Wednesday, 06 August 2008

• Juvenille Detention Center

  Tom and I worked things out. He and I decided not to allow T.J. to ruin our relationship. Yes, Tom was so very wrong for getting physical with T.J. first. He was the adult and he did not act adultlike. However, his frustration towards T.J. has built up over many years. Everytime he leaves for work and goes out on the road he fears getting calls from me. He's so afraid of what I have to tell him. He's always wondering if T.J. flipped out on me, my other two kids, or someone else's kid. When Tom is home and sees firsthand what T.J. is capable of... the lieing, cheating, stealing, manipulation, blatant disrespect towards everyone, especially me, he goes into angry Papa-bear mode. I've been there myself... so frustrated with an incorrigible child (a child in a man's body) who can have a lethal effect if he wanted to. Tom simply broke. It wasn't a good choice. However, it is understandable. T.J. will be 18 August 31, 2009 at which time I will have his ass thrown out of my house legally, with an eviction notice. Tom and I agreed that when Tom feels that he's going over the top when it comes to T.J. he will back off and allow me to handle T.J. He asked me if I would step in between he and T.J. if I saw that it was going the wrong way, I said I would, not just to protect T.J., but to protect Tom's ass from going to jail at the hands of an incorrigible and spiteful teenager. Tom also agreed that he will come in with me to my individual counseling sessions, when I want him to, so we can get worked on as a couple. He also agreed that once Family Based Therapy started for the entire family with T.J. being the center of it all, he would participate. I told Tom, even if T.J. doesn't get a damn thing out of Family Based Therapy, the rest of us as individuals and as a family can.

  That was all weeks ago, though. So very much has changed, for the worse.
  
  T.J. is in a juvenille detention center at this moment. I had him charged with Reckless Endangerment, Making Terroristic Threats, and 2 counts of Simple Assault. I just got back from the preliminary hearing where the judge decided where T.J. was going to stay until the time of his trial. I refused to have him come back into my home because he is a threat to my other two children, myself, and to society in general. It seems that the Probation Officer and the Judge agreed with me. So, he will stay in the Juvenille Detention Center a couple of counties away from me until his trial hearing August 11th. What happens after that is anyone's guess. I don't want him back into my home. I want him placed into a Residential Treatment Facility or as a last resort the state can take him and I'll have to pay the state child support to keep him till he turns 18. Whatever happens he will NOT come back into my home. He is too unpredictable and violent. I should NOT have to live in fear of my son! If I did the things to him that he does to me and the rest of the family, I would be thrown in prison for child abuse! However, since he is a minor, the law protects him, all in the name of "keeping the family together." All the while the family is indeed being torn apart because of that one child's violence and unpredictablity. Will all our problems be solved once T.J. is gone? Hell NO! However, we will be in a better place to be able to work on other issues that plague this family.
  
  As I followed T.J. into the Judge's chamber's this morning my heart nearly came out of my chest. They had him shackled... arms shackled to a leather belt at the waist... a chin led from the leather belt down to his feet where those were shackled as well. As he shuffled his feet it walk, my heart was literally aching. I kept telling myself, "He must learn this hard lesson... HE MUST!"

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