Hi everyone, this is my story

[Humanist-91]

My name is S***, I was born in C*** hospital on the first of November 1991, I am diagnosed with Asperger's syndrome and ADHD, I have not seen my daughter since she was 8 weeks old, she will be turning three this coming may.

I ask you to bear with me with my back-story, as it will become relevant later. My family home as a child was probably not what you'd consider a functional one despite us being "middle class", everything culminated with me being hospitalised shortly after turning 15 during the midst of a family turmoil.

I eventually got free of the systems clutches by absconding more or less two years later at 17, I had money which I'd stashed on monthly home visits saved from state benefits and birthday money, thousands. I had enough to get to Spain, where I lived by myself for the first time in my life, I had nobody so fell in with vagrants and fugitives whom I learnt the philosophy of Anarchism from which helped me make a lot of sense at the world at the time. I swore never to go back to a psychiatric facility in my life, and to have as few dealings with authority as possible, after all that had happened to me in that place. I was able to do as such for a good while...
It wasn't until I was 24, after a couple of years of living relatively peacefully with my first proper girlfriend that I was to come back onto the system's radar, and this was because of our decision to have a child. We were in a good position at the time, lots of savings, good relations with my family nearby, we were living in a flat owned by a relative, we had a spare room I'd planned to paint a light unisex green for our planned baby, we'd even begun to buy bits before she'd been conceived. I got on very well with this GF too and could see myself spending my life with her, we always seemed to have something to talk about, had a lot in common including both having a history of mental health, being hospitalised for it, and our overall distrust of the system. The one major difference between myself and herself was that she already had a child who'd been taken by the government by coercion, she would regularly cry about this and I felt powerless to act for the most part. I knew I couldn't replace her daughter who'd been taken into care, but I could grant her another child and take her mind away from previous grief by granting her a new family. There's no doubt in my mind (then as now) that she was fundamentally a good person, but admittedly fragile one who'd been wronged by the system just as I'd been, she would never have wished harm on anybody.

We announced the pregnancy shortly after my father got remarried, and got what was an overwhelmingly positive response. However, this soon turned less positive after we revealed our plans for the pregnancy. We'd both agreed early on that the state and all its faults would not be involved unless we had no other choice, we would therefore keep our daughter, and keep her off of the system's radar so she couldn't be taken like A***'s firstborn. We planned to home-birth, medicate from home with natural remedies, and home-school our daughter. The most open criticism came from an outspoken and highly opinionated matriarch of the family, my maternal grandmother, who took it upon herself to tell me I'd kill the child if I attempted to deliver her at home off-grid as we'd originally planned, along with filling my head with other horrific scenarios.

Under the pressure I got from her, I went against my partner at the time and made the fatal mistake which I almost instantly regretted of calling the NHS midwives. The most arrogant sounding woman answered the phone, interrogated me and demanded to know why I hadn't told her sooner about the pregnancy, so I trying to get rid of her said something to the effect of "I'm sorry for wasting your time, but we've decided to go privately". Since that initial phone call harassment from these midwives and A***'s doctor did not let up and was putting us both under a lot of stress (undoubtedly raising blood pressure/putting the baby at risk), they demanded we tell them the name of out private midwife and threatened to get social workers involved, it was at this point we knew they were not going to respect our choices and that they may well aim to take our child, even with going with a private midwife would not be safe from the prying eyes of big brother. We knew we had to flee the country.

Myself and the ex, decided to seek refuge in Ireland, encouraged by the deluge of other parents who seemed to be fleeing their to escape the claws of the SS, we left before they could place a care order on us, and told them we wanted nothing to do with them. Still they proceeded to harass the property (asking neighbours about us and going through the bins) and even placed a care order declaring our unborn at potential risk after we'd already left on a plane to Dublin. We teamed up with a group called **** based in southern Ireland, which gives support to UK parents fleeing from social workers and domestic abuse, they gave us advice on legal stuff as well as provided us the number of a doula to aid with the home birth.

The day of the birth came, and went very well, by all accounts was a far better experience for my partner than her hospital birth was, which was a disaster as she was barely able to feel anything due to being drugged so heavily and ended up needing heavy stitching to repair the damage. Even H***, our daughter being born breathing was an improvement on her last child who'd had to be resuscitated after the ordeal in which she was hurried out with all sorts of drugs to force her out. H*** was a healthy child, a good weight, responsive, and A*** unlike before this time had no physical complaints, and said she'd had a much better and relaxing labour at home despite not having a single pain killer, only bath water. The only real problem that became apparent was a post natal slump that A*** experienced, it put me in an awkward position really, especially as I had no family around to support me on account of having fled. I felt I then had to care for her as well as our newborn by myself.

Other than that and a few other minor things such as SMA formula making H*** sick and some brief nappy rash and baby acne things went relatively well, with us taking her for regular walks in the buggy and recording everything from sleep times to the amount she'd fed. I was just getting into my role as a parent when things came crashing down. We had a Judas among us... During her post natal state A*** had cried to her mother, a bizarre woman from the little I knew of her whom I'd only met a few times but I trusted because A*** did, and I trusted her own judgement about people she knew even though I knew she usually only spoke with her mum on a monthly basis.

