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Manna Treatment and Counseling, Dr. Genie Burnett (Updated)

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Manna Treatment and Counseling and Dr. Genie Burnett

(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. As Emma’s mom, I am blogging my experiences with Emma and the things she did/does. This is a child who made up a story about rape, accused a priest of molesting her, and then 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 lawsuit because she knew her lies were about to be discovered. Emma was recently living at the home of her fiance’s (Tyler Albert Buchheim) grandparents, Merrie and Albert Knopp in Liberty Township, Ohio. Emma is attending Wright State University http://www.wright.edu/, and talking about getting married to Tyler., an architecture student at Notre Dame. Emma claims to have the TOXICOLOGY REPORT to prove that her mother poisoned her with DDT and that she had to move to get away from her mother. (My attorney has been waiting for months for that toxicology report.) She also claims her future mother-in-law lives, Sherry Buchheim, lives in fear that Emma’s mother will show up and kill her entire family, although I heard from Ms. Buchheim that she feared no such thing. While in Ohio, Emma began telling stories about Tyelr’s family, making herself the victim again, but since she didn’t have her mother to be the persecutor, Emma began saying hurtful things about Tyler’s mother, his sister, Caitlin, and Tyler’s grandparents.

Phill and Emma on our trip to Ct. 2010. My sister and brother-in-law treated us to a wonderful boat trip and clam back dinner on a little island. Phill is drinking a little bottle of champagne because it was also our 26th anniversary. Emma has a great smile in this photo, but she was rude and nasty to my sister and brother-in-law for pretty much our entire visit hiding out in the basement or just being withdrawn and unfriendly.

Phill and Emma on our trip to Ct. 2010. My sister and brother-in-law treated us to a wonderful boat trip and clam bake dinner on a little island. Phill is drinking a little bottle of champagne because it was also our 26th anniversary. Emma has a great smile in this photo, but she was rude and nasty to my sister and brother-in-law for pretty much our entire visit hiding out in the basement or just being withdrawn and unfriendly.

I’ll be the first to admit I had no clue in how to go about choosing a therapist. After claiming to be sexually abused by a priest at our church, I felt like Emma needed to talk to a “professional” who could help her deal with what happened. Earlier, I mentioned that when Emma went to speak to a therapist at the Tree House in Winder, Ga, Emma was uncooperative. Phill and I gave Emma a break for about a month, and then decided she would see a therapist after we returned from visiting family in early July.

The Deacon at our church, who had been instrumental in helping us file a complaint against the priest Emma accused, recommended a therapist, and my friend Sandi McCravy (Sandra Brooks McCravy) recommended her therapist, Dr. Genie Burnett. All I knew about Dr. Burnett was that Sandi had seen her off and on for about 11 years at that point. Sandi had had an eating disorder and had abused laxatives many years before. She told me that Dr. Genie Burnett primarily treated eating disorders but because a lot of eating disorders stemmed from sexual abuse, Dr. Burnett had a lot of experience with girls like Emma. Sandi had gone to private sessions with Dr. Burnett as well as group therapy along with other women. Sandi frequently confided in me about her sessions with Dr. Genie Burnett and told me what she talked to her about. I remember a lot of it was issues with her family, primarily her mother, but also Sandi had issues with her brother and his wife who were more affluent than Sandi and Greg, and issues with her sister, the former beauty queen.

Dr. Burnett also treated Sandi’s son, Derek who suffered with Asperger’s, a mild form of Autisim. At one point, Sandi told me that Dr. Burnett was the one who had diagnosed Derek when he was about 8 years old, but some time before that, Sandi had been in denial about Derek’s problems and had told me all his problems were related to food allergies. She went to see various people about alternative medicine therapies and frequently had Derek on some kind of supplement that was supposed to keep him in check. She claimed that he couldn’t eat gluten or dairy, but if he wanted pizza she could just give him some supplements and he could eat what he wanted. Sandi frequently tried things that I thought were a little odd to me. One time, Sandi bought some sort of foot soak that was supposed to pull toxins out of your body if you just soaked your feet in it. I thought it sounded ridiculous, but Sandi claimed that her godmother, Wren, who had been battling cancer, used one of these things and had recommended it. I remember her telling me it cost something ridiculous, like $600, but Sandi got a deal on hers. I thought the whole thing was bizarre and a waste of money, but people will do what they will do.

Sandi raved about Dr. Genie Burnett when she was telling me how Dr. Burnett was the one to diagnose Derek, but on a previous occasion, Sandi had confided in me that when the boys were little and she was on government assistance, one of the doctors who saw the kids tried to tell her that Derek had autism, but she wouldn’t accept it. I don’t remember what government program the boys were on. Since we live in Georgia, it may have been PeachCare, but Sandi took the boys out of the program because she didn’t want that diagnosis on Derek’s record. She stayed in denial about his problems for many years, and I remember once when a woman named Ruth, who we worked with us gave, Sandi’s name and phone number to a lady who had a child with autism, and the woman called Sandi, Sandi was furious. She called me up, ranting and raving that Ruth had no right to give her phone number to this woman because Derek did not have autisim!

