A letter to the school…

I was looking for a password for Payne among her school emails and I came across the following email I sent two school years ago on March 22, 2011.  Things had gotten so out of control with Vale and the aftershock that the kids were really suffering being the collateral damage and it was greatly impacting their school work.  I’m going to share the letter with you.  I’ve removed names for anonymity’s sake.  The three kids referred to in this letter go to a special school for academical advanced students.  If they start sliding in school, the work overwhelms them quickly.  I think by reading this letter I sent to the school, you can get a pretty clear picture of our daily level of stress in the home.  It makes me pretty sad reading it and remembering.

 

Good Afternoon, This was an email I thought I could avoid but the situation is getting far too out of hand. I wrote to Mrs. F and Mrs. F a few weeks ago about the current crisis in our home, hoping we could circumvent real trouble, but the fall out was greater than I anticipated. My USP students are for the most part really suffering.
About 4-6 weeks ago we discovered that my son (who isn’t in this school) is engaging in self harming behaviors, developed an eating disorder and was brutalized by sexual abuse 5-6 years ago while in a former foster home. Needless to say we all are a wreck. Before that day, Feb 15th (the worst of anniversaries) we knew nothing of this at all. He had carried that secret in silence for years. There is a constant strain in the home due to my son’s suicidal ideologies, putting therapy in place, watching for his safety, dealing with the aftershock etc. I have no desire to cultivate sympathy for me, but I want you to know what your students are going through.
This is a picture of our last month:
  • multiple trips to Hershey (that’s at least 5-7 hours)
  • phone calls to try to get therapy and treatment into place
  •  placing locks on doors putting all cutting implements in locked boxes
  •  fielding phone calls from police due to mandated reporting
  • going for forensic interviews
  • therapy 3+ times a week
  • 5 days of PSSAs, 3 of which I need to stay at for safety plan reasons
And none of that reflects the actual hands on work I need to do with my son. Honestly, this has had a devastating impact on me, and really, I’m trying to keep it together. The kids aren’t sleeping. The vigilance they feel they need to have, even though we try to reassure them that they don’t, is breaking them. They can’t talk about this outside of the home due to stigma and my son’s shame. And they can’t talk too much inside the home because my son cuts and starves himself because of his self loathing and shame and they are afraid to exacerbate him. Many days feel like we are walking on very thin ice. As much as I try to shield my children from the full impact, I am not sleeping, have headaches almost every day and struggle constantly: to get my son to eat, to gauge his mood (how dangerous it is), to keep him from purging, to watch where he is and what he’s doing all the time, to get him the help he needs (which surprisingly is very difficult). I can’t leave the house, take a nap or be away from my son, because I am his sole security and his anxiety ratchets up when I’m ‘gone’. I have become a terrible home facilitator.
I share this because my children’s academics are sliding. E is pretty good at compartmentalizing, she’s older and close to Vale so she understands more, so she’s doing “okay”. In S’s case, he’s sliding a lot. S is failing nearly everywhere. S sleeps in the same room as Vale (the one in crisis) and feels responsible for Vale’s safety. S can’t sleep because he’s worried he’ll wake up and find his brother dead. He worries that Vale will cut in the night. S is pretty innocent and doesn’t fully understand why Vale does what he does. S can’t seem to focus independently very well at all. Unlike E, S doesn’t have the good scholarly habits to carry him through, on the best of days S lacks the discipline to stay on task. He is so far behind that he sees no way out and is so discouraged. J is restless and distressed. She is coping by utilizing a lot of escapism into books, or role-playing etc. So her schooling isn’t that stellar either, but I don’t think she’s in as bad a shape as S.
Honestly, I’m at a loss as to what to do. I can not be home to handle what’s going on with their schooling, and S is so far behind I don’t know how he’ll catch up. I would hate for him (or the girls) to fail school or lose their spots in the University Scholars Program. E is making transcripts and I would hate to see her GPA lower because of this. Our family values education so much and work hard together to see that our children achieve the best that they’re able to. But to be frank, keeping the children together has really taken precedent. We value that the USP has an integrity that they have to uphold to keep their program where it is at, but I’m asking for your help. I believe they’ve all proven themselves capable of working at a USP level (even if S hasn’t demonstrated a true scholarly approach to his work ~ he had improved). Please help us. We will work weekends, longer days etc to get the kids back on track. But we need help. Would you please help us?

Something to be proud of

One of the neat things about using a Wordpress blog is the analytics.  They tell me how many views my blog had on a particular day, which blog post people were reading and where some of these viewers came from.  A lot of time my views come from people clicking on a link I post in twitter or facebook, but also they come from search engines like Google.

What the analytics also tell me is some of the search terms people used to find us.  One of the terms used was ‘boys who self harm’.  I’m extremely proud of the fact that we are here when a person searches that.  I remember when I was doing a similar search nearly two years ago and all I could find were articles about teens and self harming.

I just think about another mother out there who just discovered that her son was cutting himself.  I can imagine the shock and pain she’s experiencing.  I can visualize her desperation of trying to find help.  And I can also know that in one small way, we’re here to help.

Hours from Penn State, children’s charity shows new way to heal

Sun, Sep 2, 2012 6:30 PM EDT

STATE COLLEGE, Pa. – Penn State is trying desperately to move on from its past, with a new season, a new coach and new leaders in a new administration. But while the school had a nationally televised opportunity to start a “new chapter” on Saturday in Happy Valley, there was true healing being done only a half-day’s drive away. On a farm in the small town of Lake Ariel, not far from Scranton, Saturday morning meant another chance for victims of child abuse to feel better.

Strawberry is the horse that bonded with one victim and helped launch Marley’s Mission. (Special to Y! Sports)There are no victims of former assistant coach Jerry Sandusky there, as they are all adults now, but the novel approach taken at a place called Marley’s Mission is a rare insight into how abuse victims begin to recover from the most horrible of suffering. And although it’s correct to say nothing good came out of the scandal involving Sandusky, the subsequent attention drawn to places like Marley’s Mission may turn out to save kids who might otherwise have nowhere to turn.

The story begins with tragedy. In July 2009, a 5-year-old girl was brutally attacked in her home by a complete stranger. The man had attended a family picnic, introducing himself as the friend of a family friend, and he entered the girl’s room after she had gone to sleep. Then he savagely raped the little girl, leaving her with her severe injuries. Her parents, completely distraught, took their daughter, left their home and never came back. The rapist, named Felix Montoya, was eventually sent to prison. But the girl’s fate was potentially much worse.

Her parents tried intensive therapy of all kinds – talk therapy, art therapy, everything. Nothing worked. Even the best psychologists have trouble getting children to describe their feelings, especially when those feelings are so unbearable. So the therapist of this little girl, a woman named Ann Cook, began to think of other ways to get her to share her feelings. The girl loved a guinea pig, named Marley. And that led to another idea that changed not only the girl’s life, but the lives of more than 160 other victims.

