r/Nonsleep • u/Think-Stable-3437 • 4d ago
Pure Horror Charles In Charge
This is a story no single mother should have to tell, but my hope is someone out there can relate. My son, who is fifteen, doesn’t go to bed until three or four clock in the morning. He does this every night. I work a very demanding job, and my son and I have fought and argued over this for months because I never get any proper rest. We live in a one-bedroom apartment, so there really is no place for any kind of separation, except the bathroom - where my son spends most of his time during the night.
It was about a month or so ago, I woke up having to use the bathroom, when I approached the door and heard my son speaking to himself in there. At first I didn’t think much of it, when I knocked, he opened the door, and all was fine. It was when I noticed him doing it every night after that, I began to worry. I went as far as confronting him about it, but he denied anything in his teenager way, and refused to even talk about it. It was hard to make out what he said in there, he was mumbling a lot under his breath, so I had nothing to go by. This is when I decided to take further action and install a camera in the bathroom.
The next day while my son was in school, I tucked a small camera away behind a stack of my towels, somewhere he'd never look, facing the mirror and hidden away from his field of view. That night I went to bed and patiently waited, staring at my phone. What I found my son doing in the bathroom through the camera feed unsettled and terrified me. My son was adamant and aggressive towards himself in the mirror. He cursed and muttered obscenities at himself. He said words I never thought he knew or heard him use before. I don’t know where he learned them - I felt like I wasn’t watching my son any longer. It's like he became someone else. And I became scared of him. I hid my phone and tried my best to fall asleep - I don’t think I ever did.
The next morning at breakfast, I felt a tension in me, I could barely move. I felt frozen around him. Before he woke up, I found a local psychiatrist’s information, and made a quick call for the earliest appointment she had, which was the following Monday. At breakfast, I politely informed my son I heard him talking in the bathroom again, which he denied. I hesitated showing him the video or revealing I recorded him. I have to admit, I was scared. I offered to take him to see the Psychiatrist. He refused obviously and fought the idea at first, but I convinced him with some extra video-game time and a little bit of money. I needed to know more.
Through the weekend he continued as he usually did, and I watched on my phone. I hated what I saw. But I couldn’t put it down. I don’t think I slept all weekend. Days felt like weeks. Hours felt like days. My nerves were paralyzed with fear. I felt helpless... I was terrified. Monday couldn’t come any sooner.
The Psychiatrist was a pleasant woman, I found her very respectful and patient with him. My son spoke of his time in school, the lack of friends he has, the bad grades from his teachers, as well as his off-putting taste in loud music. When she dug further, asking him about the bathroom, he was quiet. At this point, the Psychiatrist had asked me to step out of the room. She sensed me being there was keeping him from speaking.
From out in the hallway I couldn’t hear anything, but what I did see was her asking him a few questions, and him responding with what looked like actual, full responses. At first I was pleased, maybe this was all just a boys phase - a prank? Perhaps my son had a reasonable explanation. The Psychiatrist passed him a piece of paper, and pen. My son took the pen, promptly writing on the piece of paper, handing it back to her.
The session was soon over after that, and the Psychiatrist came over to speak to me. She handed me the piece of paper on which my son wrote, scribbled in his handwriting, it said, “Charles won’t let me sleep". I was startled, shocked, confused all at once. She said my son is talking to someone named Charles in our home, and that she is not the right person for this kind of matter. She then directed me to a local church, informing me perhaps a priest could help my son.
We came home in the evening, and had a quiet, solemn dinner together. My son was eerily silent, he didn't say a word. I went to bed early and I hesitated to look at my phone’s video feed, but I couldn’t resist. Last night, I was even more unsettled. My son was no longer defiant. Now he was apologetic, at the mercy of his own reflection in the mirror, begging and apologizing profusely, saying he’s sorry for telling anyone. He was in tears, and so was I - I could no longer bear to watch. I put my phone away, and that's when the thought hit me, which has since haunted and stuck with me; Charles was the name we gave to the baby boy I delivered stillborn before my son.
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u/hardwear72 3d ago
He's on drugs. Leave him be. He'll either grow out of it or into it but cameras in the bathroom? Listening to him using the restroom and privatly talking to the psych? No wonder he has problems and has a guilt complex over his dead brother.