Friday's Southern-Style Faith (Our Story Continues)

The meeting with Detective D was set for Wednesday afternoon at 2. I called my husband, told him, and he arranged to be off from work that day. Feeling that this was just a gathering of information on J's earlier life, her time in the system, and what we'd seen transpire over the last month, I returned from Denver and put the data I'd collected over the years on one of the desks in my office.

I spent Wednesday morning doing what I always do. I worked. When 2:00 was nearly upon us, a wave of nausea swept over me. It made no sense. I had absolutely no dread of the meeting, but now, suddenly, as if the Spirit was alerting me in the way He always has ... I felt sick to my stomach.

I tried to do something "normal." I told my husband I was going to let the dogs out so they'd not have that need once the detective arrived. Outside, the nausea continued. Swelled, even. Inside, I fed the dogs and was just returning their food to the pantry when my husband said, "How many detectives did you say were coming?"

"One."

"Well," he said looking out the front window, "there are three cars and four people standing in our front yard."

My heart beat a little faster. "What are they doing?" I asked, unable to move.

"Just talking."

A moment later, the doorbell rang.

Dennis and I went to the door together, opened it, smiled. Our dogs stood at our feet, tails wagging. "Come in, come in," we said, graciously.

Three women, one man. Dennis shook his hand. "I believe I met you at the hospital," he said. Then he looked at me, gave me the "I told you so" look.

Detective D, who was clearly in charge, suggested we sit at the dining room table. They had notebooks and files; it would be easier for them. So, we did. I offered them something to drink. They declined.

I honestly cannot remember how the conversation started. Perhaps they asked us what had occurred on that awful night (as we then knew) when J  had planned to kill us. What had caused us to send her to the friend's farmhouse for a month. What had happened (the cutting) to lead us to being forced to Baker Act her again. I don't know. Because what happened next, I do remember. And I remember it well.

There was a moment of perplexity between the detectives by something I said. I was clearly innocent of any wrong-doing and so I presented as such. I knew about the allegations of cameras in the bedroom and bathroom. And I was honest about the odd things we had found around the house, things that psychologists and therapists had explained to us were signs of early sexual abuse. I spoke as though I were giving them the information they had come for. They'd asked us simple questions (Question: How do you discipline? Answer: take away privileges. Question: Does she have a bedroom door? Answer: Of course she has a bedroom door! Reply: You understand that as the parents in the home, you have a right to remove her door. Answer: But we haven't. We don't allow locked doors for long periods of time, but we allow closed doors. And, we knock and ask permission to enter, even for our children.) Simple questions. Simple answers.

But that was not why they had come, I guess. And thus, the perplexity.

"Perhaps," Detective D said to Detective SJ, you should read the allegations to the Eversons.

"Allegations?" I asked.

"That J has brought against you."

"Okay." I turned my head to the left, to where Detective SJ sat. She flipped open a manila file and began to read.

She wasn't allowed to take a shower unless we watched.
She wasn't allowed to have a bedroom door.
She wasn't allowed to dress unless we watched.
I forced her to pull down her pants so I could look inside her.
Cameras in the bedroom.
Cameras in the bathroom.
We punished her by hitting her.
She was kept prisoner in her room. (Which I found odd, considering she "had no door.")
I was touching the dogs sexually and smiling.

(There's more, but you get the point.)

I looked from the detective to my husband. Everything moved in slow motion. Whirring inside my head blocked most sound in the room. When my eyes finally reached my husband's face, I saw his eyes rolling to the back. His hand was at his mouth, fingers laying gently against his lips. They quivered.

"Oh my gosh ..." I breathed. "Oh my gosh." This could not be happening. Not our little girl. Our precious precious J. Our funny child who we loved and who loved us with such depth. No!

Then I remembered. I looked back at the detective. I had reports from years before, I told her. Reports that proved she was "transferring."

"Do you have that where you can show it to us?" they asked.

"I sure do," I said, jumping up from my seat and then darting into my office where I'd carefully stacked the old files. My legs felt like they were made of jelly. My hands shook. My head ached. My heart shattered. My vision was blurred by tears. How could she have lied. How could she have done this to us? To us, the two people who had loved her so much. Protected her? Adored her? Gave her everything she could have ever wanted? How could she not know the truth?

I managed to get everything back to the dining room table. They looked over my files, asked for copies. I returned to my office where I made the copies. Just then my phone rang. I looked at the Caller ID. The caller was her new doctor who had performed the psychological.

