Blinded by Care

We stayed at the house in Kingscliffe for twelve months before we could find a house elsewhere. Meanwhile my mother was going through a breakup with her now ex man. He was still calling her and trying to "work things out" but I had backed her up on this decision and whenever I seemed to do that the decision was final. I approved of her decision and helped her deal with it. She tried to hide the fact that he was coming around to our house uninvited but I always knew he wasn't welcome anymore. I could see it in her eyes and facial expression, he was not wanted. I walked up to him and blaitently asked him;"Why are you still following my mother around like a lost dog? She's made her decision, just leave." Ofcourse I would have never said that in front of my mother so I made she we were in the loungeroom and she was in her bedroom at the time doing some menial task. He got angry after that and left before my mother even came back out. He gave me a weird feeling that this wasn't over when he left. It wasn't. He would still come back and harrass us even if he didn't come inside the house, he would wait just around the corner in his car, watching. I would never even thought it was possible to stalk someone at the time. To me, this man was just not wanted around here anymore and I felt the need to keep him away from my mother. His daughters were sending my mother messages from him to my mother through me at school. Messages that never got through. He wouldn't stop, he was like a man obsessed I thought. It made me angry and sad at the same; angry that he would use children to do his bidding for what he claimed to be "love" when in fact he was only after our money to pay off his millions in debt. We ofcourse didn't have millions, he just wanted the money no matter how small amount it was in comparison, sad for what it was doing to my mother, I felt helpless in all this, the man wouldn't leave her alone and any time his daughters gave me a message, I told them what I always told them, that she didn't love him anymore and to leave us both alone. Those twelve months went by slowly and for the most part, harder than they should have been. My mother had nine pulminary embilisms of the lung and five lung collapses by this time and she did not need the extra stress of a stalker. We were moving again and this time it was different. I was still doing most of the work for the move, lifting things that I could barely get off the ground and moving them about into trailers and off of trailers again. Yet this time I wasn't allowed to tell anyone where we were going. When friend's asked where I was moving to I wasn't allowed to tell them. Then ofcourse they would ask why. Again I couldn't say. This pushed me further away from the friends I had made and it made them think I didn't trust the so few friends I had made in my eighteen months there. We a few weeks this time to move. During these weeks my mother's arthritus in her knee was under great strain. We moved to Robina in a hope my mother would be close to a long standing friend and away from her ex. During these trips we were so focused on what we were doing to get away we didn't even think to check in the rear-view mirror to see if he was following us at any stage. Yet we found out later this was the only way he could have found out where we were living. We'd just settled in to the new house and I had started fresh at a new school for a third time. I didn't want to leave Kingscliffe because I'd just really settled in there and found who my friends were. This made it even harder for my mother to leave but she knew we had to get away. Just after things in the new house had settled the harrassment started again. I never really saw any of this happening. Any time my mother would suggest that something was wrong I didn't believe her after going outside so many times in the middle of the night to find no-one there. I started believing her when I randomly began going for walks to find out what was about in this town. One morning I walked out the front door to see the man we hated with so much disdain parked at the end of the street in his poorly maintained imported van. He was out of the van and walking towards the house. He saw me and ran back to his car and drove off. I was scared now. I thought to myself; How is it even humanly possible to do something like this to someone. After that incident he changed cars to a white ute. The attacks of harassment came more frequently after that. Most nights my mother would scream and yell for help and I would come into her room and try my best to calm her down. That was my main focus. I had trouble even believing something like this was going on. The man was shining torches into her room of a night time. Things around the house felt like they were going missing and we would find them in an odd place maybe a week or two later. For example; an ash tray went missing and was found two weeks later in the garage. This man was making my mother crazy and I wanted nothing more than for him to stop. Finally I broke down half way through grade 10. I couldn't handle it anymore, something had to be done. We didn't feel safe in our own home anymore. We had deadbolts and new security screens fitted but that wasn't enough. Locks were changed aswell. We had our bathroom window broken into one night. My mother began conjuring