Last night
Nov. 17th, 2012 08:23 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
impyThe saga continues!
Sorry about not updating you sooner but the PowWow took place yesterday at 7-ish and raged on for the better part of an hour, which left me with an hour to try and calm the rage down enough to sleep. Spoiler Alert: No sleep yet! That's next on my To Do List, I think.
For whatever reason, I was woken up at 6 and then spent the next hour watching Mums go to pieces and the boy's parade of people in and out. Don't bother to ask about the second because I really don't understand that one.
Anyway, new!B and J show up a little before seven and everyone but me (and some friend of the boy's who hid out in the front room until like, 7:30 when he disappeared) goes outside. I guess it was deemed smarter to not invite them in? I dunno. I wolfed down my dinner and then seriously debated skipping the great summit of stupidity, but I... I had to know. I had to know if New!B actually admitted to scaring Widget.
So I go outside and I'm not sure if they'd really started before I got there or not, but J is immediately upset because I'm standing there and it's a rough circle with J essentially alone, though new!B is behind her. Far behind, back out at the car where the girls are sitting in the backseat.
I kind of bypass the immediate J theatrics (which means I missed the first part of things on all fronts, really) and go straight to new!B and ask if he really assaulted my nephew. No, not assault. Okay, fair enough. Threaten?
And he admits that he did. That he picked Widget up and threatened to break his neck (seriously repeated this to my face, calm as anything!) but then went on to explain he didn't mean it, only... he really would hurt Widget if he disrespected J again.
I'm in shock that a) his story has essentially stayed the same and b) that he doesn't see anything wrong with that. So, I try and I'm sure I failed at being semi reasonable but since I wasn't screaming or, I dunno, breaking his neck at this point I figure I'm as reasonable as someone in the situation could be. I ask if he sees how monumentally failtastic that was, given Widget's history.
Doesn't matter. New!B suffered worse far earlier in his own childhood and look how he got over it. Dude, you didn't get over it if you're fucking threatening small children! (Widget is still small.)
Eventually he smiles and says, "Listen, he's got ADHD, right?" "Right..." "Well, I had to get his attention. And I did."
You sir, are a psychopath.
Before I could stop myself, those words fell out of my mouth, and his grin gets bigger and he says, "No, I'm a Marine."
New!B has dead eyes. I'm sure my anger contributes to this conclusion, as does the lack of light, but seriously. Dead eyes. I've been robbed and held at gun point so... I've dipped my toe in the crazy pool a time or two.
The boy eventually comes over as I'm trying to grasp the fact that J has married an honest to God psychopath who feels justified in things because:
we live in South Carolina and any court anywhere would give her custody, no questions asked.
Littlest One can read and she's not even in school yet.
Not!Kitty!Ozma is on Honor Roll at school.
He's a Marine.
Widget has ADHD and he needed to get his attention.
And maybe if he'd been raised better, he'd have more respect for the adults in his life.
I think the boy came over right after that last one as I'm about to, and probably did say, that hello, J fucking gave Widget up repeatedly whenever she didn't WANT him so if you wanna talk about "raised better", you can go fucking blame her for her share in this mess. (Widget's spoiled. Yes. You know how you don't deal with that? By threatening to break his neck, douchebag!)
To which, in disbelief at his "yeah, so?" approach to threats (coupled with "I'm working all weekend!" which then downgraded to "I won't even be there most of the time" followed by "half the time.") I turn to the boy and say, "He had to threaten Widget because he has ADHD. Who knew?" The boy's pretty calm during most of this, probably because he'd heard it before, but still. He tells New!B there are things you do not do. That was one of them.
We drift back to J who doesn't seem to grasp why everyone is upset and not just letting her grab her kid (who doesn't want to go) and go. Things go round in circles but ultimately she spends the first thirty or so minutes denying that new!B said he'd do it again. As new!B repeatedly says that he'd do it again. (I swear I am not making this up.)
Her past is brought up, people tell the boy to shut it, J makes an impassioned plea for Widget to realize people are no perfect, they all make mistakes and she's made plenty and Widget has and will and this was a mistake new!B made. Whiplash is given to people on that. R, the peacemaker, points out to new!B that he's not really helping himself when Mom asks him to clarify that he has been saying that he'd hurt Widget to protect J, and new!B does. To which the boy and I both utter similar "He's eleven!" and he shoots back with "eleven year olds can kill their parents."
