Considerations in Healing Post Abuse Part 2
Childhood sexual abuse is something I want to discuss more about because most people, even most mental health professionals, avoid or dodge it. One of the reasons is because we don’t have great dialogue around sex in general. In our American society, we have very mixed messages about puritanism and over-the-top sexuality. Another reason is because trauma-informed therapy often gives practitioners the impression that sexually abused people are extremely delicate. Sexual abuse survivors are anything but delicate; they are some of the strongest people you will ever met, despite being violated and betrayed. As a mental health professional, I believe it is imperative for us to see the strength of survivors and help them learn to own this strength, instead of their trauma. Well-intentioned people are often scared to make things worse by accidentally saying the wrong thing, but the thing that hurts survivors the most is often when no one says anything at all. I am so appreciative of people who bravely lean in with good intentions to show care, even though they risk saying the wrong thing and igniting feelings in the survivor.
I have observed people online and on social media really pushing the idea that trauma is held in the act, but this is not really true. Trauma is actually in how we hold it in our minds and our bodies. It is in the messages we receive and the messages we create from that event. Lots of factors impact whether or not something is going to encode traumatically, such as age, the duration of the abuse, the frequency, the intensity, how much support is available, what kind of enriched life this person is leading in other ways, and how safe they feel. Childhood sexual abuse does have affect--it has to. Ongoing abuse can cause post-traumatic stress (PTSD), anxiety, depression, addiction, etc. I hope these considerations help survivors know with more clarity what it is that they are attempting to heal post abuse--and no, this is not an exhaustive list.
Childhood sexual abuse survivors, tend to feel behind and less than because of the abuse. You may go through iterations of having to leave friend groups because not all friend groups support your wellness or your goals. So you feel behind in growing friendship and chosen family groups. If part of the consequence of abuse is creating codependent people pleasers, and you formed bonds as the pleaser, when you start growing, changing, evolving, and learning how to come from a place of more self worth, you may start to require more reciprocity in your relationships. You require more lifting each other up, and you won't allow any pulling of each other down. So often, as you're recovering, you’re also dealing with the realization that you have to leave your friend groups or have some very strong boundaries with family members. You lose people, and you grieve–and all of this is happening while you are tasked with building more support.
Trying to find a right fit therapist is hard. It costs time, money, and energy to heal. Emotionally, it's risky. It can also be logistically hard to find the right healer to work with because everyone is so busy. We can acknowledge this dynamic. While what happened is not your fault, building your life up is your responsibility now. If you don’t, you’re giving too much power to that original abuser to continue to control the trajectory of your life. Please don’t waste time resisting attempts at help. You need it, and you deserve it. When you fight this reality, you’re just prolonging your healing. I want you to feel lighter, healed, worthy, and more peaceful and joyful as soon as possible. I hope you make the decision to radically accept your healing and embrace it so you can move through faster.
2. For incest, it can be like a family bomb. Each family handles it differently, and it’s hard to predict how families will react. Throughout my career, I’ve seen every iteration of family response. I have been delighted to see many families show up with willingness to support the victim and implement proper consequences and boundaries for the familial abuser. Sometimes other family victims come out too. I have equally seen families shame the victim, misplacing their anger at the abuser onto the victim, as this is part of the family dynamic to blame and not take proper responsibility. This was certainly my story, and it was genuinely in the top three hardest things I have ever lived through. To hear messages of ‘Why did you come out with this? Why did you make this public? You hurt your family by coming out with this and going to the police,’ was quite the experience of being kicked while I was down at my lowest. Many families can and do repair, and many families experience a permanent rift, like mine. It’s been about 19 years since I let the secret of incest out, and while I can’t say the rift is permanent, there’s no reparation in sight.
3. Childhood sexual abuse creates shame. Guilt is about ‘I did something wrong, and therefore, my moral compass is telling me to lean into correction,’ but shame is about feeling a guilt about who we are, about being alive, and about existing. Shame is not about what we did; it’s about who we are. Abuse creates shame just because it happened. It makes us feel like we have a neon sign flashing over our heads, saying ‘Hey, perfect victim over here. Out of all the people I was chosen. What a shitty lottery. Something about me must be majorly messed up to bring this into my life.’ Shame can go even deeper and play with our heads because some sexual abuse is not violent. Sometimes it is soft and can feel good to the body. Sometimes the abusers even pride themselves on making the child’s body feel good.
