An asterisk (*) indicates
that a pseudonym is being used for the very real person.
(Astute viewers of BSG will notice who these very real
people are named for. Readers of the Peter David book
"Vendetta: The Giant Novel," will recognize the
references to "the Soulless Ones.")
October 1996 - March 2003 - my sister *Tory was married. They never had
any kids.
Amazingly, *Samuel couldn't believe it when Tory asked for a divorce and moved into
her own place on the first Saturday of March, 2003. My
very close friend Janice was at Tory and Samuel's wedding. A few weeks later, she told
me that Tory would never have any children of her own. I felt sad for my
sister because I knew how much she wanted her own family. When I
was in my first trimester, in June, the summer of 2000, Janice told me,
"Someday, your sister's going to try as hard as she can to steal your baby; that
baby you're pregnant with right now." I immediately pooh-poohed the idea,
saying, "Oh no, of course she wouldn't. Tory wouldn't do that; she's my
sister." On
Sunday, December 17, 2000, I was in labor at the hospital, waiting to give
birth. I had the birth certificate papers all filled out already. I'd listed my
daughter's name as "Deirdre Mairi-Catherine." Tory whited-out the "Deirdre"
and replaced it with "Dierdre." When it came time to turn it in, I noticed
what'd been done, recognized the handwriting, asked for a bottle of White Out,
and wrote over Tory's spelling of my daughter's name, spelling it the way I'd
done it originally: Deirdre. Therefore, my daughter's name was and is Deirdre
Mairi-Catherine Nelson. Not long afterward, Tory asked me, "Is it okay if I pretend
that I'm her mommy, too?" Not suspecting anything untoward, just extra attention
and love for my daughter, I made the mistake of saying yes.
For months, years afterward, whenever Tory wanted to buy/make my daughter
clothes, I let her. Sometimes I even was allowed to pick out fabrics for little
dresses. Tory paid for professional portraits of my daughter and me. (An
example of what I'm talking about can be found
here. I picked out the dress;
Tory paid for it,
and she paid for the portrait, too.
Another example.)
October 22 - first applied for SSI
December - first turned down for SSI; then applied for appeal
Tory starts threatening me: "If you don't do (insert whatever
unreasonable demand I can't pay for here), I'm going to call The Soulless Ones on you." In fact, she
threatens me with calling The Soulless Ones on me at least once a week. This
goes on until she actually does it, eighteen months later.
October 30- let Deirdre move in with my sister to get her away from my
parents just "until you get your SSI," Tory says.
November -
received notice of SSI appeal hearing
Monday, April 19 - appeal hearing. Waiting for a decision
begins.
First week of June
- Deirdre moved back in with me because I missed her desperately.
Thursday, July 8 - my sister calls The Soulless Ones on me
Friday, July 9, around 2:15 PM - 2 Soulless Ones caseworkers
show up on my doorstep, using the Omaha Police as their own personal Gestapo
to force their way into my home. (When I originally refused them entry into my
home, the very first thing that Jessyca Vandercoy did was call my sister to
try to get information out of her that she could use as a valid reason to take
my daughter that very day. When Tory basically refused to help her, she then
called the Police to get some help intimidating me.) When Jessyca Vandercoy
reappeared with her silent partner, Brooke Eggert, she had two Omaha Police
officers with her, one of whom, the male one, practically shouted at me,
direct quote: "You don't have the right to refuse us entry
into your home!" He was very irate/angry-sounding. (I knew that if I
continued to assert my Fourth Amendment rights, he'd simply arrest me and
the Soulless Ones would just take my daughter anyway.) Much discussion of
whether to take my daughter from me that very day ensues between the male police
officer (the female one who was with him literally just kept her mouth shut
and looked extremely uncomfortable)
and the Soulless Ones.
Monday, July 12 - The Soulless Ones investigative caseworker Jessyca
Vandercoy decides to "offer" me "intensive family preservation." I accept only
because I'm afraid that if I don't, she'll take my daughter AND she offers to
pay for Head Start for my daughter.
Friday, July 17 - Intensive Family Preservation Family
Support Worker calls to set up appointment to go over goals and meet us. The
goals are such impossible dreams as "find independent housing," "obtain a
legal source of income," etc. I only realize much later (like, May of 2006)
that Jessyca was deliberately setting me up to fail.
September 2 - Jessyca Vandercoy and her silent
partner, Brooke Eggert, show up again on the doorstep, this time to tell me
that they've allegedly received a report that I'm, quote, "beating [my]
daughter with a belt." She also asked if my dad had been "hurting"
Deirdre while he was drunk.
The Soulless Ones met Deirdre's father for the first time, and they
even commented on Deirdre's strong resemblance to her father.
They find no marks on Deirdre and leave. Around 5:30 that afternoon,
the Police show up with the same complaint, thoroughly scaring Deirdre and me
to death.