There were so many inconsistencies in what Sandi told me about Derek and autism, but I never questioned her. Sandi was always super sensitive on the issue, and knowing how we mamas are fiercely protective of our kids, I just let it go.
Derek would fight with his parents, pretty much like any teen, and at one point, he got so angry that he stabbed himself with a pencil and Sandi and Greg had to take him to the ER. The ER wanted to admit him to SummitRidge Psychiatric hospital in Lawrenceville, but Sandi would NOT have it! She was concerned that that would create a record that would follow him around for life.

Derek’s senior year of high school, Sandi began falling apart, calling me frequently, crying, sometimes hysterically, over the thought of Derek going off to college. Derek is a very bright young man and received a scholarship to Mercer University in Macon, Ga. I frequently had to “talk Sandi down” as Phill liked to phrase it, and I reassured her that he would be fine, and that Macon was not that far away, and if she wanted, I would drive down there with her to see him.

Derek, on the other hand, seemed just fine about the thought of going off to college, but Sandi thought he needed to see Dr. Genie Burnett at Manna Treatment on a regular basis before he went off to live in the dorm. Because of Derek’s diagnosis, he was able to get a private room in the dorm, and he went off to college happy and excited about his new adventure. In the typical teenage fashion, Sandi complained that he did not call home enough.

Probably the deciding factor in choosing a counselor was that Dr. Genie Burnett was a Christian counselor, and Emma, being a conservative Christian, wanted to go to a Christian counselor. I didn’t really care who Emma went to as long as it was someone she felt comfortable with and someone she could talk to, so we made an appointment with Dr. Genie Burnett.

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” on the license plate.

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 in to 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. I wonder if now Emma claims she abused the family dog because of the abuse she received from her paranoid borderline mother?

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.

12 Stone was a big church with a big youth group, and seemed like a nice place for Emma to get involved. A few kids that she knew occasionally showed up to the group. Emma knew a couple of kids from from homeschooling, and one young lady that Emma knew from Gwinnett Young Singers, a children’s choir that Emma was involved in. I believe her name was Rachael Wood. (You can see Emma in a group Gwinnet Young Singers Photo here: http://gwinnettyoungsingers.com/concert-choir.html Emma is in the top row, third young lady from the left. If I remember right, that is Rachel to the left of Emma (Emma’s right). I will share more on Emma’s experience with Gwinnet Young Singers later.

Emma seemed like she enjoyed the youth group at 12 Stone, although I often had to encourage her to go. Once she went, when I picked her up, she sounded like she had a great time. She would tell me what went on and what the talked about, most of which I don’t remember now.

One time, Emma claimed the youth leader talked about purity, and Emma was upset that her purity had been taken from her. I tried to explain that she couldn’t help what happened and that she wasn’t out having sex, she had been a victim. Emma told me I just didn’t get it, and at the next visit with Dr. Genie Burnett at Manna Treatment, she stated that Dr. Genie understood how she felt about losing her purity even though I didn’t get it. (One of those moments where I thought, “Ok, whatever.” I was glad she had someone to talk it over with because I was the lowly mom, and whatever I said was the wrong thing!)

In Nov. of 2010, Emma wanted to go on a weekend retreat with the 12 Stone group, and Phill and I were all for it except for one little thing. Emma was taking Zofran pretty much round the clock and sleeping a lot. If she didn’t take the Zofran, she was throwing up a lot. We didn’t seen any point in spending a lot of money for her to go on a weekend trip and then sleep through it. Emma and I discussed it with Dr. Genie Burnett at Manna Treatment, and she told me to let Emma go and if she threw up she threw up. I didn’t have a problem with that, but Emma wanted to go and take her Zofran round the clock, which Phill and I did not agree with.
Emma was furious at me because we didn’t let her go. I always got the blame because I was the primary disciplinarian, so even if Phill and I talked it over and made a decision, Emma would always say whatever decision we made that she didn’t agree with was all my fault because Daddy had to go along with whatever I said.

As I mentioned earlier, my main complaints about Dr. Genie Burnett at Manna Treatment were as follows.

