I was browsing the computer and decided to stop by and write a little note and/or update--having problems dealing with my depression due to sexual abuse, but now dealing with my 10 yr olds depression also due to sexual abuse by a"family friend" what do you do??? My main concern is that he gets help and he is now enter into a program that deals with sexual abuse for kids--the problem is getting him to talk about it to his therapist--so we decided to let him know he wasn't alone in this worlds problem--I let him know I never told and never got help hoping this will help him understand
he has this chance to get help and continue with a healthy and happy life--this all came out when he was being bullied at school (for over a year) and no-one would help and he took a knife to school to scare the child so he would leave him alone and others also--one thing we found kept happening was the child was calling my son a queer, fag and other names that would set my son "off"-was baker acted for evaluation and thats when we were told about the abuse--let me tell you this was the hardest thing in my life I have ever heard and had to deal with-of course it brought back memories and of course not good ones. I'm in process of going back into therapy myself to deal with this-but can anyone suggest ways I can help my son learn to talk to therapist to get the help he needs????
Hi, Ladygraycloud. I'm sorry this happened to your son. He might not be able to talk about it very well at his age, but I think it's his therapist's job to get him to talk about it. They might try play therapy and perhaps there are other ways they use with kids this age. The same thing happened to me at various ages and I'm not sure I would have been able to talk very much. I wish my parents had gotten help for me, but in those days, it wasn't talked about or acknowledged and the shame ended up being on the victim. You're doing the best you can to help him. Maybe the therapist has some ideas about this and it might be the case that he can only do so much with this now but could work with it more when he's a little older. Is the therapist skilled in trauma therapy? That's one thing I'd want to know because there is one method I know of, EMDR, that can help even the youngest children to be freed of the lingering effects.
I hope you'll let us know how he's doing and yourself, as well. I used to think it was no big deal, but I discovered many years later that, along with a lot of other stuff, it did, indeed, influence how I felt about myself. The way it was handled was also a factor, so you're really doing well with that. Take care.