If you are new to this blog, you may want to read the posts “In a Nutshell” or go to July 2012 and read “Sending out a Letter.” Both of these posts give a brief description of what happened. Emma is a young woman who made up a story about a story about a cyber friend being raped and claimed it brought up her own “repressed memories” of a priest of molesting her. As her attorney was about to file a lawsuit against the priest and the church, Emma accused her mother of physical abuse to stop the suit because she knew her lies were about to be discovered. I am that mother. Emma claims to have toxicology reports showing that I poisoned her with DDT, essentially accusing me of ATTEMPTED MURDER, but refuses to turn over these reports to my attorney. She also claims that while living with her boyfriend’s family in Ohio, her boyfriend’s mother was afraid I would show up and kill her entire family. When I contacted the boyfriend’s mother, she told me that this was “ridiculous.” Emma’s boyfriend/fiance eventually broke up with her when he had his own doubts about Emma.
As always, if you have any questions or comments, contact me at: losingemma@gmail.com

(Thank you. You know who you are.)

Manna Treatment Part 2

After we returned from vacation, Emma had her first visit with Dr. Genie Burnett (Dr. Elizabeth Genie Burnett) at Manna Treatment & Counseling, Duluth, Ga. Emma and I went to meet Dr. Burnett together the first time. Her office was very nicely decorated, and she was young, trendy-looking, loved shoes, and she drove some sort of SUV with “Manna”

Dr. Burnett talked a lot more about herself than I would have thought a therapist would have, telling us about her own history and eating disorder, and she brought her own history up, I think, on every session I sat in on. This just surprised me. Granted my only experience with therapy to this point had been what I’d seen on television, but I just assumed the therapist would sort of keep themselves out of it. On television, they always seem to be trying to get the patient to talk.

Before we left that first session, Dr. Genie Burnett prayed with us, and this was something that was very important to Emma. She definitely wanted a Christian counselor.

Emma really liked Dr. Burnett. She thought she was cool. I can’t say I was crazy about her, but if Emma liked her, that was all I wanted. I thought Emma needed a professional to talk to, and my feelings about Dr. Burnett didn’t matter as she was not my therapist. (Even though she did diagnose me with Paranoid Borderline Personality disorder by asking Emma questions about me! At $135/hr in 2010, I guess we were getting a 2 for 1 !!!) I didn’t think Dr. Burnett seemed like a very warm person, maybe a little snooty, and I wondered if she had had some enhancement surgery, but none of this mattered. I guess I was doing my own evaluation of Dr. Burnett, thinking that if she had battled an eating disorder and had a low opinion of herself, she probably would probably be the type to have gotten plastic surgery.

At Emma’s sessions, she usually went in alone. Phill and I went with her once or twice, and I went with her a few times, but usually just for a few minutes.

On some visits, I brought the family dog, Spike, and took walks while Emma was in therapy. Of course bringing Spike brought it’s own set of complications, but I was determined not to give into Emma. I was spending a good 2+ hours driving back and forth, and then waiting around for her on those therapy days, and if I wanted to bring our dog to have a walking buddy, I should have been allowed to. Emma complained about everything with Spike. She sat up front with me, but complained that I brought him, when I put the windows down in the back for him, etc. I often thought I was getting a taste of what it would have been like if Emma had a sibling.

Emma had done the same thing with the dog we had before Spike. I always thought it was a jealousy problem. Like in a lot of households, mom is the one who takes care of the dogs, and the dogs always paid more attention to me than to anyone else in the family. That was just the way it was, but Emma was always fairly mean to Spike. She would ignore him when she came home and he ran to her, excited to see her. I would tell her to say hello to him, and she would say a very monotone “Hi Spike.” But not bother to pet him or otherwise acknowledge him. Occasionally, I would see Emma hit, kick, or push Spike out of her way when she had plenty of room to walk around him. My sister also saw some of this behavior when she visited. It upset me greatly, as we volunteered with a dog/cat rescue organization, and here was Emma being abusive to our own dog. I really think Emma could not stand the attention that I paid to Spike, and it made me so sad that Spike always loved Emma. Talk about unconditional love! He was always happy to see her and tried to get some attention from her, but like dogs do, he never held a grudge as to how she treated him.

Emma started out seeing Dr. Genie Burnett twice a week, and then when school started, I think that was too difficult, so she began seeing her once a week. On the ride home, I tried to give Emma her privacy about her sessions. I didn’t ask what she talked about, but usually just asked, “How did it go?”

During the time we were seeing Dr. Burnett, we had stopped attending our church, but I wanted Emma doing something with other kids, so I told her we needed to find her another youth group to attend. She went to a couple and didn’t like them, and then started attending the youth group at the Hamilton Mill 12 Stone Church on Wednesday evenings. We had attended a neighborhood Bible study for about 5 years, and many of our friends there attended 12 Stone. Once a year, 12 Stone did a CIA Day (Compassion in Action) and Emma went with one of our neighbors to help at one of the volunteer locations. She made balloon animals and did face painting for the children. Something that just occurred to me is that when Emma came home she talked about what a bad area this was. (It was a trailer park.) Emma claimed it was an area with a lot of drugs and that she saw all kinds of syringes on the ground. Hmmmmmm. I e-mailed some of the people who were at the event, and was told that they were warned before they went out there that was drug use in that area. I wonder if Emma was the only one who saw syringes on the ground, or did any other folks? Since Emma exaggerated so much about drugs and sex going on in high school, I just assuming that since the volunteers were warned about drug use in the area, Emma probably made up the part about seeing syringes on the ground.

Emma went with a neighbor to Aubun, Ga. to assist with a day of Compassion in Action with 12 Stone Church. She made balloon animals for the children.

More to come…………that’s all the time I have tonight

12 Stone was a big church with a big youth group, and seemed like a nice place for Emma to get involved.