Ready for a true story that reads like soap fiction, processes the mind like idiocy, and puts human trust on an animal level? Let’s just say, that’s an emotionally understated set of questions. I don’t know. You be the judge. ( Names are changed temporarily)
Twenty five years ago, a young woman turned her life around so that she could have a good husband and build a family. She’s not unlike many of us. Not perfect. Chose partners and husbands for the wrong, but traditional reasons. The first time, she married young to someone with whom she trusted and it turned out that he was not all she thought he was. Not the knight in shining armor, much less a paternal candidate. He was a teenager breaking away just like many newly weds of the sixty's and seventy's generation. After all, Angela came from a happy Catholic family- two great parents while being the ninth of ten children. Though she knew the benefits of a large family, she was one of the babies who grew up wanting to extend the blessings of having one younger... a baby of her own. They tried, but motherhood was not selective for her as she had several miscarriages. The marriage failed.
Radically, she chose the military for a few years, hopeful of getting a good education and job. As a career, it wasn’t for her. Time went on. She tried again at marriage with one she truly loved . . . with whom she wanted children. But after 9 years, and numerous miscarriages, she was heartsick that she was also in the center of her husband’s bizarre maze of bi-polar. With, still, no children, she didn’t want another aimless path. Before she could make a decision, the love of her life left and never returned.
Angela tried nursing school, and worked with Home Healthcare. It was hard, and she didn't sense a full direction with it. It was at that time she also decided to drop the idea of searching for Mr. Right and having children for awhile by pursuing a degree in social work, a decision she’s never regretted. As an ironic plus, she counsels children in the school corporation, which has proven to contribute to her consistently moral and steadfast profile. But time was marching across her biological clock and she became involved with Palmer, a graduate school educator, and she thought this was really it. He seemed to want the same things-- most of all, children. They moved in together and things were all right for about 3 years. She, on the other hand, didn’t think about what was about to happen. She couldn’t imagine that, what seemed like a miracle for her, becoming a potential wife as well as a mother, (by adoption) would turn out to be a nightmare locked in Pandora’s box.
Stung by the grief of unsuccessful marriage, she took a chance with this man as they both signed a contract with a surrogate mother. In spite of Angela’s infertility, Palmer seemed willing to contribute with his own sperm along with the selected woman's egg to act as surrogate carrier to have the baby he and Angela always desired. Simultaneously, Angela had to formally adopt with the father so that the child could lawfully be theirs- whatever it would take! The contract indicated that all privileges would be theirs, as long as the child was raised equally by both of them.
But, almost right after Angela and Palmer took Scarlett home after the birthing, Angela got the shock of her life. Palmer verbally abused her, saying, in so many words, that she was nothing to him and, in obscenities, told her to get out. Numb and disillusioned, a host of questions came to her mind. Oh, no! this can’t be another one with mental illness…surely not! What am I doing wrong? Where have I fallen so desperately that I 'd choose such a person--TWICE?
Yet sympathetically, she knew Palmer's plight as a child, whose mother directed every important aspect of his and his father's lives-- from the clothes he wore, right down to his choice of friends and lovers. She knew the struggle he must have had in the tender teenage year his parents divorced as he said he didn't remember a single thing of it. She felt sorrow for what was never his own... completely. Even in the signs of violence toward her, she tried to use the health of her own upbringing and great parents to justify her supporting this grown up juvenile whose own childhood must have been denied. Weren't for his high intellect and the understandably ferocious desire to enter the psychology world, he could not have survived what he'd subsequently pass on. With all these indications of skewed reasoning, she knew she had to side with the health of the issue instead of the reasons for the abuse that produces a domino effect.
The signs paraded on before her while Angela took the brow beating for as long as she could. Considering that she wanted to raise a child in a happy, healthy environment, she decided to act on all the red flags of abuse by taking their daughter, Scarlett and move. (Goes to show that a Mother's instinct by design, adoptive or not, can still rule!)
Of course, the law stepped in. And so did chaos. Briefly, let’s just say that the father got his way, pulled the child away from her mother and has custody by using his power in the system to discredit and shamelessly slander Angela in tedious, invalid ways. In the meantime, she senses Palmer‘s reason for secluding the child, hardly ever taking her anywhere with other children or allowing more visits with Angela. When Scarlett stays with her, she observes signs of probable neglect. She isn‘t always properly dressed for the seasons, (doesn’t have a coat at her father’s home) has seen odd physical reenactments that suggest possible sexual violation. Things she is trained to recognize. (Her attorneys advised that the alleged implications would be short lived, but to legally hang in there.)
He plays mental games with her all the time while not allowing her more than eight visits a month. Eight visits! I know there are always two sides to a story, with sometimes esoteric reasons for these oddities. But now that I know both sides and had the information confirmed from other sources, I’ve discerned this to be so pathetic and immoral, that I needed to share it with you readers!
Here’s a newer scoop: Angela’s had two attorneys who decisively dropped her case just because in this particular area of the country, lawmen stick together and, due to Palmer’s social influence and power, don’t want to rock the boat. She is seeking favorable advocacy, but it is dragging along. She is virtuously waiting it out just so that she is not separated from her daughter completely, praying for someone to take the case before it is too late for the one who had nothing to do with the parents mistakes or father‘s neglect and manipulation!
How can this happen? Where is there a judge who can rectify that leaving cookies or candy in the bottom of her coat pockets suggest the mother is unfit? Or a blue tongue from breakfast yogurt implying non-nutritive foods, such as cotton candy? (Are you saying "huh" yet?) That just because she is not in communion with the father and questions his peculiar allotments to see their daughter, it indicates deteriorating mental health on her point? There are more things, but I’m too embarrassed to list them and not vindictive enough to carry on. The CPS doesn't seem to care. They're still waiting for something to go too far, I suppose. Long term damage from being held back from her Mother? Fear of never knowing why she can't be with her? Maybe something life-threatening?
Who, out there, is willing to expose the scenario that epidemically places children in a sick environment while their innocence is being pilfered? Are you there, friend? Can you sleep knowing this?
Say no,... and comment. Please and thank you.
2014 UPDATE
