GFH in custody

[Dancerat]

Wow. I am now operating on zero sleep for 28 hours and I'm at work. The inevitable happened and it happened last night. difficult child was supposed to be home at 10, and didn't show up until 11:00. Well, by showing up, I mean had a full fledged screaming match with GFH in our street and the neighbors called the police. I won't go into all the gory details, but three hours later, GFH was in the back of the police cruiser with handcuffs, being arrested for Assault VI. This is her first offense so I am sure it will be reduced down and her arraignment is this afternoon.


After the arrest, difficult child was going crazy with grief and remorse. Can you say Stockholm Syndrome? The sheriffs (there were 6 and three police cruisers) said that they see a lot of female abuse, but this was the first young adult male abuse they had seen to this degree. It's weird too, because difficult child is a tall young man that body builds and GFH is a little thing, can't be more than 95 pounds soaking wet. He just was raised to never lay a hand on a girl, and she apparently deals best through scratching, hitting and slapping.


difficult child talked me into going with him to the courthouse to find out about bail. When she was finally processed four hours later (4:00 a.m.!) the clerk said it would be 2500 to bail her out. I said, oh, okay, 250.00 - you can put that on your credit card. The clerk said, no, 2500. Her bail is set at 25,000.00. I was like for VI degree assault?? She said, no, for VI degree assault AND unlawful possession of methadone. What? difficult child, in trying to be helpful, gave the police her purse with her medications and cell phone. Well, it turns out that there was methadone in it. That she doesn't have a prescription for. Surprise. difficult child did not know about this. Do I believe him? Yes, I do. I immediately on the spot confiscated his cell phone and read through all his texts/emails. Apparently he had been asking her about drug use according to his texts and she was denying doing any hard drugs to him. I KNEW IT. difficult child doesn't drink, and he doesn't do hard drugs. He does smoke a lot of pot, but hasn't for the last week because of job interviews. So that mystery cleared.


Well, as good hearted as I am, there is no way I was going to spring for 2500. So, we hop in the car and go visit her father and stepmother (5:30 a.m.) interestingly, although this was the first time difficult child had met them, they did not seem too surprised at our news. They were very nice people. Just had always had a hard time with GFH. Then, after that news was delivered, we were off to see her mother (6:30 a.m.). Again, the first words out of her mouth to difficult child was "So, are you going to get a restraining order?" My mouth dropped. She stated she would take it from there, and go to the arraignment. She pointedly told my son to NOT go to the arraignment, as it would not behoove the situation. Both sets of parents thanked my difficult child, and did not seem surprised or upset at my son in the least - and we set off again to the house. All in all, I spent approximately 8 hours between the time she was arrested to the time I took my second shower and went to work. Seeing that I woke up yesterday morning at 8:30 - I am now running on 28 hours nonstop. difficult child apologized to us all and called his sister overseas. She spent a good hour talking to him about his inability to fix a chemically broken girl, and that he needs to leave that to the professionals. In addition, he needs to stay away from her while she's going through treatment and anger management counseling or whatever the court is going to give her.


So now, difficult child is dejectedly looking through all his texts and trying to figure out where it went wrong and crying. ( a lot ). The one good thing to come out of this is a possible No Contact order, that I hope with all my heart gets ordered so he can start to detox and I can get him in counseling. I don't consider that I stepped in to fix the situation. I felt I needed to do something, as a mother, for this young girl whom I do not appreciate or like very much, but jail is hard and I felt her parents needed to know.


I am so hoping that this forced separation will break his addiction. I hope. So, there you go, there is the end to this chapter of drama.

 

[witzend]

{{{{{{{{{{{Big hugs}}}}}}}}}}

 

[SuZir]

Wow, you had an eventful night. Hopefully this is a bit of eye-opener for your difficult child. Unfortunately it can also be, that he decides to be her saviour. Or believe the stories she will likely spin when they get to contact next time. With domestic abuse, it often is quite a merry go round times n, before abused one gets enough.

I do not know what your police officers are smoking, or if your culture really is so different, but I have very different time to believe, they don't see lots of domestic violence with female being the violent one. I do know that there I live, 40 % of serious (meaning deadly or serious injury) domestic violence is committed by women and in all of our modern studies bigger percentage of men tells they have been abused by their spouse during the last year than of women. Difference is bigger with younger people. When they asked teens, it came out that a boy had almost a double a risk experience physical abuse in hands of his girlfriend than for a girl in the hands of her boyfriend. I'm sure these are different from culture to culture, but I bet that also in North America it is not only the men who commit domestic violence.

