The Stages of Healing Overview...

This is summary of the stages of healing Bass and Davis gives.  As I have written before, it is important to understanding that the stages of healing from sexual abuse are similar to the stages of grief in that they are not linear.  Second, this summary is but a brief glimpse at the information covered in the individual chapters about the stages of healing.

THE STAGES

Although most of these stages are necessary for everyone, some—the emergency stage, remembering, disclosing, abuse to your family, and forgiveness—are not applicable to everyone.

The decision to heal.  Once you recognize the effects of sexual abuse in your life, you need to make an active commitment to heal.  Deep healing happens only when you choose it and are willing to change.

The emergency stage.  Beginning to deal with memories and long-surpressed feelings can throw your life into turmoil.  This is a time when emotional pain is intense, the old coping mechanisms are no longer intact, and it may difficult to function at your usual level.  Remember, this stage won't last forever.

Remembering.  Many survivors suppress some or all memory of what was done to them as children.  Those who do not forget the actual incidents may forget how they felt at the time or may not fully realize how much the experience has affected them.  Remembering is the process of getting back both memory and feeling, and understanding the impact abuse has had on your life.

Believing it happened.  Survivors often doubt their own perceptions.  Accepting that the abuse really happened, and that it really hurt you, is a vital part of the healing process.

Breaking silence.  Most survivors kept the abuse a secret in childhood.  Telling a safe person about your history is a powerful healing force that can dispel the shame that often accompanies victimization.

Understanding that it wasn't your fault.  Children usually believe that the abuse is their fault.  Adult survivors must learn to place the blame where it belongs—squarely on the shoulders of the abusers.

The child within.  Many survivors have lost touch with their own innocence and vulnerability.  Yet within each of us is a child—or several children of different ages—who were deeply hurt and need healing.  Getting in touch with the child you once were can help you develop compassion for yourself.

Grieving.  Most survivors haven't acknowledged or grieved for all of their losses.  Grieving is a way to honor your pain, let go, and move more fully into your current life.

Anger.  Anger is a powerful and liberating force that provides the energy need to move through grief, pain, and despair.  Directing your anger squarely at your abuser and at those who didn't protect you is pivotal to healing.

Disclosures and truth-telling.  Talking about your abuse and its effects with the abuser or with family members can be empowering and transformative, but it is not right for everyone.  Before taking this step, it is essential that you prepare carefully and wait until you have a strong foundation of healing and support.

Forgiveness?  Forgiveness of the abuser is not an essential part of the healing process. The only essential forgiveness is for yourself.

Spirituality.  Having the support of a spiritual connection can be a real asset in the healing process.  Spirituality is a uniquely personal experience.  You might find it through traditional religion, mediation, nature, working a 12-step program, or your support group.

Resolution and moving on.  As you move through these stages again and again, you will achieve more and more integration.  Your feelings and perspectives will start to stabilize.  While you won't erase your history, it will truly become history, something that occurred in your past.  You will make deep and lasting changes in your life.  Having gained awareness, compassion, and power through healing, you will have the opportunity to work toward a better world.  (The Courage to Heal, Bass and Davis, pp. 56-57)


Part of me wants to leave this summary as is, to simply leave it for you to reflect upon. Part of me wants to include a few brief thoughts.  Again, which is the better course of action is unclear to me.  Often less is more.  Much, much more.  Yet so, too, are words to ponder, words born of personal experience.

• No matter how much you care for someone who has survived sexual abuse or wish for him/her to heal, until that person makes a decision to heal, healing will not and cannot take place.  I wish my decision had come earlier.  But my moment came when it did and until I had that thought, I could not really understand what healing would mean ... or believe that it was truly possible.
• Breaking silence is ever so important, but finding a safe person is not easy.  To me, it thought it would be so being amongst Christians.  But a safe person is someone who sees the survivor, not the victim, and someone who does not set out to fix you or try to make things better, but gives you the freedom to be who you need to be in the different stages of healing.
• Fault ... believing the truth of where this lies ... is really, really, really difficult.  For me, I think that believing has to come on many levels and has to come in body and mind and spirit ... if that makes sense.
• It has been helpful for me to understand and to accept that there is a little girl in me who is who she is and where she is for a reason.  I respond and think and feel as her because of her.  Knowing this, learning this, has been a large part of taking the first steps of learning not to punish myself for being her now.
• Grief is something I have found few understand about the effects of sexual abuse and the need for working through/living with your grief.  Grief is also its own journey and one that may never be completed this side of the vale.  However, the beauty of the Gospel is the joy that can be had, the joy and the healing and the peace even as grief remains.
• Forgiveness has been, in my experience, the false Law handed to me by other Christians that has deepened my wounds and enlarged my despair.  Christians tend to forget that forgiveness is given to us through the Living Word and is worked in us by the Holy Spirit.  Forgiveness will come or not come in God's perfect timing and by His strength.  Not ours.  Not mine.  And we are still forgiven, whole, pure even if we do not ever come to the place where we forgive our abusers.