Press coverage of the assault and conviction drew an outpouring of sympathy and money. The family moved into a new house and bought their daughter a present: a horse named Strawberry. And soon something changed in the girl. She spent hours around the horse, petting him, feeding him and just walking around with him. The horse became a companion. And then a minor miracle took place.

Slowly, the girl began to speak. She talked about what she thought was going on in the horse’s mind. And in doing so, the girl began to share what was buried inside her heart.

That proved to be the seed of a cause, started by the girl’s mother, April Loposky. She teamed up with Gene Talerico, the assistant district attorney who prosecuted Montoya, and Cook, the therapist, to start a horse farm dedicated to helping victims of child abuse.

“You get to have a conversation about the horse with the child,” Talerico says. “Instead of talking in first person, now we’re saying, well, the horse is behaving this way because of this. The [children] superimpose their struggles on the horse. The horse’s struggle becomes their struggles.”

One year to the day after the rape, Marley’s Mission opened. “We wanted it to go from a day of hurt to a day of hope,” Talerico says.

That is what’s happened. Marley’s Mission was named “Best New Charity” in 2011. And that was before the awful news of the Sandusky scandal broke. Referrals increased sizably as Sandusky’s victims came forward and bravely testified this summer.

“The strength of survivors was crucial,” says Talerico. “It allows people to be buoyed by the courage of others. There are more people inquiring as to what we do and how we do it. When this was on the forefront and people were saying, ‘No more, this is no longer a secret,’ the ripple effect of that is incredible.”

Marley’s Mission now has six therapists, 10 horses and four equine specialists. It serves approximately 80 children, at no cost to their families. On a typical Saturday morning, there are up to a dozen kids at the farm. There is no riding for the children, who are ages 5 to 18. Instead, they walk with the horse and care for the animal while both the therapist and an ever-present equine expert look on.

For one boy we’ll refer to as “Vale,” Marley’s Mission has been life-changing. He was abused between the ages of 6 and 8, and he faced all kinds of hurdles to recovery, including an eating disorder. But Vale says he felt comfortable almost right away with one of the horses, named Lacy, and as soon as he got into the car for the ride home after visiting Marley’s Mission last year, he turned to his mom and said, “I’m hungry.”

Marley’s Mission has used horses to build a connection with child-abuse victims. (Special to Y! Sports)”The connection I had with that one horse was really awesome,” Vale says. “I felt like I really got to know her. I didn’t feel like it was just an animal. They really have a sense of how they affect people. They understand how the people are feeling. Around children, they have to be safer about where they are stepping. They can’t actually understand ‘I’m sad today,’ but they can tell by the way you act.”

Vale is now 15, and he says he’s “a lot better.” He returned to the farm this summer to help out. He says Marley’s Mission has not only allowed him to be more comfortable with his own feelings, but also to better express himself to other people.

The hard work of therapy shouldn’t be diminished here; survivors of these heinous crimes will work to overcome their pasts as long as they live. But for victims and families, the idea that there is something that can be done to make a child feel better is the most reassuring feeling imaginable. When asked if equine therapy really works, Talerico is almost gleeful. “I’ve spend two decades doing this stuff,” he says. “The successes of this kind of therapy are remarkable.”

Marley’s Mission is moving to a newer, bigger farm. Plans are to open it on the fourth anniversary of that unspeakable 2009 crime. The new land will be closer to the center of the state, to help children from a wider span of Pennsylvania.

And most importantly, the little girl who was raped that night is still healing. Talerico remembers seeing her in the hospital after the attack, desperately wondering what could possibly be done for a child so young and so hurt.

He remembers the look on her face, but also the design on her hospital gown. It had unicorns and horses.

“I guess it was fate,” he says.

Penn State football will continue to be a reminder of terrible things that happened over the past years, but the hope is it can also remind millions of quieter places built for heroism and healing.

Eric Adelson

Author
Award-winning writer Eric Adelson is a feature writer for Yahoo! Sports. A graduate of Harvard University and Columbia University’s School of Journalism, Eric previously wrote for ESPN the Magazine and is the author of the book “The Sure Thing: The Making and Unmaking of Golf Phenom Michelle Wie.”

Another wonderful article about Marley’s Mission that mentions Vale!

Children At Risk: A survivor’s story

By Denis J. O’Malley (Staff writer)
Published: September 18, 2012
His family called him “Seething Sean.”

“He was very quiet… an undercurrent of anger was (in him) all the time. He was belligerent,” his mother said. “We had no idea.”  His family knew there had been some “inappropriateness” in Sean’s past, his mother said, but even the Pike County authorities who facilitated his adoption were unaware of the details.  Like many victims of child sexual abuse, it wasn’t something he spoke about. But then again he didn’t talk much at all.

The Times-Tribune does not identify victims of sexual abuse.  Find the original article here

His family could see that Sean had an eating problem - rejecting food, sometimes starting his day on nothing more than a slice of toast and burning out within hours.  ”I remember being tired all the time. I would be exhausted by 11 o’clock,” Sean, now 15 years old, said in an interview with the newspaper. “I’d be like sitting on the couch and falling asleep.”

By early 2011 it had been somewhere between six and eight years since he lived in a foster home in Greeley Twp.  The dates are hard to remember - the details harder to share - but it was in that home where Sean’s then-foster parents’ 14-year-old grandson began to “groom” Sean in the bedroom they shared.  It started with the boy asking Sean, then between 6 and 8 years old, to sit on his lap while he played video games.  Later, the boy began baiting him with twisted quid-pro-quo offers.  ”He kind of eased into it,” Sean said. “He said stuff like, ‘If you do this, I’ll let you play on my guitar or play video games.’ “

Over the course of months, how many he could not say, the abuse escalated into repeated instances of rape.  But the 14-year-old grandson wasn’t the only one - he had a friend.

One day, as Sean walked to a chicken coop on his foster parents’ property to gather eggs, the teenager followed him.  ”He just came out of nowhere,” Sean’s mother said, aiding her son in the difficult recollection. “He was gathering eggs and all of a sudden this guy raped him.”  The grandson’s “grooming” would signal the imminent abuse, at least enough for Sean to brace himself, Sean’s mother explained.  But after the shock of the second abuser’s attack, he was left stunned, scolded for breaking a few eggs and asking himself unanswerable questions.

By the time he turned 14 his parents learned what Sean hid beneath the long sleeves he always wore.  ”The first thing he disclosed to us was that he’d been cutting. He had around 200 scars on his forearm,” his mother said.  They sent Sean to an adolescent medical specialist to seek treatment.  Asked about his eating disorder and the cutting, Sean simply answered the specialist’s question.  ”I think I told him because I thought that the eating disorder and the cutting could have branched off from that - the abuse. I think because it was relevant,” he said.

The admission did not offer the instant relief one might expect. It instilled in Sean a new fear: tomorrow.  ”I knew what I said was a big deal… I remember being very scared of what was going to happen next after telling somebody,” he said.

