I'm done

[CouthyMow]

DD school refused this morning. First she refused to give DS1 back his iPod that he had kindly lent to her yesterday because hers is broken.

I insisted she give it back. She then decided

I am sorry - I didn't mean to sound patronizing.
I know what you mean about having no choice.
Maybe DS1's reaction is down to stress and probably a bit of confusion too.
I really hope you can get some advice from the legal people on here. The whole system sounds dreadful.

Can I ask you a personal question, Couthy? Feel free to ignore me or tell me to bugger off...

How do you think all this is affecting you physically?

Like you I felt "falling apart isn't an option", so emotionally I stayed (and am) very strong. But physically I am pretty knackered. I have very real, diagnosed physical conditions - not psychosomatic - some seriously disabling (I have a blue badge because I can't walk without pain) - that have worsened significantly since dealing with major teenage shit. It is as if my body has fallen apart because my mind hasn't...

Flow, you could be onto something there - my arthritis has worsened dramatically over the last 6 months, since DD's behaviour has gone off the scale. I'm on twice the amount of painkillers, I'm bed bound quite a bit, needing far more PHYSICAL help...

That's very interesting!

I too am struggling to sleep, which makes my joints worse, but then my joints are also painful, which stops me from sleeping...

And I'm not old, MaryZ, so I doubt it's that!

I am catching every little bug the DC's bring home, and they are lasting ages, far longer than they should. I am getting more and more run down. I try to take vitamins and iron, and eat as healthily a possible, but I am noticing that my immune system has, well, buggered off!

Long term stress causes ill health. That is a known fact. The chronic high level of stress hormones damages the immune system and can cause it to turn against the body, causing autoimmune diseases.

Conditions caused and exascerbated by long term stress include Rheumatoid arthritis, asthma, sjogrens syndrome. Some people think that Lupus and hyperphospholipid syndrome, Hughes syndrome are also in this group and these in turn can cause epilepsy/migraine/stroke/memory problems.

My friend has Sjogrens, brought on by chronic stress. GP was absolutely useless. It took years to get a referral to a rheumatologist, by which time she had severe rheumatoid arthritis, lung damage, eye damage, skin problems, awful migraines. Now she is having treatment, most of those have improved dramatically.

These things are more common in women and the cynical part of me thinks that this is why there isn't more research and attention focused on them.

Most GPs know nothing about sjogrens.
The eye thing sounds very suggestive of sjogrens. Are your eyes dry and sore?
Do you have a dry mouth?
Bad infections and lung problems also sound like it, together with the joint pains and shoulder problem.
Do you find that as soon as one thing improves a bit, something else gets worse?

Couthy. Regarding your posts, what comes abundantly clear, with your concise and reasoned posts, is that you school seriously failed you.

The fact you left school in 1997 without good Gcse results , shames the school you attended. There must have been teachers teaching you who were not fit for teaching.

The seriously flawed education you were given, has left you exposed especially with your diagnosed medical problems. If the school had given you half the appropriate level of education, you would now be able to provide a more stable home for your children.

The fact you left school as late as 1997 , and you suffered in the same way as some kids leaving in the 70s and 80s , makes me very angry.
I assumed that people like yourself would have achieved better in the 90s due to better and more focused teaching methods.

This is also partly responsible for kicking you everyday, because in you mind you know you are as intelligent and capable as anyone.

I had family issues, and was moved around a lot. I attended 3 different schools in Y11...

I was at first living within an abusive home environment with my Mother and Stepfather (physical and EA), then I refused to return home, and was moved in with my paternal uncle, which meant a school move in the September of Y11, he couldn't cope with the way I was behaving as an after effect of my frankly, shitty childhood (rape by my mother's partner when I was 4yo, neglect, physical abuse, moved in with father, he killed himself when I was 10 due to HIS history of familial sexual abuse, moved back in with mother and new stepfather, mother physically and emotionally abusive, took me four years to extricate myself...).

I was then moved to my Granny's in Scotland, went into the final year there, but would have been unable to pass exams due to different EXAM (standard grade rather than GCSE), so I requested a mice to the year below.

