Navigating emotions...

The myriad ways sexual abuse survivors face what is happening to them and/or what happened to them all have in common that they are a means for handling something which is overwhelming to them.  Overwhelming physically, mentally, and emotionally.  To the survivor, the sexual abuse and its effects are truly ineffable.

Many of the ways survivors cope are rooted in denial of some fashion.  It didn't happen.  It wasn't that bad.  It was the alcohol that made him do it.  Some forget.  Some pretend.  Some make light of it.

Many of the ways survivors cope are rooted in distancing themselves from the abuse, from the world.  They avoid feelings, people, intimacy.

Many of the ways survivors copy are rooted in the search for safety.  That safety can be establishing strict control over some or all parts of their lives or the very opposite ... living in chaos.  Because survivors of sexual abuse have had so many skewed lessons in their lives, who they trust may end up being the wrong people.  Some may even seek safety in familiarity and end up with another abuser.

Many of the ways survivors cope are rooted in addiction or compulsions, in self-destructive behavior or harm.  Opposite of avoiding intimacy, sexual addiction can be a way of numbing or negating what happened.  Anorexia or binge eating fall into this category even as they can also be a way of controlling something ... anything.  Being busy all the time or working all the time is a way to avoid the sexual abuse until the positive traits of productivity becomes negative as what you do ends up trapping yourself, binding yourself.  Stealing is also a coping mechanism as it can create distance from what happened or it can provide a momentary thrill in a sea of numbness or both.  This either or opposite effect can also occur in self-harm.  Some cut themselves to feel something.  Others cut themselves to drown out everything else and savor the myopic focus of one singular source of pain.

All of these coping mechanisms are good in that the one experiencing sexual abuse survived.  But one cannot thrive as an alcoholic or drug addict, trapped by eating disorders or self-mutilization, numbing, denying, avoiding.  That someone survived such an egregious perfidy committed against them—be it once or often—is a wonder.  And it is no wonder that to survive sexual abuse thoughts and feelings, perspectives and relationships, love and trust are twisted and warped, skewed and turned upside down.

Facing what happened is hard.  It is hard work. It is painful. It is confusing.  It is devastating. It is chaos.  And it often feels worse, feels as if it is not something that can be survived.  You can lose employment and friends and family.  You can lose your anchor, primarily because the anchors you dropped in the maelstrom of your life were ones that break loose instead of keeping you safe.  And you can end up struggling with even more shame or guilt over what you did or didn't do.

The chaos that comes with allowing yourself to experience the full spectrum of feelings as you start to heal, to remember, to learn what is true is so very difficult to navigate without falling back into old coping mechanisms.  But, as I noted earlier, while there is no condemnation for what has happened or what you still struggle with, Davis and Bass encourage sexual abuse survivors to strive to shed the strategies that no longer serve them and seek ones that do.

Were it up to me, having experienced emotions, I would still choose numbness.  It is easier.  It is safer.  It makes sense.

However, that is not the best choice for me.  I struggled to accept that I had PTSD and I mightily struggled to accept that my chronic neurological condition meant that anxiety was going to be a new permanent part of my life.  Between the anxiety of facing the trauma of sexual abuse, the PTSD made worse by the trauma of the pit bull attack, and the cognitive deficits and anxiety of Dysautonomia, I sometimes despair of ever gaining ground in being able to feel without panic, without meltdowns, and without using coping mechanisms that no longer serve me well.

When it comes to navigating emotional storms, the list of choices and activities that serve me better is one I have built over time.  My list is filled with things both external and internal.  To me, the external is most helpful, and of the external, hearing the Living Word is most effective.  When it comes to navigating emotional storms, having more options than less is better.  Much better.

Here is my original list:

• Build a fire 
• Light a candle 
• Listen to music 
• Play Monopoly 
• Play Whirly Word 
• Do one of the logic or cognitive apps 
• Watch a TV show online 
• Watch a DVD 
• Call someone and ask them to read me a psalm 
• Read aloud Part IV or V of the Large Catechism 
• Free write about what I am feeling 
• Work on a page from one of my adult coloring books (using colored pencils) 
• Play the guitar 
• Sing hymns 
• Organize a drawer or a closet 
• Putter in the yard 
• Play with Amos 
• Clean something 
• Make a list (chores, things to accomplish, work goals, etc.) 
• Complete a task that has been lingering 
• Read a book

At first, I shared my list with a few friends and when I became overwhelmed and was frightened by what I was feeling, I would call one of them.  At first, I could not, by myself, contain my fear or get through it without falling back on things that no longer serve me well.

The ones that have helped the most are:

• Hearing the Living Word
• Hearing the Christian Book of Concord
• Lighting and sitting before fire (season restricted)
• Lighting a Paddywax Rose candle
• Using peppermint and lavender essential oils
• Listening to music really, really loud
• Holding a pinecone in my hand (helps me concentrate on only one sensation)

Notice that they are all things outside of myself at which I cannot fail and which engage one or more senses.  

When I am really distraught, I prefer to do something physical (which is difficult since I am now disabled), the harder the work the better.  I exhaust myself.  But the physical I prefer is cleaning or organizing or working in the yard or a home improvement task/project or anything that has an end result which is a bonafide accomplishment.

Sometimes, I will stream a movie or a television show whilst I am doing something physical so that not a single moment can be filled with what I am thinking or feeling, so that I can hold the storm at bay.  If I am struggling with exhaustion but still need to busy my body, I will play music to try and pull me along.

I still play Monopoly, word-based apps, and cognitive apps (logic puzzles, mazes, games, etc.).  What I found with Monopoly was a lesson on being patient when it looks as if all is doomed.  I found in playing that if I did not give up and stuck to my strategy, I could win even if I got to the point where my funds are nearly depleted and nearly every property is mortgaged save for a single set upon which I have built houses or hotels.

I have great difficultly now following sermons, movies, and television shows.  I really need to have a written source to which I can refer whilst I am listening or watching.  I simply cannot hold oral cumulative information in my mind in order to comprehend it.  I also forget so much that I can re-watch an entire series and have great chunks of it be as if completely new.  So, something I will do is plow through multiple episodes of a television series that has a long story arc, such as Babylon 5, Battlestar Galactica, or the many British shows that are longer than an hour and spread over two or three episodes, such as "Chapel Hill," "Line of Duty," or "The State Within."

Finally, in the past few months, I have started trying to cook new recipes.  I started doing this because following directions is very difficult for me and because I have come to a point where I burn a lot of what I cook because I forget that I am actually cooking.  By trying actual recipes, instead of merely throwing together a bite to eat, I have to concentrate really hard to ensure I do not leave out ingredients and that I follow all the steps.  I avoid anything with yeast or kneading, because I simply cannot succeed in those recipes, but I have tried to find ones that I believe I can do and that are a challenge for me to complete.  Of course, I also focus on what is tasty to me.

I no longer play the guitar because I cannot control my hands well.  For the same reason, I no longer try to use the adult coloring books.  I have forgotten almost all the hymns I learned and singing bothers my asthma, so I gave up that coping mechanism, too.  I also no longer free write because I found that, for me, it heightened my anxiety, rather than soothed it.

So, to sum, other than the list of external coping mechanisms that are of the most help to me, the main  internal ones (ones that depend upon me) are:

• Physical labor
• Playing apps that are cognitively challenging to me
• Chain-watching television shows with longer story arcs
• Cooking

There is one coping mechanism from my childhood that I still do when I am very overwhelmed and have no one to pour the Living Word into my ears:  I stuff myself in small places.  When I was little, I would stuff myself between the bed and the wall.  When my patches and walls started crumbling down a few years ago, when I finally made the decision to heal (the first stage of healing about which I will write later), I would crawl into the back of my closet.  There, I was surrounded by three walls and rather squishes.  A counselor told me that to do so was rather intelligent of me because it was if someone was holding me close.  To be honest, I have longed to try one of those weighted blankets that are often used with people on the autism spectrum, but they are rather expensive.

I will finish this by noting one other source of comfort.  When I moved here coming up on three years ago, I was still grieving the loss of my first dog.  When he died, my life was very confusing and getting worse.  Having reading and adored James Harriott's books, I thought I would get a puppy right away.  But so much was difficult the first few months after Kashi's death and then I was raped again.  The day after was the first time I called a rape crisis center.  I had had counseling before, but when it happened again something rose up within me and I wanted to scream to the entire world:  I never want this to happen again.  Why me?  Why again????

From August until I moved in December, I spiraled into chaos as every coping mechanism that had been effective for at least getting through life began to fail.  Great hurts and more difficulties came until the man who raped me showed up at my house.  I was in limbo waiting on the closing here, but I called the movers and asked that they come the next day.  They did. I started driving ... fleeing ... not knowing if I would have a place to stay when I arrived here two days later.  I came to an empty house and lived into for 5 days before the trucks arrived on the 6th, but felt such relief being so far away from my former home and boss.

