Here’s a random story that I swear on my life happened. A few friends and I went to the nudist beach at Crystal Crescent for an afternoon. We were just settling in when we heard two men having a very loud argument.

I have no idea what the hell they were arguing about but one dude, we’ll call him A was just hammered and completely clothed at a nudist beach, like in jeans, which I thought was odd. The other guy was sober, we’ll call him B, and completely naked as most people were. At some point A walked right up to B and shouted some insults and threats then retreaeted back to his spot. They went back to shouting at each other across the beach while the rest of us beachgoers were getting annoyed and as it escalated I believe someone called the police.

A went up to B again and more name calling and threats. B had hadit by then and got up and tackled B to the ground. As A was recovering from the tackle from B went to where the cooler was and threw it across the beach. It landed on the rocks and the last of the liquor was splashed on the sand as the glass bottle broke.

Now, we have a situation where a drunk guy’s last bit of liquor was dumped by a sober jerk. Oy! There was some more shouting as my friends and I started to collect the glass from the sand. Eventually B left then A at the same time. I think A intended to follow B to continue the fight.

My friends and I decided it was also time to go, we had a long drive back and our day was kind of ruined by these two men. As I walked up the path to the fork A came into view. He was standing there at the fork with an axe. I shit you not, an axe! I could hear him tell people they were okay, they could go and when I got to him he said the same thing but added he was “just waiting on a friend”. His laughter sent chills down my spine and the look on his face was cold and terrifying.

As I arrived at the parking lot so did the police. My friend was talking to them while they were still in the car, she asked me to go see if the guy with the axe was still there but he was not. I saw what looked A in a car pulled over by the police as we left he area. I’m sill a little pissed at my friend sending me to check on an axe murderer.

Words cannot express how relieved I was to learn the charges leveled against my son have been dropped. This could mean a few different things; she lied; there is not enough evidence; she got scared.

If she lied I hope she is brought to task. It is, after all, a criminal offence to file a false report in order to get someone in trouble. If she lied she has made it all that much more difficult for women who have legitimately been sexually assaulted to come forward and be taken seriously. If this girl lied, does she even realize what that could have done to an innocent man’s life? And from what I’ve been told the charges were bogus, my son did not touch this girl, and this was all part of some teenage drama.

It’s possible there was just not enough evidence and/or she got scared. I’d rather not believe that’s true but the reality is I hadn’t spoken to my son in a while, and before that there was only sporatic communication and so I need to reacquaint myself with him. I never would have thought he was capable of domestic abuse and yet here he is without his kids because of it.

There are still a couple of seperate matters; resisting arrest and the choking of his girlfriend so I guess we’ll have to wait and see what those outcomes will be. His children are still with the great grandmother but he and his girlfriend are in counselling and working towards being reunited as a family.

He also called me today. It was the first time I had spoken to him in two years or so and I’ll wirte another post about it. Suffice it to say we had a good conversation.

My son cut me out of his life a couple of years ago. I think it was because I was pushing him to get some therapy and an assessment to find out if he actually had Aspbergers. He flat out refused and got very upset with me. Then his girlfriend, who has her own mental health issues, and I had some words. My son demanded I apologize to her and hasn’t spoken to me since. He now has a little boy and an infant girl, I met my grandson once during the visit where I had that talk with my son, his daughter hadn’t even been conceived at that time.

My son has always had some behavioural issues but he didn’t exhibit those behaviours when he was with me (I was the accessing parent) so I really couldn’t discipline for those. About all I could do was talk to him and hope for the best. He had a temper and sometimes it was manifested in a physical way at home with his dad and sister. There was no physical violence in my home and I tried to shelter them from my marital issues as much as I could.

But here he is now, an adult with a girlfriend and two kids, few interpersonal skills, not employable, and in trouble with the law. The children have been taken from the home because a witness reported seeing him choke his girlfriend through a window and my son will be charged; my son and his girlfriend lost their low income housing and are now living on the back forty of nowhere; my son has been charged with sexual touching of a person under sixteen, sexual enticement of a person under sixteen and sexual assault

It breaks my heart to watch all of this from the sidelines, to have to google search for his court dates, to know the children are with their other great grandmother who doesn’t really want them and that I do not have the physical ability or financial means to take them on myself.

As a mother, I feel I have failed miserably, not to mention the fact that I am a multiple sexual assault and domestic violence survivor so; that my son has been accused of this; knowing from experience that charges aren’t even laid unless a prosecutor feels they can win; all of this triggers me immensly. I’m not sure I could show up at court even if he wanted me to.

This girl, if my son is guilty of what he’s accused of, this girl will have to live the rest of her life with some kind of trigger around what happened. It’s inevitable. She will need to work through all the emotions that come with being sexually assaulted. I can definitely identify and empathize with her and I truly believe someone who sexually assaults someone else needs to be held accountable. The victim needs justice, believe you me, no justice equals no closure; this I also know from experience.

