’ll reach a stage where there’s nothing left of me to give. It’s a matter of survival for me at this point.”
The embattled mom gave up custody of her daughter to protect herself from further emotional abuse and to protect her daughter, as well.
She revealed that the institutions she reached out to for help dismissed her case because her ex was emotionally abusive and not physically violent. “As if violence is only physical,” Vishnia exclaimed. "What happens to emotional violence? The gaslighting, somebody denying you your humanity, somebody diminishing any of your feelings and any of your needs.”
Although she lost contact with her daughter, Vishnia got the rest of her life back.
“I’m finally free to be myself,” she said. “My whole existence is not trying to deny somebody’s lies against me.”
“I feel so liberated,” she said. “I hope somebody is going to find encouragement in this, as everybody wants to judge us moms, but I don’t feel an ounce of shame. I’m actually proud of being so strong and wise.”
Of course, with online discourse being what it is, Vishnia did face major backlash from strangers who don’t know the inner workings of her life.
One particular comment claimed, “I’d never allow someone to make me stop fighting for my daughter,” a comment that Vishnia tore apart as misogynistic, victim-blaming, and devoid of empathy.
“No woman’s journey is easy,” she declared. “Abuse can happen to anybody. You don’t think you’re one of those people until it happens to you.”
The reality is that no one knows the truth of Vishnia’s situation except for herself.
She was placed in an impossible predicament with no easy answer, and she chose a solution that works for her at this moment, giving herself and her daughter the freedom to exist.
If she’s found a sense of inner peace for walking away, then she should be celebrated for that, not dragged down, and allowed to take the time she needs to heal, in whatever form that healing takes for her.
Alexandra Blogier is a writer on YourTango's news and entertainment team. She covers social issues, pop culture and all things to do with the entertainment industry.