How do you do it?

How do you do it?
I just don't know how you do it.
How do you do this?
How do you make that trip so often?
How, how, how.

I hear that an awful lot. I always have the same answer. I do this because I have to. I really do not have any choice. Sure I could not go. But is that really an option? This is my son here. I will do whatever needs be done to see him, and try to bring him home. If that means getting another job, ok. If that means no time or money for any extras and eating beans for dinner every nite, then that is what I would do. Thankfully for me (and my co-workers) I have not been reduced to beans every night.
Often folks tell me that they could not do this. I am so strong for being able to stand this. They don't know how I get through this. How do I get up and function every day? The truth is I don't. What choice do I have though? I have trouble sleeping, I have nightmares when I do get to sleep. I find that I am irritable. I have been told a couple of times by the gals that I work with that I am being crabby. ( I am just glad that I work with people who are not afraid to tell me I am being grouchy. Then I can try to adjust my attitude and not take things out on them.) I am often short tempered with my family. I do not attend any family functions because it hurts too much. I used to go to my sister's house with my mom and we would have dinner all of us girls. My sister's husband works on second and she has two little girls. I used to want to take my mom or my sister and her girls with me when I went shopping. Now I only take someone when I am going to one of the grocery stores that are about 40 minutes away. That way the cost of gas is offset by the savings that all of us receive. I have tried to go on a couple of family outings, but I do not have as much fun as I used to. I try to avoid family get-togethers. I feel like something is missing. And it is. My heart and soul are missing. My son is missing.

I have talked briefly to one of the pastors at the church that my sister belongs to and I rent a house from. They are willing to listen, but do not feel that they are qualified to help me in any way. This is beyond what they are trained to deal with. I cannot go to "traditional" therapy because that would be like waving a red flag in the air that I am "not mentally stable" to my ex and his attorney. Now mind you I would be getting therapy for the stress this is causing me and how to help my son deal with his stress and unhappiness.
I cannot talk to support groups because there are none. I do not fit traditional support groups because my child did not die and he is not missing. He is lost, but not in the sense of the support group. You cannot find support groups for this because of the "symptoms" of the diagnosis of MSBP. According to the "symptoms" if I talk about this I am seeking attention and must have this MSBP. If I do not seek help, then I must have it because I won't talk about it. So I have decided that there is no point in keeping quiet.
That is where this blog comes in. I get to vent out all of my feelings and start getting the awareness out there. This can happen to any mom out there. I get to use this blog to type out whatever I am feeling at the time. If I am frustrated and want to repeat myself 10 times over something that my ex said or did to my son or to me, then I can. No one tells me they are tired of hearing it, there's nothing we can do, or try to change the subject. If I put it on here, You can just skip over it. :) And that is okay. I know that there are not lots of people out there reading this and that is okay. It makes me feel better just putting it out there. In this very unhappy time of my life, I can at least get some satisfaction through this blog.

I've been tagged!

I've been tagged! Lisa over at Living Easy has tagged me. Now 7 random things about me......





1. I am an animal lover, I would take in every animal that comes in my yard and every animal that someone dropped off if I could afford the care they needed.


2. I can't live without my cell phone, I take it with me everywhere I go!


3. I can live without cable-I do not have cable or satellite and have not for several years. I don't even get the "free" local channels with an antenna!


4. I love to read, I will read almost anything at all.


5. I hate to wash dishes. If I were not concerned about the environment, I would use disposable dishes.


6. I don't like beef or fish. I will eat chicken and some pork and occasionally will eat turkey but it is not my favorite either.


7. I love my diet pepsi. I drink loads every day.





This took longer than I thought.....





Now for seven more tags! I think I will have to go with the following:





livingdaytodaywithsuneday.blogspot.com She has also had difficulties and is helping her daughter. And camping! Look at the great pics!


http://4hatsandfrugal.blogspot.com/ I am sure she has been tagged already and will not play again because she is busy (read her blog and you'l see why), but I wanted to include her because I respect her and her abilities as a mom and wife.


http://chi-annie.blogspot.com/ I like to check in and see what yummy recipe she has up, and what kind of awesome deals she has at the stores.


http://frugalsuz.blogspot.com/ I could not pull off my cvs deals without her! I know she gives credit to others for the deals, but I find her site the easiest to read and understand!





That is all I can come up with as I do not read too many blogs and Lisa covered the rest that I read!

RULES: Now you list 7 random things about yourself and tag seven other blogs. I did not list seven, and if you don't want to, then don't. I don't think it matters at all! :) I like to make up my own rules anyway....

