There’s a moment in every war where something cracks.
A wall falls. A voice rises. And everything changes.
For months — no, years — I was dismissed.
I was the “vindictive mom.” The “unstable one.”
The woman trying to ruin a man’s reputation, they said.
But what I really was… was a mother holding on by her fingernails to what I knew was true.
I knew something was wrong. I knew my kids were suffering.
And I refused to stop pushing until someone finally heard it — not from me this time, but from them.
It started with signs.
Fevers. Strep. Swollen eyes. Flinching. Silence.
Stories that didn’t add up.
Conversations I had recorded because I was desperate to capture what they were afraid to say aloud.
Whispers from my daughter:
“It hurts… down there… someone did something…”
And still — nothing.
CPS closed their cases. Again. And again.
Idaho law said education and medical neglect weren’t enough.
My instincts weren’t enough. The trauma wasn’t enough.
But then… the doctor made a report, too.
Unprompted.
Uncoached.
Unignorable.
He saw what I saw: fear, blank stares, children shrinking under the weight of silence.
He saw what they wouldn’t say, and what I’d been screaming for years.
That night, he called it in — and so did I.
I didn’t know he had called.
He didn’t know I had called.
But that night — we both did.
And for the first time… CPS didn’t close the file.
Because a few days later, when the safety assessor returned to do her final check-in —
my daughter opened up.
She named names.
She described actions.
She shared pain.
She was heard.
The case was officially opened.
Emergency orders were filed.
The beginning of the fight for their safety — a fight that should have started years ago — finally began.
But the damage? It had already been done.
My daughter — my beautiful, neurodivergent, brave little girl — had been forced to sit naked in a bathroom and menstruate on towels because they didn’t believe she’d started.
Even though I had sent her bags of hygiene items, labeled step-by-step so she could learn.
They never gave them to her. They never taught her.
Another child? unsupervised and Burned in a bonfire accident.
His nylon pants melted into his skin.
They never took him in. They treated it with honey.
He has a scar that never lets him forget.
He has a leg that cramps in the middle of the night from a tendon contracture
He’s told me, “It itches, but I can’t feel it.”
One of my boys fell on a chainsaw.
They didn’t take him in for that either.
They superglued the wound shut.
They watched their sister seize on a trampoline — foaming at the mouth — while their father just stood there.
They begged him to help.
He turned around and walked inside.
I was the one who took her in.
I was the one who got her diagnosed with epilepsy.
I was the one who rushed her to neurology, who fought for answers, who put her on Charlotte’s Web CBD because her father refused to consent to medication. Unless the judge had ordered him to take them in when we first started fighting he never did it was always just to keep the system at bay while we fought over custody.
When the seizures turned grand mal, I said enough.
I had her medicated on the spot — no matter what he said.
I couldn’t keep trusting the system to catch her.
I became her net.
When my children were finally safe in my home — after emergency orders, after interviews, after years of being unheard — we started something new: began to look at maybe healing.
But healing isn’t linear. It’s messy.
There are still trauma responses.
There are still nights with screaming and fear and flashbacks.
There is anger. There is confusion. There are meltdowns.
But now, there is safety.
They’ve been together. Not separated.
They have therapy. Structure. Real meals. Real medical care. Real boundaries.
They know what it feels like to be clean, to be comforted, to be believed.
And yet…
I’m still fighting in court.
Still proving the truth.
Still dragging evidence forward as though their words aren’t enough.
It took multiple investigations, recorded conversations, and a second mandated reporter backing me for someone to finally believe.
That should never be the bar.
But here we are.
And I will keep standing in the gap — between who they were and who they’re becoming.
With every record, every scar, every truth we had to and will fight to get believed.
Because the silence didn’t just break — we broke through the silence.
And I will continue to fight and make sure they are never going back.
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