Gulp

Ok. I've put it off long enough so here goes... and apologies for any rambling that might occur.

We had an incident in the house at the end of November, which I would prefer not to go into details about, but it resulted with a knock on the door and me answering it to two police officers and two social workers. Hubby was given the option to "voluntarily" leave the house for a couple of days whilst his medication was adjusted, which bless him he did. This happened on a Wednesday and nobody saw him until the following Monday to review his medication - don't get me started on this.

The medication, we were told, would take 24hrs to get into the system. So we assumed he'd be home a couple of days later. He was not. He was allowed no contact with the children (to which we later found out did not mean he couldn't speak to them on the phone - to which I told them they should review the language they use because to both hubby and I, no contact means just that). The girls were given a social worker, fair dues we have no issue with this. Two days passed and he was still not home. A week passed, he was still not home. On the 23rd of Decemeber he was allowed home. (In tears and angry writing this down) The girls had visits at school by social work that I was unaware of. We had visits to the house. Nobody knew anything. There was meetings and meetings of everyone and anyone, except for me, which went as far as the headteacher of Littley and the guidance teacher of Middley and Biggey - absobloodymortifying. The lovely thing about them being there is that the headteacher told me that both her and the guidance teacher spoke up about what a lovely, strong, committed family we were and that they'd both known us for years and that this case was down to illness and nothing else, and that they both had children that they would like to be having meetings about but nobody's interested in, but that we weren't one of them.

I contacted our local mp (thanks to the suggestion of the lovely Lee - Dragonmisery) and they got on the case writing on our behalf. Every hurdle we jumped they moved the goal posts, and then they moved them again.

To allow hubby to come home I had to agree to parenting classes (again, the mortification - I am not a down and out alcoholic, drug using, poor excuse for a parent and work bloody hard to try and keep a balance within our home), hubby is not allowed to be left alone with the girls (understandable, but he's utterly devastated by this), he has to have weekly meetings with his consultant, the girls have to have constant meetings with their social worker, he has to have constant meetings with his social worker and so much more.

At the moment, trying to let the dust settle, we've already had the girl's social worker suggesting that hubby has no part in the parenting of the girls and that he steps back and I do it all - how on earth that is supposed to happen, I don't know but I said that this wasn't practical, and it would tip him over the edge if it was implimented. I've had to explain to his social worker that the reason we haven't seen his consultant this week is not because we're being difficult but that we can't get hold of them to find out an appointment day or time and that I was waiting for them to ring me because that was the arrangement when they left last week. I got a phonecall this afternoon to say that they don't see a need to see hubby everyweek and was I happy with this. Pfft - don't ask me. You need to speak to the girl's social worker, because that was one of the stipulations for hubby being allowed home, so I wasn't taking that decision.

We have so many people involved in our family now, we thought we did before but they've all come out to play now. We are like a goldfish bowl. When the girl's social worker came to the house I told her not to judge us. Hubby is ill. We are a triangle peg (on laptop - can't use "cue") being put into a round hole, and that I felt like the protocols for our situation was being made up as we went along, because non of them know what's happening or what will happen and we just cause issues for all of them because non of them know what to do.

It makes you second guess what you can say incase you inadvertently say something that could be mixed up ie. When the policewoman came to our house I said that I didn't like talking about hubby on the phone. This got twisted to "Constance is frightened to talk on the phone". Nope. When I was told that I hadn't been honest with my views about how hubby is doing (still sticks in my throat, even now) in meetings (and this was said at the big professional meeting that was had), my response to the girl's social worker, and hubby's social worker in later meetings was that whilst I didn't say a lot in the meetings where hubby was there, I spoke to his CPN on the phone (funny that - me on the phone...) where I expressed my concerns and how I felt he was doing, and that I thought his meds should have been tweaked and that I'd mentioned it for the past two meetings which would have been about six months, and that whilst I wasn't saying it in the meeting, I was talking to a professional and as far as I was concerned the medical team had to take some accountability for them not doing anything, because as far as I was concerned I had been honest with them.

Anyhoo, that's about it, but it has been an horrific couple of months and one I wouldn't wish on anyone. Constantly Trying by name, Constantly Trying by nature :o)