Other Social services horror story

[The Albatross]

I just know that if you want to discuss the topic, it's best to discuss the topic and leave the personal barbs out of it. I got nothing on the topic because I have no personal experience to share, nor kids... so don't mind me. It is something to be discussed, just without assuming people posting that ask questions is akin to character assassination.

 

[Fadeaway]

@crazydiamond47 I have avoided replying to this thread until now. While I am aware of serious corruption in social services in the U.S. I have no clue about the UK, but wouldn't be surprised because the nature of the system makes it ripe for predators and of course we all know the story of Baby P an similar stories. The problem is your approach and sadly, due to your past posting history, you aren't exactly the most credible person.

What I know about the system in the U.S. can be backed up by video evidence, legal documents, news reports and testimony of a former senator. So, while I don't disbelieve that stories like yours happened, your past history, your approach and your attacks on other members makes it difficult to want to engage with your on the topic.

 

[joeylittle]

@crazydiamond47 - I am truly sorry to read the shit you’ve been through in your life.

I am also fairly blown away by your refusal to truly own your own part in the series of events that ended up defining your son’s life.

I’m in the US, so only have familiarity with our social services. It’s true: there are massive problems with the systems that exist to protect children from neglect and abuse. Of course there are.

I don’t think that making all of it their fault is accurate. It’s also going to do you no good. You can blame them and rile yourself up and feed off your righteous indignation until you burst...it’s not going to change the fact that you hit your kid, your ex hit your kid, and he was taken away from you.

I don’t doubt you were stressed.

You also weren’t able to gather things back together well enough to manage him, once he did come back to you. The system put him into rough situations, yes. That is a tragedy. It’s wrong, it shouldn’t happen. My heart breaks for the kid. It really does.

You brush off why he did not want to develop a relationship with you in his adult life - something about a minor brush with the law you had - and then you go on to describe a cycle of connecting and withholding that you call emotional abuse.

Is it possible that you have an equal part in all of that?

One of the hardest things in DBT is the concept of radical acceptance. It is essential, though, for managing some of the extreme feelings and events that people with PTSD can be subjected to.

Radical acceptance involves coming to terms with things as they are. You don’t have to like them. You don’t have to be ok with them. But you have to accept them.

When we can’t change something - usually because it is not under our own control, or it is in the past and can’t be undone - we have two choices. We can continue to desperately wish it would change, or we can accept that it is what is happening. Acceptance doesn’t signal agreement. It’s not a way of rolling over and giving up. It’s merely coming to terms.

If you are looking for some relief from the anger and frustration that you understandably feel, you might start to find it in acceptance.

Your son has had a seriously rough time. You might also consider that, and find some empathy for him. If you become capable of being the adult, it may become possible for him to find some safety and comfort in that.

 

[Deleted member 34561]

Sorry @joeylittle I get where you're coming from regarding radical acceptance but not once on this thread have I not owned or taken responsibility for the fact I hit my kid. I did that 19 years ago and have been doing it ever since because I knew then as I know now I have to own it in order to change it. But I never saw any social workers do the same as me regarding their own failings towards my eldest son until I forced them to do so in a court of law.

I only hit my boy once which I know was one time too many which is why I asked social services to help me because I really didnt want to be doing that to him but compared to how social services allowed my boy to be abused by his grandmother then older kids in care foster carers and support workers in the kids home it's just a drop in the ocean. Other people f*cked my eldest kid up far more than I did.

I jumped through hoops for social services for that boy I did everything that was asked of me and then some. Went to parenting classes anger management and counselling. Went to every review meeting every face to face contact did phone contact every weekend for an hour and went to every family therapy session as well. I also helped my lad out with money after social services stuck him a flat with no money or psychological support when he left the care system a lot of times to my own detriment. In short I bent over backwards for my eldest kid and went the extra mile for him because I was the only one out of me and social services who felt bad and guilty about all our collective failings towards him.

