0100 Surviving Medical Child Abuse and Munchausen by Proxy

Chaos didn’t arrive all at once for Charissa; it accumulated.. custody hearings, restraining orders, police lights outside the window, until crisis felt like the only rhythm of home. We sit with her through the memories most people look away from: sibling fights recorded for proof, eighty-plus CPS reports that opened and closed like revolving doors, and a medical maze where stimulants and SSRIs masked trauma instead of meeting needs. What emerges is a rare, unflinching map of how systems miss children when they treat behavior without context and listen to adults more than the kids living the truth.

Charissa explains how overmedication took her childhood offline, sleeping through classes, wired at night, and twice rushed from school with a 160 resting heart rate while suspicions of Munchausen by proxy pulsed beneath the surface. She draws careful lines between control disguised as care, fragmented providers, and a culture that treats children as parental property until eighteen. When an arrest at 18 forced independence, she found a way out: temporary housing, college, and a mission to make sure other young people don’t get swallowed by the same gaps. Today, she’s shaping policy, co-creating a national playbook of best practices, and pushing for adoption of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child.

Across the conversation, we unpack what “best interests of the child” should mean in practice: youth voice at the table for hearings and family meetings, transparent case communication, limits on polypharmacy, tracking doctor switching, and trauma-informed support that tackles root causes instead of staging a calmer scene. Teresa’s ask is simple and radical: believe kids enough to investigate the inconvenient explanation. If we center respect, agency, and safety, we can transform CPS touchpoints from crisis management into real protection—and stop calling survival symptoms “the problem.”

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Transcript

Welcome And Triggering Early Years

SPEAKER_00 0:00

I do believe my mom has much houses by proxy in some way. I kept saying, look at her. Look, she's crazy. Like, it's not me. There was a restraining order to put on my mom. It looked like I was on drugs. That was the norm in my household. You beat someone up, you call the cops, the cops come. I was actually arrested. We were up on 75 milligrams. Extended release.

SPEAKER_01 0:28

Did you find that like there were any kind of side effects or long-term side effects or any addiction that you developed because of all this medication that was I was sleeping in school, never paying attention, couldn't pay attention. Is there no kind of regulation or moral and ethical considerations when it comes to prescribing medication for kids?

SPEAKER_00 0:52

We were zombies. We were zombies.

Custody Battles And Restraining Orders

SPEAKER_01 0:54

Teresa, welcome to Multispective. I am so excited to have you on air with us and to share your personal journey. Um, if you can just begin from the very beginning, where does it begin for you? Tell talk to us about your childhood.

SPEAKER_00 1:08

I would say it really starts around 2008 when my parents split. It was a very nasty, bitter divorce that I ended up being the pawn of. Um a lot of back and forth between my parents and court, and I'm the eldest, I have a younger sibling. And it was a lot of me kind of being the I was navigating everything. Um some random like memories I have is like trying to come up with$17,000 at seven years old to save our house. Uh giving my mother a bag of canned food in a paper bag to give to the judge with a letter. Um and just being like the go-between between my parents. We ended up losing our house and lived with my grandmother for about a year before I ended up in custody with my dad um while my brother was still living with my mom.

SPEAKER_01 2:02

And was that court mandated or was that a possible choice?

