Message from Dianne Carter

[FemanonFatal2.0]

Did anyone else get this private message?

Katie Carter

Sent: Yesterday, 07:49
by JustMeHere
It is I, aka the Evil Step Monster, just wanting to put in our side:

First thing, I think it's interesting that you have on your page before you register:
You agree not to post any abusive, obscene, vulgar, slanderous, hateful, threatening, sexually-orientated or any other material that may violate any laws be it of your country, the country where “Fornits Home for Wayward Web Fora” is hosted or International Law. Doing so may lead to you being immediately and permanently banned, with notification of your Internet Service Provider if deemed required by us.

But then you allow people to tell Katie to slit Michaels throat, or people tell him to kill himself in various ways, or to "fill their email boxes with flames". If this isn't "abusive...slanderous, hateful, threatening..." I'd hate to see what your idea of that is.

And just so you know, Katie isn't giving you the whole truthful story. Yes, she is a wonderful writer. She truly has a gift and we have told her that. We also tried to keep her grounded by telling her that she isn't correct in believing she can just get a job as a writer right out of high school and they will pay her enough to live on. She definitely lives in a dream world and if you don't support her then she retaliates. Isn't it our job as parents to help them believe they can do things in life, but it has to be within reason? For awhile she was going to be a vet. However math and science are NOT her strong suits at all. Would you support someone who wants to be a pilot but is almost blind? Wouldn't you try to show them where their strengths lie and what things are available there?

If you truly knew her, and knew our side of it fully, you all wouldn't be saying these hurtful things. She is a manipulative lying thief, an emotional vampire that is never happy with anything that is given to her. Yes, I have "checked out" of this relationship but only to save my sanity and to have any sort of relationship with the rest of the family. I have not turned her brothers against her. I didn't need to as she has done that well enough on her own.

If you give Katie an inch she doesn't stop at wanting a mile. If you take her out to a nice dinner, she complains of the high prices and then orders the most expensive thing on the menu. If you ask if she has done her chores, she'll look you straight in the face and say (loudly) "YES, I have" only to find later on that she has not done them, or only done what she wanted to do. If anyone is missing money she always denies it at the top of her lungs, only to come clean about it months later.

When Mike talked of a "meltdown", maybe he should have explained to you what that is so you'd understand better. Her meltdowns would go from 1-3 hours, screaming, throwing things, breaking things, threatening everyone -- even threatening her father to kick him in the balls or break his ribs -- spitting at people, just completely out of control. Now if you people think this is acceptable behaviour, God love ya, because here in the real world it is not. You cannot "love" a person through this, you cannot just "talk them down" from it, it always escalated to her being physically held down (restrained), either on the floor or in a chair until she calmed down so she hopefully didn't hurt herself or anyone else any more.

So it seems that you all know much more than us, even though a lot of you have no kids of your own. Something I learned long ago was to never say never when it comes to talking about others kids compared to how you'll raise yours. So if you want to take her in, support her and her "dreams", you just go right ahead.

She has done nothing to prepare herself for her upcoming graduation and emancipation. Though we have tried, supported, yelled, cried, talked, everything you can think of. She fits in well with you people as she also knows it all.

[FemanonFatal2.0]

I can tell you didn't write this message to me personally, I can only guess you sent it out to a few key players of this site, so I won't bother defending the obvious misses in judgment of my character or intentions. However I will mention that the mind state that you are portraying, both in your blog and in this letter (or in the simple fact that you felt the need to send this letter in the first place) only backs up everything we have been able to assume about you.

If you haven't realized, Katie has not been downplaying her role in her tumultuous adolescence, in fact she openly admits that she succumbed to her anger and pain and acted out in ways that were not healthy for her and deeply effected her family. This is not a question of what, it is a question of why. She has decided to write this story, regardless of how damning or challenging it may be in order to put her past in perspective and learn something from it, deal with it and grow from it. She is not here to justify herself to a crowd of people who would support her anyway, that is not the point, and we do not support her in doing this for that reason.

The fact that you felt it appropriate to send us all private messages in order to call her a liar, and a thief and all the other insults you direct at her character is only a reflection of how you have been treating Katie all along. Don't you want Katie to finally get over all this? Are you even capable of letting your judgmental attitude go, if not to give her the breathing room to heal but just to keep the peace? You have been picking her wounds since she was a young child... you need to understand how detrimental this can be to the psyche of a mentally fragile individual, and STOP. Katie has mentioned her struggles with bullies, but it really seems that you are truly the biggest "bully" in Katie's life. I will assume you are simply not aware of the psychological effects of your behavior, so I wont go so far as to say you are doing this on purpose but I do believe that you and Katie have personalities that DO NOT mix and you are not a good fit to be a replacement for her mother. You do not love her and you apparently have no semblance of maternal instincts concerning her and her condition. She has a mental disorder, I believe severe depression, and she has special needs. People with her challenges need special care and if they are not given that special care the disorder can be exacerbated. Your mean spirited attitude and jail house parenting style had a very detrimental effect on her psyche, and in essence YOU created the monster in her that you can't stand.