One of the officers then asked if I had an ex-husband or ex-boyfriend. I told
them about my ex-husband and the fact that, no, he wasn't Deirdre's father,
and the last time I'd seen him was in 1993. They then asked if I had an
ex-boyfriend who was angry with me or harassing me and I said no, which was
the truth. Then
he explained that the reason he'd asked is because he suspected that someone was
using The Soulless Ones, and, as a consequence, the police, to harass me, and that it was
usually ex's that did that. That told me (and any other moron who could read
between the lines) that he didn't believe a word of the report that The
Soulless Ones and
the police had received. He was very gentle, I think because he could see that
both of us, myself and Deirdre, were scared to death. I was shaking and my
right leg, where the nerve damage is, was twitching madly, which is what it
always does when I'm scared half to death or extremely nervous or anxious. My
voice was even shaking. Friday, September 17, around 5:30 PM - My daughter's
exactly three months short of her fourth birthday on this day. The Douglas
County Sheriffs show up at the door, march in the house, legally kidnap my
daughter. They throw a packet of papers at my dad, saying in a rather snide
manner, "If you want to know why we're taking her, it's all in there." When I
read the papers, I'm shocked by all the lies and exaggerations in the
affidavit (click
here to see it verbatim), which was sworn under oath to be completely true by none other than
Jessyca Vandercoy. The court date I'm given is Wednesday, September 29, 2004,
at 9:45 am. My 31st birthday. As they carry Deirdre out to their car, she looks
very confused.
Tuesday, September 21 - My sister becomes my
daughter's foster mother. (Click
here to see a picture of Deirdre right after she was transferred to
Tory's.) Wednesday, September 29, 9:45 AM - I meet my public
defender, Jeanine ("Jenny") Creighton this day. She tells me, "Welcome to the
sixth floor of the courthouse -- the floor where the Constitution and the Bill
of Rights do not apply." Nothing really gets done at this hearing other than
it's ordered that Deirdre's heritage be fully investigated to see whether the
Indian Child Welfare Act applies (her father's one-eighth Cherokee); I'm
ordered to have a parenting assessment, full physical exam (The Soulless Ones
are convinced that, since they have non-existent PhD's in pharmacology and
non-existent M.D.'s, they know better than my personal doctor, who's been
taking care of me for the past four years at that point; I must be what they
call "overmedicated" because I'm on thirteen different prescriptions,
including OxyContin 10 milligrams, every twelve hours; and Depakote ER, 1,500
milligrams a night. No one actually wants to hear that I'm on the very lowest
dose of OxyContin available; no one wants to hear that OxyContin and Depakote
do not make me tired; no one wants to hear the truth. The full
physical exam is to determine whether or not I really should be on all those
medications), take parenting classes, "obtain a legal source of income," and
"obtain independent housing." My case is then assigned to a caseworker named
Edna Castro, a worker known for being lazy as hell. No one can really figure
out why she's been assigned to my case as I'm an English-speaking Anglo:
Edna's usually assigned in cases where the family is Spanish-speaking Latino.
Oh well, nobody ever accused The Soulless Ones of making intelligent decisions...
October 7-15 - my family and me move from our little
shotgun house on 12th and Martha, which has
just been condemned by the city,
in the middle of Little Mexico,
to a townhouse on 41st and Frederick.
October 26 - My public defender, Jenny Creighton,
advises me to plead "admit" to some, but not all, of the charges that
The Soulless Ones have
convinced the county attorney to charge me with (none of them have to do with
actual abuse; it's all about neglect). They also charge Deirdre's
father, Will, with the very same things I've been charged with. Jenny tells me
that if the County Attorney that had been originally assigned to my case
hadn't been sick that day, I wouldn't have been able to get out from under the
more untrue allegations.
November 1 - My Medicaid is now officially cut off. December 19 - Judge orders that I be put back on
Medicaid because I have no insulin, no Depakote, none of the medications that
The Soulless Ones were so worried about that were allegedly responsible
for making me "overmedicated; groggy; unresponsive; sleepy." The psychiatric exams The Soulless Ones
have forced me to go to have emphasized emphatically that I have to be on
Depakote and insulin, and I can't do that without being on Medicaid. The
doctor who did the physical exam The Soulless Ones wanted says exactly the
same things as the Soulless Ones-selected psychiatrist. However, without my
daughter living with me or me being on SSI, I'm not eligible for Medicaid.
Apparently Health and Human Services doesn't have to comply with court orders
that are contrary to their own internal regulations. Thursday, December 23 -
The very coldest day of the year during what had been, so far, a very cold
winter. The
parenting assessment at Dr. Glenda Cottam's office in Papillion. I was
instructed to be there at eight AM as the testing would take all day. Dr.
Cottam's admin, Debbie, is a very nice lady who likes country music, which I
don't (usually) have a problem with. She asks me, "Is the music bothering
you?" and I automatically answer, "No," because I assumed it was regular
country music. Nope, it's Christmas music...and I hate secular Christmas
music; it drives me up the wall. I am given a packet of tests ranging from the
MMPI-II, which has 562 questions -- some of which repeat two, three, even four
times (guess they want to make sure you're paying attention?); essay
questions; multiple-choice; just about every damned type of written test ever
thought of by modern man. Around noon or so, Dr. Cottam decides to talk to me. The "interview"
part of the testing takes, total time, about seventy-five minutes...but it's
broken up between previously-scheduled appointments with obvious regular
clients of hers. Not only that, but when Dr. Cottam asks me a
question, I'll begin to answer her, and then, right in the middle of my
answer, she cuts me off and asks another question. In general, I got the
feeling that I was last on her list of priorities/"List of Things To Do
Today." She also tells me that I'm not going to get SSI. That doesn't
even phase me; I just shoot right back at her: "How do you
know?"
Dr. Cottam is a tiny lady. She has frizzy brown hair, big
brown eyes set in a plain face, and she was wearing a white sweater with a tan
turtleneck underneath, a tannish skirt, and tannish-brown boots with thick,
higher-than-proper-office-attire heels. The boots end right below her knees
(my friends and I absolutely despise this 70's inspired-style; we call them
"slutboots"). The reading materials in her
bookshelves around the corner from her office are varied, but some of them are
rather disturbing for an office where family therapy's going on: she had at
least 25 books, scattered all throughout her book collection, on different
shelves, about masturbation, euphemistically called "self-love." It really
made me wonder about the wisdom of the state of Nebraska using her almost exclusively as
the one and only administrator of Parenting Assessments in Douglas and Sarpy
counties in Nebraska.
