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!

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!