My difficult child's last relationship was also violent and girlfriend was the violent one. It wasn't luckily as serious as your son's situation and luckily she broke up with him last summer, but my son was also totally incapable of standing his ground with her. She luckily didn't use knives or scissors or anything, more just scratching and hitting and verbal abuse. With them, there was lso a big size difference. difficult child is tall, much closer to six and half than six feet and pro athlete. His ex-girlfriend is short, not even 5,5 feet tall and petite. Maybe that was part of why she felt she had right to hit difficult child.

We got lucky when ex-girlfriend left difficult child. I already did worry that they may stay together and maybe even have kids some day. My difficult child really is big enough to defend himself if he felt desperate enough (and if there were not weapons involved), but just a though of having a grandchild, whose mother has tendency to be violent is scary. Even the most petite adult women is huge compared to a young child.

It is really good to her that GFH's parents were helpful, but prepare to GFH turning also that to some sobstory of parents who always think worst about her and never cared for her and that your difficult child can easily buy that. But hopefully they keep her for few days and your son has some time to think and get his head straight.

 

[BusynMember]

I never would have gone to the courthouse over a GFGGF. I didn't even know when Daughter's various thug boyfriends were in jail. She never told me and I'm glad. There is also no way I'd ever pay even a nickle's bail for somebody else's kid who got there by hitting MY kid. Why would you ever consider paying $250 to get her out? I'm glad it was more and you didn't do it!


This is just my opinion and I don't think everyone will agree with me, but I think you got way too involved in this. Once she was carted away in police car, that in my opinion should have been it. If son wanted to go, that would be his decision, but he'd go alone. As for the parents, they did not need any visitors. Again, just my opinion. They know what she is. As for your son, well, he is choosing to love her. And although she is obviously a chemical mess, I do think daily pot use rots the brain so that your son is not thinking logically either. You can't stop his misplaced guilt. He caused his own problem by standing by her side, choosing her and continuing with her. He is not making good choices himself and is not in a good place mentally, but you can't do anything about it.

I hope you can stand firm and continue to concentrate of your two girls, your husband, and yourself Give yourself a lot of deserved and needed love and let Romeo deal with this himself. He will continue to pick losers if he doesn't start feeling better about himself and he probably won't start feeling better about himself until he feels like an adult who is truly independent.

You can not force your adult son into counseling even if he doesn't get to see this girl again and he may pine for her while she's gone. These two are beyond the ages where you can fix them or anyone can. The girl is not a "young" girl. She is a young woman who is making poor choices, whom her own parents know very well and can't fix. Her parents would have found out she's in jail without your stop at their house. Trust me, she will call them. You're lucky they were nice...lol. Some fed up parents may have said, "You woke me up for THAT? Let her stay in jail for now. I'm sleeping in." Yes, I'm serious.

Hugs and take care and I'm sorry for all the trouble you went through. Although I wouldn't have done it, it sounds exhausting.

 

[Calamity Jane]

I know you're really exhausted, but just wanted to tell you I think you're one terrific mom, and also one terrific conscientious worker for even going to work after the night you had! Kudos to you. I'm sorry your son is so upset, but hopefully his girlfriend will get some help now, and he can concentrate on therapy and working on himself for a change.

 

[witzend]

Well, I don't disagree that Dancerat got more involved than she needed to be. If I were playing a role in this story it would be the parents and step parents of the girlfriend. It's sad that she has driven them to that point, and Dancerat lucked out on not being able to pay the girl's bail.

1) Never bail out a person who beats on you or a loved one;

2) If your difficult child wants to bail someone out, let your difficult child come up with the $$$.

If they are all lucky, Dancerat's difficult child will get into treatment somewhere because they all need a break from each other.

 

[Dancerat]

Thanks for all your comments; I truly appreciate them. I'm still at work, wrapping up. Cleaning my desk off so I have a nice fresh start to tomorrow.

Well, although I understand MWM comments, I just haven't gotten to the point where I can ignore a 19 year old that got put in jail without at least telling her parents. Yes, she is a young adult. Yes, she made bad decisions and will probably continue to make bad decisions for a while, but my thoughts really weren't so much of her consequences, but more of parental duty to notify other parental units. No matter how awful my son was, and though I might prefer that he is in jail for something, I would at least want to *know* that he was in jail. I can't imagine a mother of a 19 year old daughter who wouldn't want to know that her daughter was safe, even if she was in an orange jumpsuit. And in addition, she does work for a living and I wanted her parents to handle getting her car and clothes, that are parked in my driveway. And someone, not me, should call her work and tell them something. I think there is a difference between consequences and losing a job that is the only source of money they have.

