I have been musing about this post for a while. 'Coming Out' is a tough call in all sorts of situations. I remember when I had SPD I was given some crutches. I didn't leave the house except on Sundays to go to church, and even then I would try to get there early and hide the crutches under the pew so no one might notice. There is something horrible about standing out and being different, even worse when it is a dysfunction.
I have a thesis that the second most difficult thing of all to admit is childhood sexual abuse (csa), (the first being paedophilia) but I have been trying to tease out why that should be. Many people have commented on my blog when I write about csa, encouraging me to write more, and they are invariably 'anonymous' (not that I mind at all - please keep on commenting).
I just wonder why those who have been abused suffer the double burden of being silenced. When people suffer then they are normally comforted, and this is right and good. When children lose parents, or suffer disease or witness tragedy, they are comforted. Someone feels sorry for them. We know that csa can trump all of these things in terms of suffering, why is it that when they are adults they cannot speak of it?
I have no idea, but these are my musings:
1. They were silenced as children and blamed themselves, and these messages go on into adulthood.
2. A crime has been committed, and therefore by admitting it they are accusing another of a heinous act that they have no concrete evidence to substantiate.
3. They don't want to be labelled as an abuse victim and fear others won't see past it.
4. Society doesn't want to know - it wants people to shut up when they tell stories of torture and cruelty to children in their midst.
5. Society won't accept people with troubled personal lives as priests or doctors or lawyers etc. A mask has to remain in place so we can project on to them an image of what we want them to be like.
6. Those who tell their stories are labelled as spilling their guts gratuitously, and therefore are considered unstable.
7. The fear that another will guess how perilously the survivor has lived between death and life.
8. They fear that they will be rejected by bosses, family and friends.
9. They fear that suspicion will fall on their beloved dad or other innocent family members.
10. They fear that the truth would devastate their parents.
(Rats - came up with a list of ten again)
Of course, I know all this because I am a survivor myself. So why would I wish to made that known? I believe that the taboo of talking about abuse is really harsh on those of us for whom it is the single most formative thing in our lives; it gives a continuous feeling of shame, of hiding something. I believe survivors have something positive to contribute so we might find healing as a society. I want to discuss the subject more, but I have felt like a hypocrite by not admitting my own past.
6 comments:
Lesley,
Thank you for posting on this topic and being so open. The only reason I post as anonymous is that I am protecting someone other than myself from further potential hard. By identifying myself, I by proxy indentify them.
I believe that you are quite right with the 10 items listed. The reality is that guilt plays a huge part in this, guilt that perhaps we were somehow to blame, guilt that we perhaps put a family member into the hand of the law, with all of its consequences, guilt that we allowed it to happen through fear of the consequences to us if we fought against it.
The burden carried by those abused through any means, whether sexual, physical violence or just mental torture is enormous and guilt is the key to all of their suffering.
I think that I have been explicit that I was both physically and mentally abused, while my older sister suffered this, along with sexual abuse. She says now that she allowed it to happen to protect me and my younger sister - thereby offloading an additional burden of guilt on to both of us.
I am sure that she is correct, but I have been fortunate in being able to lay the guilt aside and to be reconciled. I can even pray for the long dead abuser. She cannot and remains in a dark place.
However, I have seen some signs of hope in that having shared our childhood care records with her, she has been able to lay at least a small part aside. I continue to pray for her and my younger sister that all three of us are able to be both reconciled with the past and re-united in unconditional family love.
I sometimes wonder about the efficacy of the support provided to the abused. I am unsure that counseling or reliving their experiences actually helps, albeit, I know that facing it is part of recovery. Forgiveness is the thing that is really needed for release, and that can be so hard to find in our hearts. I think that we do not do enough in this line for those abused to help them to forgive and to mend. How can the church help? Well, to put forgiveness higher up on the agenda. We practice the Sacrament of Confession and Absolution, and I was fortunate to receive healing ministry, laying on of hands and anointing with oils, which helped me very much. It needs to be more widely available and not just for the sick and dying.
Lesley,
I had absolutely no idea that you are yourself a survivor of csa. It was an incredibly brave thing to do to break the taboo and declare this publicly. For all the reasons you have given it cannot have been an easy thing to do.
I am sure you are helping a lot of people by 'coming out' about this, and giving them hope. I get to speak to many people who were abused as children, and know how it can destroy someone's spirit, sense of self-esteem, and often the will to live.
Your blog is truly an inspiration and like a daily dose of sanity.
I don't have time to comment further because I'm at work - though there is much more I would like to say.
I'm not a survivor of csa so I feel unworthy to comment on that other than to say your words ring true with regards the reaction of "Society" and as others have said I applaud your candour and openness.
I do wonder if there is another side to why people do not mention such things. My wife also had SPD for both our children, being housebound for the final month of the 1st pregnancy. I recall her fear when going to the ante-natal classes. The reaction from the other mothers was tangible. Ranging from shock to fear (will this happen to me) to relief (glad that it hasn't) and then obvious guilt and awkwardness.
That guilt and awkwardness was also found in us. We didn't want to be the ones who caused others to feel so awkward. Nobody knew how to react around us and this made it all the worse. I do wonder whether there is a similar set of guilt surrounding csa. I have friends who are survivors and I know they have said one thing they fear in telling people is the huge silence that follows. Such things tend to cause those awkward and prolonged silences and I wonder whether "Society" also prefers not to know because they just don't know how to react.
This in itself is bad but I am sure it can only be resolved by survivors like yourself speaking out and showing the world that we can still speak to you afterwards. If we look at other former taboo subjects such as sexual orientation, we can see that as more people are prepared to be open about it, the awkwardness that follows "coming out" diminishes.
Thanks again for your post.
Dear Anonymous, yes I know that you remain so to protect your sister - it wouldn't be fair to out her. I found for myself that until I relived it all I couldn't make sense of my life. However, there was a long period of panic attacks and endless feelings of dread which made others question whether it was worth it. I think you are right about the sacraments. It could be good to make them more widely available, to pronounce forgiveness of sin and healing more often.
Hi Iain, thank-you for your kind words. Feel sort of thankful that you hadn't twigged that I had suffered csa :)
Hi Crimperman, I find your thoughts really helpful and illuminating. I may borrow them for a post on SPD if that is ok? It makes sense of some of my behaviour at the time, and yes it is relevant for csa too.
I'm pretty ignorant about life, but I have had several women open up to me about csa. But, you know. I can't speak for them individually. It is their story, and somehow they have imparted their feeling of isolation to me. Perhaps because they sensed my own isolation and possible consequent empathy they felt able to open up. I feel that same reluctance to show their pain to the world. I can hardly believe that a woman doesn't open up to her friends, but will to me. Different cultures? England vs America? Stiff upper lip?
I will say that the most devastating story is not from the csa itself, but being ignored when seeking help. Perhaps that is partial answer to your mystery. "I failed then, will I fail now?"
Hi Lesley,
Feel free to use the comments in a future post.
Cheers,
Crimperman
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