Faced with her family’s new reality, Sean’s mother saw in her son a change that put him not on the road to recovery but on the precipice of disaster.  ”I think in the disclosure, he finally felt it. Now it wasn’t covered up any more,” she said. “If you can think of it as water - he just started to sink into it.”  The family’s reaction was immediate and all-consuming.  Scissors, staples, razors, “you name it,” every possible cutting implement had to be locked away, his mother said.  Bedroom doors were locked, where his siblings and parents would leave their shaving razors to keep them out of the bathroom.

The doctors wanted him in a residential treatment program, but there wasn’t a local option.  So they started searching for an alternative.  ”When they tell you your kid’s going to commit suicide you try to get help as soon as possible,” his mother said. “You fly.”  Before they found the answer, there were “many nights” she spent awake, “waiting until he went to sleep before I went to sleep and getting up before he did because I wasn’t sure he’d be alive when I woke up,” his mother said.

Among his symptoms, Sean had selective mutism that all but ruled out one-on-one counseling as a solution.  ”So we were looking for therapies where he didn’t have to sit and talk, where he could work,” his mother said.  A few weeks after Sean’s disclosure in February 2011, a friend and fellow foster parent told his mother about Marley’s Mission, an equine-assisted psychotherapy program in Wayne County for survivors of childhood trauma.

“His affect was always very flat. He was very depressed. He was suicidal,” his mother said. “And the first day he left Marley’s Mission he said, ‘This was fantastic, Mom. I love it. And, by the way, I’m hungry. Can we get something to eat?’”  For some other family, one not sharing the collective effect of a son’s sexual abuse, a trip to McDonald’s would hardly seem notable.  But for Sean, the young teen who went a year without gaining a pound, “to admit that he was hungry was monumental,” his mother said.  ”He had a 20-piece chicken McNuggets all by himself,” his mother said. “I remember exactly what he ate. This is a kid who had a hard time choking down a piece of toast… so it was a very big deal.”

It’s hard for him to remember his mindset when he began visiting Marley’s Mission or how he reacted at first - the 18 months that have passed seem a lifetime.  ”I liked that I didn’t really have to talk a lot,” he offered.  In time, that comfort fell in line behind the healing his family hoped for.  His therapy with Lacey, a horse who also self-injured - chewing wooden rails, a possibly life-threatening habit for horses - proved successful.

But a less obvious benefit came just being there, where people like Gene Talerico, Lackawanna County first assistant district attorney and president of the Marley’s Mission board of directors, would “put a hammer in his hand and they’d go and fix fences,” his mother said.  ”You have men who, they know his story and he knows that they know his story and they do not care. They’re men working,” his mother said. “When you’re in a therapy session you know you’re in a therapy session. Well, that was also a therapy session but it didn’t feel like one.”

Little more than a year later, Sean is no longer receiving treatment at Marley’s Mission, though he does continue his biblical counseling.  Now, Sean is the one helping others - serving as a junior counselor for a summer camp held at Marley’s Mission for children who have suffered trauma.

His abusers never saw criminal charges - his family brought his disclosure to state police, but after so long and without any physical evidence or other victims to speak of, his family knew there was little chance of that.

But recovery far outweighs retribution in Sean’s mind.  He recently began speaking to the media on occasion, telling his story, and is also a speaker for RAINN - Rape, Abuse and Incest National Network.  He tells his story not for himself, but for the others. For the kids at Marley’s Mission. For the friend he’s helping recover from his own trauma.  ”I think a big part in my recovery is going to help other people with theirs,” he said. “Like helping with the camp - I think that’s going to be a big deal, and I’m going to be happy knowing that I helped other people with it.”

Contact the writer: domalley@timesshamrock.com, @domalleyTT on Twitter
And if you’re wondering… yeah, this article is about Vale.

My Story

It is Child Abuse Awareness Month.  I’m a big-mouthed advocate, telling everyone who will listen, my son’s story.  I’m pretty open about all we’ve been through, because I don’t want anyone else feeling as alone as I did going through this type of trauma.  But you know what I’m rather tight-lipped about?  My own abuse story.  I guess the time has come for me to knock that right off, eh?

It’s not easy to tell my story.  Shame really isn’t a component, I’m well aware that I’ve got no blame in this.  It’s just that my perp is a family member and if this gets out, gets passed around, I don’t know what the impact will be on the rest of the family.  You see, this family member is quite ‘iconic’, you could say.  I would go as far as saying that he has some real disciples in the family and it just may be that my spilling his story will get me cut out of the family, and not him, not that I want him cut out of the family.  I just don’t want to lie about it either.  My extended family is already pretty split apart and all I have left are my cousins, some of which are the aforementioned disciples.  So, the reality here is I could lose everything.  But I feel like a hypocrite not telling, after I push Vale all the time to speak.  So speak I shall.  My abuser was my father.



My home life was pretty interesting.  Our family put the ‘fun’ in dysfunctional.  My mother was married once before she married my dad, my adopted dad.  My biological father, I never knew.  My mother went on to marry two other men after my dad, because she is pretty darned screwed up.  I guess she’s come to the point in her life where she has some stability, but there’s a lot of water under that bridge and I just take it, and her, without much expectations.  My father, a man who already had an anger problem, became pretty messed up and very resentful after his separation and very long, very costly and very taxing divorce. He turned into a person I don’t think he ever intended on becoming.  He was under incredible pressure at work, he had no support from his church, who only condemned his divorce, and he lived far away from his family.  The strain ended up costing him his health for a while, and he was diagnosed with chronic fatigue.  Now I am not trying to give my dad an out, many parents have gone through horrible, bitter divorces and didn’t beat or sexually abuse their kids.  But my dad was, well… still is very acrimonious and he was afraid I would turn out like my mother.  So when the occasion came that I would do something that reminded him of her, he was determined he would beat it out of me.

There were a couple of tools my father liked to use in his discipline techniques, besides the belt.  The belt was simply a staple.  My father liked dominance, manipulation and his all time favorite was shame.  My father reasoned that when I did something wrong, I brought shame to the family, to the family name, and thus, he in turn would shame me.  Shame came in a lot of forms.  Sometimes it was juvenile middle-school stuff, like allowing my brother to humiliate me in the middle of the grocery store by talking about how gross it was that I had my period.  I was about 13 or 14, there were no women in the house and I would dread asking my father to buy me sanitary supplies, because they always came with a price.

He also liked bullying me by doing stupid little acts that clearly showed his dominance.  I recall one instance very clearly.  We sat at mealtimes around an oval table; my father on my left, my grandfather on my right and my brother across the table.  My father took it into his head to tap on my elbow incessantly through the entire meal.  It didn’t just last a day, or even a week.  It went on for weeks.  I wasn’t allow to move my chair.  I wasn’t allowed to change my position at the table.  I wasn’t allow to get away from him at all, I just had to take it.  After a while of taking it, I remember becoming so angry that I grabbed my fork and tried to stab his hand with it.  I missed and received a bloodied lip for my troubles.  But how I wish I would have stabbed him, even now, nearly 30 years later.

