You want the gritty details of what happened to us in 2014? You'll get them. It's the hardest year we've ever endured.
For those of you who read last year's "end of year" letter, I declared it was the worst year our family had ever experienced and was hoping this year would be better. Unfortunately this year was much, much worse.
I mentioned last year that my sister had offered to take our daughter for the summer and she ended up entering school there in the Fall, for reasons I won't get into. Turns out the offer to host our daughter was an attempt to take her permanently from us. And that first investigation, where the State was called on her 2nd day with my sister was in fact made by my sister. Being the trusting person I am, I believed my sister when she said she had nothing to do with it. I mentioned in last year's letter that communication had broken down between my sister and myself and she refused our phone calls, and against her wishes, we were going to travel to Chicago for Christmas and to see our daughter and spend her birthday with her. While we were there, our daughter begged us to bring her back with us, but since she was in the middle of the school year and we didn't have a school lined up for her (she was thriving in regular school more than she had in homeschool), we had mentioned her coming home as soon as school was out that summer. When we told our sister we wanted our daughter to return, she was very resistant to the idea. On Feb 1st, my sister called us and demanded we pick up our daughter ASAP, even though it was in the middle of the school year. In less than a week, my husband flew to Chicago to bring our daughter home. Our daughter was so happy to be home and we were so happy to have her. But things seemed odd with my family members ever since I told them after our Christmas visit that we were going to have our daughter come back home as soon as school was out and I told my husband I had a feeling my father and my sister were planning something. Sure enough, on our daughter's 3rd day here, the State was at our door with a warrant to for immediate removal of all three kids. I wasn't there at the time, as I had taken our daughter to the doctor. I saw the note on the door from the Social Workers, so when we got home, I went to my bedroom with the door closed and started calling lawyers. I knew we needed representation after our previous experience with them. Apparently while I was in my room, the Social Workers returned but I did not hear them at the door. Something I am so grateful for, because if I had opened the door, they would have grabbed all of our children and put them in Foster Care.
Imagine my surprise to find out that I was accused of drug and alcohol abuse, along with many other horrible things. Anyone who knows me, knows how ridiculous these allegations were. I even made a copy of the allegations to give to our Pediatrician, who has known me for 15 years and she was shocked by them. I met with our new lawyer, who spoke with the county counsel (who represents the state) and he sent me directly from his office to be urine tested to prove that I was not abusing drugs and alcohol. My test was negative. They also made my husband leave his work to do the same and his result was negative as well. The drug and alcohol abuse allegations came from my mother, my sister and my adult niece as well as my father. The state was told by my family that I was bragging about my drug and alcohol abuse on Facebook, which any of my Facebook friends know was a ridiculous accusation. However, due to the allegations, a judge granted the State access to my private Facebook account. It is not legal for the State to access people's private Facebook accounts in many states, but it is in our state.
The social worker told us to meet them at their office for my husband and I and our kids to be interviewed a few days later. He also suggested that we leave town until that day because he would not put it past them to show up in the middle of the night and drag away the kids. I did not know they had access to my Facebook account, but once we were there, they told me they had over 100 pages of my previous status updates printed out. The reason they wanted us to come to their office was because they were planning on not letting the kids come home with us. (we did not know that at the time) However, due to the kids' 1:1 interviews and the loving body language between us and the kids, they decided not to take away our kids, but instead asked us to "volunteer" to a six month investigation. Our other alternative was to have our kids stay in Foster Care until they concluded their investigation. We took the first choice. I was to have 6 months of random drug testing (even though my surprise test was negative), attend a 3 month parenting class through the state at my expense and have a Social Worker at our house every other week, where our kids would be interviewed each time, 1:1, without us being allowed in the room.
The main investigative Social Worker came to our house for us to sign the contract, agreeing to the 6 month program. That was when we were able to read all the allegations, and saw exactly what was said about us. It was then that my husband and I learned that each and every one of my family members spoke to the State and made up ridiculous lies about me. I was sobbing as I read the allegations. I felt so betrayed. Every member of my family of origin had banded together to try to get my kids taken away. My mother, father, brother and sister. And their plan was to have our kids removed to Foster Care, where they could then petition to raise them. However, my father had made up such horrific lies about our oldest child that I don't know that there was any plan to remove him from Foster Care. My father hasn't visited our family since my oldest child was 6, yet he told the state about an alleged event he witnessed where my oldest supposedly went after his siblings with a bat and when my dad tried to intervene, my oldest went after him with a bat. Guess what? WE DON'T OWN A BAT. And my 6 year old only had one sibling at that time. My oldest has the biggest, most loving heart and my father told the State my son was violent, mentally disturbed and that we were refusing him mental health care. What the fuck? Funny how we were all in family therapy when he made that accusation. But you see it doesn't matter because he is a doctor with a law degree, so anything he says MUST be true. I know his motive. His dogs attacked my oldest when he was 7, and after that I cut him from my life. After a few years we resumed communication, but only via email or text. I never spoke to him on the phone again. Guess he got me back for that. He is a vindictive asshole.
We also learned that my sister's "generous" offer to take our daughter for the summer during our tough time while she was struggling with violent behavior was a plan to take her from us. That explains why on my daughter's 2nd day there, an "anonymous" call from my sister's city was placed to the State with ridiculous allegations of neglect and abuse regarding my daughter. All my friends said that my sister had made the call but I told them they were wrong, that my sister would never do that. Turns out they were right. My daughter experienced trauma to her brain prior to the adoption and possibly in utero. One of her behavior issues was that she was a compulsive liar. She would lie about anything and everything. She'd lie for attention or pity and also lie for reasons we never understood. We started her in therapy at age 5 and one of the big issues we dealt with was lying. After a year and 1/2 in therapy, we decided to switch to a psychiatrist, and her compulsive lying was documented there as well. All of this was documented in our psychologist and psychiatrists' notes but the State was not interested. As far as they were concerned, we were guilty and were not given a chance to refute the allegations.
Over the years, If my mom or sister called to ask how we were doing, I'd share honestly about our struggles and the behavioral issues (including lying) that we were dealing with. Boy was I stupid to have done that, but how could I possibly know that my words would later be used against me? It appears that the minute my daughter arrived at my sister's house, they started asking her all kinds of questions about how she had been mistreated by us and my daughter made up stories for attention. And boy did she get it. The more stories she told, the more attention she got. Now let me make this clear. NONE of this is her fault. They used her as a pawn in their game. The more stories she made up, the more attention she got. It got to the point where they got a therapist (who never once spoke to us) to actually diagnose her with PTSD from abuse she supposedly suffered at our hands. Well guess what? At age 5 she was diagnosed with PTSD from her therapist here for the trauma to her brain by having 4 different caregivers by age 8 months. Also her Ethiopian mother was widowed when she was pregnant with our daughter and there are studies that when a pregnant woman undergoes severe trauma/stress, her body releases extra cortisol which in turn affects the development of the brain of the fetus. So while our daughter is incredibly smart, there are areas of her brain that are not on the same maturity level. When we told the State this, they told us it is their policy that children cannot experience PTSD before the age of 3. Nice, huh?
Skip back to when our daughter was staying with my sister: We had told our daughter that we would fly out and visit her over Christmas and her birthday. My sister repeatedly told us not to come out... that our daughter's therapist thought it was a bad idea for us to visit our daughter. We were so confused. Supposedly the therapist thought our daughter wasn't ready to see us. My sister made comments like she was going to protect our daughter from us. We were like, WTF?! What are you talking about? My sister said our daughter said she was scared of us. I realized what was happening. Our daughter was lying for attention. What I didn't realize was that she was being encouraged to do so. I told my sister that I would ask our daughter if she wanted us to come out and if she did, we would come. Our conversations between us and our daughter were becoming less and less and on a rare chance we got to talk to our daughter, she said she wanted us to come out. We immediately booked tickets and booked a hotel. My sister had texted us and told us she wanted all of our contact with our daughter to take place at her house in her presence. We told her that would not happen. We needed time with our daughter to reconnect. When we arrived, my sister ordered deep dish pizza for us all to share before we took our daughter to the hotel to stay with us. We paid for the pizza in a gesture of goodwill since things were so strained between us. The next day was our daughter's birthday. I had ordered a birthday cake. My sister picked it up from the store and I reimbursed her. We had a joint birthday party for my daughter at my sister's house. We then took my daughter, my sister and her family out to eat to celebrate. Again we paid. We had a wonderful time of reconnecting with our daughter for our two days in the hotel, as we missed her so much. When it came time to return her to my sister's, she BEGGED us to bring her home with us. I explained that we were in the middle of the school year and couldn't just bring her home, but that as soon as school was out, we would bring her home. That evening I asked my sister how my daughter's behavior had been and if she was still having violent episodes. The psychiatrist there had taken her off the medication the psychiatrist here had put her on. My sister told me she was having no more violent episodes. Well! Why hand't my sister told us?! That was huge news and the whole reason she was staying with my sister!!! I had a lot to talk to with my husband as soon as we got home from our trip.