Good thing I brought a book, because instead of being not even
halfway done at five, which is what I was told to expect (there were literally
hundreds of pages of testing material, including an intelligence test to
measure your educational levels in various subjects, administered to make sure
that you had the requisite education to be able to understand the questions
and provide intelligible answers), I was done at a little after three PM, but
my dad couldn't find Dr. Cottam's office again, so Debbie ended up taking me
home after she was done for the day.
I also sign releases so that people
who need to can get the finished report when it's finished: Edna Castro,
Jenny, Dr. Ravipati (my then-psychiatrist), Kathy, the guardian ad Litem,
Maureen Monahan. A whole list of others who also needed to see it, too. (Kathy
doesn't get her copy until months later, when I request a copy from Debbie to
be sent to me. Then Kathy gets her copy of the report, around the same time I
get mine.)
In the finished report, Dr. Cottam makes fun of my religion, something
definitely guaranteed not to endear her to me.
During this time, I've run out of insulin, but I still have to eat. I start
falling asleep sometimes during visits with Deirdre because my blood sugars are
running higher than my machine can read, which means that they're running higher
than 600.
January - I have a hearing this month.
When I get there, Deirdre's Guardian ad Litem, Maureen Monahan, won't talk to
me. This is very strange, as she used to chat with me a little before the
hearing previously...but not today. Just like everyone else who's ordered to take a parenting assessment, I fail
miserably. Dr. Cottam writes that I basically have no parenting skills
whatsoever; that the fact that I'm on OxyContin will keep me too drugged
(read that as "stoned off my ass") to take care of my daughter, and that
my disabilities were also another factor as to why I should never be given
my daughter back. Not only that, that biotch tried to have the court assign
ME a Guardian ad Litem. I find out later,
when I'm sent a copy of the assessment, that my public defender, Jenny
Creighton, was only given half of the
whole report. I give her the entire report. She does not seem surprised that
she was only given part of the report. Not only that, I am highly amused at one
part of the report: Dr. Cottam complained at one point that she couldn't gauge
my reactions because I had absolutely no expression on my face whatsoever. So
much for that PhD in clinical psychology... Not only that,
but Dr. Cottam's decided that I'm not going to get SSI. (How'd she find that
out? What'd she do, hide a crystal ball in a hollowed-out book about
masturbation? Do a Tarot reading on the sly? Hire a Remote Viewer?) She recommends to the
court that I receive job training at Community Alliance. I know from talking to
Tamy (who used to go to Community Alliance for five-plus years) that job training at Community Alliance is mostly janitorial
(which I'm not physically capable of anymore because of my back); and if they
train you on computers, their computers are old and out-of-date. In other words,
they'd be training me on something I already (definitely, if you've seen
this webpage) know how to do, and I do it better than a lot of the people I
know. Unfortunately,
the judge agrees with Dr. Cottam about the job training. However, Jenny talks
him out of the Guardian ad Litem for me. Also, I'm offered
a "deal" of sorts: what if I signed over guardianship of Deirdre to
Tory and
moved in with Tory and we raised Deirdre together? When I tell Tory about it
later, she's pissed: no one bothered to run it by her first. Sunday, January 23, around
10:30 PM - My dad decides it's okay
to start beating me again. Apparently, he doesn't like the song "Come On
Eileen," by Dexy's Midnight Runners -- something about the song must've really
bugged him, because when I refused to shut it off (after not hearing it in
years), he got up, drunk as a skunk and began beating me. Monday, January 31 - I get my SSI
decision. I've finally got SSI! That very day, I get back on Medicaid. SSI owes
me twenty-eight months back pay. That comes out to $13,936.00. February 7 - I start taking all my medications again. I'm nauseous for a
week because of the Depakote. Then, my tongue starts moving around on its own.
Then my jaw starts moving around on its own. I've now got tardive dyskinesia. At this time,
I find out that my blood sugars are running in the 700's; I'm now
insulin-resistant; and I now have diabetic neuropathy in the top half of my
right foot, from the tip of my big toe to the middle of my arch. My ketones are
so high I almost have Diabetic Ketoacidosis again. My doctor bumps my insulins way up;
more than doubling my original boluses. He also adds another prescription to the
other thirteen I'm already on: Actos. Then he has to add Lasix because of how
bad my feet, ankles and hands swell up from the Actos. March - Yet
another hearing. This one's for Will, who's chosen to fight the charges filed
against him. He loses miserably. Since he is now living in California,
"rehabilitation" is out of the question. Mid-March - I go off
the Abilify, which is an anti-psychotic that I didn't want to take in the first
place. (The only way Dr. Ravipati was able to get me to take it was to tell me,
quote, "If you don't take the Abilify, I will not support your SSI claim." I
knew how easy it would be for him to find out I hadn't been taking it: order
a blood screen to look for my Abilify levels, to verify that they were at a
therapeutic level. I stopped wanting to take it when it finally titrated and
I felt like a zombie and I then really was overmedicated.) It was the medication causing
the tardive dyskinesia. Fun. One of the neat things about tardive dyskinesia
is that if it goes on long enough, it becomes permanent. I escaped that fate
just in time. April - I get a new caseworker named Chessie Rorher, who
tells me that as soon as I move out on my own, into my own place, reunification
will begin immediately, and my case should be closed by the end of the year. She
not only tells me, she writes it in her case notes and tells everyone else
within shouting distance. I take what she says as a verbal contract.
