The Truth about ‘Family’

This blog is the only way I can put my side of a horrible vendetta against me by ‘family’. It is this or another visit to the lawyer and then the police. I just want my family and friends, in Hampshire, Canada and the rest of the world, to hear how it has been for me these passed 3 years. I would never have made any of this public before now but my family have done and although I don’t find it easy writing this, I have no choice. Feel free to scroll passed if you are neither family or friend, but I think it only fair, that I take this one chance to tell the truth. There is a blog going around that I have read, that malign and libel me to the extreme, so I have to do this.

A few years ago, seeing a mother write a blog like this, showing her own daughter in a bad light, would have made me cross, I would have seen it as a betrayal. But not now. Not today. We take so much from ‘family’, we allow them so many chances and give much too much leeway, just because they are family. We put up with so much more from them ,than we would from anyone else but sometimes, enough is enough. I have taken flack from people, some who I have not seen for more than 40 years, who know nothing about me but are suddenly attacking me on Facebook, by email and in blogs. They have lied about me, called me names, written cruel nasty comments on my everyday posts that I then delete, sometimes because the language is so awful. So today I have decided to fight fire with fire. No more Mrs nice guy, I will tell the truth of why this all began and how it might end. It doesn’t make me feel good, I am not finding this easy but every-time I am shown or sent something they have done or said, I say ‘the next time I will do something’. It was said on the blog I mentioned, that I bully my family, bad mouth them, cause them worry and trouble. I have done none of this. My Nan used to say, ‘Evil doers, evil thinkers’. Maybe she was right.Up until today, apart from the occasional quip and reply to a couple of emails, I have done nothing. That stops here.

For the past 3 years, I have been told what I can and can’t post of social media. If I put a photo of my grandsons or my daughters I am told to take them down. If I share a memory that involves them, I am ‘told’ to take it off. One comment was made on a post where I wrote I had hurt my head in a silly incident in my home, I made a joke of it, straight away a silly but  nasty comment from a young woman who has since played a huge part in this vendetta, Sophie Blake who must have been watching my page. They have been allowed to lie about me, insult me, make libelous comments and ruin  or try to ruin, my writing career and now my professional career. From today, I will post what I want, write what I choose as I never write untruths or try to hurt anyone.

Some on here will have seen the post on Mother’s day from my daughter Lisa Pond, swearing and calling me names. She didn’t end there. She also wrote the same nasty things on my author page. As you know, writing on Facebook, shows your real name and your profile photo, so everyone knew who she was. Apart from the cruelty of this, she knew only too well that identifying me on my author page, as I write under a pseudonym for legal reason, would cause me trouble. I deleted the posts, after copying them. The following day I wrote an apology on both pages, for the bad language and the nasty comments, mentioning her and my ‘sister’ Trisha-anne Hopkins by name, as they had already identified themselves. They copied this post, in isolation and sent it to my publisher, both Lisa Pond and Trisha Hopkins rang my publisher, threatening legal action because I had identified them. The fact was they did this themselves the previous day. As I had then been identified by association, my book, which is a bestseller, was taken off the market. Not content with that, Lisa Pond then rang the publisher again a few days later, re a blog  where I had explained, to my readers, why the book was unavailable. They terminated my publishing contract, after 7 years. When I wrote my story, the first time, it was very hard, revisiting the horrors of my childhood. Lisa sent me a card congratulating me and saying how proud she was of the fact I had been strong enough to tell my life-story. Telling me, as she had done many times before, what a great Mum I was and that she loved me.I still have this card and anything she ever sent me.Mums do that don’t they. It hadn’t been easy writing of the abuse and cruelty of my ‘mother’,but I wanted to help others who had lived similar lives and have succeeded in that. I have since, had to go through my book once again, and add a new part to explain what had happened and then have it published again. Causing me pain and upset to say the least but I wasn’t going to be bullied into allowing my book to be out of circulation.

Why had she done that? Back in 2012, she was a foster-mother with a child in her care who came from a sexually  abusive home, a little  girl who was  a bit difficult, as children who have been traumatised often are. My daughter was paid very well for children like this child because of the extra demands made. Then she was asked to foster a new baby, we talked of the dangers of this, falling in love with a baby was easy, parting with her may not have been. She fell in love and decided to adopt this baby, this was early 2013. I was fully supportive and did all the paperwork as she found it hard, travelled 2 and half hours, each way, rented and paid for a room to meet with the Adoption social worker. All willingly. Lisa had done some very dubious things in her adult life but I really believed she had changed. Things that we had fallen out because of. Selling furniture that she was looking after for me was one. Many others, I always forgave her. At this time, Lisa would ring me sometimes 3 times a day and send me photos of my soon to be grand-daughter. My kitchen and study were full of baby photographs. A happy time.

