Parents Whose children have been sexually abused Community Group
This group is for parents whose children have been sexually abused. We welcome both Mothers and Fathers. Here, we can offer support to one another. We can vent, cry and lift each other up. No condemning or criticizing allowed. We are here for support. We LOVE (((HUGS))) !
First, let me set the stage.
My oldest son had a testicle attached to a malignant tumor removed 2 years ago and unerwent a year of chemotherapy, living in the hospiyal 146 days out of that year due to near-death complications. He now lives in another state due to the fact that he inappropriately touched his sister. It happened at the end of his cancer treatment when he made a whole bunch of other very poor decisions. It was like he was living with the thought that he was going to die. Unfortunately this is a reality with his diagnosis because his cancer usually returns. Anyways, the day after we got back from his wish trip, my daughter disclosed this information. Within a week my son was not living in our home anymore, our choice. CPS had said he could live there in a room with my husband sleeping with him. We went through all the investigations and our case was closed with both CPS and the police. He has been in counseling since last August. He has also been profusely apologetic and truthful about what he did. He also has asked his sister's forgiveness. He has to revisit our state every few months for cancer screening.
My daughter lives with us and the three other brothers. She had been in a physically, verbally, sexually abusive friendship with a monster child since she was about four and a half years old. (We only learned this last July when she shared about her brother.) This child had trained her not to cry when he hurt her. Her self-esteem had been torn down completely. And she had been sexually abused in the most violent of ways. The situation with my son started as an accident of her walking in on him in his underwear. And due to her training by this monster child she responded to the situation with her brother in a very abnormal way. She received my son's apology letter in August. She has slowly been rebuilding her ability to look at her big brother as only a brother. And I have watched her ability to interact with him normally, grow. When I say interact, I mean talk on the phone or Skype. From the very beginning our family has been calling and Skyping my oldest son to help keep him out of depression that he had already been struggling with through cancer. My daughter was always allowed to leave the room and not participate but most of the time she would choose to try to talk with him or even just watch us talk with him. Just last night we were Skyping with him and she decided she wanted to share with him a note that she had written to him. Now she has tried to write him at least three notes and every time she would end up throwing it away instead. This time, the note said she loved him and that he was one of her best big brothers and that she forgave him. She read it out loud to him on Skype.
Now I know that there is a lot of differing opinions on reunification but I truly believe that it will work for our family because we are not foolish in believing that our son is the same person that he was before this happened. Our goal to reunify has always been led by our daughter's ability to cope with everyday life and specifically handle her brother's presence. (The monster child screwed her up pretty bad! PTSD, etc.) My husband and I have created a very good safety plan with the hopes that through counseling both our children might be ready to live under the same roof by the end of this year.
I wanted to share with your community because last night was the first time I felt like we were a family again and not just since the sexual abuse came out but since my son got cancer. So for 2 years we haven't felt like a family. But last night we were all interacting like we always have! Healing can happen but it takes time and patience and a lot of prayer. If you're in my type of a situation don't give up. There is hope. My children are healing and on the way back to themselves. :)
My oldest son had a testicle attached to a malignant tumor removed 2 years ago and unerwent a year of chemotherapy, living in the hospiyal 146 days out of that year due to near-death complications. He now lives in another state due to the fact that he inappropriately touched his sister. It happened at the end of his cancer treatment when he made a whole bunch of other very poor decisions. It was like he was living with the thought that he was going to die. Unfortunately this is a reality with his diagnosis because his cancer usually returns. Anyways, the day after we got back from his wish trip, my daughter disclosed this information. Within a week my son was not living in our home anymore, our choice. CPS had said he could live there in a room with my husband sleeping with him. We went through all the investigations and our case was closed with both CPS and the police. He has been in counseling since last August. He has also been profusely apologetic and truthful about what he did. He also has asked his sister's forgiveness. He has to revisit our state every few months for cancer screening.
My daughter lives with us and the three other brothers. She had been in a physically, verbally, sexually abusive friendship with a monster child since she was about four and a half years old. (We only learned this last July when she shared about her brother.) This child had trained her not to cry when he hurt her. Her self-esteem had been torn down completely. And she had been sexually abused in the most violent of ways. The situation with my son started as an accident of her walking in on him in his underwear. And due to her training by this monster child she responded to the situation with her brother in a very abnormal way. She received my son's apology letter in August. She has slowly been rebuilding her ability to look at her big brother as only a brother. And I have watched her ability to interact with him normally, grow. When I say interact, I mean talk on the phone or Skype. From the very beginning our family has been calling and Skyping my oldest son to help keep him out of depression that he had already been struggling with through cancer. My daughter was always allowed to leave the room and not participate but most of the time she would choose to try to talk with him or even just watch us talk with him. Just last night we were Skyping with him and she decided she wanted to share with him a note that she had written to him. Now she has tried to write him at least three notes and every time she would end up throwing it away instead. This time, the note said she loved him and that he was one of her best big brothers and that she forgave him. She read it out loud to him on Skype.
