I wasn’t planning on posting this quite so soon after my introduction post, to be honest, however I guess I’m hoping to let go of this as a sort of brain dump? A way that maybe, I can get one full nights sleep – It may not make sense, so I’ll apologise now, although selfishly this is my attempt at making myself feel a little better.
It’s been a hard couple of days. For those of you that know me, you know that H isn’t an only child – H has other siblings who are in my care, and whilst I have tried to shield them from things that have happened, ultimately I know that I didn’t do that good enough, and that they are aware of more than I ever wanted them to be aware of. This is something I don’t think I will ever be able to move on from, or ever forgive myself for.
We were due to see H tonight, and it became apparent that one of the siblings wasn’t quite so forthcoming with seeing H. The sibling advised me that they didn’t want to see H, because they have a lot of bad memories of H hurting people. How do you argue with something that is so true? I cant dismiss their memories. I almost feel like I have to choose between children – again. How do you make that decision?
I struggled for so long feeling like I have chosen the siblings over H. I can rationalise that, as H’s eventual removal was not something I had control of, nor was it my choice – it was the choice of the police who were doing there hardest to keep us safe, in a situation where other services were failing us dismally. I can still remember the raw and painful overwhelming feelings from that day however. It’s something I can still feel deep inside.
H has previously said that they don’t want to see some siblings, and that seems OK in the eyes of services, yet when a sibling says they don’t want to see H that’s frowned upon? I feel torn as a parent – what do I do, here? Is there a ‘right’ answer? My heart tells me to support the siblings wishes, however my head knows that I will be penalised for doing just that. It’s not as easy as it seems to look.
i wish I knew what the right answer was – for this time, I tried to support both – By keeping our original plans with H, and also keeping the sibling away at their request for the majority of the time. I’d like to say that our contact session went well, but honestly, It was difficult. H reminded me of the fact that I wasn’t good enough – that I never have been and never would be good enough.