A few months ago, I found out that
Edna Castro was actually fired by The Soulless Ones. Mid-April - I pay my parents' phone bill
because I need a phone in order to arrange visits with my daughter; talk to
caseworkers, etc. I warn them that the next time, I'll just get a cell phone
from Cricket. Mid-June -
My parents decide not to pay the phone bill. The phone's shut off. Again. First Saturday of July - I go out and get myself a Cricket cell phone. On the
very same day, at the very same time, my daughter falls off a seventeen-foot
balcony at my sister's apartment building. My sister, of course, leaves that
part out when she tells me about it. I don't find out for a week exactly how
Deirdre fell that occasioned her to have to go to the hospital -- until
Tory
feels that I'm not likely to go off on her. Second Friday of July
- Chessie comes over to my place (where I live with my parents) and explains to
me that, since I desperately want Deirdre placed with family, she's not going to
remove Deirdre from Tory's, even though that's Standard Operating Procedure
when a foster child injures him/herself because the foster parent was too busy
SLEEPING to supervise the foster child. (The ironic thing here is that one of
the reasons that Deirdre was taken from me is that I was accused of leaving
Deirdre unsupervised while I slept. Um...I was living with my parents at the
time. Deirdre always had someone watching her.) She also tells me that she's assigning
me a Family Support Worker from Owens and Associates, named Meghan, to help me
find a place to live...and that as soon as I move, reunification will start and
that I should have my daughter living with me by October and my case closed by
December. Mid-July - I meet Meghan and her supervisor, Candy,
for the first time. July 25 - we find me a place to live at a
federally-subsidized apartment complex. Around the same
time, I was informed that my case was being transferred from Chessie to another
worker, Michele Janky, because Chessie was being transferred to another unit
within The Soulless Ones. Chessie assured me, however, that everything was going to stay the
same; that everything she'd been telling me was going to remain the same; that
Michele would run the case the way Chessie was. Wednesday, August 31
- I move out of the Parental Units' place into my own place. Two weeks later -
Supervised visits start at my home. They continue until December 1. Wednesday, October 12 - Everyone involved in my case shows up for
a meeting at Deirdre's therapist's office. I'm told that I'm "Not Ready
Yet" for Deirdre to come home...and that Tory's tired of being
Deirdre's foster parent (playing Mommy). (Funny thing is, Tory says that
at the meeting, while what she says to the Guardian ad Litem, Maureen
Monahan; my caseworker, Michele Janky; and Mary Byrd, Deirdre's therapist, is that the real reason
she's quitting is to make me work harder on reunification.
She doesn't tell the one person who really needs to know: me.) Sunday, October 30 - Deirdre is transferred from Tory's to a foster mom
named Mary Kelly. Friday, December 1 - Semi-supervised
visits start at my place. Maureen Monahan, Deirdre's Guardian ad Litem, shows up
for an unannounced visit.
Christmas - Tory's supposed to
bring Deirdre over to Mom and Dad's for Christmas, but rather than do that, she
picks a fight with me so that she doesn't have to...then, at about nine
Christmas night, she shows up at Mom and Dad's with her boyfriend, Jon, and
Jon's eighteen-month-old daughter, Natalie. This is the third
Christmas I haven't seen my daughter.
Second Monday of January - overnight visits with Deirdre start.
The overnights are Monday night and Tuesday night, with a drop-in visit from
Meghan on Tuesday. Deirdre's picked up Wednesday afternoon, then dropped off
again Thursday morning until Thursday afternoon. The Thursday visit is a
Semi-Supervised. January - Another hearing before Judge
Christopher Kelly. This time, I'm told that he's ordering that Deirdre can be
placed in the home without another hearing IFall the following people agree: -the
Intensive Family Preservation Team -Deirdre's therapist,
Mary Byrd -my therapist, Kathy Bustos
-my new psychiatrist, Dr. Danielle Buda -The Soulless Ones caseworker,
Michele Janky -the Guardian ad Litem, Maureen Monahan Meghan,
the only Family Support Worker that we've had for more than three months, is
removed from our case as soon as her employer, Owens, finds out that Intensive
Family Preservation has been added to my case. I don't want to lose Meghan, and
Meghan doesn't trust the Intensive Family Preservation Team. This is when my
case begins to swirl around the toilet bowl, about to get flushed.
Wednesday, March 7 - a Family Group Conference held by the Concord Group at a
building at the Archdiocese of Omaha. The first hour, hour and a half are going
beautifully, then my therapist, Kathy Bustos, leaves. After that, I am politely
picked on (or picked apart, as the case may be, if you'd ask my mother or Tamy,
who were extended invitations to the conference by the Concord Group because
they are two very important parts of my support system) and told, again, that I'm "Not Ready Yet" to have Deirdre come home.
I'm given a grand total of thirty minutes to come up with what they call an
"Alternative Plan." The "Alternative Plan" is basically, where do you want your
daughter to go if you can't get her back? I'm told, much later, that my plan
won't work because my friend Tamy has had "prior Soulless Ones involvement."