I answered, said, "I can't talk right now. Detectives ... charges of abuse ... I can't talk right now."

I know now that I shouldn't have answered the phone. I should have just let it ring.

Friday's Southern-Style Faith (Our Story Continues)

The day after I admitted J into the hospital, I boarded an early-morning flight to Denver for a business conference. I didn't want to go; I didn't know how to stay.

After I admitted J into the hospital, my next order of business was to cancel a protective order I'd filed against her bio-dad. Having managed to get into her computer and read the emails and messages between them, and between J and the woman I previously called "S," I realized adults--adults!--had planted such disgusting lies into this child's mind, facilitating the madness, encouraging the stories her sweet, sick brain had made up in an effort to understand its own past. My first order of business was to file an injunction for protection against these two people, along with her father's girlfriend. Having filled out all the paperwork, I elected to drop the case against S because I knew it would be a "she said/she said" court case and I'd lose. In spite of knowing I'd told this woman more than once that J could not legally see her father without my supervision or without my permission, and in spite of reading in the emails and messages between them how this woman had facilitation these meetings, encouraging them even, I would lose. Because I knew that any woman who would knowingly say such things to a child as what I was reading in these messages would easily lie in court. No morals. No scruples. No conscience.

So ... no way.

With J in the hospital, and enough paperwork filed out for the time being to help get her into residential (the hospital told me we were looking at at least a year of treatment), I called the judge's office and cancelled the court hearing. "He can't hurt her where she is now," I told the Judge's Assistant. "Nor can he get to her."

How foolish I was.

And so I flew to Denver.

The first day there I received a phone call from my husband. He'd been asked to go out to the hospital to have a family therapy session with J. He was so hopeful. He couldn't wait to see her, he said. And, if she would let him, to hold her. To tell her he would take all this pain if he could. He would make everything as it once had been--happy childhood. Happy memories.

Later, he called again. It had not gone well, he said. "When I got there," he went on, "a Casselberry police officer pulled up about the same time. We went to the locked doors and rang the buzzer for entrance together. I said, 'Good day, sir,' but he really had nothing to say to me. When the therapist opened the door, she whisked him inside, turned to me and said, 'I'm sorry, Mr. Everson. We cannot meet today. J is not doing well right now.' Something is up," he said. "I think the officer was there for J."

"Why would an officer be there for her?" I asked. "There are hundreds of kids in that hospital. What makes you think it's J they came because of?"

"I don't know," he said. "It's just a feeling."

His feelings were right. Later that day my cell phone rang. "Mrs. Everson," the woman--J's new therapist--said, "This is C, from University Behavioral Center. I need to talk to you about allegations of abuse J has made against you and to tell you that, by law, I have had to call the authorities. I also want you to know that I believe J is a very, very sick child and that I don't believe what she is saying based on her case history and what I have learned from the courts about your relationship with her and who you are. But I have had to file the report."

I asked what it all meant.

"It's not good," she said. "And all I can tell you now is that your time with J. may be over. I don't see this going anywhere but south."

I told her I was a woman of faith. That I believed in a God who could do the impossible. I told her about the abuse J had sustained by father and mother and select family members, about the emails, both from her bio-dad and from her friend's mother, S. She agreed that their interference had accelerated J's illness, but that much of this was also genetic, based on hospital records. And, she told me, I should look for another call to come within the next few hours.

The following day, a Sunday, as the conference was wrapping up, I sat outside the auditorium doors, listening to the keynote speaker when my phone rang. The number was from the courthouse. A 665 number. I answered as I made a beeline down the hallway to an abandoned ballroom of the hotel where we were meeting. Looking for privacy, out of instinct, I suppose.

"Mrs. Everson," said the woman, "This is Detective D. I'm with Seminole Country Sheriff's Office Crimes Against Children. We need to speak to you and  your husband as soon as possible ..."

Friday's Southern-Style Faith (Our Story Continues)

The call came while I was getting ready for a business trip to Denver. J had been staying with friends while we worked through getting her psychological testing done. Staying home was not an option; she had admitted to our not being safe from her actions. My husband and I had been called into the doctor's office several times to discuss the bizarre behavior, her history with bio-families and being jerked back and forth between bio mom and dad and a great-aunt, and the "stories" J had begun telling. Stories that went beyond "cameras in the bedroom." These were stories about having been in the car with her mother during a store robbery gone bad. Someone had been shot. The only reason J was still alive was that she hid behind a Dumpster. This was just one of a new list of about 15.