And also, my difficult child needed to see that these parents were not as god awful as GFH had made them out to be to him. In fact, they were not really as she had described them; anything to try and break the spell she has over him would be good to me.

In addition, I would hope that the ordeal of being arrested, booked and brought into county jail for the first time would be a huge wake up call to someone that has not been there before.

I have been told that I am overly nice; maybe I am. I'm just not quite that person yet, that can say, yes, she's an adult, stay in jail without contact from parents. In fact, even though I read all these posts, I still struggle with that concept, but I do understand that its part of detachment. I rather feel like I am defending myself on this board. But, yes, in one way I am glad to not have had the money to bail her out. So, I revisited the website and the assault VI charge has been dropped and only the methadone one remains. I am trying to read about methadone. Does anyone have anything to recommend to read about it? My son didn't really know what it was, I think he got it mixed up with crystal meth, at least that was the conversation I overheard him having with his sister.

 

[recoveringenabler]

You've had quite the ordeal. And, I'm sorry you did. Certainly all the actual facts were difficult enough to deal with.......... and then when you throw in all the emotions..........well, you've been through the ringer, all of you have.

I understand how you feel. This is all relatively new to you and many of us have been around this block many times............detachment clearly has steps, it is a process,.............it takes us time to figure it all out and change our parental responses................you acted out of your heartfelt concern for this young woman who you don't even like and yet you made sure, as a parent, that all the bases were covered, I can relate to that. It can be challenging to separate our kind hearts from our enabling, I still struggle with that sometimes too...........I often lean towards a kinder approach................and yet, sometimes that makes me a slow learner!

I hope you don't continue to feel defensive, all of us make our own choices along the way, there isn't a right or wrong way, there really is simply your way. When it's about our kids, I think all bets are off, we love them and we all respond differently to different circumstances. Always follow your heart, we can self correct later.

Believe me, we ALL struggle with detachment. You're doing a wonderful job of negotiating through a treacherous landscape where there are no maps and there are pretty constant blow ups which we have to show up for and make quick decisions about. I hope you get some well deserved sleep. Once you're rested, you can pick this all up tomorrow and go from there...............

 

[Signorina]

"...And be careful with arguing with your girlfriend, because if you get arrested for domestic disturbance, or abuse, I am not going to bail you out. So be careful..."

Please know that no one is being judgmental - especially me. We are all just piping in with our own life experiences... because these darn kids did not come with instruction manuals or troubleshooting faqs (lol)

Degrees of detachment &/or the choice not to detach are entirely yours. No one but you walks in your shoes & that's your call. That said, whatever you choose- you need to be consistent AND you need to disengage from being an active participant in the drama. Decide what you are willing to do and not do and stick with it. You've provided a pretty decent option of a warm & loving home to him and he has chosen a different direction. You need to honor his choice AND you should honor your own words. Consistency is key - don't become a part of the craziness. Say what you mean and mean what you say.

That said, I think being open to bailing out your son's assailant is going a bit too far. Your concern for her parents & to assuage your son is touching & well meant but you could have accomplished such with a few phone calls on the morning hours. I think you need to choose to not participate in the drama. Model the behavior you seek- even for just your own sanity's sake.

As far as the "just marijuana" use- my own difficult child can become agitated from marijuana. Yes, it's known for the opposite effect- but agitation is an increasing subset effect due to more potent and varied newer substance strains. Also- synthetic marijuana, k2, spice, salvia & similar street drugs favored by MJ users are known agitators and do not show up on drug tests. Yes, many recreational MJ users are aok just like many social drinkers never abuse alcohol. Your son is having difficulties - and I think the marijuana could be a part of his problems. It certainly isn't helping...

Just in my humble opinion- please keep posting and please know that no one is judging

 

[Dancerat]

I think I am just flat out exhausted. difficult child friends are over giving him bro love. They are telling him what a crazy beeyatch she is. ( their words ). I have now been up for 36 hours straight. It's something, alright. He finally told his boss the truth about his scratches. That he was assaulted by his girlfriend. This had to have been embarrassing. I see a little glimmer of the old difficult child. But... Too tired.