Visits go on...and on...and on...with no end in sight. Friday, May 19 - a secret meeting, involving all the
"professionals" on my case excluding my therapist, Kathy
Bustos, and my psychiatrist, Dr. Danielle Buda, is held. It includes people
I've never even met. At that meeting, it's not only recommended that my
visits be cut from overnights back to supervised, but that a motion for
termination of my rights be filed with the court. Also, Kathy's
professionalism is questioned: "The team expressed concern about the
mother's current individual therapist, Cathy Bustos, and her likely
enmeshment with her client (which tends to impair one's professional
judgment). She seemed to have difficulty hearing other professional's
concerns regarding behaviors they had observed with Cathi. She appeared
defensive and minimized her client's behavior..." This paragraph could've
been dictated, word for word, by my dear sister. Another conclusion of the
report: "Open adoption with the maternal aunt, Tory Anders, who has had a
consistent and positive relationship with Deirdre should be considered before
any other placements." Basically, they're attacking Kathy because she won't, as
the old saying says, "go along to get along," and they're playing right into my
sister's hands. Wednesday, May 31 - yet another Family Group Conference. (Keep in
mind, I have no bloody idea about this "1184 Staffing" that was held on
May 19, where it was recommended that my rights be terminated. Where my
therapist's "professional judgment" was questioned. It explains a lot as to why
the other "professionals" pretend like Kathy's not even there, and they also
pretend, when she's speaking, that they can't hear a word that's being said.) Only
difference this time is that my sister is in attendance. They go around the
table, asking the "professionals" whether they think it's "safe" for Deirdre to
be sent home. There are "professionals" there who have barely anything to do
with my case stating their opinions. The only person who disagrees with the
other "professionals" is my therapist, Kathy. Kathy and me had discussed this,
had been discussing it for the past 2-3 weeks. Our opinion was that, if
Deirdre was sent home, with the very same support people in place as we had
during visits, it should be safe enough. Wednesday, June 7 -
Time for Deirdre to go back to daycare/preschool. I give her a bath right in
front of her Family Support Worker, Jessica; get her dressed and send her off,
knowing I'll see her tomorrow. Half an hour later, Kathy shows up and we talk
for about ninety minutes. Thursday, June 8 - I wake up at about
nine AM. There's a voice mail on my phone. It's Jessica, telling me she's
running 5-10 minutes late, will I call her and let her know I got her message? I
do, and she tells me, "Ok, well, I've got Deirdre in the car and we're headed
over to your place." I let her go and begin to wait, knowing that it'll be about
twenty minutes before they get here, and I start watching "King Of The Hill."
About fifteen minutes later, Jessica calls me again, this time to tell me that
my visits have been cancelled "until further notice." I ask her why. Her answer
was ominously cryptic: "You'll have to ask your caseworker." I do just that and
find out that I'm being investigated by the Omaha Police for child abuse!
And Michele's not allowed to tell me anything about what I'm being accused of,
it's Omaha Police Standard Operating Procedure! And, The Soulless Ones Standard Operating
Procedure is that when a natural parent of a foster child is accused of child
abuse, all visits are cancelled. At this point, I'm
feeling like I'm going crazy, so I call my friend Tamy and ask to go over to her
place. I explain why and she tells me to get over there as quick as possible. I
call my mom and ask her to take me to Tamy's, but I have to tell her why. In
order to explain why she's shooting out the door as if the Hounds of Hell were
following her, she tells Dad what's going on. Dad immediately calls my sister,
Tory, who then calls me and expresses her sympathy, and, when she gets off the
phone with me, she calls Deirdre's current foster mom, who tells Tory
everything that I'm not supposed to find out until Monday, June 12. Sunday, June 11, around 10:50 PM - Tory calls me at Tamy's.
Eventually we start talking about the child abuse charges, which I expect to be
completely unfounded, as I know I didn't do anything wrong. When I explain what
I think happened, she then reveals to me that, "I know what happened." At this
point, she starts defending Deirdre's foster parents, saying that the State of
Nebraska treats them as "glorified babysitters" and that would I please not tell
anyone that Deirdre's foster mom told Tory, even though no one's supposed to
be told anything? I had finally had it with everything. With The Soulless Ones, their "service
providers," the constant "Oh yes, we'll give you your baby back if you do this,
this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this,
this, this, and that...Oh, you've done all that? Well, here's another
twenty-five assignments for you to complete before you can 'be ready enough' to
get your baby back. Have a nice life and good luck! Better get it all done in
under fifteen months or the child you gave birth to is now ours forever!" I lost
my mind for about twenty minutes. I genuinely tried to keep my voice down and
stay calm, but I just couldn't. Twenty-two months of constant stress and worry
poured out of me, ending with the sorrowfully-stated sentence, "...and the worst
part is that my sister, my own sister, put me here! My own sister
made this happen!" When Tamy snatched the phone away from me to tell
Tory off,
Tory had the nerve to be crying. I called Tory when I
could speak again, and begged her not to show up at court the next day. She told
me, "But I have to; Michele told me to be there!" I replied, "Were you
subpoenaed?" She answered in the negative. "Well, then, you don't have to
be there; so don't come," I said to her. I said, "I have to be calm for this
hearing and I won't be able to do that if you show up." She began begging me
once again not to tell anyone that Christina (Deirdre's current foster mother)
had told her. I responded, "I won't be able to keep my mouth shut if you show
up; so if you don't want anyone to know, don't show up." She said she'd think
about it; I said, "No think. Do," and hung up. That is the
last time I've spoken with my sister. My mother, nor any other family member
(except for Dad), has
spoken with Tory since then, either. Monday, June 12, 3:00 PM
- My most recent court date. My parents, Tamy and Veronica, and my brother (he's
not really my brother but we're that close of friends that he might just as well
be my brother), Tamy's fiancé, Shawn, came to support me. When Tory
showed up, she was stopped at the receptionist's desk (just like everyone is)
and asked who she was there for. Shawn told me later that Tory identified
herself as "Deirdre's auntie." She didn't even try to greet us, her family; she
sat with The Soulless Ones' minions, the "service providers." My visits
were cut down from overnights to supervised; concurrent permanency objectives
were ordered put in place: reunification AND adoption. Only in the Land of The
Soulless Ones would that not be seen as a contradiction in terms.
