Some history, part 2

“Too often we give children answers to remember rather than problems to solve.” – Roger Lewin

How about if I go back to the beginning of all this!

I married my second husband when Munchkin was 11 months old because I believed him when he said he’d kill me if I didn’t. To make a long story short, our life together was fraught with abuse, most of which Munchkin was witness to.

I had him arrested for the second and last time when he threatened Munchkins life, and when she started to cry he said, and I quote “You’re nothing but a fucking little slut you bitch, and if you don’t shut up soon I’ll hit you so hard you’ll never make another sound again!”

That was the last straw. Prior to that he had never said anything nor done anything against her. It was always against me, and I thought I could handle that.

Munchkin was just 3 ½ at the time and suffered terrible nightmares after that. She would wake up screaming, and once calmed down enough to talk, she’d tell me what she had dreamt. One was much like the next, always with the same theme. I won’t go into the detail she did, but they always involved her father breaking into the house and making her watch him kill and dismember me in one way or another. Needless to say, it didn’t take long for her to start acting out.

Soon the divorce was finalized and despite what had happened, the judge ordered supervised visitation every other Saturday. The day before she was to see her father and for a few days after, Munchkins behavior was terrifying to say the least. So I started to take her to a child psychologist. After a few meetings the psychologist had a co-worker who was licensed to prescribe medication to come in and observe the next few sessions. This led to Munchkin being diagnosed with ADHD and Bi-polar disorder and was put on 25 mg of Seroquil 2 times/day. At the time, I did not know that Seroquil had not been tested for use on children under the age of 18, and here my little girl who was just about to turn 4 was put on it.

Because visitations with her father were supervised, the judge was still monitoring what was going on with the help of a family conciliation mediator. She told the judge that the visits seemed to be going well so she suggested that after 6 months visitations should become unsupervised and be from Saturday 10 am to Sunday’s 6 pm, and because I still had a standing restraining order against him, the exchange of “the child” should take place at the home of one of my ex’s brothers. I was to drop Munchkin off, leave and then my ex’s new wife was to pick her up. With just the opposite happening on Munchkins return to my care.

With every visitation Munchkins behavior became worse. She was soon put on a steroid inhaler because she was beginning to have a hard time breathing as well. Not only that, but her Seroquil was doubled to being 50 mg 2 times a day.

Sadly I didn’t question the psychologists/psychiatrists in regards to Munchkins care. I later found out that 98% of the children these 2 women care for medically were diagnosed with ADD, ADHD, Bi-Polar disorder, Aspergers disease and so much more. It seems there is no such thing as normal children anymore. The funny thing is, when I was her age, just barely 30 years ago now, these diseases didn’t even exist. Children that displayed any personality, were just kids being kids.

Munchkin was started on the Serequil at roughly 4 years of age and at 4 and a half she was given the inhaler to help her breathing. Somewhere around 5 months of non-supervised visitations Munchkin started to get violent. She broke her toys and would push and hit her friends. This culminated in her breaking her bed and her Serequil being upped once again, she was now on 75 mg twice daily at 5 ½ years of age. Her behavior started to stabilize, meaning she wasn’t getting worse, but she wasn’t getting any better either.

Part of the mediators suggestion to the judge about visitation was that after a suitable trial period of unsupervised visits, providing nothing “bad” was happening and my ex was still with his 3rd wife, visitations during summer holidays could be held for a week at a time. I grudgingly agreed to this. These extended visitations also included x-mas holidays and long weekends. I didn’t like it, and had my misgivings, but like I said I did agree to it.

Munchkin was still acting out prior to and after visitations with her father, but the year she turned 7 she started her week long visitations during summer. Little did I know, but it wasn’t going to be pleasant to say the least.

Backtracking just a bit, I had met Silver that same May, and later introduced Munchkin to him in June. I suppose neither of us will ever truly understand why he didn’t cut and run on the spot, but he didn’t, he stayed! When he was at my place for the first time, and saw the way I was allowing Munchkin to behave, and my phone never stopping with it’s incessant ringing, not to mention my mother showing up out of the blue, he saw me literally fall apart at the seams. 

I guess he realized that he was the only one who could help me. In that 1 day at my place, he saw that everyone, including Munchkin’s doctors were doing us more harm than good. I, myself, was on a rather high daily dose of antidepressants that was leaving me at a disadvantage for being able to think clearly, but that’s no excuse for how terrible I let the situation get to be. I am the one who trusted blindly, I was happy to keep my head in the sand and blame the world around me for the way my life had become.