30/06/2021
A true story!
Following on from yesterday I will give you an example of how fear of authority can affect how we approach those situations, and see them and the people in it as difficult.
I supported a lady through the family court regards to her son and contact with her abusive ex.
This lady was in absolute fear of losing her son, she was only trying to protect his welfare, particularly as he had obvious autistic traits and was being assessed at school and through other agencies.
Because of the domestic abuse relationship she had removed herself from in the past, she had multi-agencies involved in her family, social worker, Mental health teams including CAMHS, the school and then other support, including me from a domestic abuse team.
When she came to me she was going out of her mind with worry, she was stressed and in fear and panic. Her case at the family court had escalated and her son was now a child at risk.
It seemed the more she screamed and shouted to protect her son, the less she was heard, the more she put her case forward, in every which way, the less she was taken seriously, and the more she was deemed as being unstable.
This sounds very unfair, but unfortunately this is the case for a lot of people in the same situation. When you are in this extreme fear and panic, coming from an anxious place, it can seem to others that you are being irrational and unstable. As you can imagine this just gave this lady’s ex more power and credibility to fight her, and she was on the floor with exhaustion.
When this lady came to me she was in turmoil, she felt unsupported by the very people she was being asked to trust, but their approach to her had hidden judgements and preconceptions because of her approach and in their view, her unreasonable behaviour.
She came into my room with a huge sack bag full of paper work and she went in to obsessively go through every word on every bit of paper, I could see the panic, frustration and anger in her. She was desperately trying to make me see her point of view, she was justifying her every move. I said that I would take the bag of papers and go through them, but for now we will work on her and how she was feeling.
I worked with this lady for 3 months, I supported her and the family, I attended family court and multi-agency meetings, and we completed my Empowerment Programme together.
This lady went from being a mess (her words!) that no one took any notice of, to owning what she wanted to say, without any anger or frustration, in a calm and polite manner. She started to notice that other people took notice, other people listened, they started to shift their mindset about her. She was taking the lead, she was telling them how they could help her and the reasons for this to be necessary.
The thing is she had been relying on these people to do their job, without realising that effectively they were working for her, they needed her clear instruction. She had been relying on them to tell her what to do. She basically took control of the situation, developed her self-worth and self-belief, this increased her confidence and she began to see the situation clearly.
The end result was awesome, we had a meeting with the social worker who had been allowing herself to be befriended by the abusive ex (pretty classic domestic abuse behaviour) the lady ask poignant questions to highlight that this had been happening and that the welfare of her child was not priority. She had an apology from the social worker and was assigned a new one.
She organised a multi agency meeting at the school to get everyone on board with the care plan for her son, this included the assessment for her son’s autism. She got extra individual support for her son at school and at home.
The family court day came, she was no longer worried, she was calm and confident, she had every reason to be. At court there were 6 professionals from various agencies there to support her, including the social worker. The court hearing didn’t last very long, she was awarded full parental control and an apology from the court for causing distress.
After the court hearing she asked me if I ever read her bag of headache, I smiled and said no! I knew she didn’t need all that anymore, it was just weighing her down.
We laughed..