Michele announced in open court that I was being charged with
accidentally burning my daughter with a cigarette. (She apologized a week later
for "blindsiding" me in that manner.)
All I remember is trying (unsuccessfully) to pick my jaw up off the floor;
Jenny and me looking at each other at the same time; then me shaking my head
at her, as in, "No, this DID NOT HAPPEN. I DO
NOT know what they're talking about."
My brother, Shawn; my mom and several other people sitting behind me said that I
"jumped" when I heard what I was being accused of.
Jenny told the court that I was "appalled" at the charges.
She was more right than I can describe here; only sick motherfuckers do that
kind of thing to their kids for any reason. Many reports were entered into evidence
against me, including the letter that Michele had encouraged me to write to
the judge to be included in her report(!!!!!).(Click
here to see the letter I wrote.)Not surprisingly, my sister also
wrote a letter to the judge, criticizing me, my parenting abilities, and
emphasizing how much better a caregiver she would be to my daughter than I could
be. Jenny Creighton, my public defender, gave me copies of
every single report entered into evidence against me with instructions to go
through every single report and find anything that they've gotten wrong, taken
out of context, whatever; write her an email with every instance that I'm
disputing and why I'm disputing it. Wednesday, June 28 -
Detective Christine Love, with the Omaha Police, who is handling the
child-abuse case against me, calls to tell me that a citation will not be
issued, nor will charges be filed against me. She says that she's reviewed
the photographs of the cigarette burn when it was fresh with her sergeant.
They handle child abuse cases all the time; they are experts at seeing
cigarette burns used as forms of "discipline" (in my mind, burning anyone
with a cigarette for any reason is torture) and that this burn strikes both
her and her sergeant as more of a
hot-ash-falling-on-Deirdre's-arm-by-accident kind of burn. I told Detective
Love, "I know that you've probably heard what I'm about to say about a
million times, but I swear to you, I would NOT have done this to my baby. I
swear I would not." She asked me how I think it could've happened, and I
told her: I smoke with my right hand. My ashtray, however, is on my left,
because that's where I was able to put an end table, so that's where my
ashtray sits. When I sit in a reclined position, Deirdre likes to lay on me.
When she's laying on me, and I'm going to go flick my ash into my ashtray, I
raise my arm above Deirdre and get my hand above the ashtray, and flick my
ash. The last Tuesday that Deirdre was here and laying on me, I happened to
be smoking and I went to flick my ash, and at the same time, Deirdre moved
her right arm, kind-of bumping my right arm. Then she said, "That was hot!
Owie!" and I looked at my cigarette. It didn't need the ash flicked anymore;
it'd been accidentally knocked off when my arm and Deirdre's accidentally
collided. I asked Deirdre if she was okay, and all she said was that it had
hurt, but she was okay.
I even told Detective Love that I'd given Deirdre a bath right before she
left to go back to daycare that Wednesday and I'd not noticed any unusual
marks on my daughter before I sent her off. (And that was the end of
the episode. Or so I thought. See Wednesday, June 7 and Thursday, June 8.)
Detective Love said that, after talking
to me, the whole thing was "much clearer" than it had been before, and she
was not going to file charges or even issue a citation. Today's decision by Detective Christine
Love and her sergeant makes it really the end of this episode. I'm sure The
Soulless Ones will come up with something else now that they can't use me
being an alleged child abuser against me. Thursday, June 29
- Michele called me and told me that Visinet has the payment and the
authorization for the visits. Has anyone called me to set up the visits? No,
of course not. Wednesday, July 5, about
7:30 PM - The family support worker who's going to be supervising my
visits with Deirdre, Dave, called to set up a visit. My next visit with
Deirdre is going to be a three hour one, starting at ten a.m. until one p.m.
on Monday.
At this point, on this day, it's been almost a month
(twenty-eight days) since I've seen my
daughter. Monday, July 10 - first supervised visit with my
daughter. I'll be having two visits a week, three hours each -- the reason
they're three hours a piece is because the family support worker, Dave Cote,
can't fit three visits a week into his (very tight) schedule.
Tuesday, July 11 - I happen to call my caseworker, Michele, because
I'd talked to Deirdre's doctor's office and they reminded me to tell the
foster parents that Deirdre needs to have her kindergarten physical done as
soon as possible.
Michele thanks me for calling, because she was about to call
me. She's got an idea: since I, according to her, quote, "have so many
problems with Deirdre's current foster parents," end of quote, she wants to
move Deirdre back to Tory's. Tory's willing to take Deirdre back, too.
Michele says: "Well, we don't know what's going to happen in court, so this
may be for the best, if worse comes to worst. This way, Deirdre doesn't have
to move from one school to another..." and so on and so on. Michele's mouth
is saying "we can't predict what's going to happen in court," but her
actions are saying, "I know what's going to happen: your rights are going to
be terminated and Deirdre's going to be moved to Tory's anyway, when
Tory adopts Deirdre."
Just the night before, I was thinking of calling Michele and
respectfully requesting that Deirdre be moved to a Jewish home. Jews are
nice people, they're not Christian, and, most importantly to me, they don't
try to convert you if you're not Jewish. Meaning they won't try to
indoctrinate my daughter.