One of my chronic illnesses grew much worse right after moving, so I was ... occupied ... for a long time.  And I was still crumbling into pieces, near drowning in The Emergency Stage.  In February, I managed to think the thought that I wanted a puppy, when looking for a puppy, and my Good Shepherd gave me Amos on the 14th.  For someone who has always dreaded and loathed Valentine's Day, I had to laugh at the timing.

Five months later, we were attacked by the pit bull.  Amos was incredibly affectionate, being a Bichon Poo, but that ineffable violence changed him and me in such deep and profound ways.  Amos' vet believe he will never recover, since despite working with him, he continues to have many, many fears and a very sad, very low threshold for startle response.  

However, as I became more ill and still lost in trying to face my life and my past, Amos became more and more skilled at comforting me.  In many ways, he acts more like a little person than a puppy (all dogs are puppies to me, but I should note his third birthday will be in December).  On my regular blog, I noted his calm down techniques:

• Climbing atop my shoulders (he can get there without my help at times)
• Asking me to pick him up (he leaps completely off the ground repeatedly until you grab him)
• Climbing on my lap
• Surrounding himself with as many of his Babies as possible

So, even if I were not prone to hold on to him for comfort, he holds on to me.  He puts his paws around my neck and tucks his head beneath my chin.  He stuffs himself beside me in the lounge chair.  He follows me everywhere.  If not on my person, he holds part of me with his paw if sleeping near me.  His favorite thing to do is have me hold him so that he can relax against my body, hang his head over my shoulder, and fall asleep.  I cannot stand and do so for very long, but he always begs for me to hold him if I am up and about for any length of time.

All this is to say that I wrote about drawing a firm boundary of no touching me.  I believe that my Creator understands my needs and thus gave me something that could give me all the physical comfort I crave even when I cannot bear for anyone to touch me.

I am not sure if I am clinging to Amos or he is clinging to me.  So, I do not know where he fits on my list.  But I will put the two main lists together now, as a final summary:

• Hearing the Living Word
• Hearing the Christian Book of Concord
• Lighting and sitting before fire (season restricted)
• Lighting a Paddywax Rose candle
• Using peppermint and lavender essential oils
• Listening to music really, really loud
• Holding a pinecone in my hand (helps me concentrate on only one sensation)
• Physical labor
• Playing apps that are cognitively challenging to me
• Chain-watching television shows with longer story arcs
• Cooking
• Stuffing myself in small spaces
• Clinging to my puppy dog Amos

Because I feel as if this topic is being truncated, I would like to note that, in another post, I will write about trying to work out calm down techniques in advance for situations I know will be difficult for me.  This is something I started learning, in very large part, due to meeting and spending time with my friend Marie, who is brave and strong and rather open about communicating about the triggers for her anxiety.  I am learning to think about my triggers, work out something that will comfort or help me during a difficult situation (such as any exam or procedure where I am partially or completely unclothed and/or will be touched), and then state what my helps are and use them when I am about to face that difficulty.

I am Yours, Lord.  Save me!

Coping and emotions, mingled a bit together...

I wrote a first lesson on emotions and thought that I might finally be able to write some of what I want to write about the body and receiving the Gospel.  Only all that is in my head is simply not coming out through my fingertips.  So, then I thought I would expand on some of the coping mechanisms referenced in yesterday's post, so that some of the thoughts behind them might help others understand whys and wherefores of seemingly harmful or strange coping mechanisms.  Only, my heart cannot take how hard it is to write about some of the things I did then.

Shame.
It's rearing its head.

So, I wanted to write about how I wish things were, rather than how they are.

We have feelings all the time, whether we're consciously aware of them or not.  Feelings arise in response to everything that happens in our lives.  A threat makes us fearful.  When someone injures us, we feel hurt and angry.  When we are safe and our needs are met, we feel content.  These are natural responses.  We may not alway have the ability to recognize and understand your feelings, but they are there.

When you were a child, your feelings of love and trust were betrayed.  Your fear, pain, rage, and shame were too great for you to experience fully and continue to function, so you suppressed your feelings in order to survive:

"Certain feelings just went under. I shopped having them at a really young age.  I stopped having physical sensations.  You could beat me and it literally didn't hurt.  By the time I was thirteen, I no longer felt angry.  And once I stopped feeling anger, I never felt love either. W hat I lived with most was boredom, which is really not a feeling but a lack of feeling.  All the highs and lows were taken out."

Or, conversely, you may have lived with certain emotions so long and so intensely that you've gotten stuck in those feelings:

"I walked around leaking sadness most of my life.  Almost anything could make me cry.  I'd cry at phone commercials—reach out and touch someone.  I drove my husband crazy.  We couldn't' have even the smallest disagreement without my crying. I didn't want to cry. I'd try hard not to, but it was like an underground spring that just kept seeping up."

You may feel as though you've spent your whole life steeps in sadness, rage, or loneliness or that you struggle, even now, with constant anxiety, fear, or depression. Or you may find that you fluctuate between extremes:  feeling flooded by overwhelming emotions and then shut down and numb inside. (The Courage to Heal, Bass & Davis, pp. 222-223)

Sometimes when I read things like this, even having already read them, doing so takes my breath away.  It is both frightening and wonderful to be known, to be understood.  I think about all the times I disassociated at the slightest bit of worry or fear and these words help me to think of myself as less of an axe murderer.

Once, when I first started talking to someone about my past, she was confused and then doubtful.  She did not understand how I could recite such horrifying things without a speck of emotion.  For one, she did not understand that what was horrifying to her was normal to me.  For another, neither she nor I understood just how skilled I was at numbing my whole being.

The rest of this section I will finish below, but first I want to share a bit of what comes next because, to me, it makes more sense that way:

When you open yourself up to feelings, you don't get to pick and choose. They're a package deal.  One of Ellen's clients had been abused by her father over the course of many years.  When she and Ellen began working together, she said she felt numb; she wanted to have feelings.  After a few months, she was crying through every session, crying at home, crying when she went out with friends.  One day she came in, started crying, and then laughed, "Well, I sure got what I asked for."

Yes.  She was feeling.  And the way feelings work is that you can't feel selectively.  When you allow yourself to feel, you feel what this is to feel.  For this woman, there was a great deal of pain and sadness.  And after that, a lot of anger.  And some fear.  But slipped in among those difficult feelings were pride, hope, pleasure, self-respect, and a growing contentment.

To feel, you have to open yourself up to the full spectrum of feelings:

"When I first started to grapple with the concept of feeling—and in the beginning it was only a concept—I ranked all the possible emotions into two lists:  good feelings and bad feelings.  Every time I had a feeling, I'd think, 'Is this a bad feeling or a good feeling?   Is this a feeling I can allow myself to have?'  Then I'd either feel it or suppress it.  It's been hard for me to accept that there is no right or wrong to feeling."

The more you can accept your feelings without judgment, the easier it will be for you to lear to experience them, work with them, and learn from them."  (223-224)

I think, for me, emotions are part of why I felt like an alien for so very long.  I didn't have them, often, so I had to pretend to have them. I used words I neither understood or experienced.

I would also like to point out that experiencing feelings—being overwhelmed by them and the realization that to open yourself up to some is to open yourself up to all—is the same bittersweet that I talked about with learning about how sexual abuse has affected your life.  You want to know, but the knowing can be hard.  And sometimes ... sometimes you just want to go back to not knowing.

It is the same with memories.  You want them to come, but when they begin, you can end up wondering why you ever did.  And if you will survive them.  No matter that you did once before.  Because ... before... you did not feel them, experience them, remain present for them.

Lord, have mercy.
Christ, have mercy.
Lord, have mercy.

At this point, I would also like to note that there are stages to healing from sexual abuse, much like the stages of grief.  And, similarly, the stages of healing from sexual abuse are not linear.  They are on a continuum.  Soon, I hope to talk about those.  But, for now, I would like to mention one:  the emergency stage.

This is a time when beginning to deal with suppressed memories and emotions can throw your life into turmoil.  Your old coping mechanisms are no longer are as effective or fail you altogether.  It may be difficult to function and you may think or believe or feel as if you are going crazy.  You are not.

When I was in this stage, I had people tell me that I was crazy. I had people tell me that I was sick.  I had people tell me that there was something deeply and most likely irreversibly wrong with me.  Those lies hurt me in ways that made my entire life more difficult.  Those lies and judgments deepened my wounds and made following through on my decision to heal far, far more difficult.

They were lies.  Whether they were well-intentioned or not, they were lies.  And they hurt me at a time when I was more vulnerable than I have ever been.  In part, the fragility that still exists is because the very people who spoke these things were people I trusted to speak the truth and to accept me as I was.  I thought they were safe.  In this matter, they were not.

At one point, a confluence of the breaking down of all my coping mechanisms and a severe hormonal imbalance left me weeping for over a year.  No matter how hard I tried, I could not stop weeping.  I was not crazy. I was not sick. I was not irreversibly wrong.  However, in the middle of my private confession, a pastor told me that God was not impressed by my tears, nor was he.  So, I just stop crying, stop pretending.  I was devastated.  And I stopped going to confession, even though hearing the words from Christ to me, " I forgive you, Myrtle" were sometimes the only thing that gave me hope for a future and turned my thoughts from death.

