Overcoming Sexual Abuse » support

Why It’s Important to Heal My Own Way

Patty Hite — Sun, 16 Sep 2012 03:43:24 +0000

by Patty Hite

When I started on my healing journey, I wanted someone to just give me the answers, show me the way and tell me what to do. I wanted to be taken care of because I didn’t have the confidence to take care of myself.

There wasn’t anyone to talk to or to show me how so I turned to books. There were only a few library books on abuse, and even fewer books about healing. Most of what I found were stories from survivors. In their stories, they wrote about what they did to heal.

Most of them went to therapists and I felt defeated because I couldn’t go to one. I came from a very small town and there were no therapists or counselors. Even if there had been, I wouldn’t have been able to afford it and I honestly don’t think I would have told anyone else about my abuse. I was afraid of a professional telling me I was crazy.

Some of the survivors from the books I read were facing their abusers. I wasn’t ready for that at such an early stage in my healing and I felt so weak.

I tried their ways and only found myself feeling more and more helpless and hopeless. My only recourse was to lay the thought of healing down—forget about it and try to continue living my life the way I always had. That didn’t help either because when those flashbacks came, I had no way of releasing the pain they left.

I had to find out what worked for me, but finding my own answers was one of the hardest things for me. I was always afraid I would mess up or do the wrong thing and then I expected punishment when I failed.

My childhood was ruled with a strict hand and we were treated like property. I learned by watching my brothers being punished, to obey without questioning. They were lined up and, depending on the crime, were beaten with a stick off the tree, a paddleboard or a leather belt. They weren’t allowed to cry or get angry. No emotions were allowed. To me, that was terrifying.

My adult life was controlled by more abuse so I was trained to just follow other people’s rules to try to survive. When I married my first husband, I learned the lessons even more. He used many tools to get his way. I learned about emotional abuse, sexual abuse, and physical abuse. He manipulated me with blame, shame and guilt and he forced me with his hand and other weapons. I was punished when I made a mistake, when I didn’t do things right, when I spoke out of turn, or when I showed emotions.

No matter what I did, I could never do it right. Abusers had to have control over me and in order to remain in control they had to belittle me and come against anything I said or anything I did.

By the time I wanted to heal from my abuse, I was used to complying. If someone told me to do it their way, right or wrong didn’t matter. What mattered was that I had to obey their rules.

I also knew that failure brought punishment and pain. Even though no one was going to beat me anymore, I was afraid of letting others down. If it was their way, they could determine if I was doing it right and punish me for not doing it right. I was going to pay a price for failing, no matter what I did.

Since I couldn’t tell at that time whether someone was helping me or abusing me, I felt it was important for my healing to not be around people who wanted to give me the answers. I could listen to other survivors, but I needed to find my own way. I needed the freedom to discover what was right for me and what worked for me. I needed to be able to make mistakes without retribution and fear of punishment.

I was set up to fail as long as I tried to heal someone else’s way but I found out that I have no problem with making mistakes or wrong choices when they are mine. I can usually pick myself right back up and look for Plan B or Plan C.

One day I had a flashback of me as a child sitting under a tree in our back yard. Anytime I felt sad that is where I would go to talk things out. I felt free to cry and get angry.

If that worked for me then, maybe it would work for me now? And that is what I did. My first step for healing was finding a secluded place and talking about how I felt. I love looking at the beauty of nature, so it was easy for me to sit under a tree and tell God how much I hurt, and face those areas of fear. I love to write so it became natural for me to write about my abuse. I love to take long baths with soft music and candles, so it was easy for me to do that when I was in a critical part of my healing. I realized that by doing things that brought me comfort and that I enjoyed, I was also nurturing myself, which made it easier to face the traumatic times in my life.

Before I started to combine my nurturing needs with my healing needs, I waited until I couldn’t take another breath before I would face that pain. Sometimes I would have anxiety attacks all day long. I couldn’t sleep. I’d crawl in a corner on the floor, feeling like every nerve in my body was coming through my finger tips. I’d dissociate and have so much rage before I would break down and face that pain.

Finding what works for me has been a lifesaver. I make the rules, I face it when I am ready and I do it my way. For me, nothing is better and more empowering than that.

Now that you’ve heard my experience and thoughts about this, I’d love to hear yours. Please comment below and don’t forget to subscribe to the comments so you can continue to partake in the discussion. If you would like to protect your privacy, you don’t have to use your real name. Email addresses are never made public.

Patty Hite is a facilitator 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 have found the meaning of true love, a respectful relationship, and support with her late husband, Lonnie. She’s blessed with four children and six grandchildren.

[read Patty's story here]

Dealing With Triggers of Abuse

Christina Enevoldsen — Mon, 23 Jan 2012 19:58:12 +0000

by Christina Enevoldsen

I’ve loved horror films since I was a child. Even though I wasn’t allowed to see them, something about those stories resonated with me and I managed to watch them anyway. Through them, I was able to express what I couldn’t even acknowledge to myself, the terror of a childhood haunted by sexual abuse. Scary movies confirmed that monsters really do exist, which I knew all too well.