Michele's decided that I'm being unreasonably prejudiced
against Protestants even though I've fully explained my family history all
the way back to 1332, and she's never respected my religious choice anyway
(you'd mistake my religion for Wicca), nor my constant requests that Deirdre
not be given any religious instruction, nor be taken to any worship services
by her foster parents. I understand that it's really too much to ask that my
daughter be sent to a Wiccan home...I'm tired of this crap.
It's now a war. Monday, July
17 - Michele called me. She told me that she happened to run into Jenny at
court, and Jenny told her that she's (Jenny's) going to file a motion to
block Deirdre from being moved to Tory's. Michele wanted to know from me
why. I explained to her that after having talked to her on the phone, I
thought quite a bit about it and decided that I didn't want Deirdre living
with Tory. Michele asked me, "Why?" My response: "I don't trust her,"
meaning Tory. Michele asked me why I didn't trust Tory and I explained
it to her this way: "Tory called me around 10:30 at night on June 11 and
told me she knew what happened and she wasn't going to tell me. That's why."
Thankfully, Michele's not even pretending to understand.
Funniest thing she said: "Come on, you can't tell me that deep down in your
heart, you really don't trust your sister?" in a cajoling tone of
voice, trying to jolly me along. My reply was as matter-of-fact
and came as fast as I could make it: "Yes, I can."
I think Michele believes me now, but doesn't understand why
my attitude towards Tory has changed. It's simple: Tory finally proved
to me on June 11 that she wasn't really my sister, she was an agent of The
Soulless Ones. Just like all the "service providers"/KGB informants. Wednesday, July 19 - I'm adding an actual song to this page as a background
sound. The reason I'm mentioning it here is because I chose it because of its
lyrics. The song is "Believe," by Elton John, and the lyrics that inspired
me to choose it for this page are as follows: "Without love, I wouldn't
believe In anything...that lives and breathes Without love, I'd have
no anger I wouldn't believe in righteousness Without love I
wouldn't believe I couldn't believe in you, and I wouldn't believe in
me... Without love
I believe...in love
I believe...in love
I believe in love" So I felt that it fit here. I believe in love, and
without that love in me, for my daughter and the Goddess, I'd have nothing
holding me up. No strength to go on. Nothing left to live for, fight and
kill for, die for. Thursday, August 3 - Knock on the front door. It's a Sarpy
County Deputy Sheriff, serving me with a summons to appear in court on the
Motion for Termination of Parental Rights that was filed against me eight
days ago. All that while...Mary Byrd, whom Deirdre and me had had a family
therapy session with on Monday evening, July 31, is listed as one of the
witnesses to the documents...and she didn't say a word. Tory is listed as
one of the witnesses to the documents. Tory called me Sunday, July 30, to
apologize to me about what she said to me last year about how "as long as
Deirdre lives with me, she'll be raised Catholic." Tory didn't warn me
either.
I really do have a lot to think about now, don't I?
Wednesday, January 10 - Jenny informed me that, after reviewing what Mary Byrd
has said in her report to the court, and that's probably what she'll testify to,
I'll lose. I'd better start thinking hard about so-called "voluntary"
relinquishment. We talk for about an hour and I agree to it on the condition
that there is a contract written and entered in as a court order guaranteeing me
"regular rights of visitation," "monitoring of report cards from school," and
many other things that I know damned well Tory won't let me have if she has
her way. Thursday, January 11 - I'm actually forced to lie and
say that I'm willing and have agreed to "voluntarily" relinquish my rights to my
daughter. It takes a huge effort to croak out the answer to the question: "And
you have agreed to relinquish your rights to the child?" My mouth doesn't want
to say it, it twists in a rictus of movement, wanting to scream "NO! But if I
don't, CPS will NEVER leave me alone for the rest of my life!" There's a
pause, and then an angry, voice-from-the-grave sound comes from my mouth with
the word "yes." Around 2:30, I sign all the papers except for one packet -- the
contract. Judge Kelly's decided that since Tory and me are family that we'll
be able to work it out ourselves. Shows you exactly how much he knows about my
case. Friday, January 12 - The only hearing I never attend that
has to do with my case. I don't need to be there but Will should've been because
his rights to our daughter were terminated by the court. Tuesday,
February 13 - As soon as I lost my daughter, I lost my apartment. The
complex is Federally-subsidized only for families with children, and I now don't
have any children. I arrange to have my furniture placed in
PODS (Portable On Demand Storage) while I live with my parents until I can
find another place for me to live. However, it's dangerous to let me alone at
this stage: though I haven't actually tried to do anything to harm myself, I
very well might. My parents learn quickly that the only
way to cheer me up is to let me watch all the
Battlestar Galactica and
Star Trek: Deep Space Nine I want, and that I have unpredictable fits of
rage against the courts, CPS, their minions and my sister that throw me into
such violent rages that I turn them inward and have to be talked out of killing
myself. The only thing stopping me: Deirdre's out there, and someday she'll need
me. As 2007 slips by... - In June 2006, my hair began falling
out in clumps; I developed eczema and I couldn't sleep without Xanax. I had to
switch to Cetaphil for facial cleanser and benzodiazepines for sleeping pills. My
hair has thankfully stopped falling out, but I'm still on the knockout pills and
I still have eczema. I thank CPS for all of it. Without them, I wouldn't have
neared a total physical and emotional collapse, which is how they got me to sign
my rights away. With no bills to pay but my storage,
the digital cable and my cell phone bill, I can finally buy appropriate clothing
for every season. Tank tops and shorts and a pair of capris for spring and
summer, lovely long skirts in white and black, beautiful blouses, everything
frequently accented with lovely embroidery, lace appliqués, spangles, bugle
beads and other "sparklies." No dresses because I have to be able to give myself
my insulin shots in my abdomen still. A new bed-in-a-bag set because my old one
is full of cigarette burns from sleeping pills that snuck up on me when I lived
on my own. Even all my nightgowns have burns and burned holes in them. I also
buy Deirdre a present that she doesn't know about to this day, a present she still hasn't received and
has no clue about: a lovely, frilly, ruffled lavender comforter set that's
stitched in a heart pattern. I spent Samhain (Halloween to
all you Christians out there) alone, watching "Ghost Hunters Live: Waverly
Hills." I snapped a picture of the TV during the program and got ghostly,
shimmering white images in it.