My father liked to make fun of me.  Apparently, when I was younger and into my teens I had either some sort of discharge or possibly didn’t wipe well after using the toilet and the evidence was in my underwear.  My father would make little nick names up for me relating to that, like “Star” and then sing “Tinkle, tinkle little star…” thinking he was so incredibly funny.  It wasn’t like a once or twice type of deal either, it was often, and for years, and in public.

Now my dad wasn’t the kind that would just come home from work and just start wailing on me.  I had always done something he felt was wrong (and yes, it was wrong) and thus he would have the right and obligation to discipline me.  But there was never any training that went along with the correction.  He would tell me, again ~ quite rationally, that he was angry.  He was going to hit me until he ceased being angry, and that usually depended on whatever the offense was, how like my mother it was and how cooperative I was about receiving it.  He would use his hand, his belt or whatever else was handy at the time.  One of the last beatings I received, I recall there being about 40 strikes with a 2x4 type piece of lumber.  I really had difficulty working the next day, as I was 19 years old at the time.  Being a parent and looking back on that, I am not as horrified by the actual assault but remembering the triumph I felt at the time, because I didn’t give in.  He caught me doing something I truly shouldn’t have been doing, and I lied about it.  He wanted me to confess and provide more evidence, but I held to my lie no matter how bad that last beating was.  I didn’t walk away from it feeling remorse over my lie, just satisfaction that he didn’t get what he wanted.  He made me hard.  The damage to the body was temporary, but I’m still paying for the damage to my soul.

One of the hardest parts of this abuse is both of my grandparents and a few of my aunts and uncles knew about it.  My uncle stepped in once, and nearly got into a physical altercation because of it.  My my grandparents would tell me, “If you’d only keep your mouth shut…”.  If only I had controlled myself, as the child, then my father wouldn’t have physically abused me.  Yeah, it was my fault.  I loved my grandparents so much.  My grandmother was the closest thing I ever had as a mother.  But she did like to cloak people’s sins, her one true failing.

And in the later years of my adolescence came sexual abuse.  I want to be clear here, my father never raped me nor forced me to perform sexual acts, per se.  Not that I want to protect my father, it’s just that I know that people read this blog who have suffered appalling sexual abuse and I don’t want to lump what I went through into that.  In fact, I didn’t even know what my dad did was sexual abuse until I was well into my adulthood and came to learn about the expanded definition.  Some things became really clear to me then, why I had some of the hang ups I currently have.  So I share my story to illustrate that while what I endured was so truncated compared to so many others, compared to Vale, the impact is still very strong and is still with me.  My dad was weird and a little twisted.  Things started simply when I was a little younger, I wasn’t allowed to wear underwear to bed.  I have no idea why.  He was really quite adamant about it, and I would get in quite a bit of trouble for it, if I did wear underwear.  Then my father would make sexual comments to me.  He claimed that I would stand in front of my mirror with my door open either sizing up or rubbing my breasts.  I don’t recall ever doing that and I can’t imagine I would ever do something like that with the door open.  But he would make fun of me for that and mimic what I allegedly did.  I once saw a woman openly breastfeeding her baby in public and I expressed how disgusted I was by it (I think I was in my early teens).  My dad went ballistic!  He told me I was a dirty minded pervert and called me so many names.  I wonder why he went so over board about that.  None of this is all that tragic I realize, just kinda weird.  But it got worse.

As I grew older, for some reason my father started walking from his bedroom to the shower naked.  I was horribly embarrassed to see my father naked.  He, again, would roll his eyes and told me what a dirty mind I had.  That I must be thinking perverse thoughts that it bothered me so.  I really thought there was something the matter with me.  I now know better, it’s dreadfully wrong to see your parents naked.  I would never do that to my kids.  Before I had children, I would sleep naked.  But once I had them, I was concerned that they would need me in the night and come into my room and I wouldn’t be covered.  Why would my dad do that?

Then my dad started a really disturbing ‘spanking’ routine.  Because I deserved to be shamed, when I was spanked I had to strip from the waist down, my pants and underwear around my ankles and bend over and clasp my ankles while my father spanked me.  This wasn’t when I was 8 or 9 (although that doesn’t make it any better).  This is when I was in my later teens, thus fully developed.  My father would then force me to stand in that position for as long as it suited him as he walked around looking at me and sometimes touching me, not exactly sexually, but on my hips.  He would ask me questions about whether I was sexually active or not.  Had I lost my virginity?  Had I lost my ‘maidenhead’ (a term I have never heard of)? and other questions of the like.

My father used to send me to different psychologists all throughout my childhood.  Apparently I had many psychological things wrong with me, although looking back on it, I can’t imagine why he would think that.  As I became a young adult, he insisted yet again that I go for me counseling.  I remember telling the psychologist about some of these things that were happening.  I remember the therapist asking me if any of it was happening to my brother, which it was not.  My brother is 8 years younger than I so he was still very much a child.  The therapist told me that if I had told him that any of this was happening to my brother he would be forced to call the police and my father would go to jail.  My memories are a little confused about this next bit, but I think he may have asked if I wanted to press charges.  But I didn’t, because who would take care of my brother?  I was only 18 or 19 at the time.  I did come home and tell my father about what the therapist had said, because the therapist supported that my father was to blame at least for part of the problem and not all me like my dad always said.  Did you guess that I was told that this therapist was no longer any good and I shouldn’t go back and see him?  You’d be right if you did.

I left home shortly after that, when I was about 20.  I felt very guilty leaving my brother with him, although he always treated my brother far better than he did me.  My brother was biologically his son and there was always a marked difference.  I think it was more that I reminded my dad too much of my mother than the fact that I was adopted.  I used to have these nightmares that I was trapped at my father’s house and I would try to call my husband to come get me.  I would use a payphone (remember those?) and either I would continuously drop the quarter, or misdial or I would forget the number.  I can’t tell you how many times I had that nightmare.  I think that even in a case of sexual abuse this mild, the impact has been very deep.  I’m, by nature, an angry person, prone to bitterness and an unforgiving spirit.  I behaved rather promiscuously once I hit 18 and got out on my own.  Being able to attract a male, even for just sex, made me feel powerful and in control.  I could sense what he wanted and it was a total head trip for me.  I recall once being told I was exquisite.  I was totally being used but I didn’t care, I clung to that compliment, as backhanded as it was.  I won’t say too much more about that because 1. there’s no point to more graphic detail, 2. it would horribly embarrass my children and 3. it would shame my husband.  But there is a darker part of me that lusts for violent anonymous encounters.  That’s a little creepy, so I keep that under lock and key.  I still, after 22 years of marriage, have a hard time undressing in front of my husband.  I have had sexually inappropriate dreams about my father, my oldest son even.  In the dreams I do horrible things and I am convinced that the dreams are real and I’m mortified at my own behavior.  I wake and cry and thank God that it was only a dream.  I have fought against depression and suicidal thoughts since I was 16.  I had some pretty bad social awkwardness that I didn’t get past (at least to a large degree ~ I still think I’m socially awkward) until I was in my late 30’s!