Once we returned home, I texted my sister and told her we were bringing home our daughter as soon as school was over. That didn't go over so well. She dragged her heels about it, questioning our decision, but as far as we were concerned, if our daughter was no longer having violent episodes, there was no reason for her not to be living at home. It seems the medication our psychiatrist put her on caused this behavior. Can you imagine how horrible we felt with this knowledge? That wasn't even one of the possible side effects listed! We did this to her!!! Anyway, on that day that my sister called and said she was having trouble recovering from her gall bladder surgery and she needed us to bring our daughter home (Feb. 1st) immediately. We weren't ready as far as school was, but we would figure it out. We missed our daughter so much and couldn't wait to get her home. The private school we were looking at putting her in said for us to just homeschool her the rest of the year and then we could enroll her in the Fall. My husband flew there to get our daughter. My sister picked him up from the airport, and then the following day drove both our daughter and my husband to the airport. Obviously with the State at our door on our daughter's 3rd day home, already having obtained a warrant for immediate removal of our kids, this was planned out ahead of time by my sister and other family members. Not only did my sister tell the State that my husband had taken my daughter from her house without her permission just then, but she also said we removed my daughter from their home by force, for two days over Christmas without their permission. What. The. Hell? Oh and when my sister told us she needed us to bring our daughter home, she said she felt so bad for not being able to take care of her due to her surgery, and she didn't want our daughter to feel abandoned, she asked if we could just tell our daughter that WE decided it was time to bring her home and not that they couldn't care for her. My sister cried as she told us that, so we of course agreed. We didn't want our daughter to feel abandoned by them either. So on Facebook I also said that we were bringing her home and didn't mention that my sister had asked us to take her. We played right into her hands. Because when she told the State we took our daughter home without permission, I had no posts on Facebook to back up what she told us. We felt like such idiots. Also, our daughter cried when we told her we were bringing her home, over thoughts of saying goodbye to the school friends she had made there, though within 5 minutes her mood was lifted and she got off the phone with us so she could start packing. We even got a text from my sister that our daughter was packing the minute she got off the phone with us. But my sister told the State that when we demanded our daughter come home to us, messing up the school year, our daughter cried.
After we had read all the allegations, we were not going to share them specifically with our kids, but obviously knew our kids would never be allowed to see my family again and we needed to tell them something. So we had our kids sit down and we told them that my sister, brother, mother and father had called the authorities and had told them a bunch of stuff about us that wasn't true and that the authorities were going to investigate us to see if they needed to take them away from us. Immediately our daughter burst into tears and started sobbing. She was inconsolable. She kept saying over and over, "This is all my fault!" "This is all my fault!". We knew she had made up stories, but we told her repeatedly that she was not to blame. We told her she was not an adult and that she did not call the authorities. She was NOT TO BLAME. But we could not convince her of her innocence. She said, "I accidentally told stories about you guys that were untrue". We knew that but told her again it was not her fault, yet tried to stress the importance of not telling "untrue" stories." One of things that the Social Workers told us was that our daughter was not allowed to be left alone/babysat by our older son during the 6 month investigation. So she had to go with me to all doctor appointments, etc. One day she complained and asked why she couldn't just stay home with her big brother and we told her that the Social Worker said we weren't allowed to let her stay home alone with him. She got a sad look on her face and said, "Oh, I accidentally said some things that were untrue about him."