After Emma was in the custody of DFACS, Phill and I found a letter she’d written to “Lacey” the cyber friend, mentioning that her attorneys were ready to file the lawsuit and that her mother had Paranoid Borderline Personality Disorder. Or, it may have been Borderline Paranoid Personality Disorder. I will have to dig out the letter and see. It doesn’t really matter. Phill and I couldn’t understand how Dr. Genie Burnett could have diagnosed me with anything as I was not her patient. I sat in on a few partial or full sessions with Emma, but that was all. How in the world does a professional psychologist diagnose someone they are not treating? To me, this certainly seems like unprofessional conduct!
Suzie McGarvey at Lanier Counseling (who is now with North Gwinnett Counseling Associates) later told Phill and I that Dr. Genie Burnett went through a checklist with Emma and said, “Does your mother do this, this, and this?” and that was how I got the professional diagnosis of Paranoid Borderline Personality Disorder from Dr. Genie Burnett. Wow. All those years of college and earning a Ph.D. and that’s all there is to it? I think I could do that job without a college degree, and I wouldn’t charge $135/hour to do it! Phill and I were stunned. I would love to see Dr. Genie Burnett’s notes to see exactly what Emma said about me. With her ability to embellish the simplest story, I’m sure she came up with quite an entertaining tale for Dr. Burnett!
I can understand a “professional” psychologist forming an opinion about a person. When Emma was taking AP Psychology on line (which is where I’m sure she got some of her abuse stories from) she would try to tell me I was this or that. Being a teenager with one Psychology course under her belt of course made her an expert, so in addition to being a “control freak” and “micromanaging” her life, if I put something away I was anal, if I checked to make sure I locked the door, I was OCD. I can’t even remember all the labels Emma gave me. Sometimes it was funny, other times annoying, but there was no doubt Emma was into her Psych class.
When Emma’s GI doctor (Emma had a long history of vomiting issues which she now claims is because I poisoned her for years with DDT.) recommended taking Emma to a psychiatrist to put her on an antidepressant, and he wanted me to check with her psychologist (Dr. Genie Burnett, Manna Treatment) to see if she felt like this was appropriate, I asked around for some names, including asking Dr. Genie Burnett. I was kind of surprised at her enthusiasm about Emma going on an antidepressant. She told me she thought it was a good idea and then said, “I’ve been on and off antidepressants for years!” This comment made me very uncomfortable, and the way she was so glib about it, and I told Phill that it bothered me. I thought to myself, “Hmmmm, even if you were on and off antidepressants for years, would you really want to tell people that?”
I don’t remember the name of the doctor that Dr. Burnett gave us, but we lived in Hoschton, and he was in Roswell, about an hour away. Later on I asked Dr. Burnett if she could recommend anyone closer and she told me that the reason she gave us the name of that psychiatrist was that he was going to be joining her office sometime in the next year.
We were having a difficult time getting Emma to get her school work done because she wanted to sleep all the time. She was vomiting a lot and taking Zofran up to three times a day, but I would also guess that Emma was tired because when we thought she was in bed, she was pretending to be asleep, but she was up at all hours of the night with her other “mommy” Sandi McCravy (Sandra Brooks McCravy) chit chatting on the phone. If I tried to discuss anything with Dr. Burnett, there would be hell to pay. Emma always looked at it like I was “telling” on her, rather than I was trying to work on our family life. Emma cared how Dr. Genie Burnett saw her, and wanted to present herself a certain way, but her mom always wrecked things by revealing that Emma was not this perfect little mature, well-spoken young woman she wanted people to think she was. If I said anything that Emma took as criticizing of her, she would be furious with me once we left Dr. Burnett’s office, so I didn’t say too much on the few sessions I sat in on.
I sent Dr. Burnett and e-mail about some of the problems we were having with Emma and how we were having trouble getting Emma to do her school work. When I took Emma to her next session, Dr. Burnett wanted me to come in with Emma for the first few minutes, and then I was MORTIFIED when Dr. Genie Burnett read my e-mail in front of Emma. I should have stopped Dr. Burnett immediately, but I was so shocked that she did that, I just didn’t think. You want to see one angry child! Once again, the story of my teenage daughter’s life, she was livid with her mother!
The comment about being on and off antidepressants for years, diagnosing me with Paranoid Borderline Personality Disorder, and reading my e-mail in front of Emma were all listed in my complaint with the board about Dr. Genie Burnett at Manna Treatment.

Next Post, since several people have asked, I’ll probably switch gears and share the Temporary Protective Order and how Emma Pulled her “I want to live in a group home.” At Suzie McGarvey’s of Lanier Counseling in Buford, Ga. (Now with North Gwinnett Counseling Associates in Suwanee, Ga.) Emma took advantage of several familes who took in the poor abused child who couldn’t live at home with her mother. I will share some of those stories as well.

“I tried nurturing her to spread her wings and fly, but she grew claws and tried to bleed me dry.” —Author Unknown.

Just to Clarify

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Back to the blog shortly, but first a shout out to my old neighbor, Judy Hall, who brought up something I should address. Since this is my blog, I can write about whatever and whomever I want. I don’t need anyone’s permission. I’ve already been advised by my attorney about this, so I will continue telling MY story. I will be sharing stories that Emma told me or others. I will also be sharing stories Phill told me about friends and neighbors involved with Emma. Of course, there are people I don’t want to see hurt such as the girl Emma claimed was raped and attempted suicide, so those names will appear in quotations. Any lies that Emma told to someone else that I mention on the blog are documented for me by the people who told them to me.
Thanks, Judy for bringing it up. And of course, when I get to your part of the story, I’ll be happy to verify it with you, if you want, to make sure I have all the details correct.

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, Tyler Buchheim’s family in Ohio, Tyler’s mother, Sherry Knopp
Buchheim, was afraid I would show up and kill her entire family. When I contacted Sherry Knopp Buchheim, she told me that this was “ridiculous.” Tyler Buchheim eventually broke up with her when he had his own doubts about Emma.
Emma has accused me of a crime (or two!). I do not take this lightly. At this point, Emma has two choices. She can bring charges against me or apologize. Well, I guess three choices. She can continue to lie about me, and I will continue to write about this journey I am on.
As always, if you have any questions or comments, contact me at: losingemma@gmail.com

Emma and ROTC

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PrivateEmma1smEmma took ROTC at JCCHS in 9th grade and hated it.

Recently, I’ve heard from four people who shared some Emma stories with me. I’ve been thinking a lot about Emma’s problem with lying. I’m not sure I really understand lying. Why does Emma lie? Is it a mental illness? Is it a need for drama? I don’t get it. Fiction is one thing, and it’s a shame Emma didn’t use her gift of lying and turn it in to writing her stories instead of hurting other people with them.