Violence At Home And Repeated CPS Calls

Dependency Status And The COVID Shutdown

Arrest At 18 And Forced Independence

SPEAKER_00 2:06

Uh my mom gave up custody of me to my dad, and it was supposed to be for two weeks. And then I was in fifth grade at the time. And somehow, I don't know the full story on this exactly, there was a restraining order put on my mom, me and my mom, so my mom couldn't be around me. And she ended up violating that uh at the school, and it was this big dramatic scene, and that ended up turning from two weeks into two and a half years, I believe. And during that two and a half years, I had been advocating to go back to live with my mom. But I think that was more so a teenager starting puberty, needing their mom, showing them, you know, how to be an adult, basically, whereas my dad couldn't do that for me. And so after two and a half years with him, I went moved back with her. And that's when things started to get hectic, more hectic to say the least. I think the first year it wasn't terrible. If I could go back to it, I probably would, like the opportunity to. Um, but when I got into high school, it got very violent, very aggressive. And it was mostly between me and my brother. Soon enough, cops would come to the house three to five times a week, screaming matches, fighting. I believe starting in 2008 all the way up until 2019, there were over 80 CPS reports that had been opened up for a variety of reasons. Um, abuse allegations, neglect allegations, um, sexual assault allegations, heightened sexual behaviors for children our age, um, which is a sign of like sexual abuse in the home. I ended up making a lot of the reports because my mom's a teacher. And so I knew they were mandated reporters, and I would just go to school and be like, my mom beat me up last night, my brother beat me up last night, no one did anything, help me, you know. And then CP, you know, this cycle would start of, oh, CPS comes, clean the house and get your story straight, and get pulled out of class the next day and talk to a caseworker, and you know, me, I'd be shut down, and I, you know, they'd have to gain my trust for me to say anything. And it was this cycle for at least the next four years. Um, and then COVID hit. And that last year, so like 2018 to 2019, there was an in-home dependency hearing, which is essentially being in foster care without being in foster care. So I was legally in the state's care while living with my mom, while the court was deciding if they would put me in foster care. Every CPS case that had been opened up had always been unfounded of evidence. There w there wasn't ever enough evidence to remove us from the home, to take custody away, to, you know, really intervene in any way, shape, or form. When you have a decade of 80 plus CPS reports, there was a point where it's like we have to do something. And because there wasn't necessarily enough, they I don't know if my parents agreed to sign custody to the state, because with that we also qualified for additional services like Medicaid, um, which would help with behavioral services, which there was this big pointing fingers game that my brother and I had severe mental health issues when it was two children responding to a traumatizing environment. I do believe my mom has Munchausen's by proxy in some way. Therapy multiple times a week for my brother and I, um, where we really just needed like a friend. But as soon as COVID hit, we were one of the first cases to get shut down. So it was they just like, your case is closed, you know, we're not moving forward with it because the entire world was shutting down, and that was an intense time. I am not very open about this part, but I was actually arrested during COVID right after, I think it was two months, maybe not even after my 18th birthday, there was a fight where uh I I was basically beaten with a closed fist while I was, you know, on the ground in a feudal position. And there was a minor involved, and the minor was assaulting me, and I called the police because that was the norm in my household. You beat someone up, you call the cops, the cops come, don't really do anything because it's family issues, and they leave. Um, you know, they separate, and but this time it was different because I had just turned 18 and in Washington State there is a law that is if there is an assault involving a minor, the adult automatically gets arrested. Which I am not necessarily too opposed to. I am a big advocate for like women's rights and domestic violence and stuff. Um under you know those circumstances though, I think that was completely absurd. However, had that not happened, I very I'm pretty sure I would have stayed there.

SPEAKER_01 6:56

Do you reckon that kind of complicated your situation with your mom as well, or with your home situation as well, because it just sort of adds a layer to it where you become sort of less credible in the eyes of the court?

Rebuilding Life And Finding Purpose

SPEAKER_00 7:07

The court really didn't take in anything. I mean, because it was still COVID, they it was everything was open and shut really quickly. Um, I didn't everyone was telling me to take it to trial. As an 18-year-old who had been fed a lot of like US propaganda and had seen how just the court system affects people, I really wasn't comfortable risking my future because I also wanted to be a law enforcement officer. I was charged with assault for DV, which would have meant that I wouldn't have gun rights, I wouldn't, you know, which automatically I wouldn't be able to be a cop. Right. Um, which I wanted to be a detective, and I had an opportunity to plead down to like disorderly conduct for two years, and I was like, I just I chickened out and was like, I'll take it, you know, it'll be off in two years, and that's what I did. But like I was like, I'm not going back to a house where I'm gonna be assaulted and be a victim um and risk my future for that. And so I was essentially on the streets for a couple weeks, found a room for rent in some wild crazy home that I was in for like four months, maybe. Um, got on my feet, got an apartment, and then you know, I've bounced around a couple times since then. But I don't think without that struggle, I wouldn't be where I am today. You know, I'm a senior in college for my bachelor's. Um, I've had a lot of great opportunities to travel and be on panels and and do podcasts and advocate for legislation that had directly impacted me as a child, um, knowing that it will not impact or hold back another, you know, youth like it did me.