Go here
to see the picture. My mom helped me buy a
state-of-the-art cell phone with a QWERTY keyboard inside and a 1.3 megapixel
digital camera in it. A friend of mine, whom I'll call
Jimmy Valentine (after the character in the same named story by O.Henry), won't
speak to me anymore because his girlfriend is afraid that he just won't be able
to resist cheating on her with me. What she doesn't know is that I have no
intention of doing anything like that, I just desperately want his shoulder to
cry on; I miss him so much it's just another hole in my heart: "Me duele mi
corazon." The reason I call him Jimmy Valentine is because he's a three-time
ex-con. Just like Jimmy Valentine in the story, behind bars for bank robbery. My
Jimmy Valentine just couldn't resist the call of the siren known as crystal
methamphetamines. I'd be the one with him right now had it not been for my CPS
case: I stopped writing him while he was in prison because I was afraid CPS
would find out and stop any and all "reunification efforts" if they knew I was
in contact with him and had every intention of being with him as soon as he got
out. Unfortunately, he wouldn't wait for my case to conclude; in other words,
wait for me like I'd been waiting for him for years. We've known each other half
each other's lives; we're totally comfortable with each other and we still love
each other (since 1998!). It's now Sunday, November
11, and I'm now healed just enough to begin to try to find somewhere
else to live by myself. As Paul Harvey would say: "Now you
know...the rest of the story." A few notes on
the new song on this page: The song is a clip of the song "Deliver Us,"
from the movie soundtrack "The Prince Of Egypt." Why am I using it? Here's why:
--If you think of the Egyptian slave masters as CPS, and
--Myself as the Hebrew slaves, and --the Hebrew God
they're calling out to, begging for His mercy, to send a rescuer, as my Goddess,
then --the song describes EXACTLY how I felt during the
duration of my case, and how I feel now.
October - Tory's marrying a
really nice guy named Aahmer Nawaz, a Pakistani national. I'm looking forward to
the wedding --they're having Muslim wedding, and because of that, absolutely
none of my clothing is appropriate, so I ordered
five and a half yards of gold-embroidered red silk (a sari, actually), so
that my mom could make me a simple, three-piece dress that had a high neck, long
sleeves and
long skirt. I also ordered a beautiful pair of Moonstone
chandelier earrings to go along with the outfit. It cost me $130 total, but I
felt it was worth it. Until, that is, Tory called me and uninvited me to her wedding. Her reasoning? Her and The Byrd (Mary
Byrd, Deirdre's extremely flaky therapist) decided that I should never see or
speak to Deirdre again, because it allegedly "upsets her too much; she acts out
for over a week whenever she sees you," end of verbatim quote.
Maybe Deirdre gets upset not because of me per se, but because she wants to come
home with me. I know what she's told Veronica because Tamy found it so
interesting she had to tell me, and what Deirdre's said is good for me, nasty
for Tory, but apparently Deirdre's damned near an Academy-award-winning
actress, because Tory has no idea how much Deirdre hates everything that's
been done supposedly "in her best interests." She feels angry
because she feels betrayed...and not by me. Thanksgiving Day -
Tory allowed me to speak to Deirdre for the first time in a very long time.
We're on the phone just long enough to tell each other we love each other, and
that's about it. I'm very, very worried about Deirdre because of
subtle clues in her voice which Tory seems to be deaf to. That and
Tory's
got Deirdre on whatever anti-psychotic will make Deirdre the most compliant.
She's stopped telling me what she puts Deirdre on because I'm always telling her
the severe side effects of each of them. Apparently she doesn't care about the
side effects as long as Deirdre is obedient. Tory is
going to cause Deirdre to rebel one of these days...and I'm sure Tory will
blame it all on me. Like she always does. And this is what the
state of Nebraska felt was best for Deirdre? They all must have rocks for brains
if they think that this was the best thing they could do for her. My daughter is
suffering in silence and no one but me seems to care. This is
apparently the definition of "the best interests of the child." And the
definition of a so-called "open" adoption. And no one
actually gives a damn. Gee, thanks, CPS...for making my daughter and myself into
very fucked-up messes. Thank you ever so much. I'm sure my daughter appreciates
what you've done "for" her. I know I damned well don't.
Banner Code: Just
highlight the text contained in the box, then hit "CTRL+C"
to copy it to your clipboard. Then insert the code by
pasting it anywhere on your page in your HTML code. If
you'd rather have the actual banner,
please email me and ask. I'll be perfectly happy to
send it to you as a file attachment in email. Make sure
to link it back to this page. The address to link back
to is
"http://alwaysselena.org/timeline/".
(NOTE: I have absolutely no experience with any other
type of computer other than IBM compats, so I can't give
directions on how to copy and paste if you're using a
Mac.)
Here's the code...make sure to get your
cursor in the box so that you can highlight all the
text, then copy it from the box.