In Fall of 2008, when Emma started 9th grade at Jackson County Comprehensive High School (JCCHS), Emma signed up for two electives. One was Drama, which she loved, and she even got the lead in the school play, and another was ROTC. I couldn’t believe Emma signed up for ROTC. My child? It just did not seem like something she would be interested in.
Emma explained to me that there were only two electives to sign up for that period, so it was either dance or ROTC, “And I SUCK at dance!” Ok, I got her point.

You can see from the picture that Emma made a cute little soldier, although she hated ROTC. She did not speak kindly of the other kids in ROTC overall. She claimed a neighbor’s son, who lived around the block from us, became her platoon leader and was abusive. She claimed one of her ROTC classmates was pregnant and had a baby that semester. I discovered that students are not allowed in ROTC if they are pregnant, and one student told me they are not allowed to rejoin if they do have a baby. (Emma also claimed that there were 9 or 10 pregant 9th graders, and this was not true.)
One story Emma told was rather humorous about a young lady who lived next door to us with her mom and stepdad. Kristen C. was in Emma’s ROTC class. Emma claimed that her platoon leader had stalked our neighbor girl, standing out on our street, near their mailbox, staring at the house, waiting for Kristen to appear. This seemed a little odd as you couldn’t even see their house from the road, so I’m not sure what the point would be in standing out by the street, but who am I to question what a lovesick teenager would do? I was in and out several times a day and never noticed this boy at our neighbors’ mailbox, but I could have missed him.
Emma told me a story about how when they had to do an oral presentation in class, Kristen got nervous like she always did, and ran to the bathroom to throw up. According to Emma, Kristen did this every time she had to do some sort of report or presentation in front of the class. Having known people that threw up in the same situation, I felt bad for Kristen and just assumed it was something she’d grow out of.
On this particular occasion, Kristen took so long to come back to class that the ROTC instructor sent Emma to check on her in the bathroom. Emma said she went in and Kristen was vomiting away, and looked up and said,”I don’t know why I do this?” laughed and then wretched again. Cute story. Did it happen? One of Emma’s classmates told me that she never knew of Kristen throwing up in class. She said Kristen was a good speaker and became a platoon leader.
So, what is the point of this story? Does it have to do with the whole Drama triangle thing? Emma is making herself the rescuer in this situation, going to check on an ailing classmate. Was it to make her feel special that the teacher singled HER out to go check on Kristen? Was it to portray Kristen as weak? I just don’t understand lying. Maybe Dr. Genie Burnett (Manna Treatment, Duluth, Ga.), Suzie McGarvey (North Gwinnett Counseling Associates, Suwanee, Ga.) or Dr. Richard Born (Applied Psychological Health, Athens, Ga.) can explain it to me since they are the professionals in this area. Does Emma believe her own lies or does she just lie to have something to say. Emma could look right at you and deny doing something you just saw her do with your very own eyes. Then she could make up something like, “no, I didn’t do that, I was actually doing this……..” and I remember thinking that Emma lied as easily as she breathed. Of course, at the time, I just thought this was being a kid and never dreamed this was a problem.

Time, Space, and Clarity

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May 20, 2014

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.
Emma has accused me of a crime (or two!). I do not take this lightly. At this point, Emma has two choices. She can bring charges against me or apologize. Well, I guess three choices. She can continue to lie about me, and I will continue to write about this journey I am on.
As always, if you have any questions or comments, contact me at: losingemma@gmail.com
sewingbatik This picture is just after Emma got her braces off. See that beautiful smile! I had taken Emma to a basic sewing class, and she started sewing. She made this blouse, and I just happened to have made a necklace some years before that went with it perfectly. Oh, and like every other teen out there, you did notice the cell phone in her pocket didn’t you?

I will get back to writing about our experiences with therapy, but this is what was on my mind today.

Time, Space, and Clarity

Sometime after Emma accused me of abuse, my attorney and I contacted the parents of the girl (On line friend) that Emma claimed was raped and had attempted suicide. (Emma claimed this young woman’s rape brought up her own memories of being sexually molested by a priest.) I had a couple of conversations with the mother of “Lacey” and found out that none of it happened as well as many other things Emma had told me about “Lacey’s” family. There was NO RAPE. There was NO Suicide attempt. Lacey did not call Emma, hysterical, from the ER after attempting suicide. While Lacey’s mom had battled breast cancer, she was never in the hospital, close to death as Emma had claimed. In fact, she was never in the hospital at all from the cancer. She was treated as an outpatient. It was all a big fat lie, so I’m just assuming Emma’s “repressed memories” are a big fat lie as well.

I asked “Lacey’s” mother for any e-mails Emma had sent to Lacey, and she turned them over to my attorney and me. At the time, I was still in shock and devastated by what Emma had done, and I just sort of skimmed over these letters. My attorney read through them and mentioned to me how much Emma talked about control, being in control, wanting to be in control…

Looking through the letters was very painful to me then. There were funny stories about Emma’s church youth group, which made me miss my daughter, and there were a lot of disturbing stories. I picked out a few outright lies, and put the letters away. It was too painful to look at them in 2011.

The other day, I got out these letters again. As I mentioned earlier, these letters are probably the reason Emma was failing her physics class that year. She told her teacher she was failing because she was dealing with being molested, but when I look at the pages and pages of letters that Emma wrote to “Lacey” and she mentions computer chatting with her as well, and I know she was also hand writing letters and texting “Lacey” so I don’t think there was much school work getting done when Emma was sitting for hours in front of her computer.

