Child Abuse Survivor

Dr. Kathleen Young is hosting, and has themed this month’s edition as the Independence edition. Looks to be packed full of good stuff. If you want to do some reading this weekend, check it out!

I’ve been thinking quite a bit about this subject of late. I won’t get into any of the details of why, but suffice it to say, I’ve had a number of conversations and seen stories of people who find themselves in situations, as adults, that from the outside seem easily changeable, yet they don’t do anything to try and change things.

I’m sure you’ve all seen similar stories, whether it be the abused wife who won’t leave, the disgruntled employee who never looks for another job, or the kid who gets bullied even into adulthood. I’ve always considered these situations to be a product of fear, afraid of what worse things might happen as opposed to the hell you know and live with. Lately, however, I’m beginning to wonder if there isn’t something deeper behind that fear, especially when it comes to survivors of child abuse. What I see when I dig into that fear motivation, is powerlessness.

Yes, there’s fear of the unknown in changing all of those situations I listed, and many more specific situations that I know we can all relate to, but a big part of that fear seems to come from not having any sense that we actually have the power to say no, or to remove ourselves from a situation. As children, of course, we were taught exactly that. All the while I was being abused as a child, I didn’t have the power to say no, or to remove myself. It was taken away from me, and even now, as an adult, I recognize that there are times I look at circumstances that I could change, but fall right back into feeling like I don’t have the power to do so.

Of course, the interest part of that, when I look at my own life, is that there are times when I have no problem saying no or making a change. I’m one of the first people to throw out the idea that if you don’t like something about your life, change it. Yet I recognize that there are areas where I avoid doing that, and I can tie those areas directly into my abuse history. For example, I easily do anything I can to avoid conflict, especially if the conflict involves a male who is older than me. (As I grow older that problem should take care of itself, right? *smirk*) I was abused by older males. To this day, almost of my good friends, and the ones I spend the most time with, are female. I’m comfortable with who my friends are, and don’t necessarily want that to change, but shrinking away from older men, especially men in a power role, isn’t something that’s always good for me, yet it’s something I can tie directly back into my past.

Another example is one that some of you may not want to read, since it involves sex, and sexual abuse, so if that’s going to trouble you, go ahead and stop reading. You’ve gotten the point.

As a sexual abuse victim, I look at some of these correlations between my past, and how I will respond as if I am powerless, even when I’m not, and I wonder if there aren’t some situations that I simply haven’t run in to yet. I’ve always said that, as a husband, I don’t make the decision to be faithful to my wife in the moment when another woman is throwing herself at me. I make it every single day, long before something like that ever happens. My reasoning has always been studies that show how humans, in the midst of sexual excitement, pretty much lose any ability to make good decisions. I didn’t really need a study to tell me that, but I’m glad they’re out there. As such, I don’t wander through life not even thinking about my commitment as a husband until I find myself in this situation, I make the decision to do everything I can to avoid finding myself there in the first place. Since I have mostly female friends and frequently spend time with them without my wife being present, that means I have to be somewhat selective. The friends I spend time with are all women who I know wouldn’t do something like that. They are all either happily married themselves, or just don’t have that type of “aggressive” personality, among other qualities.

Again, my decision to be faithful plays out in the every day choices I make about who I spend time with, and under what circumstances.

Now what does that have to do with my previous point? Maybe nothing, but maybe everything. As I said, I make these decisions to avoid a situation because I don’t want to have to deal with making a decision at that late point, and dealing with the uncomfortable consequences that result even from the correct decision, but I think part of me also makes those decisions because, deep down, I’m not so sure I wouldn’t revert to feeling like a powerless child in the midst of that. Simply put, as someone abused by older males I still have a great deal of difficulty recognizing the power to say no that I have when dealing with men, as someone abused in a sexually aggressive way, would sexual aggression leave me feeling the same way? I think it might, actually, though it’s difficult to know for sure. All examples of someone being sexually aggressive towards me as an adult that I can think of have occurred with women I was involved with, thus I haven’t really wanted to say no. (Or at least I haven’t wanted to say no that badly, but it is possible that I don’t think I can say no. I’m not usually analyzing my motivations at that point.)

Luckily, I’ve made it to this point in my life without being in a situation to really answer this question, and I’m hopeful that will remain the case. On the other hand, it does help me see why survivors I know who are otherwise strong, independent and powerful, find it so difficult to say no, or to make a change in specific areas of their lives. In that moment, they feel like small, powerless children again. But we aren’t and it’s important to remember that.

Last weekend was not only a long holiday weekend, but it was also my birthday! Our newest tradition when my birthday falls on a long weekend is to take a few days and go away in order to get away from everything. Last weekend was no different, as we drove up to Cleveland to spend a couple of days exploring the city. It was a great weekend, made even better by getting a Facebook video of my 4 year old niece signing happy birthday, and the news that my cousin had a little baby girl, on my birthday!

All in all, this birthday was very much about celebrating the good things in my life, the things that I’m very thankful for. I got to do some of the things I really enjoy, spend time with my favorite person, and my iPhone kept me up to date with the good news, and all the folks who wished me a happy birthday. That’s quite a lot to be thankful for!

You can see more photos from our Cleveland exploration at Flickr.

Gretchen from Let Go, Let Peace Come In sent me an email today, asking to promote their photo project. Basically, they are collecting photos of survivors, either from childhood or another photo they are comfortable sharing, along with a short caption they wish to share with the world. It looks like a really powerful project to raise awareness of the effects of child abuse, so if you want to take part, go check out their site.

http://www.letgoletpeacecomein.org/

I’m going to have to see what photo I might want to share, and think about what I want to say. Hopefully, I’ll find time to participate too!

