Hi: 

I hope you can give me some insight. I married in 4/1995, had a baby in 11/1996, moved to north dakota in 7/1997 and in 2/1998 my husband was diagnosed manic bipolar with psychotic features. In 11/1998 my husband went to the store and three days later ended up in Los Angeles, California in a psychiatric hospital due to becoming delusional at the LA airport. He was placed on a 14-day court hold on 11-13-1998 and on 11-16-1998 his mother in Alabama committed suicide. He was released and was supposed to be put on a one-way flight to Birmingham where family was picking him up. LA dropped him at the airport and did not take him to the plane. 

Of course, he never got on it. He called me at church in North Dakota from Little Rock, Arkansas on 12-1-1998 and our church bought him a bus ticket to come home. I had commitment orders, state's attorney had commitment orders, family services had commitment orders and Southeast Human Service Center who had had contact with the hospital in LA picked him up at the bus depot and took him to the hospital where it was determined he was not a danger to himself or anybody else and was put on six different psych meds.  

Three days later he almost killed me by covering my mouth and nose until I lost consciousness. He also broke my hand by biting me and I faked a heart attack to get out of it and the neighbors called the police. He was arrested and charged with domestic violence and assault and violating restraining orders which are no good!!! 

I sought help from Rape and Abuse and also my church. Social Services became involved and helped me to move to public housing. Social services goal was for family reunification so I participated in his treatment at the state hospital in Jamestown. We had intensive in-home therapy thru the Villages and I was taught how to use a protection plan if my husband quit taking his meds or became violent again. 

I have been in the medical field for 27 years and I also took classes to learn about my husbands illness. 

We were brought into juvenile court and were charged with failing to provide a home without chaos. I did help defend my husband in court at that time because I believed that he was in a psychotic delusion due to his mothers suicide and improper medication dosages and monitoring. His maternal grand mother had also committed suicide the year before in Alabama and that is what precipitated the move to North Dakota.

He was found not guilty due to lacking criminal responsibility due to mental illness. He was involved in numerous services for his mental illness but was not made to complete anything. 

In 6-2001 I had my husband removed from the house because I knew he was getting sick and I could not get any help anywhere. 

In 7-2001 my husband became ill again and I followed my protection plan and took my oldest daughter who was 14 to a friends house and I and my four year old daughter went to a different friends house where my husband found me and kicked in the front door which was metal and assaulted my girlfriend who weighs over 300 pounds so he could not get thru her to get to me. After two unsuccessful calls to the police where they came out and by the time they got there he was gone but he was right down the street watching the whole time. He was finally apprehended on the third try. 

Three days later my kids were taken away from me for failure to protect. The treatment plan given to me by social services was for me to provide a home free of violence and was TOLD to divorce my mentally ill spouse of four years of marriage or never see my kids again. My youngest child is his only child. I have previously been married and have two other children ages 23 and 29 and also two grandchildren and also my 14-year-old daughter is not his. 

My kids returned home in 11-2001 and my-ex was released in 4-2002 not to return to me. I had a criminal no contact order and a restraining order which nobody can seem to find when I need them even though I hand carried original certified orders to the different agencies myself and I also carried an original on my person which I was told by law enforcement that they weren't worth the paper that they were written on. I was constantly in fear for my safety and my children's safety but no one seemed to care. 

When things got worse I refused to call the police because they would just take my kids again and leave him alone and continue to put me thru a living hell. 

My oldest daughter finally went to social services on her own on 9-16-2002 and she was put into protective custody and on 9-17-2002 the police and social services came to my house and instead of removing my-ex which they had a court order to do, they took my youngest child into custody. 

My older daughter returned home a week later because my ex was gone and that is all she wanted. But to this day I am still fighting for my now six-year-old daughter who has been in foster care for over a year now. 

My ex is still in prison but he was out in 8-2003 and was in a halfway house where he was not able to get back on social security, which led to no medical care, which led to no psych meds, so he got drunk to put himself back in prison where he could get help, if you want to call it that. He will be getting out again in 11-2003 without parole or under any supervision. 

He has no family here at all. He was born and raised in the back woods of Alabama which is where he needs to go but he will never leave me alone no matter how far I run to try and hide and why should I constantly have to change my life to be free from him. 

I am in school now going for my associates degree as a paralegal so that I can come back and get some laws changed. 

This is not right what they, (social services) do to women of domestic violence. 

They continue to abuse me and my family by keeping us apart. My six-year-old is in foster care with an openly gay single woman who has a ten-year-old adopted boy who has attempted to get my daughter to play dare games by showing her privates. This is supposedly a better placement for my child. My morals and beliefs are never considered. The foster mother is protected and I am just supposed to like it. I am not kept informed of my daughters education or anything. I see her once a week supervised for one hour which means I have spent almost 48 hours with her in the last year. This is family preservation!!!I fail to see where. 

I could go on forever but I think you can get some of the picture to kind of direct me. Nobody seems to understand why I am good enough for one child but not the other. I have never in any way, shape or form neglected, abused, or hurt my kids.

And now with the new Adoption and Safe Families Act of 1997 where it states that if a child is in foster care 15 months out of the most recent 22 months then parental rights are automatically terminated regardless of circumstances. This is not fair!!!! 

CAN YOU GIVE ME ANY INSIGHT, PLEASE!!!!!