The Crazy Lady

Along with the theme of being a "strength-based" social worker (note the sarcasm...), I have dubbed one of my clients "The Crazy Lady." She is actually a nice lady usually, but she's, well.... crazy. She has paranoid schizophrenia AND has abused cocaine in the past (including while she was pregnant with her son). Here's an example of some of the bizarre things that have come out of her mouth (keep in mind that son is 7 months old right now, and these quotes are from the last 6 months of working with them):

• "I think my son likes being in the system."
  
• "My son is trying to hurt me. I don't know why he thinks I"m trying to hurt him. But he punched me."
• "I don't know why you guys are making this so hard on me... it's not like he's all that."
• "Thank you for going to see him... I'm glad you did. He was glad too... he told me so."
• To therapist while pregnant: "The cocaine calms him down."

These are just the highlights. She got arrested two months ago for being in possession of cocaine. She enrolled in drug counseling and testing a few weeks later (although she had been ordered to do so by the Children's Court in like October). Of course, DCFS recommended that she doesn't get her son back because she's.... well crazy... and she's only been clean for like 2 mnonths! But the court wants to release the child to his mother! We haven't allowed parents to have unmonitored visits after testing clean for that period of time with older children... yet the judge wants to release the child to the mother!!! What the heck!?!?! Of course it's on the condition of cousin being there to constantly monitor... but let's be honest... who is going to monitor them 24/7. Just ridiculous!