I'm NEVER surprised anymore when my kids share new things...truly, not anymore!  But I AM still amazed at how well the brain can block scary things out for so long!  Where to start...

Well, my oldest son was playing with the kids using a pretend ninja sword and it was knocked out of his hand and poked my daughter in the forehead.  First of all, I had already told him that fake weapons were NOT a good idea to play with anymore...and yet he keeps thinking that with time he can integrate them back in to play (we are starting to realise he has some other mental health issues which are being addressed.)  Anyways, hearing my daughter break out into a panic attack prompted me to do something which I do not at all regret: have the younger kids share WHY weapons are scary for them to play with, with their big brother.  I figured we're never going to court so it was now time for him to know more details!

I made my oldest sit and listen/watch his younger siblings (VERY difficult for his anxiety issues.)  First, I reminded him of his triggers...being bald (because of chemo he likes longer hair), having to swallow pills (because of all the meds he had to take) & playing with pretend shots/needles (because of special drugs he took to help increase his white blood cells.)  I reminded him that we don't do things to trigger his anxiety just as he should respect the kids when they say they can't handle certain things like play swords.  I gave the kids permission to go get whatever tools they needed to get their point across.  The piano bench began filling with all sorts of scary items!  Huge kitchen knives, a pizza cutter, hunting knife, hot sauce, scissors, matches, a lighter...and each child used each other's items when sharing.  My 5 year old started and shared that knives, scissors and pizza cutters were used to cut his body all over by monster boy!  He also said he tried to "catch him on fire."  My special needs 13 year old spoke in illusive stories using food.  He tried to set the food on fire which I promptly stopped so he verbally said "he tried to burn me."  At one point he poured water and my daughter said "is that urine?  I know he used urine!"  Then this child mentioned something about monster boy trying to make him take a pill!  My daughter jumped in and stated "yeah, I know about the pills.  Monster boy used to take them to get sleepy.  He also made me take them before doing stuff so they could do whatever...nevermind, I'll talk about that later."  My daughter also shared about being burned by this child, which she's shared in the past.  Then she shared and included that monster boy made a concoction of his urine, hot sauce and "grosser urine" combined and made her drink it!  Then, MY OLDEST REMEMBERED about when he was about 7 years old and a neighbor boy forced HIM to drink his urine!!!  (This is HUGE because it helps us understand WHY he acted the way he did when he was younger...we suspected he had been molested by more than my little sister and now we know!)  Anyways, my daughter shared that monsteR, monster boy's older brother that is the same age as my oldest son, used a pizza cutter on HER!  All of these things were said SO matter-of-factly and with such confidence that I was shocked that my babies had gotten SO strong & courageous to own their stories!

That night my husband and I followed up with our oldest about his disclosure.  He swears he told us about the urine drinking when he was younger but neither of us remember that.  I DO remember that he shared that this neighbor child tried to discuss sexual stuff with him because I had to have a talk with the child's mom about the content of the conversation her son was sharing with my son!  Her words were pretty dismissive and while they still played together, it wasn't very often and usually while I watched outside.  We never had another issue with inappropriate conversation!  Anyways, my son shared that this child had pulled his pants down, then my son's and then he just remembers drinking urine and how gross it tasted!  He "doesn't remember" how he got into the position to drink urine.  We encouraged him to share this with his therapist.  Remember, he has been doing EMDR therapy so I think things are surfacing.

We also followed up with our daughter about the pills.  She kept saying "they" & "people" in regards to who gave her the pills aside from monster boy's name, so we are pretty sure it wasn't just this little boy doing it.  She said when we were talking with her brother the day before that when I was discussing pills she had a flash back of monster boy saying "here, take this" and forcing a pill in her mouth and then making her drink water to swallow it.  She said it made her feel "drowsy."  She explained to me that this is why SHE must be in control of the medicine/vitamins that go in her mouth rather than me giving straight into her mouth.  She doesn't remember the color of the pill but she remembers he got it from upstairs in his house, gave it to her upstairs and it was during the day when he did this.  She didn't want to admit it but her answers lead us to believe this happened more than once.  She said he would sometimes take a pill so he could sleep at night but in ALL 8 years of knowing this family and spending 2-3 nights a week hanging out at their house with their mom sometimes until midnight, I NEVER saw or heard anyone having to take a special pill to sleep, EVER!  And if pills are involved, well, adults have to be, right?  This behavior and the source must come from somewhere, right?

Anyways, more new stuff coming out even after 2 years of disclosing!  It's amazing what my kids survived!  AMAZING.  And I feel SO bad about my oldest and not knowing everything that happened to him as a little boy.  Luckily, he's getting help now.