Someone recently shared the following from John Rosemond. I’ve just attached part of his column, but you can read it in it’s entirety on his site. Someone had written in about a difficult 13 year old daughter, and I am attaching part of his response.

John Rosemond
Rosemond.com

(SNIP) Allow me to speculate as to what is going on here. All too many of today’s young teen girls seem to feel that a life that’s devoid of drama has no meaning, no significance. In the absence of truly valid drama (which very few of them have claim to), they invent drama.

In these invented soap operas, they play the role of victim. The list of anta¬gonists includes certain peers (rivals, ex-boyfriends), teachers, administrators, various emotional issues that supposedly beset them, and, of course, their parents. The invariable theme: My life would be wonderful, as it should be, if it weren’t for (fill in the blank with the imagined victimizers).

How does it feel to have loved a child unconditionally and taken excellent care of her for 13 years only to have her turn you into a villain? Ungratefulness is the price many parents are paying for having made sure their children lacked for nothing. The most generous hand is the one most likely to be bitten.

Obviously, there is no real problem here. Your daughter simply has too much time on her hands. With this excess of time, she thinks about herself and conjures up reasons why her misery at being your daughter is justified. It never crosses her mind that she has never had to want for food, clothing, medical care, heat in the winter, air conditioning in the summer, free vacations and so on. (SNIP)

Wow. Does this article describe Emma, or what? I’ve also found that I am not alone in this club of hated parents. There are many members and many, many stories. I’ve also found there are many of us, falsely accused of abuse by our own children.
Emma was always the victim when she was part of a group. The girls Emma rode to high school with on the bus were mean to her. If she was on a team, there was someone that didn’t like her. If she was in Sunday school, she complained about the teacher being a liberal and not letting Emma share her conservative thinking. If she had a problem with a class, it was because the teacher didn’t like her. If she didn’t get a part in the play it was because the drama teacher (Jefferson High School, Mr. Bright) had his favorites. If Emma and I had an argument, when Phill got home, she would completely twist something I said into something that didn’t even resemble what I’d said. (And having a high very IQ, she was definitely good at it. I don’t know what my IQ is, and I don’t want to!)

I thought Emma liked being homeschooled because it gave her time for other activities, but like this article says, I think Emma had too much time on her hands. Phill and I always joked how we liked our boring lives. We’d seen Phill’s brother go through some pretty tumultuous times with his wives, and we were always grateful that that wasn’t us. We liked being dull. I had no idea what was going on in Emma’s head. I guess her life needed meaning. She needed drama!

“The most generous hand is the one most likely to be bitten.” Boy, does that strike a chord with me! It’s not like the case of “Affluenza” in Texas, but I think there are similarities. Phill and I were middle class. Since I stayed home with Emma, we were careful with our money, but Emma never lacked for anything. We all know what mom’s do around the house, and in addition to that, I homeschooled Emma for 5 years. Pretty much any activity that Emma wanted to try, we did: piano, church choir, Gwinnett Young Singers, water color lessons, church camp, dance class, art classes, nature camp, knitting group, library reading clubs, karate, softball, kayacking, spelling bees, drama classes, church youth group, church activities, baby sitting, Red Cross First Aide class, ROTC ……..and the list goes on and on. I don’t know how working moms do it. I did so much driving to get Emma to all her activities, that I can’t imagine working and being able to do that. Then there’s things like the orthodontist, and as much complaining as Emma did about that, I probably thought to myself 1000 times that her teeth weren’ t that bad and I wished we hadn’t bothered with the time and expense, but I will say, she had a beautiful smile when she got the braces off. I never understood all the complaining. I know kids complain, and I’m sure I did my share as a kid, but I remember being really proud of my “tinsel teeth.” (And Emma didn’t even have to wear the dorky head gear apparatus that a lot of us did!)
And what about all those nights we parents stay up with our kids helping them finish a project? One time when Emma was going to Happening, a church teen retreat, she wanted to make a gift for all the other kids. I don’t remember how many kids there were, I think a little under 200. Emma had this idea to make bookmarks, so Phill printed out what she wanted on the computer with about 5 book marks to a sheet. Emma painted each sheet with watercolors and sort of a rainbow affect. Then, the bookmarks had to all be cut out and laminated and then the laminate had to be trimmed on each bookmark. Guess who stayed late cutting bookmarks. Like the typical kid, Emma was rushing around at the last minute, and would not have finished if I hadn’t spent hours cutting bookmarks for her.

While going through these letters again, I found many, many lies and many examples of Emma’s “poor me” syndrome. She often mentions being depressed and states it could be her medicine making her depressed, but this was drama as well because Emma wasn’t on any medicine at that time.

Emma made up a lot of stories that were fairly harmless but made good stories. For example, she claimed a found a friend passed out after seeing a spider. She told funny stories about some of the younger kids at church, and there was a cute one about her friend Jordan”s little brother told Emma that Jordan had gotten into Emma’s purse. Emma said Jordan was trying to send a text message to the boy that Emma liked with Emma’s phone, and how Emma caught on when the voice recorder came on asked if she wanted to send the message to “Edward.” Cute story. Did it happen?

