How I learned to speak up, when disagreeing with social workers / C...

When I first came in the women's shelter with my 2 oldest kids, I thought they were on my side, and they women working there were, but when you were dealing with the coordinators and the director of the shelter, things were different. Unfortunately I did not realize this on time.
Some things that I did not realize until a certain point was that they may twist some words in the reports during your stay at the shelter. They are very aware of the fact that you may be blown away with all the things that are happening, and that you may not be at your best as it comes to being alert on the words they use in their reports about the things you spoke to them about. It really helps, to be alert and aware of this, and read reports several times, before you sign them.

Every time we had discussed something and we made a new progress report including some agreements we made, they would give me a report afterwards. This was never the same day, but several days later. And when I think back about this, several times they gave me this at a very chaotic moment, and asked me to sign it as soon as possible, if not right away. This resulted in the fact that the first times I read them briefly and signed them, not realizing that their choice of words may result in different conclusions to third parties reading this. They were sometimes out of context, and if this happens more often, and the next person will discuss these things with you, they may have understood incorrectly.

I often asked myself if those people were idiots, because I told them this and that part a 1000 times already, and everything was to be found in the previous documents that they had made. But after a while I came to understanding that this was because they failed to write it down as the situation was exactly. You probably know that when I tell you a story, and you tell the whole story to the next person, you may forget or change a little part, and the next person they tell it to will maybe forget or change a little part also.. after 10 people the whole story is out of context and may be a complete different one than the first story that's told. This is a good example of how this works while CPS / youth care / women's shelter social workers document stuff.

This was very frustrating to me at first, because I didn't realize where the problem was. I simply had too much coming at me at once during the whole period dealing with them. Once there would be a "peaceful" period, this would mean that my ex would start something again after some days, this was a pattern he followed. But at that time I was not aware of the patterns yet, this came a year later after putting all the pieces of the puzzle together. This was my handicap during the whole period, my ex was fully aware of the fact, that when I was blown away with stress and issues to be solved at once, I would miss things, and be less alert. Especially as I did not recognize his patterns as a narcissist yet.

I had to take care of my 2 children, make sure that they were doing fine, and were not to be bothered with the behavior of their dad, which often resulted in me having sleepless nights due to the constant stress I was under. I had to keep smiling for my children and stay in the daily shelter routine where we had a cleaning schedule, and also had several tasks divided under the women. On top of that my oldest was going to school so everything else had to be done between those hours she was at school.

I thought all the time until I was leaving the group shelter, that I had to agree with everything that CPS / social workers etc were proposing to me that they found that was necessary. I thought that if I wouldn't agree, they would take my children from me. I really felt like I had no other choice, and for a long time this resulted in me just agreeing with whatever they wanted to be done. And then the moment arrived that we were placed at another location of this shelter, where there were also private houses for some women with the children. Those houses had a waiting list of 8 months, most of the women went to a group first, and then the next step would be one of the houses in some cases.

Because our old shelter was sanitized because we had a big outbreak of NORO virus, resulting in every little child being ill for sometimes 2 months in a row. Vomiting, diarrhea for weeks in a row, and after some weeks feeling better, the illness kept coming back. So after all the women demanded that they would do something about it, they decided to clear the whole building, and all of us were placed at that second location. I therefore was put first on the waiting list, and they gave us a private house instead of being in a group first.

I actually thought things would get better from there first, until I noticed things were going wrong time after time. Every little thing that my new caseworker was arranging, there was a problem. Or she did not do her work well. I actually hated here after a few weeks of all these problems, and we did not get along. The one thing that really opened my eyes after a few weeks was that she came at my door and she was in a hurry, wanting me to sign a report that the social worker at the previous shelter had made. But not even the last report, this was one from 2 months before or so. This raised some questions when I saw this, why does she come with this now, and didn't I get this before? So I told her I would read it that night, and will come back to her as soon as I have read it. She tried to push me to sign it right away, which raised even more red flags to me.

After she left I started reading the report and soon I came across things that were not true. After reading some more, there were more and more parts that simply were out of context or not true at all. And I got mad, actually, because my red flags didn't go off for no reason. I told my boyfriend about this, and he said that I should type out the report completely and replace the mistakes with the true story as it happened. The next day I got an e-mail from my caseworker that she needed me to sign the report today, and I answered her that it was full of mistakes and I was going to correct everything, and send that one back by e-mail to her, so the old case worker who wrote it could sign it first. She said ok, and left it to that. The next day I send it to her, and actually I never received it back!

This was the first moment I realized they had put me under pressure before signing these documents, and I started to go through the older ones. I found more of these text parts out of context, and things began to get more clear to me how they work. I also found out that every document there was a behaviorist (I had to google this word to translate, so hopefully it is correct haha) that signed every document even before I had ever met that person, or spoke to her even once. I found this very alarming, because her signature would validate the report for the social worker as a sort of witness, but that person would only sign it reading her story without even knowing if this was correct.

At the second location shelter I had more freedom with my kids, and this period I started to become myself again. Meaning that I didn't feel like a prisoner anymore (with all the daily routine as they wanted me to do so, because this would many times not fit the schedule with school and my baby-son that wasn't going to school yet) and this meant I interacted more with people outside the shelter. Before I came to the first one I had been an entrepreneur several years, but my ex made sure I quit to do so when I was doing well. And I lost that fighting spirit in me I guess. Because I got to interact with the friends my boyfriend introduced me to (all entrepreneurs) I started to see my own potential again. And they all gave me positive energy when we met. The most influential person was my boyfriend though, he never stopped saying that I had great potential and I can do anything I want in life, and if I am passionate I will succeed. This start me thinking after some weeks.

