Offer Has Been Made

[Hound dog]

mrsammler thank you for your valuable insights. Hard stuff, yes, but much of what runs through my mind continually.......

The caution is only to increase the chances of the grands removal from their parents, as well as minimizing chances the parents getting them back once that has been achieved.

I know M isn't going to change. I know Katie isn't going to change. I accept that. But that doesn't totally kill a Mom's hope that perhaps someday it could happen. Still, I'm very much a realist and enough of a pessimist that I can/do accept it isn't going to happen.

Society as a whole believes that if a child is being abused/neglected all one has to do is to call cps and the child will be rescued. Unfortunately that is not how the real world works. I'm not saying caseworkers at cps don't care........but they are overworked, under paid, under staffed and for the most part the whole system is overwhelmed. Many caseworkers are so jaded that unless a child is in obvious danger of death they won't even bother. I've run into more than my fair share of them over the years........so that it has jaded me into knowing I need concrete evidence before I even bother to make the call. And while I have some, I seriously doubt at this point it is enough to make them move unless I have the good fortune to get a caseworker who still cares about the work they do. (rare)

I would love nothing more than to swoop in and rescue those kids. Believe me, you've no idea. If I had the money, I'd already be filing for custody of all three, and I'd probably get it given the situation. Sadly though, I don't. I'm forced to work with what I have and that isn't a whole lot. I have never been so utterly frustrated in my life.

There are facets to this situation I have not posted due to the seriousness and sensitivity of it. I have no concrete evidence, I have intuition, subjective evidence, instinct, and experience telling me that what has been going on under the surface of what I already know is so vile that it gives me nightmares. I have enough subjective evidence that I know it's not paranoia. Yet without objective evidence cps would literally laugh it off.

mrsammler, you've expressed my own darker thoughts. I don't know Katie's diagnosis, whether schizo or antisocial or just plain psychopath.......whatever it is, it is severe and serious. On my very truly realistic days? I know to my very core that katie is utterly incapable of any real feeling toward another human being. I've suspected it since she was 6 yrs old when she removed a baby gate and pushed 7 mo old easy child down a steep flight of stairs. (one of many incidents) I know it without doubt now. She experiences no regret or remorse for what she does, she's simply learned along the way the right things to say.

Man, that is really really hard for a parent to put out there, to put on here. In order to deal with that fact I keep it pushed aside, sort of on the back burner, always aware of it......yet keeping it at a distance because it is so painful a fact to know about your child. To have it up always at the forefront of my thoughts is just too overwhelming.

Yes. It's critical these 3 innocent children be rescued from their own parents and protected from them in the future. Were I to post on just how critical I truly believe it to be, I doubt I'd be the only one having nightmares.

Reality dictates that my only hope is for temporary custody until cps eventually gets involved. Truthfully, it is a slim hope for darker reasons I won't post about right now, nor do I know if I'll ever be able to post about it. But these are the reasons I am scared Katie and M will run with the kids....or that M will push her into running with the kids when he realizes her plan and balks. Because I do expect him to balk. The hope lies in that Katie truly does want to get rid of the kids that she feels is a millstone around her neck.

If we would get temporary custody, I do expect issues with M. I not only expect issues, I expect it to get ugly once he realizes what it means for him. Katie believes she has learned to play the game so well that she is safe from the consequences of her actions, and maybe she has to those who don't know her well as cps has yet to remove the children. Regardless, I know I won't be able to breathe easy simply because they'd be in my home and we'd have temporary custody.

My only real hope lies in that Kayla is just beginning to let things slip, little snippets here and there. Even if it is just enough, just slivers enough, to let me know that my very worst fears are not off base. She's testing the waters of trust with us, testing our reactions. If that dam breaks I will move heaven and earth, do whatever it takes (literally whatever it takes), to get those children away from their parents whether they come to us or not.

But I'm realistic enough to know that unless a miracle happens, it will most likely take what is behind that dam to actually get cps to act. Pessimistic? Probably. But I've knocked heads enough with cps in 3 states to know that it is all too true.

I made the offer to let the grands stay here only because my gut prompted me to act. Katie may or may not take me up on it. I will actually be surprised if she does due to M. (who I believe has his own agenda) If she does, a temporary order would likely not really protect those kids if there parents get some wild idea in their heads. I considered it because it would get the kids out of the situation they are currently in, allow me to get closer to them and more firmly establish trust that I will do whatever possible to protect them, give Kayla an opportunity to open up, and perhaps the slim hope of when katie and M can't/won't hold up their end of the contract cps will back me up for custody.

