January, 2012 - difficult child moved back home, then left in fury one Friday "for good" and then showed back up with all his stuff 2 days later (Sunday) only to move out again in fury less than a day later... (I was posting most of that night, clinging to the board's support)
It was that Sunday night, H and I had gone to bed when we heard difficult child moving about. He was getting ready to walk out the back door - dressed in a dark hoody and jeans etc with his backpack. It was a frigid, very windy sleeting/icy/snow evening and it was close to or after midnight. He wasn't wearing a coat or boots or gloves, had no transportation, he was dressed in dark clothing and we live in an area without streetlights or sidewalks. His pupils were so dilated that his eyes seemed like two black holes (his eyes are blue fwiw) He was pacing with balled fists and was so unfamiliar to me; he wasn't verbally threatening and yet I was so very afraid of him. I managed somehow to calm him down enough to convince him to go to bed and leave first thing in the morning when he was rested and it was light. All I could think about was him freezing to death or getting hit by a car.
I took every knife we owned out of the kitchen, H switched our bedroom doorknob with a locking handset meant for an exterior door and we locked ourselves in our bedroom. I wrapped my rosary around my hands and never even dozed and H stayed in his clothes and sat up in bed all night just in case. We were both scared - difficult children demeanor and the awful look in his eyes were something I had never seen before. Really, his eyes were like two black holes. Not only was I afraid of him - I was also afraid of the risk he posed to himself.
So that's when I knew. The night when my beloved boy became unrecognizable and I was afraid of him.
I cry just thinking about it. We've had better moments since then - but my beloved boy never returned.
It's funny, I look back at old pictures from his HS days and I can pinpoint almost exactly when the light went out of his eyes. I wish I could explain it better. Some point in his 18th year, the joy and light just vanished.
I always thought difficult child must have been having a major tripp or coming down from something; but I later learned his symptoms were classic fight or flight. I still don't know what triggered it at that moment. I am not saying that he wasn't on something - but the huge pupils may not have been drug related.