Now I know that there is a lot of differing opinions on reunification but I truly believe that it will work for our family because we are not foolish in believing that our son is the same person that he was before this happened. Our goal to reunify has always been led by our daughter's ability to cope with everyday life and specifically handle her brother's presence. (The monster child screwed her up pretty bad! PTSD, etc.) My husband and I have created a very good safety plan with the hopes that through counseling both our children might be ready to live under the same roof by the end of this year.
I wanted to share with your community because last night was the first time I felt like we were a family again and not just since the sexual abuse came out but since my son got cancer. So for 2 years we haven't felt like a family. But last night we were all interacting like we always have! Healing can happen but it takes time and patience and a lot of prayer. If you're in my type of a situation don't give up. There is hope. My children are healing and on the way back to themselves. :)
First off and most importantly, our situation is extremely unique because my son would never have been able to do something to my daughter if my daughter had not spent over half her life being sexually abused by this monster child person. It's unfortunate but they were actually equal in their sexual advances towards each other. Thus the reason CPS closed our case and the police did not make it into a legal matter. Also, to be real honest, I was extremely disappointed in how CPS reacted to our case and slightly shocked that nothing more had been done.
We ourselves got our children into counseling including the specialized sexual therapy. We ourselves created the safety plan that kept my son from doing anything to her for the week that we were all by ourselves trying to figure things out. We ourselves figured out that all 3 of my children had been abused by this other monster child and it was not simply curiosity nor bullying situation. We ourselves had to ask if there was any specific thing to do in order to be able to get our family back together and only then did my daughter's counselor draw up a reunification plan to share with my son's counselor. We ourselves encouraged our children to write "apology" letters to each other as well as to the perpetrators family (they felt a sense of guilt for betraying confidences but also a sense of urgency to let the parents know how dangerous their son was!)
I hope you see where I'm going with all of this. There hasn't been very much support on our side and I don't know if it's just because we did everything right and so nobody in the higher-ups thought they needed to tell us how to do anything or if this is how things traditionally run and the system is really broken and does not support the family of victims nor perpetrators?
What has really helped with me being able to forgive my son is realizing where he came from when he did these things to my daughter. And also realizing that the situation between them would never have happened if my daughter has not been abused by the monster child. Is my son still responsible for the actions that he did himself? Of course. Did he have real-world consequences because of his poor choices? Most definitely. But I believe with all of my heart that this child will never do this again especially now that we have began to fix my daughter and are a lot more aware of what type of situations can create a problem. I also see my son as having committed a sin and sins are forgivable. Did I go through all the emotions of anger sadness denial frustration... You betcha! But I have come to a point where I'm able to look at my son the way that God can look at me when I make a bad mistake. I know that the way that Society views children who have made sexual mistakes is that they are Unforgivable but I disagree and I'm living proof that it is possible to not only love the child that took advantage of another but they also can be forgiven and restored.
In regards to my daughter, yes I am extremely in touch with who she is and what is going on in her head. For some reason this past month all of my children have gotten to the point where they expressed an extreme longing to have our family get back together and be normal again. They have mentioned it in passing over the past eight and a half months but like you said their actions never quite match up with what they were saying about this subject. We never forced our daughter to do anything that she feels uncomfortable with. But we have also taught her that there is a way to get past this and that is through forgiveness. She knows that trust is earned and that her brother is still working to earn all of our trust. She also will never respond to any advances ever again now that we have broken the abuse of cycle that she'd been living through with this other monster child. He truly had brainwashed her to believe that she was a nobody worthless piece of Flesh and now she knows better and stand up for herself. I've had to rebuild her confidence in even making simple choices throughout a normal day but she has gotten so much better. I think a lot of how children react to a situation like this is Guided by the way the adults around them react. I'm not saying my husband and I are perfect but I do feel we have an amazing handle on this rollercoaster of life that we live.
In regards to the other child I do not believe he's going to change I truly believe he is a psychopath. No matter how much he has been exposed to unless he has been exposed to some extreme sadistic rapist there is no way that the things that he's done to my children are simply exposure based. It really feels like it's coming from the core of his evil heart. What child takes a beautiful precious little baby boy that makes everybody smile and he's still in diapers and his most dear brother is sick in the hospital fighting for his life from cancer and forces him to allow the monster to touch and play with his private parts and if he doesn't beats the poor little kid up?! This is just one question that there seems to be no logical reason for except that this kid is just evil. He literally watched my little boy go from being in my belly to Growing Up and all I can think is that the whole time that he knew my family he was just excited that he would have a new toy to play with when this baby was born! I'm convinced that if I have not found out about this happening to my kids that my youngest would have also been a victim and he is just now 18 months about the age that my four year old started being abused.