I still struggle with the weeping that will come unwanted. I give thanks that low-dose hormones righted a balance so that the ever-present tears dried up and the weeping came ... perhaps more purposefully?  I wept most of the next year following the swallowing of that first dose, but I was weeping tears the little girl I was never could and tears for the woman I never became ... not that that will necessarily make sense to you.

In any case, it is understandable that the emergency stage can be as overwhelming for loved ones and friends and neighbors and fellow parishioners and strangers as it is for the one going through it.  Knowledge about the stage is key.  For it is my most fervent wish that no other survivor would hear the lies I heard and be bound further by them than she or he already is.  We can learn about and accept the stages of grief as a society, as a community, as a family.  I believe we can learn about and accept the stages of healing from sexual abuse as well.

A final thought about the emergency stage to hold on to is that sometimes healing hurts.  With our physical bodies, this is often the case.  Therapy for burn victims is agonizing.  Sometimes broken bones have to be re-broken in order to heal properly.  Vomiting and diarrhea are sometimes our bodies way of expelling things that are harmful to use.  I am not a medical doctor, but if I were, I would proffer I could fill an entire book walking readers through the whys and wherefores of how it is that healing often hurts, that healing often brings a necessary, needful, good, right, and salutary pain.  After all, is that not what Christ experienced on the cross when He healed us from our sin?

In any case, here is the bit that I skipped over to share the point that feeling emotions is a package deal:

If you have often felt overwhelmed by your emotions, it can seem especially frightening to get in touch with the feelings that arise during the healing process.  But experiencing our full range of feelings is important.  Emotions are useful messengers that give us insight and the ability to make wise choices.  Feelings, even painful ones, are allies.  They tell us what's going on inside and often guide us in responding to the situations in our lives.

There are times in the healing process, however, when you may be inundated with feelings and you need a respite  from their intensity.  In these situations, it is more important to use the skills you have—or are learning—for self-soothing and calming down.  Even though getting in touch with your feelings is necessary, there are times when regaining your equilibrium and sense of balance can take precedence. (p. 223)

This really is another facet to coping, building coping mechanisms for things you didn't previously need, such as experiencing emotions and sensations, staying present in your body.  This is where learning about coping and emotions are mingled together and are the launching place for self-soothing, calming down, acceptance, pride, courage, shedding shame, and so much more.

I want to talk more about my own means of navigating emotions, and I will.  But, for now, I want to say that just as I hope that the stages of healing from sexual abuse become common knowledge, I hope that calm down techniques can be appreciated and even applauded for what they are and what the represent in the life of a sexual abuse survivor or someone struggling with anxiety or PTSD.

I say this because I was recently telling someone about my use of two calm down techniques, both of which were not all that well-received:  stuffing myself behind and beneath a chair in a changing room and clutching a pinecone during a procedure.  In the conversation, I noted that a friend of my mine whose arsenal of calm-down techniques includes clicking her fingers before her ears was also not something she felt was well-recieved in public.  The one I was talking with suggested that my friend try to transition to something more socially acceptable and I instantly rejected the thought.  After all, right now, it is socially acceptable for pre-teens and teens to have sex and to drink.  Our government believes that there should be no age restriction on medication to trigger an abortion.  Those things are socially acceptable. So, I ask, why should we use socially acceptable as a standard?

Instead, the standard should be what is helpful and not harmful.  It is not harmful to squeeze into tight spaces or to hold a pinecone or to snap fingers before one's ears.  And those things can be immensely helpful in preventing harm.  In that case, then, I wish and hope for those things—as well as other calm down techniques—to be accepted and even applauded, to be welcomed and honored.  After all, they are a facet of healing and a part of choosing life for those battling the effects of sexual abuse, for those battling the damage living in a sinful world can have on body, mind, and spirit.

I will finish with a final thought.  To me, calm-down techniques are to help you step outside of the moment so that you are not swallowed whole or find yourself stepping backwards in your healing process.  Calm-down techniques are also external to the moment, whether you are actually doing the external, such as grasping a pinecone to concentrate on its texture and the sensations in your hand rather than the thoughts and emotions flooding your mind, or someone else is doing the external to you, such as when a parent bear hugs a child lost in an emotional and/or physical outburst.

For me, hands down, the most effective calm down technique is to have the Living Word read aloud to me.  Any of it will do, but I am partial to the Psalter and to book of John, especially the first five verses.  Strangely, I have found that few actually believe in the power and the efficacy of the Living Word.  Luther, in the Large Catechism teaches:

Understanding the difference, then.  Baptism is quite a different thing from all other water.  This is not because of its natural quality but because something more noble is added here.  God Himself stakes His honor, His power, and His might on it.  Therefore, Baptism is not only natural water, but a diving, heavenly, holy, and blessed water, and whatever other terms we can find to praise it.  This is all because of the Word, which is a heavily, holy Word, which no one can praise enough.  For it has, and is able to do, all that God is and can do. (BOC, LC, IV, 17)

For it has, and is able to do, all that God is and can do. 

For it has, and is able to do, all that God is and can do. 

For it has, and is able to do, all that God is and can do. 

No matter how many times I tell people that all I need is for them to do to is read to me the Living Word, I get the response that doing so doesn't seem enough.  Not enough to help.  Not enough to be of any use.  Not enough to make things better.

It is.

If you don't take my word for it or Luther's word for it, spend time perusing the Bible to see what God says about His Word.  Start with Isaiah 55.

Even when I do not particularly desire to be calmed down, the Living Word is effective.  For it has nothing to do with me or my thoughts or feelings or desires or motives.  It is outside of me and all that is going on within me.  And, thankfully, its work and efficacy is not dependent upon me.

The Living Word forgives.
The Living Word sustains.
The Living Word heals.

It is powerful and perfect and, therefore, is my external calm-down technique of choice.  Though, since getting others to pour the Living Word in my hears has been rather difficult and rarely a technique readily at hand, I have others and will share them later.  For now, I'd rather leave you with the wonderful, amazing, nearly-impossible-to-grasp blessing that God's Word has and is able to do all that God is and can do.


Lord, I believe.  Help my unbelief!

First Lesson on Coping...

I wrote that Davis and Bass are very careful and thoughtful with words.  To me, no where is this more clear than in the chapter on coping.  Here, as before, the emphasis is on celebrating that you have survived.  I do not think many people give credence to what an accomplishment that is.  To Bass and Davis, life matters.  So even if your life now is rather broken and full of less than healthy behaviors it is still life and thus a genuine victory over those who hurt you.  You survived.  Surviving matter more than anything else, for the rest of it can be addressed and mitigated if not set aside for a better, more healthy life.

Coping is what you did to survive the trauma of being sexually abused. And it’s what you do now to help you make it through each day.

Everyone copes differently. As a young survivor, you might have run away from home or turned to alcohol or drugs. You might have become a super achiever, excelling in school and taking care of your brothers and sisters at home. You might have blocked out huge parts of your past, withdrawn into yourself, or cut off your emotions. You might have used food to numb your feelings or sex as a way to prove your worth. Or you might have buried yourself in work. With limited resources for taking care of yourself, you survived using whatever means were available. Many survivors feel ashamed of the ways they coped. You may find it difficult to admit some of the things you had to do to stay alive. It may be hard to acknowledge what it takes now for you to get up and face each day. As a child in terrible circumstances, you responded the best that you could—and you have continued to do so. The crucial thing is that you survived. It’s important to honor your resourcefulness.  The Courage to Heal, Bass & Davis, p. 12)

I cannot begin to tell you how it important is was for me to read this.  I am not sure just how much shame other sexual abuse survivors have.  I mean, I know it is common, but I do not know how much others are bound by it or their lives are framed by it.  I suspect that, for some, the sense of shame can be be buried deep within and, thus, perhaps not recognizable for what it is that drives or informs thoughts, behaviors, choices.  Perhaps it is possible to recognize some elements of shame, but not others.  I do not know.  What I do know is that, for me, shame and feelings of dirtiness and unworthiness have colored that which I have voiced and that which I still keep hidden.   

I have done things, one in particular, which came about only after all the bandages and walls I had built around my wounds started to fall off and crumble.  I was not compulsive. I was strategic about it.  It was my coping mechanism of last resort.  However, the response I have received when I tried to talk about it was that the very idea was so horrible and certainly nothing that a Christian should ever do.  It is not that I am trying to be purposely vague, for I do plan to talk about coping again, but I do want to point out that those who have not been in situations where seemingly absurd or even harmful coping strategies were actually helpful to survival may very well struggled to understand what sexual abuse survivors have done.  As a result, condemnation can spill out instead of encouragement.  It is really, really, really important to not condemn, but to encourage.

All of us use coping strategies to deal with overwhelming, painful, or stressful situations.  Most of the strategies discussed in this chapter, have been sues, at one time or another, by people struggling to come to terms with a wide range of challenging circumstances.  Some are universals; others are more specific to survivors and may or may not apply to you.