SPEAKER_01 8:43

I just want to delve a little bit more into like what was going on with your family at the time. So you mentioned there was like physical abuse, there was domestic violence, there was um sexual abuse, and all of this was happening. And you mentioned that it was mostly at the hands of your brother, or was your mom also quite involved in this?

Mother’s Role And Escalating Sibling Fights

SPEAKER_00 8:59

My mom was involved. Um, it was definitely more sibling rivalry, but you know, there were times where she'd drag me by my hair across the house. She actually would sit there and like record it. Um, she would encourage it sometimes, she would tell us to kill each other. Um, like we were dogfighting. Yeah. Part of me, like looking back on it, I think I'm also pretty sure she has um like borderline personality disorder. So I feel like part of her, you know, didn't know how to handle it, but also was like, you guys are so out of control, just kill each other, you know? But that's obviously not a way for any parent to behave and act while you just sit there and record it. And you know, crisis services never really did much. Um It was the same song and dance every time it happened, and it was the silliest things that would trigger it. I mean, my brother wouldn't do the dishes, and so she took away the Wi-Fi, and my brother would punch holes in the door, and I'd sit there and I'd antagonize him, and then he'd come and attack me, and we'd beat each other back up, and she'd come out and record. And then crisis would come, and the cops would come, and everyone go to separate to your rooms, and tomorrow's a new day.

SPEAKER_01 10:07

Do you know what was the cause of your mom and your dad's separation? Was I'd be curious as to like your dad's role in supporting you through all of this when the CPS was coming, and what was his role in helping you guys?

Dad’s Influence And Parental Narratives

SPEAKER_00 10:19

I stopped talking to him in high school. They definitely weren't meant for each other. I don't think she's straight. My grandmother's from the Netherlands. There was a lot of Catholic European Victorian upbringing with my mom, I would assume. I think my mom was playing a part of a housewife. Um, you know, recently talking to him, there was talks of her wanting to just stay home and and raise kids, and um, I think that's all she knew. And so it was this part being played, and when things didn't go her way, there would be these hissy fits from her, there would be these outbursts, and I do remember the night my parents actually split. She was brushing my teeth aggressively, and my dad walks in, he's like, You can't do that. Like, she's a kid. One thing led to another, I'm not exactly sure what, but somehow we ended up locked in the bathroom, me, my mom, and my brother, and she's like, I'm calling the police. And my dad said, That's fine, I'll wait outside for them. And he walked outside calmly, and I believe he spent the night in jail, and he didn't come back except to get his belongings, and I saw my mom selling a bunch of stuff. She poisoned us against our dad for quite a long time, and I think remembering that, like have like owning that memory, not being told that, is one of the things that makes me realize like a lot of the things I was told weren't true, or they were exaggerated, or they were from a certain perspective.

SPEAKER_01 11:35

And for that period of time that you were staying with your dad, was he kind of also fill filling your ears a little bit about your mom? Or would you say, like, that period of time that you were staying with your dad, was it quite smooth and safe? Did you feel safe in that time or yeah?

SPEAKER_00 11:48

I think my biggest regret is choosing to leave because I was asked what I wanted by court mediators, and I said I want to live with my mom, and I I regret it. He advocated for me to just be a kid. He repeatedly throughout my childhood, and will still say it, that he loved my mom and he still does. There's always a place for her, you know. She he she is our mother, but you know, with my mom and even my grandma, that's your father talking. There's your dad in you. Your father's poisoning you, your father's manipulating you, he he's um mass manipulator. I think there's that side, you know, my mom's side is stuck in this weird narrative mindset, and they can do no wrong, you know, they can't do anything wrong. But, you know, my dad's side of the family, god forbid, you know, they horrible people. But never once have I ever heard my mom say, your father is your father, therefore he has room, you know, he he can hold some sort of space that's not negative. And it's just little moments like that where I can really see who is more pure of heart, more in the right.

SPEAKER_01 12:53

What about your brother's relationship with your dad?

Repairing A Sibling Bond

SPEAKER_00 12:55

He maintained his bi-weekly visits. We had every other weekends with our dad. When I wasn't talking to him, I I didn't want to go anymore. And he continued to go. Right now they're actually living together. I don't think my mom ever really wanted to be a mom, and so she kind of kicked him out when he turned 18 so she could go prance off to Europe for however long she was there for. He's they're kind of butting heads. He's been there a little too long, he's overstayed, he doesn't have you know, he's 20 and he doesn't have anything figured out, but I think you know, he's slowly figuring it out. So he'll sometimes call me and he's like, Dad's being a jerk, and I'm like, you know, you're being you're being a lazy bones. You need to get your act together.

