Tuesday, July 26, 2011

Can I go to the store already?

Last night, Ms. CPS worker called to tell me that she wanted to come today and that she would be here sometime between 11:30 and 4:00 (apparently, her last job was with Comcast).  Well, it's almost 5:00 and....still no cable...er, I mean CPS.  Is she for real?

Wednesday, July 20, 2011

Still in Limbo

So far, no follow up.  I feel like a hostage.  I told a few of my church friends about it and my minister and DRE are coming over tomorrow to help me "make a game plan" and just to give me support.  Not having any family here and not working during the summer makes me feel extremely isolated.  Hmmm...imagine feeling lonely with 4 kids!

Sunday, July 17, 2011

Lost Opportunity

As regular readers know, I am being investigated by CPS on very weak "charges".  At this point, the charge is a messy house.  Today, I had a reality check when a wonderful group of people from a coworker's church came over to help me with some big projects I need to do at my house.  The planning of this started before the CPS investigation.  These wonderful people are going to help me refloor the whole downstairs, do landscaping, paint and do little jobs such as  replacing ceiling fans.  I decided to tell my co-worker about the CPS thing before he came so he could give me an honest appraisal.  He was shocked.  He said everything about my house looks completely normal and that all of the work I need done is cosmetic (except the big bathroom project that someone has been working on for awhile).  So I guess the camera crew for this hoarder who is in denial will have to wait awhile longer.

So, those are my wonderful opportunities.  But this post is about a lost opporrtunity.

My 16 year old daughter decided she would get started on a big project with the help of one of the church members and she actually completed it after they left.  She and my 12 year old son who is alienated from everyone in the family in some ways and her completely worked together on the entire project.  It was great to see because she ignores him and he doesn't like her.  Yet, he wants her approval so badly.  He wants to be like her.  Heartwarming...yes.  Until I blew it.

I noticed that he was painting too quickly and making some messy errors.  Since it was the foyer  and hallway, I got very agitated because that will be Ms. Social Worker's first view.  So, I went off.  I yelled at her for trusting my very destructive son with such a task and basically crushed his sense  of pride for doing something positive instead of negative.  : (

My daughter let me know I was out of line and I was.  I felt terrible.  The bigger picture was lost because we're all living in terror of this judgmental woman who cannot imagine how we live or what's important to us.

So, we skipped church and I cleaned the house and did house projects from 7 am until midnight.  Does that mean my house was a disaster?  No, it's normal.  It is impossible to make a 2000 square foot house with  10, 12, 13, 16 and 49 year old humans and two teenage (read: old) cats look perfect.  Especially when it's an older home and you're in middle of home improvement projects.

I honestly feel like I have no control over the outcome of this .  It depends on what SHE wants and what SHE says.

Friday, July 15, 2011

OCD

 I have it.

It makes it difficult when I'm in situations like my current one.  The most common way it manifests itself is with obsessive thoughts.  At certain times on my life, it has been torture (when I was 7 and my dad was in Vietnam, after my mom left when I was 9, during high school and then college...and finally obsessing about my daughter to an unhealthy degree when she was a baby.  Health anxiety has been prominent in many phases of my life to an obsessive degree).  I also have had counting rituals and obsessive checking at times in my life.  The  way it manifests itself seems to depend on my stage of life and particular stressors.

I was first diagnosed when I was in my early 20s when I weighed under 60 lbs, yet my anorexia nervosa seemed to be unusual compared to many typical cases.  The doctor suggested that it seemed more like OCD with major anxietyI have taken medication at various times in my life and probably should be currently.  I think this may have a genetic component.

Everyone has some tendencies that could be  viewed as being symptoms of OCD as they are all based on something "normal" (washing your hands, checking your stove, cleaning your house, worrying, etc), but the key is the degree to which  it interferes with your life and normal functioning.  There were times in my childhood and young adulthood where it was the dominant factor.  So, who knew?  Mostly no one.  OCD is a very internalized problem and that adds to the torture and loneliness.