Finally, I would add, for Christians, that hearing the Living Word is the single, greatest gift/tool/medicine in healing from the effects of sexual abuse.  Christians also tend to worry first about what they might say or how they might help, often remaining silent and separate from wounded brothers and sisters in Christ believing they have nothing to offer.  This is not true.  They have the Living Word.  God has already said and done enough.  His Word is sufficient in all circumstances and for all people.  Read it to and with the wounded.  Send it to the wounded.  Remind them of the sweet, sweet Gospel and the Promise and promises of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, crucified for us, even for this.


When such majesty is denied to Christ according to His humanity, we regard it as a deadly error.  For by this the very great consolation mentioned above is taken from Christians, which they have in the promise about the presence and dwelling with them of their Head, King, and High Priest.  He has promised them that not only His mere divinity would be with them (which to us poor sinners is like a consuming fire on dry stubble).  But Christ promised that He—He, the man who has spoken with them, who has experienced all tribulations in His received human nature, and who can therefore have sympathy with us, as with men and His brethren—He will be with us in all our troubles also according to the nature by which He is our brother and we are flesh of His flesh.
~BOC, FSD, VIII, 87


What to read?  Where to start?  The Psalter.  In that collection of prayers, prayers that Christ prays for us and gives us to pray by and with and through Him, are the words and the Words that tell us we are known by our Creator.  Known and loved and accepted ... even when we doubt and despair, even when we are frightened and confused.

And, of course, there is John 1:1-5, a favorite litany of mine.

In the beginning was the Word, 

and the Word was with God, 

and the Word was God. 

He was in the beginning with God. 

All things came into being through Him, 

and apart from Him 

nothing came into being 

that has come into being. 

In Him was life, 

and the life was the Light of men. 

The Light shines in the darkness, 

and the darkness did not overcome it.

And the promises of Isaiah 43: 1-3a:

But now, thus says the LORD, your Creator, O Jacob,
And He who formed you, O Israel,
“Do not fear, for I have redeemed you;
I have called you by name; you are Mine!

“When you pass through the waters, I will be with you;
And through the rivers, they will not overflow you.
When you walk through the fire, you will not be scorched,
Nor will the flame burn you.

“For I am the LORD your God,
The Holy One of Israel, your Savior...

Lest you start thinking that the Living Word is not sufficient, is not enough for this person, for this wound, remember, again, what Luther wrote in the Large Catechism about Baptism and the Word of God:

Understand 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 divine, heavenly, holy, and blessed water, and whatever other terms we can find to praise it. This all as because of the Word, which is a heavenly, holy Word, which no one can praise enough. For it has, and is able to do, all that God is and can do. (LC, IV, 17-18)

The Living Word has, and is able to do, all that God is and can do.

Do not trust me; trust God.

The Living Word is enough.

My wish is for people to learn and recognize these different stages of healing from sexual abuse.  My prayer is that having learned them, the family, friends, and neighbors of those who are so wounded, will not see to fix that person or make his/her life better, will not remain silent because they are afraid of not knowing what to say or do, thinking they have nothing to say that would be enough.  And my prayer is for those facing the effects of sexual abuse in their lives to know that healing is possible, even though it is also painful and challenging and oft confusing.

To me, learning the stages of healing reinforced the truth that I am not crazy or ill, but wounded.  I am not in need of repair, but of healing. And who I am, where I am, when I am is okay.  It's okay to struggle, to take both steps forward and back along the path to healing.

It's okay.

I'm okay.