I’ve never confronted my father about this.  He would deny it, or worse excuse it away and blame it on me.  He would tell me I remember things wrong and that again, I was in error.  Nothing would change, so what is the point?  My father is not a happy man now.  He is a big conspiracy theorist who is lost in all his… crazy.  He has to be on the mailing list of every subversive political and pre-apocalyptic group that’s out there.  He searches the skies for contrails.  He avoids soy because it will make him gay.  He scours the Bible for hidden messages that most people don’t know (did you know that Queen Esther was really evil, and the only reason she’s in the Bible is to show us how not to be? uhhhh, what?).  He almost never sees his grandchildren, and not because I keep him away…he’s just too busy with all of his I-don’t-know-what.  I speak with him on the phone on occasion, but he can’t even stay focused on what’s going on in our lives, he just has to get out what he’s heard about this political candidate or that latest health craze or some other Biblical fantasy he just discovered.  He exists in his on nutty little world, and it’s not much of a life.  But it is of his own making.

What my dad put me through in a very large sense was evil and it wreaked a lot of havoc.  But it also made me sensitive and compassionate to other kids in crisis and in a way, made me who I am today.  I think I am a better mother for Vale because of it.  I didn’t experience what he did, but because I what I lived through, knowing how devastating and life altering that it was, it enables me to empathize with Vale and support him better.  So I guess I turned it into a gift of sorts.  Isn’t that really the best revenge?

Guest Blogger: Daniel

I try to write my story on your blog.As you certainly know, It’s very difficult to write about it.I have many nightmares and still think that my rapists can reach me again and do something to me.I have many sleeping disorders and eating disorders. Every day there is something that remember me what has happened to me.In my case my adoptive family was my misfortune.I wonder every day what should have happened to me if my mother decided not to abandon me.I understand Vale’s disease. But I don’t know what to have a mother means. I have someone who helps me, but it is no the same thing.I wanted to ask you if Vale has some physical damage caused by the assault.I have been in hospital and still have to follow a physical rehabilitation wich is very heavy for me. I feel shamed about it.I want also to say that even if I suffer a lot, I am happy to be alive and I try to look with hope to my future.I have wonderful friends who support me. Thanks to them my rapists were condemned. Someday it’s so hard and I want to die, but deep in myself I know that to be survived, it’s my revenge against my brothers.Thank you if you wants to say something about this message.God bless you.
~Daniel
Hello Daniel,

Thanks so much for offering to write a post for my blog.  To answer your question: no, Vale has no physical or bodily harm as a direct result of his sexual assault.  The damage has been emotional and psychological.  The aftermath of the rape: the eating disorder, the self-mutilation has caused physical damage, but I pray it is not long-lasting.  Even with the cutting, because Vale is an artist and a perfectionist, his slices were even and straight and unless you know what to look for you can’t see them.  I’m so heartsick over your tale, your loss, your grief and your pain.  I pray that this blog offers some small consolation in knowing you are not alone.  We are with you.

~Vale’s Mom

* the emphasis in Daniel’s post is mine

Flashback to July: Let’s get this over with

I think I’ve drug my heels about finishing this long enough, wouldn’t you agree?  I have so many other things I wish to write about, but I feel as though I can’t go on to those things until I’ve put this one to bed.  Not really sure why.  Not entirely sure why this is so difficult to sit down and finish either.  Insights anyone?

It’s our final week down in Hershey.  We arrive on a Sunday, Vale chomping at the bit to get back to Nicki, me dreading the week.  In an effort to get him out of the house, I suggest we go out to dinner to this restaurant he’s been wanting to try since February.  The name of it is Houlihans, and although I don’t believe he actually wanted to eat at it, he wanted to go in it, so he was agreeable.  At least initially.

We arrive at Houlihans and it’s raining.  The parking lot is full, so we have to park in this parking garage type facility.  We step out of the van, and Vale starts.  At first it’s just simple kvetching, about how many cars are in the parking lot, how cold the rain is, etc.  When we actually get into the restaurant, I can visibly see him start to become unglued.  ”It’s too dark in here!  There are way too many people.  Why is it so warm in here??”

You ever have a moment in time where you look at your child and you’re unsure as to who that person is?  I was in this moment.  The space-time continuum had just shifted and I was in some type of alternate universe.  I started to look around to see if everyone was sporting goatees (vague Star Trek reference there).  He was antsy.  He was agitated.  He was very anxious.  He was completely eating disordered.  I asked Vale if he wanted to leave and he said no, so we were given a table.  Madness then ensued because they gave us the menu: it was huge and expansive.  He was consumed with anxiety over how in the world was he going to order, there were far too many choices.  At this point I sort of shifted into a survival mode, I suggested we leave.  Vale got even more upset, he was afraid it would draw attention to himself if we just walked out now, so I thought of something to do about the ordering.

A bright spot on the menu is that they had this whole list of entries that were smaller portions of their customer favorites, so that you could sample a couple of different items.  I suggested that Vale pick 2 or 3 of those, and he’d be ensured that the portions were at a manageable level.  But even those 20 or so choices proved to be far too many.  He did notice that someone had a french dip sandwich and thought it looked good, so I suggested that we split a sandwich and a salad.  Whatever he didn’t eat, we could always take home.  We had a tentatively help peace over that decision and we ordered.  Wouldn’t you know it that when they brought our food they would serve it on these over-sized rectangular trencher type plates??  I thought he was going to have a fit.  He did become a bit louder when he exclaimed something about the amount of food.  I quickly started reducing the number of plates and divvying up our food: one half of the sandwich for me, one for him.  One half of the salad for me, but no, I couldn’t put the entire half portion of salad on his plate.  There were also fries, but he couldn’t stand more than 3 or 4 on his plate.

The sandwich went down easily for Vale (and it was tasty ~ if you’re even in Hershey, PA try the french dip sandwiches at Houlihans).  I made a bold move and put the rest of his portion of salad on his plate, while it was somewhat cleared of food and he was okay with that.  He ate some of the salad and said he wanted to take the rest of it home.  Unfortunately the salad was the kind where they had pre-tossed it so I mentioned to him that if we took it home, it wouldn’t be very good the next day because it already had the dressing all over it.  He sort of loudly dropped his fork and looked me right in the eyes and said, “So you lied to me.”  I lied to him?  About the food?  Really?  I had the foresight to know that the salad was going to come like that and I purposefully lied so that he had to eat it?  I was dumbfounded at his accusation and I probably did some type of jaw dropping.  Now he was angry and it was all directed at me.  I don’t remember a whole lot about the rest of that night with the exception of that he did eat most of his salad, he wouldn’t touch a fry, and I was, apparently, the devil.