Visits

I do get to visit my son and I cherish every single second of these visits. I get to have a daily phone call now. I enjoy whatever time I have on the phone that my son is actually paying attention to me. I often get interrupted in my conversation because my ex decides now is the time he has to ask a specific question. It cannot possibly wait until my son is done talking to me. The super important things like did he get his laundry picked up. Isn't that earth shaking and an absolute necessary thing to ask right now? I will have to deal with all of that when we go back to court I guess.

We do have lots of fun on our visits. We have gone swimming, water sliding, hiking, shopping, cooking out, treasure hunts, video games, watch t.v., even gone to a local pumpkin patch a couple of times. We started out by going to a hotel and checking in early Saturday morning after I picked him up. We of course had to unload the van and take everything in. Then unpack the cooler into the fridge and put stuff away. We would then play all day. We would go swimming or climb the hill in the back of the hotel, play video games, play in the rain and splash in the puddles (that was really fun and obviously wet!). We just found all sorts of ways to have fun. We also brought my nesco cooker so we could cook food. We even had a Thanksgiving dinner at the hotel. What a feast that we had. My son loved helping us do all the cooking. It was sure strange though cooking everything in a nesco cooker or a slow cooker, but boy was it tasty. All the more enjoyable because I was with my son and my mom. When it was nice out, we cooked out on the grill that is out by the pool area at the hotel. My son really had fun with that as well. Then on Sunday, we would have to pack everything up and start loading the van about 2-3 hours before I had to take him back (to his dad's-not "home" though). It really was stressful and it kinda felt like the visit was over even though we had time left. Usually we went to the park and fed the ducks and geese or went to grab a bite to eat and then play on the park playground.

One visit we found out the campground down there has a water slide! We totally had to go and check it out! It was pretty expensive but it was really fun. My son really had a good time with it. I had to go on the slide with him because he did not want to go under the water in the pool at the end, but it was fun for me too!!! Then we drove around to check out the campgrounds. I talked to my mom and we decided to give camping a try. Now mind you I have no camping equipment...I am not really sure why I thought it would be a good idea, just knew it would be a huge difference in price. I was right. It was about 1/4 of the cost of the night in the hotel. And we could come as early as we liked on Saturday and stay as long as we liked on Sunday. Now we can get there and put stuff out before we get my son and don't have to pick anything up until right before it is time to go back. That really helped the visits seem longer than they had. I really felt like I had all day instead of a few hours in the middle of the day.

I have a full size van. The seat in the very back lays down into a bed. The two seats in the middle swivel around or come completely out. There is really nice carpet with a thick padding on the floor of the van as well. We have tried out many different ways of doing the weekend in the van. I think that we have found a winning combination now of how to have things arranged to allow maximum space and enough seats for all of us. We bought a cheapo gazeebo to put up and allow some protection from sun and rain. We bought tarps to lay on the ground with an old sleeping bag so we can lounge outside on the ground and play games or watch t.v. TV?!?! Of course I have t.v. I have a combo t.v. and vcr and a portable dvd player so we can watch any movies and plug in video games to play. I strap our bikes on so we can ride bikes around the park. We can play tennis or basketball, or we can lay around and just veg out. We have been having campfires now that it is not 95 degrees and my son has enjoyed cooking hotdogs over the fire. Recently we decided to let the fire do all of our cooking. We just wrap the food in foil lay it in the fire ring, light a fire and pretty soon- lunch! All sorts of things can be cooked that way, even pork chops!

We bring fans when it is hot, and I have a little space heater to plug in when it starts getting cold at night. I found out that we did not need a ton of camping gear. My son doesn't care about that anyway. He just wants to have fun and have someone to give him some positive attention. We have plenty of that to give him. We have lots of hugs and "I love you's" to fit in during our visits. Since I do not get to tuck him in at night, I make sure to give plenty to store up for the days I am not with him.

I hope to find a small motorhome, preferably with a generator, before it gets to cold out and we cannot camp in the van anymore. I have not found anything yet, but that is okay. I will find one when the time is right. I firmly believe that fate has a hand in all our lives. So when I am meant to find a camper, all the things will be right and it will just fall into place. Now if only it was time for my son to come home.

Where I am now.

Well, as I said, my son has not been home since March 4, 2007. That day will forever be etched in my memory. Much of the rest of what has happened has centered around the courts and their decisions. I will not spend much time on that part, until all of this is settled. I will say that as a parent my rights have been sorely violated. I had my son taken from me by my ex and the courts with no proof. Only a preponderance of evidence. Which in many cases simply means someone makes a claim and swears it is the truth. That makes it a preponderance. Isn't that nice? Makes one wonder what the purpose of courts and law is for. Why bother to have them if you are going to stomp all over someone's rights cuz someone else thinks you should?