And I am not alone.

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

Steps forward and back...

I have wondered if I should write about why I have not posted, even though this is so important to me ... or if I should just continue on with my posts.  I am still not sure which is the right course of action.  For as much as possible—while obviously my writing is formed by my own experience and from those experience arose my desire to help further open the discourse on the effects of sexual abuse—I want this blog to be about that information more so than about me.

Only me ... my struggles with what I am writing ... is why I have not posted in a while.

In writing about trauma and the brain and about emotions, I was caught off guard a bit. In writing and in thinking about what I was writing, I began to realize anew just how much of my life has been wrapped in numbness, just how much I have disassociated.  Yes, healing is the proverbial onion.  Layers upon layers can be pulled back and yet many more remain.  Still, that realization saddened me and frightened me.

Sometimes, frankly, I wonder if I will be anything more than a human ice cube.  For part of what I started reflecting about was the fact that the emotions I experience—feelings I struggle to both identify and to survive—are something that happens to me, not of my choosing.  Well, that is not wholly accurate.  I am trying to understand and I work to utilize my calm down helps to get through those maelstroms of emotion.  However, it still seems like they are happening to me, especially when the panic attacks and emotional storms happen and I am caught up in them, lost in body, mind, and spirit.

I have been working up the courage to continue.
And then Saturday night happened.
I was felled once more.

I wrote about it on my blog:


Last night was the second performance of the symphony in my season tickets.  The first night was rather warm for me.  I suspect that the venue was warm because needing air-conditioning on September 28th was not something to be expected.  With heat making me quite ill and having another unusual warm-up in the weather (remember, I had a fire just a few days ago), I knew that I had to choose an outfit that would be cool.

I did.
I had a full-blown panic attack.
I nearly drowned in panic, fear, despair, and shame.

It had been three years since ... three years, one month, and six days since I found myself wearing many, many layers.  Even the work clothes I choose were layers topped by jackets or suits.  I could do that because I had my own air-conditioning unit in my office since multiple sclerosis makes me so sensitive to heat and the building in which my non-profit was housed had a poor, oft-broken system.

Trying to find appropriate clothing (translate that anything that is not men's lounge pants and a hoodie) that fit is not easy.  Most of my work clothing (the only real nice attire I had) is far too large for me.  I have given much of it away, but have kept the suits and silk jackets primarily because of their beauty and investment and knowing I would never be able to afford such again.  I suppose I have silly hopes that someone could cut down some of the clothing for me one day.

The only real option I had that would be cool enough is a completely fitted outfit, with an outer covering that was knitted eyelet (i.e., see-through).  The skirt is not actually ankle length and not something with which I could wear my leather boots.  The skit is fitted snugly from waist to hips, then falls straight with a flare only at the bottom.  I had a shell and the knitted top, both of which are fitted.  Simply put, there was no where to hide in my outfit.  To me, I was stark naked.

It was the first time ... since.  I started trembling and shaking and my mind became lost in a maelstrom of fear and shame and panic and frustration because I wanted to go the symphony.  This.  This was supposed to be my "something normal," "something non-utilitarian," "something for me."  This is my raising-my-quality-of-life activity.  And there I was vomiting and trying to find a measure of rationality that I might actually go and hear Brahms.

I tried to call my best friend.  No answer.

I tried to call Mary, to tell her what was happening and ask her to pray.  She  would not judge and she would say something about Jesus and tell me a story about her life and then she would pray after we hung up. I know she would do this and time was running out.  Only her husband answered.  Mary was at a pastor's wives retreat.  Weeping, I tried to explain, even though I was hugely embarrassed, because I knew the Living Word would be the only way I could get through what was happening.  If I had any courage at all, I would have asked him to read a Psalm to me.  He would have.  I think.

So, then I tried to call Anna.  Because she would at least carry me to the altar with her on the morrow and she would understand what I meant without having to explain.  And she would pray.  No answer.

Then, I hit myself over the head, thinking I should call Marie, because she knows full well panic attacks.  She answered the phone!  Marie answered the phone and stayed with me as I got myself, still weeping and shaking and nauseous, out the door.  Marie talked about how bad panic attacks can be and she reminded me that once the performance started, the lights would be dimmed.  And Marie stayed on the phone with me until I got to Sandra's, who was then driving me to the theatre so I did not have to worry about parking or ask the police to fetch my car again.

