Heal The Abuse - Recover Your Life, Jason Goodwin [ink book reader .txt] 📗

“Why did that abusehappen to me? Was I too attractive? Was I behaving too seductively?Did I send the wrong signals to my abuser?”

If we think this way, it is because we arelooking in the wrong place. Sexual abuse is not impossible topredict. But the determining factors lie within an abuser, notwithin us.

It’s as if we were caught up in a terriblestorm. We survived, but for many of us, the event changed our livesforever.

Some of us blame ourselves for the abuse. Wedecide that we didn’t build a strong enough house. We were toovulnerable.

Others blame God. We believe that God wasangry with us or wanted to destroy our lives. We feel abandoned byHim/Her, or that He/She didn’t care what happened to us. We shakeour fists at the sky.

Some of us blame mother nature. We wish thatscience would discover a way to prevent storms.

Some of us believe it was fate. We come tobelieve that storms are part of the natural order. Our house wasdemolished because it was time for us to move on.

I believe that healing the pain of sexualabuse is an opportunity to grow. There are three possible reactionsto having been abused. The first is to sexually abuse others inexactly the same way we were abused. The second is to turn ouranger inwards and abuse ourselves with addictions and otherself-destructive behaviors. The third is to decide that we willnever abuse others or ourselves.

Abuse is like a storm we cannot predict orcontrol. Our only choice lies in our response. The final challengeof sexual abuse is learning to treat ourselves with dignity andrespect, even when we have been abused.

Denial is the worst type of fear. A mother indenial about the sexual abuse of a child may ignore what ishappening or fail to hold an abusive husband or partneraccountable. She may even blame the child for the abuse. Somemothers fear that confronting an abusive partner could lead toemotional or financial ruin for her and her children. She may blameherself for not being attractive enough to her partner.

When we find the courage to tell others wewere abused, our revelation is rarely met with empathy. No onewants to hear it. No one wants to believe it happened. Some wouldprefer we had remained silent.

They would rather believe that sexual abusealways happens in someone else’s home. “It could never happen in myfamily,” they say. “It could never happen in my house.”

Fear can lead family members to keep quietand avoid confronting the abuser. Abusers remain in denial or failto take responsibility for their actions. Survivors try to pretendthe abuse never happened, blame themselves, or medicate theirfeelings with addiction. Fear of sexual abuse perpetuates sexualabuse.

Which person in this unhealthy family systemfears sexual abuse the most? Who was made to suffer? Who was madeto feel incredibly powerless? Who was molested or raped as a childor adult? Whose beliefs about the safety of this world were foreverchanged? Whose childhood or innocence was lost? Who must work thehardest to pick up the pieces?

We have more reason to fear sexual abuse thananyone. It affected our lives and ravaged our self-esteem. Whileothers can try to deny it, pretend that it didn’t happen, orbelieve it wasn’t that bad, we cannot. Our lives were foreveraltered by something that is terribly real. We have to face sexualabuse. Not because we ever wanted to, but because we have nochoice.

Sexual abuse is the most frightening subjectthere is. Murder? Many of us would have preferred death to theabuse we endured. Torture? Some of us were tortured over and overagain. Betrayal? There is no deeper form of betrayal than a parentsexually abusing his/her own child. Rape? Some of us were raped ata young age, when we were completely vulnerable and incapable ofdefending ourselves.

It is scary. We were terrified. We weretraumatized. We have every reason to feel the way we do. No, we’renot crazy. Anyone else, if faced with the same terrifying abuse,would have responded in a similar way. We’re not strange and we’renot broken. But we are wounded and we do need to heal.

Sometimes our inner child still feels afraidyears after the abuse occurred. We can get stuck in our trauma andexperience flashbacks to the abuse.

The degree of trauma a person experiencesdepends on how painful or frightening the circumstances were. Mostpeople are more comfortable discussing the horrors of war than thehorrors of sexual abuse. Which is more frightening? Which is moretraumatic? Anyone who survived years of severe sexual abuse knowsthe answer to that question.

But despite the fact that sexual abuse istraumatic, we can still choose to make mature, responsibledecisions as adults. No matter how afraid we feel, we cannot allowour frightened, inner child to sabotage our growth.

The more we understand, the less we fear. Themore we realize we were not to blame for the abuse, the less weblame ourselves. The more we release the terror we experienced aschildren, the less terror we experience as adults.

We cannot give in to fear. We cannot give upon healing. We cannot allow the abuse of our past to destroy thehope of our future.

Fear can be a powerful foe. It may havepersuaded us to make poor decisions. It may have urged us to abusealcohol and drugs. It may have convinced us to stay in abusiverelationships. It may have challenged our self-worth. It may haveled us to question our belief in God.

But fear is like a dragon. It is thirty feetlong, with razor sharp fangs and claws. It has thick scales thatcannot be penetrated by any lance or arrow. It breathes fire,consuming all in its wake. It is powerful, majestic, andterrifying. The grandest of all monsters, the perfect killingmachine, and the destroyer of all we hold dear. Until we realizethat it isn’t real.

Personal Journal Entries

Entry #1: Fear of Sexual Abuse

When I experience flashbacks to the abuse, Ishake with fear. I wanted so desperately to stop what was happeningto me, but there was nothing I could do.

I let myself shake when I feel afraid,because I want to release my fear. When I was abused, I was trappedin a terrifying situation and there was no escape.

Sometimes I still feel afraid