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!