Good days & Bad Days

When you are going through a process like this there are always good days and bad days. I will liken it too the five stages of grief the process you go through until you reach a stage where you can accept something like this. Sexual abuse is a lot more common place that people like to think and until it happens to you, you will never know how you will deal with it. As a mother I know I had very strong opinions on this before it happened to me

The five stages of grief are as follows and I will put in there what I went through at each stage to show the comparison.

1. Denial - This is a common stage when you child tells you something that you would never want to hear from them. If ever your child comes to you and tell you that they have been abused, even though in yourself you don't want to believe it, never let on to them. This is the most important. No matter what you feel inside, support them. They are sharing something with you, that has probably took all their courage to tell you and as their parent even though at first you don't want to believe it.. You have to support them. They are the victims here and they need their parent more than anything.
2. Anger - Anger at the betrayal not just by the perpetrator but by your child also. This could have been going on under your nose for years and you are angry with yourself for refusing to see, you are angry with the person who did these unspeakable things and you are also angry with your child for keeping it from you. When in this stage its important to not blame your child, they were powerless in all this. Even though you feel it inside never take it out on them. That would do more harm than good. When going through this process its important to seek counselling. So you have a safe place you can vent your feelings. I personally don't know where I would be without my counsellor, she has been a strength for me through all this and my safe vent place.
3. Bargaining - Now you may think to yourself where does bargaining come into all of this. Well I can only speak from personal experience here too what I bargained for. My daughter had disclosed it had been going on for many years and I refused to see that. You could say that is denial but it was not for in my mind I was bargaining with myself that it had not been going on that long, I would have seen surely. I would have known. My bargain was that it only happened a couple of times. Not as much as she said. Now I know this to be wrong but then that leads into the following stages.
4. Depression - As you can see from my earlier posts depression had took a hold of me good. I was sinking into a deep pit of it for a while and I even hid that from my counsellor, not the best idea. But this is an important stage leading too acceptance. When this first all come out and going through the stages I refused to even hear the details of the abuse. I could not cope with it all.I had not only been betrayed by my child but also the man I married and trusted. This is why counselling is not only important for you but also your child. All the gory details you are not ready to hear can still be addressed with a counsellor. I supported my child from the beginning but I could not hear the details not at first. Not while going through the stages.
5. Acceptance - It took me a long time to reach this stage in myself. To accept the abuse and know all the details of what my daughter had endured. Knowing everything I do now. I do not hate. Like I said in an earlier post. I pity him for obviously he was a lot more damaged than I ever realized when I was with him and I will not own his crimes, for they are his crimes to own and not mine. I consider myself a good mother. All I did wrong was trust the wrong man. This can happen to anyone. Once you have accepted all the facts then you can begin to heal not only yourself but your children also. Even though my boys were not sexually abused by him they were abused in other ways.

Now I know these are stages of grief but you can see how I outlined above how they apply to this traumatic situation. The two most important things that you must do when going through something like this is firstly support your child, even though they are telling you something you don't want to hear, this is the time in their lives they need you more than ever. So support them, and secondly do not blame yourself. You will go through phases of blaming yourself but by the time you reach the acceptance stage you should be past that and if you are not seek help. You sitting there wallowing in a pit of self pity will not help anyone and at this time your child needs you more than ever.

Compassion & Guilt

Yesterday, my daughter went really quiet, she seemed distracted. I kept asking her what was wrong but she was refusing to say. I was checking dinner and she come out to the kitchen to help me. I decided maybe it was time to ask again. She spun around to look at me and yelled "I feel bad because I put him in jail" I stopped abruptly looking at her intently. "You did not put him in jail" I replied. She was not ready to listen and stormed out of the kitchen.

I left it alone again, one thing I know about my daughter is too leave her for a while to calm down before tackling anything with her. She needed to be ready to listen so it will sink in what I had to say to her.

Later that evening as we were sitting on the sofa watching television I sensed she was calm enough to tackle it. I paused what we were watching and said "Babe, you did not put him in jail you know." she looked at me the pain apparent in her eyes "I did, I went to the police, I did the statement, I told" standing up I faced her and asked her "Who had control in this situation you or him?" she looked at me and said "Him." then I continued "Who continued to hurt you even when you asked him to stop" she says the same again, I nodded my head looking down on her hurt face "Who started this whole thing you or him" "him" she replied meekly "So then babe you tell me who is to blame" she said "him" in a quiet voice, she still was not convinced so I felt the need to add further "Babe, you were the child in this whole thing, you asked him to stop he could have at any time and he choose not too, not you.  He made his choices in this you had no choice so this is not your fault" she nodded her head and I asked her "Why did you tell? what was your reason" I already knew the answer "I wanted to protect others from him, I did not want any other children suffering the way I did" I smiled to her sitting down beside her and taking her in my arms "It was the right choice, you took your power and control back and by doing so you have protected others from him" she nodded then just buried her head in my embrace.

Men who abuse in my humble opinion they do so for their own selfish reasons, and rarely just like rape its not about sex its about power and control. When we moved here the abuse my daughter suffered increased as she got older, we were more comfortable here and he was not.  This resulted in him trying to control all aspects of her life, down to who she spoke to on the phone, where she was, who she was with. The way he used to blow up at her at the time had me concerned, most of the time I felt like a referee between them both. I now know why he exerted so much control over her. He did not want this secret to be known, as she grew and found her own voice he knew he would get found out sooner or later. So in retaliation he exerted more control over her and in turn over us all.

He used to brow beat my boys, not in front of me either, when I was out of the room or upstairs he would give them sly digs, call them names behind my back. Demoralized them to a point that they hated him and hated themselves. I have never called my children names, names just take away their spirit and I have always believed you call someone something enough they begin to believe in it.  So behind my back he would do everything I hated and as the relationship between him and I got more and more strained it got worse for them . All this I have found out since I threw him out in December. When he was here , there were rows, and raised voices between him and the children but it always seemed to kick off when I was out of the room so at the time I never got to the bottom of it.  When I would talk to them all and try to sort it out .. they never really told me the whole story.

Since his been gone at least a couple of times a week, we sit down as a family and talk about all of this and we even reminisce on the happy times. His name is not mud in our house and I allow each of my children to remember the good times we did have with him as well as the bad. He was a huge part of our lives for a long time and talking about it helps each of us in different ways.  Not talking is more harmful to all of us and for each of us, to be able to move on from this and learn, we talk about our feelings, hate, love, loathing, missing, fear, anger, jealously, happiness, sadness. To name a few. I find us all talking brings us closer together and helps each of my children come to terms with everything,

One thing I can say through all this, it has not damaged my relationship with any of my children and even though at times I blame myself for bringing him into our lives, they do not blame me.

At first when my daughter disclosed, I did not want to believe.. I did not want to think that was going on under my nose for so long. Somewhere deep inside me, I did know but I just did not want to see, avoiding the pain of seeing was a lot easier than confronting it.  Does that make me a coward? maybe? Its was a lot easier to accept what they were telling me at the time than to listen to my own instincts and discover what was really going on.

If anything I have learned from this, is too trust my instincts, for the longest time they were telling me something was not right, but because I trusted him, loved him. I wanted to believe him as it was the easier road to take. Now I know the harder road, no matter how painful it may be will be the wiser road to take.