Child Abuse Survivor

I got an email the other day from a fellow survivor who had tried to start a Meetup group of survivors in his area.

 My name is Timothy and I’m a survivor of child abuse.  I’m contacting you from Dupage county IL.  About four months ago I started a support group and let it grow on its own.  I’ve seen a few people come and go but no one has really stuck around.  I’m not a trained therapist or councilor.  I’m just another survivor.  The group is a peer to peer group.  The group can be found on the web site www.meetup.com.  The problem is that people sign up and never actually attend meetings or they attend one meeting and thats it.  One or two people started out as regulars but it seemed like they were pushed into attending.  When it seemed like they were starting to open up they stopped coming.  I’m at
the point were I believe that if I wish to grew the group and really do some good I have to go outside of meetup.com.  I can’t tell if you do any work in my area or have any suggestion of who I might be able to contact.  I’m hoping that your group and or other similar groups might be able to get the word out.  Please email me back and let me no your thoughts on the matter.  Thank you for your assistance.

His experience is something that I know many survivors who try to create groups, whether in person or online, have had. I wish I had an answer. If I did the online network I’ve tried to build wouldn’t be floundering, and I wouldn’t seriously be considering just shutting it down. There’s something about being committed to a peer-to-peer group without burning out that is difficult for survivors. Even when you have a good group going,  it can be very hit and miss as to whether it continues. We all have lives outside the group, and we can’t always be focused on keeping it going, so it requires having a large enough base to be able to continue on without one or two of the regulars when they can’t be there. But, how do you get that base of members? Good question!

Has anyone out there gotten even a small group of local people together to support one another, or even just be social with other people who understand what it’s like to go through what we have? I’d love to hear your advice, and I’m sure Timothy would as well!

Late last week, and over the weekend, I was having an email discussion with an online acquaintance about child abuse, and dissociative disorders when she said something that sparked further conversation. She mentioned that “everyone dissociates and for good reasons, it’s just a matter of degrees”.

That got me thinking about the coping skills we develop as children and whether anything good ever comes out of them. Certainly, in my own past, that ability to emotionally remove myself from a given situation, to no longer be “present”, helped me deal with what was happening at the time. As an adult, however, that being my only stress-coping mechanism was dangerous, because not being present in your own mental state and having access to a car leads to some bad consequences. (Hmm a week ago I was there, and it was very stressful, now where am I? lol)

It should be noted that I am talking about dissociation in a general sense, developing multiples is a form of dissociation that can be fairly common in abuse victims, but is also beyond my own experience. I never developed another personality, I simply stopped being in my own life and watched it, as if from afar, but it is an extreme form of dissociation. One that I have no experience with and thus don’t tend to write much about.

Clearly, I needed to learn better stress-management as an adult, but still dissociation is part of my normal life. As it turns out, in a technical career, sometimes it can be very beneficial to have to ability to sharply focus on the job in front of you, and ignore all other distractions. Sometimes things just need to get done, no matter what else is going on in the world. Obviously, I am exceptionally good at this.

The ability to dissociate is a powerful tool when used properly. To some degree or other, when you see an athlete able to focus and not feel the pressure of a game-winning situation, they are dissociating. The pressure, the crowd, the noise, etc.  becomes nothing as they focus on simply doing what they need to do. That’s what makes them successful. We all use this tool to get through times where intense focus is needed, or even to get through times that we simply want to get over. How many times have you simply let your mind wander away from your current situation while in a dentist chair, or doctor’s office, simply because you don’t want to be there? Do you daydream and forget where you are during a particularly dull lecture? That’s a mild form of dissociation, and a perfectly safe form. In fact, it’s a learned skill, that we all develop to one extent or another.

I’ve known some people who have an incredible ability to focus intently on their given project, (Insert random story of geeks who forget to eat, shower, sleep, etc. while working on a project. We all know someone like that!), yet it was simply a skill learned as an adult, not the leftovers of a childhood coping mechanism. Clearly, it’s not a bad thing in and of itself.

In fact, I’d say that very few of the things we did to cope as children, or learned later to help get through, are bad things in and of themselves. It’s the inability to keep them in proper perspective that gets us in trouble. Having a beer is not in itself a bad thing, having 12 because you feel sad and that’s how you stop feeling sad, probably is a bad thing.

So, as you go forward and look at your own coping mechanisms, remember that it’s not about getting rid of them completely, it’s about adding more and better tools so that you don’t have to over-rely on the one or two tools you developed as a child. Being an adult means having the proper tools available to you when you need them, it does not mean never needing any tools!

I was pointed to this article about how the internet helps abuse survivors on Twitter a few days ago, and made a note to read it in further detail later. As I did read it, one section jumped out at me.