The part that frightened me the most was watching the girl curiously walk toward the strange noises. Her companions disappeared, her candle flickered, and still she crept forward. I always squirmed in my seat, yelling at the screen, willing her to turn around, “DON’T OPEN THAT DOOR!!!”

When it comes to healing from sexual abuse, I’m the girl determined to search out the mysteries behind the door, but I’m also the audience member pleading with the girl to run in the opposite direction.

I recognize that the only way to stop being haunted from the ghosts of the past is to confront them. When something triggers me—a smell, a person, a situation, a touch, a place, a word—part of me is a Ghost-Buster, hunting down the things that threaten my peace. But when I walk down the dark corridor of a long-forgotten memory, another part of me wants to run away.

Before I’m even conscious of being triggered, the child within me fights as though it’s a life and death struggle and screams, “You’re going to die! Get away now!” To her, the trauma is ongoing and the threat is current. In that moment, it’s not merely a memory, it’s happening now.

In reality, it’s not the yelling that hinders me, but something much quieter; the little girl in me defends herself in the only way she ever could—through dissociation, denial and repression. I crave food when I’m not hungry, I suddenly feel an overwhelming need for sleep, I feel compelled to clean or to do some other kind of work, anything to escape.

From her perspective, everything is bigger and more powerful so running away from triggers is the only option. That was true then, but that’s not true any more. Running away doesn’t save me anymore; facing the memories that are triggered is the only thing that can save me now.

My adult-self knows that if I’m triggered at all, I am ready to face those things. I may not feel ready, but just as my mind locked this away so long ago for my benefit, it’s unlocking it at this time for my benefit.

The things I feel are what I would have felt during the abuse if I had been “present” enough to fully feel. It would have been too much for the child-me so I hid the feelings away for another time. And the time is now.

Even if I mentally will myself to pursue what dwells in the shadows of my mind, all my senses tell me it’s too much for me. My child-self was all alone and never comforted during the original abuse and she (I) still needs nurturing support.

When I feel overwhelmed, I do things to comfort myself before I move forward:

Deep breathing calms me. When I’m stressed I hold my breath, which creates more stress. Deep breathing gives me the nourishing oxygen my body needs and it helps me to focus on the here and now.
Sometimes, I withdraw in solitude to feel safe and other times, I reach out to supportive friends. Alone or with someone else, I listen to myself with understanding and compassion and let myself be loved.
I listen to my thoughts and feelings, whether they seem to make sense or not. Many times, I hear phrases that sound very juvenile. I recognize that they are feelings from the small child who never had a voice. Listening tells me that the things that happened to me really matter and that I matter.
I write down what I remember. Many times, I don’t feel any specific emotions until I write things out. There’s something about seeing it on paper or on the screen that connects me to my feelings and I’m able to acknowledge them, express them and release them. Sometimes I can’t cry, but it feels good to moan or to rock myself.

Once I comfort my inner child, I take her by the hand and we go through the door together. She shows me the horrors that happened there and I verify that they are every bit as awful as she believes them to be. My presence in her pain and fear allow her to join me in the present and to see that the monsters are long gone and it’s only the echoes from the past that we’ve been hearing. Behind the door, I don’t find death; I find my healing and my life.

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]

My Fear of Being Alone

Christina Enevoldsen — Tue, 05 Jul 2011 16:44:50 +0000

Christina Enevoldsen

by Christina Enevoldsen

I wrote a fictional story about a little girl being sexually abused by her father. It was for a project I was working on and I didn’t intend for it to be autobiographical, but when I came to the part where the child was lying in bed listening for her tormentor’s footsteps, it hit me. I was flooded with an overwhelming sense of being alone. When nobody else was around, HE could get me. I wasn’t only physically alone—unprotected—I was completely without an ally. There was nowhere to run, nobody to hear my cries for help, nobody to believe me or comfort me. In the whole wide world of people, I was alone.

To my mom, I was in the way. I was nobody but a trouble-making weirdo. I intentionally did things to get her attention. I shaved off my eyebrows, I wet my pants in church. But she never addressed those issues. She pretended that she didn’t see. Just like she did with the abuse. I was alone.

The sexual abuse wasn’t limited to the night and neither was my fear. I don’t remember anytime when I wasn’t afraid. Even when my dad wasn’t around, the abuse awakened my awareness of how bad the world was. I KNEW evil. I had seen it and it had touched me. The world was a bad place and I couldn’t keep bad things from happening to me. I wasn’t enough.

I couldn’t tolerate being alone, so when I was seventeen, I married my high school sweetheart. Not only was the marriage abusive, but it didn’t cure my loneliness. I had someone there physically, but I was just as alone as I’d always been.

I always had to have a best friend. Being best friends was a mutual agreement to always be there for the other. It was a kind of guarantee—just like I thought marriage was supposed to be.

