Having your children adopted

[altarego]

I know this is very taboo but on balance I think this may be best. I’ll try to explain as best I can.

I cannot cope with my children. Ordinary child behaviour panics me. I start to feel stressed and overwhelmed very, very quickly and feel short of breath and the blood rushes to my head and I feel furious. This is frightening for them, they see my face.

From time to time it tips over and I lose it with them. I scream and swear and say awful things about them.

Things are fast getting out of control and I don’t want that.

It will get easier, not sure how old yours are but ive found as they got older its was easier. I was also on antidepressants which helped loads with my mood. If you're not already on them it might be worth looking in to

Good support will help you to break the cycle. You know that you're spiralling, and you need some support to break that. That's what a good outcome will be. No-one on here can diagnose you, but everyone is urging you to get some help, and assuring you that you won't be judged.
You're actually doing the right thing by asking advice on here.

I think antidepressants are a good start tbh … hopefully I can find a more understanding doctor than last time!

Why isn’t Foster care an option?

Sorry I’m not experienced in this area but I assume it’s open to anyone who is struggling?

I have my fingers crossed for you. Antidepressants help with more then people realise. I recently came off them after 8 years on them. So it doesn't even have to be a permanent thing just something to give you that extra bit help mentally

I did too, think I’ve read too much Cathy glass

Just talk to the Dr and say what you've been telling us. They will recommend a way forward.
You're not alone!

Foster care is usually for those children in danger of harm or neglect. I might be wrong.

@chocoluv

Apart from anything other consideration there is a massive shortage of foster carers. Children coming into care can be sent literally anywhere there is a bed for them to sleep in. Im an adoptive mum and a foster carer. My son's sibling grew up in care and lived in 4 different homes in one year, one for a single night, at one point he ended up in Wales, 200 miles from home. My last foster child was about to be sent 150 miles away before I stepped in as an emergency.

Foster care isnt a service you can tap into on demand. Unless a child is in immediate danger, social services cannot remove a child from the parent's care. Children are removed by court order. There is a process involving assessments and reports.

Even it is the right thing for a child to go into care it is not a quick or easy process.

Yes you're absolutely right about the placement availibity at the moment

Although some parents, unfortunately, do just leave their kids at school and refuse to come and get them or they insist on signing them in with their consent and saying they cant look after them.

OP as awful as it must be, this is temporary. This is depression talking. There is another option. That seeking support would actually help and make the world of difference.

you owe it to yourself and your kids to try. And you’ll be made to try.

I think you might be right two young pre school children on your own is going to hard work
And whilst i hate to arm chair diagnose
Im wondering if you are suffering with untreated post natal depression?
Go to your Gp tell them everthing
In the frst instance they may well refer you to early help.

I understand that they won’t come the same day unless it is an emergency etc and that they’ll offer support in other ways before resorting to foster care, but I’ve read quite a few threads on here over the years about mothers voluntary putting children into care.

There was one recently because the DH’s sister had gotten pregnant yet again and wanted OP and her family to raise another child and the responses were quite split.

There was also one where the OP had never wanted DC but the DH felt they should foster/adopt the sisters baby (would love to know how they’re getting on).

I believe in both cases the mother was voluntarily giving up the baby, which is why the OPs were so upset.

Health visitor. She got me the GP appointment which led me to get the antidepressants I'm still on 9 years later.

I think foster care will be a last resort anyway so let's not stress about that right now and focus on the negatives. We don't even know if foster care is going to be required yet. Let's focus on what can be done to keep the OP with her children, help her with her MH, and help them all to enjoy one another's company more.

OP you already sound a bit more hopeful and positive than you did earlier! Just venting to a bunch of strangers can really help. You sound articulate and intelligent so I am sure you haven't irreparably damaged your children by just being too dim to understand how to parent effectively. You have just become overwhelmed and exhausted and can't see a way through. I'd put money on it that you have delayed PND and medication will be a massive help. I was on it for only six months and the difference it made was HUGE and more or less instant.

