Merry Christmas, if you’re into that sort of thing!

@Lea

It’s the most insidious thing I can imagine a kid could go through.

I agree. The person they rely on to guide them and protect them becomes, in their mind, the enemy.

When I heard the This American Life broadcast I was overwhelmed, wondering, How can this kind of child be helped? Luckily, that story has a reasonably happy ending.

Thank you, Moggie. I do too.
Last one, I promise.

In We Need to Talk About Kevin it is implied 1. That the mother may be an unreliable narrator and 2. The root of Kevin’s problem may be nature exacerbated by his mother’s post partum depression.

In reality it is vanishingly rare that post partum could lead to RAD (which has a new and better name now, but I forget it) and nobody is just born with it. It’s fiction and mostly just another horror movie about scary kids, but aspects of the story and Ezra Miller’s performance ring so true. In the film the Jekyll/Hyde personality, one for Dad and another for Mom is a a bullseye. Isolating and punishing the mother in an attempt to keep her attention only on him because he needs her but always feels she’s just outside his grasp and could slip away is right on. The resentment of something he doesn’t understand is correct.The frightening total lack of empathy is familiar. Most of all those expressions on Kline’s face made my hair stand up. The calculating smirk when he’s “won” and the lost, afraid for himself, confused look in the final scene are both looks I’m familiar with. I’ve held him while he shook out of fear and told me he was only cold in 80 degree heat. That was early on. He knows the system now. He isn’t afraid. He jokes about getting the “booty juice” when he flips out during hospitalization. That’s when they give him an injection and strap him down until he stops swinging.

The first time he went AWOL and the police found him he pretended not to know who or where he was. (He’ll pretend to see and hear things now too. He learned that in the hospital.) The next time he went AWOL he made it further than he thought he would and got bored and hot, so he asked a stranger to call the police for him. He waited patiently for them to arrive like he was calling an Uber. He was shocked and offended when the cop yelled at him for running off. He told on the cop to me as if I would go run and defend him again.

I told the last placement to stop calling me when he punched walls until he hurt himself or acted out violently toward staff when I figured out he waited until late to do it so I’d get woken up and worry. At one point he was only allowed to do school work with crayons because he was a danger to himself and others with a pencil. He never really hurt himself. He’s careful to only do surface damage. He even orchestrated a fake fight with another boy. Fortunately, the kids who overheard them planning told staff. Neither boy was hurt because it was all for attention. When he liked a girl but she didn’t like him back he threatened to hang himself with his sheets. That was September. He was out and declared fine by Halloween. When Medicaid stops paying, you’re cured. But I was warned to never leave him alone and to lock up all knives, medications, scissors, screwdrivers and pencils.
That’s when I filed for theraputic placement.

One of the earlier lies he told me was that he was being stalked by a man dressed as a scary clown. Guess what he was for Halloween when he got out? He made sure to ask me what I thought of that like he was telling me a funny joke. The only pictures he’s had the fosters send me were of him dressed as a scary clown, grinning.

I know there’s a book called, “I Hate You. Don’t Leave Me”. I haven’t read it but the title sounds like how he behaves toward me.

My son was most recently angry with me for telling him one of our dogs died. I made him sad. Not the dog dying made him sad, “I” made him sad. I don’t know if he can’t tell the difference or if it’s the only opportunity he’s had a while to try to make me feel guilty. I’m practiced in faking being chipper and unphased now. I don’t have much contact with him. I “gray rock” him as best I can when I sense he’s trying to work me. He’s running out of avenues to get his fix. He’s in school now and has a girlfriend. He wants to go into the army when he’s 18. He works out religiously. I tell him I’m happy for him but if I could I’d call that girl’s parents and tell them to keep her away from him. He’s heavily medicated now and he doesn’t want to go back to the hospital. Still, it’s a matter of time. I’m cutting him off from his supply. He’s going to need a certain kind of attention sooner or later. Drugs don’t treat RAD and if left untreated it will turn into something worse.

Doormousing,

In the RAD parent support groups, you hear worse. I have it easy.

@Valentin

“my crisism is not directed at such situations and yours is unique… it is very different from making your child feel stressed and unsafe because you are afraid of paedophiles.”

What The Absolute Fuck?

For fuck sakes Valya, I’m not posting some hypothetical for us to have a fun debate over, I’m posting a real fucking problem from my real fucking life. These are not pretend paedophiles hiding in the closet, these are not pretend bullies, this is real shit. I talk to my daughter, I know my daughter’s full history, I know the full story of what’s going on here-(which you do NOT). My daughter has given me reasons not to trust her.