I was driven to be with others, but whatever the relationship, I always felt alone—as though I lived in a bubble, isolated from human touch. Whatever piece of my soul that was supposed to connect with another person was broken. I didn’t have any sense of self, didn’t have my own feelings or desires. Not being with someone else made me feel like I didn’t exist. I had no sense of being without being with somebody.

To my father, I was an object to be used and to my mother, I was invisible, so I learned that I wasn’t a valid person. I was a lonely spirit floating above the earth, an observer, never able to participate in my own life. Without power to affect anyone with my presence. A hollow being.

I’d tried to escape that feeling all my life through relationships, but none could fulfill me. Nobody could validate my existence. My invalidation came through others—namely, my parents—but my validation had to come from within me. But I’d already learned that I had no effect so how could I have power to make any difference in my own life? If I was my only hope of an answer, then I was hopeless since I knew I was NOT ENOUGH!!!

At first I was angry with myself for not being enough and then I was angry at my parents for pointing out that I wasn’t enough. And then something happened. While I was busy articulating what I was angry about, I realized that my parent’s treatment lied to me. I’m not just an object. I’m a human being who deserved to be protected and treasured. I am worthy of being seen and acknowledged and valued. They didn’t see me as a person, but that’s not a reflection on me; it’s an indication of some fault in them.

Nobody heard my cries, but I deserved to have them heard. Removing my anger from myself and giving it to my abusers allowed me to have compassion for myself. I started to feel the love and affection toward me that they never did. I could listen. I could see my pain. I could comfort myself. They weren’t there for me, but I could be there for myself.

I learned to listen. One day I wasn’t feeling well emotionally or physically. I was tired from overworking and from being around draining people. I heard myself say, “I wish someone would take care of me.” Other times, I’d had that thought and wondered why nobody did take care of me, but this time, I knew I was that someone. I was asking me to take care of me.

I didn’t need other’s permission to nurture myself. I could pamper myself and be as good to myself as I wanted others to be. I could draw limits around my time. I could rest and fix something healthy to eat. That was liberating.

I’ve been slowly learning how to be there for myself and I’m getting better at it all the time. I’m growing in trust toward myself because I’m becoming more consistent in being able to depend on me to fulfill my needs. I’m a good friend to myself.

My parents weren’t there for me when I needed them, but I’m here for me now. I’m really here. I was all by myself one Sunday afternoon and I thought, “I’m not alone, I’M with me.” It was so real to me that I’m a whole person by myself and I’m good, fulfilling company. I’m enough.

[read Christina's story here]

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My Healing Journey: Stumbling and Getting Back Up

Christina Enevoldsen — Sun, 12 Jun 2011 16:45:59 +0000

Christina Enevoldsen

by Christina Enevoldsen

As the co-founder of an organization that deals with healing from abuse, I’m supposed to be very enthusiastic about healing. I’m the one who yells “Hooray!” for those small victories and I spur on the weary survivor.

Most of the time, I love that. I do it whole-heartedly. But what happens when I’m the weary survivor? What if I think that the healing process sucks and I just want to go back to bed and pull the covers over my head? What if I don’t want to hear another thing about sexual abuse or family betrayal or the effects of trauma or self care or anything that reminds me of such evil in the world or the constant struggle to overcome it?

That’s what happened recently. After experiencing the usual rough beginning that most survivors talk about, I’d been feeling really good for the past year or more. I’ve had an occasional minor bump, but I took it all in stride. I thought the healing path would be smooth for the rest of my journey.

I’ve lost my footing a time or two. I used to have a tendency to want to go faster than I was ready for. I was driven to “get normal” as quickly as possible. I was impatient to get to the next part of healing since I thought I was pathetic to be so messed up. It didn’t matter that I always thought that I’d feel better at the next “healing level” but never did. It was never good enough.

But I dealt with that. I’ve accepted that there are some things about me that might be a little “off”, but I SURVIVED years of living with a sexual predator at the most vulnerable time in my life—my childhood—and I was all by myself with my pain. I think being a little “off” in some areas is a normal response to what I experienced. Those aren’t character flaws or a signs of weakness. Actually, they’re a sign of a struggle—a struggle to survive another day. I picked up some “weird” ways of coping, but damn it, I’m alive to tell about it. And I’m not ashamed of my quirks; I’m proud that I was creative and resourceful and did whatever I had to in order to get through it. And I am getting through it.

I watched a movie about a man who was trapped in a crevice while hiking in a remote area. He had the choice of dying or cutting off his arm to free himself and he chose to live. Do I think he’s a freak for missing an arm? No, I admire his courage and ability to face that choice and do what was necessary to live. He’s a hero. So I can’t look at the one-armed man one way and myself another way. So now I know I’m strong.

But I do have weaknesses and that’s okay too. The abusive system that I grew up with and continued in for many years taught me that weakness meant death because only strong people are valuable and worthy of life. Only people who earn their way are deserving of love and approval. So I despised my weakness and my entire existence seemed dedicated to covering it up. That fear drove me to work and work and do and do and my healing was powered by that same fear of not performing well enough.

