At this point i only have a vague sense of where this writing might lead. As of from the very get go a lump swells in my throat. Choaking anxiety and also an urge to stop writing , and change my mind about everything i intend on writing about.
Try again, harder, differently. suffocate my soul. Give in and lick the boot again. and then apologize for not doing it right.
What i have set up to write about is how me and my girlfriend&soulmate have come to the conclusion that after what has now become a two year struggle. Stuck in a bureaucratic nightmare. That it is maybe time to “give up” and stop fighting, the machine, our family, shady figures new and old. and instead focus on rebuilding our self from the shells of human beings we have become.
But give up on what. our dreams, our vision of us. Our hopes and expectations, everything we had fought. hard to accomplish,
We lost 2 of our sons after a brief but vicious fight with the Danish and Icelandic Child protection services.
Since this is an introduction thread, i will not keep it long. I will write a lot about our past, what led us to eventually have our kids removed. From how we won them back through hellish struggle. Only to eventually come to this current from the outside point of view crazy conclusion, to temporarily give them back away. Since we feel we are not yet whole. Everything in us has been smashed. we have to rebuild our selfs and we need to do this on our terms, without government intervention.
I will tell you how we moved to Denmark with 200$ in our pocket, our young son and nothing but a phone number from a guy i had talked to the day before promising an apartment, we got him to borrow us a mattress for the boy the first night. How we picked apples and berry´s and relied on the kindness of strangers, and day labour. How we eventually found a decent job for me cleaning a hamburger joint at night.
The dream, a cosy appartment, job with “some but limited growth potential”, it was something, and it was ours. And we had fought hard for it. from the poverty (subject of later installments) and no future to at least security.
As autumn came my wife got problems carrying our second child. And at that point i started occasional having a joint at the weekends. I had been involved in drug use, sale and such back in my home country but all that was behind us.
I don´t want to diagnose here why i started again, (in the past i had used all sorts of things, but long ago, i felt in another world, an adult responsible man). (which i was in despite those weekend joints. i showed up for work every night and did an excelent job, i picked my son up from kindergarden at 16. cooked dinner, cleaned and cared for my wife as much as i could).
The joints themselves weren´t half as bad as the danish governments reaction. They came down on us hard, and realizing we were fighting a loosing battle. My wife not even speaking the language, we fled.
I might write a detailed narrative of some of the things mentioned above as part of our story. that is still evolving, and has many dimensions. I can only hope that you as a reader do not judge me too harsh, nor my wife. For then the moral of the story, and it´s lessons might be lost on you. Its not about winning or loosing for us. it´s about our boys being happy, and keeping our sanity, well at this point regaining it. Picking up the pieces and moving on.
As was mentioned, we lost custody over our two boys, the younger 7 months old when removed, not becouse anything was
proven wrong, actually doctors and "professionals" both had nothing but good to say about both childrens development. but on grounds of suspicion. No urine test no nothing.
Ten months later, every day filled with blackness and deep deep depression self disgust guilt and social anxiety. Going to AA regulatory, going to "12 step advisor", Shrinks, and emergency rehab. Not able to apply for a job for these 2 years. Signed on a paper at government office. we receive the minimum quota allowed. about enough for nothing and sh*it on bread.
But this is only temporary, just dance and be blizzfully pretentiusly happy and extra sober, be more "in recovery"... while we torture your kids, you might get em back if you say you have had a spiritual awakening, thats "in" today isnt it?
So on top of to being the people who lost they´r kids. We were reduced to living of charity from people with deep rooted despise and anger towards us. And we should hold our mouths shut.
Ten months later an investigation by shrinks and professionals taken over weeks long period and costing about the price of two high class cars. concluded good parenting skills, above average intelligence, the older kid was said to desperatly want to move home. two weeks later, very unprepaired we got them home. The whole thing, surreal.
but also later another chapter.
