It wasn't supposed to be this way.
I was supposed to love my daughter forever.
Yet she did the unforgivable... and I don't know how you forgive that so I don't even try.
Instead, I work on not going back in to that pit of endless pain.
And I acknowledge that there's a part of me that hates her.
And that breaks my heart...
*
I still can't fathom how or why she chose to be so cruel.
She knew better.
I taught her better than that.
So how do I update you when there's really so little to tell?
I'll start with this...
She should be ashamed of herself.
Yet I really don't think she knows how to be ashamed or what that even means.
After all, she's spent two years living a lie.
But then no one's really challenged or pushed her to tell the truth because apparently that's not how things are done.
Does she think that the truth will mean she has to come home to us?
If she does she's clearly very wrong.
She can never come home to us - that's what one woman told us (Autism West Midlands care line professional).
And I've known that pretty much since Day 1 when this all began.
The only analogy I can think of is when you have a much loved pet that suddenly turns on you one day and viciously mauls you, leaving you with no choice but to have it put down as you know you can never trust it again.
That's why Milly's dad never pushed to have her.
He did initially you see.
He made plans in his head and out loud of how he and she would have to move somewhere else while she got the help she so clearly needed.
But just a short while later (I think it was only about two months later) she made a fresh allegation that basically had me called back to the police station to give a taped, voluntary statement.
I don't know if I've mentioned this before but it's on record that the Police Woman who interviewed Milly stated that she firmly believed Milly should be psychologically assessed.
How do I know that?
Because she told me - and then she told me that she had no power to make it happen and that it would probably be ignored.
I guess if you haven't read through from the beginning none of this makes any sense.
Suffice it to say that Milly made some initial false allegations against me and then 'upped the ante' to a point where her dad felt he couldn't trust her in case she turned on him, too.
But he still goes to the odd meeting he's allowed to attend and still liaises with Social Services on occasion, hoping that in spite of everything he can still help her somehow.
*
I figured out very early on that the only way for me to cope was to basically annihilate that part of me that had any maternal instinct.
It was that or kill myself.
You see, I was barely coping as it was before Milly's fresh lie against me... but after hearing her latest fabrication - and being told by the police that I would have to wait indefinitely whilst they decided if they had enough evidence to pursue charges - and feeling convinced that they would find 'something' as that was what had happened last time I was accused of causing Milly harm (read Year 3 - when it all went so horribly wrong), I cried every day for hours.
And I was crying not only because of what Milly had done and how much I missed her, but also because I knew that I couldn't take any more and would have no choice but to kill myself if/when the police came back to me saying that they had proof and believed her story.
I don't want your pity or your sympathy.
I'm simply relaying the facts to you.
And the fact was that I had a plan and cried over the fact that I would have no choice but to carry it out.
That's what I mean by 'how do you forgive that'?
*
As much as a part of me hates her, I still miss Milly.
And I still do stupid things to try and hold on to a daughter that quite frankly, doesn't exist any more.
Not the way that I remember her.
What was the dining room where she crafted as a child and ate is now my craft area, and although redecorated it still has some of her things on the shelves and a whole whiteboard covered in her pictures.
There's also old photo's of her on the 'fridge door, plus some other drawings of hers.
And I still go on my iPad every day and play a game I used to play with her.
She called the character's 'Moe Moe's' and would have me look after them when she went to school sometimes.
And we still have the elephant toys that sat in her trainers, never mind the toys and the clothes in her room.
Clothes she didn't want even though she had asked for them.
Her bedroom is a dumping ground right now.
I refuse to have it as a shrine, but equally don't want it all to go...
so bit by bit (as and when I can face it) I purge it a little.
But so many of her toys remind me of her that lots will end up staying.
It's all I have of her now...
*
So what's life like for me now, two years later?
I still cry most months, but not all.
Her birthday month is the worst, and as for Christmas - we simply ignore it is even happening.
How can I decorate for Christmas when Milly's not here?
Her stockings that hung on the banister, the 'little tummy syndrome' musical reindeer that she named that hung on the back of the lounge door, her candle holder and ornament she made in Year 1... never mind the soft toys we bought each year that supported funds for a local hospice.
She has her own box of Christmas decorations, too.
What am I supposed to do with those?
I sleep downstairs on the sofa. Neither of our sleeping patterns are great any more and my husband can only sleep with the TV on now.
The dreams of Milly don't happen as often as they used to, and when they do they don't hurt as much as they once did.
I don't want to be dead every day any more but I still want to die sooner rather than later.
'Death is preferable to the pain of living'... and all that.
And I craft to hide the pain.
*
This was intentional and calculated on Milly's part.
We now know that to be true based on a letter she wrote to her dad just over a year ago.
But we still don't really know why and I wonder now how much of it was to do with me feeling quite ill due to food intolerance/histamine overload issues.
Milly wouldn't have understood that I was more out of sorts at times due to losing so much weight so quickly on my elimination diet of plain rice, plain chicken and broccoli day in and day out for weeks any more than she could ever comprehend how I used to go to bed at night and cry about the damage that had been caused to her from last time she was in hospital.
That's just not how she worked.
And I still worry that I made a mistake telling Social Services that she was 'Agender' (a relatively recent development at the time) as I'm convinced that there was more to it than that.
Why?
Because Milly would have a hissy fit if you used the word 'teenager' in relation to her.
But then I have to keep reminding myself that she threw me away and doesn't want me to be her mum any more.
And all I can think is this...
She was such hard work to parent.
But I NEVER would have given up on her.
*
About six months ago, I found out for a fact what I had suspected all along - and I cried every day for an entire week knowing this 'truth'.
You see, even though I had been granted an 'all clear' of being accused of what was formerly known as Munchausens By Proxy, even though Milly now had a diagnosis and a hospital investigation proved that the psychologist involved at the hospital had not even done a full evaluation... the 'Powers That Be' at Social services are convinced that I'm a 'Munchie' parent - and that's why they won't lift even a single, solitary finger to get her the mental health help that she so obviously needs.
And there's not a thing I can do about it.
Even though certain people at her school know she's lying, too.
I can't explain why Milly now eats properly, sleeps properly, does her exercises, manages school every day, etc - but I know how hard I tried with her and I know how much I loved her - even though she was so impossible at times.
But apparently that wasn't enough for her anymore...
*
Please share my story.
Some of you may not believe me and may wonder why you have never heard of anything like this happening to an 'Autistic' family unit before.
All I can tell you is this.
From time to time newspaper reporter's have tried without success to get coverage on these stories.
I've tried contacting many myself and finally got one such reporter to tell the truth about why we are ignored.
It would cost too much money, they say... plus they aren't medically trained to sort out the facts of it all.
I think that's a lie and they simply don't believe us.
We both know that if I wasn't a nobody this story would get coverage... but then those in the public eye would probably have the money to get the support they needed from the beginning and this would simply never have happened.
*
Thanks for stopping by and reading this.
Please ask if you have any questions at all.
Donna...