After my interview, Lisa often told me, by  phone or email, how she disliked the older child she was fostering, how she didn’t even like having her in the house. I would hear her when on the phone to me, tell this little girl to go to her room, that she couldn’t stand the sight of her, in a really nasty tone. Yes, she was difficult and did some things that were hard to understand but she had been through so much and my daughter was aware of this. As an abused child myself, the subject of my book, I knew how hearing things like Lisa was saying, making it clear how she didn’t care about this child, felt. She often sounded like my ‘mother’ and I knew , first hand the damage this could do. I told her many times how this could affect her foster child but my worries fell on deaf ears. I suggested that she asked for this little girl to be taken away and placed with someone who could love her, care for her. My daughter, I am ashamed to say, told me that she couldn’t do that because if she didn’t have the income from this child, she would not meet the criteria that enabled her to adopt. I was appalled, I told her that no  child should  be a  meal ticket and no reason to keep a little girl she just didn’t like. We agreed to disagree, I thought, but I was wrong. The next day, without saying anything, she blocked me on social media, unfriended me and shut me out of her life. She told me I was no part of her or my grandson’s lives. My husband believes she thought the Statement I made to the SW had been signed and sent off. It hadn’t. The following day it arrived and this put me in a very difficult position. It read that we were very close, that I would be her Pivotal support where the children were concerned, that she would come to me in a crisis etc. That I would be her first port of call. How could she do that if she had shut me out? I wrote to Lisa, saying she had put me in an impossible position but just had abuse back. I wrote to the Social worker, Nicola and asked if I didn’t sign the statement, would it affect the adoption as I didn’t want that. She assured me that it wouldn’t and understood how I felt if I had fallen out with Lisa. I didn’t sign it. I have the emails to this day along with the nasty emails from my daughter during this time.

Then the worst thing happened, my sister ,Trisha-anne Hopkins,who had not been in my daughter’s lives for almost 40 years, heard of our ‘falling out’ and went in for the kill so to speak. Something she had always done in the first few years of Lisa’s life. Belittled me in front of her, tried to come between my daughter and I. Now she has succeeded. I know of old, falling out with Lisa would always be made right. It happened often. She would either phone or email and ask if we could be in touch again. I knew as soon as I realised that Trisha was in her life, I had lost her forever. This woman is the nastiest cruelest person I know, very much like my own mother was to me. She has done some wicked things in the past not only to me. In childhood, if ‘Mum’ had stopped talking to me as she did often, the rest of my family wouldn’t or couldn’t talk to me either. Isolating me and as a child that is hard to bear.

In the past year at every opportunity as some of you will have seen, both my daughter and sister come on here, or my Facebook page and my author page and make derogatory comments, out of the blue. A few weeks ago, as I do, I posted re my telephone call with my brother Tony, on Facebook. I have friends on here from Hampshire, who knew Tony and I when we were small, this is a way of keeping them in touch. In this call, I joked how Tony seemed to know more about my life here than I did. He had asked how Marie and her husband were getting on in their new house on the ‘farm’. I didn’t know what he was talking about and he said he had been told that they had moved into a house on our property. I laughed and told him that they were renovating a static on our ‘farm’ to live in, while they saved for their own home. That was what the post meant. The following day he rang me very upset. He had been told that I had written on Facebook, that he, Tony, was telling me things about what was happening in the family, and then posting that on Facebook, using him to find things out.  I didn’t know what he was talking about. When asked, he said that was what his daughter Tina Phillips had told him. She was there when he phoned me, she had been very angry and I believe told him to ring me and break off contact.He hadn’t seen my post, he doesn’t have a computer and so doesn’t have access to social media. I asked him to look at her Facebook and se what I had actually written. I had never written anything bad about my brother. Why would I? He said the only thing he could do was to ask me to stop contact with him. I was mortified. Tony and I have never fallen out, we are very close. I had always thought highly of Tina but I also knew she was in touch with my evil sister. I told him what I had said and asked if he believed what he had been told by others. He said he didn’t but he couldn’t take the stress from his daughter. The next day, after a sleepless night of tears,I wrote to Tony,sending him a copy of my Facebook post but heard nothing back. That evening, Tina Phillips wrote a nasty post on her Facebook, telling lies and bad mouthing me to all and sundry. I was made aware of this by someone who thought I should know what was being said. I wrote asking her to take it down as she had put both my name and my author name on open Facebook and that was not allowed. She took it down. This was followed by many nasty, emails from someone called Zi Zi Mavindidze, someone who doesn’t even know me but is a friend of Trisha and my grandson. Then followed by emails and messages from Sophie Blake, Tina’s daughter. Someone who in the past, I had tried to help when she was in trouble.I am heartbroken that Tony is now without my telephone calls, letters, presents etc.and that I have lost contact with someone I love. 

