Pee Shrine
Oh yea. I discovered yesterday that my son has developed a shrine ‘O pee in his bedroom. I can tell you guys are all jealous! I bet YOU don’t have a pee shrine in YOUR house!
I knew that something was amuck when the hallway of our new house began to smell like urine. Hmmm…..
I confronted the child closest to that part of the hallway, who had also been known to pee in his garbage can and on the carpet in our previous house (we were living in a rental, so we had to have the carpets cleaned frequently in that house – not fun!). Denying anything was wrong, he insisted that he was NOT peeing in his bedroom this time. I told him that I didn’t believe him, but I remained in denial for a while longer. That smell will go away if I just ignore it, right?!
Yesterday, I told the therapist about the strange odor emanating from his room. During his therapy session, she confronted him about what was going on there. He finally admitted to having multiple bottles and containers filled with urine under his bed. Yuck! I tried to remain composed, but part of me was a little grossed out, to be honest (not to mention when I actually SAW the 8 container pee shrine under the bed!).
When wounded children aren’t talking about their anger, many times they begin to “pee” their anger out. It’s a way of getting those icky feelings out of them….not the healthiest way, but a way, nonetheless. Some of them pee on their carpet; some down the register in their room (a particularly smelly option); some in the family’s laundry basket full of towels. All for the same reasons….to get their anger out. (I have also heard of kiddos peeing in different places in the house simply to try to make mom’s job harder, but this is still a method of getting their rage at mom out.)
Our therapist is amazing at dealing with this issue. She asked my son if he wanted a real pee shrine in his room. He looked at her like she was crazy. She continued, “If you really like pee that much and want to keep it around you, let’s forget this under-the-bed kind of thing. You need to have it on top of your dresser!” He told her that he wasn’t interested, and she informed him that if he wanted to have a pee shrine on top of his dresser (a container he’d have to pee in every day for a while and keep on top of his dresser), that he’d let us know through his actions. And when we got home….guess who was cleaning out his room and getting rid of the containers full of pee. Yah! No more pee shrine! The hallway smells WAY better! :) I LOVE our therapist!!
Okay, I hope this doesn’t feel like I’m trying to top you or anything… But our L pee’d so much in the room that we had to pull up the carpet (and, we were renting, so sayonara to the security deposit). But the best was the night he pee’d INTO the electrical outlet, SHOCKING himself, and setting off the breaker for his room. When we turned the breaker back on, smoke poured out of the outlet – so he was without power till it all dried out.
I can laugh now, but when it happened… Oh the things we deal with in parenting traumatized kids…
I loved this story, thanks for sharing. Helps to know we’re not alone.
Oh no….don’t worry about sounding like you’re trying to top my story! I’m actually glad to have others share their stories!!!!!! I know that there are lots of worse stories out there of bodily functions than the ones we have! Luckily, we’ve only had a few of them… peeing on the carpet and in bottles, and then one story of poop being smeared (and it was in the bathroom, thank goodness!). (Oh, and the infamous butt wiped on my side of the sheets…that was a fun one!) I am so thankful we haven’t had much more!!!
Yuck!! You know there’s a lot of pee when you have to pull up the carpet!! I’m glad that when we were in a rental, they peed on the carpet but not nearly enough to have to pull up the carpet. We just had to have the carpets cleaned a few times!
Wow….peeing on the outlet?!! Was he hurt??!! I’m glad you can laugh at it now!! (It is actually a hysterical story, but not one I would have wanted to go through personally!) I still have stuff that I can’t really laugh at yet (aka: the sheet incident!). Some of those things still just make me feel a little sick to my stomach! I’m kinda glad that he didn’t have power in his room for a while…that’s a nice little natural consequence without having to work one up!!
Yeah…we really deal with a lot of junk as parents of wounded kids.
I have a three year old, who is very angry, almost every single symptom there is for RAD shows in her-besides the sexual aspects. She urinates everywhere. At friends houses, family, counselor’s office, stores, in the car, in the bathroom, but on the floor in front of the toilet. I love her very much, and I really want to bond with her, but between the constant hassle of the urination, the whining, temper tantrums, violence towards herself and others(she wraps blankets around my 1 year old’s neck and tried to choke him 2 times that I have caught so far- she almost bit through my 2 year old’s cheek-looked like she was punched with a set of teeth- her pulling us in to push us away, and her attachment to others that she will not show us- and she don’t even know these other people, it has become impossible. I need advice. Please if someone has lived through this, please help. Thanks