So it seems that every time I go over to my grandmothers house she is watching another Lifetime movie. I don’t mind, who doesn’t like to indulge a bit. I especially love holiday season Lifetime movies! I guess I love them so much because I can relate. Not to the holiday ones, unless they are about family dysfunction and chaos. Well, that is how it used to be anyway. Now I have a fairly normal family, one I created with my husband and our beautiful boys. But it wasn’t always so…peaceful.
As a child I grew up in a house of utter dysfunction and drama. My mother had a personality disorder, prescription drug addiction and was physically and verbally abusive. My father worked a lot to avoid her and ran from problems. Nights they were together often ended up with the cops at our house.
I moved out at 17, to said grandmothers house and never looked back. Except to check in on my sister, born 14 years after me. (I also have a brother 5 years younger, but he faced different challenges within the family and we were able to remain close.) Fast forward to 2010 when my parents finally decide to divorce. Thank God! Except my little sister ends up with my mother, who is still abusive and never received treatment. Sister comes to live my husband and I because my mother has no where to go. My mom still comes to spend time with her and eventually after my sister says she wasn’t to stay with us or return to our dad. My mother freaks out at the notion, and makes her move in with her at my grandmothers. We see that my mother is still very abusive – and my sister asks for help, is considering running away.
Cops are called, CPS is called – several times. I am 5 months pregnant with my first child and know I have to be strong, to make changes – to testify against my mother. Something in me snapped. I would no longer stand for this. I have to save my sister and protect my child/ren from my mother. They can NEVER know that kind of pain, as long as I can help it. My sister is placed with my husband and I, and we have a case worker in our home to check on Ana, and help in working to get my mother help, get clean and stable. We go to court, to trial – as my mother denies the allegations. My sister wants nothing to do with her. I am harassed repeatedly by my mother – change my phone number several times, and even though my mother is forbidden by court order to not see my sister with out her case worker, she shows up at my home. In the middle of the night we walk out to ride our new baby to sleep (he was really fussy that night) and there she was sitting in front of our home!
We hired our own personal attorney. My mother did not complete her case plan, and in September of 2012, both my parents lost custody of my sister. My husband and myself were made her permanent guardians. We were also granted a permanent domestic violence injunction which strictly forbids ANY contact from my mother.
Maybe I should say my life used to be a Lifetime movie. I am working very hard at trying live as normal of a life as possible, whatever that means. I just want my kids to have positive childhood memories, and lead life of unconditional love, patience, kindness, and have beautiful relationships with us, their parents. Perhaps a future Holiday Lifetime movies, a sweet sappy, one you love to watch again and again.
How is your life like a Lifetime movie? Tell us in the comments! And be sure to check out the new series tonight, Wednesday, Oct. 17.
Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/RightCelebrity/~3/_frcbwYdqi8/
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