I...
I...
It's been 12 hours and I still... dude. If you feel Widget is that much of a threat to his mother, why would you take him hunting and essentially teach him to kill? Exactly, you can't have it both ways. He's either a child and it was perfectly innocent to take him hunting and you guys just didn't think it through... or he's a big enough threat to J that you have to threaten to harm him.
But I wasn't thinking clearly enough at this point and Mom goes with the "J has never said Widget has threatened her. In fact, he has protected her from being hurt." She went with love over logic, probably wise. Then the boy countered with "and how did she repay him for that? She stood with his abuser."
Since this came after new!B and J were both "you can't keep bringing up my past!" and new!B went with an actual show of hands on who in attendance could pass a drug test (J, btw, did not raise her hand. Just sayin') it was allowed.
Widget's piped in at various times to varying degrees of helpfulness (bless him but he's got a knack for shooting himself in the foot.) but if your attention is wandering it's time to bring this ship back on home.
"What I want to know is why."
J's kind of not tracking and everyone gets quiet when Widget speaks.
"Why'd you stand there when he held me against a wall and threaten to break my neck! and do nothing? Why didn't you do anything?"
I think for a second it hit J just what the fuck was going on. That this wasn't about whether she's a good mother or whether we want her to see Widget, that all of this was because someone hurt her kid, AGAIN, and again she chose that abusive sonofabitch's side over her own kid's. The same kid she's been trying to cajole into a hug or a visit. The same kid she's supposed to love... and protect.
She says she doesn't know, and there's a moment where she just looked broken. This moment is ruined by new!B fucking smirking in the background, but... yeah. There was a moment that perfectly illustrated what was going on.
Sometime after this my feet start to cramp and I'm not sure if I'm shaking or shivering (it was chilly and I had no sleeves or shoes!) and I ask to talk to the boy while Mom, J, and Widget dance around the whole "congrats, you fail as a parent!" bomb that no one ever actually says aloud.
I point out that unless God himself intervenes, odds are good she's going to end up getting to see Widget. At her house. He agrees. So I offer that we table this and attempt it again in another two weeks. It'll still be "her" weekend (or not, no one really knows) and maybe in two weeks Widget will have calmed down and new!B will realize he's a psychopath or atone for his sins. Point is, if we make the offer, maybe she'll be less likely to sic the court on us. DSS is probably going to take that out of everyone's hands but in case they don't, we don't need to seem horribly unreasonable, right? I'm not promising he'll go, just that maybe if more time elapses...?
The boy agrees, I make the offer and somehow this turns into a fifteen minute long thing about no one taking her calls. I've never actually seen anyone here other than the boy dodge her calls and that was ages ago as she admits that she doesn't call him without him knowing it's coming. Widget might answer and essentially blow her off, but he does answer. If the call is missed, he immediately returns it.
Thing is, she... hasn't actually called him all that often. She does not take well to that. She does not take to the suggestion that they set up a time just for them to talk. Nor does she take up the thought that if she emails her schedule to Widget or me they can work out a call schedule.
Which is weird because for awhile they had a standing 'date' sometime during the week where she'd call him at a certain time and they'd talk for damn near an hour. But she stopped doing that as this was during the old!B's reign. The point is, it was possible once so it wasn't outside the realm of possibility for it to be possible again, even if it wasn't set in stone like the previous one was.
Eventually Mom goes in after declaring that since Widget still does not wish to go and no one is to make him go that we're pretty much done here. It's cold and everyone should probably just head home. Only slightly more polite. Then Widget goes to give his sisters a hug and say goodbye and then new!B asks to speak to widget and I'm like RED FLAG. Ryan stops Sean's oh HELL NO with a "yeah, as long as I can be there." So Sean, new!B, Widget, and J have some weird pow wow and Ryan and I introduce ourselves and he says he's well acquainted with family drama; his best friend married his mother. And they only told him a day or two before the wedding. o_O
Yeah. Then I catch new!B making a halfassed apology (his earlier one was "I apologize." Which is my least favorite apology in the world. You either say you're sorry, or you explain that you're sorry about... and you sound like you mean it and you also don't smirk!) and the boy's trying to get me to go inside and I agree if he and R, the peace keeper, move closer to the new!B/J/Widget circle because I don't trust new!B as far as I could throw him.
