I wasn’t going to blog today but now I feel I have to.
In past blogs I have referred to the estrangement of my eldest daughter and her family, her choice.Some of you have asked me what happened and I have alluded to that in previous blogs but not in detail. Haven’t wanted to show her for the person she has become I suppose, wanting to believe the little girl I brought up was still in there, somewhere. Sadly I now today know this is not true.
Back in 2012 as some of you know, I was embroiled in a nasty 6 months at the hands of a hoaxer online ,who made me believe she needed my help. She stated she was being sexually abused by her step father and needed to talk to someone who would understand. To cut a long, sordid cruel story short, this resulted in my being available to this woman 24 seven for 6 months. Ending up with a court case and she was found guilty and given an order to stay away from me for 10 years.
At the same time, my best friend was dying of cancer and I became very low. The only saving factor in 2012 was that my eldest daughter was fostering a new baby and would send me photos of this child , sometimes 5 or 6 in one day. My study and kitchen were full of this baby and when she said she was going to adopt her, I was thrilled. Some of you will know all of this because I spoke of little else online, other than having a new grand-daughter.I helped my daughter with all the paperwork, her life story, that of my grandsons and was thrilled to learn I was to be her pivotal support. The person she would turn to if needed. I felt honoured and excited. To do this officially I had to meet with the social worker. I booked my old consulting room in Abergavenny and drove 2 and a half hours to meet with the adoption officer. We spent 2 plus hours talking about my daughter, my grand children, myself and the adoption. We discussed the part I would willingly play in this little girl’s life.I was thrilled to bits and the lady I met knew this. Then I agreed to sign my statement when she had completed it and sent it to me and I drove 2 and half hours home.
Once home I began placing all my photos of the new baby in a scrap book to show her one day.A few a few days later, having not yet received the statement to sign, my daughter wrote some very nasty emails to me accusing me of trying to sabotage the adoption. I had no idea why and was totally confused. I tried to talk to her but she would not answer my phone calls or my emails.Then without trying to discuss this with me, she shut me out of her life. Blocked me on social media and refused my emails. Living so far from her, around 5 and a half hours, I could not ‘pop ‘ and see her to find out what was going on. A few days later the statement arrived for me to sign. It stated how close we were, my daughter and I, how she would come to me for help or advice and how I would be named on the adoption as her pivotal support. I tried to contact her to discuss this but as I said, she had shut me out.
One thing my friends and family always say about me, sometimes almost making fun of me, is that I am too honest. My husband had always said that one day my honesty would be my downfall. Well that day arrived.
I could not sign something that stated my daughter and I were very close, that she would call on me anytime she needed and that I would be her Pivotal Support, for her and this new baby. How could I when she would not talk to me in any manner? I wrote to the adoption social worker and told her that my daughter had turned her back on me for some unknown reason and so I could not sign the statement as it wasn’t true. She wrote back and said she understood and was sad but she could see how I couldn’t sign something that was no longer true.She also reassured me that my not signing would not affect the adoption and that my eldest grandson would step up to be my daughter’s Pivotal Support. The adoption went ahead I am glad to say, I always thought it was the right thing for this little girl and for my daughter and knew my not signing the statement would make no difference.
Since that day, my daughter made my life hell. Spreading lies about my trying to stop the adoption which is simply not true but those she has told these lies and many other to, don’t know me. They believe her and this week I was in a position, once again, where I had to try and defend myself from her lies.These nasty lies and others, she had told to ‘a friend’.Then repeated as an accusation, to me. I don’t mind anything being said about me, I have grown a bit thick skinned of late but I am not any longer going to sit back and listen to lies that hurt and damage me and not tell it as it really was and is.
A few years ago, during my husband’s cancer scare and subesquent surgery, my eldest daughter and my youngest sister made up stories about me and spread them all over social media on my author page. These lies included how I tried to stop her adopting her daughter.I tried to counter these by telling how things really were, my truth, not theirs. It was a horrid time and resulted in their lies,to my agent and my publisher, lies about me that had nothing to do with this episode but about my early life,and telling my publisher that I had broken my word about not identifying anyone in my books, as I wrote under a pseudonym. When is fact, my daughter and my sister made it public on my author page, who they were, by commenting their lies , in their real names! Resulting in my losing my literary contract, maligning my name as an author and as a Mum. Unforgivable damage was done. I remedied the author part of this and my book has gone on to sell over 140,000 copies.But the damage done to me as a person is still affecting me today. At the time I said I would never forgive them. I placed all of the blame on my youngest sister but I now know it was both of them and that hurts more than anything.
Since moving back to Hampshire,believing my daughter knew everything she had said and is still saying about me is completely untrue, believing she was sorry for all the nasty unkind things, too many to mention here, I tried to forgive her and rebuild our relationship. But after asking her and wanting to hear her say she was sorry and that she did not believe any of it, she assured me that nothing she had told anyone was a lie and that she wasn’t sorry. Then as she usually does, without trying to talk about it like grown ups, like Mum and daughter, she shut me out of her life. I lost her and my grandchildren and that hurt is indescribable.
So here I am. I hope those whom she has gossiped and maligned, me to read this and now know the truth. But it doesn’t really matter because I know the truth. Those who love me know the truth. I just want to the lies to stop. I am all hurt out. I am ill, suffering depression and physical problems and can take no more.It takes a big person to admit to telling lies and I now know she is not that person. But I am .
Thank you for reading x
carolannwright 