by Christina Enevoldsen

I hate blood and gore, but I love watching medical shows. When they show mangled flesh, I have to cover my eyes. It’s hard to imagine all the pain the person is suffering and even if they can be saved, the struggle that recovery requires. Sometimes I think it would be easier to let the person die because I don’t understand how someone could possibly recover and have a real life after having their body so torn. But the doctors don’t think like that; they understand the healing process and they’ve seen what their skillful work plus the restorative abilities of the human body can accomplish.

When I was a teenager, a classmate of mine was severely injured in a motorcycle accident. Paul wasn’t expected to live, but somehow he survived the first days and weeks. When I first saw him, he had already come out of his coma but he could only make moaning sounds when he tried to talk. He looked and sounded like something out of a horror film. He needed to be cared for like an infant and there wasn’t much hope he would ever change. But slowly, over the next few years, Paul repaired. He learned to feed himself, to talk, to walk and resume his life. The last time I saw him, he was a normal teenage boy.

I was one of those people who was mangled—not physically, but emotionally. Sexual abuse at the hands—and other body parts—of my father and the emotional abuse and neglect of my mother left my soul and my life a wreck. There were some who saw me and looked away in disgust. There were people who observed my woundedness and judged me to be beyond recovery.

I don’t know what made me think I could heal.  Maybe it’s because shortly after I remembered my sexual abuse, I heard a courageous woman speak about her childhood incest. She was someone who I admired and it gave me hope to see another survivor who wasn’t a wreck. I didn’t know how to fix me, but I knew it could be done.

I didn’t know that I could do my own healing work. I didn’t realize that I have within me the ability to heal my inner being just like my body has the ability to heal and, in fact, is designed to heal. I didn’t see any doctors rushing to fix me, so I took up the task. 

Over the next twenty years, I found solutions from a variety of sources that helped me recover. I’ve taken long breaks, but I’ve never quit. The past few years of my healing have been the most productive.

I’ve gone from being used and abused in relationships to being surrounded by people who love and respect me; I used to be intimidated by anyone abusive, but now I stand up for myself; I used to only live day-to-day, glad to just get through it and now I have dreams and goals and am actively pursuing and fulfilling them; I used to get overwhelmed with any obstacle and now I face them confidently; I used to hate myself and constantly fight critical inner voices and now I love myself and I’m my own best friend and fan.

There are those who say that it’s impossible to truly overcome something so horrific as sexual abuse. They say that to make that claim is wrong because it sets the bar too high. I find that insulting now but when I was in the abusive system, I believed things like that. My abusers convinced me that I wasn’t capable of anything on my own and that I needed them for survival. They undermined me and caused me to second-guess myself so they could control me. So why is that bar too high for me? Am I too dumb or too weak? I’m not sure what’s worse, telling me to just “get over it” or that I’ll never get over it.

Maybe those people who think “overcoming” is out of reach believe that to say you can overcome somehow minimizes the damage or invalidates the pain. I don’t think it does that at all. My soul was mutilated. I was unrecognizable as the person I was meant to be. I don’t know how I survived. But I not only survived, I overcame. I’m so happy I didn’t pronounce myself too damaged to live. I’m so glad that even though others turned away in disgust, I didn’t lose hope in myself. I don’t know what else to call it. I was a half-dead person and now I’m fully alive, living with purpose and enthusiasm. I call that overcoming.

I may not ever be finished with my healing, but I’ll be overcoming until my last breath. Thank God that all those years ago, I heard a voice of encouragement and hope instead of someone claiming I was doomed by abuse.

Thank you to Patty Hite, the courageous woman who inspired me and gave me hope so many years ago. It’s a joy and an honor to be spreading hope and healing side-by-side with you, my friend!

Related Posts:
Seeds of Hope for Healing
My Fight for Life is Fueled by Hope
Six Million Dollar Healing: Completely Invested in the Process

Christina Enevoldsen is cofounder of Overcoming Sexual Abuse, an online resource for male and female abuse survivors looking for practical answers and tools for healing. Christina’s passions are writing and speaking about her own journey of healing from abuse and inspiring people toward wholeness. She and her husband live in Los Angeles and share three children and four grandchildren.

[read Christina's story here]

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by Linda Pittman

“I’m damaged for life”
“My life is ruined”
“I can’t forgive myself”
“No one could ever love me”

Statements without hope. I used to believe those things, once upon a time.

I wanted to hope for a better life, but getting to that better life seemed impossible. I hated my life full of misery. Every relationship was a nightmare and I felt like I was ruined forever. I hated my body, I felt isolated inside as if I could never let anyone get all the way to my heart. I had a constant yearning for what I had lost as a child and no way to get it back. I was needy, so needy it scared me. I didn’t have a clue on how to get there from where I was.

But then I listened. When I listened to other abuse survivors’ stories of their suffering and how they came through, it give me the hope that I too could get better—that I wasn’t sentenced to a life of damage, pain and longing for that something I could not even name.