This last week at the Pennsylvania Psychiatric Institute was originally supposed to be a short one, only until Wednesday.  However, the week before, Vale had cut himself and coupled with the fact that his eating disorder is getting out of control, they decided to keep him the rest of the week.  Oh yes, I forgot to mention that little tid bit didn’t I?  Nicki was getting near to the end of her treatment, so the program she was in shortened her week by a day, then the next week by two etc, weaning her from the program.  So the previous week, Nicki had gone home on a Thursday and Vale was distraught, not knowing what to do with himself without her on Thursday evening.  If I remember correctly, I sent him to our room because he was being belligerent about something and so he used, can you believe this, the room *key* to cut himself.  Okay, it’s horrible enough when he used knives and box cutters to cut, but a key?  Can you imagine how painful that must have been?  Of course that event left me distraught and us needing to stay for the entire week.  Vale was completely oppositional Monday and Tuesday, combative, clearly not interested in his treatment and becoming worse by the minute.  His eating was getting worse, refusing to eat breakfast, escalated behaviors over dinner and I finally had had it.  We were leaving Wednesday, whether he liked it or not.

Tuesday evening I had him retire to the room early and we packed.  We took stuff down to the car and I happened to walk through the main eating area and found Nicki, another mother and her daughter sitting around the table talking close.  I walk toward the room and the other girl started frantically started making faces at Nicki to be quiet.  Obviously they were talking about me, and it wasn’t pleasant.  How in the world did I become the bad guy?  I wasn’t ‘in the world’ so to speak, around people who didn’t know about what was going on with him or what it’s like to have an eating disordered kid.  Why in the name of anything sacred weren’t these mothers on my side.  Now for her part, Nicki was a 16-year-old girl with a mad crush, I can understand why she was so unhappy with me keeping the two apart.  But these other mothers should have been standing shoulder to shoulder with me… I’m still baffled.  Fortunately, I’m not a parent who seeks popularity, I do what’s right for my family and I kept on packing.

Vale didn’t say goodbye to Nicki because I didn’t tell him we were definitely leaving until we were up in our room.  The next day I kept him busy up in the room until after 8:30 so he wouldn’t have time to see her then either.  In retrospect, I toss that around as to whether I should have done that or not.  But in the end I ask myself, what good would have come from him sharing a tearful goodbye with this girl?  I also wholeheartedly admit that part of me just wanted to cut this thing right off.  He was not happy with me and he pointedly asked me if I planned that on purpose, to which I replied honestly that I did.

During that last week, I made an appointment for Vale at the eating disorder specialist.  This time we didn’t see the doctor like we usually did, we saw his physician’s assistant and that was a godsend.  Vale had, surprise surprise, dropped weight.  Apparently Vale didn’t keep his cards too close to his chest while he was in with the PA, asking if Nicki was there, was she alright, could he see her etc.  Of course the PA couldn’t tell him squat but she could see where his entire thought was bent toward and she got rather tough with him.  In short she threatened him that if he didn’t start getting with the program she would take action.  And no, despite what he thinks, she would never put him in a partial program there, to be around the girls, he would go in a lock down.  She then walked him through what a program like that was like: they would tell him when to wake, when to sleep, where he could go, when he ate, what he ate, how much he ate, whether he could see or talk to his family or friends, what privileges he could have, when he could leave.  She didn’t paint a pretty picture at all.  Vale was rather shocked by the entire conversation, but I was delighted.  This PA was taking the bull by the horns, something the doctor never seemed to do, and I was so relieved.

I don’t remember the ride home quite well.  I don’t think it was pleasant.  In fact, I don’t think we spoke to each other the entire 2 hour trip.  I’d like to tell you that within a few days he was back to himself and we started progressing back toward recovery again, but that would be a lie.  He kept up his restrictive eating.  He was ignorant and unkind toward me and the entire family.  He moved like a ghost through the days thinking only on his ‘lost love’.  He contrived how he was going to see her, talk with her, be with her.  He vandalized a restaurant bathroom, carving her initials into the stall.  That was a delight, let me tell you, and I made him tell the manager and fork over $60 in reparation.  We went to see a nutritionist who concluded that this wasn’t the time for him to be working on his eating disorder, because it was blatantly obvious he had no interest in recovery.  The nutritionist spoke with the PA and both agreed that Vale had too much therapy types and he was learning how to work it all, they suggested that we pick one and work with them and then slowly add others as he got back on track.  I agreed with them, that things had shifted into madness and we pared things down to just his Biblical counselor.  I think the kicker was that of the entire summer, which included a week-long vacation right on the bay in Delaware, his fondest summer memories were of the time in Hershey, with Nicki.  I wanted to kick him when he said that.  The time that cost us the most, that was so ruinous, painful was his favorite moments of the summer.

Why was this so hard to write.  Is it because I question myself?  Was it really the right thing to take Vale down to Hershey?  Was I foolish?  Should I have ended it sooner?  In the short-term it caused us so much pain and was so damaging to Vale’s recovery.  But as I look back on it 7 months later and see Vale’s progress I wonder if it didn’t come in part because of this time in Crazyville.  Is it possible that he is more solid now because he knows we’ll do anything to help him, to listen to him?  If it isn’t, will you at least not tell me.  I need that one small bit to keep from despair about that whole thing.  Placate me, okay?

Flashback to July, 2011 Part 2 (What is wrong with you?)

Okay, going to try a little more of this…

I can remember walking into the Ronald McDonald house for the first time.  One of the volunteers commented something like ‘The girls will be so happy to see such a nice looking boy staying here’.  And how right she was, I recall seeing one of the young women seeing him and darting off to whisper with the others.  Vale quickly became the buzz, especially in the eyes of one particular young woman, “Nicki”.

Nicki was there to aid in her AN recovery, having already been in an inpatient treatment facility.  She had already been out patient ED clinic a couple of weeks and stayed at the RMH with her mother and 2 sisters, who were younger.  I don’t want to get too bogged down in particular details, but it’s imperative to this narrative that the reader know she was in the company of her mother.  Nicki was a sweet girl, but a blatant flirt and Vale noticed her, and her obvious interest, quite quickly.  And trouble started.

A Ronald McDonald House is a large rambling place.  It’s like a hotel but with assorted living areas to help the families feel they have a little slice of home when away with their child being treated at a local hospital.  This one was no different, and I began to lose track of Vale in the house; he would disappear.  I would be fixing myself some coffee or talking with one of the other mothers in the house and I would turn around and Vale would be gone.  I would go searching all over the house to find him, and inevitably he was in the company of this young lady and her family; watching TV, talking with other families, etc.  I spoke with him about this, several times, asking him not to disappear.  He was supposed to be under my supervision at all times (House rules), it would worry me… would he simply tell me where he was going.  I didn’t like that he was hanging out with this girl and her family, mostly because I knew where his head was at.  But I couldn’t find anything *wrong* with it, she was with her mother, right?