You may discover that some of the ways you’ve coped have developed into strengths (being successful at work, becoming self-sufficient, having a quick sense of humor, being adaptable, responding well in a crisis). Others may have become self-defeating patterns (drug or alcohol abuse, compulsive eating, cutting yourself, emotional withdrawal). Most coping mechanisms have both healthy and unhealthy aspects. Being independent, for instance, is a good quality, but taken to the extreme, it can keep you isolated.

Healing requires that you differentiate between the ways your coping mechanism are beneficial and the ways they may be hurting you. Then you can celebrate your strengths while you start to change the patterns that no longer serve you.  (pp. 12-13)

Again, there is careful, important language used here.  It is language that praises the survival and empowers the survivor to continue surviving by choosing that which still serves her and moving away from that which is no longer helpful now that surviving includes healing.

Here, I read again of how good it is to have survived and, having survived, I now have the opportunity to begin to move away from the instinctive things I did to protect myself by first learning about the whys and wherefores of them and then looking for ways to provide those same needs but in a more healthy or even kind-to-myself fashion.  More importantly, I read that I have a choice, that I am in control ... or that I can learn to be in control rather than letting the effects of sexual abuse and the errant lessons I learned then still color and bind my thoughts, behavior, and choices now.

There is a fragility in me.  It is something a counselor said once. She said I should ask people to be gentle with me, as well as work on being gentle with myself.  It is my experience, unfortunately, that speaking of the need to consider the fragility and to proceed with gentleness in responses, reactions, conversations, etc. is often received as a criticism of the other person rather than an acknowledgment of my own state.  I do not understand that, and I know that I have probably poorly explained what I mean.  But sometimes I want to scream: It's not about you: it's about me!  SIGH.

Anyway, this fragility.  The only thing I can think to compare it to is that I am balancing on a seesaw.  In order to change one part, I have to adjust the other, slowly, carefully.  Sometimes, the change is too much and the seesaw beings to teeter up and down, frightening me.  But eventually I find that balance again.  To join me on the seesaw, something has to be adjusted.  To change my perspective, things must realign and come into balance again.  

That is why, for example, I ultimately made the decision to draw a big, thick line in the sand of me and say (plead) no hugs/no handshakes/no touching.  Even a hug from someone my head knows is safe can be something for the rest of me to tolerate.  Because I am working on so much at once, this is a way to ensure I do not find myself sprawled on the ground, having plunked down hard and then fallen off my seesaw.

This weekend, an old friend came to visit.  I tried.  Or at least I told her in advance about my boundary.  I talked about the ways setting it was helpful to me.  On the phone, that was great.  In person, she forgot.  And I caved.  I just couldn't tell someone whom I had not seen in years but who has been a friend for decades to stay away from me.  I was too worried what that might do while I was trying to reconnect with her.  So, again, I caved.  I stuffed how I felt when she hugged me or when she put her arm around me. I pretended.  I shut myself off whenever she came close.  And I wept at night when I tried to set aside the thoughts and feelings of those moments. But I did work to be gentle with myself. I did work not to punish myself for fearing even her closeness and for purposely, willfully, longingly disassociating in those moments.

Another way to look at this main point about coping is that making coping mechanisms a law in the healing process will only result in where the law takes you:  condemnation and death (figuratively, if not literally).  Making handling them and changing them a law will only result in additional harm.  Facing and addressing coping mechanisms needs to start first from the Gospel, from a stance of life and of forgiveness, forgiveness overflowing and forgiveness undeserving.  

And ... well ... the Gospel covers all sins, not just the acceptable ones.  So does the celebration of all coping mechanisms that led to survival.  

You drank?  Well, I am thankful that you did because it helped you to survive to this point; you are still here!  Let's see if drinking still serves you now as it did then.  If not, let's find what else might you do when you feel the need to drink that will serve you now.  

You did drugs?  Well, I am thankful that you did because it helped you to survive to this point; you are still here!  Let's see if getting high still serves you now as it did then.  If not, let's find what else might you do when you feel the need to take drugs that will serve you now.  

You cut?  Well, I am thankful that you did because it helped you to survive to this point; you are still here!  Let's see if cutting still serves you now as it did then.  If not, let's find what else might you do when you feel the need to get high that will serve you now.  

You were anorexic?  Well, I am thankful that you were because it helped you to survive to this point; you are still here!  Let's see if anorexia still serves you now as it did then.  If not, let's find what else might you do when you feel the need to deprive yourself of food or to purse that will serve you now.  

You forgot?  Well, I am thankful that you did because it helped you to survive to this point; you are still here!  Let's see if forgetting still serves you now as it did then.  If not, let's find what else might you do when you feel the need to remain unknowing that will serve you now.  

You denied what happened?  Well, I am thankful that you did because it helped you to survive to this point; you are still here!  Let's see if denying or lying about what happened still serves you now as it did then.  If not, let's find what else might you do when you feel the need to hide from what happened that will serve you now.

You avoided all people?  Well, I am thankful that you did because it helped you to survive to this point; you are still here!  Let's see if avoiding everyone still serves you now as it did then.  If not, let's find what else might you do when you feel the need to avoid everyone that will serve you now.

You were hypervigilant?  Well, I am thankful that you did because it helped you to survive to this point; you are still here!  Let's see if hypervigilance still serves you now as it did then.  If not, let's find what else might you do when you feel the need to be aware of every single thing around you that will serve you now.

You stole?  Well, I am thankful that you did because it helped you to survive to this point; you are still here!  Let's see if stealing still serves you now as it did then.  If not, let's find what else might you do when you feel the need to steal that will serve you now.

You were a workaholic?  Well, I am thankful that you did because it helped you to survive to this point; you are still here!  Let's see if working until you drop still serves you now as it did then.  If not, let's find what else might you do when you feel the need to overwork that will serve you now.

Yes, many of those things sound sort of silly when you get to the changing part, but avoiding some people is still a good thing, as are being aware of your environment and working hard.  Finding balance with the positives, at least temporary substitutes with the negatives, and getting yourself to a place of  control and peace is what matters.

I am not saying that all the ways that sexual abuse survivors may have harmed themselves in the past are good things now, but I am saying that no matter what happened then—even if then is yesterday—is a good thing if it means you are still alive.  Where there is life, there is hope.  

In the best of all worlds, those around sexual abuse survivors will think first of the survivor's need for safety, for gentleness, for acceptance, rather than their own need to understand or to judge.  When it comes to coping mechanisms, the only judge who will make a difference in the healing process is the survivor.  When she is ready.  When he understands.  And that change may come far, far more slowly than loved ones or friends may wish.  But that's okay.  Let it be okay.

It's okay that you did that.

It's okay that you found yourself back there.

It's okay that you take some steps backwards even as you take steps forward.

It's okay that it takes your body longer to learn than your mind.

It's okay that knowing a thing can take longer than trusting a thing.

It's okay.

You. Are. Okay.

As for me, sometimes I wonder if I will ever stop being fragile. I wonder if I will ever stop needing people to be gentle with me.  I do think, perhaps, I have stopped punishing myself, condemning myself, for being so.  

It is a difficult thing to face the whole of it, the scope, how it has colored and shaped your thoughts and behavior and choices even, with and without you knowing.  It is a difficult thing to remember, to learn, to understand, to change.  To be brave and courageous even as you feel beaten and broken and too weak to get through another moment of such a process.  It is a difficult thing to learn to thrive having been so enmeshed in surviving.

I am Yours, Lord.  Save me!

First Lesson on Emotions...

Writing about dissociation is hard for me.  In fact, it might very well be the epitome of bittersweet.  To know, to understand the whys and wherefores of yourself is an absolute blessing.  To have an answer.  To see something objectively and set outside of yourself.  To know you are not crazy and alone.  All of these are sweet.  But the bitter, the acrid lingering taste that you long to have gone yet accompanies the sweet is this slowly unfolding .... horror ... at just how much of your life for which you have not been present.

In a way, the day I started reading the book is the day I started living.

Life since then is still a struggle and still filled with many a times of dissociation, but it is a life for which I am, at least sometimes, present.  I realize I am fleeing and try to stop.  I fail and I fall into discouragement and despair.  I fail and try to at least not punish myself.  I sometimes succeed. I sometimes remain.

But remaining present is not an easy thing for a person who has also not learned to recognize or process emotions.  I will say I feel this or that, but the truth is I am most often completely unable to discern what it is that I am feeling.  So, I have fall back feelings to which I cling:  fear and shame and frustration.

When children are raised in a healthy environment, their emotions are respected. When they are sad, angry, or afraid, their parents or caretakers acknowledge their feelings, make room for safe expression, and offer comfort. Children raised in an emotionally supportive home are not talked out of their feelings or punished for them. Because of this, they learn that feelings are not dangerous. And their capacity to tolerate difficult feelings increases naturally as they grow up.

Abused children rarely have this kind of support. They cannot afford to feel the full extent of their terror, pain, shame, or rage; the agony would be devastating. They would not be able to do arithmetic with other second graders, for example, if they acknowledged the depth of their sorrow and desolation.