Of course none of it was true.

We brought in our paperwork. Our proof, if you will. We poured our hearts out, expressed our concern. Our love. Our desire to see our little girl get whatever treatment she needed so she could come home.

And then the call came. J's aunt had asked to take her shopping two days earlier. I'd said yes, told the aunt where she could pick J up from, and then asked her to stop by and pick up some money. "She needs jeans," I said. And so the aunt, who happens to also be my dear friend, did so. We shared our hopes that this nightmare would soon be over. We had no idea...

The day after the shopping spree, she called. J's arms were covered in cuts. She asked J about it, and J claimed she fell while going over a fence. But the aunt was wise. Persistent. "Did you do that to yourself?" she asked.

J admitted she had.

Self-mutilation. This was new. I called the friend J was staying with; she confirmed that J's arm held somewhere between 30 and 50 cuts, elbow to wrist. She'd just been told by her daughter and was about to call me, she said. She took a photo and mailed it to my phone.

My next call was to J's therapist.

"That's it," she said. "We have to do something. I'm having her Baker Acted."

I spent the rest of the day forgetting about packing and, instead, talking on the phone with the hospital where J had been admitted just five months earlier. Ironically, the admissions clerk said to me, "I knew she'd be back."

"What do you mean?" I asked.

"I just knew. I knew she wasn't really ready to go home back in August." She then said I may want to think about residential. Not that it was her call, but I needed to prepare myself, based on what she knew about J previously, added to the current issue.

My only question: would it bring J back to us? Not just physically ... but emotionally and mentally as well.

I was scared. And I missed my baby girl.

It was a call that changed everything, but it didn't hold a candle to the one that came a few days later.

Friday's Southern-style Faith

I am always amazed at how the number of readers of this blog spikes on Fridays. Those who have known me for a long time, those who knew our relationship and love for our daughter J., come to know "just what happened." Then there are those who hear about it, who are naturally curious how such a nightmare could have occurred. Not just with the illness, but with the State of Florida's mismanagement of the illness, our case, and our child. I hear "In this country? But this is America!" time and again. 


Then there are those who are professionals, or who suffer from the same illnesses, who come to read. To know more. Because the more we know of the stories, the more we learn ... and hopefully, the more likely we are to not repeat the mistakes. 


Another question I get is this: Why are you doing this? 


I do this because our family is not the only one. We are just one, but we are one with a member who writes and speaks publicly and who doesn't want to see this ever happen to anyone else again. To warn people, before they adopt or foster, of what they need to know FIRST. To encourage the State of Florida ... and all states ... to learn more about mental health issues and to get their noses out of the air and, by golly, start doing their jobs. To educate people about the mismanagement of organizations such as DCF and the community-based care programs across the country. To stop the outpouring of financial support until these people vow to get it right, instead of being hell-bent on proving themselves right, they don't care who gets hurt in the process.


I read every single comment. Last week, a professional gave such an amazing report, I asked her if I could use it for this week's post. So here it is. I encourage you to read every word. To know the truth. And,if you are from the state-side, if you are a DCF worker, or with a community-based care, etc., read carefully. This is not an angry parent speaking.This is one of you ... but one of you who decided to do more than slap the alphabet after their names. This is one of you who decided to know.

I would like to offer my professional opinion about this situation. I have worked with high-risk children for many years as a foster care social worker (SWIII) and in-home family therapist working with DSS, mental health centers, and the Methodist Home for Children in North Carolina for over 20 years before becoming a licensed marriage and family therapist in private practice. I've watched this landslide of bureaucratic mismanagement from afar and could so clearly see what was happening, and honestly, I am not surprised.

I have worked with many teens like J. through the years. Deeply emotionally wounded early in life, they are taken and placed in loving homes, only to viciously turn on the very same people who have attempted to love them and give them a home. Children like this have personality disorders, usually borderline personality disorder concurrent with physiological imbalances like bipolar disorder or schizophrenia. Their view of the world and their place in it is warped. One classic symptom of emerging Borderline PD is the sudden (and sometimes violent) turning on people that they claim to love. The truth is, these children don't know how to love. They only know how to pretend to love to get their very basic needs for safety met, a skill learned early in life to cope with their chaotic and painful childhoods. Some become so severe as to form Reactive Attachment Disorder, the inability to truly attach to anyone at all, even their own child. Paradoxically, it is when they get into a safe place that they begin to act out their very deep and frightening anger at the world. They misdirect that anger at the very people that made them safe in the first place! 

