Alright friends, time for a life update. For me, 2025 wasn’t just another year. It wasn’t merely a year with its normal ups and downs, breakthroughs and setbacks. It wasn’t just a normal passing of time that saw the closing of some chapters and beginning of new ones. No, this year has been categorically different from all others: I will always remember 2025 as the year I got my daughter back.
It started on September 13th, 2024 (a Friday, if you’re into those kinda details). Out of nowhere, I received a text from [Maternal Grandmother, henceforth MGM], the maternal grandmother of Sofia (my daughter). It said: “Sofia is here.”
Where was she before that day? In Mount Shasta, where she had been living alone with her mother (my ex wife) for the last three years.
Why was she in Mount Shasta for the last three years? We’ll come back to that. But first, we have to answer another question: why was I learning of this from [MGM], Sofia’s grandmother, and not from Sofia herself, or even her mom?
It turned out Sofia was dropped off at her grandmother’s, with her mom driving back to Shasta without ever stopping to speak with [MGM]. It turned out [MGM] didn’t even know she was coming. And, it must be said, Sofia was not coming to San Francisco to see me.
What I’m about to explain to you now are a series of circumstances of which it took me years to learn the truth. In a matter of weeks, I went from being totally in the dark to bearing the burden of knowledge that required immediate and courageous action.
Simply put, Sofia had run away from her mom. She had talked her into letting her stay in San Francisco with her grandmother, but the plan was to never go back to Shasta, and to never return to her mother’s custody ever again.
Why didn’t she tell me, her dad? Because she didn’t know if she could trust me. And why is that? Because, for the past three years, my only communication with Sofia had been over zoom. One 30 minute zoom call per week for the last year was all the contact I had with my kid this whole time.
Why didn’t I visit her in Mount Shasta once that whole time, you might be wondering? I was afraid to. I was afraid that if I did anything to disrupt the status quo, my ex wife would take Sofia and disappear again.
Disappear again?
Let me explain.
Back in 2020, Sofia was living with her mom and her grandparents in San Francisco, where they’d been ever since her mom and I separated in 2014. During that time we had a fairly consistent coparenting schedule, but I never saw or spoke to anyone but Sofia. She’d get picked up and dropped off in the lobby of their building, and eventually it had been years since I’d communicated with any adult at their residence except by text.
When the Covid lockdowns were imposed, we switched to zoom calls, but never formally worked out a schedule. This is because, as I just mentioned, communication between me and the relevant adults had almost completely ceased over a period of several years. The requisite level of relationship for us to collaboratively engage with and resolve a problem wasn’t there. We were miles away from that.
So I had a small handful of unplanned video chats with my daughter in mid 2020. And then I stopped hearing from her. I’d call, and nobody would answer or call me back. Weeks went by. I sent a package of Christmas presents to Sofia, and never heard back. Nothing. No “thank you,” no “merry Christmas,” just silence. I called, texted, emailed. Rinse and repeat. Nothing.
Somehow, a kind of apathy set in. Weeks became months. I would still make sporadic attempts at contact, but I never heard from anyone. I felt powerless, disconnected, and also useless. It was incredibly but also insidiously demoralizing to never hear back. I took it personally and felt unwanted and not needed.
Finally, in July of 2021, I get an email from [MGM], the grandmother. They’re gone. Sofia and her mother are no longer living at the condo with her grandparents.
Not only are they gone, she has no idea where they are and is not in contact with them. Not only this, but they left in early April, 3 months ago. To make matters even worse, no reason for the departure was provided.
And nobody told me anything until now.
I went into a state of something like panic. I realized that I had no choice but to involve the authorities. I had to do whatever it took to get as many eyes on this as quickly as I could. I figured I had three options, and I could exercise all of them: file a missing person’s report, report a violation of my custodial rights, and report Sofia as kidnapped by her other parent.
So there I was, in the north beach police station on July 7th, filling out a missing person’s report. Before submitting it, the police exhorted me to make one final attempt to reach Sofia’s mother. So, I sent her a text letting her know that I had been trying to reach her for months, that I recently learned she had left San Francisco with Sofia, and that I would be involving the authorities if I didn’t hear back from her within 24 hours.
