We got to Valle Vista, I got out of the car and walked over to my ex's.  He got out of his and walked to mine.  He started yelling something at Joshua.  I knew this wasn't going to be productive, but was not feeling the maternal need to come to his defense.  Something was being screamed about being a scientist and that was going to make since soon enough.  I approached my ex's new wife, the mother of the girl in the videos.  My heart broke for her and I just started to apologize feeling so responsible for what my son had done.  I wasn't sure if she would start yelling at me or him, but she just hugged me.  We got inside, told the lady at the desk we had an appointment and I was given the paper work to fill out.  Joshua plopped himself down on a couch and started laughing at the Adam Sandler movie that was playing on the TV in the lobby.  His father and I were both so angry at him and amazed at his utter lack of regard for the situation.  My hands shook so hard I could hardly fill out he forms legibly.  We told him to get up and sit on a couch facing away from the television.  He kept straining his eyes to catch a glimpse of the screen and snickering at the jokes he heard.  It was all I could do to keep from slapping him across the face.  How dare he act like life for all of us hadn't just imploded.  And I didn't even know the half of it.

The intake coordinator brought us back and asked us why we were there.  I told her about the videos trying to give as much detail as I could without traumatizing Cindy's parents.  I gave the recent history of the photos of women going to the bathroom and him urinating on blankets and clothes.  Told her of the 2 toads and 1 bunny he had killed and of me walking in on him choking our dog.  That's when his father spoke up.  The animal killings had continued around 5 he could recall.  And the very weekend those videos were shot, he had pulled the skin off of a live frog.  That is where the scientist comment came into play....his father telling him that it was only OK to do that if he was a scientist.....his father is an idiot.  All of this being told while Joshua sat in the room with, no tears being shed, no remorseful pleas, his cheeks didn't even flush from embarrassment.  Knowing I had specifically asked him about wanting to hurt other animals not 24 hours before and he lied to my face......what else was he capable of?  I began recounting all the odd behaviors, especially the last month or two, especially those involving my daughter.  The day of the engagement party he knocked our bedroom door around 8am, he said my daughter was crying and he had to calm her down.  Her room is not 10 feet from ours, the monitor was on, I sleep light as a feather.  She was not crying.  What the hell was he doing in her room?  I felt so sick.

The woman asked to speak with Joshua alone, my ex and his wife, and myself.  She seemed very sympathetic and alarmed.  Once she was done speaking with all of us she had to call the nurse practitioner on call for orders.  She asked me if I was indeed looking for inpatient treatment, and if there had been any doubt before it was all gone now.  I just found out my son had peeled the skin off of a live animal....something had to be done.  As she lead us back to the waiting room I assumed it was a foregone conclusion that he would be admitted.  I began to remember what treatment had been like for the kids here, the group therapy, the school day....all of which I had been a part of in the past.  Joshua knew what was being discussed, hell I had him pack his own bag, so you think that the time in the waiting room, waiting for this woman to tell us his fate he would be forlorn, distraught.  No, he was flipping through magazines, laughing at the comics he could find.

After 30 minutes or so the woman reappeared and asked to speak with my husband and myself, presumably to fill out the admissions paperwork.  To our shock and horror, he would not be admitted.  He wasn't suicidal, homicidal, or psychotic enough for admission.  The woman was truly sorry, if it was up to her....but of course it wasn't.  She could only give us some numbers of outpatient facilities that may be able to get him an appointment in the next few weeks, tell us to hide the weapons and put alarms on our doors, and until that could be done, lock him in his room.  That was the best they could offer.  The disbelief of this, of the whole day was more than I could take and I nearly passed out sitting in my chair.  She asked if I felt safe taking him home and of course I didn't, so she gave me the number of a runaway shelter that would keep him overnight.  I could not believe, still can't believe this is happening.

My ex's wife worked at a hotel at the time and they would often stay there.  Either they got a discount or would just choose a room to squat in when living in his mother's house with up to ten people at a time wore thin.  My ex had the next 2 days off of work so he said he would take him to the hotel and hopefully we would hear from the police and child protective services very soon.  Surly that would be the way to get help for us.  As the three adults discussed these plans, Joshua walked out to his father's car and began skipping around it.  This was children of the corn creepy.  The boy didn't skip, this whole day and night should of rocked him to his core, made him question everything about himself.  It should of made him as miserably sick as the rest of us....but instead he complained about being hungry and started skipping.