?The study also revealed some interesting facts and three main overriding reasons why online resources were being used. These were:

the use of online anonymity to discuss issues, often shrouded in shame, that participants find difficult to discuss face-to-face in an offline environment;

the importance of being able to connect with others that have had similar experiences to one’s own that allow one to feel less isolated, whilst still retaining a level of anonymity; and

most interestingly, and contradicting the need for anonymity, the fact that there is little or no face-to-face or offline alternative to online support as a male survivor of childhood sexual abuse

Frankly, that response struck a cord with me, and reminded me of something I had an email discussion with a friend and fellow survivor, but had decided against writing about here at the time. Years ago, when I was still doing the whole therapy and trying various things to find support locally, I had a very difficult time finding any resources that were specific to me. I had to attend a therapy group of sexual abuse survivors where I was the only male in the group. (Yes, much of the other members anger wound up being directed at me, solely because I am male. I don’t blame them, that’s where they were in their healing and they needed to be able to express that somewhere, however I do blame a system that didn’t have any other options for me. )

Over the years, I had hoped things had changed, and I think they probably have to some degree, but I’ve been reminded on a few occasions over the last year or two that resources dedicated to male survivors are still very few and far between. Locally, where I was living at the time, there were some resources dedicated to male victims of abuse, but they were run by, and designed for, the local gay community. Not being gay, those resources would still be unavailable to me. For straight men, there’s really nothing. I fear that is the case in most places, inside and outside of the USA.

Thus, I’m glad that the internet allows us all to have the resources that will assist us in our healing. The technology allows us to have a myriad of choices in our healing, and allows you to find the ones that work for you. Maybe it can even help you find people local to you to communicate with, and develop some face to face support that you might not otherwise have. Even if that doesn’t happen, online support beats no support any time, any day!

One of the things I, and other survivors, struggle with is change. Change creates stress, and makes us uncomfortable, and if there’s anything survivors crave, it’s the comfort of what we know. New things tend to throw us, creating uncertainty and we have learn since early ages to try and keep things as certain as we possibly can. That’s how we survived our childhoods, and that is how we function through our adult issues.

So, as I approached moving to a new place and starting a new job at the beginning of April, I was definitely challenging myself and my learned defense mechanisms. As we start the month of May though, I’ve come a long way, and have definitely grown in confidence about myself. I’m down here in South Carolina by myself, my wife hasn’t made the move down yet, my friends and family are back in Ohio, and while my in-laws are only a couple of hours away, I am in essence relying only on my own ability to take care of myself. Like many survivors, my track record in regards to taking care of myself is a mixed bag.

Given that, it feels good to know that I’m down here doing it. I know that I can do it and feel more confidence in myself and my abilities than I would had I not gone this route. Sometimes, in order to improve, you have to get outside the comfort zone. Knowing I can makes it easier to know that I can get through anything. After all, we survived our childhood, what can a little change do compared to that?

So it’s April 1st. But for me, especially this year, it’s no time for pranks.

April 1 was the day of my first date with the woman who would become my wife, in 2000, so it’s always been a day of great beginnings. This year, April 1 is the day I arrived in Greenville, SC to start a new beginning. Even though I’m now apart from my wife, temporarily, the anniversary of that beginning seems like an appropriate time to be in South Carolina and starting the next chapter of our lives.

Of course, it’s also tiring. anything this new is going to be. Since I left Columbus yesterday, everything has been new. Nothing is part of my normal routine. In fact, I don’t even have a routine! It’s a bit unsettling, I admit to that, but I know that there will be a new routine and this will all be old hat shortly. It’s just a matter of getting through the change, and coming out the other side.

The other thing about this being April 1 that is no joke is that this also marks the beginning of Child Abuse Prevention Month. There are a number of resources listing ways you can get involved on that site, but to me the best thing you can do as a survivor is simply share your story. You will be amazed at how many people will be drawn to your story, and empowered to speak up about their own story, even if it is just to you. I’ve met so many people through this site, and connected with people who I already knew, and had no idea we shared our survivorship until they learned my story, and felt safe to share theirs with me.

Appropriately, Tracie is also dedicating the April version of the Blog Carnival Against Child Abuse to “Speaking Out”. There is no better way to share your story than to submit a blog post to the carnival!

So, that’s what’s going on in my head tonight. Sorry if it seems a bit disjointed, I’m feeling a bit disjointed so that would make sense.

I saw this post over at Psychology Today and it’s been lingering in the back of my mind for a few days now. Specifically this:

Most child abuse survivors are closeted. There is a stigma attached to what we lived through, like we’re some sort of damaged goods. Sure, we’re brave and strong and all that crap, but you don’t want us marrying your sons, right? You’re so impressed that we’ve made it out intact, but maybe you don’t want a sexual abuse survivor teaching your third-grader.