I carried that guilt for all of us because social services sure as Hell weren't practicing radical acceptance in their part of the situation. I'm still carrying that guilt today. And I probably will be carrying it till the day I die. And it doesn't help that social services and my mum got my eldest son to look at me and my failings of him so he wouldn't look at them and be angry at them rather than me as he should be. I'm just social services my mum's and both my now grown kids' scapegoat. I cop all the blame and shame and punishment for everyone else's f*ck ups because nobody else wants to take responsibility for themselves in this situation not even my adult kids or the bandy way they interpret me or my act and decisions down the decades I fought tooth and nail to stay in their lives despite social services throwing every spanner in the works they could think of and the many times I was verbally and emotionally abused by social workers because they wanted to piss me off so much I would go away and leave my kids to an even more horrible fate than what they both suffered anyway at the system's hands.

But I believed then and I still believe to this day that it was better for my kids to have one imperfect but loving parent in their life than no parent at all. And I still believe that both my kids have thrown all my efforts with them while they were in care back in my face as 'not good enough' when it was social services that weren't good enough not me. As for my eldest son and his mental and emotional abuse of me well I still stand by what I said about that before and I still believe he really was doing that to me NOT 'connecting and withholding' as you put it @joeylittle. And I do have bags of empathy for both him and my youngest kid too. But neither of them seem to have much empathy for me.

But two wrongs don't make a right. In other words regardless of the mistakes I made leading up to them both being removed from my care and regardless of how hard I worked in trying to make amends for letting them both down (and I really did try) how both my grown kids have treated me since is shocking and I believe undeserved. You may have a different opinion and I totally respect that but can you see it from my point of view? It doesn't matter if you can't because I still have to live with this stuff 24/7 365 days a year every year.

I know you mean well @joeylittle and I know I haven't been the most consistent or credible person on this board previously and I also know I've been pretty bloody angry with certain people on these boards as well and I'm sorry for that truly I am. But all this with my kids and social services etc is not black and white and there are many shades of grey in between.

I'm going to leave it there because I don't want to piss anyone else off and I never meant to do that in the first place. And this will be my last comment on the subject because I want this to die down and I will save my gripes about social services for therapy from now on because after all this I think a therapist is the only person who could really understand why I feel the way I do about all this. Apart from other parents and kids who have been torn apart by a system that is supposed to care but sadly doesn't.

Thanks

Crazydiamond47

 

[recoveringfromptsd]

One of the hardest things in DBT is the concept of radical acceptance.

Interesting, Radical Acceptance (RA) seems to be the one thing I have more mastery over. I can't say for sure, except RA and was something my situation hypervigilance would not let me do. It was all or nothing acceptance, that is until I had a situation in SP TDU where I had no choice but to embrace RA and Distress Tolerance (DT). Once the ice was broken it was easier to do RA and DT. It's all that other DBT stuff that's hard to remember it all more less do it in real life. In many ways I think I use RA in a perverse way, like black and white thinking applied to RA choices. Not the best, but for now it seems to work for me. I suspect as I do more DBT how I approach RA will change too.

@joeylittle for all its worth of my two sense. This has been a very important and emotional thread for most if not all of us, and sometimes because of our experiences can be a little jumpy or extra sensitive. I think just like when elsewhere people use a trigger warning, I think it might be good when someone has some feedback that might be critical of something that such a preface be used so things are not taken in the wrong way. Maybe something as simple as "Constructively offered feedback" so it tells the other person(s) that criticism or a challenge to thinking is being offered but in the spirit of trying to help. I think sometimes we often jump to conclusions based on emotion when others question or motives or thinking, etc. When constructively things should be taken as "here is some critical feedback based on my point of view, if it helps I am glad". Just a thought and my two cents.

 

[lostforgottensoul]

Other people f*cked my eldest kid up far more than I did.

Maybe, maybe not. You honest aren't in his head knowing what's affecting him more. And truely, he may not know what's affecting him more. But broken trust, saftey, and literally abandonment (to him I'm sure) of a parent is super hard. I would say the actions of a parent effects me more, even today as an adult, then the actions of strangers or even other family members. To regain trust and saftey back is insanely difficult and if not allowed to have the chance to regain that it keeps snow piling on itself and it never gets there. Such as my current "relationship" with my father.

In short I bent over backwards for my eldest kid and went the extra mile for him because I was the only one out of me and social services who felt bad and guilty about all our collective failings towards him.

My father just threw a guilt trip on me last night (about his not having a place to go in a week - a VERY long story) saying "haven't I been good to you? Didnt I loan my car to you?" Just because you went the extra mile for him doesn't mean he isn't affected by past abuses and needs to be allowed the time and space to work through that without these "didnt I go the extra mile for you" guilt trips.

basically the social workers brainwashed and alienated them both against me

You don't know that. That is misplaced anger.

how their lives turned out as a result of going through care and the many psychological issues they both have as a result of going through care.