I called my husband when I started the hour plus drive home and put enough words together to tell him what happened, which was really nothing.  I grabbed an empty fast food cup from the back seat and vomited violently into it.  When I got home I vomited some more.  I had found our on my birthday just weeks before that I was pregnant, but I hadn't felt the morning sickness yet.  I could not be sure if the hormones had finally built up enough to cause the nausea.  Well I knew that wasn't it.  The videos Joshua had made kept replaying in my mind, only to be trumped out by the image of him skinning and animal alive.  What the hell just happened to my son, my family, my life.  When I finally reached my husband I crawled on top of him, sobbed, and shook so hard that my teeth were chattering.  I think I shook like that for the first 2 weeks at least.

The police arrived around 8 the next morning.  My husband had gone to work and arrangnd for some time off given the uncertainty of what we were in for.  In my mind I imagined the cops coming in, seeing the videos, and putting handcuffs on Joshua and taking him "down town" if nothing else than for dramatic effect.  Surly that would cut through to him.

They arrived and watched the videos with the appropriate disgusted responce.  We shared with them the disturbing behavior that had been escalating over the past few months.  I did my best to describe his behavior when I found the videos the night before.  His flat affect and apparent lack of any remorse.  Joshua was in his room with the door shut, I assume sleeping, and the police never even saw him.  His father lives in the next county over and that is where the  videos had been made, so they were unable to take any action and to turn the matter over to the law enforcement of that county.  My hopes, if you want to call them that, of him being taken to juvenile corrections were dashed....he was only 11 and juvenile would only get involved if he were at least 12, even though a crime had most definitely been committed.  We begged to them give us some direction, some resource for mental health care, it was grossly apparent to us that something in his mind had cracked and we were clueless on how to deal with it.  All they could tell us is that the department of children services in the next county would be contacted by it's law enforcement and they should be contacting us in a few days.......a few days?  Something had to be done NOW, TODAY!

After they left I got on the computer and searched the phone book for any avenue.  No listings anywhere to "help me, my son is a pedophile"  I called a well known large mental hospital in the state capital who were very unhelpful, telling me I'd have to start with our local mental health agency.  I wasn't even sure if one existed for our small town.  When I did find a number and called, they were closed, it was Sunday.  I called our local hospital and asked for the emergency psychologist, I was connected to a voicemail (it was Sunday) and told to have the hospital operator paged if this was a true emergency.  I work at a hospital an hour away and am familiar with paging doctors so I had no reservations in doing just that.  I called the operator and tried to gather my thoughts of how to describe this horror in my home, seeing them telling me to bring him to the
ER where they would meet me and then most likely transfer him to another facility.  They never returned the page.  I finally decided to call Valle Vista, a behavioral health and addiction center up in the suburbs that I knew serviced children.  I had done some of my nursing clinical up there, hated the place.  After hysterically repeating the story for what seemed like the 50th time today they said we could bring him up for an evaluation but not till 9pm that evening. FINE, whatever time it was at least we had someones attention and this would surly be the start the ball rolling.  At that time I was thinking what a good thing it was that school was almost out.  We would be able to send him off to get the help he needed over the summer and have him back home before the next school year.  A big concern being that he may have to repeat the 5th grade.  What an insignificant concern that was.

During this awful day Joshua was told to stay in his room.  I did not want him anywhere near my daughter.  Actually when I heard him milling around in his room late afternoon I took him in something to eat and his daily seizure medication.  I was so sure and hopeful that when he saw me again, after the shock was dulled and he'd had some time to sleep on it I would see, feel a truly remorseful, confused little boy begging for forgiveness and help.  I walked in to find a cold, blank stare, a shell of my son....or who I thought my son was.  I told him to just stay in his room and that I was trying to find someone for us to talk to.  I could hear him during the day playing and laughing, watching TV, like nothing was out of the ordinary at all.  My husband went into his room at one point and I know tried to have a serious heart to heart and gauge his response.  He was a equally disappointed and frightened by Joshua's udder lack of regard for what he had done.

