When is it enough?

At the risk of my dear step-children one day reading this, I have a deep sense of urgency to express this is writing. I can no longer keep it inside of myself as I am finding it destructive.

I will preface my thoughts with a very simple statement. The biological mother of my step-children suffers from a very severe personality disorder (Cluster B for those who know personality disorders). I’m not kidding or saying that in jest. She is incapable of seeing the negative impact that she has on others. She uses emotional manipulation and psychological control to maintain the loyalty of her children. She instinctively creates dramatically destructive situations and lays blame to everyone but herself (including the children). Her daughter has resorted to emotional insulation and escape behaviors to manage her anxiety. Her son withdraws emotionally in general but is quick to overreact when his own negative emotions become too much for him to bear.

She has been jailed twice for domestic violence (both of which were witnessed by the children) and allowed a previous boyfriend to assault her son as a form of punishment. CPS has completed two investigations and is currently completing another one. Each time (and I’m sure this time as well) ending with the “consequence” of parenting and/or anger management classes. Both of which are clearly useless to the personality disordered who invariably and intractably believe that they are not wrong and do not need to change.

So I ask this with a level of desperate frustration that I cannot fully express. When will it be enough? At what point will someone with the authority to back it up finally say that she cannot parent? My mind is continually brought to this case in my own hometown.

http://www.mlive.com/news/flint/index.ssf/2016/07/mother_charged_in_connection_t.html

In this case, there were “multiple previous contacts with CPS over allegations of physical neglect, medical neglect, lack of supervision, physical abuse and having a drug-exposed infant.” Only after this mother killed her 4-year-old son, did anyone bother to take any of her 7 children away from her. Everyone knew. The authorities, CPS, neighbors. It took a child’s death for someone to say, “Hey, this woman can no longer parent”. This is the example of child protection that is held in my community. A mother’s rights to be a horrific parent remain active until she kills one of her children.

My husband and I took the fight to the courts. After 6 months, over $5000 in lawyer fees, and a comment from our lawyer that we were “fortunate to get the deal”, we were merely able to increase our parenting time to almost 50%. Our lawyer lamented openly that Genesee County is very conservative and tends to prioritize a mother’s relationship with the children.

So there it is. With our hands tied and our hearts breaking, we watch as the system fails our children. In the one-half of their lives that we are allowed to have, we desperately try to counteract her toxicity with whatever we have to offer them. Security. Stability. Open communication. Support. Family….and Hope that it is enough.