Family Closure After Sexual Abuse – Part 1
Hello? It’s Your Molester’s Therapist Calling
A couple of weeks before Thanksgiving, Honyay pulled me aside when I got home from work. I was already in a frantic state from work drama, kid pickup, and rush hour traffic, but I had no idea what was coming next.
“You’ll never guess who called me while I was cooking dinner.”
Distracted with my mental to-do list, I said, “Mmm?”
“Willy’s therapist.”
Wait……what the everliving WHAT?!?!?
The Last Time We Saw Our Daughter’s Abuser, It Was Also a Surprise
We hadn’t heard anything from Willy in 15 months. After we reported that he
We didn’t see him again until…a week later. At a minor league baseball game.
I know, right???
We decided to take the kids out for some fun family time to give us all a break from the emotional intensity of the past week. As we were walking to our seats, we heard some kids calling out to Captain Starburst. When I turned around, I saw Willy with some friends who also knew Captain Starburst (clearly, his friends were unaware of the situation) sitting 6 rows behind us. I almost threw up.
It was superhero night at the baseball game. Princess Milkface
All of a sudden, what was a humorous, somewhat off-target costume choice by my 5-year-old became an indictment against my poor parental judgment. I berated myself for everything and was about to take my panic out on Princess Milkface.
What sort of mother would let her daughter wear something so inappropriate to a baseball game in public?
No wonder she got molested. Look at how you’re dressing her.
No, please NO. Please don’t put your feet up on the seat so your skirt slides around! He can see you!
I turned to Honyay with a look of desperation and said, “Please. We have to move. I can’t sit here.” He didn’t know the shame that was smothering me at that point, but he was equally happy to get away from that environment.
Thankfully, there were lots of open seats (I guess Superhero Night wasn’t a huge draw…maybe it should have been Moana Night after all). We found a good spot on the opposite side of the field, and I found a $3 beer.
When I shared how I was feeling as we were walking around the field, Honyay reassured me that I didn’t do anything wrong. He reminded me that no matter what she was wearing (much less a Disney
Ahh…but I digress. Quite a bit, actually. I can relate to my two teenage ADHD-diagnosed children far more than I should at this age.
Meeting our Sexual Abuser’s Therapist
So…Willy. Therapist. Phone call.
The therapist said Willy has reached the point in his therapy where he would like to apologize to all of us if we are open to it. Honyay and I prayed over this for at least a week.
We called the therapist and shared what God had put on our hearts. We decided to invite Captain Starburst and proceed with the meeting. We opted not to include Princess Milkface. She had moved on, and none of this was remotely on her radar.
We also requested that a condition of the meeting be that Willy writes a letter of apology to Princess Milkface, so we can save it for her in the future. The therapist agreed and recommended that we do a pre-meeting with him first, so he could share what’s happened over the past 15 months and prepare us for the MEETING meeting.
We planned to meet with the therapist for no more than an hour and left his office 2-1/2 hours later.
We learned that Willy had been taking his treatment very seriously, and his heart was changing.
We learned that his abuse of Princess Milkface was learned behavior because he was also a victim.
We learned that God’s timing was perfect, as always. Had this intervention not happened when it did, months before his 18th birthday, the trajectory of Willy’s life could have been very different.
We learned that Willy believes we saved his life by catching him and reporting his abuse of Princess Milkface.
While we never would have chosen this path, we are humbled that God chose to equip us and use us to protect two of his children through this trial.
Tonight, we will be seeing Willy for the first time since that weird baseball game. My emotions have been all over the board for the past few days in anticipation of this meeting. One of my friends said it best…she said she’ll be praying for us to be Jesus to Willy tonight. I ask for that prayer from anyone who happens to read this post today.
We weren’t necessarily looking for this closure, but we believe it is being offered as a gift through God’s grace. For us, for Willy…not really sure. Maybe both.