That little bit of hope was like a seed that was planted in my spirit. Each new survivor who came forward brought food for my little seed. A famous celebrity, a beauty queen, a famous writer—they began to share their stories with the world, one by one. In sharing their stories, sometimes I could relate, sometimes I couldn’t, but they nourished me.

The hope grew so big I couldn’t keep it in any longer. I told my story. First I sent it out like little tentacles, feeling, searching to see if it was safe to risk keeping it out there. When others believed me, my hope grew larger. I found myself in the midst of many others searching and tentatively testing their hope. I was not alone, there were so many like me. I was astounded at their numbers! I actually belonged somewhere. We were like a secret group of gardeners, sharing our gardening tips and tools.

I have been busy tending this garden. My hope has grown into a beautiful and breathtaking flower—its petals formed with each secret shared. It is a unique creation unlike any other flower.

My gardening friends and I are not hopelessly damaged; we are creators of beauty in a world that was once barren. Now, we’re the scatterers of seeds from our beautiful flowers to start new little buds in others. Just like what has been done for us.

Related Posts:
My Fight for Life is Fueled by Hope

Having experienced healing from sexual, physical and verbal abuse, Linda Pittman has found joy in encouraging others in their healing journey and tells people that it’s never too late to start. She’s been married to her husband for twenty-one years and has four adult children.  

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The dictionary states: Hope is a belief in a positive outcome related to events and circumstances in one’s life.

I take this as meaning that I have to believe in a positive outcome. I have to believe in the healing methods in order to overcome the effects of my abuse. I have to believe.

I’ve always had someone or something invade my thoughts about hope. My abuser told me, “I know you are hoping that you can escape from me, but you won’t.” “I know you think you are smarter than me, but you’re not.” “I know you think you can stop me, but you can’t.”

When my daughter had leukemia, the doctors told me, “There is no reason to hope because she will die.” “I don’t want you to waste your energy on having false hope, you need to prepare yourself for her death.” “You think you are in hope, but you are actually in denial.”

My family told me, “Just get through high school. You’ll wind up getting married anyway.” “No, you can’t move back home, you made your bed, now lay in it.”

The loudest voices came from inside me. “I deserved to be abused.” “If I was a better wife, maybe he wouldn’t beat me.” “I have nowhere to go, I might as well just take it.” “If the kids would pick up their socks, I wouldn’t get so angry.” “If I smoke enough pot, I can drown out the pain.”

Now that I know there is a way to change my belief system into a new me, the voices still continued. It was a constant battle within me. Like the good angel and evil devil sitting on each shoulder. One would tell me I can do it. The other would tell me to give up. I battled with this for a long time. I would make great steps in healing, and then I would pull back. Take a few more steps, then pull back.

I remembered a dream I had shortly after my daughter was diagnosed with cancer. A robber broke into my home and grabbed my daughter. I heard a voice say, “If a robber came into your home and grabbed your daughter, what would you do?” In the dream I said, “I would fight with everything in me.” The voice said, “Then fight and choose life.”

It was this dream that kept me fighting for my daughter’s life. I spoke life into her. I wouldn’t allow any negative talk around her. The doctors and nurses were not allowed to talk about her prognosis in her room. Family and friends who visited were only allowed to speak life around her. I spoke daily to her about her future. She would ride a bike, go to college, get married and have babies. To this day, she doesn’t remember being sick, but she does remember believing that she would be okay.

This is what brought hope back to me. This is why I refuse to allow a negative thought in. If I can fight for my daughter’s life, then I need to fight for mine. This is a life and death choice as far as I am concerned. It’s dying to the old and living for the new. It’s saying goodbye to the voices of defeat, blame and shame and saying hello to the voices of value and worth, ability and trust, love and justice, creativity, knowledge, assertiveness and boundaries.

We have to believe in the steps we are taking toward healing. We have to have hope that we can overcome the effects of our abuse. It is more than just believing in hope, it is doing everything it takes to achieve healing. Re-visiting our abuse, reliving the pain, the emotions, the thoughts, and how we reacted to that abuse. It’s learning how to live a life with boundaries and making decisions. It’s accepting healthy relationships and learning how to trust. It’s doing. It’s being a partner with healing.

When the voices of defeat whisper in our ear, we need to be strong enough to tell them to shut up. To not obey them, and to have the courage to overcome them. It’s refusing to allow defeat to hold us back and keep us from hoping for a better life and a much improved us.

We are free now. And as adults, we are able to choose life. We are able to choose a new life.

Patty Hite is one of five facilitators of Overcoming Sexual Abuse. A survivor of emotional, physical and sexual abuse, Patty has been tenaciously pursuing her healing for over thirty years. She’s a passionate advocate for all survivors and dedicates her life to inspiring emotional wholeness in others. As a former victim of spousal abuse, she’s delighted to find true love with her husband of ­­­­five years. She’s blessed with four children and six grandchildren.

[read Patty's story here]

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