Vale was becoming more problematic, neglecting his therapy, his focus narrowed on just this girl.  What made matters worse is that the girl’s mother actually encouraged their infatuation.  She was delighted that her daughter was interested in a Christian boy (yeah, like his thoughts were Christ like) and what was the harm really, eventually we’d both go home and they’d be 3 hours away from each other.  She thought they were cute.  I explained to her some of Vale’s issues, that when it came to girls he didn’t just develop little crushes, he lost his mind and it became an all-consuming obsession.  I tried to warn her that Vale’s thoughts weren’t pure and I would guess that had he had opportunity, he wouldn’t keep his hands to himself.  She was so dismissive, “pff what is he going to do?”  My answer was a rather firm, “Whatever he thought he could get away with”.  You know, she blew me off and chided me for being over protective/controlling.  She told me that I was going to end up pushing Vale away by being to rigid with him and shook her head at me.  She tsk tsked me when I warned her that her daughter may be in trouble with my son.  Vale was 14 years old, an age where male hormones tend to direct the thoughts.  And being childhood sexual abuse victim and exposed to far too much sexuality as a child, his motor ran very hot.

Mothers’ of daughters, why would you push-off the warnings of a mother with a son?  If some mother told me that she was concerned that her son may try to take advantage of one my daughters, you better believe that I would respond!  This interchange, between me and Nicki’s mother, still baffles the crap out of me.

By the way, Vale proved me right.

Fallout: Loosing the Taste of Blackberries

Okay, I admit it.  I joined Weight Watchers.  Yes, the mother of a recovering eating disordered son joined a ‘dieting’ program.  I’m not remotely at a healthy weight and just as Vale needed to make better eating decisions so do I.  Weight Watchers encourages me to eat more healthy, so I’m not ‘restricting’ just making better choices.  And yes, Vale and I are talking about it quite a bit to make sure I’m not one huge trigger to him.  And I keep the scale, which I just recently purchased, stashed out of sight.  So far so good as I have lost 14 pounds.  Now if only Vale would find them…

And I just said all of that just to say this:  I’m buying and consuming more fruit.  Monumental right?  When I went to our local store (Maine Source ~ do you have one near by?) they had a sale on berries: blackberries, raspberries and blueberries.  That’s especially rare for this time of year so I scooped up a bunch of them because the kids and I enjoy them so much.  And if you have children you probably guessed that my kiddos were elated.  And if you have an ED child you probably guessed that I was equally elated to watch Vale scooping up the berries and eating them like candy.  Well, all of them except the blackberries.

After a bit of the other children enjoying the berries, Vale came to me and said, “You know Mom, I just can’t eat the blackberries.”  I was confused.  I did see him sampling them earlier and so I asked him if it was because he didn’t like blackberries or was there another issue.  Yeah, yeah, you know what I was thinking… restricting?  And in actuality I found the real reason far more sad.  Vale told me that at his former foster parents’ house, where his rapes occurred, there were blackberries growing all over the place.  And although enjoys the taste of blackberries, he just can’t eat them without thinking about the rape.  Another simple pleasure stolen.

My poor baby.  You go on and just eat those other berries then.

Never, ever underestimate what sexual assault, what rape will do to a person.  It snakes its way into everything.  Insidious.

 

A Precious Gift

This evening was an evening I won’t forget.  It started like most evenings at our house, by washing up dishes and starting dinner.  While I was cooking, I was talking to Vale about my latest blog post.  I was telling him that there are so many questions I would like to ask him one day when he was ready, about his assaults, so that I could take the whole of the story in.  He asked me what I wanted to know, and so, I asked him about details.  What did he remember hearing?  or smelling?  What ritual may have been involved?  And for the first time ever, he was so candid and relaxed talking about it.  But what he told lays so heavily upon my heart.  Just for a bit of clarification, the details are lost 200 posts ago, my son was raped by two individuals.  One, Vale lived with and forced him to perform oral sex repeatedly.  This is the grandson of his former foster parents.  The second anally raped Vale.  Vale doesn’t recall who this person was, or his name.

He told me that he doesn’t recall particular sounds or smells but he does remember the tastes from the ejaculate.  I cannot begin to articulate how it feels to hear your son talk about an experience like that, especially when I particularly avoided asking about the sense of taste.  That should have never been part of his thinking, let alone his world, his memories.  A child should recall the taste of fresh strawberries, a favored ice cream flavor, hot dogs from the circus.  But never semen.  He said that he remembered an electric guitar, stuffed animals on the shelf and a game console.  These are what Vale’s offender used to ‘buy’ his silence.  I asked him if he felt that the adults in the home knew what was going on with the grandson.  He said he didn’t know about that, but he thinks that the grandson was offending the other children in the home.  Vale said, “we changed bedrooms a lot, I wasn’t the only one who slept in that room with him”.  I wonder how many other children were abused by that family member.  The family member that the foster parents denied even living there.  LIARS!

Vale then spoke briefly about his assault by the other older boy.  He calls that the chicken coop incident.  He told me he remembers little of this, except he broke the eggs that he was sent to gather, and he got in trouble for that.  Can you imagine that?  Being a small child, 6 or 7 years old, enduring a rape and being scolded for breaking eggs.

One of the saddest things that Vale said to me was that he still doesn’t think his being raped was that big of a deal.  He doesn’t think that it’s been a big impact on his life.  I asked him about his self-destructive behaviors: self harm, eating disorder, suicidal thoughts and he said that it was from having to move around a lot when he was a kid.  I mentioned to him that when we saw the doctor about his eating disorder the first thing Vale disclosed wasn’t that he had to move around a lot, he told about his sexual assaults.  I don’t desire that Vale be burdened with his sexual assault, to carry this every day in the forefront of his mind.  But I think that in order for Vale to fully heal, to look at the self-destructive mind-set that he has and see it for what it is, for him to live a full life, he has to admit to himself what a heinous crime had been committed and that it changed his life forever.  It will come, in his time, as his mind unfolds and accepts what it has contained in it.

I take everything he said and embrace it.  I take it like a snapshot, something I hold in front of my face.  I remember it all.  Where we were, what we were wearing, what we had for dinner.  It will never leave my memory.  I can’t expunge the memories from him.  I can’t undo the unmitigated evil that was perpetrated on his innocence.  But I can hold his story.  I can swallow it so it becomes part of me too.  It’s the least I can do.

Ordinary Day: Father’s Day

I have a couple of ‘series’ going, if you want to call them that.  I have the Fallout series, which I keep adding to, because more issues crop up all the time.  And I also am thankful to have the Guest Blogger series.  I hope that grows as well, I love having guest bloggers on!  I’ll admit that partly it lightens my blogging load, but mostly I like it for a two-fold reason: I get to be a venue for others to make their voices heard, and it validates our voice a little more.  I know none of you need convincing, but I feel with more people sharing a very similar story, it makes me feel like, “See!  I told you it’s a big problem!”