I know firsthand how easy it is to be manipulated by these children, who are often very bright and convincing. And, I'm not saying that they all are lying. Sadly, on rare occasions their stories are true.But when there is a clear diagnosis of mental illness, no evidence to substantiate wild accusations, threats of violence and sick behaviors and their cases are being managed by social workers who clearly are young and inexperienced and may have lost their objectivity, there is a recipe for disaster. Not only are good people devastated emotionally, financially, and socially, but the child is learning that manipulations, lies, and acting bizarre 1. gets a lot of attention 2. feeds their desperate need for power and control over others 3. and feeds the need for vengeance for wrongs done to them early in life. In other words, J. gets to do to the Everson's what was done to her, and if someone doesn't confront her with that, then she may one day do it to her own children as well.

I am deeply sad for this child and this family. They all have been deeply wronged. Although I believe it is safer for both J. and the Everson's to have J. removed from their home, to have them be denied parental rights and to treat them as the enemy here has been a miscarriage of justice and a prime example of social work at its worst.

I understand. Careers are at stake, jobs can be lost, and after all, social workers are all overworked, underpaid, and not trained to deal with sick children--at least not to the extent they should be. I deeply respect the unsung heroes of social work. The job is brutal at best. But it wasn't until I became a therapist that I really learned how much I didn't know when I was a social worker and how much the system has deteriorated in the last ten years. It’s scary to think how often this is happening and how many lives are being destroyed in the process. I hope someone has the courage to stand up and do the right thing.

Deborah B. Dunn,LMFT
www.deborahdunn.com

Friday's Southern-Style Faith (Our Story Continues)

So what do you do when you've spent the entire night keeping vigil because your precious child, the one you'd give your life for, has become so psychotic, you fear that rather than die for her, you'll die by her? What do you do the following morning--so tired your muscles ache and your brain refuses to work--once the sun has risen again and you know life goes on?

As it turned out, J had an appointment late that morning with her therapist. I called ahead, told her what had happened. Neither of us were fully surprised. Four months previous, we'd hospitalized J for what we thought was a reaction to her ADHD meds. Just before that, she and I had gone away for a week, which would have been and should have been a lovely time together--but had turned into a disaster when she informed those around us that my husband and I had installed cameras in her bedroom and bathroom so we could watch her undress and shower. Of course none of that was true. After the week away--with the first four days being such fun and the last three being something akin to hell on earth--my husband and I took her to a therapy session where she explained, oh so casually, why she thought there were cameras and we, of course, explained otherwise. Everyone left happy. Then, two days later she stood in the middle of the street screaming she is going to kill herself. Totally broken down. My husband and I were helpless as officers handcuffed her and drove her away. Helpless watching her thrashing about in the back of the squad car. Just helpless.

The ADHD meds, they said. We'll ween her off. Make her better. And, after a week, she returned to us, pretty much her old self. So maybe they were right.

But there had been those previous problems in school. The year before, we'd gone from elementary to middle school--that cesspool of hormones and mean girl issues. J got in trouble one day for defending another girl from the attacks of a third. Then, she was thrown against the bathroom wall (warning: if you are in middle school, just learn to hold it) by a girl who was suspended for three days. There were other fights. She also struggled with her school work, but socially, she seemed to be doing well.

Then came the notices. Skipping class. Failing in class. Disrupting class. Fighting at lunch. I was getting emails from teachers nearly every day and phone calls from the school counselor just as often. I amped up my mothering role. I started having email sessions with the teachers on a weekly basis, letting J know that a good week would result in an award. A bad week ... well, there go your privileges.

By March, with a child failing and having been suspended too many times, I removed her from school (at her request) to homeschool her. In homeschooling, she did so well. She blossomed.

But, like I said ... then came August. And then...then came October when CPS (child protective services) showed up at my door. They had a report that we kept J. imprisoned in her room. That we had cameras in the bedroom and bath.

Here we go again.

I showed them our weekly calendar. She had a social event every Monday. Tuesday was ballet. Wednesday was Youth Group at church. Thursday was jazz. Nearly every Friday she was heading out to the farm where her best friends lived. She spent most weekends (I met her at church on Sunday) with them. After Sunday service, we'd go shopping. Or maybe to a matinee.

