Good morning Sleuths

I just finished reading all the threads. My thoughts -
1) Perhaps she is, in fact, hiding Sky. It would probably be difficult to hide her little girl since she's older and clearly very attached to her mother. From the audio recording Julia posted online, it seemed that the little girl definitely suffered from not being able to see her mother for 7 months. (I'm not positive that this is 100% true, but based on the recordings. I would think children would always suffer when kept from a parent for such a long period of time, if that did happen) Sky is so young, maybe he hasn't had such a difficult time adjusting to the divorce and all of the nastiness that's come along with it. And maybe it was easier to leave him with a trusted friend of family member. Plus, he may not be able to verbalize to people what he's seen and heard.
2) As far as her diagnosis of Obsessive Compulsive Disorder goes - there are widely varying degrees of OCD, and it all depends on the doctor diagnosing and what the patient shares with that doctor. The father mentioned that she "cleans the house too much" (this was in a posted quote in this thread) among other things. I was actually diagnosed with Obsessive Compulsive Personality Disorder myself. After I had my twin boys, I went through a CRAZY period induced by lack of sleep and just feeling overwhelmed (as to be expected!). I became extremely anxious because I felt like everything was out of my control. So I started obsessively focusing on the only things I felt like I COULD control - which was cleaning and organizing our house.
I wasn't on my hands and knees with a toothbrush scrubbing the grout in the tile floors, but I basically wore myself out trying to manage the twins and the cleaning everyday. And whenever I let the house go for a day or two, I'd become extremely anxious to the point that it would actually depress me when I looked around and saw the chaos.
When I went to see a Psychiatrist for the anxiety and depression, he suggested that I consider taking some medication for sleep, anxiety, and depression. Because of my description of symptoms and triggers, he diagnosed as OCPD and post-pardem depression. In order for insurance companies to cover doctor's visits and prescriptions they must have a diagnosis, so that's what we ran with at the time. My point is, she may not actually have full-blown OCD which can truly interrupt your life - people can have rituals of turning the lights on and off 20 times before leaving every room etc. Depending on the doctor, she may have felt out of control in her marriage, and her finances and was hyper-focusing on things that she could control.
If she was feeling bad enough to have a stay in the hospital, it could very well have been situational issues - which is VERY different from someone who has a mental illness. However, her husband may not have understood that.
If she DOES truly have a mental illness, medication and therapy would be needed (except for personality disorders which are often resistant to medication). Based on the fact that she seems to be VERY focused on natural health, she may have been resistant to medications - which could be VERY bad in terms of her being well.
***Because of the very turbulent period of time that they were obviously struggling through, taking pictures of Sky was probably not priority. People generally take pictures when they are spending time doing enjoyable things together. There probably wasn't much of that going on. When I struggled during the year my twins were 1-2 years old, there DEFINITELY wasn't any pictures taken. My mother-in-law took all the pictures that year, which I'm eternally grateful for. The boys will never have to know what I dealt with.
***It just doesn't seem like she harmed this child to me. I really feel like she's hidden him. I feel like she used the "leaving him in the car" story, because its believeable based on the fact that she's been cited for it before. Her husband as well as LE would know that it COULD be true.
I don't think its going to work in her favor in the end, but I really feel that's what's going on.
If she truly feels that her husband is a monster as she has described, she may be trying to prevent Sky from growing up in his father's footsteps. Plus, if she is worried about the father's behavior when he has the kids for visits, the daughter can TELL her what goes on, but her son can't, and that's very scary for a parent. Its horrifying to feel that you're sending your children off with someone you think is a violent monster (I'm not saying he is or he isn't, but she's seems to feel that way). You want your children to be able to TELL you if anything bad happens.