This betrayal from her family, that still sickens me to think of resulted in a 6 hour siege of our home, with police dogs, armed officers, battering rams and a trained negotiator. I spoke to these police and repeatedly told them to leave us alone and that I was just an innocent person caring for his daughter, but the siege did not let up instead getting worse and worse with more and more vehicles and police piling up outside. The end result of all this was me getting brutally beat (something which I still suffer PTSD from), my partner of the time wetting herself out of sheer fear, our daughter being taken into "emergency care", and us both being arrested and sent for psychiatric evaluation. The psychiatrist much to the arresting Gardai's (Irish police) dismay let us both walk, considering us both to be of sound mind, one Gard in particular took anger with the psychiatrist arguing with her decision not to section my partner (even going so far as to verbally abuse and swear at my Amy). By the time we'd both been psychiatrically assessed and got home it was the early hours of the morning, but we were both happy and probably lucky not to have been detained. We found they'd confiscated many of our electronic devises including my phone, our laptops and the camera I'd filmed them on, they'd also taken our cash, luckily we did have a spare mobile from which I was able to contact our family and let them know what had happened.

As I've written too much I will continue with a follow up post! Thanks. *** amended by Suzie to comply with the board rules.

[Humanist-91]

After our girl was taken at a mere seven weeks old we began dealing with the legal side of things and filing freedom of information requests, it was a laborious job made harder by people in the government with nothing better to do but try to make the lives of two depressed parents who'd just lost their daughter as hard as possible. Soon "reasons" began to surface about why our daughter was taken as well as the fact of A***'s family's involvement. Firstly they claimed H*** had been very cold and very hungry when she was taken, despite her not being fed for hours after she was taken and only having a half feed when she eventually did feed, we even got video footage of her being fed on the day which amazingly was returned to us undeleted, they also neglected to mention when they said that she was taken from our home by the police they never even wrapped her in a blanket before taking her out the back door and passing her over the hedge, later they did acknowledge she was healthy when taken from us. Next came pure lies about me suffering hallucinations despite that having absolutely nothing to do with my Asperger's diagnosis, and the claim that A*** had been off her medication even though she'd never taken medication in the entire time I'd known her and wouldn't have dreamed of it while pregnant. They also got a female officer who I'd never met and whom wasn't mentioned on the original police paperwork from day to claim I threatened to kill my daughter, but this was later retracted probably because they realised they couldn't get away with such a lie considering this woman wasn't mentioned at all as being there on their own original documents! The one thing they said consistently is that our decision to have an unassisted home birth (completely legal) put of daughter at risk, this in despite of the fact she was born so much healthier than A***'s first and the fact that A*** herself repeatedly stated it was a much better all round experience for everyone involved.

After she was taken I was allowed to see her one time before being permanently blocked from the contact centre for a comment I made. The whole process of that one time I saw her was utterly humiliating, we had to be searched before we got in and when we did there were cameras, a microphone, somebody taking notes, plain clothed officers and social workers all monitoring us as if we were the worst people in the world. At one point I just said to A*** something to the effect of "Shouldn't we just walk out with her", I never said I was going to, nor even tried to, but this remark alone is what's had me banned alone from seeing her for the majority of her life!

After that they demanded we both got a fresh more "in depth" forensic psychiatric assessment ordered by the judge, they told me they weren't going to allow me to see my daughter until I'd been to one, they wanted to re-hashed everything from when I was a kid and teenager, and simply disregarded the assessment that found us to be mentally fit on the night after we'd been arrested and beaten up by the police. I refused on principle not trusting the professionals to fair at all, knowing all the lies that had been said so far in order to attempt to create a justification for the state's actions against us. A*** went along with it, my feelings proved to be right as the new psychiatrist somehow arrived at the conclusion she wouldn't be safe left alone even for two minutes left alone with our daughter, despite her obviously being fine alone for seven weeks with her mummy and I. The problem now is simply that I've been check-mated, there is literally nothing more I can do, I've argued against the whole premise and legitimacy of psychiatry quoting writers and experts but nothing, they still won't let me see my daughter. A convicted rapist would have an easier time of it than someone like me who's had a history of mental health! I'm not going to go and sit there pouring my heart out and being frank to someone who's clearly being paid to twist my words against me and paint me as a monster, there is no point to humiliating myself further, I know I have been squashed by the power of the state, I, the little man have been crushed.

My refusal comply actually lead to myself and the mother breaking up, they even told her if I continued to live with her whilst refusing to go along with these barmy assessments that H*** would ever be returned, and so I was forced to move out and ended up rough sleeping, I literally lost everything, my income, my home, my partner and my child! And the scary thing is I was trying to protect what I had.... Luckily I'm back in *** with my family now, there's nothing I could do over there for my daughter anyway, the Irish state won't even register her because we didn't have a midwife and like I said she's almost 3 years old.

But... I have not signed up to this website expecting some magic remedy, I know in all likelihood I won't be able to see my daughter until she's 16 or even older, and that my hopes and dreams as well as all the things I wanted to do with her as a child will remain beyond my reach. However, does this mean I can't apply my knowledge elsewhere and help other people out who need it? No! I'm a humanitarian and an Anarchist who's in the process of editing a political manifesto, I dream of a world without power abuses and all these corrupt people, I'd love to see all the humanitarian causes linked arm in arm in solidarity, people helping each other out instead of exploiting others like me and my ex who've had a history with depression. I'm looking forward to getting more involved in this site and activism generally. If you've read all of this up until now you need a pat on the back, I just wanted to share my story so you know a bit about me and why my daughter is in Ireland whilst I'm not.

Thanks everyone for checking this out!
***Edited by Suzie to comply with the board rules

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