MomOf4CrzyKids
07-25-2003, 02:14 PM
Hello,
I just started to read your book; I am half way through and can't seem to put it down for very long! It's a great book filled with wonderful information, I only wished I'd known about it sooner. I am now starting to understand the insanity that has been occurring in our house for the last 4 years!
Okay here's our story, in a nut shell, 4 years ago, my two step children came to live with my husband and I, they were 12 and 13. Their mother is an addict and decided that she could not control them anymore, not a big surprise, but we thought that we could do a great job at "turning them around." During this 4 year period I had also given birth to our 2 younger children. Crazy times!
When my step daughter was 7 years old she was diagnosed with having anxiety and depression, but this was not taken seriously by anyone in the family because nobody wanted to believe something could be wrong with this beautiful little girl. (She had tried to stab her 8 year old brother.) My husband and I tried to get her help for many years to only be ignored and patronized.
Now zoom up to a more recent time, 4 years ago we brought the children to our home because my step daughter was now completely out of control. She had started to hang with gangs; doing drugs, having sex, running away on a regular basis, stealing, lying, and anything else you could imagine a 12 year old girl NOT doing. They came to live with us, we thought this out very carefully, we told them our expectations, our rules, got their input, and thought it would be as easy as that. We enrolled them into the best school in the area and started them in therapy. We were also in family therapy. All things seemed to be okay, initially, until we started to really check into what they were up to. We had to become super sleuths because now instead of being outwardly, in-your-face bad, they had gone "underground" so there was the appearance of a "total turnaround". What we discovered was so much worse than we imagined.
Our daughter was now into internet porn, putting on shows for weirdos on the Internet, prostituting with her girlfriends during their "sleepovers", and doing harder drugs than before. Our son, who did not have nearly the problems as his sister, started to try marijuana and started to drink, he was blowing off anything to do with school or chores, and would/could not talk, it was like his brain had been turned off.
I must tell you that we put her in therapy as soon as she came to live with us and even had her admitted into a behavioral health center for a 3 months, but she knows how to "play the therapy game" and always came out smelling like roses, but we found one "tough" doctor who "had her number" and saw through her antics. She was diagnosed with ODD, OCD, depression, CD, and strongly suspected Bipolar.
To make this very long story shorter, we had placed our daughter into another behavior health center, this was a year and a half later, she refused to take her medications and was now cutting herself and talking suicide, so we immediately took her to be evaluated and admitted, voluntarily. While she was there she became very angry at us over not bringing her everything she asked for from home, such as all her makeup (the hospital didn't allow more than one eye shadow). The next day, I called her first thing in the morning to ask if she was feeling better, and she started screaming at me saying that her father and I abused her. I couldn't believe what she was saying it was like a movie, and I was watching in horror.
The hospital was obligated to call Social Services and they immediately (within 3 hours) took custody of her AND her brother, who was at home. Our two younger children remained home, but were in danger of being removed too. We have never laid a hand on our children, but now all of the sudden we are labeled as abusers! We wanted to smack the &*%^ out of our little angel on some of those earlier mentioned occasions, but never, ever did. Sometimes, my husband and I think maybe that is what we should have done instead of trying to be understanding and diplomatic parents.
It's been a year as of today that she was removed from our lives. We miss her every day, although our life was complete hell in this crazy, insane teenager environment. We had to fight the fight of our lives to prove our innocence, but we did, and we did it for our children. Our three other children are doing very well, but we are all still "shell shocked" and recovering, we are all still mourning the loss of our beautiful little girl. She has said several times in the last year that she is very sorry for saying that, but she was really mad. She misses us too, but Social Services have said that we have a parent-child conflict and found a permanent home for her at her Mother's!!!!! Her behavior has not changed, but now we talk about the things she is doing in an openly-frank manner, there are no consequences now, she and her mother were both in rehab together, they have both relapsed twice in the last 6 months, And are both currently using.
Our son was recently returned to us, 4 months ago. We are all starting over. He became very mature or "hardened" in Foster Care, he had to fend for himself and he learned the grass is NOT always greener. He went through hell in his 3 different "homes" Thank God he was 16 years old and could somewhat take care of himself. He started smoking and drinking on a regular basis, having sex with any girl that would have him, which are many...We broke the "RULES" of the Social Services and spoke to him daily and continued to teach him how to stand up for himself and stand tall on his beliefs. He fought the system and demanded his freedom! And Won! We are working on all the problems that arose from Foster care and currently, he has a part time job with the government, has respect for us as parents, does not lie to us anymore, has plans for his future, enrolled in college, and so many other improvements that I can't write them all here. We are overjoyed to have him back, but it's still a long road to recovery. Social Services did not do all this for our son, Our son did it for himself, with a lot of help from us.
Doctor, Please do what you can to inform these people at the social services across the country. They solely blame the parents for all the wrongdoings of teenagers. We are not totally to blame. They need to be educated on the adolescent's brain development and what the true signs of mental illness are. This needs to be done for our country's sake.
I welcome any discussion on my post, I think I still need to talk about it, as evidenced in my extremely long entry...
Thank you!
I just started to read your book; I am half way through and can't seem to put it down for very long! It's a great book filled with wonderful information, I only wished I'd known about it sooner. I am now starting to understand the insanity that has been occurring in our house for the last 4 years!
Okay here's our story, in a nut shell, 4 years ago, my two step children came to live with my husband and I, they were 12 and 13. Their mother is an addict and decided that she could not control them anymore, not a big surprise, but we thought that we could do a great job at "turning them around." During this 4 year period I had also given birth to our 2 younger children. Crazy times!
When my step daughter was 7 years old she was diagnosed with having anxiety and depression, but this was not taken seriously by anyone in the family because nobody wanted to believe something could be wrong with this beautiful little girl. (She had tried to stab her 8 year old brother.) My husband and I tried to get her help for many years to only be ignored and patronized.
Now zoom up to a more recent time, 4 years ago we brought the children to our home because my step daughter was now completely out of control. She had started to hang with gangs; doing drugs, having sex, running away on a regular basis, stealing, lying, and anything else you could imagine a 12 year old girl NOT doing. They came to live with us, we thought this out very carefully, we told them our expectations, our rules, got their input, and thought it would be as easy as that. We enrolled them into the best school in the area and started them in therapy. We were also in family therapy. All things seemed to be okay, initially, until we started to really check into what they were up to. We had to become super sleuths because now instead of being outwardly, in-your-face bad, they had gone "underground" so there was the appearance of a "total turnaround". What we discovered was so much worse than we imagined.
Our daughter was now into internet porn, putting on shows for weirdos on the Internet, prostituting with her girlfriends during their "sleepovers", and doing harder drugs than before. Our son, who did not have nearly the problems as his sister, started to try marijuana and started to drink, he was blowing off anything to do with school or chores, and would/could not talk, it was like his brain had been turned off.
I must tell you that we put her in therapy as soon as she came to live with us and even had her admitted into a behavioral health center for a 3 months, but she knows how to "play the therapy game" and always came out smelling like roses, but we found one "tough" doctor who "had her number" and saw through her antics. She was diagnosed with ODD, OCD, depression, CD, and strongly suspected Bipolar.
To make this very long story shorter, we had placed our daughter into another behavior health center, this was a year and a half later, she refused to take her medications and was now cutting herself and talking suicide, so we immediately took her to be evaluated and admitted, voluntarily. While she was there she became very angry at us over not bringing her everything she asked for from home, such as all her makeup (the hospital didn't allow more than one eye shadow). The next day, I called her first thing in the morning to ask if she was feeling better, and she started screaming at me saying that her father and I abused her. I couldn't believe what she was saying it was like a movie, and I was watching in horror.
The hospital was obligated to call Social Services and they immediately (within 3 hours) took custody of her AND her brother, who was at home. Our two younger children remained home, but were in danger of being removed too. We have never laid a hand on our children, but now all of the sudden we are labeled as abusers! We wanted to smack the &*%^ out of our little angel on some of those earlier mentioned occasions, but never, ever did. Sometimes, my husband and I think maybe that is what we should have done instead of trying to be understanding and diplomatic parents.
It's been a year as of today that she was removed from our lives. We miss her every day, although our life was complete hell in this crazy, insane teenager environment. We had to fight the fight of our lives to prove our innocence, but we did, and we did it for our children. Our three other children are doing very well, but we are all still "shell shocked" and recovering, we are all still mourning the loss of our beautiful little girl. She has said several times in the last year that she is very sorry for saying that, but she was really mad. She misses us too, but Social Services have said that we have a parent-child conflict and found a permanent home for her at her Mother's!!!!! Her behavior has not changed, but now we talk about the things she is doing in an openly-frank manner, there are no consequences now, she and her mother were both in rehab together, they have both relapsed twice in the last 6 months, And are both currently using.
Our son was recently returned to us, 4 months ago. We are all starting over. He became very mature or "hardened" in Foster Care, he had to fend for himself and he learned the grass is NOT always greener. He went through hell in his 3 different "homes" Thank God he was 16 years old and could somewhat take care of himself. He started smoking and drinking on a regular basis, having sex with any girl that would have him, which are many...We broke the "RULES" of the Social Services and spoke to him daily and continued to teach him how to stand up for himself and stand tall on his beliefs. He fought the system and demanded his freedom! And Won! We are working on all the problems that arose from Foster care and currently, he has a part time job with the government, has respect for us as parents, does not lie to us anymore, has plans for his future, enrolled in college, and so many other improvements that I can't write them all here. We are overjoyed to have him back, but it's still a long road to recovery. Social Services did not do all this for our son, Our son did it for himself, with a lot of help from us.
Doctor, Please do what you can to inform these people at the social services across the country. They solely blame the parents for all the wrongdoings of teenagers. We are not totally to blame. They need to be educated on the adolescent's brain development and what the true signs of mental illness are. This needs to be done for our country's sake.
I welcome any discussion on my post, I think I still need to talk about it, as evidenced in my extremely long entry...
Thank you!