Because their innocent love and trust are betrayed, abused children learn that they cannot rely on their feelings. And the feelings they do express may be disregarded or mocked.

If the adults around them are out of control, they get the message that feelings lead to violence. Anger means beatings or furniture hurled across the room. (The Courage to Heal, Bass & Davis, pp. 6)


At my last job, there was a senior employee whose anger ruled the majority of her interaction.  The employee turnover in her department was approximately 300% the time I worked at that job.  No one wanted to be the one who had to work with her, so often my boss sent me in her place.  I would grow ill each time I had to face her.

Her anger was not confined to subordinates either.  Toward the end of my tenure, another senior employee came on board who would stand toe-to-toe with her.  The new employee's office was near mine, so I could hear the angry exchanges between the two.  One day, the row between them was so loud and so filled with anger that I found myself cowering beneath my desk without realizing what I was doing.  I was simply terrified by what I was hearing.

Anger frightens me.

I tense up.
I wait to be hurt.
I withdraw.

It is the one emotion I always recognize in others.  It is the one emotion that you cannot hide from me.  And it is an emotion that always sparks such a primal, instinctive, self-protective response in me.

I do not know how to handle anger in others.  I rarely am actually angry myself, for all anger frightens me.  I do grow frustrated and have been accused of being angry in that moment.  However, the truth is that I am upset because of the situation, of the inability to change or achieve something ... usually communication.  In counseling, I was told that part of healing would be learning that it is okay to be angry about what was done to me.  A part of me cannot fathom doing so.

Abused children often learn to block out their pain, because it is too devastating or because they do not want to give the abuser the satisfaction of seeing them cry. But since it is not possible to block out emotions selectively, they may simply stop feeling.

On the other hand, they may feel overwhelmed with feelings, flooded with fear, grief, shame, and rage. All too often, they suffer this distress alone, without a safe way to express their emotions and without consolation. 

Often survivors find it difficult to:

• Recognize their feelings
• Differentiate between emotions
• Express feelings
• Calm down when they get upset

Many survivors feel:

• Disconnected, isolated, and alone.
• A pervasive sense of shame
• Just a few feelings, rather than a full range of emotions
• Out of control with their rage or other feelings
• Confused
• Dead inside

Many survivors:

• Are prone to depression or despair
• Struggle with anxiety or have panic attacks
• Alternate between overwhelming anxiety, fear, or rage and being numb and shut down
• Feel agitated and on alert
• Have frequent nightmares
• Are afraid of their emotions
• Worry about going crazy
• Rarely feel pleasure, relaxation, or joy (pp. 6-7)

Often counseling offices have them on the wall.  I used to stare at one each time I saw it, struggling to imagine what it would be like to know, to really know and understand how you are feeling.  And to feel without fear or guilt or shame.  So, I now have an emotions chart that I carry around with me.  I have many copies, in fact.  When emotions wash over me, I try to study it and figure out what best fits what I am feeling.  I remain rather clueless in this matter, but I make the effort because I hope.

A friend who is a counselor was talking with me about this, about my past, and noted that I lack emotional intelligence, as well as the difficulty allowing myself to feel and to identify what I am feeling.  By this she meant that I am not really able to identify emotions in others and the cues they give.  This can make social interaction difficult.  And this also means that while I struggle to trust others, I also struggle to know who is safe to trust.  That is part of how end up trusting the wrong person.

Again.
And again.
And again.

This, too, is common with children who are sexually abused, but revictimization is a topic I hope to address at a later point.  But I would note, now, that this is not about a flaw in the sexual abuse survivor or something that is voluntary.  It actually has more to do with how predators work and the effects of sexual abuse, the wrong lessons ingrained as a child.

The lies of the predator, the lies of sexual abuse, are insidiously specious.

The point about emotions, about feelings, is that they are intricately connected and confused by sexual abuse.  Survivors often struggle with both fleeing from them and facing them without truly understanding why.  Therefore it is important for them to have supportive folk about them who understand that feelings can be frightening and confusing, who allow them to have and express feelings, and who remind them that to feel and to struggle with feelings is okay. 


I am Yours, Lord.  Save me! 

Trauma and the Brain, Lesson Three...

The last bit—for now—from the chapter on trauma and the brain is taking a closer look at dissociation. Once again, the authors begin by talking how children learn through their bodies.  Even when the lessons learned are harmful and evil, the repercussions of them linger, just as those of lessons of love and comfort.  Understanding how and why children react to those lessons and the manner in which they are ingrained in mind and body is key step in healing from and helping those who are survivors of child sexual abuse.

Children initially learn to about themselves and the world through their bodies. Hunger, fear, love, acceptance, rejection, support, nurturing, terror, pride, mastery, humiliation, anger—all began with sensation on the body level. As a child, your body was the means through which you learned your first lessons about trust, intimacy, protection, and nourishment. 

When you were abused, your body and your psyche were invaded. You were taught through direct experience that your body, rather than being your home, was a dangerous place where terrible things could happen. Gizelle, who was violently raped by her father, recalls:

"I felt caught, trapped in my body. That continued into adulthood. I never heard any message from my body. I would be really sick and I'd stagger around and go to work. I made a lifetime dedication of not listening to my body, because if I had, I would have had to hear that I had been raped, and I couldn't do that and survive."

Like Gizelle, you may have cut yourself off from your body—from its knowledge, sensations, and feelings, from its riches and its wisdom. You protected yourself as best you could, but at a terrible price. Most of the problems survivors experience with their bodies—dissociation, numbing, and additions, to name a few—arise from this attempt to find safety by leaving their bodies behind.

Some survivors are so estranged from their bodies that they don’t know how to relate to them at all:

"I had to start with the very basic question, 'What is my body?' Is it a bunch of unrelated parts—arms, legs, head, torso, and feet? Is it my organs, muscles, bones and DNA? It is the part of me that runs marathons, but has two left feet on the dance floor? Or is it how I look? Most of my life I've viewed my body as a necessary evil—a receptacle that needs sleep and demands food, a think that carries around my brain. Now that I was healing, it began to dawn on me, 'Was it actually possible that my body was me and not something separate from me?'"

Like this woman, many survivors live disembodied lives, existing solely in their heads. Rachel Bat Or recalls her relationship to her body before she began to heal:

"If someone said, 'What do you feel in your arm?' I would have had no idea what they were even talking about. If I touched it, I felt my arm with my head. But I couldn't get inside of it. I could only touch the skin from the outside. I couldn't have felt my heart beating. I couldn't experience anything from inside my body, because I wasn't inside my body.

But when we don’t live inside our bodies, we miss the crucial information our bodies constantly offer us. By habitually cutting ourselves off from our feelings—of discomfort, pleasure, anger, or even relaxation—we disconnect from ourselves a little more each day. We deaden ourselves and grow numb, and in doing so we lose access to the innate healing power of the body. Our world becomes smaller and less vibrant, and we often don’t even know what we’re missing. (The Courage to Heal, Bass & Davis, p. 247-8)

In the past, when counselors/psychologists had talked to me about dissociation, it was always described to me as "going to a happy place."  In my opinion, this is not an accurate or complete description of dissociation.  So, for me, the authors of The Courage to Heal, literally changed my life in explaining that dissociation is separating yourself from or numbing yourself to your body.  You flee whilst still in place.  My litany for life suddenly became clear.

Shut up.  

Be still.  

Wait until it is over.

In recent years, I had told several people one of my deepest fears ... that I was an axe murderer or something.  I thought that I had an ice cube for a heart.  People would laugh.  Or dismiss my fears.  I have no words ... not a single one ... to communicate the utter, absolute relief I felt, the bindings that loosed from my being, to discover that it seemed like I had an ice cube for a heart because I was dissociating, I was numb. 

At first, that numbness was small and contained, but over time it grew, until I was certain I was a horrible person, a ticking-time bomb, someone who should not live.

Children often deal with the unbearable experience of sexual abuse by emotionally and psychically distancing from the abuse while it is happening. Although dissociation is an intelligent, miraculous, and effective coping mechanism for the child, it can be habitual in adult survivors, so that every time you experience uncomfortable feelings and sensations (anger, sexual arousal, fear, etc.), you automatically “check out” and leave your body, even though you may not be in any real danger. The problem is that you may be leaving your body at time when you clearly don’t want to—like when you’re having sex with someone you want to be with or when you need to stand your ground in your life now.

When you habitually dissociate, you also miss a great deal of joy, because life is lived and experienced and enjoyed through the body.

A crucial part of healing from child sexual abuse is learning to say present in your body, to tolerate the full range of sensations and feelings you find there. (p. 253, emphasis mine)

Staying present is difficult.
It is brutal.
It is the agony of a marathon that seemingly never ends.

A part of me is grateful to understand this particular why and wherefore of me.  Part of me is overwhelmed, struggling to grasp just how much of my life for which I have not been fully present.  Part of me is ashamed.  Ashamed that I do this thing.  Ashamed that I am afraid of sensations.  Ashamed that I do not even know how to identify emotions.

Even so, I am trying to learn.


I am Yours, Lord.  Save me!

