Home is Where the Hurt is: a haunting blog

[ILoveJellybeans]

In part 4 her, Abby & John are standing in the corner and she says "Mom left the room for a minute to go check on the little ones eating their lunch" so I assume that Henry & Hope are the "little ones".

But please, please, please say this story isn't real. It is so horrific that I can't even imagine how the writer survived it.

Maybe there was little ones then that arent mentioned cause they werent important to the story :( Hopefully the little ones arent mentioned because they werent abused.

[VaSportsMom]

Part 8 is up now.

[ILoveJellybeans]

We have an answer to that question then-there were younger children, but the mom hated the older three the most and blamed everything the younger kids did on them, and the younger kids were abused to, just not as badly.

Im glad Mary's grandmother had some sense...

[keen23]

::Snip::

You know, I really only registered for Free Jinger the minute registration reopened so I could get back to obsessively following the Sparkling Adventures thread.

We all have our gateway obsessions! I came in for the Duggars, and got active because Emily & DNA. Welcome.

[VaSportsMom]

We all have our gateway obsessions! I came in for the Duggars, and got active because Emily & DNA. Welcome.

I came because if Emily & DNA then got lured back out of lurkdom by XGG & DD.

[martian]

I came because if Emily & DNA then got lured back out of lurkdom by XGG & DD.

Thanks for the welcome! I swear, I had no idea how addicted I was to reading here 'til Snark went away and then, literally as I was finally trying to register and going back to look for the answer to the registration question about post count, it all went away. I thought I broke it somehow. I'd been lurking for years and the addiction just crept up on me. Cold turkey was a twitchy shock.

Now I will have to check out the Emily and DNA thread.

[Mommy22alyns]

I only read the first few parts and was meh. I am with the pp who said she was abused growing up. I was, too. I have to say the mental abuse was far worse than the pain of the physical abuse. Bruises heal, but the words your parents tell you eat away at you forever. I will forever feel stupid, ugly, unwanted and unlovable. My mother was narcissist, and a cruel one at that. I haven't spoken to her in 7 years, and it's an incredible relief not to have that kind of "soul eating cancer" in my life anymore.

Huge ((((HUGS)))) to those who have suffered a similar fate.

*raises hand* Narcissist mom here too. And exactly the same - stupid, ugly, unwanted, and unlovable. Hugs to you too.

[VaSportsMom]

Part 9, "The Rest of the Story" is now up. I have a lot of trouble believing her version of the CPS dialogue.

[sableduck]

This whole thing just seems strange. Plausible, yes, but...I don't know. Just something seems really off to me.

[ILoveJellybeans]

I cant believe that CPS didnt remove Mary's youngest brothers from the home just because theyve been isolated their whole life and as theyre teenagers, it would be too much to move them into public middle/high school. I dont think that would happen, if they were worried about that, wouldnt they get a tutor or something to come in and teach them from their foster home, until they were ready to join the real world. They wouldnt leave a kid in an abusive situation.

Im glad the rest of the kids were able to get out of there though.

[dianapavelovna]

Yeah, that's bullshit. If there is enough evidence to remove kids, they're not going to leave them in the home because it'll be tough for them to go to public school. If that did ever happen, it's gross negligence.

[freethemall]

Mary's series is one of the most devastating things I have ever read, and I can't believe that her parents stay so horrible as she becomes an adult and has a child of her own, calling him evil and all that. I'm shocked she'd let her parents even see the child, though I see her reasoning in using it to see her youngest siblings. You have to wonder what kind of image those parents try to give off in public that no one would suspect how truly immoral and evil they are. Shocking.

[VaSportsMom]

Mary's series is one of the most devastating things I have ever read, and I can't believe that her parents stay so horrible as she becomes an adult and has a child of her own, calling him evil and all that. I'm shocked she'd let her parents even see the child, though I see her reasoning in using it to see her youngest siblings. You have to wonder what kind of image those parents try to give off in public that no one would suspect how truly immoral and evil they are. Shocking.

I just don't buy it now that I have read the last part. What kind of parent would use their own child as a pawn and expose him to people guilty of horrific child abuse for any reason? I think the writer went to far with the patting herself on the back in this final installment.

[NotALoserLikeYou]

I don't think it's unusual for abused kids to grow up and still interact with their parents. But I do think this is very sad. She could hacks gone to court to try to get her siblings actually. And CPS would have definitely removed the children if they heard they slept outside with no food. Being too isolated is something they would even consider as abusive or as a risk factor for abuse so I can't believe they would not pursue anything. I also think she needs to explain the rapes??

[2xx1xy1JD]

I know that CPS varies from place to place, but simply closing a file because the boys were "too isolated for public school" sounds bizarre. At the very least, I'd expect there to be a thorough investigation, getting the history of the past abuse, talking with the grandmother and older siblings, getting medical records or finding out why no medical records exist, etc. I've had some cases where children remained in the home after abuse was verified, but ONLY where parents were cooperative with CPS officials and a supervision order was in place. If something had happened to those boys, it would have come out that CPS dropped the ball. At my former CPS agency, a social worker was charged with criminal negligence after a baby died in one of her cases.

