Hi JNChell,
Thank you for your very kind words. I wish I could spend more time here. I come and go a bit. Lately I've come back probably after the news I received last Friday about not being able to conceive. But given my last post here, its not surprising I am very, very angry at my IL's. This is why I responded to your post. I understand this anger and although I don't have CPTSD like yourself and my DH, I have been dx with PTSD as a result of all this.
If I hadn't have offered to wood cart, could we have proceeded to the full hearing and my niece would be in our care (we were told we were going to win)? Or had we chosen NOT to spend 8 months fighting for her in the year I was 41, could I have conceived my own child? My MIL was even the person who triggered my DH's 2010 BPD psychosis leading to the attempt on his life which led to several years of intense BPD self harm. If any of these events had not happened, could I have conceived when I was much younger?
My MIL then spent years poisoning my SIL to somehow to believe I gave her brother the childhood disorder of BPD, which is why she didn't make arrangements for her orphaned child to live with us even though she suffered from a heart condition. We wanted my SIL to know the truth but never told her in fear it would create more turmoil in the family.
What if she had known the truth and made her wishes clear for us to care for her second child? A few months before my MIL created this lie, she asked us to care for her first child. SHe only had one at the time and she adored me, always called me "Sis". Her first born had a known father but he was looking at jail time so she approached us about caring for our nephew in the event she passed and his father was in jail. She'd be rolling in her grave now if she knew her drunk of a father is raising her little girl.
Reason why I'm not here much is that I'm also a smoker and reliving my story doesn't help my lungs much. I know I have my inlaws to thank for the stress but I seriously need to kick that one. I have thought about writing a book but am worried I'd kill myself over the smokes just to get it done.
I feel like this is becoming a societal issue (all PD’s). How can this epidemic be nipped in the bud? It can’t. It’s become an outbreak. It can no longer be contained. Our youth are being fueled with narcissism.
I couldn't agree more. Much more can be done to stop this epidemic, if only professionals out there knew about PD's and how they are contracted. BPD is often discriminated against by many professional who know nothing or little about it. For instance in my experience the following occured:
POLICE - Once DH was having a BPD 'moment'. I called 000. When the police came to the door, I said, “Please go easy on him, he has BPD”. One of the officers response was demoralising and his voice sarcastic when he turned to DH and said “What is that? You some sort of schizophrenic”. Not the right thing to say to a pwBPD in distress! Next day, I marched down to the police station reporting it, demanding that the local police station have a BPD awareness workshop or debriefing for all their officers. Next 000 call out, both of the police officers knew what BPD was and were much more sympathetic towards my DH.
* the following statement has a trigger warning of self harm*
JUDGES - After SIL passed, we took immediate care of our niece and had been caring for her for 5 weeks after MIL and FIL (divorced) had told us they had no intention to care for her and were happy for us to. All of a sudden, NPD FIL changed his mind but didn't tell us. Instead, he went to the court and with no evidence said we had stolen our niece from HIS care! He signed a 'child abuse, child at risk' form against his own son (DH) noting that DH had stabbed himself in the chest, leaving out the following very important facts: that that self harm incident had occurred 6 years prior and since then DH had been diagnosed with BPD, which he'd worked hard to completely recover from several years before the present.
The judge signed an ex-parte order (secret order) for the federal police come to our home to hand the child over to the FIL meaning we had no chance to either know that the matter was before the courts, nor to respond to FIL's uncorroborated allegations. It is really starting to sound like a Hollywood movie now isn't it?
With the court orders in FIL's hand, he then took 10 days to pick the child up from our house because he had lost his car licence, his vehicle was unregistered and he had no official home to live in. Having spent 10 days to find a friend to drive him to our home, it was obvious that FIL knew the child was safe in our care but had used the court system's 'secret' (ex-parte) process that is only there for emergencies to gain immediate custody, against us giving us no chance to defend ourselves.
We were later told that the court could have given us our legal right to respond. Even if we had been given 5 days to respond, we could have arrived with all texts, fb messages, receipts etc to show we had been caring for the child and had not 'kidnapped' her as well as doctors reports to state that DH's mental health was no risk to the child bc DH had made a full recovery.
Additionally, if a judge knew anything about BPD and entertained the idea that in this case, BPD may well be in play and that although not all, but in
many cases there is large correlation between a person's self harm and their childhood exposure to abusive and invalidating parenting to a child contracting BPD, a judge may well be wary of handing a 2 ½ year old child over to a man, whom may well have failed in his parenting duties in the past by contributing to his own son's life threatening condition.
If we had been given a chance to respond with our evidence that NPD FIL had committed extensive perjury, we would no doubt have been allowed to retain custody of the child at least until a hearing of up to 1-2 years later. And my FIL's history of being unable to manage money would have meant that he likely wouldn't have travelled the distance to keep the bond with the small child and he would have likely given up.
But instead my FIL obtained these rights and we had to jump through hoops to retain our bond with the 2 1/2 year old, traveling 1500km every 3 weeks and staying with BPD/NPD MIL during that third week. Ironically, we lived far away from both the IL's bc DH's therapists had advised it all those years ago when DH did have BPD, that we should buy a house as well and truly as far away from the IL's as possible but this decision was now not really working in our favour during the court case.
All the while we had no financial support to care for the child and NPD FIL got it all because he had 66.6% custody and us only 33.3%. We later found out if we had 35% custody, at least we could have had some assistance.
FIL also received free legal aid bc he had blown a payout of $220K at his pub over the previous 4 years and even though we were 'considered' cash poor, we couldn't get it.
If my niece contracts BPD in the future, then it would be bc a judge knew nothing about BPD. If we had the chance to raise her, we would have given her unconditional love and allowed her to express her emotions effectively. I fought hard and got a Pro Bono Barrister willing to fight for free, we only needed to find $8K for her costs. We scraped the bottom of the barrel to find that but had no more for accommodation costs while we cared for her in the IL's region.
The courts seemed more interested in DH's confirmed BPD and not for a man who is clearly narcissistic enough to lie against his own son and believed that he would do a better job raising a child on his own (hasn't had a long term relationships since the divorce from DH's mother 20 years before) and whom had several operations for stents in his heart region, is a heavy drinker and smoker and smokes drugs than a loving and much younger couple such as ourselves.
It was interesting when our Pro Bono Barrister said to DH after reading through all of our hard evidence “How can a father lie through his teeth about you! His own son? Clearly he is not good parent material for a 2 ½ year old child”. DH said “My father is a sick man. He is a narcissist”. But without FIL getting a psychological assessment, it is only speculation and even if he did, pwNPD can truly play therapists. Yet DH's efforts to seek help were documented and subpoenaed putting us in the the disadvantage.
FOSTERING. This is going to be interesting for us. I have called them and informed them that DH used to have BPD but is now recovered and asked if there's any chance of fostering children and they said “Yes. If his condition is now stabilised”. I informed them of the reports made for the court case by his doctors stating that they see no reason why DH shouldn't care for a young child and they told me that they will need to look through his records but there is plenty of hope.
We went to a 2 day introduction course for fostering. There were so many stories about children being sent back to their birth parents who are clearly toxic people but if they have food in the fridge etc that's OK. Once they've read through DH's mental history reports, could the decline us even though he is clearly recovered and have his doctors (including his psychiatrist) to back him up whilst at the same time they admit that the system puts children in the care of people with mental illnesses that can seriously do children harm.
If I think I am angry now, can you imagine if I find out, I can not even raise a child because of my DH's previous BPD diagnosis, I think I will be ropeable!
After finding out about BPD, DH and I often watch the news and see things like a police shooting a mental person yielding a knife noting that they probably needed to use validating techniques instead of aggression, or the many double homicides out there that could very well have been BPD related.
BPD awareness has come such a long way than when I first found out about it in 2011. I can only hope that one day, the general population and professionals have a better understanding of PD's otherwise more children will be placed in the care of toxic people that could potentially give them BPD, thus increasing pwBPD in the population. I have no doubt that my hopeful future in the fostering system will no doubt put me into contact with natural parents with BPD/NPD/ASPD. At least I know what to look out for in their children and how to care for them. Hopefully, all this hell we've been through will be well worth it and there are little children out there that were meant to meet us one day.
PS Sorry for the long Post but both yourself and Harri did ask my story.
