My Family United and how it helped me!
I never thought that my kids would get taken away. This was the worst day of my life. I don’t think that I slept or ate for a week. You never think it’s going to happen to you. A part of me died that day. Me and my kids had never been away from each other for more than a weekend ever. I was so lost.
I tried to do everything my lawyer and worker told me to do but it was a lot. I work and my mom gets real sick sometimes. The judge and all those people in the court scare me, I’m not gonna lie. It’s like everyone in there are friends and I don’t matter. For them, it’s “business as usual” and for me, well, my whole life is in their hands. I can’t really explain. You will understand if it happens to you and I hope it don’t!
A good friend of mine knew this lady Angela and said she was a good person to talk to. I don’t trust easy and did not really need one more thing to do in a day, but I am so glad I called. Angela was way different from EVERYONE I have met since I lost my kids. She was real and she listened to ME! I can’t tell you how good it felt to be listened to. We talked about what was important to my family and she helped me understand why things were happening the way they were.
Angela gave me the name of another mom going through the same stuff as me. We haven’t got together yet, but I hit her up when I’m having a crappy day; she really knows how I feel.
The group, My Family United, meets once a month at a church. Angela wanted me to come to the meeting to meet other families that lost their kids to DCF too. I didn’t want to go to one more meeting, but I’m really glad I did. I got to meet Lisa, who use to be the trainer for DCF and knows all about the system. She gave us lots of handouts and a notebook to keep track of what is going on with my kids. I got to talk about my case with other people who were going through the same thing as me. It made me feel less alone. Like I wasn’t such a bad mom…how I feel most of the time at these kind of things. Lisa took the time to answer everyone’s questions and explained how things really work. There were families in the group who got their kids back by using some of the things they got out of the meetings.
I am still working on my case plan, but feel a lot better about getting my kids back. My worker says she has seen a big change in my efforts and I feel like she is more on my side now. Having a place to go where other people REALLY know what is going on with my family has made a huge difference.
My Family United isn’t a meeting I have to go to, it’s one I want to go to.
From a Mom…who loves her kids