Warning about frequency/content of posts to follow
It's coming up for christmas in the retail/marketing world, and this is a really difficult time of year for me so my posts are probably going to reflect that. As ever, I'll use plenty of lj-cuts.
The last christmas I spent with my daughter was absolutely awful. She was in care, and it was agreed that she could stay with me and her dad for a day or two around christmas (we weren't together). He told me later that he'd purposefully made things bad to convince me that we needed to put her up for adoption. I suppose it worked in a way. He drank and drank and on the day that we were having a nice meal and didn't get up until 12 or something, leaving me to look after Alex for about 5 hours and make the meal. I'd probably got out of psychiatric hospital quite recently, and was only just about to manage it. Another thing I learnt afterwards was that she'd thought we'd got back together but didn't want her any more. Oh that hurt so much. When her foster parents arrived to pick her up, there were overflowing ashtrays and cans everywhere, and that went against me in the reports by the social worker. Alex called the foster mother 'mummy' when the foster parents came to pick her up and that just crushed me.
I keep re-living this (it happened seven or eight years ago). I am so, so sick of her dad and my aunt saying that we did the best thing by giving her up for adoption. No! We did the least worst thing we could have done. How could I *ever* describe having my child taken away from me without my fully informed consent as the best thing? The best thing would have been for me to get well and find somewhere to live, then be re-united with my daughter. I'm still so f*cking angry and hurt. The psychiatrist in hospital a year or so later wrote a report saying I was sane so that I could sign the adoption papers when I was still in psychiatric hospital. I had no choice, the only other thing would have been to have disagreed and have my parental rights taken away from me after a court hearing anyway. Whenever X or Aunty Joan say I did the best f*cking thing it just makes it sound as if my feelings aren't important.
Christmas adverts have started to appear. None of the happy family ones yet, but I know they're coming and they always do the same thing to me. I never used to celebrate christmas, but the society I live in connects it so strongly with the idea of family and reminds me I haven't got one any more.
The last christmas I spent with my daughter was absolutely awful. She was in care, and it was agreed that she could stay with me and her dad for a day or two around christmas (we weren't together). He told me later that he'd purposefully made things bad to convince me that we needed to put her up for adoption. I suppose it worked in a way. He drank and drank and on the day that we were having a nice meal and didn't get up until 12 or something, leaving me to look after Alex for about 5 hours and make the meal. I'd probably got out of psychiatric hospital quite recently, and was only just about to manage it. Another thing I learnt afterwards was that she'd thought we'd got back together but didn't want her any more. Oh that hurt so much. When her foster parents arrived to pick her up, there were overflowing ashtrays and cans everywhere, and that went against me in the reports by the social worker. Alex called the foster mother 'mummy' when the foster parents came to pick her up and that just crushed me.
I keep re-living this (it happened seven or eight years ago). I am so, so sick of her dad and my aunt saying that we did the best thing by giving her up for adoption. No! We did the least worst thing we could have done. How could I *ever* describe having my child taken away from me without my fully informed consent as the best thing? The best thing would have been for me to get well and find somewhere to live, then be re-united with my daughter. I'm still so f*cking angry and hurt. The psychiatrist in hospital a year or so later wrote a report saying I was sane so that I could sign the adoption papers when I was still in psychiatric hospital. I had no choice, the only other thing would have been to have disagreed and have my parental rights taken away from me after a court hearing anyway. Whenever X or Aunty Joan say I did the best f*cking thing it just makes it sound as if my feelings aren't important.
Christmas adverts have started to appear. None of the happy family ones yet, but I know they're coming and they always do the same thing to me. I never used to celebrate christmas, but the society I live in connects it so strongly with the idea of family and reminds me I haven't got one any more.