My current situation has me viewing everything through the prism of an upcoming catastrophe. The ongoing stress in my life seems like it's leading to an inevitable bad outcome. I need to feel like I have control in my life and it seems like it's slipping away.  I think part of it is that I have been very open and I  am very self deprecating.  People hear this and it's being used against me now.  You have to be very careful about who to trust and who to vent around (I know that it's ironic that I'm typing that on a blog).  I know some wonderful people, but I don't think most people can understand what moms of traumatized kids go through.  It's never normal, but it's OUR normal.





Tuesday, July 12, 2011

A New Day

I have a better perspective today.  I so appreciate the words of support on my blog and on Facebook.  It gave me strength.  My 16 year old daughter also hugged and kissed me which meant so much. 

Today,  I felt more angry than distraught.  Why should I be bullied?  The thought of a stranger coming into my house and putting me down like that...wow!  I am already so hard on myself.  That was almost unbearable .  And she went so far.  Even when we stepped outside (and my HUGE lawn was mowed and there we no toys left out), she complained about the spider webs on the siding and the weeds among the bushes and the fact that there was a book on our bench. (Both women kept saying, "We hate mess").

I wrote a letter that I am planning to send to several people and agencies. 

Last night at 2:00 am, I was awakened by my 16 year old daughter crying that she had a nightmare and asking if she could sleep with me.  This is a totally independent teenager.  I asked her about it and she said she dreamed they were taking her away from me and she couldn't stop them.  This is a child who was an only child into her teens and then had her world disrupted when I adopted three more kids.

It's been a hard road for all of us and this is the LAST thing she should have to worry about!!  But she knows that the social worker did say that she would take "all four" of my kids if the house isn't cleaned "thoroughly".  They also let the kids know that they can come by any time.  It's like we're hostages in our own home.  It's scary because our house is cleaner and tidier than some of the families we know.

I'm not sure what will happen next.  I have requested that a supervisor come to my house instead of the two  social workers.  The deadline for me "cleaning my house thoroughly, exclamation point times two" is next Monday, so I wonder if they'll come then.

And this is all in addition to "real life" stuff.

Monday, July 11, 2011

CPS Nightmare Redux

Over two months ago, my children were taken out of class at their respective schools because someone had reported that I had a hole in my kitchen ceiling (true) and that we had no running water (never true).    Also,  I found out today, it was stated erroneously that I don’t seek counseling for my children’s mental health needs (untrue, my kids have received counseling through a mental health agency and private sources for years and we are working with their family assistance program also. I have a referral into a new family counseling service and I am working with a hospital to have my boys evaluated.   My children are all on medication and have pediatric check-ups every two to three months).  

 It seemed that the social worker was not too concerned because after the first day, she did not call me back to schedule a follow up for a long time.  I called back several  times and only got the answering machine. Then this morning, she came to my house.

When we awoke, the electricity was off.  My kids ate and were in their bedrooms while  I was working on trying to work out an insurance issue for one of my children which I had been doing for about an hour when there was a loud bang on the door.  My kids looked out the window and said there were two well-dressed African American women outside.  I assumed they were Jehovah’s Witnesses since we weren’t expecting anyone and that’s common in our neighborhood.  My kids are not allowed to open the door for strangers.  Several minutes later, there was loud banging on the door and someone was yelling in the door for me.  I had to abandon the important call and get dressed.  

It was apparent immediately that I was in trouble as I had taken too long to answer the door.  Another issue was that there was an overwhelming odor that I had never smelled before downstairs.  I’m not going to lie:  it was really bad!  I didn’t have any time to process this because of course she noticed.  We discovered the unusual source of the odor after she left and took care of it (I had thought it was a dirty litter box, but it wasn’t).  Also, she wanted to know  ”who was asleep on my couch”.  Answer:  my teenager, but the tone made me feel embarrassed.
The social worker was very confrontational .    She told us that we had to find our two cats and put them away because they were both highly allergic and didn't like cats.  I tend to be very civil in all situations, but she was so aggressive.  She told me to turn on the lights.  I said we didn’t have any on.  She asked why.  I said the electricity is off.  She said, “Why is your electricity off?” in such an accusatory way that I did snap at her and say I didn’t know.  The electricity was all off all day all over my part of the county but it sounded like she wanted me to say that I hadn’t paid my bill.  

