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In June, my just turned 18 year old daughter will be graduation from a very elite school where I got her a scholarship and I used to substitute. I haven't seen my daughter in over 3 years outside of a court room. The last time I did have a discussion with her, the controlling foster mother answered every question for her.

I asked for help with her violent outburst and anger and was accused of child abuse and having a negative influence on her. ( She was an "A" student at a private school, with many interests in sports, theater and academics while I was a single mother with a disability on limited income. I couldn't compete with all her friends' families who were both doctors or dentist and had nanny's. We lived on SSI in a HUD apartment but I worked part time because I am physically incapable of working full time. ) I was told that my "on going and untreated mental health issues ruined my daughter" by one of her friend's mother who just happened to be a doctor and told my daughter she wanted to adopt her.

I do not have mental health issues, I have CFIDs it wasn't true and she wasn't my doctor but an assistant dean at a medical school. But with no lawyer to properly represent me, the outcome of the allegations and misdiagnoses left my daughter living with a really wealthy family who basically bought her affections while alienating mine. The final order claimed that I couldn't provide for my daughter the way the foster family wanted to. I gave up. I did more than I could and had the credit card debt to prove it.

I am desperately trying to reconnect with my daughter and have been since her 16th birthday. I missed teaching her to drive, her first date with a young man, her first international trip to study ethnobiology in Costa Rica and
every holiday and school function in 3 years. I was angry initially but after trying to bargain involvement in my only child's life for 3 years, now the anger has turned to grief and depression. I know the final phase of grief is acceptance but some days I am just not there and make futile attempts at reaching her through her foster caregivers and her school. I was told that my attempts just make me look like the crazy mother they say I am.

I don't know how to give up. I did everything for this child, being a teacher myself, I taught her about everything I know and exposed her to all the goodness that life could bring us without a lot of money.
My daughter didn't know how much she didn't have until I got her into this elite school where all the people around her told her how bad she had it with an awful mother like me. This is a Christian school, Moravian Academy, one of the oldest schools in America, but they see $$$ too. The school did a lot of things to violate confidentiality and released my daughter to a doctor mother when she had anxiety attacks…some of which I never even knew about until another teacher who had a child in the same grade told me.
They know I can't do anything about it legally so the school continues to keep me out of my daughter's life too.
I feel that as her mother, since her father abandoned us when she was 4 but now is back in her life, I should be in attendance at her graduation. I know she has gotten into a college but no one will tell me where.

I am not abusive…although I was investigated and wasn't allowed to see my daughter for 5 months because of the alleged abuse. I am 5′4 and she is 5′10″ We had an altercation 3 years ago where she tried to push me down the stairs and was pushing me around because I wouldn't let her go to a concert that her friends' mother was taking all the girls to on a Sunday night. She fought with me for 4 months finally jumping out of a car and ending up in the ER claiming I was crazy when she had threatened suicide. I wouldn't let her come home and got her a bed in a shelter for rebellious teenagers and run aways.
It was declared that I abandoned her. I did not. I tried to get her help.

When the conflict started, I was in a relationship with a man who was good to her but after 7 years of being separated, couldn't get a legal divorce financially. My daughter called me
a F—– ing whore and told everyone that I was his mistress. Yet she took all his gifts and presents. The family she had been staying with was in crisis and the father left the family for another woman. She called me a home wrecker and that wasn't the case at all. His wife had become a lesbian after the 30 years of marriage but he still loved her and took care of her. My daughter then started to act out severely with verbal and physical abuse.

The courts wouldn't listen to me and did everything to humiliate me and I finally broke and gave up….totally disgusted with my only child. The doctor abused her credentials and perjured herself in court to protect her wrongdoings of giving my daughter sleeping meds and taking her out of school without my permission.

The fight destroyed me. I got shingles, IBS, colitis and all kinds of physical ailments complicating my already compromised immune system from CFIDS for the year and half of emotional turmoil. The ordeal cost me my job, my relationship, my family, my social circle and now seemingly, my sanity.

When she turned 18, I sent her a box of presents, baby pictures, Chanel perfume (our favorite) and a blanket with an inscription about a mother's love. Again, the present wasn't acknowledged, even though it was sent to the assistant headmaster at her school because I know that the foster family would never let her have it.

I believe that this poor child is weighing having a life of abundance against a mother with nothing which is not fair to her. I too would choose the life she has….they even bought her a car.

But is it right to do to me as her mother that loved her and took care of her for 15 years? I admitted my mistakes and apologized repeatedly but this child won't have contact with me.
I just want to be able to have her tell me what I did that was so wrong and face me but she refuses to even answer any email.
I don't think she is safe, especially because the foster brothers she lives with were arrested for drugs…but the court didn't care because the Dr. father was a multi-millionaire. I think she is being indoctrinated by a foster family that gives her what ever she wants and has taugh her to hate me.

Is my determination to see my only child graduate from high school a mistake? Should I just put my head down and consider it my biggest failure? I was an educator and started a performing arts high school but can't manage to keep a minimum wage job from the loss of self confidence. Every counselor I have seen wants to put me on anti-depressants but I know my body and they don't work, they only make me suicidal.

I don't know how to deal with this anymore