I’ve had a lot of people who have been very supportive of my healing journey. Even though they’ve never asked me “How much longer?”, I used to be afraid they were wondering that. I feared not recovering quickly enough to fit their schedule. They admired my determination and perseverance, but how long would that last? Would their admiration turn to disgust? I figured they’d grow tired of cheering me on and then reject me for being weak the same way the dysfunctional people had before.

But I’m not in that system anymore. I don’t let others determine my value since I know the truth about me now. I have the same worth as the most emotionally healthy person or someone who has never been touched by the things I have. I’m just as important if I’m weak or strong, sick or well. For those who disagree, they are deceived by the same abusive system of inequality that I used to be in and I don’t need their fickle support. But no matter how I’m treated, I’m important and valuable. I love myself—weak or strong. Those fears aren’t chasing me through my healing anymore.

So I’ve had my healing struggles. I’ve tripped a few times but nothing knocked me down.

That was until just recently. As I look back, I don’t even remember the issue or memory that triggered it. That’s funny considering all the fuss it caused. Whatever it was, it was painful—and with the pain came anger. I’ve been angry about all of this before. I’ve been angry that issues come up without my control and at inconvenient times (when else is there? When IS a convenient time? If I DID have total control over when something surfaces, I’d choose NEVER!!)

I’ve been angry about the injustice of the evil tentacles of abuse invading every part of my life without respect for any boundaries. The effects seem just as invasive as the abuse.

I thought I passed the most treacherous parts of this journey. I thought I should have “earned” an easier time. After my rough early life and abusive twenty one year marriage and how bravely I’d faced the healing process thus far, I thought I deserved to float on clouds for the rest of my life. I wanted to scream, “When will it be bleepity-bleep OVER?”

Even if I couldn’t be finished now, I wanted to know WHEN I would be finished. I felt desperate to know where I was on the healing map–some chart that said, “You are here” with a red arrow so I could see how far I’ve come and how far I still had to go.

I felt as though all of my progress meant nothing—that all my hard work only yielded temporary results. In my emotional state, I discounted any progress since it fell short of where I wanted to be or expected to be. I saw all I still had to face instead of how far I’d come.

So I cried and shouted and pouted for a few days. I complained to the people closest to me. I cried some more and then I examined what caused my breakdown.

I realized that I still thought of this healing journey as a temporary thing. I thought there would be a definitive end to dealing with the majority of my issues—like checking out of rehab. After that, I thought minor issues might pop up again periodically that would be easy to face. I told people that I considered recovery a life-long journey, but I didn’t really believe that like I thought I did. My expectations collided with my reality and I was devastated.

But now I’ve finally made peace with the journey. It’s not the healing process that I got angry about or angry with. I was actually angry that I was abused in the first place—that I was denied a happy, healthy childhood and my adult life is a fight to overcome the effects. My anger toward the healing is like anger toward a doctor trying to put me back together after a physical trauma.

I’ve faced many cycles of anger about my abuse and every time I go through that cycle again, I’m accepting on a deeper level that it DID happen, which helps me with my two choices: To give in to the effects or to keep overcoming. So I keep overcoming. And I get more and more of my life back all the time.

Where am I in this journey and how much longer is it? I don’t think that’s relevant to me anymore. I don’t think there is any way to know where I am in the healing process anymore than there is to know how long I’ll live. Healing is a lifetime commitment the same way all growth is so I’ll keep healing as long as I’m alive. I’m healthy and whole even if I’m still working on issues. I am excited to get up most mornings, I’m optimistic about my future, I’m surrounded by healthy people, and I’m good at taking care of myself. I love myself and I love my life. So it’s not the life I could have had if this never happened, but it’s a great life anyway.

[read Christina's story here]

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UNDERprotected

Bethany Ruck — Sat, 26 Feb 2011 18:56:48 +0000

by Bethany Ruck

I had to cover my eyes during kissing scenes in movies until my teens. I couldn’t ride my bike more than two blocks away. All of my friends had to be approved. My mom would check all of my essays to make sure they were perfect before I even turned in a rough draft. I wasn’t allowed to date until I was eighteen. I was overprotected in every area of my life except when it came to sexual abuse. I was left completely exposed to one of the most dangerous threats a child can face.

My mom told me she knew about my abuse. She discovered blood in my diaper when I was an infant. Knowing that he had molested another girl, she confronted my dad about it and he admitted to sexually abusing me. I was told that instead of going to the police, together they went to one of the people they esteemed the most, the senior pastor at our church. After one counseling session and a quick prayer, my dad was sent on his way like nothing had ever happened. The abuse continued until my teens.

I recently found out that a few other leaders at our church were asked to counsel with my father during that time, but nothing came of it. They were told by the senior pastor not to report it and they complied. When I found that out, I was flooded with emotions. I already knew that our senior pastor, his wife, and my mom knew about the abuse, but discovering that two more people knew, overwhelmed me. How many adults did it take to protect a little girl?

