I figured it out! All this time I was attempting to discover what the reason could be as to why I'm still here in Ireland. Yes, it does have something to do with my finances too of course, but that's something that can be overcome if the will is there. Then there was the fact that I wanted all kinds of things, but couldn't really put a finger on what this was exactly. So I started to think that because I am not directing my energy to one ultimate goal, the universe is probably as clueless as I am and can't give me what I need to leave.
But then the answer came. It came in the form of a letter in a brown envelope. My name and address were written by hand and there was no return address, but a sticker that said: Private and Confidential.
I knew right away what it was.

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The letter

The letter came from the complaint officer that handled my case against our psychopath caseworker. She's not on our case anymore; in fact: I haven't heard from her or seen her since September.
Some might think that's a good thing, and in a way it is. However, the case is not exactly wide open, but the file isn't closed yet either, which pretty much means that it keeps hanging over my head like a shiny, dangling guillotine
I hate that. You either close the case and be done with it, or you keep it open and keep interfering with your big, fat...
Well, you may finish that for me. By now, they have gotten me that far that I'm paranoid, constantly looking over my shoulder, and every time I hear a car coming up the driveway, or the dogs start barking, I think: there she is. Either her psycho ass herself or someone new. And what then? If it's someone new, what the fuck then? Will she be one that makes a point of everything, or someone who doesn't really give a damn as long as she gets her quota, which is, in my opinion, the most dangerous kind. We dealt with someone like that. I'm not going back there. It makes me think: "What kind of games are they playing?" But I realize that it doesn't matter. I know they do this on purpose, just like they do everything else on purpose. They might keep it open so they can come in, guns blazing, whenever they feel like it, or when they have nothing better to do. But I am above that, I am not going to let it bother me. At this stage, there's no way they can still play the 'concern about your children' card because after not showing your face for 9 months it can never be considered as having any 'concern'.

Back to the letter. I quickly read through the different pages. First, the complaints officer outlined the whole complaint. From the 10+ complaints I dropped in his lap, 4 were left over by the time he was done listening to my account and that of my friend J and her husband D.
I could still see the humor in the thing, because out of those 4 complaints, he worded one completely wrong and it differed from what I had told him. Funny, because it proved to me that neither one of those people actually listens. Even funnier when you think that he read the whole thing out to me, I approved it, only to write a completely different account than what I gave him. How do these people even do it? It astonishes me every single time. This complaints officer has been put in place because they had no one (no one ever complained?). He was actually the area manager for the bigger town close by. So indirectly he was her boss or had been up to this point. Talking about 'independent' investigations.

But as I read on, also my fears became more of a reality. To be honest, I didn't think they would take it seriously. And of course, they would cover her sick head. But just how much, and how much they are now hurting themselves, I had no idea. I didn't think it was possible. But her superiors are even more crazy and stupid than she is, or they think I'm an idiot. Well, they got it wrong.
The rest of the contents had me fuming. If I would have been able to blow fire from my nostrils, the house would have been toast. After everything they've put us through, this could just be the ultimate slap in the face.

I will try to explain what was written in short:
First of all, every time I had mentioned that the caseworker had lied, or made stuff up, or twisted my words, the complaints officer had put the word 'lied' in quotes. Like this: 'Client mentions that CC "lied" about this.'
To me, that's where the not-taken-seriously starts. It almost seems like he was trying to say: 'She says she lied, but it was probably just a misunderstanding.' Like I'm a three year old.
But what it basically came down to was this: About everything I told them that she had lied, twisted my words or completely made stuff up (yeah, scary shit, I know, but she did that more often than not), that was simply not true according to her.
So since she's not lying, then I am. That's what it comes down to, right?
And I get that. She is the 'professional' caseworker without kids of her own but with my kids' best interest in mind (yeah right!) and I am 'only' this dumb Dutch client who obviously has raised my children (17, 11, 9 and almost 5) completely wrong, even though everyone always says how great they are, yeah, completely wrong. Wow, I must be a monster after all!
But still, I understand that. But then they took it a step further. Everything else I said, like the threats she made, the times she talked to me like I was a toddler, or when she raised her voice or told us we weren't allowed to speak Dutch because 'We speak English here!' That was all not true either.
And what my daughter had said about her, making medical prognoses, while that is way out of her professional line of work.
That was not true either. So now both my daughter and I lie. WOW!
But it gets even better. Also, my friends J. and D. are liars, because what they've witnessed her do, was also untrue.
Yup, we're all a bunch of liars. We're all ganging up on the poor innocent woman.
The ONLY time when she admitted that her words were wrong because she had to since it was something she had written about my daughter's school. According to her one of her had to drive my daughter to the ER. So yeah, she couldn't get out of that one. But she did by saying that this time it must have been a 'misunderstanding.'
Those fucking convenient "misunderstandings" time and time again. I thought I had seen everything, but she surprises me every time.
She took it even further...

