yep pretty much. Ryan I only wish I could have been there more and its something i'll deal with in many ways till the day i die.
due to a really bad lawyer and gross mishandling of my divorce, I lost my parental rights completely over an over site that my lawyer had not considered . I was not able to fight the counties system. I couldn't do much more than pour money to new lawyers and child support. Two years after the divorce I went to pick up the kids for my once every 2 weeks weekend, she and the kids were gone their house was empty. the weekend before I had to have my x removed from my mothers funeral due to the scene she was making over a scheduled visitation.I had local police escort me as i dropped the kids off, this was her revenge(in her words) .the next 5 years the kids and my x were gone and the state county and her parents would not help me. not even the courts would help straighten things out due to custodial rights.
After 5 year I got a phone call with a "why haven't you seen your kids" it was from a neighboring county health care worker that was looking into my x and had realized that her stories were not adding up. when my X found out that I had been contacted she disappeared to another state overnight. about 3 years later my kids showed up at my X's parents house. she was in mental health involuntary lock down for a nervous breakdown and other mental issues, as well as a chemical dependence issue. Slowly her parents started letting me see the kids and have them for extended periods of time. eventually they were about ready to let me take over the care (they had custody at that time) and boom here came the county and my x in full glory, rince and repeat.
this time with no lawyer, her parents on my side(mostly) and a decent case against the county human services mishandling, I was able to fight and I won. It was all to late to do much other than help my eldest son dry out. he was found by a real doctor not to have ADHD (he did have some behavioral problems go figure) and try to cleanup my youngest son who was heavily into drugs and the gang scene. my eldist is doing pretty good as an adult even with the rough first portion of his life. Out there somewhere is my youngest, from what I understand selling crack and doing other really stupid things.I and my current wife couldn't save him from himself (that is another thing that i will live with). hopefully someday he will wake up and realize the stupidity that he is currently involved in.
the reason why i decided to share this is not to excuse myself from the bs but rather to clarify, yea it defiantly was a parental issue one that was not fair for anyone involved.
the reason why i am so against the drugging is not for the kids that have ADD or ADHD, but for the kids that don't have it and are still being drugged due to misdiagnoses. proper testing is often over looked and there are a lot of alternative ways to treat this disease especially if the case is not extreme. unfortunately these alternatives are not being used in America to any great extent.
edit: bright side now in my state the school system is not allowed to make diagnosis in the ways they were allowed in the past and some doctors are beginning to use some of the alternative methods. there is some hope