There are moments when I'm so utterly frustrated and livid that the system to protect children is so utterly and completely warped and broken that I want to push this away and convince myself that it is not my problem. And I'll admit to periods where I've simply had to let it go just because it is so d*mn completely overwhelming emotionally and mentally. That it has been ongoing for 10 yrs just makes it all the more frustrating and at times overwhelming.

Truth of the matter is that it should not take more than 10 yrs to remove children from such an obvious neglectful and abusive situation. Cps has had more than enough grounds for removal time and time again.

Sorry this post sort of took a nose dive into the pits of well.....hades. I've not had a response from Katie and she is not answering her cell. I'd call the shelter, but of course due to privacy they won't even tell me if she is there. My nerves are raw.........and there is always a pure white rage that simmers just below the surface over the grands situation and my limited ability within the law to do anything to change it.

 

[toughlovin]

You are right about CPS. They see the worst of the worst and they are underfunded so they often screen out cases that to them are not that serious. The other thing that is difficult in your case is that as a grandmother you have less rights than the parents do.

I think it might be worth calling CPS and just talking to someone there about the situation and whether it is worth reporting it? Or ask them for advice. Sometimes they can be helpful giving you an idea of what kind of evidence they would need.

One thing with CPS is to let them know you are concerned, hope they will check it out and if they are concnerned you are willing to take in the grands..... it is a lot of work to remove kids and find placement for them. It might help if they know there is another placement available.

And until you have evidence trying to work with Katie and M as best you can so that they will willingly let you bring the grands to live with you.

 

[mrsammler]

Lisa,

I thank you for your forebearance and patience in reply to my post. And I do understand the legal complexities and need to ensure that, if an extraction is done, it must be legally and administratively airtight and irreversible. I get that. I suppose my dominant message is one of nearly overwhelming frustration, which you obviously share, at the horror of this situation for your grandchildren.

A brief bit of background about me so that you can understand where I'm coming from. Many in this forum have spoken honestly and even with humor about their own backgrounds as difficult children at one time, and it is incredibly heartening to learn that they were able, quite obviously via reading their posts here, to overcome that time in their lives and become sober, mature, and responsible adults. When I was 18 and 19, I went badly haywire and got into drugs and decadence and a kind of strange fascination with what I'll call the underworld--i.e., southern collegiate and then (after I had lost a whopping scholarship and flunked out of college) home-town druggieness and hard partying and decadence. For about 2 years I worried my parents sick and fell from a great height--top of my class, National Merit Scholar, varsity tennis player at an expensive private college on full scholarship--to a great depth--hometown loser, pot-smoker and buyer, partier, skirt-chaser and wastrel. I embarrassed my parents enormously and lost every shred of my former prospect and luster as promising young man in my town. But I was never violent, never a thief, never an addict, never heartless in my conduct toward others except in terms of trashing my reputation and that of my family. All the while I was doing this, I knew full well that I was plummeting, that I was a disgrace, and I felt awful about it, constantly, although I put up a brave, even cheerful and roguish front. But after a year and a half of this murk and mire, I "came to" and enlisted in the Army, and that utterly saved me--it taught me discipline and restored my sense of pride and belief in my own capabilities, and when I finished my 3-year enlistment I returned to the same private college where I had gone haywire (my father called it "returning to the scene of the crime") and made straight-As, again on full academic scholarship, and while life has had its ups and downs since then, my life has been something I can feel OK about, for the most part, ever since. I write this in the living room of my condo in a high rise in Chicago, overlooking the river near the heart of the Loop. Not a perfect life, by any means, but I have emerged from the abyss of my life in '81-'82, thanks in large part to the maturation of my Army years, largely untorn and mostly contented.

A year and a half ago I was laid off from a cushy corporate job in the Loop at exactly the same time that my younger sister pled with me to come help her--read: protect her and her younger son--deal with her older 17-year-old son, whose violence and drug-obsession and decadence and amorality were making her life a living hell. I rented out my condo and moved in with her family of 3 (her husband had died suddenly of cancer in '06, so there was no man in the house) and for 15 months I helped her deal with what was once my favorite nephew, who was/is now an outright sociopath. No doubt about it--like your Katie, he has every earmark in dramatic abundance. It was a transformative experience for me: I learned to accept hopelessness about a person I had formerly loved. I had multiple fistfights with him. The police came and went many times; I never pressed charges at having been assaulted, and they never accepted his attempts to charge me for having defended myself and my sister and younger nephew from his many attempted assaults. It was horrific. And I learned one inarguable truth from it all: with a psychopath, it never ends. There is no light at the end of the tunnel. All you can do is vacate the tunnel and never look back. The psychopath will never change, and yes, it can only end in 1 of 3 ways: the graveyard, the prison, or the trailer park. There is no fourth way.