Was working well, but then fell pregnant and was asked to leave my Granny's - so I had to move back down South. I got into a. FE college to sit my exams, they had stated in writing that they would keep the place open until the October, but when I got there they had given the place away.

So it wasn't down to crap teachers, but an exceedingly crappy childhood, that I have since worked long and hard to overcome, and to try to ensure my DC's don't have to go through the same things that I did.

Hence no unsupervised contact with my mother, and only for very short bursts on their birthdays...

I will never go NC with my mother, she has her own issues that led her to behave in the frankly shitty way she did during my childhood, I have not 'forgiven' her, but I understand the reasons why, which allowed me to let go of the anger and upset I was feeling as a young teen.

But I will equally never allow her to be around my DC's unsupervised, in order to protect them...

Mice = move. Sometimes autocorrect is somewhat frustrating...!

Soul - in fact, my teachers were, on the whole, excellent, and had I been able to SIT in the exam hall, I am sure that my grades would have been A* to B's. So relatively decent grades, despite what my home life was like.

I don't blame the schools at all, it was outside influences that caused the issues.

I DO however, hold the FE college in great contempt, as they had assured me in writing that they would keep the place open.

Unfortunately, at the time, being 4 months pregnant and homeless, I had bigger fish to fry than taking a huge Further Education establishment to court, and tbh at the time I didn't realise that I could. By the time I realised that, it was too late anyway, too much time had passed.

And I also hold the SW's that were hoodwinked by my Mother's behaviour partly responsible.

But I have let go of the anger I once felt towards them, as it was only damaging me, and would have run the risk of damaging my children if I hadn't.

I came to terms with everything by changing my mindset from that of a victim to the way I am now, I started that process at 18, and I feel that I had it 'sussed' by 22. It was a long process of extricating myself from damaging family relationships, I come from a family that was so fucked up, on both sides, that continuing to be a part of that would only have damaged my family (me and my DC's) further.

I started looking at the reasons WHY the things that had happened to me happened, and came to the conclusion that those people were fucked up by THEIR upbringing. So it wasn't ME that was the issue, it was them.

I refused to allow that cycle to continue with my own DC's...

It does mean that looking after. DC's with disabilities and health issues has been significantly harder, especially as the men that fathered my DC's weren't, erm, picked appropriately, as they were conceived (apart from DS3) before I had fully dealt with the emotions surrounding my childhood.

So I had one father who also had an awful upbringing, so much so that on marrying his wife (DD's SM) he took HER surname in order to distance himself from his family.

Another who ended up in a very abusive relationship, where HE was the victim, and he has only just extricated himself from that after 7 years.

And another who has Autism, and cannot cope with long term living in a family situation, though he has got better over the last 10 years, and is now far more supportive than he used to be, though nowhere near enough!

And the lack of family support is difficult, but that support would come with a price tag I am not willing to allow my DC's to pay, as it would be them that would suffer from the EA that goes on in both sides of my family.

So it ALL falls to me!

And also, I don't blame the school for MY decision to continue with my pregnancy. I am not a pro-lifer, I fully believe termination is the right thing for people to have the option of, in circumstances where it would adversely affect the mother's life or the child's life , be that through MH, disability that the mother feels unable to cope with, rape, etc.

But it has never been something I have felt I could do.

And I am also, unfortunately, in the 1% of the population that hormonal contraception just DOESN'T work for - all of my DC's have been conceived whilst using one form or another of hormonal contraception.

DD was a microgynon baby. Taken properly, but my hay fever injection interfered with it, and as it was a new treatment at the time, I hadn't been warned of that side effect.

DS1 was a Depo baby (and I had only had the injection 6 weeks previously, when it should last 3 months).

DS2 was an implanon baby. Had been in for just 12 months when I fell pregnant.

I fell pregnant with my baby that was sb at 21 weeks with a Mirena coil in place.

I fell pregnant with DS3 on the mini pill.

I've given up with hormonal contraception now!!
I

I made the decision to have DD when I was 16, I knew it would make it harder to gain a decent education, but I hadn't realised HOW much harder...

Bloody hell, Couthy! Where's the Hats Off emoticon when you need it?!

I guess I was lucky in as much as my epilepsy wasn't dxd until I was 22, and my arthritis started when I was 30. So my medical issues didn't affect my education, just my home life!