In the 18 years I've been married, I've probably been back home less than 5 times. My mother's last visit out here was when our daughter was 2 years old. My father's last visit out here was when we were in bringing our daughter home from her birth country. Our last time in my home town (where my parents live) had been 3 years prior. Our daughter had met my sister one time prior to her trip to Chicago. She had met my brother twice, each time for a few hours. I've been estranged from my various family members for most of my adult life. When my husband first met my family, he immediately disliked them for how they treated me. I didn't notice I was being treated badly. It wasn't until a few years later when I returned for a visit with our oldest, who was an infant at the time, that I realized how mean they all were to me. It was then that I vowed never to return to to my hometown when the entire family was there and I never did. My current therapist helped me to see that not only was my family verbally and mentally abusive to me before I was an adult, they were very abusive to me after I got married.
My oldest child met my mom for the first time (apart from a brief visit when he was 3 weeks old), when he was 3 and 1/2 years old. We invited her to come visit almost a year later. She has a habit of criticizing me, but she was on her best behavior and it was at the end of her visit that we were finally chosen by a birthmom after a year and 1/2 of waiting. After my mother returned home, she wrote me an email detailing everything she thought I did wrong as a mother. She even went so far to say if our birthmom knew what kind of parents we really were, she would never choose us to be the parents of her child. I couldn't believe she could be so mean. I returned the letter full of "It seems like you are saying...." "I feel..." and I'm sure the therapist I saw at age 14 when my parents divorced would have been proud at how well I responded without attacking back. I did ask that my mom not write me any notes like this after her visits again. The notes continued after her visits, but unbeknownst to me, she sent them to other family members instead. In fact, during a brief moment of guilt, my sister admitted that my mother sent those letters and confessed that at each family get-together, everyone would get together and bad mouth me. Where they got their information, I don't know. All they knew of me was what they saw through Facebook. You've heard the term of someone being viewed through rose-colored glasses. I apologize for my language, but the only way I can describe it is that my family views me through shit-colored glasses, because they really never knew me as an adult or as a mother despite the fact they claim to know me better than anyone else. People who have never met me in person, but are friends with me on Facebook know me better than they do. I wear my heart on my sleeve and what you see is what you get with me.
I've long been the black sheep of the family and I've accepted that since I have such a supportive husband and close circle of friends who really know me. During times of estrangement, I always sent Father's Day & Mother's Day gifts, birthday gifts and Christmas gifts as well as updated pictures of the kids. I was drawing my boundaries but felt at peace that I was keeping some sort of connection open. I'd come to terms with the fact that they vilified me. I didn't understand it, but I accepted it. I'm not sure what I ever did wrong. I've continued the faith in which I was raised and am raising my children in my faith as well. I remained a virgin until I was married like I was told to do. I went to college, had a successful career and then chose to be a stay-at-home mom when my first child was born. So what did I do that was so terrible? Well, I have many tattoos and a couple of piercings. Also I refused to return home for family get-togethers. But that's the only thing I can come up with. We've been incredibly generous to my mother and sister, by giving them computers and iPad hand-me-downs and we even gave my brother a computer years ago so our kids could Skype each other. Which they did only once. (I've long known my brother's wife hates me, though again I never figured out what I did to her to warrant her treatment/views of me) One year I even helped support my sister financially, every month for a year, and we spent hundreds of dollars of photography gear and lighting to help our niece to get her photography business started.
When communications broke down between us when our daughter was with my sister, my husband tried to reach out to them, only for them to try (unsuccessfully) to make him feel like a fool for staying married to me as well as telling him one day he would see the real me and then leave me. As if my husband of 18 years doesn't know me better than anyone! What kind of awful person must they think I am, that I deserve to have my husband leave me and have my kids taken away?! I don't know. I don't believe I'll ever know. Whatever shaky relationship I had with them has been irreparably broken. I will certainly never speak to them again. My kids (all three of them) feel so betrayed by them. A mutual friend of my mother's asked if there was any way to repair our relationship. And the answer is no. I couldn't possibly have contact with any of my family members without risking the safety of my kids again. Anything I'd say would certainly be turned around against me and the State would probably get another call. I learned that game when my parents had a nasty divorce and I found I could never mention the name of one parent in front of the other, lest the other parent get a nasty letter from a lawyer. As for repairing a relationship, we never really had a non-toxic relationship to begin with. There's nothing to repair. On the day I read the allegations and saw what each family member said about me, they all died in my heart. It was a betrayal I never saw coming and an event that I continue to grieve. Our entire family has been going to family therapy/1:1 therapy to help us get through this. I lost the family I thought I had that day.