up paranoid schemes in her own mind that things were going to happen. She thought on my birthday my father was going to come down and take me away from her. I put my foot down that day and rose my voice. "I'm not going anywhere mum, I'm going to go give my Dad his Christmas present and he's going to give me and I'm going to come back to you within half an hour." She really did not want me to go. She actually thought he would do it. I'd been living with her for the past two and a bit years and helped her through all of it. I wasn't going anywhere. I went to my Dad's car and told him how things were. Exchanged gifts, my brother was there too. It had been a fairly long time since I'd seen either of them. I was glad they were there. Even though I had to ask the question; "Are you going to take me away from my mum?" He answered honestly without hesitation and with what I know now as the truth. He was not going to take me away at all unless I wanted to come with him. I told him I didn't, not while my mother needed help still. He understood well and we hugged and he wished me good luck and offered me any help I needed. I was back home within half an hour even though he wanted to spend some time with me that day. My mother waited what felt like right behind the door to open it just as I got there. She wanted to make sure I got back safely and came back at all. She was frantic when I opened the door and I told her everything and tried my best to calm her down. In the weeks to come she wanted to start going for short walks again. Her arthritus was giving her too much pain, we could only go for short 10-20 min walks. She used these walks to tell me of her paranoid feelings and what she thought was happening. Ofcourse a lot of it was not true but I made sure I listened intently to the things related to her ex stalking her. I noted in my mind every detail so I could try and work out something to catch him. Alas I got no-where my feeble 14 yr old mind was no where near capable of figuring out how to catch a stalker. I wanted to call the police but she wouldn't let me, she believed that if I called them they would just say she's crazy. It took me until the september holidays of grade ten to realize my home life was going from wild to manic on a daily basis. I needed something done about this. I had to help my mum. I love her and I did not want to see her like this. The next night the stalker came with a torch again she screamed and I ran outside as quickly as I could to try and catch him in the act but the torch was off and he was running and hopped the fence. I couldn't see anyone even with all of the outside lights turned on. I ran to check around the corner for a car. I didn't know at this time he had changed to a white ute. I saw the white ute and walked right past it looking for his van and it was no-where to be seen. So I walked back into the house. Frustrated, angry, upset, annoyed. I felt again so helpless to do anything. My mother and I had a discussion that night, this was the hardest most trying night of my life. I told her that she needed to get help. I told her that I couldn't stand seeing her like this. I told her how it was affecting me being so emotionally drained all the time. I was passing out asleep at school mentally exhausted. Nothing that year was sinking in and I was either failing subjects or getting a barely satisfactory mark. That weekend I just needed to get away so I went to my friend's place. Before going there I had no idea just how long I would be staying there. I got a call from the hospital to tell me my mother had admitted herself to the mental ward for assessment. I was happy for her yet extremely sad at the same time. Happy that she was finally getting help and sad that I wouldn't be able to see her everyday. My friend stayed by my side with his mother for the whole two week holidays. We were paying his mother money for all of her help and feeding me. On top of the bills and rent for the house we were renting. He did his best to take my mind off of what was going on. The two weeks came and went and I saw her once in that time. The doctors were not going to let her out just yet. I had to go back to school and my friend's mum couldn't handle me aswell. She had enough on her plate already. I missed them. I missed my friend's family. They were and still are lovely people, they didn't always have a quiet time but in the end they got along. By this time I just wanted my mother back and I knew it was me who sent her away for help. My aunty flew down from Mackay for two weeks to look after me and sort our financial situation out properly. The large sum left over from selling our house had dwindled down to only ten thousand dollars. We had to spend it wisely. From then on it was the necessities we bought and that was all. I started school again that term though my mind was never on my work. I felt obligated to go and see her. I missed her so much. She was away for approximately another two weeks. In that time my aunty began to tell me of what she noticed had changed in my mothers mental state and her preconceptions of things that had happened before her time were quite different to what my aunt had known. When she came back I felt something was different about her. She was deemed sane and we decided together that we needed to move and leave the memories of that house behind.