So you think my daughter would always tell me if I didn’t snoop? Are you familiar with the term “ratting out”? It’s basicilly means that someone is bringing problems (ie. Bullying, fights) to the attention of authorities (Ie. teachers, police, parents). Heaven forbid some little shithead gets into trouble, there’s a full out campain by every kid to find out who the “rat” is and to bitch them out. I know my daughter, I know she’ll hesitate to “rat”, no matter what I have to say about that. I know that she’ll hesitate, and I know that she’ll downplay it to me, and I know this because she’s already done it over and over and over again.

I could say more, but quite frankly, it’s none of your business. Stop judging a situation you know nothing about. Especially stop being hyprocritical about it. Lea didn’t know what she was going to find when she snooped either, she could have just as easily accidentally outed her son, and been in the same situation that I am in. Maybe she would have the class (or the sense) not to ask for advice, but I was thrown for such a loop (honestly didn’t suspect at all, she hid it well), and well, talking to anyone who actually knows mkid is out of the question. I didn’t want to fuck up the situation with mkid any more.

My daughter hardly lives in fear of me. She is hardly stressed and unsafe. Fuck off with this shit. I grew up in shitty circumstances, (which left me traumatized and with a personality disorder), and and I am sooooooo resentful of this stupid shit. I am not a perfect parent, but I am not abusive. Fuck off.

Val, she had a freak-out because I was about to find out something she wanted hidden (and which I feel bad about). She’s a teenager; they have freak-outs, they hide shit. Itxs fucking normal. After I took her phone and snooped, I came back into her room, matter of factly told her what I did administratively, and when she saw that I still loved her and that everything was going to be ok, she snuggled up to me and started showing me her drawings and telling me about them. Then she picked up my phone and started looking for a picture in my gallery, because SHE has my phone passwords, and SHE is free to go into my phone uninvited as well. The horror, the abuse!

Are we done with this stupid shit now?

@Lea

I just reread all your posts and you are fucking amazing for all the fighting you are doing for your children, and your son. Anyone who says that you’re a bad parent is talking out if their ass. Full stop.

I’m sorry to hear that your son has RADn and that the year was so tough on you. For whatever they’re worth, you do have my thoughts and sympathies.

mrex. I no longer have school age children – they’re now in their mid-30s. But when I look back on the bullying the younger one endured for several years, I’d have been grossly negligent not to keep an eye on her online stuff if we had it back then. It took her months to finally tell us what was really going on in yr 6. And I never really got a handle on a pure, unadulterated, bullying “mean girl” friend of the family until her taunting and bullying had more or less tailed off in their later teens.

I reckon you’re doing the best you can given the circumstances, the children you have in the circumstances they find themselves in, your own parent and all the rest of it. We never get it perfectly right, but so long as we aren’t abusive or bullying ourselves, we’re in the best position to step in when we can.

One other hint for readers, rather than for you directly, that I picked up from watching my mother. Her parents were never satisfied despite her being a goody two-shoes par excellence.* Surprisingly enough her mother was extremely controlling – she had to sole parent for the 5 years that grandpa was a POW. So the lesson my mum learnt was to do everything exactly the opposite of what she didn’t like about her upbringing.

But we weren’t clones of her. So her parenting rules didn’t really suit either of us – we were also very different from each other. See your children for the individuals they happen to be and do your best, even if they’re very unlike yourself.

*(Even when she was in her 50s, we all went to a conference where she was a speaker. Her speech was side-splittingly funny – every one of the hundreds of people there was wiping tears from their eyes and clasping their aching ribs. Afterwards, over tea and scones, her dad looked around and remarked to my granny These people seem to like Helen. as though this was an impenetrable mystery.)

Advance apologies for lengthy post. I’ll do my best to leave it after this, everyone.

@Ignore Sandra,
Thanks for your response. Much food for thought and I appreciate it. I didn’t respond earlier because I was feeling too defensive, and for me that’s not a good place to respond from. That’s on me, btw; not blaming anyone.

Re tone policing: I objected to Mammoth commenters calling another Mammoth commenter toxic and disgusting, and telling them to fuck off. If I’d addressed a regular like that, I think people would pull me up, and rightly so. Perhaps more importantly, it was straight out claimed that someone was abusing their child.

Re “not all parents”: hm, still mulling this over. There’s a long history of abuse in my family, going back generations, and still happening now. I was terrified that I would somehow continue this with my son. I was also a bit of a fuck-up just before I had him, coming out of addiction and serious mental illness, which added to the fear. I may have reacted from that place when I posted.

I’ve never “snooped” on my son, fwiw, but if I thought he was being harassed online, or conversely if he was hurting someone else, or visiting Stormfront or similar, yes, I’d intervene. Extremely carefully, but still. These kids may be “teenagers” but there’s a hell of a difference between 13, for example, and 18.

