Chap­ter 28 cap­tures a moment that marks one of the low­est points in my life, a moment of sheer des­per­a­tion. It was ear­ly Jan­u­ary 2008, and after spend­ing some time with my sons, I was con­front­ed with the crush­ing real­iza­tion that I might nev­er see them again. The secu­ri­ty guard, who had pre­vi­ous­ly worked for me but was now work­ing for Kevin, arrived to pick up my chil­dren at the end of the vis­it. He first placed Pre­ston in the car, and as he came to take Jay­den, an over­whelm­ing fear gripped me. My mind raced with the thought that if I gave them back, I might nev­er see them again. The ongo­ing cus­tody bat­tle, the con­stant pow­er strug­gle, had led me to believe that if I returned my chil­dren, I would lose them per­ma­nent­ly. I was par­a­lyzed with fear, and in that moment, I ran into the bath­room with Jay­den, lock­ing the door behind me. My mater­nal instinct kicked in, and I sim­ply could not let go of him. The thought of being sep­a­rat­ed from my kids was unbear­able, and I was will­ing to do any­thing to hold on to them for just a lit­tle while longer.

My friend, who was there with me, tried to calm me down, assur­ing me that the secu­ri­ty guard would wait. But no reas­sur­ance could ease the dread and pan­ic that con­sumed me as I held Jay­den in my arms. I cried uncon­trol­lably, but even in my des­per­a­tion, there was no one there to offer any com­fort. Instead of being met with com­pas­sion, the sit­u­a­tion esca­lat­ed quick­ly. With­out warn­ing, a SWAT team burst into the bath­room, storm­ing in as if I had done some­thing crim­i­nal. They restrained me on the spot, as if my fear of los­ing my chil­dren made me a threat. The sight of the SWAT team, the force used to take my child from me, was an image I would nev­er for­get. I looked at my friend in dis­be­lief and said, “But you said he would wait…?” I could not com­pre­hend why, in my moment of pan­ic and vul­ner­a­bil­i­ty, I was being treat­ed like a crim­i­nal. My plea for just a lit­tle more time with my chil­dren was met with force and aggres­sion, not under­stand­ing or empa­thy.

The con­se­quences of that moment were swift and harsh. After Jay­den was tak­en from me, I was strapped to a gur­ney and trans­port­ed to the hos­pi­tal, where I was held for a sev­en­ty-two-hour eval­u­a­tion. While I was even­tu­al­ly released before the 72 hours were up, the emo­tion­al dam­age from the expe­ri­ence was pro­found. The way I was treated—restrained, con­trolled, and forcibly removed from my own home—was an expe­ri­ence that left a last­ing scar. The paparazzi, who were relent­less in their pur­suit of every moment of my life, only exac­er­bat­ed the men­tal and emo­tion­al strain I was already under. As if things weren’t dif­fi­cult enough, the media’s hound­ing made me feel even more trapped and iso­lat­ed. I was con­stant­ly in the pub­lic eye, crit­i­cized and scru­ti­nized, as if my every move was being watched, and it seemed like I could do no right. The cul­mi­na­tion of all this pres­sure came dur­ing the cus­tody hear­ing, where I was told that my fear and pan­ic had result­ed in even less time with my chil­dren. Instead of under­stand­ing the deep, instinc­tu­al need I had to pro­tect my chil­dren, my actions were framed as detri­men­tal. I was pun­ished for being scared, for show­ing vul­ner­a­bil­i­ty, for not being able to main­tain con­trol in a sys­tem that had already stripped me of every­thing else. In the end, the sys­tem seemed to be designed to pun­ish me for my emo­tion­al reac­tions rather than help me heal. My des­per­a­tion to hold on to my fam­i­ly was turned against me, fur­ther deep­en­ing my sense of help­less­ness and loss.