It would take us a little over an hour to get to Valle Vista and we were meeting his father halfway for him to follow us up.  It was warm and still very light outside when I went into his room, told his to pack a bag for a couple of days.  I made sure he had all toiletries he may need and his medication.  We got in the car and everything felt like a dream, or a nightmare.  We live on the back side of a lake community and it can take about 10 minutes to wide around the lake to the main road.  He was just staring out the window.  I was still violently shaking, tears uncontrollably pouring down my cheeks as they had been all day...I probably should not of been driving.  My heart breaking, ripping apart as the thought went through my mind that this may be the last time he saw the lake for a very long time.  Finally the silence was broken when he asked me simply "where are we going?" in this low monotone voice.  I told him we were going to a hospital where they had doctors that would be able to help us with what all was going on.  My own actions were making me nauseous.  During my nursing clinical I would often leave Valle Vista crying for those "poor" kids left up their by their parents, how could anyone do that to their own baby?  And now here I was praying they were going to take my baby in.

So there I am standing in his room, filled with a disgust and rage I had never felt.  There he was standing with his back towards me having just seen a demon pop out of his eyes.  What was a person to do in this situation?  I am a registered nurse, a mandated reporter of any kind of abuse.  And I am holding in my hand child pornography directed and produced by my 11 year old son.  So as my mind begins to grasp and accept what I had discovered I am bombarded by all the history with Joshua that I should of recognized as blazing red flags.  Not only the animals killing and recent photos of the women, but every look, whisper, glare, the compulsive needless lies.  Every odd and disturbing occurrence that we all glossed over for years was coming into fiercely clear focus....and I was terrified.  That is when I started shaking so hard and would continue to do so for a couple of weeks.

I told him I was first going to call his father, tell him what I found...and then I would be calling the police.  I HAD to.  Not a word came from him, not a look, not an emotion.  Just blinding indifference.  It was 2 am by the time I called his father and step mother.  I simply told them what I had found and what my next move was going to be.  Their reaction to the news seems strange in hindsight, but how would you expect someone to respond to this news in the middle of the night.  After that call I told him to get in bed and I left closing the door behind me.

I sat on our staircase with the phone.  I didn't want to wake my husband up with this, he had to work in the morning and I was handling it the best way I knew how.  Calling the police seemed extreme, but this is a crime, I had to follow through.  Then I had the thought to call child protective services instead.  I had believed that they would obviously have a zero tolerance on such a thing and would get the authorities involved as needed.  So I looked in the phone book for the 24 hour hot line for our area.....number has been changed or disconnected.  Looked it up online.....number has been changed or disconnected.  Call information and had them directly connected.....number has been changed or disconnected.  I thought you've got to be f@#$ing kidding me.  What if a poor child was trying to call someone to report their own abuse, guess they would be out of luck.  So I called the police.  Not 911, just the local sheriff's department.  As best as I could through burning hot tears of rage and my voice shaking with the rest of my body.  The officer took the information down and said they would send a detective to our home in the morning.  Never in my life did I think I would be inviting a detective into my home.  I took some naive comfort that the police were coming and they would know what to do.

I tried to sneak back into bed without waking my husband, unsuccessfully.  He could tell by my demeanor that something was wrong very wrong.  I told him about the videos and that I had called the police who would be here in the morning.  I could tell immediately that he thought I must be overreacting, but then he asked to see the videos and I sat with him to watched them again for the second and final time.  Then he knew.....I had pulled him into this fresh hell with me and nothing would ever be the same. We both just sat there and shook until the sun came up.

We had a family get together to go to that night, an engagement party.  Things had been getting more and more tense around the house....with school, and trying to deal with these new behaviors of his.  His room was a wreck as always and I spent the entire day trying to get him to clean it, even just a little.  At one point I was standing silently just outside of his room to watch any progress being made.  I watched him as he stood facing his window, quietly counting the slats of the blind.  He never made any attempt to clean.  My husband and I both had to work the next day, our bedroom is upstairs and his sits directly beneath ours.  All that night I could hear the banging, "play fighting", thrashing about that was par for the course with Joshua.  It was almost 1 am when I made the decision to go try and talk to him and tell him to go to bed.  We talked for more than an hour.  I asked him what he thought the problem was, why did he make no attempt in school, at home.  Was he being bullied at school, did he need to talk about something he felt he couldn't with me.  I even asked him that night if he ever felt like hurting any animals which he sternly denied.....I would soon learn that was another lie.