I have been clear of that experience for 5 months now. The emotional hangover is huge--it has taken me all of this time, even contentedly reemployed and back in Chicago since early July, to get even remotely free of the nearly constant worrying and concern about the situation I left behind there. (It didn't end well--my sister remains in huge denial and is a complete and indulgent enabler, a rich woman who coddles the very monster in her house who devours her and her younger son's lives. I had to leave, and the leaving was not pretty--she and I will probably never speak again.)

That was only 15 months of exposure to a family psychopath. My own period of waywardness was only about a year and a half, and it was stupid, foolish, immature waywardness--not psychopathy. So I can not begin to imagine what these decades have been like for you. You have nothing but my awed respect for what you have endured, and my complete compassion.

If my sister would let me, I would fly back to NC tomorrow and "airlift" her younger son out of there and bring him here to live with me in Chicago. I can afford it and I would love to do it. Even though he lives in affluence, he needs to be rescued. But she won't let me, and in fact despises me for "calling out" her older son's psychopathy and addressing it directly and candidly. So my hands are tied there, and all I can do is observe it all sadly, from a distance.

Is there a family member with some financial means who can help you? It's always embarrassing to ask for financial help, but what you need it is a war chest for a good lawyer. Given that, you could simply wrest the children from Katie and let your attorney tell your story to a judge--there's not a judge in the land who wouldn't bend spoons to see things your way. And Katie and M can not possibly hire an attorney--and in fact I very much doubt that they have the will and grit to put up a fight in the face of a potent and well-armed legal challenge regarding custody of your grandchildren.

What you need, I think, is a lump of cash to fund such an effort. Is there a comfortable benefactor in your family or among your friends, or a church emergency fund overseen by an understanding clergyman? If not, can you see an attorney, preferably gratis if it's a friend of the family or community, who can offer some free legal advice?

Forgive me for rambling. I wanted you to know that I understand some of this fairly well, via my own story and that of my sister and her story. And that one can emerge from this sort of crisis whole and healthy, either on one's own or with the help of others. You don't have to feel so alone--which is, of course, the great merit of this forum. But I mean financially and materially alone--it doesn't have to be like that. Most families and/or communities will circle the wagons around people like you in circumstances like these, if you can find the right people to ask.

Again, godspeed to you. Believe me, if I were your brother, I'd've already been there to help, with a lawyer in tow. Find the help you need, and then deploy it. Frankly, Katie and M need to know that they can and will be defeated, and on the very front that they can least afford to contest: financially. In court. Dealing with lawyers.

 

[donna723]

Lisa, just thinking out loud here. I know that you can't rush in to anything and that it all has to be done exactly right. But the more I think about it, the more I think CPS may be your best bet. I may be over simplifying too - I do know how difficult and complicated it all is. If this happened here, CPS would undoubtable take all three children. The parents would not be able to pick and choose which children stayed and which ones went. And if there were relatives willing and able to take them, they would be placed with them rather than trying to find a foster home capable of taking all three or having to split them up. Since their goal is supposed to be to reunite the family, the parents would be given a list of things that they must accomplish before custody of the children could be returned to them. They would have to prove they could provide a stable, permanent home, had the financial resources to care for the children, and were proven to be suitable, responsible parents. And since these two would probably never be able to do this, the "temporary" arrangements would then be able to become permanent. I think it's a very good idea to call CPS and talk with someone there and just see what your options are.

 

[JJJ]

While I shudder to think of Evan being left in their care, if you can get the older two out...with a court-filed custody (it doesn't matter what they sign if it isn't filed in court!), I think you will learn more than you want to know about what happened to them. At that point, CPS will be called - by you or by the therapist you get those grands -- and CPS will have more than enough to go take Evan.

I hope they give the kids to you sooner rather than later -- maybe the cold weather will make them want to hurry south???

 

[DammitJanet]

Lisa, go have a sit down with CPS and just talk to someone and lay your cards on the table and ask them if you have enough to go forward. Tell them your fears, show them the photo's off facebook. Give copies of any emails that Katie has sent. Ask them if it would be better to file through CPS or go to court and ask for temp custody. Someone there should be able to help you.