In the last few weeks I’ve experienced a variety of emotions. First, I felt abandoned. I didn’t understand how all of these people who supposedly loved me could do nothing while my abuser was free to keep hurting me. I began making excuses for them: My mom was abused herself and in denial that the abuse had continued. And even if it did, she felt powerless to do anything about it. The two leaders who were asked not to report it didn’t know the steps to take and were fearful of loosing their jobs. I didn’t feel that they deserved me being mad at them. They were good people who did a stupid thing. I wanted to just erase it from my memory and go on with my life. But the more I thought about it, the more I knew I couldn’t suppress those feelings anymore.

How many adults did it take to protect a little girl?

I was watching Desperate Housewives this week. Eva Longoria’s character, Gabby, was visiting her hometown and the nun at her old school was still there. As a child, Gabby had disclosed her sexual abuse by her step-father, but the nun dismissed her by saying Gabby had an active imagination. She confronted the nun, “I did not deserve what happened to me. I was a child. But you were a grown up and you did nothing. You should be ashamed of yourself.”

Tears streamed down my face as I watched Gabby’s empowering moment. I finally identified with the emotion of anger towards those who didn’t come to my defense. I was under-protected and had feelings about it that were completely justified.

I wanted to scream in the faces of those who didn’t protect me, telling them, “What is your problem? Don’t you know that I was just a baby? I couldn’t defend myself, but you could have and you chose to do nothing! Isn’t allowing bad to happen the same as perpetrating it? The abuse could have stopped then, but instead I suffered for most of my childhood. Every day of my life was filled with pain. Why did you let me go through that? I didn’t get a childhood because you were cowards! My father stole my innocence and you let him do it!”

Anger was this big, scary emotion to me. I had always seen examples of anger that turned violent and I didn’t want to become that person. I didn’t want to act on the passion that I had, and I didn’t have to. I was angry that they betrayed me and it was okay. I had no plans of rubbing their noses’ in their wrongs. I wasn’t trying to hurt them back. I just wanted to express my feelings about it for the first time. Now, I’m now facing the pain that this brought. I was wronged by more than just my abuser, and have a right to the emotions that correspond with that.

I began this process by reasoning away my emotions before I even acknowledged them or expressed them. That kept me stuck. I had to feel those things and then I could sort it out. To reverse the order is to invalidate my feelings and my experience.

Although I’m not completely out of this stage, being angry at them is not a forever thing. And facing the truth about how I feel gets me one step closer to where I want to be: WHOLE.

Bethany Ruck is cofounder of Overcoming Sexual Abuse, an online resource for male and female abuse survivors looking for practical answers and tools for healing. Besides helping abuse survivors see the beauty within themselves, she enhances the beauty of others as a professional make-up artist and has worked in television, film and print.

[read Bethany's story here]

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Chocolate-Layered Addiction

Christina Enevoldsen — Sun, 13 Feb 2011 16:24:47 +0000

Christina Enevoldsen

by Christina Enevoldsen

When I was ten, a psychologist who worked for the school district took me out of class to talk to me. I had always known there was something wrong with me; I knew I was different, marked in some way. I was sure that when people looked at me, they recognized that too. She confirmed my fear when she singled me out in a class of thirty students.

I didn’t have the words to tell her my dad was doing bad things with me. I didn’t even know the things that were happening weren’t normal. I couldn’t define why I felt so hollow.

I knew the psychologist wanted to hear something, so I told her I was sad because I didn’t have any friends. That wasn’t true in the sense that I didn’t have playmates. I was shy, but I had friends. The truth was I was completely alone. Since I was different, there was nobody of my kind. No allies. There was no one understand me or share my pain.

I especially felt like a stranger in my own home. My mom wasn’t very touchy-feely or comfortable with emotions. My dad was very touchy-feely stuff, but in a creepy way. Though my mom held me at arm’s length, she tried to placate me and comfort me through food. Especially chocolate. I LOVED chocolate.

When I started to gain weight in my teen years, my dad restricted my eating. I had to hide my chocolate consumption so I sneaked around as though I was having a secret love affair. I planned rendezvous with my love and the secrecy became part of the excitement.

As an adult, my relationship with chocolate continued. When my memories of the sexual abuse surfaced, I binged on hazelnut candy bars, chocolate chip cookies and rocky road ice cream. I preferred spending time alone with chocolate to being with friends. Chocolate never rejected me. It was faithful.

There was a little voice inside my head telling me I had already suffered enough and I deserved a little chocolate cake or a few truffles. I was entitled to be nice to myself. But how much chocolate would it take to make up for the sexual abuse? How many cookies would equal the amount of love I never got? I could buy out every bakery in the world and still feel the loss.

I was doing to myself what my mom had done to me when she gave me chocolate to stop my crying. It was as though I sent myself away to deal with my pain on my own instead of hearing it out, instead of being my own friend.