New Years day this year, I rang my middle sister to wish her happy new year as always, only to be met with abuse and orders that I don’t contact her again. When asked why, she said she seen nasty wicked things written about Tony and my dad William on ‘that Facebook’. June, my sister is a vulnerable adult who can’t read and does not have a computer. This had been told to her and for some reason she had believed the lies. All of these people are now in touch and have isolated me from the rest of my family. Just as happened many times in my childhood. I  wrote on my page that I would have to take family members off my page which I did and blocked those causing me trouble and pain, thus missing seeing nieces, nephews etc and having posts and messages from extended family, all to keep myself safe. It didn’t work.

My ‘sister’ Patricia(Trisha Hopkins) said I am no part of her family. Well I am grateful for that.My eldest sister Georgina died 2 years ago and would be horrified at my treatment. June would rather believe lies and I can’t get down to her to talk to her and tell her the truth. Tony? Well he has little choice as he depend on Tina to look after him. So are they any loss to me , I don’t think they are. I am better than this a bigger person than them. I have family here and some back in Hampshire who love me. Who know me. I have friends I have had for all of my life. All built on honesty trust and love. I don’t need this nasty rubbish in my life any longer.So Thankyou Patricia for excluding  me from your family. I do however, feel sorry for my daughter and her family having you in their lives.

A few weeks ago, I began these blogs. From the very first one, I have been plagued my comments etc. by someone who goes under the name of Romeo Harte, Romieweb, rosieweb, roseyhardy. I believe this to be Sophie Blake, who uses the name Amanda, who had already been abusive to me in emails. This ‘roseiweb’ began a blog that bad-mouthed someone who has written a book, whose daughter is a foster-mother etc, meaning me, and who is bullying her family. This blog is full of libel, lies, defamation and worse. It states that the author named everyone in her book and that having it published with the additions,  could ruin her daughter’s life. I wrote to this blogger, when they put emails, comments etc from both of my Facebook pages on the blog, thus identifying me as the subject of the lies on their blog. I wrote saying  I have never named anyone in their real names, that I had to keep everyone’s identity safe. I had written as suggested by my solicitor, asking to take the blog down but nothing happened. It has now become much more serious. It is threatening, malicious libel and has copies of my private emails , only my replies, not the nasty things sent to me, comments I have written on my pages and posts . The email replies have been posted  with both of my names, side by side, on this blog along with my telephone number and credentials. Unforgivable and maybe illegal.

So you can see from this that I have had enough. Can’t and won’t sit back and let the lies continue without my telling my truth. I know it was a long blog but it covers only some of what I have had to endure. This blog is not for sympathy, not for concern, purely to tell my extended family Simon Slaymaker,  Samantha Simpson,  June’s daughters etc. and anyone else who has been told the lies from these nasty people, the truth and what ‘family’ have done to me. I have kept copies of everything that has happened, as suggested by my solicitor, all the emails, the screenshots, Facebook, WordPress comments everything.  I have evidence if needed, to back up my truth. Shouldn’t need it but after the past few years, who knows to what depths some people will go.

I blocked all of these people from my social media but they have come on in different names. Sophie has many. Lisa has used Bonnie Bon, Willow Pond and her own name. I have always written on my pages in my own name and on my author page in my author name. I don’t have anything to hide. I have been accused on the mentioned blog, of writing under the name of Valerie C Wright. I haven’t and don’t know who she is.

Just to end, I am scared for my daughter, the person she is now calling Mum, her words, the person who calls my grandchildren her grandchildren, is a horrible excuse for a woman. I have an email that she sent me  ‘from…. (adopted baby’s name)…….Nan’. Cruel to say the least. I never in my whole life envisaged the scenario where I would tell all of this on social media or anywhere, about my own daughter. How can I do this now? I am left with no other choice.  Lisa stated for everyone to see, on Mother’s Day this year. ‘I am not your daughter, you are not my mother, you are nothing to me. Trisha is the only mum I want’. So that makes writing this easier for me. Of course it all hurts and I will always hurt but can’t allow this to continue any longer.

Thank you for reading . x

Author: carolannwright

I am a Cognitive Behavioural Psychotherapist and author. I live on a beautiful smallholding near the Welsh coast with my husband, daughter and ponies, dogs, cats and ducks. An wonderful peaceful place to live. I have a Masters in Counselling CBT and run my own private practice where I see a diverse group of clients. View all posts by carolannwright