I thought, or at least hoped that our talk had made some difference and went to leave the room.  Something or someone whispered in my ear to go and look at his ds.  I felt a dread come over me before I even made it back to his bed.  It didn't take long, he made no real attempt to hide anything.  I opened a file a short videos and there it was.  At first a still photo of a little girl from shoulder to thigh in her underwear.  I knew immediately who it was and what it was.  Joshua's younger half sister, 5 years old who lived at his father's...we'll call her Cindy.  And as much as I didn't want to, I had to hit play.  There were 4 videos in all, all taken at the same time.  Some with her underwear on, and by the end without.  He was not touching her in any of the videos, but he was giving her explicit instructions on how to take her clothes off and lay in different positions on the bed.  The deepness of his voice made it sound even more depraved than it looked.

My blood ran cold like NEVER before, to the point where I though I might lose consciousness.  What made this gruesome discovery worse was his reaction to me finding it.  His head snapped at me and there were those glassy black eyes, no expression on his face.  He got up and walked across the room, stood facing the corner in silence.  No breakdown, no tears, no screaming for forgiveness or pleas for help....nothing.  All I could think was it was as if he was possessed.  It of course crossed my mind for a split second that I must be the only one to know about these and a deep maternal instinct try to rise for me to protect him from the fallout.  But as quickly as that thought came, my common sense smashed it away.  What I was holding in my hand was sick, deplorable, miserable, and a crime.  And if it had been my daughter on those videos, I don't even know.

One year ago today.

The Nintendo ds.  My husband and I have been married for 5 years, together for 10.  He has been a parent to Joshua since he was 2.  My husband is a cancer survivor and was given limited odds for fathering a child. We tried for months at a time a few times, but nothing ever came of it, so we decided to give up. We all know how this story goes.... in Feb of 2010 we got pregnant. I did not know how Joshua would take the news being my one and only for so long.  We did our best to include him in the excitement of the pregnancy, trying to create a strong base of him wanting to be a great big brother.  He already had a half sister from his father and new wife.  The night I went to the hospital to be induced I have give a card and a gift of a new Nintendo ds that he'd been wanting for a long time.  (That particular ds was only around for 2 weeks when he took it to his father's house, left it in the pocket of his jeans, and took a ride through the washing machine. His father did replace it on his 11th birthday).  We had beautiful healthy baby girl in September.

Joshua continued to struggle in school.  We literally had to sit with him every night 4-5 hours to get homework done.  I got frequent calls from his teacher, nothing we tried every made a bit of difference.  His 5th grade teacher strongly questioned why I took him off the Concerta, but I could never tell her that I walked in on him choking the dog and believed the medicine was the cause.  So the school situation totally sucked to keep it short.

His behavior at home was also getting increasingly bazaar.  The constant talking to himself, play fighting with himself-physically throwing him self against walls. Breaking things all the time, not in anger, but so many things to blame on plain clumsiness.  His interaction with my daughter was off putting. I recall the day we came home from the hospital I was sitting on the couch holding the baby, and Joshua had the coldest look on his face staring at her.  I actually said to him, "don't look at her like that!"  Instinctively I would never leave them alone together,  This instinct was reinforced when she was a little over a year old.  I was changing her diaper in the living room and he was fixated on whatever was TV at the time,  But when I look up I saw him staring at her in a way that sent chills all through me.  I decided to never change her diaper in front of him again.