How do I, as a mother, deal with all this? I”ll let you know as soon as I figure it out. For the time being I still talk to my therapist once a week, I take my medications as prescribed and continue with my art projects, wrting projects and trying new mediums for self-expression. I’m naturally inclined to beat my self up mercilessly and list all the things that made me a terrible mother, every single little thing I did wrong.

Thankfully, I have Dialectical Behavioural Therapy and a Day Treatment Program (mostly for people with Borderline Personality Disorder, chronic drepression and anxiety disorders) both under my belt and I still continue with one on one therapy for that and my CPTSD. I’m also grateful for my partner, his love and support carries me through the toughest days. The best I can do for today is put it all out to the universe and relinquish any desire to control the outcome of this situation.

I had never used clay to sculpt anything until just recently. I watched a youtube video on how to work with air drying clay and went out and picked some up. Since I had no plan on what to with it I let it sit around for months unopened. When I finally did open it and try something it didn’t work and I got busy so I put it away for another couple of months. But since I started this blog, and my Unplanned Pregnancy Series brought with it some heavy emotions and I suddenly felt I needed the clay. I still had no clue what I wanted to do make it but I worked with it anyway. A result has already been shared in a previous post but that wasn’t the final result. This is what I now call Heavy Metal Warrior, she was formerly known as Namaste Motherfuckers (see photo).

Working the clay gave me immense satisfaction, and with such strong emotions driving my thoughts it was prudent to take lots of breaks. With each break I squished that clay as hard as I could through my fingers, I rolled it around to form a ball and then I squished it some more. I pulled it to pieces and put it back together.

The clay abosorbed my anger and pain and forced my triggered system to slow down. My mind changed from “what the fuck do I do with all these emotions?” to “why not create something beautiful?”.

As an aside, the clay also prevents me from eating everything not nailed down as I break free from smoking.

Keeping the Baby

As a mother I can honestly say raising children is hard. Starting with the lack of sleep due to night feedings, teething, fevers and bad dreams; to the lack of sleep because your child was supposed to be home hours ago and you’re worried sick; or maybe it’s because you were called down to the cop shop to pick up your teenager who just got busted for drinking and driving.

Deciding to keep a baby is a lifelong commitment, not just until they turn eighteen or are off to college. And it’s not like you can just raise them while they are cute and cuddly and then ditch them the moment things get difficult. It’s not a puppy you can just drop off at the animal shelter or give away. It’s also not what you see on TV where all of life’s major crisises can be solved in an hour or less.

Before the Modern Family, Family Matters, Family Ties, etc…there was Leave it to Beaver and the Andy Griffith Show. We’ve been spoon fed what the ideal family looks like for a very long time, and it is truly a stark contrast to the real deal.

I won’t go on about what real parenting looks like because not every family is the same. I will say family units with two parents and family units with only one parent are vastly different dynamics. Add in half siblings and step siblings, step parents and there is additional complexity. The ever so elusive key has to be balance, I mean, what else could it be?

Adoption-Being the Adoptee

It feels like I’ve always known I was adopted, we all did. Even the daughter they adopted from me, she just didn’t know about her parentage. My parents tried to package the news as best they could by saying they chose us to be a part of the family but I didn’t buy it. Not after an argument with my mother where she said my mother (biological) didn’t want me. To give you context I had screamed at her that I hated her and wanted to be with my real mother. Mind you, I was a child (seven or eight maybe) and she was the “responsible adult”.

I longed to know my biological family, was my mother tall or short, fat or thin, did she have long or short hair, did I look like her, when was she going to come rescue me from my personal hellscape? I imagined what it would be like to live with her, and wondered if she’d understand me better than my parents, and I was determined that as soon as I could I was going to look for her. I daydreamed a day would come when she and I would have the perfect mother-daughter relationship. Oh, it would be grand but none of my fantasy came true until I was in my late twenties.

For a long time I felt rejected by my biological mother, like she just cast me aside but that didn’t matter. I told myself she realized she had made a terrible mistake but it was too late and she couldn’t change her mind. I didn’t feel like I fit in with my family, maybe I would fit in hers. Did she have more kids? Did she get married? What would it be like to have different siblings? There were so many questions I had but I built her up into a nearly mythical creature like a fairy godmother or something.

I received a phone call from social services, she was looking for me! I met her and all was well for anumber of years until my ex-husband number two drove a wedge between us. Iv’e reached out a few times over the last few years but she doesn’t seem to want to reciprocate. That’s the last chance she’ll ever have to reject me.

As painful as it is to have been cast aside twice I have come to a place where I can empathize and be compassionate. It’s not like I haven’t signed my rights away for the good of my child. In her case, her father made her give me up. There were some other options though, like social services which is the thing that hurts. The second time, I’m not entirely sure why but I don’t need to. What I do need to do is continue to be compassionate towards her and myself, accept that she has chosen to not stay in touch and I have chosen not to try to force a relationship and that’s that. It’s kind of crappy but it is radical acceptance and it puts an muzzle on the loud negative thoughts that invade my head sometimes.