Mothers of Sexually Abused Children Community Group
Support group for mothers who have just found of about a disclosure or are mid-way in their healing process.
About 2 months ago I received a call, while at work, from my 15 year old daughter's cell phone on a school day. I answered it only to hear a man's voice on the other end. Immediately alarm bells go off in my head! He had identified himself as the HS Sheriff and said that my daughter was safe and not in trouble but could I please come to the school right away, without any further explanation. I immediately texted my husband (her stepfather) to alert him of the situation. I made the 20 minute drive there, my mind wandering and heart racing, "what could it be about?" I thought to myself. I finally arrived, signed in and was escorted down the long busy hallways of the high school to the in-school Sheriff's office, again without any explanation. We enter the office and there is my daughter sobbing in tears. She wouldn't even look at me. He went on to very delicately but directly explain that she had called a suicide hotline and given her name and so it was reported that her grandfather, my father-in-law, had been touching her and my younger daughter of 13, for years and she couldn't stay silent anymore. I sat in shock listening but not really responding but I remember I embraced her and said I loved her and apologized that she felt she had to keep that a secret all these years. I never once DIDN'T believe her, not even for a moment. She didn't want to come straight home so she stayed in school where her best friend and boyfriend would support her (apparently they both knew). Now I had to tell my husband that the one man he has always looked up to for 35 years touched our daughters. I had to drive home and I distinctly remember the song Purple Rain playing on the radio as I drove home in tears. I canneverlistento that song the same again. My husband came home. I had to explain it to him. He was devastated and we cried together. Then we had to tell his mother. My husband's parents live 1 mile away so we told her to come over alone. While she was upset, somehow she didn't have quite the reaction I thought she would. At the time it didn't register with me because I was still in shock but I remember her saying "I always tried to be in the room". Why would she say that?
Fast forward now to today. My 82-year old father-in-law has been arrested and charged with not 2 counts of criminal sexual conduct and assault and battery. My oldest daughter just 2 weeks ago attempted suicide and we had to have her hospitalized for therapy and is now on Zoloft and working toward recovery. She has revealed that it wasn't the first she attempted suicide and she has also been cutting and throwing up her food occasionally and taking pills to numb the pain to forget. I am hopeful that she will stay alive and thrive as the beautiful young woman she is. Just this week we decided we have to sell our beautiful home (our first home together 3 years ago) because she has PTSD related triggers here and bad memories that override the good. But it is just a house and what's a house without a complete family in it? Our lives are totally upside down now.
On top of all that my husband, an only child, who was very close to his parents, is now grieving the loss of his father. His mother has decided to stay with him and so that is yet another betrayal because I also feel she may have turned a blind eye over the years. Even knowing all this, my husband is fighting the fact that he has to sever a relationship with her too or lose me in the process because I just cannot fathom even speaking with anyone that would be with a person that would harm children. How could he still want a relationship with her?
So I am looking at not only psychologically damaged hearts and minds but uprooting everything and if my husband wants to keep his relationship with his mother, I don't think I can stay with him. She is extremely needy and SO attached to him (he is a mama's boy for sure). Any advice on that part??
Overall I will say that these things can kill us or make us stronger. I still chose the latter.
It crushed me completely inside when she told me that my father had touched her and did sexual things to her. I held back the tears and thought I need to get to the police department. When we got there the officer I talked to asked me a few questions and since my father lives in another state/county said that I had to go to that state/county and report it. You see I live on a state line so the next county over is another state. We drove 30 minutes there and called the police from the gas station at that exit. Hearing her tell the police office details of what happened and how many times it happened made anger and hate for him dug inside of me deeper and deeper. After we reported it I took her to the hospital, they talked to her and questioned her there, but she said that the last incident was a little over 1 year ago so they couldn't do a rape kit. Which means it's her word against his. You see I didn't grow up with my father in my life, I found him in August 2011. According to the first incident she described it was a year or less after I found him and brought him into mine and my kids lives. And back in the spring of 2016 I had some financial difficulties and was needing a place to stay while I saved up money and found a new place to get back on my own feet again. We moved into his place for the summer, we lived with him for 6 or 7 months. We moved out in October, she says that was the last time anything happened. What motivated her to tell me I guess was that she was safe here in our home, but he wanted to take her out to dinner for her 16th birthday. He was to pick her up after school that day and she was afraid to go with him. So for 5 or 6 years it had been going on, and the summer we lived with him it probably happened a lot more because I worked night shift and she said he would have her go into his room with him while I was at work. She has talked to me some and allowed me to ask some questions, but only because she's been going to a counselor. Hearing about the first incident and how she woke up to him doing stuff to her, she said she was scared and confused so she pretended like she was still sleeping cause she didn't know what to do. I blame myself so much, I didn't see any signs or at least I don't think...I have been thinking back and trying to remember how she acted to see if I maybe missed signs. I hate it, I feel like I failed her!
This whole thing has turned our lives upside down. Most of my family on his side don't talk to me anymore and my youngest brother has posted horrible things about me on his fb, one of my other brothers ( the one I was closest to) is confused and wants to kinda stay out of it all the best he can because he lives next door to my father and he has kids of his own.
So it's been a little over 6 months since we reported it, I found out a couple weeks ago that they finally arrested him and he's been charged with 3 counts rape of a child, 1 count aggravated sexual battery, 1 count rape, and 1 count sexual battery. His brother (my uncle) bailed him out though so he's not locked up at the moment and the attorney said it probably won't be until next fall that they get a trial date.
On top of all the court dates, counselor appts, and attorney appts. my daughter has been diagnosed with Systemic Lupus Erythematosus since 2008, so every month we have Rheumatologist, Neurologist, Peds,, MRI, Scans, and labs. just total chaos each month. I haven't seen a counselor myself even though I probably need to, but I don't have time. So I got a family membership at a 24/7 gym in town. I told my daughter it would be a good way to work out stress and frustration, at least I hope. She thinks it's a good idea and we even went shopping together for workout clothes. Which being a teenage girl she loves shopping for clothes. I am just doing what I feel will help. I don't cry in front of her, I try to keep it all together for her. She wakes up from nightmares at 2/3 am sometimes and comes into my room crying. I myself have been having nightmares that wake me up, I feel like I can't talk to that many ppl cause it's her choice if certain ppl know what is going on. So I have a very small support circle, which I wouldn't even call it that very much cause it feels like no one understands what I myself am going through. This whole comment may or may not make any sense I have no idea. I just haven't gotten a chance to let anything out, I'm holding too much inside that I start crying at random times during the day, like driving down the road or even while cleaning house when my kids are at school. I have only cried one time in front of my daughter, when her counselor asked me to sit in with them for a few minutes because I had to fill out the victims impact statement and didn't know what to write. We started going to church again because I woke up at 4 one morning from a nightmare and just sat there in bed wondering why god would allow this to happen and felt I needed to get us to church. But I haven't opened up about anything to anyone there because I know when I do it's all just gonna come pouring out and I don't know if I'll be able to stop it. I want to cry, scream, yell, throw stuff, hit stuff, I am just holding too much in because I'm trying my best to be strong for my daughter. It feels like this is all gonna kill me, I feel like by the time he does get locked up I'm just gonna drop dead from so much emotion. I'm so tired all the time, not just physically, but emotionally worn out. And with everything going on with her I sometimes feel like my son isn't getting enough attention from me. But my daughter helps me make sure he's good. She spoils him, she never forgets to get him something when she gets something at the store for herself and she sits and plays video games with him sometimes. I still wonder why god would allow something like this to happen...most ppl would say it's not god it's the devil, but then I think how could god let his guard down so much to allow this. So it always comes back to the same question!