healing-from-abuse

Commit to the healing path and trust the process.

She's terrified that all these sensations and images are coming out of her _ but I think she's even more terrified to find out why." Carla's description was typical of survivors of chronic childhood abuse. Almost always, they deny or minimize the abusive memories. They have to: it's too painful to believe that their parents would do such a thing.

In situations of captivity the perpetrator becomes the most powerful person in the life of the victim, and the psychology of the victim is shaped by the actions and beliefs of the perpetrator.

Because we were treated neglectfully and abusively in our young years__hen we most needed self-love to be mirrored__t was difficult to hold onto_We take up the challenge of learning to love ourselves, through our highs & our lows, when we are finding acceptance from others and when we are being closed out and rejected.

Jake guessed Henry had been pulling shit like this on him so long that Eddie only noticed it when Henry pulled it on someone else _ someone like the blonde ticket-seller.

As we move away from the old role in which we were helplessly entrapped as a victim, we make friends with the people who affirm us. Their enthusiasm about us mirrors the positive experience we are having.

In the grief that comes with recognizing what happened to us, we often feel there is nowhere to turn for solace_We do things to keep it away, such as becoming overly busy or using drugs or alcohol to numb our feelings. When we are caught up in resistance, we do not feel hope, but when we surrender to our sadness fully, hope trickles in.

I no longer look to my abusers with any expectation_ of remorse, or apology or restitution or restoration or relationship. I__ at peace, accepting that they won__ and can__ help me out of the mess they created. But, I__ the best qualified for that job anyway and I__ happy with the job I__ doing.

Admitting the need for help may also compound the survivor's sense of defeat. The therapists Inger Agger and Soren Jensen, who work with political refugees, describe the case of K, a torture survivor with severe post-traumatic symptoms who adamantly insisted that he had no psychological problems: "K...did not understand why he was to talk with a therapist. His problems were medical: the reason why he did not sleep at night was due to the pain in his legs and feet. He was asked by the therapist...about his political background, and K told him that he was a Marxist and that he had read about Freud and he did not believe in any of that stuff: how could his pain go away by talking to a therapist?

Society gives the image of sexual violators as weird, ugly, anti-social, alcoholics. Society gives the impression that violators kidnap children are out of their homes and take them to some wooded area and abandon them after the violation. Society gives the impression that everyone hates people who violate children. If all of these myths were true, healing would not be as challenging as it is. Half of our healing is about the actual abuse. The other half is about how survivors fit into society in the face of the myths that people hold in order to make themselves feel safe. The truth is that 80% of childhood sexual abuse is perpetrated by family members. Yet we rarely hear the word __ncest_. The word is too ugly and the truth is too scary. Think about what would happen if we ran a campaign to end incest instead of childhood sexual abuse. The number one place that children should know they are safe is in their homes. As it stands, as long as violators keep sexual abuse within the family, the chances of repercussion by anyone is pretty low. Wives won__ leave violating husbands, mothers won__ kick their violating children out of the home, and violating grandparents still get invited to holiday dinners. It is time to start cleaning house. If we stop incest first, then we will strengthen our cause against all sexual abuse.

But it is. It__ something you need, and that__ a long way from nothing. If you need it, Eddie, we need it. What we don__ need is a man who can__ let go of the useless baggage of his memories.

When someone forces you - he unkindly borrows- he does not, can not own you- Remember your body, spirit and heart are yours and only yours, and when you start to process your sexual abuse you will get it all back.

Healing isn__ just about pain. It__ about learning to love yourself. As you move from feeling like a victim to being a proud survivor, you will have glimmers of hope, pride and satisfaction. Those are natural by-products of healing.

For change to occur in us, we must be willing to enter the wilderness of the unknown and to wander in unfamiliar territory, directionless and often in the darkness....We do not need to keep every little thing under control. In fact, we find ourselves only by allowing some falling apart to happen.

When shame is met with compassion and not received as con_mation of our guilt, we can begin to see how slant a lens it has had us looking through. That awareness lets us step back far enough to see that if we can let it go, we will see ourselves as clean where we once thought we were dirty. We will remember our innocence. We will see how our shame supported a system in which the perpetrators were protected and we bore the brunt of their offense _ first in its actuality, then again in carrying their shame for it.If the method we chose to try to beat out shame was perfectionism, we can relax now, shake the burden off our shoulders, and give ourselves a chance to loosen up and make some errors. Hallelujah! Our freedom will not come from tireless effort and getting it all exactly right.

Why Is It So Important to Remember?When you were abused, those around you acted as if it weren__ happening. Since no one else acknowledged the abuse, you sometimes felt that it wasn__ real. Because of this you felt confused. You couldn__ trust your own experience and perceptions. Moreover, others_ denial led you to suppress your memories, thus further obscuring the issue.You can end your own denial by remembering. Allowing yourself to remember is a way of confirming in your own mind that you didn__ just imagine it. Because the person who abused you did not acknowledge your pain, you may have also thought that perhaps it wasn__ as bad as you felt it was. In order to acknowledge to yourself that it really was that bad, you need to remember as much detail as possible. Because by denying what happened to you, you are doing to yourself exactly what others have done to you in the past: You are negating and denying yourself.

Unspeakable feelings need to find expression in words. However... verbalization of very intense feelings may be a difficult task.

Complexly traumatized children need to be helped to engage their attention in pursuits that do not remind them of trauma-related triggers and that give them a sense of pleasure and mastery. Safety, predictability, and "fun" are essential for the establishment of the capacity to observe what is going on, put it into a larger context, and initiate physiological and motoric self-regulation.