Janice Lintz, in the beginning, advised her story in The Outdoor Journal in February of 2019. Recognizing the significance of sharing Janice’s tale, The Outdoor Journal has permitted 
Thrive to repost the ones equal words thru the article beneath. At the give up of January 2019, The Outdoor Journal’s Sean Verity attended The New York Times Travel Show and said on an enterprise event that left him taken aback at “professional” panels bereft of knowledge. During the panel, an target audience member stood up to invite a query approximately social media followers – however, she was instructed that her tale become perhaps “now not suitable enough.” We subsequently spoke to Janice Lintz and invited her to contribute to The Outdoor Journal. This is her tale. I knew that leaving a physically and verbally abusive marriage would become tough, but I had no idea that it might take eleven and a half years. I’ve nonetheless no longer finished my break out. The technique of “uncoupling” become physically, mentally, and financially exhausting. Travel has become my respite to detox from a judicial method that enabled a rich partner to do what he may want to not do together with his hands. The Divorce Despite being a legal professional, the court turned terrifying. They choose routinely, blatantly unnoticed New York State’s laws and even the courtroom’s own orders. Having worked to alternate the world for human beings with listening to loss, I conceive that I may want to fast correct the felony problems. But testifying, meeting with politicians, and writing letters performed nothing, as I explained inside the Huffington Post. I realized that the dialogue approximately home violence was conjecture for ordinary ladies. Did I want to be well-known to be counted?
United State of Women accreditation The more I spoke out, the more the judge used coercive methods to silence and terrorize me. This blanketed putting me in handcuffs and threatening to ship me to jail on Riker’s Island. On one occasion, the choice threatened to send me to jail for 21 days once I demanded that she put in force my guide order. Rather than coping with my ex-husband’s non-charge of my courtroom-ordered upkeep, she selected to punish me for talking out of the flip. On the final event that she tried to punish me, I used my one smartphone call to name Vice President Joe Biden’s workplace. Thankfully, at The United State of Women Conference, where I turned into a nominated Changemaker, I sat after Jaimie Woo, who headed Biden’s Domestic Violence Taskforce. Miraculously, ten minutes after my cellphone call, the judge determined to launch me. The trauma of that day didn’t quit when the handcuffs came off. I don’t even consider how I made my way home, whether or not it turned into a taxi or the subway, but the second I had completed my journey, I desired to escape. I felt like an escaped convict in search of freedom. I didn’t care where I went, and I just desired to get away from the toxic surroundings that handled me as though I become an entitled woman and not using rights.
Advocacy for People Who are Deaf or Hard of Hearing The decision in my divorce dealt with me as if I was an entitled female who “lunched.” I was lucky in many ways; however, in truth, I worked totally free to exchange the arena for people with listening to loss on behalf of our daughter and others like her at some point in our marriage. Our daughter changed into 2 half years vintage whilst we found out she changed into difficult of hearing. After advising me of her prognosis, the medical doctor informed me there have been “special schools” for her. My idea of “unique” was the Ivy League University that she would later attend. At the time, I didn’t like someone restricting her opportunities before she had even started. Rather than take delivery of the crumbs offered to her, I got down to alternate the arena, considering it was less difficult to change the arena than my own standards. As defined in Forbes mag, I used New York City as a model to layout, create and implement first-class exercise standards earlier than going global, to encompass Greece, Canada, Switzerland, Netherlands, Korea, and soon Ecuador. You can discover extra approximately hearing get admission to here. Further to this, within the United States, I helped expand captioning requirements that have been the premise for the Federal Communication Commission’s captioning rules. When I approached Senator Warren approximately the listening to aid monopoly, she then added and handed an Over-The-Counter Hearing Aid invoice with Senator Grassley. Hearing access in museums and theaters in New York City became the model to forget the right of entry to across us of an inclusive of places inclusive of Graceland in Tennessee, The Getty in California, and Mill City Museum in Minnesota. Airlines, in the end, added captions to in-flight entertainment once I labored with Virgin and Delta Airlines. Delta additionally brought induction loops in airports starting with Atlanta, GA, and Detroit, MI. The National Park Service created Guidelines for Accessibility when I testified before the National Park Service Subcommittee. Finally, I additionally ensured that cell phones maintained the telecoil, which offers to listen to compatibility in place of the proprietary era. During my marriage, I always worked without pay. Equally, I by no means common whatever in replacement of pay, to ensure that nobody questioned my motives. Suddenly, this judge dealt with me like a freeloader who mooched off her husband, in preference to a crew who labored together for the gain in their own family. Restarting Life. Fortunately, having a lower back home from the court docket, I ought to lean on a stash of common flier points from my divorce agreement and from sign-up bonuses that I earned from starting 70+ credit score cards to pay off my lawyers. My passport, coupled with my priceless “slush fund” of about 3 million miles, provided me with the liberty that I needed from lifestyles’ insanity. First up? I had determined to use a sign-up bonus of 3 complimentary nights at a Ritz-Carlton asset to go to Aruba to celebrate my upcoming birthday. A short test of flights revealed a few availabilities, so I booked a journey to leave the next morning. The journey changed into superb. While the judge had used the divorce lawsuits to deal with me as if I didn’t remember, the manner of those working at the motel thought in any other case. My birthday becomes celebrated, and being taken care of, and made to sense like I mattered become simply what I needed to repair my spirits.