Well, wouldn’t ya know, after more than 8 months of ZERO CONTACT, I get a phone call right away. “Sorry, things have just been crazy. You know how it is!” No, I don’t. Where is my daughter. “Don’t worry, she’s fine.” Put her on the phone right now. (She does. I hear Sofia’s voice for the first time in months).
She refuses to tell me where they are. I am so terrified of losing contact again that I don’t press the issue further. We agree to set up zoom calls. There are some issues here and there but they are generally consistent. I eventually learn they are living in Mount Shasta. I sent gifts on her birthday and on Christmas. Things continued like this off and on for 3 years. During this entire time I never saw nor communicated with her mom in any way.
If this sounds insanely dysfunctional to you, dear reader, hear me when I say that I agree. Let me try to account for state of mind succinctly:
I was all too aware that I was in a precarious situation. She had disappeared with my daughter once, and nobody tried to warn me. People let months go by without responding. If she gets spooked, it could easily happen again. She could disappear with my kid and I’d have even less of a chance of making contact.
Also, and I know how this sounds, Sofia seemed fine. She never appeared stressed or distressed, said she was happy in Mount Shasta, and never said a word about wanting me to visit or missing me. I would raise the topic and it would become awkward and tense. My significance to her seemed to be shrinking.
Finally, I was holding onto a vague notion that if I cooperated with this narrow aperture long enough, I would be in a good position when it inevitably widened. At some point, I told myself, something would change and allow me to step into her life more fully. But there could be dire consequences if I rushed anything.
Let’s come back to September of 2024. Sofia is suddenly back in SF, staying with her grandmother [MGM]. Her mom is already back in Shasta. [MGM] had no expectation of suddenly becoming Sofia’s caretaker until April. April! 7 months. I have a tiny shoebox apartment barely big enough for me, let alone me and an 11 year old girl. This whole situation feels incomprehensibly weird. Something is totally off. My relationship to all three parties is miles away from where it should be. I blamed myself. All of a sudden, [MGM] and I go from having not spoken in 3 years to texting multiple times a day about Sofia’s daily activities. [MGM] is in her mid 80’s and lives alone (her husband died a couple years ago now), and Sofia is a handful. I ask [MGM] point blank to finally tell me the truth about why they suddenly disappeared in 2021. She tells me that’s in the past and it doesn’t matter. I tell her that it does. [MGM] claims they disappeared suddenly with no explanation. Sofia claims they were kicked out. These are mutually exclusive explanations and somebody is lying. I get nowhere.
I begin meeting Sofia for brunch during our normal zoom call times on Saturday mornings. Again, things are unbearably awkward. The kid who seemed fine during all those zoom calls is behaving like a bitter, resentful, spiteful brat. She has a mean face and says mean but incoherent things. It’s all incredibly painful. Again, I blame myself. This is the consequence of me failing to do more when I had the chance. I hold onto the hope that regular encounters will eventually rebuild trust and I will finally learn what the fuck has happened.
And I was right.
One day, while we’re eating our good-but-not-great food, Sofia remarks that “I’ve eaten every day since I’ve been back.”
Wait. What?
After roughly six weeks of nothing but a defensive front, she finally starts talking to me. I ask her if I can take notes.
Here are those notes:
1 [MGM] says not to talk about it to the counselor or teacher
2 Sofia told numerous therapists about her mom’s behavior and they called CPS FIVE TIMES
3 [MGM] knows about this and discourages Sofia from doing anything about it
4 She has hit Sofia and has locked her out of the house, at night. Sofia got back into the house by herself
5 She found Sofia in the house and attributed her presence there to the will of some supernatural/paranormal agency “oh thank goodness. The yogis let you back in.”
6 She told CPS Sofia has been hearing voices and when she (Sofia’s mom) overspent and got herself deeply into debt – Sofia has no idea what she spent the money on. [Sofia’s mom] SAYS she’s half a million in debt (in 3 years). [MGM] knows.