I defined chocolate as love the same way a hug expresses love. When I was enjoying its creamy goodness, I didn’t think, “Well, I can’t have love, so I’ll settle for chocolate.” Chocolate was my only contact with my mom’s attempt at love. It wasn’t my pain I was running from or covering up—at least not the pain of abuse—it was the pain of being alone. I was comforting myself the only way I knew how.

The truth is that chocolate isn’t love. Chocolate could never be my true friend; it would never love me back. I thought I deserved chocolate, but I really deserved to be protected and validated and comforted. No edible substance is capable of doing that. My pain wasn’t caused by chocolate depravation so mountains of chocolate couldn’t remove it.

I needed to face the source of my pain. I faced my past before that, but I faced it intellectually, as though I was making scientific observations. I was emotionally distant from myself the same way my mom had been.

I was dependent on chocolate until I learned to depend on myself. When I learned to connect with me and show myself the compassionate attention that I really craved, I no longer craved desserts. By myself or surrounded by loved ones, I’m never really alone since I have me.

It took me a long time to finally get to the bottom of all the things that kept me addicted to chocolate. Like so many other issues that surround abuse, there were layers to discover. Every layer helped to loosen its hold on me, but the bottom layer was the foundation to all of it. Now that I have a healthy relationship with me, I have a healthy relationship with chocolate.

[read Christina's story here]

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Dating After Sexual Abuse: Is This Love?

Bethany Ruck — Wed, 10 Nov 2010 19:09:31 +0000

by Bethany Ruck

When my last boyfriend and I began dating, we would see each other once a week. The in between times were filled with hour-long telephone calls before bed, a lot of getting to know you time and even more of the sickening, “No, I miss you more” fluff. One night the conversation led to just the right place, where I could tell him about my childhood sexual abuse. I remember prefacing it with a warning that I had something very serious to say; then I told him. He didn’t seem to have much of a reaction, so I assumed that he didn’t feel comfortable asking questions. Okay, change of subject. I guess he didn’t want to talk about it, so I went about the rest of the phone call as normal. The topic of sexual abuse didn’t come up again until much later in the relationship.

A year down the road, when I decided that I wanted to report my father for sexually abusing me, I sat my boyfriend down and told him my intentions. Our relationship had turned significantly more serious by that time, so I wanted his support. Instead of support, I was met with an attack. “If I would have known you were sexually abused I never would have dated you.” he said. I was shocked! I never fathomed that he would react like that, especially since I specifically remember telling him about the sexual abuse a year prior. The relationship soon ended, but not without further hurt.

Looking back I walked into that relationship with blinders on. I so desperately wanted to be loved, that I was willing to deny the warning signs along the way in exchange for some cheap replacement for love. I thought I took the right precautions. I told my boyfriend about my abuse at an appropriate time, but my failure to recognize key warning signs in a relationship led me right back into abuse.

Someone I date has the potential to be a partner for life – one of the core members of my support system. It is imperative to my healing that this be someone who is qualified to date me. I’m not saying he has to have a Ph.D. But there are certain warning sings that should never be overlooked. The following are qualities I now look for in those I date.

Comfortable with Emotion
Crying is healthy. It’s an expression of emotions. Something yucky on the inside is trying to come out, so let it! My boyfriend did not see it this way. Instead of letting me cry he would yell at me, telling me to stop. We were living together at the time, so when I needed a good cry I never had a safe place to do it. I couldn’t express my emotions because he was always there. Finding a partner who is comfortable expressing their own emotion and hearing mine is a prerequisite for a healthy foundation.

Supportive of My Healing
Healing from sexual abuse is not a quick fix. It’s a long road with bumps, low visibility and a whole bunch of people trying to cut you off. Embarking on that journey without a healthy support system is impossible. With my last boyfriend, I wasn’t looking for someone to hold my hand through the healing process. I just wanted someone to say every once in a while, “You can do it! Great job. Keep going!” Instead of being my cheerleader, I got torn down for my efforts. He only saw how my past abuse affected him, instead of how beneficial healing was to both of us.

Isn’t Abusive
I know this sounds so obvious, doesn’t it? But it’s so often overlooked. I thought I knew how to recognize abusive behavior. All I had to look for was someone who didn’t molest children or didn’t give me that creepy feeling, right? WRONG! Perpetrators generally have patterns of abuse that span over several areas. In my case, my boyfriend used his words against me, manipulating and playing on my weaknesses. Every time the relationship turned south he would tell me that a few days prior he had been shopping for engagement rings, in hopes that I would see what a grand gesture of love he was trying to make. In one fight I remember being referred to as “damaged goods” because of the abuse I had no control over.

In the end, I didn’t get what I wanted out of this relationship. Instead of love, I got rejection. I firmly believe that love is an action, not some gushy feeling you get in the pit of your stomach when that special someone comes near. He told me all the things I wanted to hear, but his actions showed me that he was more concerned with himself than with loving me.