When our neighbors lost their teenage son, Emma wrote about going to her “friend’s” funeral even though she’d never said more than hello to this boy. She also wrote a sweet story to “Lacey” about babysitting a neighbor’s little boys the day after the funeral, and how the children were told that “Oliver” went to sleep and woke up with Jesus. Emma claimed that one of the boys pretended to be asleep and said he wanted to wake up with “Oliver.” It was a sweet story, but Emma never babysat these children, just like (in an earlier post) she never babysat our priest’s children and never had to lock herself in the bathroom and call 911 because the priest’s bipolar son was acting up.

Emma talks about the girls she rode the school bus with buying and using drugs on the bus. I verified with one of the girls that that she never saw drugs being sold on the bus.

Emma mentions the time our inflated pool collapsed while she and Kayla Benifield were in it, and tells about Kayla hitting her head on a tree. Nope, that didn’t happen either. I have pictures of the two girls in the pool as the water drained out of it.

Emma talks about a woman she didn’t like monopolizing the conversation at our church book club, and the only thing is, this woman never came to the book club.

Emma mentioned to “Lacey” that she was making brownies for church and would be murdered if the broke the heirloom platter that she’d put the brownies on, only Phill and I didn’t have any heirlooms.

One day, when I have more time, I will go through each of these letters and tell you exactly what is in them. I can’t really publish the letters, since they are Emma’s, but I can read them and write about them.

Emma’s Descent into Therapy, Part 2, Manna Treatment and Counseling

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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
lies
(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.

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.

Mother’s Day 2014

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“Blaming Mother is just a negative way of clinging to her still.” Author Unknown.

Happy Mother’s Day to my readers and to my darling Emma who made me a mom!  I really wanted to spend some time sharing some thoughts today, but have not been home long enough to do this, so I guess it will have to wait for another post.  In any event, I was thinking of Emma all day.  Even with the horrible things she’s done, I still have hope for my baby girl.  I had so many fun times as Emma’s mom.  The early years were simply amazing, seeing this baby grow into a toddler, then a little girl, then a tween, and a teen.  So many times I thought, “This is all I ever wanted, to be Emma’s mom.”  People have asked me if I had the chance to do it over, would I have still had a child? I can’t answer this, and I don’t live in the land of woulda, shoulda, coulda. What’s done is done. I love Emma, and I worry for Emma. I fear that she will continue to ruin her life and hurt those around her, but what Emma does is out of my control  Through all this, I’ve gone on with my life, and through all this, I still find life pretty amazing. That doesn’t mean I don’t have some bad days. When you’ve been through such a horrible experience like this, you are never the same, and it never goes away. You can curl up and die or go on to make the best life you can. I’m still working on it, but I have chosen the latter.

I will get back to writing about Emma and therapy when I have a little more time.

Emma’s Descent into Therapy Part 2, Preface to Manna Treatment (Continued)

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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

Manna Treatment and Counseling and Dr. Genie Burnett

Emma, Nathan, Johnathan McCravy, and Derek McCravy on a homeschool fieldtrip to the William Harris Homestead.

Emma, Nathan, Johnathan McCravy, and Derek McCravy on a homeschool fieldtrip to the William Harris Homestead.

I’ll be the first to admit I had no clue in how to go about choosing a therapist. After claiming to be sexually abused by a priest at our church, I felt like Emma needed to talk to a “professional” who could help her deal with what happened. Earlier, I mentioned that when Emma went to speak to a therapist at the Tree House in Winder, Ga, Emma was uncooperative. Phill and I gave Emma a break for about a month, and then decided she would see a therapist after we returned from visiting family in early July.

The Deacon at our church, who had been instrumental in helping us file a complaint against the priest Emma accused, recommended a therapist, and my friend Sandi McCravy (Sandra Brooks McCravy) recommended her therapist, Dr. Genie Burnett. All I knew about Dr. Burnett was that Sandi had seen her off and on for about 11 years at that point. Sandi had had an eating disorder and had abused laxatives many years before. She told me that Dr. Genie Burnett primarily treated eating disorders but because a lot of eating disorders stemmed from sexual abuse, Dr. Burnett had a lot of experience with girls like Emma. Sandi had gone to private sessions with Dr. Burnett as well as group therapy along with other women. Sandi frequently confided in me about her sessions with Dr. Genie Burnett and told me what she talked to her about. I remember a lot of it was issues with her family, primarily her mother, but also Sandi had issues with her brother and his wife who were more affluent than Sandi and Greg, and issues with her sister, the former beauty queen.

Dr. Burnett also treated Sandi’s son, Derek who suffered with Asperger’s, a mild form of Autisim. At one point, Sandi told me that Dr. Burnett was the one who had diagnosed Derek when he was about 8 years old, but some time before that, Sandi had been in denial about Derek’s problems and had told me all his problems were related to food allergies. She went to see various people about alternative medicine therapies and frequently had Derek on some kind of supplement that was supposed to keep him in check. She claimed that he couldn’t eat gluten or dairy, but if he wanted pizza she could just give him some supplements and he could eat what he wanted. Sandi frequently tried things that I thought were a little odd to me. One time, Sandi bought some sort of foot soak that was supposed to pull toxins out of your body if you just soaked your feet in it. I thought it sounded ridiculous, but Sandi claimed that her godmother, Wren, who had been battling cancer, used one of these things and had recommended it. I remember her telling me it cost something ridiculous, like $600, but Sandi got a deal on hers. I thought the whole thing was bizarre and a waste of money, but people will do what they will do.