Trauma and the Brain, Lesson Two...

In the first post on trauma and the brain, I wanted to show how the trauma of sexual abuse affects the brain and thus the body.  Sexual abuse is an assault on the whole body, the whole being, not just an act of penetration or molestation in one particular spot of the body.  It is also a trauma that is not fixed at one point in time.

In the post, Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) is introduced.  I would like to post a few more thoughts on this:

People with PTSD continue to cycle through rounds of distress. Memories of the trauma remain stored in the amygdala and the hypothalamus—the primitive, instinctual parts of the brain that are concerned with survival. These areas of the brain (also called the “old” brain) can only react; they are not able to think, reason, plan, or compare. The old brain responds instantly to danger, overriding the thinking parts of the brain. This ability to react immediately—without thinking—can save our lives, but at a cost.

The old brain deeply imprints information related to danger and survival, and since it does not have the capacity to integrate the experience of trauma and cannot differentiate the past from the present, it continues to react as if you are still in danger. Whenever you experience anything that is reminiscent of the initial trauma, the amygdala and the highly attuned structures surrounding it are activated, triggering a new cascade of stress chemicals.

For survivors of child sexual abuse, smelling a particular cologne, seeing the shadow of a man at sunset, sensing a sudden movement out of the corner of the eye, or being touched in a particular way can set off an intense alarm reaction in which the initial panic, helplessness, and terror are re-experienced in the present.

As time goes by, PTSD symptoms can become more ingrained, and for some people, traumatic memories grow more intrusive. Survivors often vacillate between a state of hypervigilance, in which all of the body’s distress signals are on “red alert,” and the opposites, shutting down completely. Over the years, survivors of child sexual abuse may be increasingly numb, agitated, or a combination of the two. (The Courage to Heal, Bass & Davis, p. 244-245, emphasis mine)

It may be difficult to understand, but these responses can go unnoticed by the sexual abuse survivor and those in his/her life.  Sometimes, they are so subtle, so very instinctive. Separation. Capitulation. Fear.  My example with the smell of beer, avoiding it without knowing, avoiding what would come after I smelled it.

And then there are other times when the response is so profound it cannot be unnoticed, even if it is not understood.

A few years ago, an anesthesiologist came to introduce himself before a procedure.  I was extremely agitated, not about what was going to happen, but about the fact that I was clad only in a thin gown, with no underwear.  To be blunt, underwear makes a profound difference in my level of comfort.  Since then, I have learned to ask for surgical underwear before hand and to have it put on before I awake.  But then I did not know of that option or have the courage to insist on it when others didn't see the need, as was the case the following year with another procedure.

The anesthesiologist, a man, put his hand on my shoulder, slipping between my gown to rest upon my skin.  His fingers were splayed downward, his fingertips resting on the upper part of my breast.  I became so terrified that I was sedated immediately, instead of the plan of doing so once in the procedure room.  Since I was in a surgical clinic, rather than a hospital, the protocol was to not even use versed outside the procedure rooms.

I can understand that, for some, touch is seen as comforting. But it is not.  And when touch becomes a trigger, it is harmful.  Would that it were I could help others understand that they should stop and think what might be comforting for the other person rather than what is comforting to them.

Fortunately it is possible to gradually move the trauma that has been locked in the old brain to the higher, reasoning part of the brain that holds our language centers—the cerebral cortex. Unlike the old brain, the cerebral cortex has the capacity to integrate new information and to change. Once trauma memories are integrated into this more advanced part of the brain through tools such as imagery, the creative arts, and body-based therapies—along with psychotherapy—survivors of abuse learn, on the deepest level, that the abuse happened in the past and that it is over.

As a result, automatic stress response and other PTSD symptoms can be significantly reduced and, in some cases, eliminated altogether. (p. 245)

Once, when I was recovering from an asthma attack, a man came over and put his arm around me to ask if I was okay.  I screamed, "Don't touch me!"  And then was flooded with shame.  I was in church, after all.  

I did not know the man.  And my counselor, in debriefing the experience, stated that it is not appropriate for a strange man to put his arm around a woman he does not know no matter the location or the circumstance.  But I, rather bitterly replied, that my efforts to set boundaries for my body were never respected in church.  There is all this touching ... a hand to the small of the back as you pass through a door, a hand on the shoulder in greeting, a hand on the arm.  That doesn't include hugs ... the full body hug, the opposite shoulder to shoulder half hug, the side hug.  And even hand shakes.  

After the pit bull attack, which only exacerbated my problems, I needed a safety zone to be around others.  When I would go to church, because I am oft wobbly or walking slowly with my cane, ushers would reach out and take ahold of me.  Without asking.  Sometimes, even after asking and hearing my response of: "No, thank you."  I asked the pastors to speak with the ushers.  But this was not something that was easily accomplished, since there were no formal usher meetings or training.  I can appreciate that my pastors did not understand the severity of the problem.  

Sometimes, I would cry aloud.  But usually, when it happened, I would stuff all of that terror and panic and helplessness and shame and failure and self-loathing into a tiny ball and then breakdown in the parking lot afterward.  I would struggle to get home. I would vomit.  I would become insensible, caught in this storm of emotions and sensations that I could not understand or process.

Ultimately, I told them I could not come back to church without knowing for certain I would not be touched.

No touching.  No hugging.  Period.  

This has been a very difficult to set.  Yet the longer I have gone with having mostly full control of my body, the better I have been.  One of my pastors still sticks his hand out nearly every time I see him.  No matter how many times I ask him not to do so.  I struggle with the pressure to shake his hand and the desire to scream that I want it to be my choice.  There are also two people who have hugged me. However, for the most part, I have carved a bit of safety, a bit of certitude about my body.  This has helped me to then have the clarity and the courage to take other small steps toward understanding what has and is happening to my body that I might progress in healing.

The greatest help others have given to me in this is to let me know that my choice, the setting of this boundary is okay.  

Telling me that I am okay—that my feelings are okay, that my responses are okay, that my coping mechanisms are okay—is Gospel to me, is mercy, is love that I can hear, that I can understand.

Healing is possible.  It is hard work and often far, far longer a process than you would wish, but healing to some degree is possible.  And peace, the peace of Christ, in all circumstances is a promise.

I am Yours, Lord.  Save me!

First lesson on trauma and the brain...

I wish to write more about the topic of how bodies are long affected by sexual abuse, but there is so much to understand before you can really grasp the breadth and depth of its effects.

For me, what has helped the most has been The Courage to Heal. The reason is that the authors explain so much about what has, is, and might happen to you.  Instead of being crazy and alone, you are actually normal and in large company.  If nothing else, learning those two things changed my life.  Given that I had had counseling several times before reading the book, I find that immensely, ineffably sad.  

Why did it have to take so many years for me to find this book??

The authors encourage you to not read the book alone and to not feel constrained to read it in a linear fashion, although that is very helpful to do.  Because of this, when I saw a note about trauma and the brain, given how much I have been affected by the physical trauma of the pit bull attack, as well as sexual abuse.  I have PTSD and, as noted in the first post, it is difficult to pin-point an exact cause, but the tipping point, for me, was the pit bull attack, those long, terrifying, agonizing minutes where I was screaming for help and no one came.  This time, I was screaming aloud, and yet ... still ... no one came.  Not when I wanted someone to come.  Not until after.

While it is definitely not my intent to quote entire swaths of Bass and Davis' book, with regard to how trauma affects the brain and this knowledge's help with understanding the effects of sexual abuse, I want to include what I believe are some key points and do not wish to diminish the expertise and eloquence of the authors by summarizing this important knowledge.

We have learned a tremendous amount about the physical and emotional effects of trauma.  Although there are important differences between child sexual abuse and other kinds of trauma, there are also many similarities.  If you have been sexually abused as a child, you have a lot in common with people who have gone through other types of traumatic experiences—an orphan living in a war zone, a shopkeeper held up in a robbery, a driver in a head-on collision, a veteran struggling with memories of war.  In some cases, the trauma is linked to a one-time event; in others, the experience is severe and ongoing.  But in every instance, victims suffer a devastating combination of terror, helplessness, and loss of control.

When people are confronted with a traumatic event, their bodies have an immediate physiological reaction.  Every species has this biologically drive response to dire threats of harm or annihilation.  The instant a threat is perceived, our brain reacts, sending signals to the pituitary and adrenal glands to release a flood of stress hormones.  These hormones—among them, adrenaline, cortisone, and norepinephrine—make you hyperalert, preparing you to either fight or flee.  This fight-or-flight response is extremely useful when survival is at stake:  The heart beats faster, blood pressure rises, breathing speeds up, and the entire body prepare for action, whiles nonessential function—such as hunger, sleepiness, and digestion—shut down.  Once the threatening event passes, normal functions are reactivated and the body returns to normal.  People often become suddenly aware that they are exhausted, hungry, or in physical pain.

