Positive outlook begins here.

Hmmm. I have been awol for quite some time now. When I started writing this blog I promised myself that I would be honest about how things are in this house, and I think that due to this promise, over the past couple of months I have thought that because things have been so awful that if I wrote it down that it was true and boy have they been awful.

Today, however, and I don't know why, but I've woken up with a f**k it attitude. I've decided that I am the queen bitch in my little home and that if anyone wants to come and get us (social workers take head) that they're going to have to get through me first.

Just a brief recap on our situation. Due to an incident in the home prior to Christmas, hubby was "voluntarily" removed from the house for a couple of days. Three weeks later, many many phonecalls and an email to our local mp, hubby was allowed home two days before Christmas. This is where I (stupidly) thought things would go back to "normal". Pffft - you can be wrong once in a while Constance...

Things settled down, maybe down to his new meds, and we paddled along quite nicely. There were no ripples or waves, which I expected. Hubby has been the best he has been for as long as I can remember and all was well.

That was until Biggey came home with a saw finger. We just thought that it was part of the injury from earlier in the summer that seems never to have been fixed, but upon taking her to the gp's and ending up in a&e we found out her finger was fractured. Jiggling of the finger and splinting it and all appeared ok.

Then I get a phonecall from hubbys gp. "Do you think that hubby could have been involved in the injury?". The walls came crushing down around me. No. He did not have anything to do with the injury. Out comes the girl's social worker for a routine visit, so I thought I would take the bull by the horns and tell her about the phonecall - prempting said social worker from finding out through the discussions the professionals have about us in the background. So then the childrens protection services were involved. Of course they were, we had nothing to hide so that wasn't a problem - other than the undue stress that it causes to be in a goldfish bowl and knowing that everyone is watching and you're second guessing yourself all the time, no problem at all.

The last I heard was that the social worker would let me know the outcome. So when said social worker came out for the next regular meeting and I asked if there was an outcome for the cps decision and I was told there was nothing to worry about I asked when the decision had been made. "Why?" was the response. "Because I would like to know" was mine. A week ago. The social worker had known for a week and had not informed us. Well stand back and light the blue touch paper. I was furious. I was so cross that I had tears, not out of upset but out of absolute sheer bloody annoyance. Why hadn't we been informed? You are not my only family that I deal with, I work part time and you could have rung me. Ok, now I stepped up a level - make that severely annoyed. My hubby sat in the corner of the room and let me deal with this, and I must say that after the meeting I was proud of myself. I told the social worker that it is not my job to chase up whether or not they've done their job. I said that the difference between social worker and us is that whilst this was a job to them, it was our life that they were playing with. "If I had any concerns about this injury, hubby would not have been here" was their comeback. I upped it up a notch (I didn't think this was possible). Social worker started talking, and apologising (I know...) and I actually shooshed her. I told her that the uncertaintly over what was her job had caused me (not hubby) to not only hit the wall but have it crumbling down ontop of me. That I had not had chance to get myself over the Christmas incident before this issue had been raised, and that I thought that the "didn't think" apology was not good enough. I was livid - but very calm, and that's never a good sign. I told her that her involvement was actually causing stress within the house rather than reducing it and that it caused major issues with the girls and the moods that they had prior to and after a meeting were horrific. "Do not tell me that my meeting with your children causes them to argue" was the response. Hmmmm - don't tell me that I don't know how my girls work because you're just wakening a sleeping tiger there, and she did.

"I am telling you that your meetings raise issues with our girls. Our girls are not perfect, and I know they can argue amoungst themselves and they are little buggers, but I am telling you that when you meet them it ups the stress for them. Why are they stressed? Because you ask them questions and they are scared they are going to say something that will have daddy removed again". "Why would they think that?" said she. "Because it happened before Christmas" said I.

The comment that finished me was "I know what you're going through"...

"No you don't. You have absolutely no idea. You don't know what's going on here. You don't know what it's like to live in a situation like ours. We are a round peg that doesn't fit into the square hole. Our girls have no childhood, it's been robbed. It's not like going to visit a grandparent who puts their cutlery in the rubbish bag and two hours after the visit starts they get to come home. This is their home, they don't have the luxury of going home. The only thing that helps our girls is Action for Kids who take them away for a few hours every now and again, and the reason they love that is because daddy is never mentioned. If they want to volunteer information then they can, but it is never asked of them. So don't tell me you have any idea of knowing what we're going through because you don't, and I hope to God that you never will".

Another apology.

Tac was then changed into asking if I have any support or anyone to talk to. I responded "no" to that and that after how we've been treat over the past few months that nobody had better suggest that I get a professional to talk to because I don't want another professional added to the mix of who talks about the goldfish bowl behind our backs, and "could you imagine? I go into a meeting and have a complete rant about my hubby and say that he's awful and a complete git and he's bad tempered and hasn't done this, that or the other, and all the things that you (social worker) might say about her hubby on a bad day, and then it gets chewed up and twisted and turned into something that wasn't meant other than I'm having a bad day and then go against my hubby". I also said that I am going to have to dust myself down and lick my wounds and that it was going to take some work on the professional's part before I trust them again, because at the moment there is non to very, very little.

She asked me if I spoke to my mother about any of this. Well I was on a roll by now, and I told her no. Why? Because my mum works very high up in Child Protection and also within the parameters of Dementia. "Pardon?" said she, so I repeated myself, adding, "don't worry, it's on the English side, but before she came up to sit in on the meeting we'd had prior to Christmas she genned up on the Scottish side just to see if there were any differences". OH MY GOD! Her chin dropped. I mean it dropped, and stayed open for about 5 seconds. She didn't know what to say. It was like you could see panic accross her face.

Constance 1 - Social Worker 0

One of her parting comments was "hopefully before long we won't need to be involved". Mine was "I look forward to it".

I think that she expected me to be so relieved that hubby was not being accused of damaging Biggey's hand that I would run up and hug her. Wrong. I completely caught her off guard and boy, she was not prepared. The other parting comment was that she would visit next time with hubby's social worker. Working in pairs? That isn't going matter - now you've woken the lion, you can come in a pack and it isn't going to intimidate me. 

It was liberating. I actually didn't cowtow to her, I said my bit and my husband saw me standing his and the girl's corner fiercly, and him knowing I'm standing his corner is a big thing for him. Make no mistake - I stand their corner.

Oooooohhhhhh - on  a happy, happy note, I've lost five stone .75lbs and I'm a happy, happy bunny. I'm trawling ebay for clothes that are three and four sizes smaller than my previous encounters with ebay, and I can't believe it. I'm now over half way of losing what I want to lose and I'm aiming for another three. I'll never be skinny, but I'm no longer the beached whale I was in the summer last year - and this brings a smile to my face.

So this is why I woke up this morning with a f**k it attitude. Maybe it's the weight, maybe it's because I'm feeling more confident in myself or maybe it's because I've simply had enough of people thinking they know how to deal with hubby better than we in our little home do, but I've decided that enough is enough and they are going to have to be prepared for a new Constance - Heaven help them :o) x