Our older son was so happy to be home. Oh my god! He had the worst 10 months, and we will be writing specifically on his expirence, but obviusly he had developed anxiety, he still fears being taken, and had deep problems after the foster home
He felt freed from prison, but still feared the “service”. But our younger, who had been systematically stripped of contact with his parents resisted. naturally he was being removed from his primary and only caregivers from 7 months of age. He reacted towards us as we were adopting him.
Many things came into play, things could have turned out diffrent.
But at now. there is just the two of us in the house. Me writing this at dawn, and my wife trying to rest. it´s been two long years filled with self doubt and anguish. But we refuse to try and force conclusions.
We need to let go, and trust that we can rebuild some sort of life. Trust that our younger one is happy, we decided to agree on have him sent back “on gevernment advice” for 3 months to the foster home.
But why should we try to force him back, if he feels at home and with his people there, how could we take that away from him. We can´t.
Each and every one of you can and will judge me by yo own perspective and vision on life. I love my son, i want him to be happy, i want to know him, i want to care for him. or him at this moment moving once more and loosing faith in the adults is not a feasible option. Could things have been handled diffrently and we been allowed to meet him normally. then maybe. But i will not force him to our home. however he is allways welcome if and when the time comes.
We hate the word and concept of giving up!
Giving up in our case now just means that we stop fighting and living up to orders from the government that countradickt our belief system, that are humiliating, degrading, and break us down. invasive attacks on our home, family and sense of self. And then feeling like shit when everything falls apart.
I am a 32 year old man, fully capable of work with above high median conceptual skills, (not so great spacial skills tough, heh.) I get 2 people from the government 2-4 times a week, sniffing after weed smell, lookin in my eye and reporting back. This i am having a hard time keeping on accepting, after 2 years and 0 incidents. I don´t see the usefulness for this, its waste of taxpayer money. (however this is still on our"program" will keep you updated).
And living every single waking moment in regret and the guilt. And full of self hate.
It only means giving up for that this is the situation now. We accept that we will not become parents living as a 4 person family, we accept that we will not be moving abroad following dreams again, We stay close to our young boy. He is our son and we´ll be here when he needs us. we accept that my mother has more or less taken custody over the older one as a means to defend him from this wreck of a life his life has turned into these last 2 years (he´s 6 so 1/3) :(
And that we are not capable of offering him much at the moment. Until we find our strenght, and strenght does not come as needed, it´s grown. And it takes time. Endurance we have, we can fight on, and prolong the suffering for everyone involved, or we can step back. in acceptance, hoping for the best. but not let some fight consume our whole soul.
No anger, no regret, we fought like lions for 2 years. We lost everything. But from now on. This verry sentance we stop fighting, we accept, we love, we want to learn and grow and help others cope with loss, remorse, and regret. Without self hate and blame. Life is not always what you wanted, and can taste bitter at times. But if you want it to it can also have lot´s of flavour
We have no home at the moment, been located temporarily in a government apartment,
But we have the motto “million new things” wich is one of our new perspectives i might come into a bit later, we have each other, we have our boys always, if they turn out not to be raised by us, even be it unfair. We have done our best and both will be where they are happy and have contact with there real family.
If we had lost them in Denmark. They´d been lost forever. To us and too each other. So fleeing and burning our old live without ever looking back. Was the best decision we have made in our entire life. Maybe the next best one is to start focusing on building a life for us. so that we at least have something to offer. That we can only do free, free of government intervention, but cutting the relationship with big brother might become tough, and complicated.
I think i will post some updates to this, progress and praxis of these new approaches, how they be welcomed by the government and such. But more i will be posting about the road to here, our youth, the case itself, drug use, drug abuse, the difrence, toughts on so called “alcaholism”. People we´ve gotten to know, those who helped us up when we were down and those who used the opportunity to step us further into the mud. Good people, bad people. And the lessons each and everyone brought with them.
If you have gotten this far. Thank you for reading.