Initially, Janice Lintz advised her story in The Outdoor Journal in February 2019. Recognizing the significance of sharing Janice’s tale, The Outdoor Journal has permitted Thrive to repost the one’s 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 aback at “professional” panels empty of knowledge. During the meeting, an target audience member invited a query of approximately social media followers. However, she was instructed that her tale become “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 leaving a physically and verbally abusive marriage would become tough, but I had no idea 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 enabling a rich partner to do what he may not want to do with his hands. The Divorce Despite being a legal professional, the court turned terrifying. They choose routinely, blatantly unnoticed New York State laws and even the courtroom’s orders. Having worked to alternate the world for human beings by 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 in 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 States 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 prison 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 States of Women Conference, where I became 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 didn’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; I just wanted to escape the toxic surroundings that handled me as though I became an entitled woman and did not use 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 “launched.” I was lucky in many ways; however, I worked free to exchange the arena for people listening to loss on behalf of our daughter and others like her at some point in our marriage. Our daughter was two half-year old when we discovered she had difficulty 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 she would later attend. I didn’t like someone restricting her opportunities at the time before she 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 hall than my standards. As defined in Forbes mag, I used New York City as a model to lay out, create and implement first-class exercise standards earlier than going global, encompassing Greece, Canada, Switzerland, Netherlands, Korea, and soon Ecuador. You can discover extra approximately hearing get admission here.
Furthermore, 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 about the listening to aid monopoly, she added and handed an Over-The-Counter Hearing Aid invoice to Senator Grassley. Hearing access to museums and theaters in New York City became the model to forget the right of entry to places such as Graceland in Tennessee, The Getty in California, and Mill City Museum in Minnesota. In the end, airlines 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 income 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 of 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 sign-up bonuses that I earned from starting 70+ credit score cards to pay off my lawyers. My passport and priceless “slush fund” of about 3 million miles gave me the liberty 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 trip changed into superb. At the same time, the judge had used the divorce lawsuits to deal with me as if I didn’t remember how those working at the motel thought in any other case. My birthday became celebrated and taken care of, and it made sense as I mattered and became simply what I needed to repair my spirits.
Steakathalon with Jean George, at Jean George, changed around this time. My buddies and I noticed I hadn’t put on the burden I ought to have, given the food I was eating. I hadn’t advanced a miracle metabolism. Doctors couldn’t discover something wrong with me, but there was a problem, so I changed into the monitor. When I went again to the townhouse, the temperature adjusted to 94 tiers, and the house’s air-conditioning didn’t work. My ex-husband had refused to repair it, and the coverage enterprise couldn’t help me this time. Rather than melt, I tapped into the one’s air miles again and fled to the Caucuses, Lebanon, and Italy. I suspected I had become ill, but I knew I needed a trip before the medical ordeal began. The C Words I went 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.
Suddenly, I had a month to go to all my docs and discover a new insurance plan. I raced around New York, traveling to many scientific companies, until I learned I had thyroid and probably breast and blood cancer. Over the subsequent two weeks, I had six clinical strategies and surgical procedures. The final surgical treatment occurred on the last day of my COBRA coverage. It’s a bizarre element to mention, but fortuitously, I handiest had thyroid most cancers, and it became stuck early. Over the coming months, the medical doctors monitored many other problems consisting of a lung cancer diagnosis. As a result of changing into thyroid surgery, the cherry on top transformed into a motionless vocal cord. I ought to barely speak for four months. I became deflated. My voice became my electricity, and I had been silenced over again. The upside changed that this gave me lots of time to mirror my existence, a lifestyle that had been modified for many reasons, such as kids who had 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 myself. The Dream My biggest dream had constantly been precisely that, a plan, and had I always anticipated that it’d live that manner: To travel to each unmarried country around the globe. Like many of us, I had 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 race around the sector. Without a conscious motive, I “Marie Kondo’s” 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 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 reduced the cable, landline, and fax cords, and each rate turned into an examination.
I considered each object as a capability lodge nighttime 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 had 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 I should manage an extended ride.