I'm still trying to find info on methadone. Why would she be taking a non prescription methadone?

 

[BusynMember]

Because she's a drug addict. My daughter used it. It's miraculous she quit. It is extremely hard to kick.

This is, of course, your decision, but I'd stop worrying about the girlfriend's issues altogether. Learning about meth won't help her, your son or you. And I'm not judging you. I am sharing what worked for me. My life was becoming uncontrollable as my difficult child's drama took over my own life and that of the rest of my family. I learned to detach. She actually turned her life around, but NOT because I did anything. SHE did it all. I'm very proud of her...it has been close to eleven years. Now I have to detach from my 35 year old son and I am getting better at it.


We can control one person....ourselves.

I doubt this jail time will do much for a meth addict. Many of our kids have been in jail multiple times. When drugs are in the picture, logic is not.

Have a good night's sleep and don't worry about being judged on here. We share, we express our opinions, but we don't judge.

 

[SuZir]

You are doing well. I too think that idea that you would have bailed her out right away would had been little bit too much, after all your son and she really need to de-escalate the situation and not meet right away, but notifying her parents was a kind thing to do. I certainly hope that if my kid ends up in jail someone tells me.

Detachment is prefered method to deal for many in this board. But it is not end all, be all. It is just one way to cope with difficult situation. You make your choices and you don't have to defend them to anyone here. I know we may sometimes come off as little pushy and know-it-all, but of course we can't know what are the best decisions in your situation. But we do bring some different point of views to the table everyone based on our own experiences. But you should of course not take those things as something you had to do or that you should act against your own wisdom or your own values, because someone else has found that doing it in certain ways makes her life more bearable and even enjoyable. That something works for someone doesn't always mean it would work for others.

 

[BusynMember]

In serious defense of detachment...

Suz, I love you, but your difficult child does not put you through 24/7 angst due to his continuous criminal behavior and the spit in our eyes. At least, you have not said that he is like that. Most of our difficult children who abuse us and do not make any money, who refuse help and do nothing but create trouble on top of trouble do not benefit from our caregiving them. You are fortunate that your son respects you and I'm happy for you, For sure your son has issues, but not at the level most of us face. At least, I am assuming he has never struck you, defaced your property, sworn at you with regularity, stolen from you or ended up in the hands of your police. Now I could be all wrong here as we don't know a lot of your son's story.

If I'm wrong, I apologize. If I am right, I don't believe you should detach from a loving adult child with mental illness. Your child is not the type of child who you need to detach from as he is not causing you 24/7 distress because of his willful behavior and he has a job (his sport is his job to me) and he seems to be trying to help himself. The last statement is huge. He is trying to help himself. If your son defaced your property repeatedly, told you what a B*% you are all the time, stole money from you for drugs, ended up in jail a lot, and was only nice to you if you went along with that kind of crazy world, you may see things differently. It is very hard to live that way. Most of us have or still do.

Are we supposed to still be loving and supportive? While you are going to a shrink because of him and a doctor for when he hits you and crying when he doesn't show up for that psychiatric appointment you paid for? When he tells you he isn't going to listen to any of your rules and shows you blatant disrespect? Sometimes I feel you think we are not right for detaching from this or, at worse, are bad people. What should we do? Die young trying to help them when they won't accept the help? When they lie to us, openly defy up in our own home, call us foul names, put us in danger, even hit us? Threaten to hurt us or even kill us? What is the alternative to that sort of adult child to detachment? I'd like to know so I can apply it to 35.

by the way, remember that he lied to my ex to get money for therapy? Well, he isn't taking back the lie and the offer is still there from ex, but (shock) he gave me ten reasons why he CAN'T go for therapy anyway. Hmmmmmmm...kind of makes it hard to help him, doesn't it? Yes, I tried to reason with him, but didn't expect to get anywhere and didn't. Am I bad for getting off and putting him aside in my mind because I can't fix him?

I am trying to get a handle on Dancerat's son. The bottom line is that he has his loving mother extremely upset a lot of the time...possibly has the rest of his family in turmoil as well. In his situation, I still think it is best for her to detach because he is causing the entire family distress and it seems as if the distress is almost constant. I don't know how old she is (I forgot), but those of us older adults really can not stay healthy on that sort of stress, lack of sleep and sadness over a legal adult, even if it's our own child. I often wonder what these adult kids will do when we are gone...they abuse us, but depend on us to abuse and to soften up and hit for things.


