[OnyxCougar]

I'm not sure what all I've updated in the last 18 months, so if some of this is repeat, I apologize in advance.

The Boy, at age 17, (April 2005 ish) finally discovered girls. Which was a good thing, I was getting worried. I knew that as soon as he found girls, he would start to change. I was hoping that change would be a good thing, that he would mature. I was really excited, since this is when, I felt, I would excel as a parent. I had told him of the mistakes I had made as a teenager, he was smart enough to understand what I went through, and he would come out of things on the "he did better than me because of my experiences".

Boy, what a bunch of crap that turned out to be.

So Miss Thang was in ROTC with him. I never had a problem with her, but as soon as they started dating, he turned into a belligerent, disrespectful asshole, for lack of a better description.

The highlights:
We didn't have a land line, only cell phones, and on Easter break that year, ran up my cell phone bill to $600 talking to her. When there was a computer RIGHT THERE for him to IM her on. For free.

My phones got turned off, so I made him get a job to pay for my cell phone bill. He worked at Sonic down the road and talked to Miss Thang on IM.

She is a "Wiccan" (more in the "Witchcraft is like Charmed" sense than in the sense of what Wicca actually is), and made him a necklace out of paperclips, which he wore, but didn't have the slightest idea what it represented.

The beginning of the end what when during teh summer between Junior and Senior year of high school, over IM while I'm at work, he tells me that he's been downloading pictures of demons and now they are moving. I became alarmed, and asked him to take off the necklace, since I don't know what she was putting into it, and felt that it MAY be drawing bad things to him. He outright refused, and I told him that if he could tell me what it was, what the symbol represented, he can wear it (after I had it for a few hours). He said he didn't care what it represented, because Miss Thang gave it to him, and he was NOT taking it off.

This was the point it became defiance. I told him I didn't want to take it from him, he can have it in his pocket if he wished, but I didn't want him to wear it until he knew what it represented. He was again defiant. I told him that I would not accept this from him, that I had made a reasonable request, and that if he did not comply, I considered it defiant and disrespectful. He said he didn't care. So I asked him if he realized that I will not tolerate him living in my home, eating my food, etc, if he is going to disrespect me. He said, fine, I'll leave. I said, fine, put your key on the counter and take all your shit with you, because you're not coming back.

When I got home, his key was on the counter, and I didn't like it, but I sighed and accepted it. (I found the back door that we never used was unlocked, he unlocked it and was hoping I wouldn't notice. Sneaky shit.)

Next day, I get a call from Miss Thang's parents. He's at their house. The father is on the phone with me, and basically says "do you know that since he's under 18 you're legally responsible for him?" I said, "Do you know that in this state, harboring a runaway is a felony?" Basically, he had told her parents about how much of an ogre I was, and how I was "so mean". At the end of the day, I allowed him to come back. I told my husband that he now had "free reign" to do as he pleased with The Boy, because I was done. He had broken my heart, and I didn't want anything to do with him. He was only coming back because I was legally responsible.

Husband put him on "lockdown", meaning, you stay in your room, no TV, no radio, no games, for a week. And Husband demanded The Boy apologize to me. For every day The Boy didn't apologize, Husband would add a week of lockdown.

At three weeks of lockdown, I tell Husband I don't want a forced apology. He relents, but the three weeks stayed in effect. Since one of MY conditions was that he no longer used my computer ever, I went in and basically formatted/reinstalled, to wipe all that demon crap off the machine.

My best friend and her husband were staying with us at the time, and the husband was at the house (We were at work), when The Boy came out of the room to eat lunch, and attempted to get on MY computer to "print some stuff" from Miss Thang. When he realized I had formatted, reinstalled, and everything from Miss Thang was gone, he went insane. He called me a bunch of names, but the highlight was Mother Fucking Bitch.

Oh, no you didn't.

Huband tells my friend, and my friend tells me.
I walk in the front door and tell my husband to come get me before I kill this child and proceed into his room. What followed I'm not proud of, but suffice to say I told him to say it to my face. He wouldn't, so I told him if he can say it behind my back, but can't say it to my face, he's a pussy. If he's going to talk like a man, he better be able to back it up like a man. My husband pulled me out of the room, and my final words were, "Don't go to sleep."

He ran away again, but I didn't know it until the next morning. This time I called the police and reported him as a runaway. I found out that he had left the house that night, and had walked/run about 40 miles throughout the night/part of the day to the town that Miss Thang was vacationing at. He called her Stepmom and she went and picked him up, and took him to her house (where he went before). And no one called me. She had to drive by my house twice to get him and bring him back, and it didn't occur to her to bring him by.

I find this out at 6pm, so instead of dealing with them, I just went to the police station, gave them the parents names and address, and a Sgt. went out there and picked him up, and brought him back to the police station. This accomplished two things. One, hopefully scared the parents that the police were showing up to get my kid, maybe they need to not let him in/see their daughter/whatever, and two, impress upon The Boy that I wasn't playing anymore.

In this state, if you runaway twice, you are considered an "Undisciplined Juvenile" and the state takes the child out of the home and into foster care until the child is 21 years old. Not 18. I knew that, and the Sgt. told The Boy that. Sgt asked me and Husband what was going on, I told him, and he told The Boy that it sounded like he needed to get his head together and hang in for 6 months, until he was 18. I took him back only because of the cops.

I had been emailing the ex (David, Piggy's father) about The Boy and I told the ex it was either he took him or foster care, because The Boy was not going to listen, and would most likely runaway again. David decided to take the boy in, and threw in some jabs about what a shitty parent I was since I obviously didn't have control over my own son. He had come back from Iraq the month before and taken Piggy back, and had Bryan (my autistic son) with him for a vacation. He was supposed to return Bryan on July 23, so I proposed that we meet in Atlanta on that day (halfway between us), and swap children, Bryan for The Boy. He agreed.

Then, 4 days from then, he emails me and tells me he's no longer willing to make the drive, and he'll return Bryan when it's "financially convenient". So if I wanted him to take The Boy, and I wanted Bryan back, I had to make the full 18 hour each way trip.

So I did.

continued in part 2....