I wish I would have seen clearly going into that relationship, but I’m now better equipped to do so in the future.

[read Bethany's story here]

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I HATE Surprises

Bethany Ruck — Tue, 26 Oct 2010 14:57:11 +0000

by Bethany Ruck

Birthdays usually mean surprises. I remember one particular birthday en route to our destination I was lead into a dark room and without warning, all of my closest friends popped out shouting my praises. I was so taken aback. Immediately my defenses went up. This should have been a happy moment, but it felt more like a violation. What was meant as a celebration of me, I saw as an attack.

Why was the surprise party so jarring? Because it wasn’t what I expected. I had anticipated a calm evening, with our course mapped out and a full agenda of what, when, where, who. And it wasn’t so much that I was missing out on the evening that should have been; I was disturbed that I had lost control of everything.

Control gives me a sense of security. I know what is going to happen, when it’s going to happen, and who it will happen with. I recall someone a long time ago naming one of their best qualities as spontaneity. I was baffled. How could that be a good quality? People just pick up and go. Ahhhh! The whole idea of that was terrifying to me. It wasn’t until recently that I began to explore my feelings about being spontaneous. What so many people view as a fun and admirable quality I saw as dangerous. It seemed irresponsible to me. I thought that people were just throwing themselves in harm’s way by doing something without planning it in advance. Spontaneity requires that same loss of control that I hated so much.

Where did I get this? I had no control over what my abuser did to me, and to counteract that I have made an attempt to control everything. The truth is, trying to control hasn’t kept me safe. Instead, it has instilled more fear. Being terrified of surprises doesn’t make them go away.

As I’ve started to take back my voice and established healthy boundaries in my life I’ve also started to let go of the fear that bound me. Dealing with the fears that compel me to try to control everything has allowed me to take baby steps, starting with my plan to lose control. I know that sounds like it doesn’t go together, but for a type A girl like me it was my best solution. I took pockets of my week when I would allow for the unexpected—whether that be a beach adventure or just picking a direction and seeing where the wind blows. I’ve been pleasantly surprised by the outcome. Sure, at first it was a little stressful, but I pressed on and actually started to enjoy not being on edge all the time.

Over time it’s become a habit. And this doesn’t mean letting go of all my defenses, but it did mean not letting the loss of control dictate whether I had a good time or not. It’s been freeing! I began feeling like a human being instead of a robot.

Just the other day I asked my mom if she wanted to go on an adventure and we just picked up and left. I never could have done this a year ago, and it’s exciting to know that I’m on my way to being completely free.

[read Bethany's story here]

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Paper Is My Safest Friend

Guest Contributions — Thu, 14 Oct 2010 22:48:33 +0000

by Jennifer Stuck

I have come to believe that secrets are the enemy. They are the parasites that eat away at the human soul. We are meant to be social creatures, to share and express our complex emotions. Yet generation after generation of conditioning has taught us to repress our thoughts and feelings—to monitor every word that comes out of our mouths. We constantly worry about what we say, how we say it, and most of all, how others might react to it. So with all the influences keeping us from expressing ourselves, what are we supposed to do? How can we get it all out and clear our minds? For me, and many others like me, the solution has been writing.

What I love the most about writing is that it is always there for me. When I can’t talk to my family, when my friends aren’t as supportive as I would like them to be, or when it’s 3:00 am and no sane person worth talking to would be awake, I have writing to turn to. I can always grab a pen and paper and start pouring out my soul about whatever it is that’s on my mind. Writing always lets me say what I need to say. The paper never interrupts me to tell me something trivial about its own life. The sole purpose of the paper is to bare the weight of whatever I chose to write on it. No matter how shocking, no piece of information will be too overwhelming for it to hold. It will never throw my thoughts back in my face or use them against me. It doesn’t push me beyond my limits. It never puts its nose where it doesn’t belong, or try to direct the conversation where it wants it to go. The paper is my safest friend.

Most times when I begin writing it is not because I have a clear-cut image in my mind of what I want to say. Normally I only know that there is SOMETHING that needs to come out—some emotion that has been long trapped inside of me that is finally ready to surface. I can feel a voice deep down inside of me screaming, begging to be heard. When I write I provide a platform for that voice (my inner child) to speak out, to say all the things she was never allowed to say while being abused. After all these years she finally gets her chance to express the hurt, pain and anger that has burdened her for so long.

When I write down my thoughts I take what was a slippery, illusive memory and translate it into clear, undeniable fact. It’s right there on record in black and white. I can no longer forget it or push it to the back of my mind. Seeing my story on paper makes it feel more real to me. I’m able to separate myself from all the lies that I was told about myself during my abuse. I can see that what happened to me wasn’t nothing; it was something terrible. It wasn’t my fault; it was 100% the fault of my abusers. I was obviously the victim, and they were obviously the aggressors. Those basic facts that had eluded me in my thoughts became blatantly apparent to me once I wrote them out on paper.