Sandi raved about Dr. Genie Burnett when she was telling me how Dr. Burnett was the one to diagnose Derek, but on a previous occasion, Sandi had confided in me that when the boys were little and she was on government assistance, one of the doctors who saw the kids tried to tell her that Derek had autism, but she wouldn’t accept it. I don’t remember what government program the boys were on. Since we live in Georgia, it may have been PeachCare, but Sandi took the boys out of the program because she didn’t want that diagnosis on Derek’s record. She stayed in denial about his problems for many years, and I remember once when a woman named Ruth, who we worked with us gave, Sandi’s name and phone number to a lady who had a child with autism, and the woman called Sandi, Sandi was furious. She called me up, ranting and raving that Ruth had no right to give her phone number to this woman because Derek did not have autisim!

There were so many inconsistencies in what Sandi told me about Derek and autism, but I never questioned her. Sandi was always super sensitive on the issue, and knowing how we mamas are fiercely protective of our kids, I just let it go.

Derek’s senior year of high school, Sandi began falling apart, calling me frequently, crying, sometimes hysterically, over the thought of Derek going off to college. Derek is a very bright young man and received a scholarship to Mercer University in Macon, Ga. I frequently had to “talk Sandi down” as Phill liked to phrase it, and I reassured her that he would be fine, and that Macon was not that far away, and if she wanted, I would drive down there with her to see him.

Derek, on the other hand, seemed just fine about the thought of going off to college, but Sandi thought he needed to see Dr. Genie Burnett at Manna Treatment on a regular basis before he went off to live in the dorm. Because of Derek’s diagnosis, he was able to get a private room in the dorm, and he went off to college happy and excited about his new adventure. In the typical teenage fashion, Sandi complained that he did not call home enough.

Probably the deciding factor in choosing a counselor was that Dr. Genie Burnett was a Christian counselor, and Emma, being a conservative Christian, wanted to go to a Christian counselor. I didn’t really care who Emma went to as long as it was someone she felt comfortable with and someone she could talk to, so we made an appointment with Dr. Genie Burnett.

to be continued……………

Fish or Cut Bait

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PREFACE: 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

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Emma was always a big reader, and often was reading when she was supposed to be doing other things, but I can understand that temptation. This is a picture of Emma and one of our foster dogs, Brillo, and as you can see, Emma was also a big Neal Boortz fan.

 

I’ve been thinking a lot about some conversations Emma and I had in the past. One day, after doing some laundry, I asked Emma to put her clothes away. She walked into her room and right back out again, trying to quietly sneak out to the sun porch so she could get back to the book she was reading. I asked her if she had hung up and put her clothes away properly, and she replied that she had, but I knew she couldn’t have in the 30 seconds she was in her room and back out. Sure enough, I went in to find all the freshly washed clothes on the floor in her closet where she’d thrown them. This was a pretty frequent occurrence in our home. Emma didn’t have a lot of chores, and getting her to do them often seemed like more work than it was worth. For whatever reason, Emma was really bad about putting her clothes away and would throw them on the floor, under her bed, in her bed, cram them under her dresser, under shelves……….. anything to get them out of sight and then say she’d put them away. Sometimes it seemed like she went to more effort to hide her clothes than it would have taken her to put them away in the first place!

I told Emma that her sneaking around should have told her something about her actions. She knew she was doing something wrong, and that was why she was acting the way she did. I told her if she had put her clothes away properly, she should have been walking around like she was not trying to hide her actions. At some point we got into a conversation about how you should life your live as if your mother were looking over your shoulder, and then decided a better way to say it was “as if Jesus were looking over your shoulder.”

Emma is still sneaking around, figuratively that is. She can tell people she was an abused child, and she can tell people her mother poisoned her with DDT. Funny how she won’t bring any charges against this horrible mother of hers.

Well, after giving some serious thought to it, I am going to be taking the blog to some very public sites and message boards. Anywhere there’s discussions about kids, teens, schools, colleges, families, family problems, therapy, child molestation, child abuse, mental illness, etc. Anyplace I can think of, where I might get some opinions, response, comments. I have decided it is time for Emma to bring charges against me and let’s go to court, and if not, cut the crap, and let’s get on with our lives. As long as Emma is lying about me, I will continue to write the blog and tell her story and now I’m ready to make it very, VERY public. Emma can accuse me of abuse and of attempted murder, and then hide behind her daddy and play the victim. Well, if I’m going to be accused, I would like my day in court. If I’m not going to get that, then I will settle for the court of public opinion.

It is time to Fish or Cut Bait.

(I will get back to the story of Dr. Genie Burnett and Manna Treatment next.)

Emmaisms

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Emma grad

Emmaisms
“I have Google in my head.”
Emma always knew she was a smart kid. The first time I heard Emma say this was when she started high school at JCCHS. She came home from 9th grade and claimed somebody asked her how she knew so much, and this was her reply.

Emma’s Descent into Therapy Part 2, Preface to Manna Treatment

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PREFACE: 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, 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

Emma played Sandy when the church youth group did a dance skit from Grease, while the boy she had a crush on played Danny. The kids did a great job and it was a lot of fun. The cheerleader outfit came from a friend who graduated from Sandy Springs High School, Sandy Springs, Ga

Emma played Sandy when the church youth group did a dance skit from Grease. The cheerleader outfit came from a friend who graduated from Sandy Springs High School, Sandy Springs, Ga

Manna Treatment – Preface
Before I start writing about our experience with Manna Treatment, I want to first mention my complaints I filed with the State Board about Manna Treatment and Dr. Genie Burnett.