SPEAKER_01 13:36

It sounds nice though that you guys have kind of found a way back to each other, though. Like you and your brother have found a way. So, what was the process? Like, how did you guys work towards establishing building a relationship with each other?

SPEAKER_00 13:46

I think that we're still in the process of that for sure. It's definitely a work in progress. I would say I've always felt very protective over him, even as early as the night my parents split. I basically held him in my arms, protecting him from whatever was going on. And throughout our childhood, I mean I would say, you know, that first year I was living back with my mom in middle school. I think that brother-sister antagonizing rivalry started to amp up, where it then turned into violence. But I mean, I I dressed up as like Hannah Montana as a kid, and he pretended to be my biggest fan. You know, we had a pretty close relationship when we were little, but I think he always kind of knew that I was there for him. He started reaching out to me more, and I just kept showing up.

What CPS Misses: Youth Voice

SPEAKER_01 14:25

Talk to me a little bit more about the CPS, the system, the foster care system. I know this is a lot of advocacy work that you're doing right now with that. What are some of the biggest issues you have noticed in since you started doing the work?

Overmedication And Doctor Shopping

SPEAKER_00 14:38

Definitely like youth inclusion, um, keeping youth involved with the case, having letting them have choice and say in what goes on in their life. Agency and autonomy are big things that I advocate for. Respect is another big thing I advocate for. There were a lot of times during my case in particular where I didn't even know there was a court case happening that day. I didn't know what was going on when social workers were coming, you know, what to expect. I would bring a box of like my most prized possessions to school, not knowing if I would go home on the school bus that day or if I would go home in a CPS car to a foster home or group home. When I started reclaiming autonomy over my own health care and medical decisions, that pissed my mom off. And there was a day where I went to a therapy session and she had like locked me out of the house. You know, she plays little games like that where I think she was just locking me out to make some sort of statement, and I was like, okay, she kicked me out. I'm not like I'm I'm kicked out. That's I took it as what it was. And I went to a group home, was there for I think two, three days. And at the time there was a law that you needed parental permission to be in a shelter if you were under 18. But the whole reason I was there was because my mom had kicked me out, basically. And so there was this whole thing of, oh, she's not kicked out, she needs to come home, she's being defiant, and it's like, no, you locked me out, or you changed the law because I can't even remember. I didn't want to go home, I didn't want to play the game, I knew it was unsafe, and I tried staying there, couldn't stay there because I didn't have parent permission. Now parent permission is no longer required in Washington State to be in a homeless shelter.

SPEAKER_01 16:58

When CPS gets involved, do they are they kind of like given a mandatory like, or are the parents then given any kind of mandatory like mental health checks? Or are they being told that in order to be able to keep the kid at home that they have to go and get themselves checked up for these potential? I mean, you mentioned your mom could have had much as a biproxy, you mentioned that she could have had borderline personality. Was that ever at any point diagnosed, or was there any kind of mandate to get a diagnosis?

SPEAKER_00 17:28

So I, from my understanding, is that she was diagnosed and being medicated for borderline personality disorder when she was pregnant with me and started the doctor shopping when she was pregnant with my brother, and then ended up stopping taking all medications. I have never known her to take medication. She's always maintained that she's had no, she's never been diagnosed with anything. I was diagnosed with ADHD at about five years old. I heard that I was there were attempts to get me medicated for ADHD as early as the age of one. It's genetic. My dad has it.

SPEAKER_01 18:04

Were you and your brother like medicated quite a lot based on your mom's, you know?