Joshua is a big child, not just overweight but well over 5 foot by 10 years old and he started the signs of puberty around 8-9. I caught him fondling himself more than once while sitting on the couch watching TV.  Not sure if that is what he was doing at age 11, I would say to him "you got an itch" and he would go to his room and shut the door.  There was an old winter coat stored in the back of his closet, didn't fit him anymore.  I kept finding the coat out in odd areas.  Once in his floor and it had been urinated on.  Of course I blamed the dog for the pee and questioned him why he ever had it out in the first place....he said he was cold.  I washed the coat and hung it back up and a few days later found it in his bathtub soaking wet.  His sleeping bags were also being urinated on and again the dog felt my wrath.  Joshua's shorts would be on the bathroom floor wet....could it be poor aim on his part, or over splash from the shower, something else?  He would change shorts 2-3 times between after school and bedtime. I'll be the first to admit I had no clue how to handle a conversation if he was indeed masturbating at 11.  My husband and I were very taken aback and of course googled it and read stories of kids starting at his age.  So we knew we were going to have to have a talk with him soon.

One day he and I had been arguing about school work and the usual stuff. I told him to get in the shower and I was going to bring him in a towel.  I returned to his bathroom a few minutes later to find the shorts he'd been wearing soaked with urine.  Light bulb moment, it was never the dog.  I was so furious with him, confronted him and he told me he was just too tired to use the toilet.  I never told anyone about these findings at the time.

So the ds, lots of history with this but we'll cut to the chase. Right before Easter of last year I found pictures that Joshua had downloaded from the Internet.  They were all of women partially clothed, but here's the kicker...all the girls had urinated or defecated in their panties.  So we had to have a talk quick, I was not prepared , no clue what to say.  We talked about masturbation being a natural process and a part of growing up, but that it needed to be done in privacy and kept to himself.  I questioned him as to why he wanted to look at these particular types of picture, never got a true answer.  I made it clear that those images were completely inappropriate and he was going to be grounded from the Internet until further notice.  He even thanked me for talking to him and I felt good about the talk, as good as I could.  But he continued to fondle himself at inappropriate times.  His bedroom is right off the kitchen and I would go down at night to get a drink and he would be in full view with the door open going to town.  The first couple of times I would sternly tell him to close his door.  You think having your mom catch you would be so embarrassing that you would be extra careful to not let it happen again, but it didn't seem to bother him.  One night during those couple of weeks he came to our bedroom and knocked on the door.  I answered it to find him standing there with...and I'll just say it....a huge ejaculation stain on the front of his pants. It was fresh.  This creepy, almost distorted look on his face asking me if he could have a snack.

It's safe to say I knew we had some sort of problem when he turned 11 in November of 2011.  At night once he was in bed I'd feel a since of relief and I would start going through a check list in my head.  Did I catch him doing you know what today, did he say anything disturbing, how awful had school been that day, did he look at or say anything to my daughter in his intimidating way. Feeling like a horrible mother I'd ask myself "did he give me the creeps today?"  But I had no idea how close were we to the boiling point.

I was mortified to say the least. How could my sweet little boy be doing this again? Of course he said he was just .trying to hold onto it.  His father assured me they had a long, tough talk about it, stressing how all creatures are God's creatures and it was a sin to kill. I had never been so angry with my son. and so worried and scared.  He was grounded from everything for quite a while.  I made him write letters to the bunny, the bunny's mom, to God.  Tried scaring him with the legality of animal cruelty, thought about making him watch beyond scared straight on a&e, but he was too young for most of that content. He needed to feel bad for what he had done, I needed assurance that this would NEVER happen again.  He was upset...that he was grounded.  He wrote his letters that said no more than "sorry".  I did reach out to some close friends and family for advice thinking I needed to have him seen by someone. Boys will will boys was the consensus.  I guess I chose to believe that our feeble attempts had made a difference and it would NEVER happen again.