A third biological response to danger is the freeze response.  In nature, when fight or flight would be futile, animals instinctively collapse and becomes inert.  They look as if they are "playing dead."  This reflex releases more chemicals—pain-killing endorphins and opioids—that take the animal from a state of extreme energy to complete immobility.  Tense muscles instantly relax and breathing and heartbeat slow to barely perceptible.  If the animal survives, it immediately begins to discharge the built-up chemicals through intense shaking and trembling, heavy breathing, and sweating.  Ultimately animals return to a state of equilibrium and leave the encounter fully recovered, carrying no residual trauma.  (The Courage to Heal, Bass & Davis, pp. 242-243)

I would like to note a few things before continuing with the rest of this first lesson on trauma and the brain.

In reading through the book, I have become increasingly aware of just how careful Bass and Davis are with each and every word.  They are purposeful writers, as I noted in always making the distinction between sexual abuse survivors and sexual abuse victims. One word that I noted above is "annihilation."  This is not a word of extreme. This is reality for so many when faced with sexual abuse.  Sometimes, it is an annihilation of life itself, such as being held in place with a knife or a gun.  But, sometimes, it is an annihilation of hopes, dreams, identity, safety, etc.  Those are real things, too.  In some cultures, virginity means life for females who are not married.  And, in some cultures, even if you are a sexual abuse survivor, you are seen as complicit in adultery, which can carry a death sentence.

For Christians, who have had purity-as-law and purity-as-evidence-of-faith heaped upon them, sexual abuse is an annihilation of faith and/or hope of all that is entangled with purity, with virginity.  I believe, completely, that the place for sex is in marriage.  I believe, completely, that those who sin by having sex outside of marriage, are forgiven just as with any other sin.  And I believe, completely, that the sins of sex outside of marriage and of adultery leave you no less clean, no less pure than any child of Christ, washed clean through the Holy Waters of Baptism.

However.

However, it oft seems that sexual abuse is viewed, in some twisted fashion as the sin of sex outside of marriage.  Sexual abuse is not sexual activity; it is not a willing and free act of sinning against what God has designed with regard to the activity between male and female.  It is not sex.  Yes, a child of sexual abuse is no longer a virgin, by definition of that state, but a child of sexual abuse is not committing sexual sin.

I lost count of how many times I was told by Christians, when I revealed my past, that I was no longer pure.  Some of those times were by males who said they could only date someone they could marry and that person had to be pure.

Yes.  Having only recently discovered the pure doctrine of the Christian Book of Concord, I have long, long struggled not just with the feelings of filth and dirtiness that can come from being violated, but with the feeling and idea that I was spiritually filthy, spiritually dirty.  So, for me, facing the prospect of being sexually abused, especially after I became a Christian, was facing annihilation.

But in every instance, victims suffer a devastating combination of terror, helplessness, and loss of control.

To me, this is important to note.  It is a combination that is truly ineffable.  It is a combination that does not always have an ending.  And it is a combination that, for me, was written into my being in ways I still am only now beginning to recognize.

For example, I learned a while ago that the smell of beer is a trigger for me.  [Talking about triggers must come later.]  After receiving a call from someone who was struggling, I drove over to be with her.  When I pulled into her driveway, she was already walking toward me, so I rolled down my window.  But, as she drew close, I was overcome by terror and an inexplicable—at the time—desire to flee.  The woman was drunk, reeked of beer, and was sloshing the contents of a bottle all over herself and the driveway.  I did flee.

Later, when I learned about triggers, I realized that beer was one of mine.  A regular abuser was almost always drunk when he hurt me.  As an adult, I have avoided the smell of beer and places where beer is consumed without ever realizing why.  Now, I know.  But, when I smelled beer that night, I was overcome with terror, helplessness, and a loss of control.

The most important point, to me, of this passage is two-fold: 1) The responses of your body and mind are normal, expected and 2) How gracious is our Creator who made our bodies and minds to protect us wherever possible.

Oh, how long it has taken (and is still taking) me to grasp that my responses are normal and not something for which to punish myself further.  Understanding what happened—and happens still—has been one of the biggest steps I have ever taken toward healing.  Period.

Shut up.
Be still.
Wait until it is over.

This has been the litany of my life.  For good.  Yes, for good.  It helped me to survive.  Now, when I find myself following that litany, I try to stop and tell myself that I am safe and that I have choices.  And if I fail, if I still find myself in that place, then I work to let that be okay.

I want to finish this first lesson on trauma and the brain with why knowing how trauma affect the brain is especially important with child sexual abuse.

In human beings, dissociation is the mind state that accompanies the freeze response. With the help of pain-killing biochemical that have suddenly been released, we disconnect from what is happening to us. Our capacity to feel—both physically and emotionally—shuts down and we distance ourselves from the pain and terror we would ordinarily experience. Dissociation is an extremely effective survival mechanism, shielding us from the full impact of traumatic events. But the trauma itself is not processed or healed. In most cases, it is stored, not as a usual memory that fades and distorts over time, but as a nonverbal body memory, which is much harder to identify and process through thinking and talking. This is why we are not able to change our reactions to traumatic events just by “thinking them through." (243, emphasis mine)

Thus, my pattern, my litany, my life of Shut Up.  Be still.  Wait until it is over.  Any threat.  Anything that was threatening to me.

When humans freeze or dissociate, we are deluged with the same hormones as animals under attack. Once the danger has passed, we can sometimes use the same natural recovery mechanisms. We can shake, move, cry, yell, and breathe deeply, processes that sometimes help eliminate the chemicals our bodies have produced, just as animals do. And when we have the support of a caring person or community, we can receive comfort, thus meeting our need for understanding and connection.

But when children are sexually abused, they are rarely in a situation with optimum conditions for recovery. Instead, silence, secrecy, and isolation are the norm. Sometimes children are prevented even from crying out. And far often the abuse is a recurring event, without time for recovery before the next assault.

In the weeks and months after a traumatic event, trauma survivors often experience an acute stress reaction that can incorporate an array of troubling symptoms, including nightmares, flashbacks, trouble concentrating, intrusive thoughts, insomnia, an increased startle reflex, panic, depression, numbness, mental confusion, sudden explosions of rage, and alienation. The world no longer feels like a safe place.

For many people, these reactions last a few weeks or months and then gradually subside. But for others, the symptoms persist, eventually developing into post-traumatic stress disorder, or PTSD. Survivors of child sexual abuse—especially incest—are at increased risk because they experienced many of the dynamics that make long-term PTSD more likely: the trauma (or threat of trauma) was repeated and of long duration, they were children when the abuse occurred, they experienced great helplessness and betrayal, they believed the abuse was their fault, and, most significantly, they used dissociation as a way to escape. Although dissociation is an important protection, it is a factor that is correlated with the later development of PTSD.

Post-traumatic symptoms can grow stronger and become more entrenched over time. Or they can go underground and reemerge years, or even decades, later at a time of increased vulnerability—when a life event acts as a stimulus and triggers the post-traumatic reaction. (243-244, emphasis mine)

There is a misnomer with regard to children and sexual abuse.  So often, you hear:  Children are resilient.  This implies—if not outright stated afterwards—that it is okay if children are sexually abused because they will bounce back, will get over it easier because they are children.    To say this, to think this,  to act upon this is an egregious perfidy.  Utterly.  

It. Is. Not. True.

Sexual abuse survivors of all ages and all numbers of instances need careful, considerate, and comprehensive support and assistance to set them on the path to healing.  Some wounds, I believe, may not be fully healed this side of the vale, but there is hope for a start to healing, for a measure of safety, for peace.

There is so much to say about trauma and the brain, about triggers, about instinctive responses, about patterns, about PTSD.  But it is my hope that this is a solid beginning to help you think about the topic. Understanding yourself, your body, your mind is ever so helpful in healing.  Knowing that you are known, even in the things you do not yet see or understand, is powerful.

This is why, when I created the Praying the Psalter blog, with labels (Blogger only allows up to 20 per post) to help others navigate the Psalter in their prayers and begin to see the themes in this collection of prayers that our Triune God gave us in His Living Word, I added a post I had written about how the Psalter showed me, taught me, that I am known by God.  With regard to what I have shared here about responses, Psalms 42 and 77 are the clearest examples of how my Creator understands me, understands Myrtle.  

I am Yours, Lord.  Save me!

Bodies...

On my main blog, there are subjects I have revisited many a time, because I cannot quite find the words to say what it is that I mean to say.  And then there are some subjects that are revisited because there is too much to say in the first place.  Here, the subject of bodies, is one of both.

Children learn about the world through their bodies. If they are protected and nourished, they feel at home in their bodies. Living in their bodies is a source of pleasure, accomplishment, and satisfaction.

When children are sexually abused, they learn that the world, and their bodies, are not safe. Abused children experience pain, fear, and conflicting sensations of arousal. Often they leave their bodies to avoid these feelings—or numb themselves as best they can.