Hospitalizations And Taking Back Autonomy

SPEAKER_00 18:08

We were zombies. We were zombies. And I think that's where a lot of the physical abuse stemmed from. Because when you think about this isn't like meth. We were on meth as kids. I was on every single SSRI and ADHD medication under the sun, FDA approved and not. We were up on 75 milligrams, right? Extended release. I mean, I was sleeping in school, staying up all night, never paying attention, couldn't pay attention, because I was also stuck in the survival mode. There was a period of times where like my brother I was almost 200 pounds, right? I was 2.2 pounds shy of 200 at 15 years old because I couldn't stop eating because I was on methylphenidate adderall. And, you know, that on top of depression and anxiety, and my mom tried to get me diagnosed with oppositional defiance disorder. And there's like I had I had a tick disorder diagnosis. I mean, does it look like I have a tick? And so there was this long history of they're mentally ill, they have mental health issues, they have problems. And so the focus was always on me and my brother getting mental health services and diagnoses and treatments and this and that. And I kept saying, look at her. Look, she's crazy. Like, it's not me. Like, we're trying to survive this situation. You need to look at her. Like, she's the one that's not instigating all this and encouraging all this and not dealing with all this. I think at one point she had a parent-peer support, but that's about it. My dad had been saying too, their behaviors learned from their mother. She's the one that, you know, we're the one that she we're she's the one that we're living with, right? So we're gonna obviously inherit her traits, her behaviors, because it's all we know. It's all we're surrounded by. Because she refused to let us see our dad any other time than what was the bare minimum. So yeah, with just the long history, it was it was pinned on us for the you know, majority of our childhood.

SPEAKER_01 19:54

Is there no regulation or moral and ethical considerations when it comes to prescribing medication for kids? Are there no standards regarding what are the other alternative methods that we can treat a child or whether we can observe this child a little bit longer, or what are the steps we can take before we prescribe medication that's gonna alter their brain and development?

Fears Of Long‑Term Side Effects

Understanding Munchausen By Proxy

Why Systems Fail Despite Red Flags

SPEAKER_00 20:16

Yeah, that's one thing that I really tried advocating for, especially as I got in my early teens. And that's where my mom really started getting frustrated because here at 13 years old, you can take charge of your medical treatments. And I believe it was sophomore junior year of high school where I was on a medication, I believe it was called Guamphosine. I was on the lowest dosage, which would have been like one to five milligrams, something like that. And I was essentially overdosing and was sent to the hospital in an ambulance, which the hospital was less than a mile away from campus. And, you know, they said, like, what medications are you on? And I listed them off, and he said, That's why it looked like I was on drugs, like on meth, high on drugs at school. And he said, That's why you're having this reaction. I could not breathe. My heart rate resting was 160. I could barely stand up, barely breathe, barely eat. Like I just I was slumped. And I was ambulated to the hospital. My mom had said I was seeking attention. And one thing I had said repeatedly was like, I'm gonna kill myself. Because like the stress of everything I was going through was so unbearable, and it literally felt like there was no escape until I turned 18 and could physically leave and like just separate from her that I was like, I'm gonna kill myself. I can't do this. And so she was like, She's attention seeking, she, you know, she's faking it, it's all this and that. I got discharged that day. And then a week later, was sent to the hospital again. The same thing had happened where it it felt like I was overdosing, I couldn't breathe, my heart rate was 160. Sent me to the hospital. Same thing happened. She's attention seeking, send me home. Social workers came to school the next day and they said, You are clearly not okay, you are not breathing right, I want you to go to the hospital. And I caved and I went, and I finally said, put me an inpatient. I don't care. Observe me for two weeks. And I was going to a medical high school, right? We were learning about nursing and pharmacy and biomedical engineering. It was a special STEM high school. So I know about HIPAA. I want off all of my medication. I want to be on nothing because at that point it had been around 11 years since I had been medication-free, you know, stimulants and all that. I said, observe me in a secured, controlled facility with professionals, 24-7, off of all medications. And by the end of that, they said a slight mood stabilizer. For a traumatized 16 year old, I felt that was a win. They said, maybe a small dose dose of lithium, you know, is all you need. I didn't need to be on guanphysine, adderall, methylphenidate, any any of the, you know, I was also on sleep medication, Zoloft, like 50 milligrams of horse. Tranquilizers. And I left that and they said a light dose of lithium for mood stabilizer. But I think throughout that is where a lot of the doctor shopping came in. You know, you have a doctor that has a brief history with a patient, and you have these different medications, and with my mom not getting the desired outcome, it was, you know, this is what I'm seeing, this is what I want. She's doing this, she's not doing that, this is how she's behaving. And they'd prescribe X, Y, and Z. And then, you know, two weeks later, oh, this is happening, whatever, whatever. And then my dad had mentioned that some of the doctors had caught on to what she was doing and she'd switch, right? And then when the other doctor, you know, it they kept switching, and so they'd have this like long history. And when you have this image of a and there was this point where I just was a bitch. I I would take my phone, I'd record, and I'd be like Bucky psychiatrist, like, you know, and I'd be very defiant and rude and just obnoxious. And like it it really set this troubled teen, defiant needs met, like, you know, we have to control her. And so, like, my mom had a very strong grasp around the medical stuff, and I was trying to pry away from that. And, you know, eventually she kind of just gave up, I think. She was telling me to get pregnant at 16, which is crazy. But eventually I stopped taking all medications. I tried them again when I was about 20, but I haven't, you know, I stopped since, and you know, I'm doing fine.