In my story, my abuser was the kind, soft-place-to-fall parent--and that wreaked havoc on me. Trauma often flip-flops things; it twists things up. So healing has a lot to do with untwisting and flip-flopping things back to goodness from harm. My dad would tuck me in at night, give me attention, and give me arm rubbies--totally appropriate, kind touch. If it hadn’t been part of the grooming process, it would have been just lovely. It’s a shameful process to ponder what was real vs. what was grooming. Some days on the journey for incest survivors, this brings anger and reflection that sounds like, ‘It was all to abuse me. None of it was real. Other times, it was real, but he couldn’t stop the compulsion and went further.’ This takes a lot of energy to move through. As we heal, most of us get to the place of ‘I want to be able to have some good, nurturing memories.’ For me, I finally got to a place where I could accept that some of his interest, love, and care was genuine, and some of it was not. This is the middle ground that brings us peace.
As a grown, young woman, I would cringe at soft touch because it was similar to how my abuser touched me. Soft was confusing and repulsive, and I would feel shameful about it. I would prefer men who weren’t soft because of the abuse, and I didn’t know how to receive soft, appropriate touch. Some sexual abuse feels good to the body because our bodies are built to feel good with sexual touch. This is quite the twist to learn to unravel. I have, and I continue to invite and allow appropriate soft touch in lots of ways--from my husband, my friends, my trusted chiropractor, and the sweet children in my life. Every interaction is an opportunity to show my inner child that touch is ok. The deeper into healing I get, the less this is something I have to consciously do or process. This is how healing works. The more we practice something, it starts to become who we are--and who I am is someone who can receive soft touch. We can flip-flop back the bulk of the trauma. We don’t have to heal it all to get the clearing and ease we crave and deserve, but we do have to lean in and untwist a good chunk of it.
No matter what has happened to you, you can heal. If you’re in a position to support someone else, hold space for the survivor in your life by assuring them, and yourself, that healing is available and possible.
Episode Tags
- ADD 1
- Abuse 14
- Alcohol 3
- Anger 8
- Bullying 4
- Childhood 37
- Codependency 7
- Covid 4
- Crystal Catalina 4
- Depression 15
- Detachment 2
- Disassociation 4
- Emotions 71
- Existentialism 1
- Faith 1
- Family 24
- Fatigue 4
- Focus 3
- Gratitude 11
- Grief 10
- Guilt 2
- Healers 7
- Healing 51
- High Sensation 4
- Hope 1
- Hypervigilance 7
- Introverts 6
- Lonliness 7
- Love 3
- Manifesting 5
- Manipulation 19
- Men 1
- Mindfulness 36
- Money 10
- Music 3
- Nutrition 2
- Overthinking 8
- PTSD 11
- Parenting 12
- People Pleasing 7
- Perfectionism 6
- Pets 4
- Relationships 12
- Resiliency 12
- Sadness 1
- Self Esteem 16
- Self Love 11
- Self-Care 24
- Sex 1
- Shame 4
Episode Tags
- ADD 1
- Abuse 14
- Alcohol 3
- Anger 8
- Bullying 4
- Childhood 37
- Codependency 7
- Covid 4
- Crystal Catalina 4
- Depression 15
- Detachment 2
- Disassociation 4
- Emotions 71
- Existentialism 1
- Faith 1
- Family 24
- Fatigue 4
- Focus 3
- Gratitude 11
- Grief 10
- Guilt 2
- Healers 7
- Healing 51
- High Sensation 4
- Hope 1
- Hypervigilance 7
- Introverts 6
- Lonliness 7
- Love 3
- Manifesting 5
- Manipulation 19
- Men 1
- Mindfulness 36
- Money 10
- Music 3
- Nutrition 2
- Overthinking 8
- PTSD 11
- Parenting 12
- People Pleasing 7
- Perfectionism 6
- Pets 4
- Relationships 12
- Resiliency 12
- Sadness 1
- Self Esteem 16
- Self Love 11
- Self-Care 24
- Sex 1
- Shame 4
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