The reason DD has been turned down for legal aid as her case is 'not in the public interest' is because the laws surrounding legal aid changed THE DAY THAT DD WAS TAKEN TO COURT.

I am the FIRST parent / victim in ESSEX to face this issue, and nobody knows how to resolve it.

For fuck sake how unlucky AM I??!!

So it's looking increasingly likely that I WILL have to pay the legal costs.

I have been told that technically yes, the way DD's case was conducted WAS illegal, even the paperwork states that she had no appropriate adult, and the case SHOULD have been adjourned.

I COULD get the case quashed if I wanted to...

The issue I face with that, though, is that I would lose her referral order that brings support from YOTS, who are going to sort out reparative work, an apology letter, do work with DD on consequences, AND the anger management help DD so desperately needs will all be written into the order.

So I am basically PAYING the legal costs in order to get DD some support.

Nobody, not even YOTS, knows who DD's solicitor was, as DD can't remember the name of the firm, it was just the 'duty solicitor' as far as she is concerned, and on the court paperwork that YOTS have, it hasn't been filled in...

They are liaising across the whole County to try to find an answer to this, and they are desperately concerned as the changes to legal aid are now going to leave parents in a similar situation with no way of contacting the police, because of the financial penalties of having to pay the legal costs, which can be hundreds of pounds...

So I am the fucking guinea pig, yet a fucking gain.

I'm sick to the back teeth of this - I was the first person in Essex to bring up to DWP management about the gap between being too ill for JSA yet too well for ESA, and what happens to those people in between...

WHY AM I THE FIRST??!!

Apparently it was routine until the day before DD was in Court for the minor to automatically be awarded legal aid for cases like this, but as it only changed on that day, they are unsure what to do now.

I can't act on DD's behalf and ask the solicitor to appeal the decision not to award legal aid, as I am the victim.

But nobody else has. PR for DD. Not even her father, and he can't afford the Court application right now.

Social Services won't get involved wit his matter, as they say the SW is for DD, and as I am financially responsible, it's MY issue to sort out.

CAB still can't give me an appointment I can actually GET TO. And don't do stuff like this by phone any more, even for those with disabilities?!

So basically, I'm screwed and just have to wait for the solicitor's bill to drop through the door, and then watch them deduct it from my benefits. Same as they will do with the ILLEGALLY APPLIED victim surcharge.

I'm slightly angry, if you couldn't tell...!

Does anyone have a four-leaved clover I can have? Or any other thing that might bring me a small amount of luck? Surely I deserve to catch a fucking break somewhere in this lifetime??!!

I just have to keep being strong, keep being strong, keep plodding on, but one day I'm going to break. I have endured more in my lifetime than mist people can even begin to imagine, and yet I find ways around it, find ways to smile again, but I'm seriously running on empty with the piles of shit that keep getting thrown at me.

I want to stamp my feet and shout "IT'S NOT FUCKING FAAAAAAIIIIIRR!!!"

Have FINALLY managed to get hold of the legal aid department at the Court in the other town, that DD was seen in.

THEY are going to get the solicitor (they couldn't tell me who the solicitor was...) to put in an appeal for legal aid.

If it's refused, I'll get a bill. If it's granted, DD's legal costs will be covered.

I am crossing everything my fingers...

Keeping every thing crossed for you couthy

Bumping as this has dropped off my active again.

FUCKS SAKE!!! Just had a call from SS telling me that DD skipped school today despite having been taken by SS transport.

EVERY other time DD has even been 15 minutes late, the effing school have phoned. Nothing all bloody day. They didn't phone the FC either.

It was apparently only noticed when she wasn't at the school to meet her transport...

While I was looking through DD's fb to try to find out where she might be, they had a call from the FC to say DD had been in touch, and that she was 'at a friend's '.

SS were 5 minutes from calling the police as an abscond FFS.

(And she WOULD know that SS HAVE to do that, as her ex boyfriend is in a Care Home, so she has had experience of that...)

WTF is she bloody playing at??!!

And more to the point, WTF are the school playing at, not ringing when they ALWAYS have?!

Extra week in FC going to panel tomorrow. Better bloody get it!

Aaaargghhhh!!!