I'm sure I left things out since this was an hour long thing and parts of it pissed me off. I should say that I did scream at new!B and tell him to shut the fuck up or fuck off or maybe I called him a fuckwit or something and he was ever so smug in his "I'm not swearing at you, I would appreciate it if you didn't swear at me" reply to which I desperately wanted to slug him.
You, sir, are a horrible person and I hope J figures this out ASAP and leaves your ass. You are not worth my courtesy as you lost that when you threatened a child and found nothing wrong with it.
Oh! And new!B has various weapons and things from his funtimes in the Marines and there was a fun moment of WTF as J flailed around in a panic when she realized just how bad that sounded.
Now I'm going to cuddle with my kitty and try to shake off the residual anger that is doing me no good at the moment. I'm hoping writing this down will make it stop echoing quite so much in my head for awhile. I really would like some sleep.
Sorry about not updating you sooner but the PowWow took place yesterday at 7-ish and raged on for the better part of an hour, which left me with an hour to try and calm the rage down enough to sleep. Spoiler Alert: No sleep yet! That's next on my To Do List, I think.
For whatever reason, I was woken up at 6 and then spent the next hour watching Mums go to pieces and the boy's parade of people in and out. Don't bother to ask about the second because I really don't understand that one.
Anyway, new!B and J show up a little before seven and everyone but me (and some friend of the boy's who hid out in the front room until like, 7:30 when he disappeared) goes outside. I guess it was deemed smarter to not invite them in? I dunno. I wolfed down my dinner and then seriously debated skipping the great summit of stupidity, but I... I had to know. I had to know if New!B actually admitted to scaring Widget.
So I go outside and I'm not sure if they'd really started before I got there or not, but J is immediately upset because I'm standing there and it's a rough circle with J essentially alone, though new!B is behind her. Far behind, back out at the car where the girls are sitting in the backseat.
I kind of bypass the immediate J theatrics (which means I missed the first part of things on all fronts, really) and go straight to new!B and ask if he really assaulted my nephew. No, not assault. Okay, fair enough. Threaten?
And he admits that he did. That he picked Widget up and threatened to break his neck (seriously repeated this to my face, calm as anything!) but then went on to explain he didn't mean it, only... he really would hurt Widget if he disrespected J again.
I'm in shock that a) his story has essentially stayed the same and b) that he doesn't see anything wrong with that. So, I try and I'm sure I failed at being semi reasonable but since I wasn't screaming or, I dunno, breaking his neck at this point I figure I'm as reasonable as someone in the situation could be. I ask if he sees how monumentally failtastic that was, given Widget's history.
Doesn't matter. New!B suffered worse far earlier in his own childhood and look how he got over it. Dude, you didn't get over it if you're fucking threatening small children! (Widget is still small.)
Eventually he smiles and says, "Listen, he's got ADHD, right?" "Right..." "Well, I had to get his attention. And I did."
You sir, are a psychopath.
Before I could stop myself, those words fell out of my mouth, and his grin gets bigger and he says, "No, I'm a Marine."
New!B has dead eyes. I'm sure my anger contributes to this conclusion, as does the lack of light, but seriously. Dead eyes. I've been robbed and held at gun point so... I've dipped my toe in the crazy pool a time or two.
The boy eventually comes over as I'm trying to grasp the fact that J has married an honest to God psychopath who feels justified in things because:
we live in South Carolina and any court anywhere would give her custody, no questions asked.
Littlest One can read and she's not even in school yet.
Not!Kitty!Ozma is on Honor Roll at school.
He's a Marine.
Widget has ADHD and he needed to get his attention.
And maybe if he'd been raised better, he'd have more respect for the adults in his life.