You can't keep punishing, blaming and holding everything against Katie, YOU have to make a change in your parenting/ supporting in order to help her grow out of this. Please be aware that by placing her in CCM you delayed her maturation process by how ever many years she was in CCM, she may be 18 now, but she is still 15 in many ways. At some point you need to realize that enough is enough, constantly berating her, reminding her of how much you detest her or how her past actions make her "unworthy" only ad fuel to her fire... If you hate how much she blows up... then you need to stop putting mental dynamite in her pocket. If anything, I think you checking out of the relationship is simply the best thing, I would even go further to recommend that you stay out of her life entirely, let her father be her father and you can just be his wife, not her mother. I know you may reject any responsibility for her condition, but you must realize if you continue to exacerbate her depression you will cripple her will to ever pull out of this.

As much as you may think this is some kind of parent hate fest it is not, it is an intervention. We read your blogs and were so disturbed with your hateful take on Katie's story we reached out to her, and simply asked her for her side. In doing so we realized that Katie NEEDS to get all this off her chest and put it into perspective. She needs to realize that your lack of compassion, love and parenting skills has nothing to do with her, therefore encouraging her to grow out of the need to "blow up"or "melt down". You should have realized by now that this only happens because she holds so much pain inside, if we can help her understand her past, and come to terms with her experiences, that pain will start to diffuse and she will begin to heal and mature. What you need to do is give her the time, space and drama-free atmosphere she needs to find herself and stop trying to hold her down with your "must punish" way of thinking. I have suggested to her she needs to go to college out of your city, possibly even out of state. However the fact that you have spent a magnanimous amount of money on CCM, I can see how giving her a college education would be the last thing you would be willing to do. It sucks that she will have to suffer for that mistake as she already has bore the brunt of that ill fated decision, but I suggest you at least support her in getting her own student loans.

If you are seriously unwilling to give her the love and support she needs at this point, and insist on continuing to blame her and make her life miserable, then by all means, send her here. I live in San Diego, CA right next to SDSU. Have her apply for college and look into student housing, I will be willing to take responsibility for mentoring her through these integral steps in her maturation. I can't promise you I will be able to financially support her, learning to provide for herself is something her parents should have taught her by now, but I am more than capable of giving her the emotional support and positive example she needs to learn what it means to be an adult. I just think its sad that once again you are so unwilling to set aside your hateful, judgmental and vile attitude to simply be a good mother to Katie, is it really any wonder why she has these epic melt-downs??

-Chelsea

[Ursus]

Um... Despite having posted in both of the "Katie threads" (albeit not much), I did not receive this PM. It would appear that not many of the fornits population was so lucky.
 
Are you sure that Diane Carter is okay with having this posted? It seems like a bit of a low blow if she is not. Perhaps I am naive, but I imagine that most folks assume that Private Messages are dealt with ... privately.

Perhaps Diane Carter, if she reads this, could clarify her intended audience?

[FemanonFatal2.0]

Um... Despite having posted in both of the "Katie threads" (albeit not much), I did not receive this PM. It would appear that not many of the fornits population was so lucky.
 
Are you sure that Diane Carter is okay with having this posted? It seems like a bit of a low blow if she is not. Perhaps I am naive, but I imagine that most folks assume that Private Messages are intended to be "private."

Perhaps Diane Carter, if she reads this, could clarify her designated audience?

As much as that would be of concern for anyone else, I am not entirely concerned if Dianne felt that this message should remain private. Considering that her only intention for this letter was to condemn Katie and try to turn those that are supporting her efforts to write her story against her, I think it is all very necessary for me to expose her.

She has once again taken it upon herself to try to demean and abuse her step daughter, going so far as to try to turn her online advocates against her. She is stooping to an incredible low to thwart Katie's progress and I wont grant her the right to throw low blows, even through the sanctity of privacy.

[Rainy]

Thank you Femanon. It would be fantastic if the young lady could live with you...Christ.

[psy]

You agree not to post any abusive, obscene, vulgar, slanderous, hateful, threatening, sexually-orientated or any other material that may violate any laws be it of your country, the country where “Fornits Home for Wayward Web Fora” is hosted or International Law.

Well.  Fornits is hosted in the United States, where the first amendment gives a wide birth of protection to virtually any and all speech. "abusive, obscene, vulgar, slanderous, hateful, threatening, sexually-orientated" may be criminal matters in some countries, but in the US, they're either protected speech, or in the case of slander (defamation), a civil matter (not criminal).