Then, when you are calmer and less triggered by everything, you can work on your parenting skills and helping your children to manage their behaviour better.

I remember that feeling when I had a baby, a 3 year old and a five year old and they were squabbling, fighting, not doing as they were told, the older two would be bouncing off walls and the baby would be screaming. Some days it feels like I would explode and shatter into a million pieces. I felt like I was losing my mind, and I screamed like a lunatic more often than I like to admit. And I had a supportive DP coming home each evening so it will be doubly hard if you don't have that support.

But here I am 20 odd years later with three big strapping lads, all happy and successful, they all get along, all still love their mum, and honestly they don't remember any of it. I think it was far worse for me than it was for them. This can be you too, one day.

The main thing is not to be afraid to ask for help. I know people dread speaking to SS, it feels like failure and they are terrified. But once you've hit rock bottom you have nothing to lose and they will respect you for admitting you need help to cope. Far better to refer yourself than to wait until someone else is forced to do it for you.

But GP first, and take if from there. Good luck.

Presumabley in both those cases the birth parent has for whtever reason been deemed unfit to take care of a baby and thats why social services are looking to the wider family for kinship carers?
The Op situation is very different

Yes but giving up a baby for adoption is a process that can be initiated by the mother's choice. Older children will only be placed for fostering when all other possible options have been explored and exhausted by SW. It's a very different process and the child's welfare is the primary consideration. I think the OP does need urgent help and I hope she gets it but I think parent support groups and school are the first places to look not SW.

@chocoluv
Children moving to a family member is a completely different kettle of fish. Its normally social services preferred option, no matter how tenuous the connection.
Ive been asked about 2 half siblings of my son whom we had never met and didnt officially know existed.

But there are still processes to be gone through with kinship fostering

Hope you get the help you need

Because there aren't nearly enough foster carers. The fostering network estimate an additional 6000 foster carers are required to cover current need.

See your GP - perhaps a female doctor if poss? Also contact SS, not to get the kids fostered, that's unlikely to happen but to see if you can get some support from Early Help. There might be a wait so definitely get on it asap.

Also perhaps have a look at neurodiverse single parenting, you might be close to burn out.

I just don't think it helps for someone who is feeling desperate to be told repeatedly that the thing that she thinks might help is impossible and heartless. It doesn't matter what the reality of the situation is, at that moment in time @altarego just needed to be able to share how she felt and to feel hope that there was something that could be done.

@altarego at the weekend, the GP is not going to help, but there is a mental health option on the 111 helpline - that might be worth remembering because you will have better times and worse times in the short term.

It's ok to leave your children in a safe place within your house and step away for a minute or two if it's all getting too much.

i think sons an important message i
going to repeat in bold and big

YOU ARE NOT ALONE.

We are all here and listening.

Social services will be there and listen

a good GP will be there and listen.

Right now you feel alone and that in itself is terrifying and is probably sparking your fight response.

To start to be able to see you are not alone maybe medication. But medication alone isn’t always the answer which is why you need homestart and other organisations.

But most importantly realise you are not alone.

We are all here and listening.

Absolute nonsense.
It may be better for a child to go into the care system for safeguarding reasons, but these children are going to live with the trauma of knowing that they were UNWANTED by their mother for the rest of their lives.

Lots of people who are adopted at BIRTH struggle with the feeling of not belonging and being unwanted.

@Diamondsareforever72

You should be very careful about the use of the term 'unwanted'.

I agree that my adopted son has had feelings of rejection, but he has had extensive therapy and as difficult as it is sometimes, he does have an understanding that it wasn't a case of his parents not wanting him, it was that they were incapable of looking after him.
It does not sound to me at all that the op does not want her children. Quite the opposite. She is struggling and is afraid of hurting her children. At the moment she thinks the best thing to do for them is to give them up.

She said that she didn’t like them.

I understand that she is massively struggling. I have experienced a degree of that and my circumstances were entirely different.

The fact remains that children who have been put in care/adopted are left with a lifetime of trauma, no matter how much counselling/therapy they might have.

The OP needs help to prevent this happening, both to her children and her.