For abused children, the body is a place where frightening and painful things happen. They learn to always be on alert, to be ready for danger. Or they cut themselves off from their bodies and learn to ignore them, living mostly in their heads. For many survivors, the experience of trauma leaves a deep impression on the body.  (The Courage to Heal, Bass & Davis, p. 7)

Take a look at any baby and you will quickly see that children learn about the world through their bodies.  Their first discoveries are often with their own bodies ... tongues, toes, fingers, fists.  As soon as they are able, they begin exploring their world with their hands and feet, grasping and kicking aplenty.  But they also learn safety and comfort through their bodies.  They are held by their parents.  They rest against their mother's breast to nurse.  Their skin is stroked and kissed.  Touch is comfort.  Closeness is safety.

Yet for the sexual abuse survivor—from infant to adult—their own body can become a place of fear and shame, a place of horror and pain, a place to flee.

Think about that for a moment.
And another.

Children learn through their bodies even before they speak.  Children learn through their bodies before they understand what it is that they are learning.  It is no wonder, then, that sexual abuse leaves a deep impression on the body.

Sometimes that impression is known.
Sometimes is it unknown.
Sometimes it is both.

Often, it makes no sense.

Well, if you understand the whys and wherefores of how the body responds to trauma and if you consider how much we learn through our bodies, then sexual abuse survivors struggles and responses make perfect sense.  All that is part of what I would like to share.  The body's response to trauma and responses common to many.  But the basic block of all of that is understanding that sexual abuse survivors have bodily wounds that can color all that they think about and do with their bodies.

For the Christian, this struggle with the body can be more damaging, for there is a physicality about the sweet, sweet Gospel that cannot be ignored or escaped.  That physicality can both soothe and agitate.  Both.  One or the other.  Both.  And, again, it is not so much important that you understand why  or how this can be so.  It is merely important that you accept that such can be the case.

Children learn about the world through their bodies. If they are protected and nourished, they feel at home in their bodies. Living in their bodies is a source of pleasure, accomplishment, and satisfaction.

When children are sexually abused, they learn that the world, and their bodies, are not safe. Abused children experience pain, fear, and conflicting sensations of arousal. Often they leave their bodies to avoid these feelings—or numb themselves as best they can.

For abused children, the body is a place where frightening and painful things happen. They learn to always be on alert, to be ready for danger. Or they cut themselves off from their bodies and learn to ignore them, living mostly in their heads. For many survivors, the experience of trauma leaves a deep impression on the body.  (The Courage to Heal, Bass & Davis, p. 7)

It is okay of you hate your body.
It is okay of you are ashamed of your body.
It is okay if you flee from your body.

You are still without blemish and are still clean.
You are still fearfully and wonderfully made.
You are still forgiven.


I am Yours, Lord.  Save me!

A beginning...

The Courage to Heal ought to be required reading for all teachers.  All medical personnel.  All clergy.  All emergency personnel.  All mental health professionals.  All judicial system personnel.  All sexual abuse survivors.  All family and friends of survivors of sexual abuse. Well, truly everybody.  Period.

The Courage to Heal, written by Ellen Bass and Laura Davis, first published in 1988, twenty-five years ago, is an outstanding resource for everyone.    Why everyone?  Well, sexual abuse is everywhere.  It is in our homes, our schools, our companies, our parks, our restaurants, our churches, our community activities.  With reported rates of sexual abuse being 1 in 4 females and 1 in 7 males, odds are that someone in every community, store, church, business, school, and sports team has been sexually assaulted.  Yet our nation is plagued by silence on the matter.

Oh, the stories of sexual abuse have become increasing prevalent in the news, sadly.  Of late, sexual assaults by youth—and oft by youth in groups—are the ones reported.  Yet what happens to those who are assaulted is rarely discussed.

I believe that is why we could, in 2013, have a judge dismiss all but a tiny fraction of a rapist's sentence because he believed that the 14 year-old who was raped was complicit.  No matter that the law states that age of consent is 16.  No matter that the girl committed suicide because she could not bear the aftermath of the months of the teacher's abuse.  No matter.  That judge, clearly, is completely and utterly ignorant of the impact sexual abuse has on the survivor.  He failed in upholding the law, but he also failed in his duty to understand the extent of the crime.  There is a reason for the law he dismissed so easily.  An important reason.

Twenty-five years the information in The Courage to Heal has been available, and yet even mental health professionals are not always aware of the impact of sexual abuse or how to help survivors.  Twenty-five years and yet those who are in vocations of caring for others are rarely aware of the impact of sexual abuse or how to help survivors.  Twenty-five years and yet parents and family members are not always aware of the impact of sexual abuse or how to help survivors.  Twenty-five years.  That, in and of itself, is criminal to me.

We know the importance of and teach stop, drop, and roll.  We know the importance of and teach CPR.  We know the importance of and teach having a dedicated driver when drinking with friends. But we do not know about the impact of sexual abuse on the body, the mind, and the emotions or teach about it when every two minutes in America sexual abuse is taking place.  Right now as you are reading this. Right now in your community.

Every. Two. Minutes.

I have written veiled things on my blog.  I have posted veiled things on Facebook, when I have been on there.  I have posted articles of sexual assaults to show how it happens everywhere and posted articles and videos to show its impact.  Yet there is rarely ever any engagement on the topic and, going by site statistics, those posts are rarely read.

My friend, while recently trying to help me through a bad spell, talked to me about the subject of bodies with regard to receiving the gifts of Christ.  While I cannot remember, due to my compromised brain, what  she said, my first thought was Oh, how I wish someone, anyone, had said that to me years and years and years ago!  My second was that I want to write specifically about the impact of sexual abuse rather than hiding my thoughts beneath and between lots of other words.

Nearly two weeks have passed and each time I set out to start writing, a panic attack set in.  I am weak. I am frightened.  And I am most decidedly not brave.  Yet still I want to write.

I thought about writing specifically on my personal blog, but I want to write in such a way so that if ever anyone wanted to learn something about sexual abuse an its impact, then that information via my experience and my reading of The Courage to Heal would be labeled and navigable.  So, I am going to write here.  If for none else then for me.  So, while I may cross post entries, this is where I will be writing the things I wish to say, the things I wish others will learn to that those like me might have a better chance at healing sooner rather than later.

Since picking up this book, I have come far, but I have much, much further to go.  The things I have learned in counseling, I have to re-learn daily.  The truth that has broken through the lies has to be re-told daily.  For the lies persist.

I want to finish by including the first part of the chapter Effects: Recognizing The Damage:

The long-term effects of sexual abuse can be so pervasive that it's sometimes hard to pinpoint exactly how the abuse affect you.  I can permeate everything: your sense of self, intimate relationships, sexuality, parenting, work, even your saint.  As one survivor explained:

"It's like those pictures I remember from Highlights for Children magazine. T he bicycle was hidden in a tree, a banana was growing from someone's ear, and all the people were upside-down.  The caption underneath said, 'What's wrong with this picture?' But so many things were disturbed and out of place, it was often easier to say, 'What's right with this picture!'"

Many survivors have ben too busy surviving to notice the ways they were hurt by the abuse.  But you cannot heal until you acknowledge the impact of the abuse.

Because sexual abuse is just one of many factors that shaped your development, it isn't always possible to isolate its effects from the other influences on your life.  If you have trouble trusting people, is it because you were molested when you were nine, because your mother was an alcoholic, or because you were left alone for hours every day as a small child?  It's the interplay of hundreds of factors that make us who we are today.

The way abuse was handled when you were a child has a lot to do with its subsequent impact.  If a child's disclosure is met with compassion and effective intervention, the healing begins immediately.  But if no one noticed or responded to your pain, you were left feeling abandoned and alone.  If you were blamed, were not believed, or suffered further trauma, the damage was compounded.  And the ways you oped with the abuse may have created further problems.

...

The effects of child abuse can be devastating, but they do not have to be permanent. (The Courage to Heal, Bass and Davis, pp. 3-4)

The effects of child abuse can be devastating, but they do not have to be permanent.
The effects of child abuse can be devastating, but they do not have to be permanent.
The effects of child abuse can be devastating, but they do not have to be permanent.

In thinking about what my friend said about our bodies being how we receive the gifts of Christ, what I believe is important for others to understand is that receiving the sweet, sweet Gospel can be painful and/or difficult for those who have been sexually abused.  That doesn't have to make sense to you.  I hope to help in that area.  But, if nothing else, I hope that you might learn that a child of God might long for the healing of the Living Word and the Lord's Supper and yet flee from it at the same time.  And in learning such you might accept such.  And in accepting such you might help that child of God on his or her journey of healing.

I want to write about topics that still terrify me, that still shame me, because, in my experience, people view sexual abuse as a mental health problem, rather than a whole person problem.  They overlook its effects on the body and on the spirit ... and especially on faith.

I would like to finish by noting that the young girl I mentioned above is a sexual abuse victim.  Bass and Davis are very specific and very careful to delineate between who is a victim and who is a survivor.  If you have died as a consequence of sexual abuse, you are a victim.  Everyone else is a survivor.  If you are alive, you are a survivor, no matter where you with regard to healing.  You are alive.  You are a survivor.  To see someone as a victim, to treat her or him as such, can hurt that person further.  To view yourself as such, can obstruct your own healing.  That is lesson Number One.

I ... I am a survivor.


I am Yours, Lord.  Save me!