Having an outsider telling you (their mother) that your children are better off with someone else is heart breaking. Children do not come with a manual and sometimes mistakes are made but what gives anyone the authority to tell me my children are better somewhere else. A stranger looking at a single situation and not caring about the history of what happened or what else was going on. When my children were placed outside of my care it was the beginning of destruction of our family unit and each member individually. I spiraled into a deep depression which caused me to lose my job and eventually our home. I reached out for help but the very agency that told me that my kids should not be with me shunned me. I was told if I did not have my kids there was nothing, they could do for me. That seemed like a paradox to me………you tell me my kids are better elsewhere, give me all the things I need to change, and when I need help you can not help me. That would seem to me to be a broken system. All this time my children and I are missing out on bonding……no goodnight kisses from me. Goodnight phone calls are not the same. They are so impersonal my children could not get used to knowing what I smelled or felt like through a phone. I struggled with bouts of depression and worthlessness because you see without my children, I was nothing. Sitting in court hearings listening to all the things I did wrong and never what I was doing to improve my situation only made matters worse. I wanted to yell BUT I AM THEIR MOM AND I AM TRYING…. PLEASE HELP ME!!!!!!!! Instead, I sat there defeated because I was fighting a system that was broken. I am glad that a few family members rallied behind me and helped pull me out of the muck. I began to fight for what was mine and it was a hard fight. I eventually one my fight but guess what I still have to deal with the brokenness that my children have from the time that I was not physically presence every day. And that is still not an easy task because children remember everything and as they get older the harder it is to fix. I pray that this serves as encouragement for someone on this same journey. I also pray that it serves as a drop in the bucket that these agencies will stop and reevaluate how things are done. Families should be together as much as possible.
Submitted By ALM
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