Squirm monster!

So..here I am, ready to face and name the demons. I think.
What I won't be doing is details, oh they are there, branded in my mind....miraculously so in fact because I made my boys a promise. When they were so afraid, so sad, so incredibly and utterly damaged by the monster ( that's what I call him, no man or animal could possibly inflict the pain the monster caused) and they had been so cruelly and totally convinced by him that to tell would mean we ( the daddy and I) would hate them, I told them that they could tell me anything, ANYTHING and I would love them, there was nothing I could hear that would change how I loved them and they believed me ( Thankyou dear Lord).

How unfair was that to have spent their whole lives loving them , gaining trust, forging a bond you feel is sure to be unbreakable.....to have it smashed and ruined in--- how long? How long did he have my sons? What sort of question is that that I can't answer? In however long he had them he had convinced the, my boys, that THEY were bad, THEY were doing wrong and if they told..we would send them away, hate them, throw them out. For that, I would like to face the monster and make him hurt just a fraction of how I hurt, for that alone.
They escaped you see, from the monster, and while they were gone they hadn't been missed, now I knew that I would have missed them if they had been gone long enough for this much damage to be done and I asked Daniel, when I knew it was true, when I saw in my son's eyes that what the police were telling me had happened had really and hideously happened. " Dan, where was daddy when the man had you?" " oh, he was looking after us"
"where was mummy?" " out with Gaye" ( Oh sweet relief, it wasn't me.....I hadn't been the one after all, small relief-- but sweet enough for me).
This is where my robotic abilities came in to play. My boys believed me, while Dan was running in the doctor's empty waiting room ( opened especially for me and my 4 year old boy) and was jumping from one chair to the next, he asked me if I meant it, that I would still love him even if he had been really really bad. He believed me and he began to tell me what had happened..in his sweet little squeaky voice, while his skinny legs jumped and leapt and he looked at the wall and he yelled at the window and I was calm and I told him how incredible he was, what a good boy he was to tell me his 'secrets' I loved him so much, I was so proud of him and we told the police lady and we told the doctor and she checked him and told him what a good boy he was and how brave he was too. My boy saw that he COULD tell me anything, that I would listen and would think and then we would talk about how great He was and how very very bad the man was because big people should never ever do these things to little boys or little girls and if anything ever happened that made him afraid and sad he could shout and yell and tell whoever he wanted and they would always tell him what a good boy he is.
So being a robot worked...imagine how hard it was to begin with...no details remember, because there are sick people out there and there is no way I will ever give any sick person any kind of fuel to indulge in their depravity, while the majority might read and be horrified there might be just one more monster who might get their kicks...so because we don't have monsters in our house and because no purpose can be served by voicing the sordid details, they can stay where they are.

When I told my boys that they could tell me anything... I also told them that they could get out anything that was in their heads...spit it out of their mouths and I would catch it and keep it in MY head and I wouldn't let it out, if they let it go, if they gave it to me, I would shut it away and they could fill the space with good stuff, little boy stuff.
I explained that as a mummy I would know how to get rid of it so it couldn't hurt them anymore and I would be so proud of them if they could let me do that. they believed me, isn't that just the best thing? Two little boys who had been hurt by a monster who thought he had done a good job, thought he had grabbed and ruined that perfection and snatched the innocence...well squirm monster, because you can't beat ME! You didn't get MY children....you did your thing but guess what! I did MINE and I'm good at it.

I made my children see that there was nothing I couldn't do and they believed me, they trusted me. There will never be a greater gift than when my boys showed me that they trusted me...but it was only me....they wouldn't speak to another soul, just me. So......they told me. Everything. in babies words and pure innocence I heard what the monster had done. Now children aren't mini adults, you can't lay them on a couch and say "what happened sweetie?" they tell you what happened when it pops into their heads and they spit it out and then they stop...until the next time.
4 months. It took 4 months to hear every detail. Pretty much every day something new would come out....watching a childrens' show about a little boy who went to the park.... " Oh! Oh! PLEASE get your daddy.....oh don't be in the park without your daddy........oh mummy when I was in the park without my daddy........" Can you get the picture?
Of course there was the appointments, endless ones, social workers and psychologists and doctors...and me. I heard, I stored, I told and I dealt.

There were times when those things I heard from my little boys were so hard to hear, when they seared their evil way from my babies mouths and into my soul that I would wail in my heart... but not a sound would escape from my mouth because I had promised and a mother must keep her promise, so I smiled....and I told those boys how strong they were and how sad I was that they had had to go through that but it was fine because now I had the bad stuff in my grown up head and I would deal with it and they didn't ever need to worry about it anymore, but if for some reason they did and some of it was too scary to let go of, they could come back and tell me again and I would try harder to take it away. And the telling of how big people should never do to little people etc etc.

Sometimes, I would feel that if I couldn't get rid of some of this evil I would be consumed by it and stupidly I would try and share some of it, when my boys were asleep and I was alone I would call someone and try to talk about it....but some things aren't meant to be shared and some things are so terrible that people just can't hear it and so I stopped trying and I swallowed it all......simply amazing what the mind can do and what the heart can handle. We are miracles, I am in no doubt about that.....how often have I heard that old saying that God doesn't give us what we can't handle? I feel differently about this on different days. If I tell you what I feel today I will read it next week and scoff! In any case, God didn't give me this trial....He didn't stop it because of free agency and the monster used his to hurt my boys. What God did is help me heal my boys . This isn't up for debate, this is my journal and in my journal this is the truth. I know it.

I know now why I am able to write about some of the things that I feel, especially about this part of my heart and mind and that is because I am healing too. My boys are grown and I have been holding my breath to see if they were going to be OK and I see that they are. They are magnificent. They are happy. They are good people. You can have no idea what that means to be able to say that and to know, to absolutely know that I DID IT!

I have battled with such guilt and such overwhelming fear about my sons and here, right now, I feel an emotion and overwhelming sense of exhilaration because my heart is healing over this particular pain. Somewhere, if I think hard enough and concentrate deeply enough I suspect that there is enormous pride inside me somewhere for this thing I did. I think, in this instance, perhaps pride has come after the fall....I have managed to drag my sons from the depth of misery where the monster hoped they would stay and we are basking in the light.....get back into the deepest misery monster, because we didn't bring you with us.....we kicked you in the face and we laughed when you fell.