I think the boy came over right after that last one as I'm about to, and probably did say, that hello, J fucking gave Widget up repeatedly whenever she didn't WANT him so if you wanna talk about "raised better", you can go fucking blame her for her share in this mess. (Widget's spoiled. Yes. You know how you don't deal with that? By threatening to break his neck, douchebag!)
To which, in disbelief at his "yeah, so?" approach to threats (coupled with "I'm working all weekend!" which then downgraded to "I won't even be there most of the time" followed by "half the time.") I turn to the boy and say, "He had to threaten Widget because he has ADHD. Who knew?" The boy's pretty calm during most of this, probably because he'd heard it before, but still. He tells New!B there are things you do not do. That was one of them.
We drift back to J who doesn't seem to grasp why everyone is upset and not just letting her grab her kid (who doesn't want to go) and go. Things go round in circles but ultimately she spends the first thirty or so minutes denying that new!B said he'd do it again. As new!B repeatedly says that he'd do it again. (I swear I am not making this up.)
Her past is brought up, people tell the boy to shut it, J makes an impassioned plea for Widget to realize people are no perfect, they all make mistakes and she's made plenty and Widget has and will and this was a mistake new!B made. Whiplash is given to people on that. R, the peacemaker, points out to new!B that he's not really helping himself when Mom asks him to clarify that he has been saying that he'd hurt Widget to protect J, and new!B does. To which the boy and I both utter similar "He's eleven!" and he shoots back with "eleven year olds can kill their parents."
I...
I...
It's been 12 hours and I still... dude. If you feel Widget is that much of a threat to his mother, why would you take him hunting and essentially teach him to kill? Exactly, you can't have it both ways. He's either a child and it was perfectly innocent to take him hunting and you guys just didn't think it through... or he's a big enough threat to J that you have to threaten to harm him.
But I wasn't thinking clearly enough at this point and Mom goes with the "J has never said Widget has threatened her. In fact, he has protected her from being hurt." She went with love over logic, probably wise. Then the boy countered with "and how did she repay him for that? She stood with his abuser."
Since this came after new!B and J were both "you can't keep bringing up my past!" and new!B went with an actual show of hands on who in attendance could pass a drug test (J, btw, did not raise her hand. Just sayin') it was allowed.
Widget's piped in at various times to varying degrees of helpfulness (bless him but he's got a knack for shooting himself in the foot.) but if your attention is wandering it's time to bring this ship back on home.
"What I want to know is why."
J's kind of not tracking and everyone gets quiet when Widget speaks.
"Why'd you stand there when he held me against a wall and threaten to break my neck! and do nothing? Why didn't you do anything?"
I think for a second it hit J just what the fuck was going on. That this wasn't about whether she's a good mother or whether we want her to see Widget, that all of this was because someone hurt her kid, AGAIN, and again she chose that abusive sonofabitch's side over her own kid's. The same kid she's been trying to cajole into a hug or a visit. The same kid she's supposed to love... and protect.
She says she doesn't know, and there's a moment where she just looked broken. This moment is ruined by new!B fucking smirking in the background, but... yeah. There was a moment that perfectly illustrated what was going on.
Sometime after this my feet start to cramp and I'm not sure if I'm shaking or shivering (it was chilly and I had no sleeves or shoes!) and I ask to talk to the boy while Mom, J, and Widget dance around the whole "congrats, you fail as a parent!" bomb that no one ever actually says aloud.
I point out that unless God himself intervenes, odds are good she's going to end up getting to see Widget. At her house. He agrees. So I offer that we table this and attempt it again in another two weeks. It'll still be "her" weekend (or not, no one really knows) and maybe in two weeks Widget will have calmed down and new!B will realize he's a psychopath or atone for his sins. Point is, if we make the offer, maybe she'll be less likely to sic the court on us. DSS is probably going to take that out of everyone's hands but in case they don't, we don't need to seem horribly unreasonable, right? I'm not promising he'll go, just that maybe if more time elapses...?
The boy agrees, I make the offer and somehow this turns into a fifteen minute long thing about no one taking her calls. I've never actually seen anyone here other than the boy dodge her calls and that was ages ago as she admits that she doesn't call him without him knowing it's coming. Widget might answer and essentially blow her off, but he does answer. If the call is missed, he immediately returns it.
