Victims of Abuse

[Gaining Strength]

I ran into an acquaintence this afternoon at the pool.  We chatted while my little boy swam.  She began mentioning that she grew up in an abusive family and that she had suffered PTSD.  On into the conversation she was talking about a time in recent years that her aged mother asked her if her father had ever been inappropriate with her, because, her mother went on, if he had she would just die.  The person went on to say that she began having flashbacks when she would have sex of seeing her mother standing in a door watching her.  At some point when she began to remember the abuse she understood that her mother had walked in and had seen her.

She has spent her whole life coming to terms with something and then with the abuse and now with the trauma.  When she was diagnosed with cancer a couple of years ago she was flooded with traumatic memories of the abuse.

What so many have lived with - it is a horror.

She overheard her mother tell a relative on the eve of her cancer surgery that she had a "bug".  This cause her to flash back to a "story" that was recounted about her childhood - as a very young child her mother could not find her but heard her crying.  She finally found her hiding behind some bushes.  She is hurt and bleeding - through her pants.  As the story goes - her mother says she hurt herself by falling on a toy piano - hurt herself enough to bleed profusely - in her vaginal area - at age 5.  Now - as she remembers - the facts of the story don't make sense - they are much like the "bug" story told her relative about her cancer.  She now realizes that she was raped as a young child - and that rape is a "fall" on a toy piano. 

What happens to children - it is horror. And we, as a society, have no compassion for the adults these children become.  We expect them to function as if there were no terror in their lives.  Compassion ends at age of majority.  That is not compassion.

[Gaining Strength]

I've been rereading Wayne Dyer's "Inspiration", having opted to work on CBT full force and needing reinforcement of inspiration.  I am reminded how Dyer and others fall short.  They begin at ground zero - a level where healing is not the primary demand.  Would that life had been merely difficult.

I understand why I have been attracted to this philosphy in the past but not  been able to connect - there is absolutely no comprehension of what life is like under abusive parents - abuse that begins in a pre-cognitive period.  CBT doesn't get the healing done - it is the icing on the cake but you can't ice cake batter.  The healing has to be done before this kind of CBT.

[Ami]

Dear SS
 That is a heartbreaking  'story" ,but it is true. This world can be so,so terrible, can't it? That story is just HORRIBLE!                                        Ami

[James]

SS......I watched a Wayne Dyer program one day, and in some ways I was mesmerized momentarily by what he was saying, his words felt like a salve to my own wounds. In reality though I perceived what he was saying to be a way to avoid confrontation with one's past. I do not believe that true healing can take place without full awareness of the abuse one has suffered. To live in denial is to not face reality and I think it's impossible to heal by "pretty" thoughts. I believe almost all symptoms, both of body and mind, are nothing but the body and minds way of trying to bring to our consciousness the terrible traumas we endured in childhood. It is our fear now that prevents many people from understanding what happened, but once I have confronted these often I find my fear of confrontation was far worse than knowing the reality of my abuse. When I do confront the abuse I find true and lasting healing...James

[sKePTiKal]

Yes, this kind of abuse happens. It should NEVER happen, but it does.

Yes, it offends even laws of nature... abomination in the eyes of God.

But, more and more, I'm coming to believe that once the horror has been faced... once all the outrage has been expressed... once all the pain & humiliation are acknowledged...

then the next step has to be learning compassion and love for ourselves - reparenting, if necessary. Being our own wise and loving parents.
It is at this stage that we also have to learn to let GO the fascination and focus on those awful, horrible feelings. Letting go isn't an instantaneous, magical "freeing" from those emotions... rather it's a gradual turning away from and TOWARD something better - compassion, caring, guiding... and giving one's self CREDIT and PRAISE where only abuse existed before. It takes time.

It's not clear cut; it's supremely messy. It's one step forward and two steps back. But, the effort itself is what is worth it - the journey is more important than the destination, really. It's the same one all humans experience - whether loved as a child or not.

I am not the master of this process... right now, it appears to "own" me, rather... and I'm trying my best to understand. It's a foreign concept to me.