I finally broke down and put him on Concerta at the end of 3rd grade to try and help him in school.  It seemed to make a difference in the beginning, he did read a little faster.  I did not have him take it over the summer but he started again in 4th grade where his grades actually declined the whole year.  Once 5th grade started they had to put him on a larger dose because of his size.  He was only on it for 2 weeks.  School life started off in the gutter that year and the medicine didn't seem to have any impact.  Then one night I heard a horrible muffled sound coming from his room.  I pushed open the door to find Joshua sitting crossed legged with his hands wrapped around our dog's throat and he was squeezing hard.  His eye were fixated, glassy and black, and the wickedest smile was frozen on his face.  He didn't even see me standing there. I finally gasped enough breath to say his name and it was as if he'd been released from a trance. His pupils shrunk back to reveal the baby blue of his eyes, he pushed the dog away and mumbled "sorry" under his breath and sunk back into his bed.  I remember my face turning red hot, my head feeling like it was going to explode.  What had I just walked in on?  I know I must of yelled something at him, but in the quietest way I could.  I did not want my husband to know what had happened, I didn't know what he would do. Scared he would lose his temper and I felt the need to protect my son. Not that my husband had ever or would ever be violent, but I did not want him to feel this sickening horror and shattering of trust that was pouring over me.  I told Joshua to get in bed and I shut the light off and walked out.  This would be the first time I did not "tuck" him in with a kiss goodnight.  I took a deep breath then went upstairs to join my husband and pretend like all was well.  The next morning at breakfast I sternly whispered to my son to not talk about this with dad. I told him this was never going to happen again, as if saying it in this tone would make it so.  He knew he could fool me with the dog was trying to get away, and he didn't try.  When a child is on a medicine for ADD one of the questions the Dr will ask is if the child has shown any anger or violence to animals.  So that is what I decided to blame this on, the medicine. I took him off of it and convinced myself he would never do such a thing again.  And I never told anyone about it...until April 29, 2012.

It will be one year, on April 29th.  Since the bottom dropped out and I was thrown into this repulsive vortex I could of never concocted in my worst nightmares.  Things have never gotten any better, just worse in different ways.  The pure panic I feel about the upcoming court date in May has kicked my insomnia into high gear.  The anxiety has become so heavy again that I feel paralyzed most of the time, like I did at the beginning.  Those closest to me I feel must be getting tired of listening to all this, never knowing what to say.  So I can listen to my husbands sweet snores for hours while trying to numb my mind with silly apps (angry birds, and my new favorite candy crush), but I feel so strongly that I just need to get some of this out. Even if no one is reading this or if everyone is. Where to start?

I was married at 21, way to young and stupid and for all the wrong reasons.  At 22 I had a son, I'll call him Joshua....that's what I wanted to name him.  The pregnancy was fairly uncomplicated.  He was my first full term after having 2 miscarriages.  He was breech and they turned him over but still arrived 11 days late with the help of pitocin. Labor for 20 hours, once born the nurses had to stimulate him for a little while to get him breathing well, meconium in the fluid.I tried my best to nurse him, but he had a lot of difficulty latching on due to a high palate.  They had to feed him through a nasogastric tube for a day and he was a little jaundice.  We were sent home 4 days after he was born.

Our divorce was finalized on his 2nd birthday and life became full of two jobs and school.  I was always concerned about Joshua. He didn't walk till almost 14 months, never did crawl.  He was always so stiff, didn't like to bend at the waist.  He didn't speak well until he was 3.  Back then everyone was scared that vaccines were causing autism and I used to wonder.  There were many times he would show some typical behaviors, starring off, mild hand flipping, pointing and grunting instead of speaking.  I was young and overwhelmed not sure of what to do.  Eventually he seemed to catch up with his milestones...all kids are different.

Flash forward......
Pre-school went well enough, no huge red flags.  Right before Kindergarten he began having seizures-bad ones.  Joshua was always a little slow, awkward, different.  We blamed it on the seizures and the medications he had to be on to control them.  His first grade teacher was the first one to raise concern about his school performance.  I remember her saying if he didn't learn to keep up he was going to get eaten alive in school, and I thought she was a bitch.  We moved before 2nd grade, new school.  School became a big problem immediately and just got progressively worse over the years.

So why I am writing this, my kid has troubles in school?  Well here we go....

Joshua killed his first animal when he was 5.  It happened at his fathers house, they said they were all playing with some small toads and he squeezed one to death.  He said it was trying to get away and he was just trying to hold on to it. His father made it seem like a horrible accident.  Six months later he stomped on a toad killing it, again he claimed he was trying to stop it from running away.  We addressed this much more seriously, making sure he did know it was wrong to kill animals and he was punished for the first time in his life.  Two animals so close together, what a horrible coincidence, right?  Then when he was 9 his father brought him home (on mother's day no less) with the news that he had strangled a baby rabbit.

Well that's about all I can do for tonight. It all gets so much worse.