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26 July 2021
Kristine Bolstad:
The CPS took everything I had – and smashed it
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This is one of three articles highlighting the way harmful actions by the CPS affect siblings.
A Norwegian version of the present article has been published in various facebook pages and groups carrying criticism of the transgressions of Barnevernet (Norwegian CPS) and on MHS's home page.
This English version is published here with the author's kind consent.
Translation: Marianne Haslev Skånland
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I will personally raise a complaint against the CPS – Barnevernet – in Samnanger(1) for having destroyed my family. Samnanger Municipality forgot me in all the commotion. I was a sizable part of a whole, an important part, a sister and a daughter who saw it all. It was very traumatic for me.
My life was shattered and destroyed completely through all the nasty, untruthful play the CPS put on. I not only lost myself but my whole family and my security. Why was I forgotten in it all?
I had to witness my sister and my brothers leave, one after the other, while I was left at home. It was not a good feeling. When I could remain with my father, why did they have to leave? If the CPS held dad to be a bad father, why was I left behind?
Nothing here adds up. Our father was a good father. He did everything for us.
I still see them leaving, in my mind's eye, while I had to say "Goodbye". And my dear, lovely sister who looked on me as a 'mammy' – I was her 'nanny'. Father and I were left there without them. I had a feeling of guilt and a hatred against myself for all they had to endure in their journey, while I had to just accept, and could do nothing for them.
To visit them, to have them wanting to come back home with us, while we were not allowed to take them with us, has implanted in me an anxiety in my daily life. Trauma and fear. I was a pawn in it all, but Samnanger Municipality has evidently forgotten me in the middle of it all.
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You have no idea how much Samnanger CPS has destroyed for me – with anxiety, traumas, school, job. These days I see a psychologist because of it, me paying for what someone else has done to my life.
I have missed a lot because of what happened to my siblings and my father. And sure enough: I had not even given birth to my first child when the CPS started interfering in my life as a mother. I cannot find peace, I am afraid that my children will be taken from me, even though there is no reason to take them. The traumas from what happened to my siblings seem entrenched in me. To ask for help raises the alarm in me.
I could list all that has happened, but the municipality has it all in its papers and it has been published in the media. I was a big sister and a daughter; to this day I struggle with all that happened. I am still afraid. What the CPS in Samnanger has done, has scarred my soul and my heart. They took everything and crushed it to smithereens. Those years without my sister and brothers I will never get back. Never!
Footnote
(1)
Chris Reimers:
Landmark Report exposes the Realities of Norwegian Child Protection
Wings of the Wind, 10 May 2020
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See also
Else Sommer:
On foster children
MHS's home page, 23 July 2013
Jan Simonsen:
The child protection employees – do they deserve criticism?
MHS's home page, 8 February 2016
Marianne Haslev Skånland:
The importance of freedom of expression, illustrated from "child protection" in Samnanger municipality in Norway
MHS's home page, 10 May 2020
Olav Terje Bergo:
The stubborn blindness of the defenders of Barnevernet
MHS's home page, 2 March 2019
Arne Jarl Hatlem:
Barnevernet – the CPS – equals merciless Norwegians
MHS's home page, 29 July 2018
Margaret Hennum:
Against Norwegian Barnevern
MHS's home page, 24 April 2016
familien-er-samlet (the -family-is-together):
5 years as refugees
MHS's home page, 30 August 2018
Jan Pedersen:
The children of the state – The Norwegian child protection agency, Barnevernet, has created a society of fear
MHS's home page, 27 November 2017
Arne Seland:
A recipe for disaster
MHS's home page, 10 May 2016
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