One thing that I am particularly fond of is writing poetry. Now that I am farther along in my recovery process I find it fulfilling to look back at the things that I have written and the progress that they reflect. I recently started putting a date on every poem that I write. By doing this, I am making what I call a recovery timeline. I will always be able to look back and see what I was feeling last week, last year, or ten years ago. It’s amazing for me to be able to see how much I have changed in such a short period of time. Having that record of my progress makes me want to work even harder to move forward. It’s something concrete to show how far I’ve come and how hard I have worked. Every poem is like a trophy sitting on a shelf, a small reward for my efforts. Each one is something that I can look at and be proud of.

Writing has had many positive affects on my life. It helps me connect with my emotions. It allows me to express those emotions. It helps me remember new details about my past and to make sense of the things I already remember. Writing is freeing and empowering. Nobody can control what I write. I don’t have to second-guess myself, or worry that I might be saying the wrong things. I can just put pen to paper and let my thoughts flow wherever they take me. Sometimes I use my writing to express repressed grief. Sometimes I use it to share newly found joys. The important thing is that I never stop expressing myself.

Jennifer’s Poetry Collection

Jennifer Stuck is whole-heartedly pursuing physical and emotional health and is determined to heal the wounds of her childhood sexual abuse. She loves to write, especially poetry. She is currently studying for a career in Physical Therapy. When she isn’t in school Jennifer is at home spending time with her two beautiful daughters.

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Writing Is My Friend

Patty Hite — Tue, 12 Oct 2010 16:34:26 +0000

by Patty Hite

Writing was easy for me. My mother encouraged me to write. When I was a young child, I remember shopping with her, looking for perfect pieces of stationary. Money was tight so I cherished each piece. I cut up used birthday and holiday cards to make my own books to write in. Most of what I wrote were questions about life and the whys and why nots of everyday living. I wrote a whole book on why a chair was called a chair and another one on why my brothers did stupid things.

As an older child my writing took on more of my ponderings about life and why I was so sad. I remember sitting under a tree far from everyone else, crying and writing down my thoughts. I didn’t know why I was so sad until many years later when the flashbacks of my childhood started to erupt and shatter my world. Before I knew it was a good thing to write about my abuse, I was already doing it. I never included names and or details. It was for my eyes only and I was afraid that if someone else read them, I would hurt those I loved. So even in my writing, I kept the secrets of my abuse.

When I started reading books about sexual abuse, they recommended writing about the abuse in detail and to write to my abusers. I didn’t have to send the letters, but it was a way of expressing how much they hurt me and how their actions reflected on my life. I wrote with so much anger and rage that my pen ripped the paper. I have written several letters to them at different times throughout my healing. I don’t tear the paper any more, but as each thing is revealed to me, I inform them of each one.

Most of my life was spent in a dissociated state, so I don’t remember things leading up to my abuse or immediately following my abuse. I do remember the acts of abuse. I used to spend time trying to remember the before and after and the why and why not of my abuse. So instead of pondering about those times, I started to freewrite about it. Freewriting is putting pen to paper and cutting loose. There is no worry about spelling or formats, dotting your “I’s” or crossing your “T’s.” When I did this, life changed for me because everything poured out. It was like the gates opened and the dam broke. Every thought and every emotion came forth because there was freedom from penmanship and corrections. I wrote until I couldn’t write anymore and my brain was done and my hand was cramped. I put it away for about a week because I was afraid to read it. These sheets of paper held every part of me, every thought and every emotion. It was the doorway to the why and whatnot I was searching for my whole life.

As I continued healing from my abuse, I also used lists as a way to compare different areas in my life. When I was working on my self-esteem, I made a list of my bad qualities verses my good qualities. When I started doing this, the list for my good qualities was pretty small, but as I progressed and created new lists, I was able to compare them to my first ones and see my growth. I also made lists of my coping mechanisms versus what I could do to replace them and also lists of my false beliefs versus my new beliefs. Lists, lists, lists.

I think it is so important, especially while healing, to carry paper and pen. Most of my triggers happened outside of the home. After a while we become desensitized in our homes; we make it comfortable by eliminating those things that are uncomfortable to us. Being out in public all our senses awaken to everything. Smell, touch, sound, rain, snow, and the time of day all play major parts in our abuse and trigger emotional reactions. It was these things that I wrote down as a reminder to deal with them at a later time. Anytime my emotions reacted, good or bad, I wanted to make note of it so I could re-evaluate if they reacted in order or out of order. There were many times I wanted to strangle a cashier or run someone over with my cart. These were the reactions I wanted to make note of.

Writing has been such a major part of my healing and I recommend it to every survivor. I didn’t have therapy or support groups when I started my healing, but I had a friend in writing. There are no limits to expressing my secrets, my fears, anger at my abusers or a heartfelt letter to myself. My lists helped me “see” what was real and what was false and keeping track of my emotions out in public helped me to wrangle them in. Writing is truly my friend.

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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