SPEAKER_01 24:43

Yeah. Did you find that like there were any kind of side effects or long-term side effects or any addiction that you developed because of all this medication that was being forced on you?

Family Therapy That Became Theater

SPEAKER_00 24:53

Yeah, I definitely don't have any addiction issues. I'm actively worried about what the long-term side effects are on those medications because there are several times where I could have died, I believe. I think I'm mostly concerned about heart problems and like heart rate issues. I know having been kind of just a slumped zombie my child all my childhood, I feel very weak. Like in my body, I just don't feel like I was able to get out and move enough. I have a few congenital spine issues, my knees aren't great, and I think a lot of that's just to not having energy and just to being sedated. But other than that, I don't really know for sure anything that's a side effect of all the medications.

SPEAKER_01 25:38

That's really scary. I feel like something like Munchazen, I I I don't know too much about Munchazen by proxy, so I will give you a space to sort of share what Munchausen by proxy is to our listeners. How does one get diagnosed with something like this? Like, is there actually any physical changes in the brain that's causing this, or like, you know, what what can trigger it? Can you tell me a little bit about how it works?

Defining Best Interests And Choice

SPEAKER_00 25:58

Yeah, so the way that I actually learned about it was Gypsy Rose Blanchard. She is one of the most well-known survivors of Munchausen's by proxy because she actually murdered her mom in 2015. She was released from prison a couple years ago after serving eight out of her 10-year sentence. The parallels that kind of helped me put this together were Gypsy Rose was wheelchair bound, had a feeding tube, had a full set of dentures, had her hair shaved, was told that she had cancer, leukemia, muscular dystrophy, among all these other issues. And they got like a house for free from habitat for humanity after Hurricane Katrina um hit her mother, had lived this fraudulent lifestyle of I'm her caretaker, she's sick, she has to be taken care of. Where I noticed my mom was like, it was a lot of mental health issue. She was constantly taking me to doctors, constantly doctor shopping. She's sick, I need to take care of her, you know, this needs to happen, that needs to happen, she has this, this, this, and that. I mean, she diagnosed me with bipolar disorder herself. She was getting me diagnosed with a TIC syndrome with ADHD, OCD, ODD, you know, depression, and everything in the book to make her seem like, in my opinion, that she was a mother, a single mother who had no support and two out-of-control children when the problem really was with her and her lack of parenting and the dysfunctional household we were living in, and it was a distraction. So I don't know the diagnostic criteria for Munchausen's by proxy. There's actually three types. There's Munchausen's, Munchausen's uh by proxy, and Munhausen's by internet. I might be wrong on this one, but I believe Munchausen's is when you make yourself sick, when you convince everyone you're sick to garner sympathy. Munchausen's by internet is where you create this fake persona online. I have cancer, set up a GoFundMe, right? Help me. And then Munchausen's by proxy is a you know, caregiver to a dependent, like a child. And by proxy would be, you know, my case, same with Gypsy Rose. So I had a friend in high school who sadly passed away from sarcoma. And this was days after my birthday had happened. You know, I was supposed to see her when she was on hospice. Like it was it was the first real loss I had experienced like that. And within weeks after that, my mom had come up and said that she had thyroid cancer, which turned out to be completely false. Now she has stage four breast cancer, which I do believe she has breast cancer. I don't know about the stage four, but it's more of the attention-seeking behavior of like feel for me.

