I believe Flotsam is back to doing drugs again.

I don’t think he’s been doing them long, but I have a sneaking suspicion that he has started back up recently.

Why might I think that you may ask?

Because he has a “tell”.  You know – that thing that most people do that gives them away when they are trying to get away with something.  That thing that kids do when parents instantly know they are lying.  Or the stutter that might suddenly appear when one wasn’t present before.  It is the reason why high-stake serious poker players wear dark sunglasses and hats to cover up their facial tics to avoid giving away their hands.  That type of “tell”.

Flotsam doesn’t realize he has a “tell” and I’m not about to tell him what it is – but I’ll share it with you so you don’t think I’m totally crazy.

As I have discussed before, I believe Flotsam is a sociopath.  He lies, manipulates and coerces to get his way.  There is more to the diagnosis of being a sociopath than just this, but these things are some of the major ones.  At the very least, he is a narcissist – which is bad enough.

The thing is – when Flotsam isn’t stoned, it is very hard to figure out what he is lying about.  He claims to not lie and to a point he is correct.  He just leaves out so much information and facts that it distorts the truth into anything BUT the truth.  For example – one time Flotsam told me that he and Buddy (about age 7 or 8 at the time) had a great time visiting one of his friends over the weekend visitation/custody time (back before I cut custody down to supervised visitations only). 

The truth finally came out because Buddy complained to me that his dad forgot him.  When probing further, it was discovered that Flotsam had taken Buddy on his motorcycle at about 1:00am to a “friend’s” house to hang out.  Buddy was so tired that he fell asleep there and by being such a “good” father, Flotsam left him there with people he didn’t know at about 5:00am.  When Buddy woke up, his dad was gone; he was alone with people he didn’t know, in a location he knew nothing about and was very upset. 

But I was the one that was in the wrong because I didn’t trust Flotsam not to leave Buddy in a dangerous location.  Yeah – he left our son at a probable drug house and because they had toys there, it was totally okay for our child to be there.  {I know you can see me rolling my eyes through the computer.}

So, I have experience with the type of “truth” Flotsam speaks.  I’m at the point that I almost automatically assume that anything coming out of his mouth isn’t the truth because something is missing and/or left out. 

Back to his “tell”.

When Flotsam is doing drugs (prescription drugs are his preferred choice), he cannot keep his stories straight.  He cannot remember who he told what and when he told them.  When he’s not on drugs, he knows exactly who knows what and when.  So, when he starts repeating information to me from 2 weeks ago like he’s never told me the information before – I’ve got almost a slam dunk assumption that the drugs are back.

He did this to me this past week – told me almost the exact same story he told me two weeks ago.  And it is pretty specific information – his water had been turned off and he had been dealing with getting it turned back on all week; that is why he hadn’t contacted me earlier.  The thing is – if it was really taken care of 2 weeks ago – would he really still be having problems with it being turned off again after less than 14 days?  It just doesn’t make sense. 

Like Judge Judy says, “If it doesn’t make sense, it’s not true!”

I spent the better part of 8 hours trying to figure out if I wanted to deal with the information that my ex-husband is probably back on drugs again and how I wanted to deal with Buddy regarding this information.  I decided to deal with the problem head on…almost literally.

When I called Flotsam back, I put him on notice that I suspected he was back on drugs and I just wanted him to know that I knew.  For the next 15 minutes, he protested, called me names, cussed me out, and attempted to hit every button on me that has worked for him in the past to get me to reveal why I thought that and to get me to admit I knew nothing of the sort.  Me thinks he protests too much.

I then told Buddy my suspicions and we formulated a plan for him if he ever felt like he was in danger with his dad.  I included the information that Flotsam might talk bad about me (which he did) and that’s okay – Buddy doesn’t have to say anything to his dad or me about that if he doesn’t want to.  At the moment, I’m not going to restrict visitation any further than it already is (supervised visitation at the public park across the street from our house), simply because at the moment all I have are my own gut feelings. 

But I am going to do everything in my power to make sure Buddy is safe.  If anything above makes me a bad parent – so be it.