But that's not the worst thing that happened this year. While we were under investigation by the State (which was started by my family), my daughter had a rage incident and I accidentally got hurt, requiring medical attention and 5 months of physical therapy. It was no one's fault and was purely an accident. But I knew we were going to have another Social Worker visit very soon. As soon as I got home from the Urgent Care with a wrist brace and my arm in a sling, I called our lawyer. I knew this wasn't something I could hide from them. Our lawyer told us we must place our daughter with trusted friends immediately. We also called our Adoption Agency (who has a great post-placement support system) and the Social Worker (who used to work for the State) also said we had to get our daughter out of the house with trusted friends ASAP. She stressed that we not allow our daughter to set foot inside our house. We followed their advice and we did this to show how serious we are about the safety of all of our children. After all, during our previous investigation by the State, when my sister called the first time, the Social Worker told us that if our daughter returned and was violent, they would remove our sons and place them in Foster Care for allowing them to be in a harmful environment. Though this was a different social worker, when he found out what happened, he decided to make that a permanent situation, telling us we had to make our friends her legal guardians before they would close our case, and that our daughter could never return home. As you can imagine, this has devastated us all. Our younger son was having daily meltdowns, not only missing his sister, but worried that he would be next to leave the house if he messed up, since he was adopted too. Our older son was more quiet about his pain but has been able to open up to his Youth Group leaders at church, something we are very grateful for.
Our friends who are raising our daughter have been wonderful to her and now love her as their own. They have helped her try to make sense of what happened and have showered her in love, helping her to heal. We couldn't be more grateful to them. Another thing we are grateful for is that we continue to be a part of our daughter's life. We talk on the phone with her, we take her out on dates and we get together as two families, which is starting to become one large family. If we cannot raise her, I can't think of anyone else I'd rather have raising her than our friends. Our daughter continues to hold on to so much guilt regarding everything that happened, but our friends have assured her that she is a kid and kids are not to blame in adult situations. We are so thankful for them. She has opened up to them about her lying. She stated that she lied so much to us that the few times she told the truth we didn't believe her. Our daughter is the biggest victim in all of this because she doesn't understand that my family used her. And she's had the worst possible consequence for her lying. None of this is her fault, and at one point when she's an adult, I hope to explain to her how she was used by my family and that she holds no responsibility for what happened. As for WHY my family did this to me... that's the million dollar question. I'm clearly not in communication with them to ask why, and perhaps some of them believe some of the lies our daughter said about us, but some of them KNOW they lied when they made up things our daughter never said. I wonder how my sister or my father sleep at night knowing the devious plan they made to try to take away my kids. Perhaps they felt that they were justified in their actions... I don't know. One day they will learn the truth. It won't be from me, but one day they will learn that they broke up a loving family and tore a beautiful girl from the only family she had ever known.
It hurts me that all our mutual friends, my Youth Pastor, my Godfather, my Aunts and Uncles have all been told this horrible stuff about me without hearing what really happened. But losing respect from these people is nothing compared to losing my daughter. That is a loss that will never heal. And my family's actions led to my daughter losing her family. I know God has her in His hands. There's not a day that goes by that my husband and I don't think of her and pray for her and miss her. She will always be the daughter of my heart.
In the meantime, we all struggle to get used to our new normal. My husband and I are most grateful that none of our kids ended up in Foster Care, despite my family's best efforts. And we are still a family. It may not be typical or conventional, but family comes in all forms and we are still a family and always will be.
Why am I posting here? Because my regular blog is easily accessible to all the members of my family of origin and I don't want them knowing a damn thing about what's going on with our lives. I'll have to decide what direction to take with that blog when I get back to blogging or if I ever post there again.