Well, to be blunt, you caused them to go into the care system to begin with. Maybe a mistake and I am not saying that for you to have more guilt. You cannot change the past but you do need to accept that you caused what then was a dimano affect that caused trauma to your two kids. It is what it is. But they have a right to not want to be in contact with you at the moment due to what they suffered and needing the time to work that out. They may be like me and seek you out eventually as I did my father but they may not and you have no control over that. What you can control is how you are choosing to respond to this.

@joeylittle is dead on with radical acceptance. Probably the absoultly hardest thing that I had to do is radically accept that my dad is the way he is, and the remainder of my family are the way they are. There is no changing it, there is no working on it and we are all better off not speaking to each other. Especially now.

But case in point, I need space from my father to work all of this out. All I see at the moment is rage. So, maybe they feel the same. And you can't really blame them. You need to accept that they will do what they will do and you cannot control what they do. Maybe they remain bitter for the rest of their lives. You don't have to be happy with it but you do need to accept it. And again, that's SUPER hard but very needed to move foward.

If I had the money I would sue social services for ruining my lives my kids lives and all the relationships between us.

Misplaced anger. They didn't "ruin your life". YOU caused them to take your kids, justified. Again, not saying that to cause guilt but blame and anger needs to shift. Forgive yourself and accept that they may not want to talk to you and that is their choice and you have no control over it. There is a peace that comes with acceptance.

There's a bloody good reason the family courts are closed in the UK. The social services say it's to protect the anonymity of the kids but that's total bollocks. It's really done to cover up the social workers f*ck ups and to save their own sorry arses and sod the poor kids and birth parents. It's an absolute bloody disgrace and really shouldn't be happening in the 21st century for God's sake.

No, that's to not get the name of minors out there. That's the same as here in the US. When minors are called to be a witness their identities are protected as far as I am aware. They are minors. It's done for a reason. Again, misplaced anger.

You need to stop blaming the child and family services for all of this. Truth is you hit him, you allowed your ex to hit him. He was taken away because of that and that then led to all the other trauma. I am pretty impressed child and family services responded appropratly. Stop blaming and start accepting. Again, a peace comes with acceptance. You need to accept that it is what it is. They may never speak to you again and that sucks. I agree, that sucks. But it is what it is and you have zero control over it. Blaming the child and family service gets you no where. An over worked, under staffed not perfect system but many here were saved from their childhood traumas due to them. I am not saying the system isn't flawed in many ways. It is. But there was a reason they were taken away to begin with. And yes, life can suck but it is what it is. All you do by blaming is chase your tail. I did that for years and its no fun. You gain zero ground. By accepting it for what it is at face value then you start to move foward.

I hope that helps some and I hope this reply isnt taken wrong. I truely understand misplaced and misdirected anger. But I also understand it leads nowhere.

 

[joeylittle]

But I never saw any social workers do the same as me regarding their own failings towards my eldest son until I forced them to do so in a court of law.

That isn’t anything you have any influence or control over anymore. It’s up to you whether you want to stay emotionally stuck on it or not.

I was the only one out of me and social services who felt bad and guilty about all our collective failings towards him.

And what will that accomplish?

I certainly agree, there’s nothing about any of this that is black and white. I do not mean to invalidate your pain. Whether or not you want to work through and ultimately get relief from these feelings of powerlessness, the ways in which you’ve been wronged - that’s up to you.

I’d encourage you to start a diary, as a place to work out, express, vent. Threads are generally going to churn up as much challenge as validation and acceptance. The diary is the best format for chronicling your own journey. People do read and respond to them as well, so it’s not just talking to yourself.

 

[joeylittle]

Maybe something as simple as "Constructively offered feedback" so it tells the other person(s) that criticism or a challenge to thinking is being offered but in the spirit of trying to help

The community constitution is clear on this already. Every challenge, every validation - it’s all for the purpose of support and recovery.

Whether someone is blunt or incredibly sensitive in their writing doesn’t matter. Its up to us to do our best and manage our own reactions.

Take what’s useful, leave the rest. It’s the motto, and it works.