My Son Now Confirms Sexual Abuse

by Concerned Mom
(USA)

Did it happen or was it a dream: 
My son was troubled, I thought from the abuse he received when visiting his dad. I took him to doctors and talked to attorneys. Both said that if I tried to stop the visitation that the courts would automatically give him to the abuser for up to 6 months to see if the father could have full or 1/2 custody. The docs and attorneys recommended against that since two weeks of abuse is better than 6 months to a lifetime. The doctors gave my son tools on how to handle his dad's and grandma's constant abuse emotionally, verbally and at times physically. My son's odd behavior was ripping his fingernails out, tying himself to the furniture when his dad came to pick him up or hiding so we couldn't find him. All of that stopped when his dad finally got the message that he was harming the children, so mostly, verbal abuse continued. All abuse was reported, but nothing was done about it. I moved the children to another state so there would be less contact with those people, but still had to by court order send them on non-supervised visits.

Later, at the pleas of my sons to find them a stepdad, I considered more to marry the man I had been dating. I thought the kids liked him. Both boys where very jealous of any attention I got from anyone through the years, and they would act their worst no matter who talked to me, even in church if anyone talked to me they would have a possessive fit. Soon my oldest grew out of that.

My youngest told me about an after school special movie on TV he watched while they where waiting for me to come home from work. Apparently the movie was about a kid that claimed that the mom's boyfriend or husband (I don't remember) was sexually molesting her/him when it wasn't true. The child did it because they were angry with the man. I didn't understand why this movie impressed my son so much. We talked about it, that it wasn't right to do that and that the child should have talked about the anger.

Ok, in the next few months my son started having behavior problems. I'm not sure why. Of course a lot of it is his bad treatment by his dad and his stepmom and his grandma torturing him with her catty sharp tongue.

My son came down with bronchitis and was put on antibiotics. After a few days, he was getting better, well enough to run around, so I thought. My boyfriend invited us over, and his boys and their cousin were there. The cousin was of age and was a babysitter, and we have been around them quite a bit, so I thought nothing about going out for an hour with my boyfriend, but when we got back, my son had a temperature of 103+ and was drenched. He was soaked from head to toe. They said he just got sick all of a sudden. My son was walking waverly and was a bit out of it. After getting his fever down he was fine. And that was it, we went home.

Later my son told me of the boyfriend's oldest son molesting him and he didn't know if it was a dream or if it was real. Of course I went into the worst shock I ever experienced and doubt to this day many years later I ever came out of it. We talked. I called the police and asked what to do. They told me that until my son would come out and say it wasn't a dream they couldn't do anything about it. I immediately called the boyfriend and told him about what my son was saying, and told him that there was to be no more contact. The boyfriend took his kids to two lie detectors and also tortured his boys for any truth. The lie detectors came back inconclusive, though the boyfriend told me it was negative, but I talked to the man that gave the test: neither lying nor telling the truth. He said that there was no way of knowing for sure.

I believed my son the best I could and treated as if he was tell me something had really happened. My son had a few graphic details, which shouldn't be in any child's mind, yet at the same time they had come home from their dad's telling me about the graphic movies that he let them watch, and since I didn't have cable I knew that they didn't see that stuff at home.

Many months passed. I had him to the doctors hoping to get to the bottom of it. Between the high fever, the bad movies and his fear of my boyfriend taking his mom away, I did believe that there was a chance that it was a dream. I tried to talk to him, and he kept saying it was a dream, he also said he had nothing against the boyfriend or the sons and that he missed them and it was ok to be with them.

Years later we had married, and the oldest was caught going through everyone's rooms and the sons were stealing from my kids. My son's reaction was out of the world, and then I remembered about his dream, so I put a lock on his door, and he seemed happy with that. Later he was having behavior problems again, and that "dream" was eating at me, so I talked to him again, and did everything I could to give him a safe place to talk...

Nothing, so back to the doctors, where they were told of the dream. Yet my son wouldn't talk about it. This is back and forth back and forth. About six doctors later and my son is a grown adult and we live separate from his stepdad and his sons, because my son's health was getting worse, in fact we moved to a different state. In one of my son's explosive violent moods he tells me it wasn't a dream, it did happen. He was a mess but refused to go to the authorities. I told him when he was ready to I was behind him 100%.

Well, that is today. My son is in the hospital, and today he says he needs help and wants help, then tells me all of us will be charged. Yes, including me, because he believes that I let it happen. Today I believe he was molested. Today I believe that he was molested by that oldest son, but only 95%, because I have memories that my son as a toddler would come home from his dad's wearing 3-4 pairs of underwear, and I always thought that odd. (Of course his doctor was told). I don't like the oldest son. I found him to be creepy and a huge liar. I wished I never met those people, but also, I understand because of my son's past before I met those people, that my son had behavior problems that today look much like bipolar. His tough life makes things worse.

But today he is asking for help and today he is willing to take medication. I hope he continues and gets on his feet. I'm behind him 100% even though he says that he is sending me to jail. It hurts to no end that he thinks I "allowed" it to happen. I can't imagine what kind of parent could do that. Not this one. My biggest crime was trusting those people and trusting those doctors to find the truth, so my crime is ignorance, stupidity, and I hate myself for that. It is torturing thoughts every minute of every day. I didn't protect my son well enough, and my son will have to live with the memories to haunt him for a lifetime.

Another upset is that after all the times I had him to doctors, he was left untreated. I thought they were the experts. I don't know what to think now.

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