We’ve pretty much established that Emma is a teller of tales. If you’ve read my blog this long, you’ve seen the stories and some of the documentation I’ve collected from others about lies that Emma has told. Emma has a long history of lying, and this is something I want to warn parents about. In our case, therapy was detrimental to Emma and our family. Emma was allowed to go into therapy and say who knows what, and the therapist did not let Phill and I know what kind of things she was saying.

After Emma was in the custody of DFACS, Phill and I found a letter she’d written to “Lacey” the cyber friend, mentioning that her attorneys were ready to file the lawsuit and that her mother had Paranoid Borderline Personality Disorder. Or, it may have been Borderline Paranoid Personality Disorder. I will have to dig out the letter and see. It doesn’t really matter. Phill and I couldn’t understand how Dr. Genie Burnett could have diagnosed me with anything as I was not her patient. I sat in on a few partial or full sessions with Emma, but that was all. How in the world does a professional psychologist diagnose someone they are not treating? To me, this certainly seems like unprofessional conduct!
Suzie McGarvey at Lanier Counseling (who is now with North Gwinnett Counseling Associates) later told Phill and I that Dr. Genie Burnett went through a checklist with Emma and said, “Does your mother do this, this, and this?” and that was how I got the professional diagnosis of Paranoid Borderline Personality Disorder from Dr. Genie Burnett. Wow. All those years of college and earning a Ph.D. and that’s all there is to it? I think I could do that job without a college degree, and I wouldn’t charge $135/hour to do it! Phill and I were stunned. I would love to see Dr. Genie Burnett’s notes to see exactly what Emma said about me. With her ability to embellish the simplest story, I’m sure she came up with quite an entertaining tale for Dr. Burnett!
I can understand a “professional” psychologist forming an opinion about a person. When Emma was taking AP Psychology on line (which is where I’m sure she got some of her abuse stories from) she would try to tell me I was this or that. Being a teenager with one Psychology course under her belt of course made her an expert, so in addition to being a “control freak” and “micromanaging” her life, if I put something away I was anal, if I checked to make sure I locked the door, I was OCD. I can’t even remember all the labels Emma gave me. Sometimes it was funny, other times annoying, but there was no doubt Emma was into her Psych class.
When Emma’s GI doctor (Emma had a long history of vomiting issues which she now claims is because I poisoned her for years with DDT.) recommended taking Emma to a psychiatrist to put her on an antidepressant, and he wanted me to check with her psychologist (Dr. Genie Burnett, Manna Treatment) to see if she felt like this was appropriate, I asked around for some names, including asking Dr. Genie Burnett. I was kind of surprised at her enthusiasm about Emma going on an antidepressant. She told me she thought it was a good idea and then said, “I’ve been on and off antidepressants for years!” This comment made me very uncomfortable, and the way she was so glib about it, and I told Phill that it bothered me. I thought to myself, “Hmmmm, even if you were on and off antidepressants for years, would you really want to tell people that?”
I don’t remember the name of the doctor that Dr. Burnett gave us, but we lived in Hoschton, and he was in Roswell, about an hour away. Later on I asked Dr. Burnett if she could recommend anyone closer and she told me that the reason she gave us the name of that psychiatrist was that he was going to be joining her office sometime in the next year.
We were having a difficult time getting Emma to get her school work done because she wanted to sleep all the time. She was vomiting a lot and taking Zofran up to three times a day, but I would also guess that Emma was tired because when we thought she was in bed, she was pretending to be asleep, but she was up at all hours of the night with her other “mommy” Sandi McCravy (Sandra Brooks McCravy) chit chatting on the phone. If I tried to discuss anything with Dr. Burnett, there would be hell to pay. Emma always looked at it like I was “telling” on her, rather than I was trying to work on our family life. Emma cared how Dr. Genie Burnett saw her, and wanted to present herself a certain way, but her mom always wrecked things by revealing that Emma was not this perfect little mature, well-spoken young woman she wanted people to think she was. If I said anything that Emma took as criticizing of her, she would be furious with me once we left Dr. Burnett’s office, so I didn’t say too much on the few sessions I sat in on.
I sent Dr. Burnett and e-mail about some of the problems we were having with Emma and how we were having trouble getting Emma to do her school work. When I took Emma to her next session, Dr. Burnett wanted me to come in with Emma for the first few minutes, and then I was MORTIFIED when Dr. Genie Burnett read my e-mail in front of Emma. I should have stopped Dr. Burnett immediately, but I was so shocked that she did that, I just didn’t think. You want to see one angry child! Once again, the story of my teenage daughter’s life, she was livid with her mother!
The comment about being on and off antidepressants for years, diagnosing me with Paranoid Borderline Personality Disorder, and reading my e-mail in front of Emma were all listed in my complaint with the board about Dr. Genie Burnett at Manna Treatment.

Later, I’ll get into how we chose Manna Treatment and Dr. Genie Burnett and while I have no idea what Emma said during her sessions, I can tell you how Emma acted before and after sessions, and things that she talked about to me after her sessions.