The day that my son left, he was near tears. I can still see him sitting in the backseat of the car. He looked up at me with trusting eyes when I told him it would only be two weeks and he would be home. I would be waiting for him when they drove back. I called my son every night for 12 days. I called on the 12th day and told my son the wait was almost over, it was just a couple more days and we would be meeting again and then driving home.



I called on the 13th day and was told I could not talk to my son. In fact, I was also not to come and get him on Sunday. I could not have him back. Now mind you, it was around 7 pm on a Friday night. There was no way for me to get ahold of my atty, no way for him to find out what my ex was talking about even if I called him at home. The courthouse of course was closed. My ex said he would fax me the pages telling me I could not have my son back. Of course I have no fax machine, but my mom has one at work. We gave him that number. Oh yeah, he won't fax anything until tomorrow. I can just wait. So at this point I am near tears and just want to talk to my little boy to make sure he is okay. Nope. I can only talk when my ex allows. And he gets to monitor the phone call. He actually records them, I find out later. Which last time I checked in the United States, it is illegal to record two other individuals on the phone without the permission of the ones on the phone. Did not stop him. I spend the whole night crying. I knew something like this would happen one day. He told soon after I left him he would take my son and one day I would see. I can still hear the threat. Which is now obviously not a threat, but a reality.



This begins the next phase of verbal and emotional abuse I have to endure from this man. I have decided this is why women do not leave. Why should they? There is no one to protect them. If they stay, at least there is no chance of having the children taken and given back to the very man that abused all of them. I now know why women hide it and pretend the abuse does not exist. It saves their lives (most times) and some of their sanity. If I had stayed, I would have been abused, but would have been able to protect my child. Now he is in the hands of the man (I use that term loosely) who is very cabable of abuse and also very good at hiding it. He should be so proud of himself, he is able to manipulate a child. Isn't that something to be proud of? He is sneakier than a 6 year old. He can terrify a child. That is sure something to be proud of. Why we should all be so lucky as to be able to make a child afraid. Isn't that something that we should all do to our children? Isn't that called complete control over your child and making them obedient? That is how my ex looks at it. My son is obedient.

He is not obedient. My son consistantly tells me he got into trouble again. He got grounded again. He had to go to his room and stay on his bed all evening and night. He could not get up for anything, and had to get permission when his dad finally came back inside the house to even go to the bathroom. He had gone to bed without supper because he was grounded to his room and on his bed. Some of the groundings went on for weeks at a time. As far as I am aware the grounding to the bed for the evening and night only happened one night at a time. But all the rest of them, like grounding from playing outside, bike riding, t.v., video games, toys, outside toys, some of those went on for up to four weeks at a time. When asking my son what he was grounded for, he does not always even know why. Other times it has been because he told a teacher he wanted to go home; he told his dad he wanted to go home; he argued with his dad when he said something mean about me and my son defended me; he argued with his dad when my ex told my son I hurt him. In my humble opinion, this all is about trying to manipulate the child in to not saying what he wants and trying to make him believe that I hurt him. He also tells my son that he knows everyone and no matter where we go or what we do, he sees us. He repeatedly tells my son he is taking me back to court (when he actually is not supposed to talk about any of that anyway). My ex scares my son into not doing some of the things we like to do on our visits because he is afraid I will get into trouble with the courts - because his dad can see everything we do. I tell my son not to worry about it and there is nothing we can do until it goes to court and I will take care of it. It is not for him to worry about. This does not stop him from worrying though. The stress and worry my son has is present at every visit. I have to spend time doing "damage control" on every visit. I have to reassure him that I am not mad nor am I hurt that he laughed at a joke his dad made, at my expense of course. I have to reassure him that anything his dad says does not matter to me. I do not care what he calls me behind my back. (Of course he never says any of this to my face the coward) He can say whatever he likes. He does not matter to me. Only my son matters to me. I tell my son to do what he needs to do to not get into trouble with his dad. If that means laughing at a joke so he does not get grounded, then laugh. It does not hurt my feelings.

And the best part is I cannot call child protective services, because they will not investigate as I well know from past experience. And mostly because this type of "child rearing" is considered acceptable there. Where I come from it is called abuse. This is real abuse, not taking you child to the doctor, taking them for therapy, giving them doctor prescribed medicine. Advocating for your child is apperantly abuse there, while actual child abuse is just raising them. This is part of what is wrong with families today. Obviously there are many reasons we have problems in our families, but if advocating for you child and standing up for him/her is wrong, and abusing them is okay, there is no hope for our society.

However, there are wonderful people out there and they are advocates for families. I am going to be one of them. I will continue my journey to bring my son home. If only I can find the money. That is what a portion of all of this is about. I did not have enough money to fight the way my ex did. I will find a way. Just as I will find a way to get my story out there. I want to help protect the mothers and children from this witchhunt. Someone has to. Why not me?