The Un-Crumpling Part 5

The Un-Crumpling Part 5

These posts are intended to inform, educate and hopefully help others. I have found my own sources of help that have led me to wholeness. My prayer is that other victims may find healing and wholeness as well.

The decision to write about my experience, as a sexual abuse/incest survivor was not taken lightly; I consulted numerous people, looked at the ramifications from many angles, and prayed about it. Ultimately, it was the reaction of my older children that was the deciding factor. Their compassion, grace, anger for the situation and overall loving reaction served as a catalyst. Our children’s reactions cut the final thread of fear. Their acceptance was not only a testament to our parenting; it was also a message to be fearless. I finally was set free.

An interesting thing happens when people decide to share their stories, be vulnerable and choose fearlessness. Other people follow. I was well aware I might be opening a Pandora’s box of sorts. I knew from sharing with various people in a more private venue that sexual abuse and incest is rampant and nauseatingly common. I knew I would have other survivors come forward and approach me. In fact, this is one of the reasons I wanted to share my story. I wish for an open dialogue among those of us who have experienced this type of abuse.

I have yet to discover a support group in Phoenix for sexual abuse/incest survivors. My therapists have suggested there might be something of this sort on a list serve or with a meet up group. My guess is that lingering shame prevents victims from engaging. If anyone reading this knows of something I don’t, I would love to find out.

My hope is that open conversations can occur. My wish is for victims to tell their truth and to shine some light on their perpetrators. My prayer is for those who have been victimized may know they are not at fault, are not broken and are loved.

If you or someone you know has been a victim of sexual abuse or incest there is help and no matter how old you are or where you are in your life, I promise you it is worth the pain, terror and work to move toward healing. I know it might sound trite or like a weak public service announcement but I encourage you to seek help.

I have been there. I know those deep, dark crevices of shame. I know the anger. I know the panic.

It will be okay. You are okay. You can be un-crumpled

The Un-Crumpling Part 4

The Un-Crumpling Part 4

These posts are intended to inform, educate and hopefully help others. I have found my own sources of help that have led me to wholeness. My prayer is that other victims may find healing and wholeness as well.

I would like to say that once the un-crumpling started, my healing was swift and effortless. This was not the case. The process of recovery has taken me almost five years since that day in the parking lot across from my church. I have thoroughly analyzed by a Jungian therapist, utilized homeopathy, went to my depths during EMDR, participated in healing ceremonies, soaked in a Himalayan sound bath at a restorative spa, engaged in CBT, did some yoga therapy, attended regular spiritual direction sessions, pilgrimaged, journaled, read and talked with friends. I have been very lucky to be given the resources to take on my healing journey with such vigor. I often wonder if I have been a difficult study and have thought maybe the process of recovery for me has been abnormally long but in reality I think this is just a testament to the damage that can occur from sexual abuse.  

Sexual abuse often leaves its victims in a state of deep, relentless shame. For me it also left me feeling a sense that something was deeply wrong with me. I blamed myself for the abuse and largely took responsibility for what had happened. Sexual abuse, and I am sure abuse of any kind, does not just wound mentally, emotionally and physically, it enters the victim’s soul and leaves a dark, seemingly endless hole in one’s spiritual life. For me, I struggled to reconcile the feeling of divine love was not as a result of some damage done by my abuse. This spiritual untangling does not come easily and many days it is still a chore.

It has also taken me to years to believe that in reality no one is going to, “think badly” of me because I was abused. As I write this it seems obvious to the point of preposterous.  Sadly, this is a common way for perpetrators to deflect blame and continue to control their victims. As I have told people my story, I have had very few instances of negative reactions. I have learned that in those who respond poorly are usually reacting to situations in their own lives. Perhaps my story hits too close to home for them and they have not sorted through their own wounds. These reactions have never had anything to do with me.

It has been and continues to be a long process of healing. I can say I am un-crumpled. I can also say that it was a lie and what my abuser told me was wrong. People do not think badly of me because I was sexually abused. They might think badly of me for things I have done or not done but that is a different story. 

The Un-Crumpling Part 3

The Un-Crumpling Part 3

These posts are intended to inform, educate and hopefully help others. I have found my own sources of help that have led me to wholeness. My prayer is that other victims may find healing and wholeness as well.

I sat in my car with my motor idling in the park adjacent to the church. I had left work early to meet with my priest and on that day I had given myself extra time to settle. My life had gotten to a point where I could no longer keep the secret and my gut told me the best person to tell was my priest, but first I had to get the courage.

The events leading up to that day are a synchronistic maze of dysfunction and blessings. My family was sorting through a financial loss brought on by a business failure, my older son and I had surgeries within weeks of each other and my father in-law had been diagnosed with cancer. My family of origin was up to their same histrionic antics including alcoholism, a divorce, an affair and my mother’s predictable under reaction to my family’s plight while inflating her own ceaseless victimhood that apparently defines her life. All signs were pointing to an internal stop sign screaming at me to stop running from the truth.