Still fretting in the car, wondering even as we drove to the symphony, how in the world I was going to get out of the car, walk amongst so many people, and sit through the performance drowning in panic a and terrified of the things running through my mind, things from that night and things from my past and all the thoughts I have about my body, my body that was not hidden from others ... or from me.

My Good Shepherd served me well through Sandra's mouth, for she remembered about my calm down list and practices and asked me if I had a pinecone.  I did not have one on me, but I keep one in my car. I have kept one in my car ever since the flashback-caused-car-accident.  Even though I was ridiculed about having a pinecone in my car.  Even though I was told that if I ever wanted to be normal I would get rid of the pinecone in my car.  It was still there.

And then it was in my hand.

I was so late, I was worried that I would miss the start of the first piece and thus have to wait out in the lighted landing before I could take my seat.  But the theatre is close enough, really, that were I healthy and had a companion, could walk to if I wanted, being less than two miles from my house.  So, even though we pulled away from Sandra's home on the street behind me with just 8 minutes to go before the performance, I arrived in time to climb Mount Everest to my seats and fold and put away my cane before the orchestra started the tuning that signals they are ready to begin.

Climbing Mount Everest whilst holding a pinecone, clutching a handrail, and leaning heavily on a cane is actually not all that easy.  But I did not want to put the pinecone in my purse. I needed to be able to concentrate on the sensation of it in my hand ... round, firm, sharp ... and the reminder of things I savor ... trees, evergreens, pine needles, nature.

The thing about having a full-blown panic attack is what comes after.  Once those stress hormones are no longer pouring forth from your brain and flooding your body, once you are not longer fleeing your fear, your body collapses in relief.  During the first movement of the second half, that strange exhaustion that makes your entire body feel as if it has become the weight of an elephant, that makes even thinking a thought, much less remaining seated in a tiny seat in an historic amphitheatre nearly impossible.  I thought about texting Sandra to come fetch me, but I did not want to leave, to miss the music for which I had come, or to disturb others.

I lost track of how many times I started falling asleep in my seat, only to jerk myself awake.  The pinecone I had tucked away at intermission came right back out as I tried to use those sharp edges to keep myself from snoring in the balcony.  Descending Mount Everest was one of the hardest physical challenges I have faced in a long while.  My legs simultaneously weighed thousands of pounds and were made up of water rather than muscles.  The usual cacophony that arises from a departing audience was silenced by the concentration it took to put one foot forward, lower my weight to the step below the one on which I stood, and then bring the other foot next to my first one.  Years passed between the first step and the last.

As I was walking out, a chatty woman remarked that I was so brave to sit in the balcony, having watched me come down the stairs.  Normally, I would panic by having to interact with a stranger like that, but I was truly thankful for the exchange. My explanation about my hearing and the need to be in the best auditory spot in the building carried me across the lobby and out the doors and kept me vertical while I waited for Sandra to pull the car into the pick-up lane.

Talking a mile a minute about the music and the new instruments I had never seen before kept me awake during the ride home.  Were I brave, I should have asked Sandra to drive me home and walk back to her house. She would have.  I think.  I did not.  So I actually drove up on three different curbs between her house and my garage.

I stumbled to the back door, unlocked it, and fainted.
Amos came to greet me and lick me awake.
I crawled forward enough to shut the door and then napped with Amos on the kitchen floor.

On the way to the symphony, Sandra suggested that I concentrate on the fact that I was battling a fear and that when the concert was over, I could be proud of the fact that I survived wearing fitted clothing and the ensuing panic attack.  The problem is that I am not sure I know how to be proud of being felled so thoroughly by fear, felled in mind, body, and spirit.  I look back at last night in shame.  I am horrified by whatever it was that I said to Mary's husband.  I was babbling in fear.  Anything could have passed my lips.  Today, I had a mess to clean up in the sink, the tub, and the toilet.  I honestly cannot quite believe I did not also vomit in the balcony as I was still battling the panic during the entire first piece.  All I can think about are all the things going to the symphony is supposed for me, rather than what last night was.  And I think about how grateful I am that couple who have been occupying the seats next to me for the past 42 years warned me that I might even need a lap blanket once fall and winter set in because the balcony is rather cold at the Embassy Theatre.  Cold means many, many layers.  Cold means being able to hide, rather easily, in my clothing.

