Dude, Where's My Car?

310 days without my car. 25 months without relief from abuse.

The cruel efforts of my abuser have meant brutal consequences for the audacity of leaving. I have exhausted every avenue within my awareness, and with each passing day, I know this: if I continue to politely approach the brutal reality of an abuser with extreme privilege, I will not survive.

To be made the scapegoat for another’s crimes and sins is cognitively asinine. This past week has been both a psychological and environmental battlefield. And yet, nothing changes if nothing changes.

So how do I trigger change? By telling the Truth. By stripping away the lies still paraded by people of “faith” who are destroying me and any potential for a future.

I will not allow it any longer.

Summary of Ongoing Abuse (just the car)

• September 5th, 2024: Request for Insurance Documents

I alerted all counsel that my abuser was withholding my insurance documentation. With our 16x wealth disparity, I had requested that car, health, life, and disability insurance be transitioned once an agreement was in place with my abuser. This was ignored.

• November 1st, 2024: Pleading for Insurance Documents

After moving into friends’ office space for temporary housing, I again asked my abuser to send my insurance documents (no longer able to login to our insurance portal myself). My car’s tracking app had been disabled as my car provider required the same insurance documents. I had let my abuser know that my new residence required significant work such as mold mitigation, electrical, plumbing, new appliances, and repairs. With our 16x wealth disparity, I asked that he be merciful as I used limited funds for repairs, and await our finalized agreement before abruptly cutting off essential services that were not costing him. This has been ignored.

• November 2nd, 2024: Car Stolen

Within 24 hours of my final plea to my abuser, my car was stolen outside my new residence. I notified my abuser, hoping for the documents to restore tracking. Instead (en route to another vacation), he attempted to remove my car from our insurance without my consent, obstructing a theft claim. The responding constable asked, “Why don’t you just get your own insurance?”, unaware I was already rationing one meal a day.

• November 2024 - January 2025: Insurance Investigation

This was no longer a routine theft claim. Months of my abuser’s suspicious behaviour - and his attempts to derail my claim - triggered an investigation. I was treated like the suspect while the perpetrators remain unaffected.

• January 28th, 2025: Car Recovered

A small miracle: at 4:20 a.m. on a slow night, an officer ran the plates of a car found nearby. Months could’ve been saved with the tracking that had been disabled because of my abuser’s cruelty.

• January 28th - April 12th, 2025: Insurance Harrassment

Without notice, my car was dropped off at an auto shop from the city’s impound lot. It sat 2–3 days until a mechanic flagged it; a rep called to say they had my car with no instructions. After the rep outlined recovered-vehicle protocol, I looped in the insurance investigator to start repairs. He confirmed steps (drug testing, damage assessment, ozone cleaning), but two weeks later I was told none would happen and I had to collect the car.

There was no way I was going near a car that had no drug test or accept the liability of uninspected repairs.

As TD Insurance’s harassment escalated, I contacted Alberta’s Insurance Regulations and Market Conduct office for help. When the TD investigator and shop manager tried to force me to collect an uninspected car within a week or pay daily storage fees, the regulator opened an investigation. My car was abruptly released to the safer repair shop, the same day the investigation launched, without explanation from TD Insurance.

• April 12th - 28th, 2025: Car Relocated

With my dealership’s help, I found a reputable repair shop and, with my regulator’s compliance officer, had the car towed from the shop attempting to extort me. TD’s harassing investigator was removed from my file. On April 28th the new shop’s full, protocol-based diagnostics found over $7,000 in damage and deemed the car undrivable. Had I caved to TD Insurance and my abuser, those costs would have fallen on me.

• May 2025 - present

While a reputable shop was finally repairing my car, a bailiff arrived to repossess it. My abuser had closed a joint account without notice or consent, triggering the repossession.

Today, I still don’t know where the car is. Despite recorded calls and emails with insurance documenting his abuse, my insurer continues to enable my abuser’s cruelty and harassment without response or reason.

Why Not “Let Them” and Walk Away

I hear this often. The cost of “letting it go” isn’t theoretical - it’s survival. Conceding has already meant hunger, declining health, and a future without any economic certainty. Unlike my abuser’s first wife, I have no safe place to rebuild.

Insolvency: The amount is less than two weeks of his income. Despite a verified 16× wealth gap, counsel has offered no accountability for marital debt. The damage to my Freedom continues to contaminate every part of daily life.

Repossession: Having nothing to do with this serious financial devastation, my abuser’s choice to trigger my car’s respossessions means this stain appearing on my credit reports for up to 6 years destroying my credit and significantly hindering my ability to get another car.

In a no-fault divorce system, why am I being punished for leaving an abusive marriage? How is any of the aforementioned abuse and cruelty in alignment with the Divorce Act or our Criminal Code?

I don’t share this for pity, but rather to reach out for help from experts and those who can share guidance. I also share my experience to help increase awareness for others to avoid these traumas.

Practically Speaking, Support.

Thank you for your practical and meaningful support toward my Freedom thus far.

If you are able, please consider the below ways to support as abuse worsens:

🙏🏾 Donating to my GoFundMe

🙏🏾 Sending your contacts for safe legal advocates, lawyers, or experts via Email

🙏🏾 Sharing this newsletter to increase its reach toward safe legal advocates

In Gratitude and Freedom,

Kaeyae Alo

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"Use the best idea you have right now. Claiming you need to 'learn more' or 'get your ducks in a row' is just a crutch that prevents you from starting. Education is a lifelong pursuit. You will always need to learn more. It's not a reason to wait." - James Clear

*THIS IS NOT LEGAL ADVICE

#PracticallySpeakingFreedom