As always, JMO, and I do think you are a good person with a good heart. But you have not dealt with this level of abuse from a grown child. You either detach from it or you go down with it. In the end, however, I am sure some posters have left because they felt they had to continue to be caretakers to their forty and fifty-something kids and give up their golden years. This happens all the time.

I am not referring to Dancerat at all, but defending detachment with every fiber of my being. Many of us are in our 50's and 60's and some in our 70's and not all of us want to parent abusive, ungrateful, entitled grown children forever. We all have loved ones who are nice to us. Why should the difficult child, by virtue of his terrible behavior, stop us from enjoying them and our spouses or our hobbies or our groups of friends?

Many of our grown kids are antisocials, or narcissists, or borderline. They do not listen to anyone and without extreme desire to get well (which most don't have) they are really unbearable and, worse, completely concerned with themselves only. This applies for adult kids who were not that way when they were young, but are now substance abusers. SA's act the same way. Many won't even admit there is a nything wrong with them.

Peace

 

[SuZir]

MWM: Detachment is a great tool, when necessary. At times an only way to survive. But to go there is an individual choice. And from Dancerat's post I get the feeling, she isn't willing to walk that path that far in this point of her relationship with her son. And if that is her choice, she certainly doesn't have to defend her choice to not detach to that degree to us. She knows her situation the best and knows how much cr** she is willing to take from her child.

When it comes to my boy, you are partly right. He has not been physically violent towards me after he turned 8 or 10. I registered to this board, when my son had been out from home for over a year, had been clean that same time and was doing much better than during his worst times. And he has been only short times after that at our home, so I have not felt a need to talk about his transgressions against me and at home to much detail. But let's say my boy has quite a mouth in him and knows where to hit when he wants to hurt. He has lied and stolen not only from home but also from extended family, he has not defaced our proberty (if you don't count some broken windows and furniture and one burned outbuilding (that one was an accident caused by him smoking there and nothing too valuable was lost)), but he has wilfully and with purpose broken some very special things just to cause hurt. He has also have some brushes with our police (but our system is so much softer than yours, it really is different) but his more serious crimes were never reported to police, because no one thought it would be his or victims' best interest. Not forgetting the public shame he has caused to us. Of course he was still a minor when he did most of that stuff and he really is doing better right now behaviour wise and current issues are more about his mental health and surviving in the big world. But enough about that.

For Dancerat, I just want to say, that while getting to know about detachment and remembering that can be an option to deal with drama her difficult child causes, can certainly be beneficial, it is not something she has to follow now, if it doesn't feel like the best solution to her situation for now. There are also other healthy ways to deal with difficult family member, detachment isn't an only option at least before situation gets too bad.

EDIT: You have edited your post, while I wrote mine. So I just have to add. My response about detachment not being end all, be all, was for Dancerat. If she thinks that detachment isn't the best option for her situation, she certainly doesn't need to defend that to us. We are not in her shoes. If she does feel, that she has had enough and needs to detach even in very radical way, again, she doesn't need to defend that. I'm in no way trying to imply some of you are in the wrong when you detach to a degree you detach. Or that I would think you are bad parents or don't love your kids. I certainly don't think that. But neither I consider someone weak or bad parent, because they decide not to detach. I haven't been in their shoes either. With my kids any radical detachment has not been an option I would have needed to do, yet. Things can change. I hope they change for the better, but I know better than count on that. But when I need to detach, will be my decision and I would not feel obliged to have to defend that to anyone.

 

[Tiredof33]

When I was in a group counseling discussing detachment there were about half that stated under no circumstances would they ever go no contact with their adult child. Some of us just replied, well you haven't lived in my house yet!

Detachment and even no contact comes after we realize that all we have done has done nothing, maybe it has even caused more harm than good.

It comes when we have reached a point where we can no longer live with the daily chaos and stress. We try the best we can to accept difficult child for what they are, and at the same time give our selves permission to have a life that doesn't revolve around them. Enough is enough!!!

The first time I was around someone practicing tough love and detachment I thought they were the coldest, meanest person I knew. Little did I know that judgement would come back years later to bite me in the butt. I have stated my difficult child taught me the true meaning of unconditional love!

As RE has advised all of the members, seek professional help for this one. It's not an easy issue.

 

[Signorina]

I don't wish to hijack dancerat's heartfelt post. On the other hand, I want to make it clear that I am posting in general here and my words are not directed at her situation, though I hope they are helpful to her.

i think there is a huge misunderstanding about detachment. It's not about your relationship to your (adult) child. It's not about creating distance from them physically, financially or even emotionally. Those separations often come about DUE to detachment - but that's an effect and not a requirement.

