Helping Gabriel heal, feel safe again and move foward.

There is a dark history that goes with this story from a man that shows the outside world a very different version of himself to what I had to endure, and still do but this isn't about me, this about my 9 year old son.

I picked him up from school the Tuesday after the long weekend, he had been with his father for his usual week on, but something wasn't quite right, he was upset with me! I did foresee this to some degree, Gabriel was meant to be camping with me that weekend as his father had a function to attend! Thankfully that Tuesday morning, I had emailed Gabriel’s teacher to ask if she could arrange that he sees the Wellbeing Officer at his school because I knew he would have strong feelings about the weekend…Thank God I did…

After pick up, while we were grocery shopping, Gabriel whispered in my ear that an incident had occurred over the weekend, everything slowed down as I registered what he had said, given that there had be two other minor incidents that didn’t sit right with me, on the previous two occasions he had been with his father, I quickly paid for our groceries and came home, where he shared the whole story… I told him, that he needed to tell me the whole truth, everything that had happened, to not exaggerate anything and he did. I have taken all the necessary actions to protect Gabriel. 

The first couple of weeks Gabriel had nightmares and won’t sleep in his bed and still sleeps with me, he wouldn’t and still won’t attend soccer without me there, I had to pick him up from the classroom everyday but slowly we have moved to me being at “pick up” when the bell rings. We have a safety plan and Gabriel knows what he can do and who he can speak to if anything were to happen or his father showed up unexpectedly or uninvited. Small reminders of his father, understandably bring up big emotions. 

I’m finding it overwhelming too, I have no family in Australia to help with the day-to day support and I’ve been struggling to keep it all together emotionally and have started seeing a counsellor to deal with the fallout from the incident and figure out ways and strategies to best support Gabriel.

As a single mom there isn't much room in the budget for all the additional expenses we are incurring, not just the extra expense that naturally comes with Gabriel now living with me full-time. The time off work I have already taken and still need to take off so he can attend fortnightly psychology appointments, the looming court day, lawyers’, everything, it’s all adding up. I've tried to withdraw a small amount from my super fund based on compassionate grounds, and had the required forms signed by 2 medical practitioners but Gabriel needs to be seeing a psychiatrist not a psychologist to be officially diagnosed with chronic anxiety disorder and that could be months away!!

I love him more and mostest and I'm asking for help, if you feel promted in your heart to give anything, anything at all to help ease the financial pressure so that we can focus instead on slowly get out lives back to as normal as it will be and I can help him heal, keep him safe and we can move forward not only from this incident but from the years of abuse that I also suffered.

Forever grateful, Candice