When Marj mentioned on Twitter today that this month marks the four year anniversary of the Blog Carnival Against Child Abuse, it got me thinking about the importance of anniversaries. As a survivor, or anyone who is concerned about healing or improving in any way, anniversaries, birthdays, holidays, etc. are a good opportunity to take stock and see how things are going.

On the other hand, I’ve also had to resist the urge to try and figure out if I was “healed” already or not, which tends to be counterproductive. It’s not about being “done” with healing, it’s about being able to see improvement from the previous anniversary. Simply put, there’s no time frame or deadline on healing. It’s all about continuing to do the work and being more healed than you were last year, or last month. If you can get to an important date in your life, and see improvement in yourself since the last important date, then you’re doing something right. Keep doing it, and let the end result take care of itself.

I just posted a note over on the Survivor’s Network about ome new features I’ve added there, but wanted to share it here as well in the hopes that folks will check it out and start getting involved over there a bit more!

I’ve been testing a few new things in the hopes of getting folks to check in and get involved in the new site. One, a Twitter integration called Tweetstream, that lets you both share your twitter status updates on this site, and update twitter when you post something new here. You can enable it by going to your profile, edit profile then clicking the “Settings” link. You’ll see a new Tweetstream link from that window and just follow along the instructions.

You can also now post video or photos embedded into a status update or forum post by simply copying the URL where it’s located, and the embed plugin will do the rest, provided that the URL is from any of these sites:

* YouTube
* Blip.tv
* Vimeo
* DailyMotion
* Flickr
* Hulu
* Viddler
* Qik
* Revision3
* Photobucket
* Scribd
* WordPress.tv

Hope you enjoy!

I’ve written before, and I’ve seen study and study that talks about the power of touch. I’ve also mentioned that, as a sexual abuse survivor, sometimes we have a lot of trouble really connecting with people in the same way because of the various issues we have with being touched, and the struggle to see a simple show of friendly affection as opposed to a sexually aggressive move. We can’t always tell the difference.

I’ve been reminded of that these past couple of weeks because my wife has been traveling as part of her job. Of all the things I miss when she’s gone, (and there are plenty!) it’s the lack of touching (giving and receiving) that I feel the most acutely. You see, as much as I love the things we do together, from talking, to going places, to laughing, etc. I can sort of replace those things with my friends. Not that it’s the same, but I can get enough conversation, laughs, social events, etc. to get by while my wife is gone just by scheduling time to go to lunch with coworkers, or have dinner with friends, or go to Byrne’s Pub like I mentioned last week so that I don’t wind up spending all the time she’s away wrapped up in my own head. (Not always the safest place for me to spend extended time!)

The one thing I can’t replace is the touching aspect. Oh, I can get a hug from a female friend or two, but that’s not much to get by on at the end of the day. There’s no one to simply hold my hand when I’m stressed, or to rub my arm when I’m feeling unsettled, etc. As a married man, that type of touching seems to really be the realm of my wife, and no one else. According to the studies I’ve seen, it’s exactly that type of touch that is the most powerful. It forms a human connection that seems to provide peace and security. It’s no wonder then, that I struggle with that when my wife is away. I’m prone to get out of sorts, and unfocused. I’ve found ways to combat that, but it’s a struggle, because normally when I feel that way, there’s someone there to reassure me with a touch.

It’s up over at From Tracie’s blog. She’s chosen the “hope and Joy” theme for this month, very similar to my brief post earlier this week about the importance of fun! (Which I did submit, but seems like it got lost somewhere in the submission process. Oh well, it happens, I’ll just submit it again next month.

Anyway, go check out all the good posts in this month’s carnival!

I’ve always been a big fan of taking a break and having some fun, no matter where you are in your healing. Sometimes the best way to get past a particularly stressful point in your life is to step away from it for an evening, an do something for yourself.

I was reminded of that this weekend. I’m in the midst of trial prep at work, and as I’ve said on my other blog many times, trials are life-consuming events when you are getting ready to go, and during one. Even when you’re just there to setup equipment and run the presentation software, it takes a lot of time to get everything the way the attorney wants, and it’s always changing at the last minute. Hence the reason I was in the office both Saturday and Sunday.

In between, however, I took my own advice about getting away from things and having some fun. I met up with a friend to see an Irish band named the Prodigals at Byrne’s Pub here in town. Yeah, it meant there was a late night in the midst of all this work, but as nice as a long night’s sleep would have been, doing something fun for myself was more important.

I felt the same way when I was in therapy, and struggling through the most difficult times of my healing. Having some fun and laughing from time to time made a huge difference in being able to continue. I hope you’ll keep it in mind too.

I imported all the user data from the Ning network into the new home Friday and Saturday and wanted to give it a day to settle in and see if there were any problems before I made any formal announcements, but after fixing one small item this afternoon I think we’re ready.

The new home for the Survivors Network is here:

http://community.childabusesurvivor.net/

If you were a member of the Ning network, chances are you already have an account so go check you email for your username and password. (A handful off acounts did not import properly so there is a small chance you didn’t get one, but I couldn’t go through all 489 members to figure out who didn’t get imported! If you weren’t a member, or dropped your membership from there, you can register for a new account.

Things are a little bit different over there, so be sure to read the welcome message on the front page. It will help explain some things.

I look forward to developing the same sense of community on the new site that we’ve had on the Ning network, so please get involved and spread the word!