As I got out of my car I was shaking and thought I might vomit as I walked into the church office. Terror doesn’t give it justice. In retrospect, I probably on some level knew once I opened the dark vault where I stored my experience of sexual abuse, I would never be the same and I wouldn’t be able to turn back. I would be placed on a trajectory of having to look deep inside myself and at the time it looked like a dark pool of nothingness. It is always awful to die to yourself.

It took me awhile sitting crumpled in that chair, my priest calmly across from me, to break the silence. I remember it being horrible. The shame and fear was like nothing I’ve experienced. The one thing that stands out is that I knew I had chosen well. He had said the right things and responded beautifully.

Then the work began.

A couple of weeks later I sat in a psychologist’s office. Again, taking my time to get to the point, I increasingly sank into his leather couch and thought I might run for the door. He finally asked why I was crumpled in the sofa with my face firmly buried in my palms. I couldn’t look up or sit up straight. I was a mess, a crumpled mess.

I am not entirely sure when it happened but at some point I started to drop my hands from my face and sit up straighter. It took me some time to share my story with Rob and my friends but with each person I told a small weight was lifted from me.

I started to un-crumple.

The Un-Crumpling Part 2

The Un-Crumpling Part 2

These posts are intended to inform, educate and hopefully help others. I have found my own sources of help that have led me to wholeness. My prayer is that other victims may find healing and wholeness as well.

I don’t remember when the abuse started; my guess is I was nine or ten. It was around then that my parents thought it appropriate to subscribe to all sorts of periodicals including Playboy and occasionally Penthouse. These magazines were readily left out along with the latest copies of National Geographic and Popular Science. At the time I had no point of reference for the lack of suitability these publications were for my adolescent brother and me. My mother and father’s paranoia ensured I didn’t venture into neighbors’ homes and by no means was I allowed to have anyone over. Being homeschooled guaranteed a cloistering from the typical and mundane of the lives that surrounded us in our blue-collar suburb. 

I probably will never know why the abuse started but I do know why it stopped. In the flurry of magazine subscriptions there happened to be Seventeen ordered especially for me. Again, questionably appropriate for an eleven or twelve year old but ultimately it was a saving grace. The cover is etched in my mind, a leotard-clad model stretching forward in a Jane Fondaesque manner typifying the mid-80’s era it was published during. One of the cover stories that month was, “Incest: What You Need to Know.” The information in the article felt like a sledgehammer. How could I have been so stupid? I panicked and wanted to run away or throw up but all I could do was sit paralyzed on my bed surrounded by my Cure and INXS posters that had been pinned over my yellow kitten wallpaper.

The strength came. I am not sure if it was rooted from pure terror but I found within me the strength to confront my abuser. He was unperturbed and in an almost arrogant fashion casually switched the blame onto me. Then to finish it off he uttered, “I wouldn’t tell anyone if I were you, I wouldn’t want anyone to think badly of you.”

It was like a vault closing. I crawled into myself vowing to pretend it never happened. I would run from the truth into a better life. I convinced myself I would be fine and would triumph over all the possible bad outcomes the article outlined.

I did.

I succeeded.

But the thing about abuse is that it takes a place in one’s being and sets up shop and peddles insecurities, rage and shame. It rots the soul and eventually I couldn’t out run it.

The Un-crumpling: Part 1

These posts are intended to inform, educate and hopefully help others. I have found my own sources of help that have led me to wholeness. My prayer is that other victims may find healing and wholeness as well.

I told my two older children. I never thought it would be possible but I told them. The words were so much easier this time. The heaviness wasn’t present. I didn’t feel as though I might throw up. Time and honesty had been a salve. I never thought it would be possible to utter the truth. I never thought my own children would be the best source of healing I could possibly wish for.

Five years had come and gone and here I was near the same creek I had been when my thoughts were swimming with dismay.  At the time I had wondered how I could end up being a seemingly successful professional and mother with such a dark secret. The pain of the truth burned in me. I didn’t feel I had a safe place to share my experience. I was so afraid. I was sure my abuser was right when he said, “I know you wouldn’t want anyone to think badly of you...”

I actually never thought I would declare myself to be a sexual abuse/incest survivor. I really wanted it to go away. I didn’t want it to be true. I didn’t want to be broken. I had worked so hard to escape my childhood. I had fought so hard against my past. Yet, I sat in my priest’s office. Rigid. Fearful. I finally broke loose with the truth. Anger to protect me.  Fuck him if he thinks badly of me!

Only sadness came; sadness for that little girl who didn’t know better, sadness for the adult woman who wanted so badly to be loved and accepted.

The love and acceptance came from my children.