7 Sofia doesn’t have a bed to sleep in at home. She sleeps on the floor.
8 She works for minimum wage at a grocery store
9 There is not enough food in the house in Shasta
10 She’s threatened Sofia’s life: “I could kill you and me right now”
11 She interrupts Sofia’s sleep because “I can’t sleep” at 3am
12 Doesn’t let her listen to music at home
13 Soul Connections in Mount Shasta is where she spends lots of money on occult readings and psychic mediums etc
14 She’ll randomly ask Sofia “what do the yogis say”
15 This has happened in the middle of the night
16 There are countless text messages documenting this
17 Does not give Sofia medicine when she’s sick
18 Schizophrenia diagnosis not unlikely
19 Paranoid delusions
20 Everyone is against me
21 Delusions of grandeur
22 Thinks she’s in a relationship with famous people she’s never met
23 Auditory hallucinations
24 She’s threatened murder suicide more than 10 times
My jaw is on the floor. I feel a storm of grief, sadness, worry, and rage. She says to me, “I can’t go back to Shasta.” I swear on my life right then and there that she never will. Sofia has been trying to alert adults about her mother’s descent into madness and the abuse and neglect visited upon her this entire time and nobody would listen. She couldn’t tell me anything because her mother was standing next to her the entire time we were on our zoom calls. This whole time. This whole fucking time.
It gets worse.
A couple weeks later, while we’re grabbing brunch again, she tells me the truth about their departure from San Francisco way back in 2021. Somewhere around Christmas time, her mom stopped speaking to her parents. She instructed Sofia to do the same. She quit her job, saying “Gurunath told me to.” Gurunath is a disgraced pseudo Hindu cult leader who my ex wife believes to be psychically communicating with her.
One day, Sofia’s mom tells her to go into [MGF] and [MGM]’s bedroom to retrieve an item, while they’re in it, and without speaking to them. Sofia comes in waving a stick. Tensions predictably boil over. [MGF] grabs the stick out of Sofia’s hands and breaks it. Sofia runs into the kitchen crying. Her mom responds by assaulting both [MGF] and [MGM], giving them both visible bruises.
She then takes off in [MGF]’s car, takes Sofia to lunch, and abandons the car only to walk back home. The police are waiting for her. Sofia’s mother spends a week in jail. [MGF] has obtained an emergency protective order and is seeking a restraining order. Sofia spends her 8th birthday with her grandparents while her mom sits in jail for assaulting her grandparents. She witnessed the assault.
And in all this, nobody has notified her dad. Nobody called me. Her custodial parent has been jailed and is the subject of an emergency protective order, and nobody has informed the other parent. Not Sofia, not her mom, not her grandparents, not the police, and not child protective services. I later learned that Sofia’s mom had provided numerous false statements to law enforcement. She told them that she had no contact information for me, that I had been out of the picture since 2015, and she had reason to believe I was homeless and living on the streets of the tenderloin (never mind the obvious incongruities here). You can just imagine the unholy fury coursing through me like laser beams trying to shoot from my eyes. Insanity. Utter insanity.
Sofia’s mom gets out of jail and is escorted back to the condo by SFPD. She packs all her things into whatever luggage they have and disappears. This was in the first week of April.
Fast forward to JULY and [MGM] finally tells me “they suddenly took off,” feigning ignorance as to why.
Fast forward to November 2024. I now know the truth, or at least the major pieces.
My ex wife lost her mind, assaulted her parents in front of Sofia, ran away to Mount Shasta, and liquidated her requirement to buy a 3 story house outright in addition to a large SUV.
She didn’t work for two and a half years. She went from a million in cash to roughly $600,000 in debt within that time.
Her paranoid delusions got progressively worse. She became obsessed with the idea of Elon Musk bailing her out financially. She would call relatives and former coworkers and acquaintances to lament her “situation,” and they would never speak to her again. She drove to Los Angeles for two weeks “looking for Elon Musk.”
She would drop Sofia off at parks without a phone and leave her there all day. Sofia would beg for food. She would steal vegetables from the gardens of their neighbors. There was no food in the house. She witnessed her mother drink her own urine countless times. She once spent three days without leaving the bathtub. She stopped flushing her excrement down the toilet. She pulled over into the shoulder of a highway and left Sofia there for over an hour. She put her into the dryer and wouldn’t let her out until she was crying in hysterics. She threatened to burn the house down with her in it. She abused their cats and forced Sofia to do same and then used that against her. She called Sofia obese, greedy, selfish, ungrateful, and a slob. She told her nobody would ever marry her and she would become a homeless drug addict.