The officer talked to me at length. Talked to J. Smiled and said, "She's a normal kid."

But something smelled like a rat. And the rat had a name. S, I have called her. Her friend's mother. So I called S and confronted her. She swore she hadn't called ...but she was concerned because I wouldn't let J see her bio-dad. What? She had total freedom to see her bio-dad! She insisted she didn't want to.

Oh ... that's not what she told me. Maybe I misunderstood.


Maybe you should get your nose out of my business and rear your own kids.

Okay. I digress.

And so I went to the therapist and said, "I think we've got issues."

To which she said, "Yes, we do. J is beginning to create stories in her head that could easily land you in prison. I think it's time for a psychological. With the onset of hormones, we may be seeing the same illnesses her bio-parents suffer from."

All along I kept the GAL (Guardian ad Litem) supervisor undated. She's been so good to us in the 2.5 years of court hearings and I knew how much she loved J. How much J. loved her. She also knew how much we loved J and how much she loved us.

But love wasn't going to get us through this. Nor was prayer. You cannot pray hard enough or love deep enough and think that mental health issues and illnesses will just go away. Sometimes there is a purpose.

And right now ... it seemed that the purpose was to destroy our family.

Where mental illness left off ... DCF and CBC of Central Florida picked up. Departments designed to save families and children, but destroyers of them nonetheless. Departments without hearts, who only care for the power they hold, to use it for evil and not for good. Departments without ears ... and none are so deaf as those who refuse to listen.

Because then came January 11 ... and a final trip to the therapist after that long, long night. The last day I would see my little girl ... because of the idiocy of DCF and CBC of Central Florida. Because the state of Florida gives children--even those diagnosed with mental health issues--all the rights.

Friday's Southern-Style Faith

Our Story Continues ...

Typically, Bipolar Disorder does not rear it's head until a person is in his/her early twenties. But that doesn't mean teenagers are not affected by it. Don't have it. They can and they do. And when they do, the change in moods, the extreme highs and desperate lows, are more frequent. Some teens with bipolar disorder can "cycle" in an hour, though most cycles can be seen within a day or a week.

Now, anyone who has ever reared a child from infancy to adulthood knows that teens are already moody, thanks in part to shifting hormones. But teens with bipolar disorder are even more moody. Hard to imagine, I know. But it's true.

Teens with bipolar disorder will be overly happy. Act silly (like a younger child). Or, they can have a short temper. Have trouble sleeping but not feel tired. Or, they sleep too much and they're still tired. They are often unable to stay focused on one thing for any period of time. They talk really fast but don't stay on subject. Or on task. And, they are more likely to over-focus on sex. Talk about sex. Have sex. And, because they are also apt to do risky things, the likelihood of them doing something sexual and stupid are great.

These children are not just "depressed" ... they are sad. They have stomachaches. Headaches. Their may talk about feelings of guilt. Worthlessness. They overeat. Or, they don't eat enough. They lose all interest in the activities they once loved and/or excelled in.

They think about death and suicide. A lot.

I remember the day I found a drawing Jordynn left behind. Done in black pencil, it showed a dead tree, a dark moon, and a headstone with her name under which she'd written: Death by Suicide.

I thought of the day she and I visited my mother's grave. Jordynn, who had an amazing gift for photography, was taking photos of some of the more interesting headstones, statues, and floral arrangements. I noticed that she'd become fixated on one and, after she had walked away, I ambled over. It was the grave of a young girl, just a little older than herself, who had committed suicide. Why the family thought it necessary to share this, I don't know ... but they did and, for reasons I didn't understand yet, my child was drawn to it. When I found her etching, I felt sick to my stomach. Even more interesting to me was that she had always been adamant that we call her by our last name, but in the picture she used her birth name.

I had a chance to share the drawing with her doctor, but it was long after the fact. Long after the State of Florida and CBC of Central Florida had stepped in and taken her out of our home. Out of our care. Long into the downward spiral of insanity that wrapped itself around our lives. At least for a while.

Bipolar teens can be helped. With therapy and medication. The National Institute of Mental Health, in one of their brochures, talks about the importance of doctors working with family members to help the child through this difficult time. So what do you do, then, when people who know nothing about such an illness presume to remove the child so that you cannot work with the doctors. You cannot help your child.

What do you do when you are forced to watch your child drown and those who are supposed to protect look at you dumbfounded and say, "What water?"