Thoughts today 28 August 2008

It has been a while since I have written in here. I guess it’s time to update myself on what has been happening.

The Well stop assessment on my son has been completed. The assessment itself took almost 10 hours or talking to my partner, my son and I to get a clear history of what the problem seems to be. There was also a lot of paperwork and questionaires to be done with this process. I am guessing so that they could ascertain if we were teling the truth or not.

There was also a part during the paperwork where we had to disclose all the organisations and support groups we had been with over the years. We gave as much comprehensive information as we could possibly think of that might help my son. We also gave permission for Well-Stop to approach any and all persons and organisations we had dealt with.

After the weeks of doing the initial history background we were told that the report itself would take around six weeks to be written, as they had to contact the people we had mentioned and get the read outs of the questionaires and whatever else they had to do in order to best ascertain how, or even if they could help us.

My understanding of the process to come is that they will compile their report and then get in touch with us before forwarding it on to people that require this information legally. We have also given written permission for any information found out during the course of their writing be forwarded on to anyone that may require this report.

We now wait for them to get back to us with their findings and their suggestions to come out.

People have asked me why we are going to all this trouble with my son. To them, they see a healthy boy of 13 who seems to not have a trouble in the world. Unfortunately, the picture my son portrays to the rest of the world isn’t necessarily the same picture we get given from him at home.

The last psychologist we saw prior to this course of action said that is because he feels safe and secure enouh at home to let some of his guards down and let some of the frustration and fury that is welling up inside of him out. Apparently it is vitally important to a child well being that they feel secure enough in their environment and be able to trust those around them enough to be able to let the darker side surface from time to time. However, when it comes to our son, his dark side can maybe one day cause someone to end up seriously hurt or worse, when it surfaces. But we are working on this with him on a very conscious basis every day.

As each passing day goes by, and as he gets older and wiser, our baby steps forward become more frequent and progressively easier. For every step we have to take backward, it was pointed out to me not so long ago, we take four or five step ahead. It would be selfish to ask that all steps taken be forward ones, but life does not work like that, even for normal people.

WellStop first visit

Well we went to the appointmet with this place. It went well. The process is long, but I am quietly confident that we may get the help that is required to help my son further, from here.

WellStop are an organisation that is funded to help sexual predators rehabilitate. That is about as simple as I can put it. It also helps people who ‘may’ offend to change their thought processes and behaviours before they offend. The latter is why we wanted our son to attend.

I believe that some behaviours can be genetic. Even though ninety per cent of how we behave is environmentally ordained, there is that ten per cent which is inherited through ones parents. Earlier this year, I found out that my son’s father is a predator. A convicted predator even. In all honesty, this news did not come as a surprise to me. The news did make a few things clearer to me and I felt like a complete idiot for not realising this when I was in the relationship with him. As they say, hindsight is a wonderful thing. It’s just a pity that I am too blind to what is going on around me to see things while they are actually happening.

During the course of the initial meeting, which took in excess of two hours, we filled in many forms. These forms were disclosure consent, mostly. Finding out which organisations we had been involved with, who we are involved with right now, and what measures we have taken to ensure the childrens safety.

We explained our ‘The big wall’ rules. These are basic rules where we ensure that personal space is maintained at all times between the children. A reinforcement of the words ‘no’ and ’stop’ and that these words mean exactly what they say they mean. If one says stop or no when they are playing or conversing with each other, then this request/demand is respected. We also have a few more rules on the list, but, to me, those are the important ones to mention.

During the form filling we also did the interview. This is where a thorough history is taken from the parents (and usually the child also, but this time we did not take our son) as to how we came to be in this place. This part of the process took us over an hour to get through. The therapist was exceptionally patient with us while we went through every occurance that we deemed to be inappropriate. He also took a lot of notes, which I think is great. With notes you can see what you have missed, or what you still may need to gather.

After a couple of hours, we made another appointment to bring along our son so that the rest of the initial stage of the assessment could go ahead. This appointment is coming up on Monday. So I shall look forward to writing more then.

My initial thoughts of this organisation are positive. If you have a child that has been traumatised by sexual molestation, you really need to seek help from people such as these. However, if you do seek help, expect it to take a long time, intially, because there is a lot of groundwork to be put in place.

Whatever happened to our child did not happen overnight. It came from years of abuse, that has only recently come to light to us as his parents. It would be naive and stupid to think that these problems, along with the PTSD problems will fade away overnight and that someone can fix them in one session.

Wellstop seem to me to truly want to help people in these situations. And it may take some time, but I am looking forward to being involved with these people, as I quite seriously think they can help us to help our son progress further along his travels.