It's about control. Not controlling them but regaining control of your own life. Most of us have been in the throes of our difficult child's instability - placed in a constant cycle of reacting to the latest crisis, outburst, craziness - and being constantly poised to react to "what's next?" There becomes no respite - because there is always an undercurrent when there isn't a crisis! We walk on eggshells or get consumed by worry or desperately search for clues as to "what's really going on?" and try to stay a step ahead. I - for one -have been known to obsessively check difficult child's phone records, cyber stalk his friend's social profiles, etc. etc.

Detaching - for me - was getting out of the reacting/always poised to react behavior. I unwittingly became a part of difficult child's drama. I had a role. It made me sick to my stomach, it wasn't a role I wanted but it was a role I was thrust into because I firmly believed (still do) that healthy families/relationships share in each other's troubles, rally 'round, and are each others' source of strength and support. But my son wasn't healthy and it took a long time to see that I was now sharing in and supporting his dysfunction. My involvement - even my reactions - were an intrinsic part of his drama.

And that's why we detach. Detachment means we don't become a part of the dysfunction. Sometimes it has to be a grand detachment - because we are that enmeshed and our finances, our relationships and our emotional involvement are fueling their dysfunction and we have become a part of it. Sometimes, detachment is subtle; it's simple words that change a subject as to not get dragged into a discussion that goes nowhere or escalates quickly. And most of all, detachment is about preserving our own self. Taking back our inner selves for our very own. It doesn't mean we worry less, care less, communicate less or love less. It is only a tool by which we stop letting our difficult child's behavior, their attitude towards us, and the fallout from their choices be the very thing that defines us to ourselves.

 

[recoveringenabler]

Well said Sig.

 

[BusynMember]

Suz, I don't consider anyone a bad parent for what they do with their grown kids. I no longer think of parenting as something t hat is done when a child can legally do as he pleases. In fact, my relationship with all my kids, Jumper included, is more a listener and friend now than a parent who tells them right from wrong unless they ask me. Most of the time, my kids want me to listen to them.They know they can tell me anything (well, unless it's "Hey b****" lol). So I don't judge people who allow their thirty/forty year old drug addicted sons and daughters who still live in their homes and don't work as being bad parents. I think of them as being victims of their grown children.


Great post, Sig. As usual I am still speaking to 35, but I am trying not to get emotionally involved in his words and I am deciding when it is ok for me to talk to him. If I'm not in the mood, I just let the phone ring. If I'm up to it...I try. I set boundaries. If he calls me a name...bubye! And I keep a physical distance between us as I am afraid to visit him and become too close to him in his present state of mind. He would always shove or push or even hit. Lord only knows what he'd do now.

 

[DaisyFace]

Yes - very well said.

Detachment is not "no contact" and detachment does NOT mean "do nothing"....it means to establish healthy boundaries to protect your own happiness, sanity, and well-being.

 

[Dancerat]

Thank all of you again. Sig, that was a good post on detachment, and that's how I feel. I agree. I can only do so much.

I am sure my son will not be able to stop seeing this girl, and I am sure that he will get arrested. At that point, I told him I'd put money on his books so he could get stuff from the commissary, and I'd see him at his arraignment. That's the best I can do. He is so dumb, that he will make the choice to see her, she will somehow get him into trouble, and he will be arrested. The other night, I did get caught up in the drama, but I've always been there for my kids, and it was hard for me to see any other parents suffering.

But these parents were far into detachment. You are right, they probably would have been happy with a phone call and not be woken up. As bad as my difficult child is, the GFH is their difficult child, and is way worse than mine ever was. Well, at this point. I thought about it a lot. Mine is just plain dumb. I mean, he is a smart guy in some ways, but in other ways, especially when it comes to his heart (and places like that), or immediate gratification, for some reason he can't think or act or reason like an adult.

I think I was a little tired when I wrote that piece about defense, but I just wanted to say that I am definitely in the beginning of detachment, and it's an early state for me. MWM is right, if and when I ever go through a quarter of what she's been through, I can only imagine what it would be like to hear a knock on the door at 6:00 a.m. from some well meaning mom and her kid wanting me to know that difficult child has been arrested. I'd probably look at her, and say, thanks, well, that's not a surprise. She'd probably think I was heartless. No. Just finally entaching. I'd like to think of it as that.