Thing is, she... hasn't actually called him all that often. She does not take well to that. She does not take to the suggestion that they set up a time just for them to talk. Nor does she take up the thought that if she emails her schedule to Widget or me they can work out a call schedule.
Which is weird because for awhile they had a standing 'date' sometime during the week where she'd call him at a certain time and they'd talk for damn near an hour. But she stopped doing that as this was during the old!B's reign. The point is, it was possible once so it wasn't outside the realm of possibility for it to be possible again, even if it wasn't set in stone like the previous one was.
Eventually Mom goes in after declaring that since Widget still does not wish to go and no one is to make him go that we're pretty much done here. It's cold and everyone should probably just head home. Only slightly more polite. Then Widget goes to give his sisters a hug and say goodbye and then new!B asks to speak to widget and I'm like RED FLAG. Ryan stops Sean's oh HELL NO with a "yeah, as long as I can be there." So Sean, new!B, Widget, and J have some weird pow wow and Ryan and I introduce ourselves and he says he's well acquainted with family drama; his best friend married his mother. And they only told him a day or two before the wedding. o_O
Yeah. Then I catch new!B making a halfassed apology (his earlier one was "I apologize." Which is my least favorite apology in the world. You either say you're sorry, or you explain that you're sorry about... and you sound like you mean it and you also don't smirk!) and the boy's trying to get me to go inside and I agree if he and R, the peace keeper, move closer to the new!B/J/Widget circle because I don't trust new!B as far as I could throw him.
I'm sure I left things out since this was an hour long thing and parts of it pissed me off. I should say that I did scream at new!B and tell him to shut the fuck up or fuck off or maybe I called him a fuckwit or something and he was ever so smug in his "I'm not swearing at you, I would appreciate it if you didn't swear at me" reply to which I desperately wanted to slug him.
You, sir, are a horrible person and I hope J figures this out ASAP and leaves your ass. You are not worth my courtesy as you lost that when you threatened a child and found nothing wrong with it.
Oh! And new!B has various weapons and things from his funtimes in the Marines and there was a fun moment of WTF as J flailed around in a panic when she realized just how bad that sounded.
Now I'm going to cuddle with my kitty and try to shake off the residual anger that is doing me no good at the moment. I'm hoping writing this down will make it stop echoing quite so much in my head for awhile. I really would like some sleep.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
(no subject)
Date: 2012-11-17 03:31 pm (UTC)(Did you guys know the vortex of crazy his mother was bringing to the table when she first stepped into your lives?)
(no subject)
Date: 2012-11-17 05:33 pm (UTC)It's a good thing I wasn't there because unlike you I totally would have beaten his ass (and probably made the whole situation even worse). Having been in an abusive relationship once I don't take that shit from anybody. And if he'd been threatening my nephew? ...it's just good I wasn't there.
I wish I had some magic words I could say to fix this and make everything better. I know that's probably one of the least helpful things I could say, and I'm sorry about that. I feel like I should say something though, at least to acknowledge that I read this and feel your pain.
Can you call DSS? Shaking and threatening a child is abuse. Maybe DSS could remove Widget from the home?
(no subject)
Date: 2012-11-17 08:25 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2012-11-19 12:16 pm (UTC)So... not really? She's nutter butters now but back then she was the girl whose family screwed her over in new and inventive ways and the only person I've seen my brother stand up for that he wasn't related to.
(no subject)
Date: 2012-11-19 12:26 pm (UTC)The problem with DSS is that the last time they were called in for her boyfriend actually assaulting both J and Widget, somehow we ended up the ones under fire. The school was alerted since Widget told his teacher and Mom felt they should know not to let J pick him up and why. So... we're expecting the wrath of DSS any day now.
My only hope in all of this is that the difference between now and then is that she married this asshole and a big part of DSS backing her (aside from them flat out saying they prefer to place the kid with the mother 99% of the time) was that she was pretending not to see the girls' father even though she'd post pictures to Facebook that proved she was lying. (I feel I should say that she wasn't dating him at that point but she was still allowing him to see the girls even though he's not allowed near any of the kids.)
(no subject)
Date: 2012-11-19 12:31 pm (UTC)