SPEAKER_01 28:26

You guys had 80 different cases that had opened up over the course of the years. You were on so many medications, there were so many doctors that had were able to understand that this is probably something much deeper, that you guys didn't need the kind of medication that your mom was diagnosing you guys. How was it that the system failed you guys to the point where, despite you guys, despite them coming into your family so many times that they still were not able to understand that there's something deeper here?

A Better Model: Respect And Agency

SPEAKER_00 28:53

The mental health issues did have diagnoses on our charts. I think she learned the language to use that got the diagnoses. So there was documentation of that. There was not documentation much of the doctor shopping and switching. Um, there was a couple of stable doctors for a while, but I think that's because there was a constant trial of medications going on. As far as, you know, the role of the CPS caseworkers, they are very overworked and they are limited to what they are limited to. Um, it is American culture that children are property of parents until the age of 18, which is one of my big um advocacy points right now that I'm kind of shifting to. We are the only country in the world that has not ratified the UNCRC, which is the United Nations rights, conventional rights of the child, which, you know, as many people know in the news, we're dealing with sex trafficking and child marriage and child labor um and and child abuse. And these are all things that the UNCRC directly um addresses. We are the only country in the world that has not ratified this.

SPEAKER_01 30:07

And how would you define the best interest in a child? Do you think that all children should be able to, at all ages, at any ages, have a say, a complete say, their own life in terms of, for example, which parent that they live with or whether they go into the foster care or not?

Resources, Playbook, And UNCRC

SPEAKER_00 30:24

I had my best interest at mind, and kids know what they want. Like that's been studied, it's been proven, kids know what they want, but you don't understand consequences of actions. When I was 11, 12, 13 advocating to go back and live with my mom, I didn't understand why I was even sent away, why I was in the position that I was in. This didn't come until years and years later that I realized like why certain things happened. And had I known that back then, I wouldn't have made that decision. Yet living with my mom during that time of my life was in my best interest, but it also wasn't. And so I think it's very case-by-case dependent. I think it is possibly age-dependent as well. Um, I don't think there is a right way to answer that. Children are biologically wired to want to be with their biological parents, to get their needs taken care of from them. And so a lot of the times you're gonna have children who are in unhealthy situations who want to be with their parents, who want to take care of their parents. You, you know, you see five-year-olds all the time taking care of their parents when that's not in their best interest, and when they're ripped away, it ends up being better for them.

SPEAKER_01 31:25

A lot of kids that are being very physically abused, uh, they act in fear too. You know, they're scared that if they speak up about the truth of what's happening at home, that they're gonna get beat. So they will not, I mean, it takes so much time and patience to get a child to trust you in the first place to open up.

SPEAKER_00 31:42

Well, you have to think too, how many children don't realize they're suffering from abuse growing up? It's not something they realize until years later or until they hear that certain parts of their childhood were not normal. I mean, I'm still dealing with that. Where certain parts of my childhood, I'm like, wait, that wasn't normal. Nobody went through that except me. Like, it's it's an astounding number.

SPEAKER_01 32:01

Do you know anything about what kind of support are there companies and organizations that had do family support, like family therapy? This is this mandated when when CPS gets involved that they have to kind of sit with the whole family or provide some kind of support to parents as to like how they can better parent their kids.

SPEAKER_00 32:18

Yeah, so I had a model of therapy, family therapy called FFT functional family therapy. It was also paired with BRS, behavioral rehabilitation services. And it consisted of both my brother and I having a therapist, a peer support, and a skills builder person, I believe. Or it was like a caseworker, a therapist, and a peer. We had our own like skills builder, what person, whatever, and then we each had our own peer. And to be a peer, you had to have experience within the mental health system within the last 10 years as a minor. So you had to be, you know, they weren't over like 30 years old at all. Um, and then my mom had her own parent-peer support person, and there'd be like family meetings. I mean, you know, and it's so funny. There weren't even really family meetings. It was like we'd have our own individual little session, and then behind the scenes, there would be these family meetings. And this is again where the whole, you know, youth voice, youth choice comes in. It's like, well, why weren't we in those meetings? I wanted to be involved in these things. I didn't know what was going on behind the scenes. Um, it was a lot of me being analyzed and documented and written about and observed and taken out to do things. To me, what felt almost to be like creating a normal childhood for me as much as possible within the circumstances that I was going through, I honestly wouldn't say it was helpful. And I'm sure there's other models out there, but I know FFT is a is a popular one, at least out here.