[SoybeanQueen]

I, too, find the CPS bits suspicious. It's likely if there was evidence of abuse the kids would have been removed immediately. At the very least, the family would be required to participate in some kind of services (counseling, medical appointments, social worker visits) in order to help "preserve the family unit." If their case was blown off as she says it was, that was a terrible mistake and a lawsuit waiting to happen.

[NotALoserLikeYou]

The conclusion is up.

[Freyacat]

Personally this whole story just doesn't pass the sniff test to me. There are parts - the CPS stuff, the lack of clarity about how many kids are in the family, the sex-related stuff - that just doesn't ring true to me. I think this is either an embellished story or a composite story based on a number of real cases.

[cenarose]

It's very possible that this is embellished, or a composite, or whatever, and I'll agree that some parts don't entirely ring true. But. But. When it comes to the CPS stuff... my cousins grew up enduring almost the level of abuse described in Mary's story, and when the oldest 4 were small, they had CPS called on them 3 times in a single year. My own mother called CPS on her sister. The older children even admitted that their mother hit them and didn't always feed them. And CPS did NOTHING. Years later when the oldest child was 21 and had a home and a stable income, she sought custody of her 2 youngest siblings (who were still very young, not even teenagers) and was denied repeatedly, even though her little brother and sister were clearly emotionally damaged, and starved to the point that their growth was permanently stunted. On her fourth attempt she finally got custody of them. They're both grown now and it took years of therapy and love for them to reach anything approaching emotional stability. (The boy still has serious problems with social interaction--he was probably born neurotypical, but was isolated, ignored, and emotionally abused to the point that he lost any chance at typical social skills, and now interacts like someone with high-functioning autism. And the girl, like all three of her older sisters, struggles with anorexia. They all suffered constant starvation as punishment and were beaten severely for sneaking food.)

So yes, it happens. Sometimes CPS is stared in the face with hollow-eyed, bruised, starved, traumatized children, and they say there's nothing they can do. Don't ask me why. I just know that it's possible.

[2xx1xy1JD]

I just don't buy it now that I have read the last part. What kind of parent would use their own child as a pawn and expose him to people guilty of horrific child abuse for any reason? I think the writer went to far with the patting herself on the back in this final installment.

I unfortunately know of many real-life cases like that.

[Verin Sedai]

Did anyone else get the feeling that the rape scenes were just dreams? That as her sexuality began to emerge she was so messed up by receiving hurt from those who should have loved her most that her initial awakening manifested as rape fantasy? Because to me, it's either that or she really flubbed the writing of those parts. There seemed to be little to no basis in reality for that. (If someone else mentioned this upthread, please forgive my poor memory)

[AuntCloud]

Verin Sedai, that's exactly how I took it.

Not sure what to say about the authenticity of the blog (memoir?). Does homeschooling plus isolation plus religious zealousness plus mental illness make a perfect backdrop for all kinds of horrific abuse? absolutely. Does CPS sometime miss their mark? you bet.

Even if this blog is not 100% real, it could have been, which is even more disturbing.

[Rarity65]

Did anyone else get the feeling that the rape scenes were just dreams? That as her sexuality began to emerge she was so messed up by receiving hurt from those who should have loved her most that her initial awakening manifested as rape fantasy? Because to me, it's either that or she really flubbed the writing of those parts. There seemed to be little to no basis in reality for that. (If someone else mentioned this upthread, please forgive my poor memory)

That's what I thought too.

[DuggarsTheEndIsNear]

I cant believe that CPS didnt remove Mary's youngest brothers from the home just because theyve been isolated their whole life and as theyre teenagers, it would be too much to move them into public middle/high school. I dont think that would happen, if they were worried about that, wouldnt they get a tutor or something to come in and teach them from their foster home, until they were ready to join the real world. They wouldnt leave a kid in an abusive situation.

Im glad the rest of the kids were able to get out of there though.

I find that really fishy, myself. Plus, they moved Hope and Grace, who were presumably under 18 since they were under the authority of CPS, so they should have moved the boys. Seeing as Grace and Hope were sent to live with family, which is the immediate response CPS has (children only enter the foster care system if there's reason to believe that their other options for living with family would be detrimental, no family members would take them, or there were no family members), Joshua and Paul could easily be moved into one of those families.

I do know that if a child is in foster care, and not legally adopted, he or she must attend a public school (you cannot homeschool a foster care child); however, there are programs that would help. And, if they were legally freed for adoption, they would be allowed to homeschool once the adoption was finalized.

[AnnieC 305]

I don't think it's unusual for abused kids to grow up and still interact with their parents. But I do think this is very sad. She could hacks gone to court to try to get her siblings actually. And CPS would have definitely removed the children if they heard they slept outside with no food. Being too isolated is something they would even consider as abusive or as a risk factor for abuse so I can't believe they would not pursue anything. I also think she needs to explain the rapes??

Unfortunately when I was working as a case aid we had one kid who's mom would make him sleep outside in a dog cage at times and we didn't pull him because we literally did not have a bed for him. It was either leave him at home while we tried to help Mom (mental illness) or have him sleep on the couch in the office. So yeah, it happens.

And they say CPS will pull kids just because they're Christian. :lol: