TerryJ2
Well-Known Member
This a.m., difficult child asked if he could run around the neighborhood and see who's home. He knows his two friends, S. and D., are at camp, so he said he wanted to see if they were home yet. I said okay.
He came back within 10 min. and asked me to drive him to a diff friend's house.
We got in the car, and halfway there, husband called and said that easy child was trying to get a hold of me; difficult child had been caught in the neighbor's closet.
This is a neighbor for whom easy child babysits, so difficult child has been over there many times.
I made U-turn, with-difficult child already shaking and in tears, and I was intending to drive straight to their house, but easy child called and said that the mom had already left for work.
We drove home and easy child gave us the mom's cell ph #. We called her and she was very nice.
She said she'd come home to change b4 work, and thought a cat was in the closet and she was alarmed when she saw difficult child there on his hands and knees. (I would have had total heart failure!)
difficult child told her (and us) that he was looking for an antique toy car of his grandfather's (yeah, right, in the mom's closet?)
She was very sweet and understanding and told difficult child he couldn't come over when they weren't home.
During this ph conversation, easy child came up to me, in tears, and whispered, "None of that stuff downstairs in the folded laundry is mine. One of those panties is S's--(the 14-yr-old girl she babysits for) and I think the rest are her mom's."
So, I'd spent 1/2 hr folding someone else's panties today???
I did not tell the mom that. She was driving on the freeway and I didn't want to freak her out.
Plus, I didn't know for sure whose they were (except that after I looked, they were not easy child's size). difficult child could not have taken then and run them through the laundry in 1/2 hr. He had to have had them much earlier. Like, wks ago. Or even a day ago.
by the way, difficult child snuck into their house last mo and was viewing porn sites. He did it at our house and we lectured him on computer viruses and inappropriate viewing and I created a password. So that simply drove him to seek the websites elsewhere.
So this neighbor was doubly sweet, given that this is not the first time difficult child has snuck in there.
She won't be so nice when she discovers difficult child's got a boatload of her Victoria's Secret panties.
My guess is that difficult child brought them along to camp, since they came out of the same load his sleeping bag was in.
After the ph call, he blew up. Trashed his rm., screamed yelled, roared, you name it.
I was distraught and confused, so called our child psychiatric. He's out of the ofc for the rest of the wk and the msg says to go to the emergency rm. Arrrgh! NOT a good option.
I called a guy friend (husband was swamped at work and with-patients). By the time my friend got here, difficult child had calmed down and wanted to talk.
So my friend (he's the bipolar one, and I wanted his opinion, not to mention he's a big person in case difficult child got really crazy. His opinion was that he didn't really think the tantrum was bipolar but pointed out that there is a hypersexual component to bipolar, and difficult child could have a very mild case. He also said we need to calmly but firmly tell difficult child that people will call the police next time and he's got to know how serious this is.) He hung around and did handyman work while difficult child and I talked on the steps outside. difficult child was sobbing and sweating and ready to throw up. He apologized for all the times he'd lied about being on porn sites, stolen easy child's panties and stolen a friend's Ipod.
(Oh, I forgot to tell you all about the Ipod. Sigh.)
But he insisted he hadn't taken the panties from the neighbor.
I told him he had a pattern and what were we supposed to think?
He said he understood but was still insistent.
I told him that he needed to control his impulses and that he had boundary issues. He said he knew that, and he found himself walking across the hall to my ofc to look at the computer once and stopped himself. I said that was a good start.
I said he had ruined any trust between himself and the neighbors and that now he's taken things from two of his friends and this was becoming a pattern.
I told him that I loved him anyway, but he was going to have consequences.
He said I didn't love him, shouldn't love him, he understood why no one trusted him, and he was going to commit suicide.
I told him I understood why he felt no one loved or trusted him, but in my own mind I still loved him so that's the way it was.
I had him stay in his rm most of the day. I ran errands and took him with-me. I told him he will be constantly supervised. (One of the big issues he talked about in therapy the other day was not wanting me to treat him like a baby, walk him to the door of a friend's house, or have him call every two hrs. We told him we would loosen up, but in general, he had to earn that privilege.
So what does he do to earn his freedom? Sneak into the neighbor's closet. Back to square one!!!!)
Oh, at one point he told me that he bought the panties at WalMart, on a trip at camp, with-the extra $ we gave him. Yeah, right.
(We gave him $20 spending $ and he hardly spent any of it. He bought a cpl Reeses peanut butter cups and a postcard or two. He actually came home with-cash leftover.)
Obviously, another lie.
And I really blew it. Not that I yelled, just that I didn't play my cards right. husband is planning to talk to difficult child tonight and get difficult child to confess and figure out consequences. So I was supposed to not bring up the subject again. Easier said than done. difficult child came down to the kitchen and hugged me and told me he was sorry. I hugged him back and told him I'm sorry too, especially that he lied.
He said, lied about what? I said, "You can't buy Victoria's Secret at WalMart."
He pushed me away and took off for his rm.
See? I blew it. No more hugs for me.
At any rate, I highly doubt the panties came from camp. You pack light for camp. This is an entire drawer-full of panties.
This puts us in the awkward position of having to tell the neighbor and retn all this stuff to her. I highly doubt she will call us and admit she's missing a dozen or so sexy lace panties. It's just so embarrassing all the way around.
The good news, is that difficult child's rage only lasted 10 min. and all-in-all, made sense in light of the situation.
The bad news is that I don't know how to deal with-his sneaking into other people's houses other than tell the neighbors to go ahead and call the police next time.
I was planning to paint a huge tile project today and now I'm too exhausted to do anything. I am soooo ticked. And worried. We are going to make an appointment with-the child psychiatric specifically for this incident.
difficult child is reading in his rm and I've got my ofc door locked. This is the quietest and calmest it's been all day.
Thank you all for reading this much!
He came back within 10 min. and asked me to drive him to a diff friend's house.
We got in the car, and halfway there, husband called and said that easy child was trying to get a hold of me; difficult child had been caught in the neighbor's closet.
This is a neighbor for whom easy child babysits, so difficult child has been over there many times.
I made U-turn, with-difficult child already shaking and in tears, and I was intending to drive straight to their house, but easy child called and said that the mom had already left for work.
We drove home and easy child gave us the mom's cell ph #. We called her and she was very nice.
She said she'd come home to change b4 work, and thought a cat was in the closet and she was alarmed when she saw difficult child there on his hands and knees. (I would have had total heart failure!)
difficult child told her (and us) that he was looking for an antique toy car of his grandfather's (yeah, right, in the mom's closet?)
She was very sweet and understanding and told difficult child he couldn't come over when they weren't home.
During this ph conversation, easy child came up to me, in tears, and whispered, "None of that stuff downstairs in the folded laundry is mine. One of those panties is S's--(the 14-yr-old girl she babysits for) and I think the rest are her mom's."
So, I'd spent 1/2 hr folding someone else's panties today???
I did not tell the mom that. She was driving on the freeway and I didn't want to freak her out.
Plus, I didn't know for sure whose they were (except that after I looked, they were not easy child's size). difficult child could not have taken then and run them through the laundry in 1/2 hr. He had to have had them much earlier. Like, wks ago. Or even a day ago.
by the way, difficult child snuck into their house last mo and was viewing porn sites. He did it at our house and we lectured him on computer viruses and inappropriate viewing and I created a password. So that simply drove him to seek the websites elsewhere.
So this neighbor was doubly sweet, given that this is not the first time difficult child has snuck in there.
She won't be so nice when she discovers difficult child's got a boatload of her Victoria's Secret panties.
My guess is that difficult child brought them along to camp, since they came out of the same load his sleeping bag was in.
After the ph call, he blew up. Trashed his rm., screamed yelled, roared, you name it.
I was distraught and confused, so called our child psychiatric. He's out of the ofc for the rest of the wk and the msg says to go to the emergency rm. Arrrgh! NOT a good option.
I called a guy friend (husband was swamped at work and with-patients). By the time my friend got here, difficult child had calmed down and wanted to talk.
So my friend (he's the bipolar one, and I wanted his opinion, not to mention he's a big person in case difficult child got really crazy. His opinion was that he didn't really think the tantrum was bipolar but pointed out that there is a hypersexual component to bipolar, and difficult child could have a very mild case. He also said we need to calmly but firmly tell difficult child that people will call the police next time and he's got to know how serious this is.) He hung around and did handyman work while difficult child and I talked on the steps outside. difficult child was sobbing and sweating and ready to throw up. He apologized for all the times he'd lied about being on porn sites, stolen easy child's panties and stolen a friend's Ipod.
(Oh, I forgot to tell you all about the Ipod. Sigh.)
But he insisted he hadn't taken the panties from the neighbor.
I told him he had a pattern and what were we supposed to think?
He said he understood but was still insistent.
I told him that he needed to control his impulses and that he had boundary issues. He said he knew that, and he found himself walking across the hall to my ofc to look at the computer once and stopped himself. I said that was a good start.
I said he had ruined any trust between himself and the neighbors and that now he's taken things from two of his friends and this was becoming a pattern.
I told him that I loved him anyway, but he was going to have consequences.
He said I didn't love him, shouldn't love him, he understood why no one trusted him, and he was going to commit suicide.
I told him I understood why he felt no one loved or trusted him, but in my own mind I still loved him so that's the way it was.
I had him stay in his rm most of the day. I ran errands and took him with-me. I told him he will be constantly supervised. (One of the big issues he talked about in therapy the other day was not wanting me to treat him like a baby, walk him to the door of a friend's house, or have him call every two hrs. We told him we would loosen up, but in general, he had to earn that privilege.
So what does he do to earn his freedom? Sneak into the neighbor's closet. Back to square one!!!!)
Oh, at one point he told me that he bought the panties at WalMart, on a trip at camp, with-the extra $ we gave him. Yeah, right.
(We gave him $20 spending $ and he hardly spent any of it. He bought a cpl Reeses peanut butter cups and a postcard or two. He actually came home with-cash leftover.)
Obviously, another lie.
And I really blew it. Not that I yelled, just that I didn't play my cards right. husband is planning to talk to difficult child tonight and get difficult child to confess and figure out consequences. So I was supposed to not bring up the subject again. Easier said than done. difficult child came down to the kitchen and hugged me and told me he was sorry. I hugged him back and told him I'm sorry too, especially that he lied.
He said, lied about what? I said, "You can't buy Victoria's Secret at WalMart."
He pushed me away and took off for his rm.
See? I blew it. No more hugs for me.
At any rate, I highly doubt the panties came from camp. You pack light for camp. This is an entire drawer-full of panties.
This puts us in the awkward position of having to tell the neighbor and retn all this stuff to her. I highly doubt she will call us and admit she's missing a dozen or so sexy lace panties. It's just so embarrassing all the way around.
The good news, is that difficult child's rage only lasted 10 min. and all-in-all, made sense in light of the situation.
The bad news is that I don't know how to deal with-his sneaking into other people's houses other than tell the neighbors to go ahead and call the police next time.
I was planning to paint a huge tile project today and now I'm too exhausted to do anything. I am soooo ticked. And worried. We are going to make an appointment with-the child psychiatric specifically for this incident.
difficult child is reading in his rm and I've got my ofc door locked. This is the quietest and calmest it's been all day.
Thank you all for reading this much!
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