NOWHERE TO RUN!

I will never forget the second I realised that I had a fight on my hands for my own children.  It struck me completely, arguably, quite naively, out of the blue.  I read that text message and went numb.  It was a shock not unlike receiving news that someone had died.  “They won’t be back.”

The first year was horrific, I felt as though I were living in the aftermath of the zombie apocalypse.  Nothing made sense anymore, everything had lost its colour and on top of trying to process the trauma of such an act of cruelty, I had to endure courts, solicitors, accusations, financial burdens and, oh yes… a newborn.

I’ll maybe tell you a bit more about that fateful day another time, today isn’t a great day to pull the stitches out of a still festering wound.  Today, I had to walk across town with my arms laden with birthday presents for my daughter that was passed to a social worker in the waiting room of the family center.  They should have been given to my daughter by her Mummy, we should have shared the excitement of her opening her boxes and cards and I should have been able to watch her little face as she looked at the gifts I thoughtfully picked out for her that I know she would love.  Instead, I’m wondering if she still will love them?  The child who was stolen from me, now a year and a half ago, would have loved them.  Is she still the same little creative, quirky bird she was then?

So the first year… My goodness.  I’m not sure how I managed to survive.  I have often said that had it not been for my new baby, I would either be dead or in prison.  I found myself sitting in the courtroom three days after giving birth.  It was uncomfortable and I should really still have been in bed and not lactating all over the waiting room amidst wigs and suits.  That was something I realised about maternal instinct, it doesn’t matter if you’ve spent your last breath, if you have to fight to save your children, you’ll find a few more.

There isn’t a sure fast, tried and tested method for ‘getting over’ Parental Alienation.  You never will, or, I never will that’s quite certain.  I’ve come to the conclusion that life is a team sport.  Over the past year and a half, I’ve felt so sad and alone sometimes and hoped that if I rolled myself up tightly enough in my duvet that I’d make some sort of little isolated cocoon and miraculously re-emerge as a magnificent butterfly who has it all figured out.  Instead, I’ve realised that that sort of resolve is useless.  It’s the supporters standing at the sidelines cheering me on when my legs don’t want to keep running that gets me through.  Maybe the cheers of our friends get drowned out with the noise in our own heads sometimes, but listen harder.  They’re routing for us.  It’s the small things that suddenly seem to have made a difference.  It’s my family telling me that I can do it and my friends believing in me when I don’t believe in myself and it’s the prayers of my church that hold me up like Pinocchio dangling on what feels like nothing but fine strings…

I dream a lot.  Sometimes I dream that my girls are home and everything is how it used to be.  That’s when I wake up and realise that my reality is a nightmare.  Other times I dream that my girls are spitting at me, venomous cruelty, wishing I was dead… And that’s when I wake up and realise that there is no escape.  I have nowhere to run.  This is reality.  I am a Mother grieving for the children who still breathe.