She told Sofia that I abandoned her, that I was always trying to ruin their lives, and that I was a rapist. Spent most nights screaming and crying hysterically, writhing on her back and flailing her limbs like an infant having a tantrum. She beat and berated my little girl every day, and monitored her the entire time she would speak to the one person on earth who would have done anything to help her.
Let me tell you now that I have never been the same person after I came to understand this.
As you read this, I imagine you’re feeling a variant of what I felt: the sensation of your blood running cold. A grim reality dawning. A kind of unyielding resolve rising to take the place of confusion and powerlessness. I now knew what had been withheld from me for so long, and why I never could have learned the truth a day sooner.
I was under the impression I would have a few months to sort this out. I was wrong. When I was visiting Sofia on thanksgiving day, her mother showed up without warning to take her back to Mount Shasta. I’ve never seen anyone so terrified in my life. We look out the window and her mom’s black SUV is in the driveway. I decide right then and there that this monster is never coming near my little girl ever again.
We gather as much of her belongings as we can and leave the building through the back entrance. She blocks her mom’s phone number. We go to another part of town. We try to eat something in an attempt to calm our nerves. We try going to the previously scheduled Friendsgiving. It’s useless. I can’t give this kiddo a normal thanksgiving. It’s so past that. We talk and agree to go to the police station and explain the situation. This takes the rest of the day and goes well into the evening, but we leave the police station with an emergency protective order.
The next day, we’re on the phone with a law firm about filing for a domestic violence restraining order and taking full legal and physical custody of Sofia. From November 2024 to December 2025 I’m in court dealing with this roughly every six weeks or so. It slows down after September but it’s just court date after court date for 13 months.
At first, Sofia continues living at [MGM]’s because it’s the house she grew up in, even if [MGM] is actively making this situation worse every single day. She thinks I’m causing trouble. She thinks I’m so irresponsible. She thinks Sofia is making it all up. She gives her granddaughter a fucking YOGURT for Christmas. She says over and over again “I find it hard to believe.” She is impossibly argumentative and quarrelsome. She chooses her words thoughtlessly. She drives Sofia into one panic attack after another. The poor kid is dealing with PTSD, suicidal ideation – everything you’d expect. She is hospitalized numerous times for this. Finally we agree that Sofia needs to get the fuck away from [MGM] and live with dad. We find an apartment and move in together in February 2025. I have now extricated my daughter from the presence of TWO wicked witches. Putting points on the board. We’re building trust, she is slowly rediscovering safety, security, and being treated like a human being worthy of love.
I eventually get my ex to furnish basic documents like birth certificate, social security, insurance. I fight to get her and [MGM] removed as contacts from the school district. I fight to get her insurance transferred from Siskiyou county. After months of housing Sofia under my roof and several more months of having a temporary restraining order in place, I decide that I refuse to pay HER MOM another dollar of child support (duh) and have that reversed in my favor. I take things day by day with Sofia and she gets better and better. We get her into regular therapy. We get her meeting with a social worker. We get ME talking to someone too. My whole life turned upside down overnight. My relationship with my girlfriend turned upside down overnight. I have to learn to be a full time single dad overnight. My 11 year old daughter has an attorney. In July Sofia testifies before the judge for 90 minutes, all by herself. I’m not even allowed to be there. She faces it down like an absolute champ and tells the truth without the slightest whiff of embellishment or self pity. Reading the transcript brought tears to my eyes. She’s such a remarkable and brave little girl and I think the world of her. She’s kind, considerate, hilariously funny, assertive and forthright, and wise beyond her years. She even recognizes these qualities as adaptations to monstrously unhealthy environments.
13 months later on December 29th 2025 we give closing arguments, and the judge issues a three year restraining order.
There’s more to say of course. So much more. But this is plenty for one installment. More than plenty.
Note to Readers: This is my personal story and viewpoint only, based on my direct experiences, my daughter’s statements to me, and verified outcomes from California family court (including a three-year restraining order granted on December 29, 2025, after extensive evidence and testimony). It does not claim to be the full or impartial truth, and differing perspectives exist. No malice is intended.
Make Beautiful Choices 