I feel like I've been supposed to post something for a while now. As usual I don't exactly know where this posting is going to go but heck I'll try. One thing I've been thinking about is my experience with PHP.. Partial Hospitalization Program... Someone said that I'm a secondary victim from my husbands crime. Gosh How I riled and rebelled against this concept. I felt as if the lady saying this, was implying that my beloved husband; who has been my rock for so long, who is the other half of me, the parts of me that I can never explain; was STILL victimizing people, like he is still out there committing crimes, but he isn't. I was so mad at that woman, but when I came home and told my husband he agreed with her.. He keeps apologizing for putting me threw all of this stuff. He says that our children are tertiary victims from his error, face it his crime. I feel like he is now ALSO a victim because of the way the laws are phrased, and he suffers just as much if not more than we all do. The weight of his mistakes weighs so very heavily on his heart. No matter what the circumstances what he did was wrong. What I wish people could see is how different he is now.
This last fall a new family moved into a house across the street from us. They happen to have a daughter that is exactly the same age of my daughter, in fact they were in the same Head Start class, and so in my daughters mind this is her friend so of coarse she ran strait over to her friends house.. They have a BIG trampoline and the girls got right down to playing. Initially I was ecstatic; look here was a child my daughter already knew who was so close so she could play with.
Well I followed, because surprise surprise, the sex offender and his wife doesn't let our daughter run rickshaw over anyone or just generally unsupervised, Then since we as a family HAD BEEN about to go for a walk, my husband also followed me over. We made some small talk and I thought everything was ok..THEN like a month later my step daughter got a NASTY message from the mother, in her "other" box, telling her to tell me about the other box and low and behold I found 2 messages, one from the mother and one from the father... Both were particularly venomous, and I had to revise my response about 5 times, because I wanted SOOOO badly to defend him, to tell them the whole story to shove down their throats that my husband is not this horrible person, but he kept counseling me that it would not help and would only back fire, so instead I simply said..."i'm sorry to have inconvenienced you and we will keep our distance." Well now its spring and its time to play outside again, and these people had the guts to tell their daughter that my husband, my daughters beloved daddy is in jail.
Oh the anger in that little girl..she was just livid that someone would say something so mean and 'untrue' about her daddy "because he is the best-est, ever ever ever!" When I confronted her with this information I explained that we all make mistakes, and I asked her what consequences she had to deal with when she makes mistakes and doesn't follow the rules? And she said she gets a time out. So I told her that a LONG LONG time ago her daddy made a mistake, he didn't follow the rules, and he needed an adult time out. And for adults that is when people go to jail. And sometimes people have to have time outs to think about what they have done and really learn from their mistake. She got soooo mad at me. So very mad, didn't want to talk to me, I was telling "lies/stories about her daddy" It took her a while to calm down from that.
I keep having to tell her to NOT yell at them even though she is just like her mommy, wants to defend her daddy. I was soo soo soo mad. I wanted to march over there and tell them that they better not open their mouths about my husband ever again, I wanted to ask them if they had EVER smoked pot, or done any other kind of drug or if they drink and get drunk? Because if they have I could conceivably tell my daughter that they are drug addicts, and alcoholics, and then how would they feel? But I haven't... I've been being a good girl.. hubby has suggested that if they keep these verbal assaults up to go to the police and file something against them. I'm suddenly so glad we decided to move our daughter to a different school system. She doesn't need to grow up as "that sex offenders daughter'. I"m not really proud of this but on one nice day I sat outside the WHOLE day reading a book for my school, and I know that I interrupted THEIR day b/c they are SOOO worried about us seeing them. I felt just a bit too much glee.. but really they yelled at their daughter for riding her scooter to far down the block, so that she was in front of our house.. I guess my husband went out to do some grilling and the wife and daughter were out front and when my husband was outside, their husband had to come out and "keep an eye on them" cuz you know my husband is sooooo very dangerous.. god i'm tired of stupid, judgmental, and down right rude people.
I do have to say we have a glimmer of hope shinning right now, with Obama and the MN governor passing laws about expunging records of reformed criminals,so that they can have an easier time finding jobs and housing. Now this is apparently for "non-violent" offenders, and my husband is pretty sure that a sex offender is automatically considered a violent offence. But at this point I kinda figure its worth a shot huh? I think I'm going to be asking a number of people to give some character references and see if perhaps we could actually get ourselves into a better place in our lives.
THEN we got referred to a different church that welcomes sex offenders, and we had to have a meeting and they have rules about how to handle sex offenders, and they really weren't that bad SOOO guess who has a church again..There isn't much for the kids yet. Its a really small new church but that's also kind of exciting b/c maybe we could really help there. AND my darling husband has actually been willing and wanting to go to church, and he is actually listening and getting something out of the sermons, this is so very exciting for me.
AND THEN--- we got told about some kind of re-assessing of some thing and we didn't know what, and then a lady from CPS (child protective services) shows up at our door, because there is a NEW law that says if a child lives with a person that is on the sex-offender registry CPS wants to do and evaluation, and its like no one checks ANYTHING and EVERY ONE thinks that he is still on probation... the church did, the lady with CPS did everyone seems to.. But guess what people HE ISNT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! As of March 26th he is free.... And that lady was about to tell us that once again my husband could not be alone with our daughter. And we were about to REALLY argue this until we explained that he is off of probation, and I have attended the sex offender supervisory classes, AND I have the official permission from the courts to be his supervisor and she backed down a lot, and even eventually said that he is aloud to do anything that is a "normal" parenting action ect. SO we dodged that bullet. And I am glad for this.
In other worlds I'm finally done with this semester of school and I THINK that I passed all my classes, and I THINK that my grades will be enough to pull my GPA for UMD up enough to no longer be on academic probation. AND since PHP they took me off of my Prozac, so now I'm waking up easier in the morning, but I'm still falling asleep during he day and NOW I'm back to crying at the drop of a hat or even a moment of a commercial on TV... and I'm cranky... all my patience seems to have fled and I hate this.. I feel so blargh... they did put me on a mood stabilizer but i'm not sure what its doing...and I don't get to see my councler OR my psych meds dr till June. SIGH.. AND I have a Psycho-neurological exam Friday.. fun fun.. Wish me luck.. I want to find out if I have any brain damage from when I had H1N1 and MRSA in 2009... If I have brain damage it could make it easier for me to get SSI and that could help our money situation....any how Its bed-time so I'm signing off NIGHT