Secondly, if Ginger or myself knew where to change that default disclaimer was, we would (but it doesn't seem to be in the admin config, so it's probably in the code itself... which means we would have to search for it... we'll look into this).

[psy]

A small note, though, Dianne...  Speaking behind a person's back makes you look bad.  If you had something to say to Katie, you should follow your own husband's advice and do it in public with your name to it.

That being said, I don't entiely agree with Femanon's choice of publishing your message without your consent...  but I have my policies and she has her own.  She's free to do what she wants, as you are.

[try another castle]

you should follow your own husband's advice and do it in public with your name to it.

Better yet, keep all of that bullshit within the family, as it is nobody else's business, except for maybe a family therapist. That includes that joke of a blog, which I initially found compelling, but kind of got nauseated by after the dramallama ensued and discovered that Katie had no idea it existed until recently, which is disgusting. I personally think it would have been ok if her real name had been kept out of it, but it wasn't. (notice that when I speak about my own folks, I never mention their name. Not in my personal blog, not here, not anywhere on the internet. Same with my friends.)

I'm with che. Katie should probably gtfo of there asap. I toughed it out for a summer and then went off to school, but once that summer break rolled around, I found a job and a sublet super fast, and have never looked back. I think it probably saved our relationship.

[Oscar]

Somehow being a parent I recognize a lot of the challenges. Not doing chores, tantrums, violence, making it on their own etc.

Well, I am a Dane and therefore coldharded.

Tantrums is greeted with silence, we walk away and abandon them. If you approach a child during a meltdown you are in fact rewarding them with attention. There is a reason for them to slam their doors. They need peace to work out their frustrations and peace is what they get. So we close the door making it easy for them to get their self-inflicted  timeout.

We had maggots in one of the rooms. Our kids have so much homework that they often eat in their room. They have done it since they were about 9. The only thing we demand is that they put things in the dishwasher, so when the oldest ignored our plea she had to suffer the consequences. That goes for cleaning their room also. If there is no room for me to use the hoover, their rooms don't get cleaned. During the Easter two days were used to remove cobwebs and dump a lot of things. Sometime you have to let things get out of hand to they are prepared to live on their own.

A friend had a very difficult daughter and she wanted to live on her own. So he challenged her. He would give her three weeks to live in a continuation school which are for the tough and at-risk kids. If she could make it with being kicked out she would pay for a one-room apartment down in the city. They are a kind of CEDU-light where the kids goes home most weeks. Rules are strict compared with our normal youth culture at some schools 34 % of the students are kicked out during a school year.

A typical day consist of:
06:45 Cleaning done by the students of the cleaning team. A law forbids chores being used as punishment, so all students have to do it.
07:00 Breakfast
08:00 Singing our National anthem and information for the day
09:00 School
12:00 Lunch break
12:00 School
16:00 - 16:30 School ends depending their individual education plan. Free time until dinner unless you are on the kitchen team
17:30 Dinner
18:00 Free time
18:45 Quiet / study hour in own room
20:00 Various activities or some common activity for the school
21:00 In own dorms
22:30 Lights out

She loved it at the place, stayed there for a year together with kids convicted for making bomb threats etc. and he had to digg down in his pocket. Of course he would have preferred that she was kicked out, so she would have learned to apply to his rules, but some kids need to go before they graduate or becomes 18.

I would have found a small room for her to live in years ago. Given her the basis. A bed, a table and chair where she could eat/study and a computer for homework. Then I would drop leftovers off in her freezer, so she had something to eat and collect dirty clothes if they are packed and ready. If you have prepared them well they will succeed else they will be coming crawling back.

As I have learned from that part of the story that is not about you but her, her problem was in the school system. As many kids in both your and mine culture, she needed smaller classes and a school with an anti-bullying strategy. As of 2008 all schools in Denmark will be sanctioned if they have not written such a policy down for a start and several schools have educated students to solve conflicts between other students, so the teachers can use their time to teach. In some schools mobile phones are allowed on in class so cyberbullying can be battled and the students can learn something about phoneculture. I just wonder if there are not special classes, semi-boarding schools, youth apartments (Monitored area) or alternative education in your area.

We have to deal with a lot of youth, who choose to look different. Emo, Goth, punk - you name it. They could easily be picked out as a target of bullying, but we allow it they group themselves in a subculture where the laws of the general society dont apply, so we have to remain open so they stay within our normal norms.

I was just wondering if there are not boarding schools she could have gone to as a part of a live-on-her-own challenge instead of overdoing it as it is the case with WWASP.

[Che Gookin]

There's a lot of truth the failing of public schools in meeting the needs of kids in general. It probably is also why alternative schools, online education, and distance learning is become so popular even at a high school level.