More lies!

Yup, at this stage nothing surprises me anymore, because that woman is nothing short of diabolical. If demons were living among us, she would be one! I can't call her a bitch, or any bad word that has been invented, it wouldn't do her justice. Evil on legs. Nothing more, nothing less. But lucky for me: she's a very dumb devil.
She underestimated me and that will be her downfall.
So what did she do? She told more lies. More lies to talk herself out of the situation and more lies to make me look really fucking bad. When addressed about the cats she had me remove from the house, she BLATANTLY lied that she witnessed one of the cats pee on one of the beds...
Now, any second grader that knows anything about normal, pet cats, will tell ya: Cats don't do that.
They do it, if there's something wrong with them, or if they're feral cats. But our cats, who have been raised by us, in our home, they DO NOT and will NEVER pee on the bed. And neither will most other house-cats.
Then there is this: if a cat peed on one of the beds, and she witnessed that, then why was this not in her initial report?
If I were her, that would be the first to write down in it. Wouldn't you?
But it wasn't in the report. The same report she had me read, but then said she couldn't give me a copy of because it was against the law. WHERE have you EVER heard of anything like that? In the age of the Freedom of Information Act, I can read, but not have a copy of my own file? WHAT? So yeah, I wasn't born yesterday...I copied the thing. But of course, I know the reason why I wasn't allowed to have a copy. At that time, she knew I had filed a complaint, but she didn't know what was in it yet. So this way, she could adapt it and just say it was there all along. LOL. Not this time!

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And it gets better yet AGAIN!

On top of it all, she also mentioned somewhere that she brought up a subject, and that I got aggressive with her.
WOW, this woman...
The thing is, there were many instances when I wanted to rip her head off her neck, and she must have felt this sometimes, but I never told her, I never raised my voice, and I definitely never got aggressive with her. Ever.

Then I got to the part when I had made the complaint about how she spoke to me most of the time, and especially about the meeting that we had, with J. present. In that conversation, she said 'We speak English here.' (not true according to her) She blamed things on me that just hadn't happened. (not true according to her) And she raised her voice (also not true). Well, I have a little surprise for her here: I recorded the damn conversation!
So even though it wouldn't hold up in court, the complaints officer will hear it, and anyone above that...and there is NO WAY they can talk themselves out of that one.

What now?

Well, the next step for me would be to send a letter to the commission in Dublin. If this doesn't go to my liking, I can talk to the Ombudsman. Since the initial complaint was done in June/July and I only received the 'verdict' last week, I think they might be betting on me not wanting to continue this. Well, they are wrong. At this point, I am not doing this for me or my family anymore. I am doing this for all the other families who could have to deal with her and who aren't as lucky as I was.

She has to go!

And the strange thing is, even though I spit fire when I hear things she said, I am not even angry anymore. If anything, I feel sorry for her, because there must be something seriously wrong in your life to want to spend your life trying to ruin other people's lives...

So then I was talking to D. and he gave me an idea. I will still continue this, but I will do something more.
I am going to place ads. Ads looking for people who have been and are dealing with CPS in our area. I will call it independent research. After all, I am a journalist, I might as well use it. I'm pretty sure I will find others. It can never be the case that I am the only one. There are more, I guarantee it.

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So that's the reason I am still here

In this county, I am the only one who ever filed a complaint against CPS EVER.
How can this be? Most likely because they do target the weak, and a lot of those people won't even think of something like that. Or they might think they can't. The thing is: they have to TELL you this. Because it's our right to complain if needed. But they don't. So if no one knows they can complain, then who better than me to tell them that they should.

That being said, that's what I believe is the reason I am still here. Unfinished business. But I already put things in motion to leave here. So no worries, my kids will be safe from harm from them by the time we drop that bomb on them.

It's a dirty job, but someone has to do it.