So the Ordinary Day series is just going to be posts where our family went through something typical without PTSD, SI or ED intruding.  I guess it will give you a snapshot into our regular lives.  Let me know what you think.

So, yesterday was Father’s Day.  My husband isn’t the type that likes a big fuss, so I tried to prepare the foods he liked and planned a simple activity in the afternoon.  Sunday is church day, so anything we did had to fit between the hours of 12:30-5:30 so that we can make morning and evening church.  Although my honey does enjoy a good steak, he really likes all those salad-y type dishes, so that’s what I made.  I’ll share with you a little about each dish, because I altered some stuff and it was really good!  Here’s the menu:

Turkey salad on homemade whole wheat bread: I roasted the turkey breast, cleaned the meat off, mixed it with celery, chives, chopped apple, mayo and onion salt/pepper.  I served it with sliced avocado and canned jellied cranberry sauce.  Not really a big fan of canned cranberry sauce, but it is good sliced on a turkey sandwich!

Broccoli salad: cut up broccoli florets, craisins, flaxseed, chopped sweet onion, bacon and pineapple

Greek style pasta salad: gluten-free pasta (Payne is gf), cubed cukes, halved cherry tomatoes, feta cheese, chopped sweet onion, green olives and minced cilantro.  I know cilantro isn’t necessarily a ‘greek’ herb but I love it.  I tossed it all with a bottled Greek salad dressing.

Tandycake: this is reminiscent of the Tasty Cake treat that you can buy.  You bake a yellow sponge cake then spread a good amount of peanut butter on top while the cake is still hot.  Let it all chill then spread melted semi sweet chocolate over top.  It’s a family favorite.  So easy, so yummy.  We also had some ice cream as a gluten-free option for Payne.

Homemade iced tea and pickles rounded out our menu which my husband declared two thumbs up!  Yay!

We then went to this river festival which we apparently arrived too late for, because no one was still there!  Not even the vendors! LOL  Oh well, we had a nice time walking along the banks of the river.  Someone left sidewalk chalk around the river walkways and the kids had a good time using that.  Dolorosa used her daddy’s name as an acrostic and wrote out character traits for him.  Grey drew boxes designed just for dads and their wives. Vale tried to draw a building of which Payne teasingly criticized.  He got her back by drawing a non-flattering picture of her and labeled it “My twin is a BatFace”.  Watching the two of them was too funny.

“That line is crooked!  What’s that supposed to be?? It’s pitiful” provoked Payne.

“Shut it Batface!” teased back Vale.
We ended up having some of the kids who are interested in photography take pictures of the same thing, but with their own composition and then they’ll edit it.  It will be neat to see how the photos come out.  I’m pretty sure my man had a good day.  It was kinda a bummer that we missed the River Festival activities, but my husband said it was a fun and relaxing afternoon.

Vale ate his lunch well, with no sneering or visible pickyness.  There wasn’t a hint of self harming anywhere.  Vale was pleasant and funny, making up his own little rock song of “BAT FACE!” to which his twin rolled her eyes.  Even Oldest Brother wasn’t difficult.  Hmmm, there was harmony.  What more could you ask for?

Fallout: New Friends (about the guys)

I was remiss in not mentioning some of the neat men that I’ve had the privilege to get to know via Twitter.  The dynamic is really different with them than it is the women or moms.  I don’t chat with them very often, so there isn’t this back and forth like there is typically with women, but I do consider them my friends.  These men embody the hope I have for Vale.  I see them speaking out, shaking some trees, being a force to be reckoned with.  I admire that so much.  I try to read every blog, retweet their struggles and successes and in the most simple of terms let them know that I hear them and have their backs.

I had the great gift of supporting Chris Gavaghan and his documentary “Coached into Silence” .  It was such a thrill to put my money where my mouth was, shake my fist and say, “Hailz to the Yes, we are Unashamed and Unembarassed!!  The men like Chris are blazing a trail that will make my son’s journey easier and I want to struggle with them at the grassroots level.  I can give to them everything that I would hope one would give to Vale when he is an adult.

Maybe it’s a little selfish, I do for them because I see Vale in them.  But I’d like to think it’s much more.  Now, we don’t tell each other secrets or share hopes and fears like I would do with another woman, but instead I am their cheerleader.  I’m so happy and content to be so.  In fact, I’m humbled that they let me.

Question:

How old is your son, and how long has he been self harming? I’m a sixteen year old girl, and I’ve been self harming for about four years, and my parents have only known for about a year. I like to see it from a parent’s point of view, because it helps me stop. Also, I really do enjoy your blog. It’s the first blog I’ve come across that is intelligent and from a parent’s point of view. Sorry I’m anonymous, I just don’t want my business broadcasted with my name by it. Ha.
Answer:

Hi !

Thanks for your question and all your kind thoughts.  I’m glad someone enjoys the blog and that it’s beneficial to someone else besides me!

My son is 14 and has been cutting for about a year.  He stopped for a short period, but picked it back up.  We didn’t come to know about it until 1 month ago today.

I’m so glad that you can see things from a parent’s point of view and more importantly that it’s helping you to stop.  Every time I see Vale’s arms I feel sick inside.  He’s my baby, my child.  It hurts so much, I can’t express it with words.  It’s wonderful that you’re trying to empathize with your parents and stop, at least partially, for their sake.  I would pray that you would stop for your own sake, because you learned to value the most amazing gift ever given, your life. =)

Totally understand the anonymity.  I don’t broadcast our names either. ;)

 

Question:

Question: RE your post on Vale: If you are struggling with having him tell his story over and over, maybe you could approach it from the perspective of writing? It might be safer if he has that distance. I know that’s helped me in the past.

I really like your posts so far. Thank you for talking about this issue. <3

Chungyenhttp://morereasonsyoushouldntfuckkids.tumblr.com/
Answer:

Hello,

Thanks for taking the time to read my blog and reply.  I’m really humbled that anyone is taking interest in this story.  I’m going to try to write about why I have started a blog, and actually one of the reasons is to bring this into the open.  It seems more culturally acceptable for girls to express their feelings etc, but it’s taboo or not manly for a boy or man.  Boys are self mutilators.  Boys have ED.  Boys are molested.  Boys need help.

I agree with you, writing is an incredible outlet, which is the other reason why I am blogging.  It’s cathartic for me.  We (his dad and I) do encourage Vale to express himself through writing and through art.  He has a journal where he writes poetry which is quite beautiful  (which I hope he lets me post one day) and he draws.  He also takes pictures and reflects his feelings through the edits.  In fact, you may be interested to know that Vale has started a tumblr blog as well, where he has posted some of his photography.  You might be interested in visiting that.  You can find the link for his blog on my page.

Thanks again for writing to me with your advice and support.  I appreciate it.

~Vale’s Mom