You're The Best Mom!
Aug 13, 2007

My son's said that many times before. I encourage imagination, I try not to smother him, but the past month or so he's been a real pill. Almost all summer he's been a pill. It's like going through another segment of the terrible two's. I let it get to me and it reached its culmination, and hopefully its end. I overslept and he climbed out the window and went into a neighbor's house. I put him in his room to clean up his toys, locked all the windows, when I came back to check on him, he'd climbed out of the top segment of the window--I didn't even realize he could reach it, let alone do it. That time the police found him about a block from the house and came and brought him home when I called to say he was missing.

And the fun starts. 6 male police officers, keeping my son from me in one of their cars, only two or three in the house at the same time, but all the same, it was 6 vs. me, or at least it felt like it. I've never done a single thing illegal in my life, I would cry my eyes out in shame if I ever got pulled over speeding and given a ticket. After the panic of my son being gone again, all these cops around, I felt all of them were scowling at me and working hard to shame me for what happened.

Now, my reasonable side knows that the police officers were there because they were doing their job, and I made a mistake following the advice of ignoring Michael when he did something bad (I read he was doing it for attention and would behave if I ignored him, that turned out great >< ). However, the fact that I was molested by a prison guard/penecostal youth church leader very similar to these men using shame tactics to stress their points. I can't even be sure they were doing that. Six men all in positions similar to the man who molested me makes for a very anxiety stricken me. I couldn't get my brain to think around them, I took god knows how long to write a statement 'cause my head was telling me things but couldn't get the commands to get thought words through my hands and onto the paper. What I wanted most of all was to curl up under the covers with the stuffed cat I've had since I was 7 and cry my eyes out until they went away. I knew that would definitely not show I was capable of being a parent though. What we want to do, and what we end up doing are two very different things.

During the course of Thursday I had about 5 or 6 anxiety attacks, while I worried about the future of our nice little family, the anxiety attacks consisted of pure anxious reaction to 6 men and memories of a certain prison guard. I talk about this so freely. Part of me feels ashamed to speak of it, I speak of it only in defiance of that shame. I also read it helps a lot when the victim does that. So while I tell it, it's not for sympathy, I'd rather the person not feel any different about me. Only that those who know might understand certain reactions I might have, but also because if I didn't, I would internalize the whole occurence as being something that was my fault. Thursday scared me as a mother and then slapped me down into a very shameful part of my life. I have had a few anxiety attack like moments in which I cry uncontrollably since, but I only allow them when my husband is home and I can let them go.

Since I discovered I was prone to them, I've learned to control them, to put them at bay until it's safe to let it go. I'm not even sure these were anxiety attacks. They weren't panic attacks, just moments in which I cried like a baby wanting to curl up somewhere safe wishing my mom was there to hold me. I'm fine now though, and so long as I don't find myself surrounded by a bunch of disapproving males I don't know anytime soon, it shouldn't be triggered again.

The first time Michael went out, he was looking for the house of one of his little school friends, none of us have any idea where she lives and he doesn't seem to get the fact that we have no way of finding out now either. The second time he left to find the dinosaur jungle so he could go be King of the Dinosaurs. Yeah, my encouragement of imagination reaches back to bite me in the ass.

Saturday, he followed me outside to take a pizza box to the trash, all it took was three seconds for him to dart around the corner to go find Nicki again, I ended up calling the police to help and having one of my asthma episodes (I don't like to call it an attack, makes it sound more severe than it actually was) and aggravating the knee I had twisted running around looking for him Thursday. by the time the neighbor and I rounded the second corner after him he was out of sight.

This time the policeman was much nicer, and rather than lecturing me, he gave Michael a short lecture...I think, I was frazzled and out of breath and my knee was in pain. Several more lectures for Michael later and we've now settled on me waking up very early every day, which is working out rather well, locking doors, keeping him in sight, putting alarms up (really loud noisy ones) for when the top part of the windows are opened, and I've rigged a harness and leash (wraps around his waste and hangs across his shoulders, clicking around the back of his neck--doesn't close around his neck), he's to sit in front of the bathroom door rigged to that and talk to me so I know he's on the other end, and he's to be on it whenever I have to go outside until we're sure he's done with this phase of trying to find Nicki regardless of what we say.

Suffice to say, I highly doubt he'll get away again and if by some enormous stroke of badluck he does, I will insist he found Harry Potter's invisibility cloak and I will guarantee that whoever they house him with if they take him away will have to watch him like a hawk and not sleep, quite literally. He loves his Mommy and Delos, I know this, if he were to find himself elsewhere, he will go to greater trouble to run away from there to get back home than he took to try to reach Nicki.

Despite what the case worker said today when he came in, about worrying that I was gonna break having to watch Michael so closely all the time without a break provided by friends and family, I believe I can do this. I actually feel confident it won't happen again. I don't even think I need to harness him and set alarms. I think Michael realizes now that what he did was very bad and could have been much worse. However, regardless as to whether he realizes it or not, he will in the meantime, suffer the harness and leash whenever I need to turn my back on him, or close a door between us (unless Delos is home to watch him of course), we have alarms now in addition to that. I'm only mad that the social worker came over here with veiled threats about what he'd be forced to do if it happened again and that I needed to grab a break before I buckled under the stress and pressure. He probably thought he was being kind, thinking about me. However, I'm quite confident in my ability to do this now, I won't be taking any chances at all. It's true that the crying fits hit me pretty hard the first few days, but that was only when Delos was around to be the strong one and I'm done with them. I can be much more stubborn than my son, and I'm not gonna break any time soon. It's also not like I can't sleep, we all sleep in the same room, and it's locked in two different places and we've put measures up to wake us if he messes with them or the window. Between Delos and I, he won't be getting up and out before one of us wakes, I guarantee it, someone would have to teach him to disapparate (Harry Potter teleport) before he could pull it off. If he has to go potty during the night, one of us gets up to go with him and make sure he comes back to the bed.

It will take some adjustment, but I'm adjusting VERY quickly to it, the adjustment is nothing compared to the thought that he might go out alone again and get hit by a car or kidnapped, or worse. Besides, though I wish we had a babysitter who didn't charge us more than we could afford, I will be getting a break once or twice a week.

I do need to warn the school though. The government for some reason likes to think they make much better parents, and I think the schools may tend to think a child couldn't possibly elude them. It was quite easy for me in headstart when I had my feelings hurt by the busdriver, wanted to go home so I hid under my seat and cried. She checked the bus as usual (but not under every seat) and left the bus, I easily opened the bus door once everyone was inside, walked out of the bus and walked the few blocks straight to my home.

I also know someone who's son kept leaving their house, opening all sorts of locks that they installed to keep him in. The last time he got out at 4am again he was moved to a temporary home by the child protection services who deemed her too neglectful to trust his safety to. Guess what, he got out of the locks of the temporary home too, 4am and got hit by a car (he lived, but still).

I'd personally rather not take the chance that they can watch him better than me because they are government or child safety people approved. To think, people use to act like I was too over-protective and not permissive enough in what I let him do away from me. I start to lax on that and look what happens *sigh* That's what I get for listening to other people and not my own gut instincts.