However, those superb emotions that my vacation had supplied have been short. I lower back to discover a broken pipe in my house’s basement. I had no water, which meant I had no simple amenities. My ex-husband and the choose are unnoticed the order and requests to have my ex-husband make family repairs. Thankfully, the coverage organization wielded their energy. For four months, I become “stranded” at The Surrey Hotel on Manhattan’s Upper East Side, which became an expensive jail. My ex-husband knew that I couldn’t travel if the coverage organization were procuring a hotel, so for my part, he delayed the procedure to prevent me from flying. The coverage organization suggested me to eat my meals at the hotel eating place, which passed off to have a Michelin megastar. Either that or equivalent eating places across the city. I turned into terrified to spend, given how I became handled in court docket. I handiest ate one meal out and ate yogurt for breakfast and lunch to not advantage weight. As I advised the insurance agent, unfastened isn’t lose if it’s on my hips. Still, given the possibility, I determined to pass-reference the Michelin list, Eater 38, Eater Heatmap, Zagat, World’s Best List, and any buddies’ pointers to broaden a dining listing. Four months in a single room can be difficult except you’re dining at New York City’s greatest. I grew to become my time at the inn into a “steakation” and advanced my very own hashtag,#IAteManhattan. Never one to waste a disaster, I ended up visiting each of New York City’s Michelin famous person eating place, except for sushi (I’m now not a fan).
Steakathalon with Jean George, at Jean George, changed into around this time that my buddies and I noticed that I hadn’t put on the burden that I ought to have, given the quantity of food that I was eating. I hadn’t advanced a miracle metabolism. Doctors couldn’t discover something that changed wrong with me, but there has been a problem, so I changed into the monitor. When I in the end again to the townhouse, the temperature changed into 94 tiers, and of course, the house’s air-conditioning didn’t work. My ex-husband had refused to repair it, and this time the coverage enterprise couldn’t help me. Rather than melt, I tapped into the one’s air miles again and fled to the Caucuses, Lebanon, and Italy. I suspected that I became ill, but I additionally knew that I needed a trip earlier than the medical ordeal began. The C Words I back home to discover I had incorrectly diaried my COBRA (COBRA is a federal regulation that calls for employers with 20 or more personnel to offer continuing insurance to folks that might in any other case lose their fitness blessings) expiration date. All of a sudden, I had a month to go to all my docs, and importantly, discover a new insurance plan. I raced around New York, traveling many scientific companies, until I learned that I had thyroid cancer, and probably breast and blood cancer as well. Over the subsequent two weeks, I had six clinical strategies and surgical procedures. The final surgical treatment occurred on the final day of my COBRA coverage. It’s a bizarre element to mention, but fortuitously, I handiest had thyroid most cancers, and it becomes stuck early. Over the coming months, the medical doctors monitored many other problems consisting of a lung cancer diagnosis. As a result of changed into thyroid surgery, the cherry on top changed into a motionless vocal cord. I ought to barely speak for four months. I became deflated. My voice became my electricity, and over again, I had been silenced. The upside changed into that this gave me lots of time to mirror my existence, a lifestyle that had been modified for plenty of reasons, such as kids that had now grown up. Over the years, on behalf of my daughter, I had achieved a lot for hearing advocacy; it was now time to take care of me. The Dream My biggest dream had constantly been precisely that, a dream, and had I always anticipated that it’d live that manner: To travel to each unmarried country inside the global. Like a lot of us, I had already made great inroads into my quest via vacations. However, should I want to acquire my dream sincerely, then I had to the endeavor’s consciousness. I also wanted to enjoy each u. S ., rather than just race around the sector. Without a conscious motive, I “Marie Kondo’s” my lifestyle. I sold my five-tale Upper East Side Manhattan townhouse (I recognize that I changed into lucky so one can achieve this) and downsized to a 650 square foot (60 square meters) one-bedroom condominium in Brooklyn. Leaving Manhattan, where I lived for the final thirty years, and lowering my area became going to be hard; however, dwelling on my own for the primary time in my life, turned exhilarating. Anything I didn’t love or wasn’t the color blue turned into bought, given away, or donated, including my automobile and televisions. I reduce the cable, landline, and fax cords, and each rate turned into the examination. I considered each object as a capability lodge night time or tour guide. The shackles had been removed, and I was ultimately free to move and recognize my dream. However, as I had a vulnerable voice, I decided to depart on a test run to see if I may want to travel physically. Determined to move every other vacation spot of my listing, I flew to El Salvador. This trip kickstarted my ardor for traveling again, and it renewed my energy, which has been zapped after dropping 1/2 of my thyroid. My medicinal drug nonetheless wasn’t being regulated. However, after trekking up Santa Ana Volcano and seeing the exceptional milky green crater, I knew that I ought to manage an extended ride.
