Managing the Chess Game of Court Ordered Visitation with a Psychopath

I have blogged previously about the nightmare of a court order supervised exchange professional.  In the past two weeks, I have really started to wonder if I am dealing with two psychopaths instead of just one — my spath ex AND this court ordered supervisor.  It has become abundantly clear that this woman chooses to meddle and fuel drama on some occasions and then on others she decides she wants to remain “neutral”.  Today Luc (the spath ex and my sons unfortunately sperm donor) had another court ordered visitation.  (Note:  Luc hasn’t had a seven hour visit for a month and the last time my son ended up in the hospital)  The events that occurred at the drop off have me wondering about whether or not this woman isn’t just a “psychopath drama fueler” but a psychopath herself.

I used to envy those parents who were still together and could take out their child for a family day in the part.  Now, I find myself also envying those who can have a relaxing day and not worry about their child being physically abused or neglected when he is with their ex.  I hate it when people tell me to “go have fun” on visit days.  Those are people who have never had to deal with a pychopath.  I can “go have fun” when I leave my son with my parents or even a nanny who has been properly vetted.  I cannot, however, “go have fun” when I know my son is being used as a pawn in Luc’s vicious terrorism plot.

The Beginning

The morning started out “special” as my son appeared to have woken up on the wrong side of the bed.  He was cranky and I was fighting with him about everything from eating to putting on his clothes.  I knew I had to make sure he had breakfast because I couldn’t rely on Luc to do something basic like feed baby boy.  Baby boy, however, had other plans.  Of course, baby boy didn’t realize that he might not eat for the next seven hours so he was more interested in walking around giving his morning sermon in baby gibberish than stuffing his stomach.

Being Over Prepared:

Initially, when this court order visitation nightmare began, I took the attitude of “if he wants to be a father then he needs to be one.  He needs to provide food, diapers, etc. for baby boy.  I am not going to hold his hand and provide everything!”  Since then, I have realized that providing baby boy comfort has nothing to do with Luc — its all about baby boy.  I needed to realize that even if I did provide the necessities, Luc would still likely neglect baby boy.  After accepting the reality of Luc’s disorder, I decided to provide Luc with diapers, baby wipes, emergency fever medicine, baby first aid kit, snack foods, and a sippy cup.  Today, all of these things were provided.

The dramatic drop-offs:

Baby boy is generally non-verbal.  Besides the occasional “Yea”, “yo”, “Dama” (his name for grandma), and “mama” he really doesn’t say many intelligible words.  He is, however, an amazing judge of character.  For example, he has picked a few women at his school that he has fallen in love with.  The ones he likes are not necessarily the best looking, but they are the ones who appear to be the most loving and who put off an incredible “I love children” vibe.  Baby boy is cautious with people who aren’t excited about children and he seems to be able to smell when people don’t want to have anything to do with him.  He hates the supervisor for the exchanges.  From the moment he sees her he lets out dramatic screams and over months this has not gotten any better.  While she claims it is because baby boy associates her with visits from Luc (and this may be true to a degree), I think he is also picking up that she does not like children.

The Dramatic Return:

As the visit drew to a close, I went to the grocery store and stocked up on baby boys favorite foods in anticipation of a tired and hungry child.  About five minutes after my mom picked up baby boy, I received a frantic phone call from the supervisor.  She noted that she had passed a verbal message to my mother and upon passing the message my mother told her to send me an email if she had messages to pass.  Though she had a message about baby boy’s health (Luc had reported a fever), she didn’t see the need to document this in written form.  Instead, she tried to force this information on my mother as my mother attempted to calm a screaming baby boy.

Given the fact that I pay the supervisor 35 dollars to spend 15 minutes dropping my son off with the devil, I was a bit confused as to why she was yelling on the phone to me about how she didn’t have time to send me a text message or an email about medical information.  Instead of falling for her attempts to spin me up, I calmly said, “I am sorry you feel as if she was dismissing you.  This is important information and we need to be sure we have the message correct.”  When I got off of the phone, I was so disturbed by her tone that I had already forgotten what time she claimed Luc gave baby boy tylenol.

Evidence of Neglect:

Other than sheer safety (given the fact that Luc wants to kill me just the way he killed the mother of his other son), it is my understanding that someone who supervises transfers between two parents can also observe for things “out of the ordinary” such as signs of abuse/neglect.  For some reason, our supervisor has developed some sort of fear of testifying.  Its as if she doesn’t want to notice issues because then she could be called into court and asked about them.  Baby boy was returned soaking wet and wearing the same diaper he had been dropped off in (seven hours earlier).  He was exhausted, wet, and starving.  Instead of noticing that the child had been returned in a terrible state having been clearly neglected, she chose to focus on how good it was that Luc noted that he gave the baby tylenol when he “felt warm.”  I want to scream saying, “wow”¦does he want a gold star for feeling his forehead and giving him drugs?  How about changing his diaper and feeding him?”

Breath, Document, Sleep, and Think Before Acting:

A year ago, I would have immediately sent a scathing email or called the supervisor attempting to figure out how to immediately “fix” the situation or try to get her pay attention to the neglect.  I have learned, however, that in situations like this the best thing to do is calm down before reacting.  Given the supervisor’s recent behavior, I have started to treat her as an extension of Luc himself.  I need to constantly remind myself that I am playing a game of chess with these people.  Nobody has ever won the game of chess by making decisions before thinking about them.  So I will breath — I will document — I will sleep — I will think — Then, I will make my next move in this game of chess.