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 You might have blocked out huge parts of your past, withdrawn into yourself, or cut off your emotions.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!