S.S.S. (Sodding Social Services)

Please bear with me while I vent.

In February of this year, I reported my own parents to social services for their treatment of my younger brother. Abuse, in almost all of its conceivable manifestations, has been a part of our family life for some time now, and I really feel that my brother - we'll call him Paul - bears the brunt of this.

My mother has had issues with depression and overall mental health for some years now. Much as I love the woman - and I do - she is self-absorbed, insecure, spiteful, vicious and has a severe "martyr complex". She views herself as the eternal victim, and is entirely averse to so much as the mere concept of personal accountability. My father, while decidedly more mentally stable, is - to use a colloquialism - completely whipped. My mother has always been incredibly condescending towards him, especially in arguments. I think it's a part of her insecurity, but the effect of this on him is that I believe him to feel more or less entirely emasculated. He feels he gets no respect from my mother, but he can't punish her because that just wouldn't be appropriate, so he transfers his requirement for respect and authority(ish) onto his children. I think he is, deep down, a very good man, as I think in some ways a lesser man would just have taken this rage out on his partner, but this transference is dangerous. It is even more dangerous when you combine it with my mother's mental instability and lack of responsibility, and a complete inability on his part to stand up to her. I also think he feels incredibly isolated, and the thought of his marriage to mom actually breaking down terrifies him, so he's afraid to rock the boat too much.

Thing is, my sympathy for them kinda ends there. I love them, but they are seriously. fucked. up.

Since my teens, I myself have been shouted at, screamed at, hit, slapped, punched, choked and told that my family would be better off without me. Not all the time, just when my mother was in one of her "moods". These periods would be interspersed with relative affection and normality - whatever that is - so for adolescent me this was all rather confusing. I got on rather well with my dad, mainly because I didn't tend to try to get him involved in the conflicts between me and my mom, and I am by nature HIGHLY non-confrontational. I used to blame myself entirely for the abuse, and rationalise it by saying that my mom was just very stressed. My sister - let's call her Paula - is autistic and has numerous health issues, and this was a major stressor for my mom.

However, things have escalated since then, and now that I am in my 20s and no longer living at home, it is Paul who bears the brunt of - mainly my mother's - frustrations. He is more confrontational and a traditional "angry teenager" than I was, so he tends to get into confrontations with both of my parents. He talks back, he gives cheek, he doesn't do as he's told. Relatively standard fare, to be honest. Any of you who have, or have ever known, a teenage boy can probably testify to this. Teenagers are fucking annoying... But the response to his relatively minor transgressions is anything but normal. There have been increasinly numerous occasions where Michael is kicked, slapped, punched in the face and head, hit with objects like rods, screamed at, threatened and otherwise abused, and it makes me fucking sick. I am honestly disgusted at my own parents. I love them, but right now they disgust me.

So - I reported them. In February, initially. There was another incident that was quickly spiralling out of control, and something inside me just snapped. Paul is 9 years younger than me, and to be honest my feelings for him are somewhere smack-bang in the middle of sisterly and maternal. I'm very protective of him, and I knew that something had to break the cycle, and that furthermore it wasn't going to come from within the family, if at all. I went to the police station in town and filed a report. The police spoke to my parents, brought Michael home (I have no authority to remove him from the house, not being his legal guardian), and referred the case on to social services.

It was 12 weeks - twelve. fucking. weeks, before anyone contacted my family about the case. Never mind the fact that anything could have happened in my family during the course of 12 weeks, when they did contact the family, it was my parents they called. Reasonably enough, you may say, but they barely spoke to my brother about it, and they didn't speak to me at all. As both the one who initially filed the report, and an adult member of the immediate family, I would have imagined it would be only rational for them to inform me of any progress.

No, no - I actually had to ring the HSE, ring my brother to ask HIM what the social worker's name was, track down her number myself, ring her and REQUEST an interview in order to give my side of the story... only to be told that for me to do so, she would require my parents' consent.

Well - that's fucking bright, isn't it? Because as the ones actually being accused of child abuse here, it's not like my parents have anything to HIDE that they might not want me to say to the social worker, what with me being the only non-abusive adult involved in the whole scenario and all. There's no way they could have any illegitimate reason to withdraw their consent for me to give my side of the story. Fortunately, though, they DID give their consent, but the fact that it was necessary at all seems superfluous and illogical. It's not even like I was looking for confidential information. I was a member of the family and a witness, trying to give my perspective. Jesus Christ on a bike Ireland drives me insane sometimes.

Since then, things have gone from bad to slightly worse. Social Services are just epically unhelpful in this country. It's breathtaking. The social worker in question has gone from unhelpful, to rude, to victim-blaming, to justifying my parents, to just fucking useless to unhelpful again. There was another incident about 2 weeks ago and when I rang maybe 4 days later to report it to her, she gave out to me for not acting fast enough, saying that it sounded like a serious incident.

First off, you thick bitch - it was a serious incident the last time, too, and you took 12 fucking WEEKS to do anything about it, so hey - I guess I figured 4 days wouldn't offend you. Secondly, I was doing things in those 4 days that involved getting my only income from a charity, since I've been kicked out of home and am basically destitue, and ensuring that my brother was in no immediate danger. Thirdly, how fucking easy do you think this is for me exactly? I've basically made myself a social pariah in my own family. The only people who appreciate what I'm trying to do is Paul and Paula - everybody else thinks I'm a neurotic oversensitive bitch who just doesn't appreciate how hard her parents have it, sob sob! So you can take that attitude and shove it right up your fucking ass. This same woman told my brother in her initial interview with him that she saw no problem with a ibt of corporal punishment. There's a reassuring sentiment from a child protection worker if ever there was one.

Right now, I'm at my wit's end, basically. I reported my parents to authorities as a last resort, and they've helped about as much as a chocolate fireman would have with the Towering Inferno. Hooray, another victory for Mary Harney and her team of incompentent gobshites!!