Paul and Marie treated me today to IHOP pumpkin pancakes.  I brought my old iPod with me so that I would have access to two Kindle apps so that we would have two copies of the NASB 1977 so that we could read some Psalms together.  But when I mentioned that, it seemed to me that reading psalms in IHOP was not something either of them though was ... a good thing to do.  So I dropped the idea.  And then I was too chicken to ask them to read them in the car or read them in the house, when they carried in the milk I bought when they took me to Target to pick up more of the innards medication.  But, oh, how I long to hear the Living Word.

I still want to hear what is true and right and salutary, rather than the lies of that panic attack that are still lingering in my mind.
I still want to hear what is good about creation and His created, rather than the bad I feel about my body.
I still want to have prayers written for me, spoken for me, and carried for me to the One who can (and will) save me.

Trying to distract myself, I have been searching for the new instruments I saw last night.  Googling images of instruments a bit frenetically to stave off the thoughts swirling within.  I believe one was a celesta and once was piccolo.  One I have yet to identify is some sort of extremely tall reed instrument that was a flat coil.   The other was a hanging disc.  I saw other instruments as well, such as a triangle, which I never would have fathomed would be used in an orchestra and used so perfectly and so beautifully.  Musically, it was a fascinating evening, even if the two warm-ups were both by modern composers and not what I would put in a masterworks series.

But other that the music?
Am I proud that I survived?
It doesn't feel like I have ... yet.


I am Yours, Lord.  Save me!


I wrote yesterday that it did not seem to me that the panic attack was yet over.
And that I still longed to hear the Living Word.
I ache for the forgiveness and healing that I can grasp to be poured into my ears that the Holy Spirit might work them into my being.

I included Psalm 27 and my response to it:

The LORD is my light and my salvation; 
Whom shall I fear? 
The LORD is the defense of my life; 
Whom shall I dread? 
When evildoers came upon me to devour my flesh, 
My adversaries and my enemies, they stumbled and fell. 
Though a host encamp against me, 
My heart will not fear; 
Though war arise against me, 
In spite of this I shall be confident. 

One thing I have asked from the LORD, that I shall seek:
That I may dwell in the house of the LORD all the days of my life, 
To behold the beauty of the LORD 
And to meditate in His temple. 
For in the day of trouble He will conceal me in His tabernacle; 
In the secret place of His tent He will hide me; 
He will lift me up on a rock. 
And now my head will be lifted up above my enemies around me, 
And I will offer in His tent sacrifices with shouts of joy; 
I will sing, yes, I will sing praises to the LORD. 
Hear, O LORD, when I cry with my voice, 
And be gracious to me and answer me. 
When Thou didst say, "Seek My face," my heart said to Thee, 
"Your face, O LORD, I shall seek." 
Do not hide Thy face from me, 
Do not turn Thy servant away in anger; 
Thou hast been my help; 
Do not abandon me nor forsake me, 
O God of my salvation! 
For my father and my mother have forsaken me, 
But the LORD will take me up. 

Teach me Your way, O LORD, 
And lead me in a level path 
Because of my foes. 
Do not deliver me over to the desire of my adversaries, 
For false witnesses have risen against me, 
And such as breathe out violence. 
I would have despaired unless I had believed that I would see the goodness of the LORD 
In the land of the living. 
Wait for the LORD; 
Be strong and let your heart take courage; 
Yes, wait for the LORD.


Oh, how I savor that one thing.

One thing I have asked from the LORD, that I shall seek:
That I may dwell in the house of the LORD all the days of my life, 

For me, I really do see that dwelling, here and now, as hiding in the Living Word, especially the Psalter, as hiding in the certitude of the Christian Book of Concord.  I hide there.  But I also long for safety.  Oh, how I long for the forgiveness that I can grasp when I hear the Living Word read to me, for me.

Thinking of all the thoughts and feelings, of how my body, mind, and spirit were so thoroughly felled Saturday night, I still long to hear the Word.  It quiets me, washes me clean, if only for a while, of the shame that clings to me.  It sustains me. It restores me.

Lord, I believe.  Help my unbelief!