What was going to happen to me in that last shelter? Before I came there they told me: it would be only 6 months maximum before I would got assigned a new place for us three. But as all the hassle with even getting the contract for that house AT the terrain of the shelter right, 2 months passed. This got me thinking it would be some months more than 6. And then they wanted me to do all kinds of training's, which I of course agreed to, because I felt like I had to, and simply had no choice. One of the other women at my previous shelter asked me if I could watch her baby son during the hour of training at that shelter that she had to go to once a week. She was a smart one, like me. One that would not accept anything just because you say so. She told me about those meetings there, and that she felt like she was just wasting her time. And listening to that (we had a connection) I could only agree. So I was glad that I could not attend to those training's until she was done, as they knew there that I was her babysitter. This was agreed with the trainer, so that was my free-pass for that moment.

Then my social worker send me an angry e-mail out of the blue, she had had an e-mail from another trainer that I did not attend to any of her meetings, while I had to be there about 6 weeks ago for the first time. (makes you wonder why they did not send that e-mail six weeks before, right?) So I told her, I only had a phone-call from a trainer about a meeting (called: bla bla, don't remember what it was called) that I could start that week, but afterwards they called me back that my friend needed to start a week sooner and she needed a babysitter, so we all agreed that I would do this for her, and I would start this training after she is finished. And I received one more phone-call just yesterday about a training that I could go to in a few weeks. This is all I know. She told me no no no, this is not possible, because every women living here needs to follow this training from the beginning to learn about how we do things around here. It was the course about how things were done and how to handle everything if something went wrong or so.. I told her, you never mentioned this course to me (trust me I would know, because I was agitated about being forced to do these things, and if this was mentioned I would be talking about it to my boyfriend and friends to say I was not very pleased to follow them). She actually got angry at me, because this was told at the intake taken before moving there. So I told her, I don't recall this, and even if they did, nobody did tell me when or when or how, not even in that pile of documents you gave me. It is not mentioned anywhere, how should I know when and where to go for everything. I guess you did not do your job correctly?

After a week I would go sign documents about the shelter taking all my money on their account every month, and I would have no saying in what happened to it anymore, or whatsoever. As they already failed giving me my week allowance, meaning that my boyfriend would have to bring groceries for me and the kids, I was not too fond of this idea. And then they mentioned what my rent for that little (shitty) house was going to be: over 750 euros! And my income was about 1000 every month. They did not pay my health insurance that whole period before that either, so I was doing a little math myself, and I knew I would sign for a very long way of debt due to their flaws.

Because I was already behind a long time when it came to my health insurance payments (they kept saying: this will be arranged when you are settled somewhere it is not important now, can you believe this?) At the point I did the math, I could only come to one conclusion: get the hell out of here. I felt so very depressed there every day, until I gain back some positive vibes due to my boyfriend and his circle of friends. I did not want to be depressed all day, I wanted to have the freedom to do something with my ideas, I had great plans and a good set of skills! I will not let my ex aggressive behavior be the reason I am under their control for the next years. My boyfriend had said before, you and the kids are more than welcome to come live with me. But I had decided I wanted to give the house at the shelter a chance, it seemed to be a good option first. So I declined. But now I saw how he interacted with the kids, it felt good. And I had in mind: they will be best of if their mother is their mother, not a mother that is held back in her being the next couple of years.

So we started planning how to get this done, and one night we were at his place, my son felt a sleep so I put him to bed upstairs at my boyfriends house. I told my daughter that I didn't want to wake him, so made her a bed too. The next day it felt good, and we didn't go back to the shelter's house for days. After a few days we did get our stuff and went to his house, to not go back. And guess what? My daughter never ever asked: when are we going home. She and her brother felt at home at his place. That moment I knew I was making the right decision.

I trusted my gut feeling, and learned to be alert by these things that had gone wrong. From that moment I started to approach things different, because I started to be "me" again. The happy me and the women that believes in her own skills. Not to be put down by third parties anymore. I would have made the biggest mistake if I had signed these documents, they littarly would have owned me for a long time. I truly wish I had learned before that I could have said no, or told them honestly what I thought was better for me and the children, but I was too scared of consequences that would have had.

Always, I repeat, **always **sign reports after reading them in private first, let the words go through your head, take the time to read it again. And be aware of how it's written, in what context. Don't feel afraid to disagree with them, but make sure you always disagree using well-founded arguments. I will come back to this later, in another post, that part is from a later period dealing with them. And I saw the positive effect of me being able to tell every vision I had with well-founded arguments. They could only agree with me at that time. But during the time written about above, I was not too confident yet to do so.

I hope others will find some strength reading this, and will be able to speak up sooner than I did! You have a voice, please use it, but never forget to tell them your arguments, and always make your own reports after making commitments with them, and send them to the others involved too, so they know that you are paying attention, and being alert!

I write a lot about my period dealing with CPS, feel free to read my stories linked in this posy below.
Let's not be silenced anymore, and gather our strength, thanks for reading this little part of my story..

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