She walked around the house which I would say is a bit messy, but okay for a busy family of 5.  We spend a couple of hours a day tidying and cleaning and I do ten or more loads of laundry a week.  All the kids have chores.   My daughter had just taken out the recycling and trash and had dropped a chicken bone from the bag in the kitchen.  The social worker went off about this.  She also went off about my library (where the kids are not allowed to go) because I had piles of books everywhere.   My summer project is sorting the books to give many of them away because we have having several rooms of our house remodeled and we have too many books.   I apologized to the social worker because we have so many books!   She told me to do something about that!

  She pointed out everything that was out of place.   She told me that I need to teach my kids better and take more pride in my home.  She said her kids listen when she tells them to do something and mine can too.   She glanced about the rest of the house and the only truly messy room is my sons’ room because they are very destructive.  I have to monitor them every minute to make sure it stays contained to their bedroom only.  Ironically, my kids think I'm a clean fanatic.

I was told that she had planned to dismiss the case, but she couldn’t because my house was too messy.  She said she would develop a Safety Plan for me to sign.  She said if my house wasn’t clean  by next week , she could take all four of my kids.    My 16 year old (who had been traumatized by the visit to her high school months ago)  told the social worker she didn’t want to be taken away.  She responded, “I don’t know what your mother has told you…”  The answer is that my teenager is the one that was made to believe that.  I had told her there was no chance that they would take children because they were having home repairs done.  She now knows that I was wrong.
 
Then she brought the other social worker in after I put the cats away.  This social worker talked to my boys about helping out, but it was obvious that they have no insight into the levels of issues with my boys.   But one did say, "have you ever considered that some of your kids may have Reactive Attachment Disorder?"

 They showed me the “Safety Plan” and I asked what I could do if I disagreed with it since I was signing a document that said I recognize that my kids can be taken away if I don’t  clean my house.  She said in a hostile voice that I could see them in court.  What I meant was not that I wouldn’t comply, but rather that I did not agree that I don’t do my laundry, clean my toilets (which she didn’t see), clean linens,  vacuum, take out the trash, etc.  the one thing I did agree with her about was the litter box because the odor was bad and it is not typically.  After she left we discovered that the smell was not the litter boxes which we scrub every Sunday, but rather something that my elderly sick cat had done that needed to be cleaned up.  Once it was cleaned up, there was no odor.
After they left we were shell shocked.  I just cried because being a single mom of 4 teens and preteens  with special needs is hard enough without the added expectation of a spotless house.  I put enough pressure on the kids about keeping the house clean.  

 It’s doubtful that my children will be taken because there is absolutely no danger to their physical well-being or safety.  I am a very protective parent.  However, I do see this bombastic style of confronting my family as emotionally damaging to them as individuals and as detrimental to our fragile sense of ourselves as a family unit.  It is not easy to bring together so many older children who have not lived together and create a sense of family unity.  The result of this morning’s visit was not that everyone decided to stick together and work this out as a family, but rather to place blame on those that were responsible for the “messes” and to wonder if some can stay and some can go if it comes to that.  One asked if only the sloppiest of them can go and I had to explain that the issue wasn’t whether they were too sloppy, but whether I was good enough parent to them.  One said that perhaps he should be the one to go since he breaks everything.  This is a heartbreaking situation for me.


Friday, July 1, 2011

Wow...So long

I haven't posted in so long. I do follow other people's blogs though.

Updates:

CPS just called me again and left a message to talk about the referral.  I have spoken to no one since my kids were interviewed (see previous post).  I guess they can't be too worried, but I need to have this resolved.

Summer is here.  Trying to provide routine and structure or we will all go mad.

We are working on getting more assistance and some evaluations.

Teens and preteens are so hard to deal with....

I will definitely update more during the summer.