I'm personally looking into doing an online degree through Oregon State in Poly Sci myself. Not that I really need another BA, but it would help when looking to get into a grad program.

I seriously, seriously, seriously hope that parents are looking into these non-traditional options before shipping their kids to the nearest Teen-Gitmo. I've had the chance to watch my a friend of mine raise his four kids from afar. His first 3 were the normal reasonably adjusted kids who did and are doing well in school. The fourth hates school, but loves reading.

My friend, being a far wiser man than I will ever be, has pulled his kid from school on a full time basis. His wife does the majority of the schooling with the boy in the morning and drops him off at school for the other stuff in the afternoon. Like PE, Quantum Physic(beats me just throwing that out there), and Art class.  As a result his grades have skyrocketed and he suddenly likes learning. I'm guessing this is in part due to the fact the wifey takes him to the library on a regular basis and lets him read to his heart's content.

My mate's  a pretty practical guy himself. Last I heard from him was he and the boy had nearly blown off their eyebrows launching a model rocket that blew up on the launch stand (I'm so not making this up either). So obviously it is possible to engage children and to help them be interested in learning.

It just takes time, energy, and eyebrows.

[try another castle]

Of course, a good lot of program parents probably wouldn't even have the intelligence to home school a kid, which is why they pay other people do give them no education.

[heretik]

Somehow being a parent I recognize a lot of the challenges. Not doing chores, tantrums, violence, making it on their own etc.

Well, I am a Dane and therefore coldharded.

Tantrums is greeted with silence, we walk away and abandon them. If you approach a child during a meltdown you are in fact rewarding them with attention. There is a reason for them to slam their doors. They need peace to work out their frustrations and peace is what they get. So we close the door making it easy for them to get their self-inflicted  timeout.

We had maggots in one of the rooms. Our kids have so much homework that they often eat in their room. They have done it since they were about 9. The only thing we demand is that they put things in the dishwasher, so when the oldest ignored our plea she had to suffer the consequences. That goes for cleaning their room also. If there is no room for me to use the hoover, their rooms don't get cleaned. During the Easter two days were used to remove cobwebs and dump a lot of things. Sometime you have to let things get out of hand to they are prepared to live on their own.

A friend had a very difficult daughter and she wanted to live on her own. So he challenged her. He would give her three weeks to live in a continuation school which are for the tough and at-risk kids. If she could make it with being kicked out she would pay for a one-room apartment down in the city. They are a kind of CEDU-light where the kids goes home most weeks. Rules are strict compared with our normal youth culture at some schools 34 % of the students are kicked out during a school year.

A typical day consist of:
06:45 Cleaning done by the students of the cleaning team. A law forbids chores being used as punishment, so all students have to do it.
07:00 Breakfast
08:00 Singing our National anthem and information for the day
09:00 School
12:00 Lunch break
12:00 School
16:00 - 16:30 School ends depending their individual education plan. Free time until dinner unless you are on the kitchen team
17:30 Dinner
18:00 Free time
18:45 Quiet / study hour in own room
20:00 Various activities or some common activity for the school
21:00 In own dorms
22:30 Lights out

She loved it at the place, stayed there for a year together with kids convicted for making bomb threats etc. and he had to digg down in his pocket. Of course he would have preferred that she was kicked out, so she would have learned to apply to his rules, but some kids need to go before they graduate or becomes 18.

I would have found a small room for her to live in years ago. Given her the basis. A bed, a table and chair where she could eat/study and a computer for homework. Then I would drop leftovers off in her freezer, so she had something to eat and collect dirty clothes if they are packed and ready. If you have prepared them well they will succeed else they will be coming crawling back.

As I have learned from that part of the story that is not about you but her, her problem was in the school system. As many kids in both your and mine culture, she needed smaller classes and a school with an anti-bullying strategy. As of 2008 all schools in Denmark will be sanctioned if they have not written such a policy down for a start and several schools have educated students to solve conflicts between other students, so the teachers can use their time to teach. In some schools mobile phones are allowed on in class so cyberbullying can be battled and the students can learn something about phoneculture. I just wonder if there are not special classes, semi-boarding schools, youth apartments (Monitored area) or alternative education in your area.

We have to deal with a lot of youth, who choose to look different. Emo, Goth, punk - you name it. They could easily be picked out as a target of bullying, but we allow it they group themselves in a subculture where the laws of the general society dont apply, so we have to remain open so they stay within our normal norms.

I was just wondering if there are not boarding schools she could have gone to as a part of a live-on-her-own challenge instead of overdoing it as it is the case with WWASP.

Oscar, thanks for this testimony of a friend. Thanks for your experience. This is the part of Fornits I appreciat6e, the education you unconditionally receive here.
Psy, thanks for turning me on to this forum.