SPEAKER_01 33:50

But I don't know of any other models or and you would say that it was not successful because there were lots of parts where you you as children were not involved, and so much of it was just kind of like a formality. And the fact that you were being kind of observed and analyzed takes away from the element of like really trying to help you guys, but rather kind of it becomes like a big show. Like you guys feel like you're being observed, so you have to put on a show, put on a certain performance, and so does your mom, and everything just looks rosy in while they are there, and then the moment they leave, you're back into this kind of it was it was it the show almost became the abuse.

SPEAKER_00 34:28

Problems would arise, and then because they were on call, a lot of the times they would come middle of the night on weekends after hours and such. And during those crisis moments, that's when a lot of it would be amped up. And I think on my end, it was to show the chaos, the true nature of the chaos. And it was this it was this show of let's separate everyone, let's all of us go to your peer support and hang out with your peer support and figure out a way to calm down and basically make it to the next day. Where it's like nothing was being solved, the root of the issue wasn't being solved, it was crisis management in the moment. Where when I would have my appointments with these professionals, I'd be doing their makeup, I'd be playing board games with them, I'd be talking about my snail mill with them, right? It was never therapeutic, it was like play. It was always play and it was distractions. That's a great word for it.

Closing And Credits

SPEAKER_01 35:22

That's so unfortunate because I mean they are trained. Isn't the goal here to actually try to like make you guys all sit down and like work through it, learn how to communicate with each other? So ultimately, I feel like it comes down to something much deeper rooted. It's like even though you have all these government bodies that are here to ultimately like intervene, they're not intervening. Yes, they're doing a great job in making sure that you guys are separated and you are being able to sort of calm down in the moment, but then it doesn't end there. There is a there is that requirement to like, yes, once you guys are calm, to re reunite and have the difficult conversations with a third body present to be able to sort of regulate and mitigate. That was never the case, which is it it blows me away. So I'm gonna just end this interview with one last question. In an ideal world, what would you can you paint a picture of what would you imagine um kind of childcare and childcare protection to be like?

SPEAKER_00 36:19

Oh I think in an ideal world, the best I could ask for is youth voice, youth choice, you know, respect and autonomy, youth protection and support. And I think prioritizing what the youth say. And I think we hear a lot of times that children have an idealistic version of the world, they have a more pure version of the world, a more honest version of the world, and kids, kids don't lie, you know, not in the sense of you know, they express things the way that they know how to, and and and to get what they need. And so when you really focus on what the child is saying, and like you can get a lot of information from that, right? And so prioritizing what they say and listening and not blowing them off, which is what I received a lot of. I feel like had I been taken seriously, and a lot of other kids be taken seriously, a lot of the issues that youth and care face might not exist.

SPEAKER_01 37:22

Thanks, Teresa, for sharing like your story, being vulnerable in the area, but also talking about how like the system is and what can kind of be done. I think that's also a really important element to it. And you know, anyone listening to this that is invested or is a part of this kind of field or industry, like I really hope that there's something that you can take away and maybe advocate for as well. So, yeah, really appreciate it.

SPEAKER_00 37:45

Thanks for having me. I do have um a couple links that I can send as well of projects that we've been working on. One of them is a national playbook of best practices. We just completed that and we compiled, we had 12 lived experienced youth come from across the country and basically said what was working best in each state um to support youth, and that's a really good resource for policymakers and um professionals in the system. And then I can send some information as well on the UNCRC. Yes. Because that's becoming really important and um anything else I can and find that's relevant to.

SPEAKER_01 38:24

Yeah, definitely. That would be really great. I think that's gonna be really informative as well, like for anyone that's yeah, looking to sort of like help the little kids that are involved in this. So yeah. If you enjoyed the episode and would like to help support the show, please follow and subscribe. You can rate and review your feedback on any of our platforms listed in the description. I'd like to recognize our guests who are vulnerable and open to share their life experiences with us. Thank you for showing us we're human. Also, a thank you to our team who worked so hard behind the scenes to make it happen.

SPEAKER_00 38:56

Lucas Piri, Stefan Menzel.

SPEAKER_01 38:59

The show would be nothing without you. I'm Jennifer, host and writer of the show, and you're listening to Multispective.