Sorry to draw things out but yes we are doing things with help from the authorities in the Realms of what the authorities have advised us to do with wisdom... We'll let you know how it works out. ;)
I do agree that children abusers are different, but it is hard for me to forgive him even though he couldn't see what his actions would cause in the future. He did know what he was doing was wrong and he still chose those actions over and over again. The trust is gone and I don't really see a way of rebuilding that because of the family dynamics with his mom and extended family. It's also hard for me to want to forgive him because he hasn't lost much in this other than time with our family. He still has family support from my husband's side and his mom's side. He has the same friends, gets to still participate in the same activities, etc. No one knows what he has done except for a few family members. Meanwhile, our family moved to avoid constantly seeing them. My daughter's self esteem suffered a lot, she lost all confidence in herself and she's lost family members. I don't know what our future holds as far as reunification but I do know that it won't happen anytime soon and without a lot more intervention on his side. My daughter's therapist is trying to get a grant to start a parent's group and I'm really hoping that it happens because I would love to hear stories from real life people where you can see their emotions and feel supported. Today is actually the one year mark for disclosure. In some ways, I feel so much better than I did in the beginning and in others it feels like I can easily go back to day one.
My children's age gap is also 7 years apart, so I understand the dynamics. No, it is not normal and I didn't need an authority to tell me that! But on the other end, the monster friend who hurt her was only 1 year older but he was HORRIFIC in his abuse so ALSO not normal! I really had to fight to express this to the police because they kept quoting "normal childhood curiosity" and that irked me to no end. Only once he got the written disclosures AFTER the forensic interviewso did he validate that he believed my children's stories.
I agree about the apology letter as our monster friend wrote one to each of us (except my 4 year old because nobody knew but him) because his mom told him to. This was before we knew how bad it truly was but only a week after we received them did more come out which made those letters seem like a slap in the face! However, my son wrote letters to all his siblings of his own accord apologizing for tearing up the family, being a bad example, hurting and molesting his sister, etc. And I do believe they were heart-felt and it was before therapy had really begun. What I'm saying is I think we have to evaluate on a case by case basis. In your situation the evidence of how he's lived after has shown little repentance. Although, it could be that his mom could be not allowing him to express remorse because she doesn't want the stigma or to deal with reality?!
Which brings me to the 3rd point...the other mom. Yeah, that's tricky. Kinda just have to hope he gets what he needs to not do it again. In regards to how the other family reacted, I've noticed it's kinda generational...i.e. the older folks apparently used to dismiss child stuff as no big deal?! Otherwise, the younger generation struggles with denial.
My daughter's self esteem also took a huge hit. More due to the monster child than her brother. But I will never forget the 1st week after my son moved, cuddling with her before bed and telling her "do you know how precious you are?" And her reaction being "am I really?" That broke my heart and right then and there I could see why the boys had no problem in using her because she didn't have any respect for herself. She didn't think she was beautiful or precious or loved. I'm sure part of that was due to all the crazy health circumstances we had gone through...I was in the hospital a lot as was my husband either with our cancer patient son or for ourselves (I was pregnant). But it was then that I realized this monster child inadvertently had destroyed her relationship with her brother too. The best remedy is to constantly reaffirm how precious she is and validate all the good you see in your daughter. Even just yesterday my daughter cried in pain when her lizard bit her...monster boy had trained her not to cry otherwise he'd abuse her more so she's felt extremely self conscious when tears are she'd and embarrassed to show those emotions. But she CRIED after this bite! I applauded her for sharing her true emotionstory without being afraid to cry in front of her siblings. Might seem silly but it was a positive thing! Keep verbally encouragingredients your daughter...time will heal and build her back up.
Anyways, if there's any advice I'd encourage you in it's let the anger go. It will ultimately destroy you more than it will help your daughter heal. Try to forgive for your family's sake, so you can move on emotionally. Monster child abused 3 of my children and this was the son of my best friend! Their whole family lied so that the police and CPS did nothing. No legal action. No ordering him to be in a day intensive program. And my children say he hurt 3 other girls as well as his little sister! But I've gotten to a point where I don't let him win anymore...even in my thoughts. By excluding the anger towards his family, I can focus my energy on more important things! Not to be pushy...I'm just encouraging you to think about it.
Yeah, we're at the 8 1/2 month mark to disclosure. A lot has changed, a lot has not. I feel your pain and I pray that you all can rebuild a new circle of trust that is even more amazing then your old one! I'm here if you wanna discuss anything else...as a mama of victims and a perpetrator.