@mrex, I want to apologise. I had no right to jump in on your behalf before you’d even responded.

@Kat, @Croquembouche, thank you <3 <3 <3

Thanks mrex,
I hope you and yours get through this rough patch and back in kinder waters soon. It’s easy for people to judge when they have never been where you are. Talking about what amazing parents they’d be in your place, when they couldn’t find that place on a map with a directions and a magnifying glass is as ridiculous as assuming you could play concert piano better than the guy on the stage without all that silly education and practice. After all, you know how a piano works and you don’t need to actually practice daily for years or know how different everything feels in front of a crowd to know not to play it with you ass. So clearly any bystander could tell that pianist a thing or two about how he ought to play.

Everyone’s a hero and a saint so long as they get to remain untested.

Yes, you can hear a missed note without even having one lesson, but that hardly makes one an expert who needs to chastise and correct that pianist from the audience. Nobody appreciates a heckler.

If you think there’s something wrong and you need to check up on her, do it. If you’re wrong, she’s angry at worst. If you’re right and do nothing, she might be talking to my son. Several girls did. That did not go well for them.

It doesn’t make you paranoid. It’s your job. Nobody else is going to do it for you and nobody else’s heart will be broken like yours will if she’s hurt. These folks putting you down won’t miss a single night’s sleep over your child’s well-being. Have they ever even asked you how she is or if she exists until you brought this up? Doubtful.

Pedos are real and so are bullies. They aren’t rare and they’re good at manipulating kids into silence. If something happened and you didn’t find out until it was too late instead of being called paranoid you’d hear a chorus of: ” How could you not have known?” “Where were you?” “Why weren’t you paying attention?” Why did you leave her unsupervised?” ” Don’t you know what a sewer the internet is?” “I mean, you wouldn’t just drop her off in a strange city alone.” “Don’t you read the news?”, maybe not from here, but from all over and it would go on and on and on.

Sometimes when I would let my older kids go off somewhere alone, I’d do a sneaky drive-by or have their dad do it just to make sure they were where they said they were with who they said they were with acting like they ought to act. This isn’t different.

Once a concerned mom called me because my daughter got in a car with someone she should not have. I called her on her cell and told her to get home asap. She didn’t know he’s known in the whisper network to get girls the age she was drunk then and rape them. He looks young, but he was in his 30s. The mom apologized for being an informant, but I thanked her for making it her business to save my baby’s bacon. He was an acquaintance of a friend of hers. He talked to her about MLPs at a local con. She didn’t think anything of it.

It’s the same thing. Online activities are not the equivalent of a dairy. Predators don’t stalk kids in diaries. Kids don’t kill themselves for being bullied in their diaries.

lea

yes of course. but it is not individual attack. it is same like if someone said ‘men are trash’ because most men she met treat her badly. I should be upset by this? or understand that it is generalisation, it is not about all men are trash and also know if I am good then I am not in this generalisation.

I read your story Lea. I cannot deny – you save your son from plenty suffering with your actions. but this does not mean that other parents must to do this.

” Everyone’s a hero and a saint so long as they get to remain untested.”

I am not mean to say anything with this. please read my comment again. I try very hard to be polite and speak generally about this specific act to spy on children. I don’t say anything about who parents good or bad. I can’t know everything about this – so I just said about one thing I believe.

” Talking about what amazing parents they’d be in your place, when they couldn’t find that place on a map with a directions and a magnifying glass”

I won’t speak for others but I 100% not said this and I 100% don’t think this.

mrex has long history about saying things on here which sometimes like trolling. people’s response to her always will come with this history.

I tried very hard to make my reply polite and try to keep clear I talk generally that it is not good idea to do this thing.

Our favorite Sheriff of Toytown is being taken to court for calling someone a snowflake.

Of course, the person he called a snowflake and who is taking him to court is the one he had deputies lean on in that plane incident …

Memo to Donald Trump: If the book is boring, why are you so excited about it? Steve Bannon — sloppy? Is that the way to talk about your esteemed colleague? Can you prove that he cried and begged for his job? And finally, “dumped like a dog”: Don’t say one more word about dogs.

Donald J. Trump
(@realDonaldTrump)
Michael Wolff is a total loser who made up stories in order to sell this really boring and untruthful book. He used Sloppy Steve Bannon, who cried when he got fired and begged for his job. Now Sloppy Steve has been dumped like a dog by almost everyone. Too bad! twitter.com/gop/status/…

mrex I remember you said before sometimes you even start arguments on here – that little bit like trolling.

and it not excuse for myself – excuse for tone of others and if they feel you are troll then they will not be so polite.

I tried to keep polite tone and not make a personal attack.