…

We are not damaged goods. Yes, we are broken in many ways, ways in which we may never be fixed. However, we need to stop feeling like we need to pass for whole. We need to be able to stand up and say, “I’m affected by what happened to me, and that’s OK. Because I’m also a strong, capable person.” We need to know that it is safe to talk about what happened without fear of judgment, because being a victim does not make a person damaged goods.

There’s always been something about the idea of survivors as “damaged goods” that has troubled me. Obviously, I feel very similarly to the author when it comes to being stigmatized by my childhood, but on the other hand, I don’t buy that abuse survivors are not damaged goods. That would seem to imply that what we went through was not quite the devastating experience that we know it to have been. She says so herself, stating that we are “broken in many ways”. To me that is the definition of damaged goods. Those broken bits are there, and have to be dealt with by those who wish to be intimately involved with us.

Of course, I would also be very quick to point out that everyone has been affected by various events in their past, and no one could actually pass for non-damaged. Survivor or not, we all have issues we take into adulthood that we must learn to overcome, and that can be challenging for anyone. However, it’s also true that, despite the damage done to us in our childhood, we have the capacity to heal, to overcome, and to lead lives that are amazingly worthwhile. That’s the message I would like survivors to hear.

In the course of running this site, and the network, I’ve seen plenty of examples of the damage caused in people’s lives by child abuse. I’ve seen plenty of adults who lack basic social skills, who have great difficulty interacting with others in accepted ways, and who do not understand proper boundaries. These are all the effects they have carried into adulthood of their past abuse. They are clearly damaged, but not to the point of no return. I will agree, however, that these people need not be shamed for having been damaged, but free to talk about what happened, to try and make sense of it, and overcome it, the same way that opportunity was provided for me.

One of the things I’ve always set out to do with this site is to highlight not just myself, but other survivors who are out there. To me the reason for that was always two-fold, and maybe this is why I find myself caught in the middle on this idea of damaged goods. On one side, I wanted to provide plenty of examples of survivors, in various stages of healing, to let other survivors know that they are not alone. Secondly, I also wanted to show, through connecting survivors to each other, that there are plenty of us out here, and we are truly everywhere. Just because survivors have traditionally stayed silent about their abuse doesn’t mean that we aren’t already married to your sons and daughters, teaching your third-grader, working beside you, living next door to you, etc. We have our damage, but that only makes us just like the rest of the world. Struggling to find our way on this great big ball.

One of the personal notes I wanted to share about the book review I posted last week, is that there was a quick blurb in the book about how Susan likes to bring in the significant other of someone she is seeing, especially when they are in therapy for a sexual-related trauma. She wants to give them some precautions, and notes that ” the precautions center around making sure your lover knows it’s you”.

I found that to be interesting, because most of the time when I see advice for significant others, it revolves around actions. The advice is usually about figuring out what actions make your lover uncomfortable, and avoiding those actions. However, in my own experience, it’s never been quite that easy. The amount of “touch”, for example, that I am comfortable with varies from person to person. My wife can touch me pretty much at will. Some friends I share a hug with most times we see each other, other friends I’m not that comfortable with, while strangers and those I don’t know very well I’m highly uncomfortable with touch. I’m more likely to hug a female friend than a male, but not exclusively. The deciding factor really is not in how any of these people touch me, it’s entirely about who they are. People I trust, I tend to be more able to connect with through touch. I’ve written before about the powerful sense of connection a slight touch, or hug, can give. I love being able to connect that way with my wife, and with the people closest to me.

However, I’m not at all comfortable connecting that way with people who have not gained that trust.

Let me give you an example. I have a regular massage therapist that I see every 6 weeks or so. Obviously, getting a massage is a high-touch sort of activity, not something every survivor would be comfortable with. In my case, I was willing to try this out to try and avoid migraines, and it’s been very successful. As it turns out, given the vulnerability of this activity, I did actually seek out a therapist who is female, and also one that is somewhat petite. Not because I care about her looks, but because I know that, for me, the knowledge that the person touching me isn’t large enough to physically overwhelm me is important. Typically, a session will start with me going into an empty room (which I always look around to verify is empty), getting undressed and under the sheet, and laying on my back. This allows me to see A enter the room, verify to myself that this is someone I have grown to trust implicitly, and then I can relax and enjoy the massage. Even when I am eventually flipped over on my stomach, I can hear whether anyone enters or leaves the room, so again, I’m aware of who is touching me, and that I trust her.

Obviously, A and my wife are really the only people I would trust to touch me that much without a second thought. I’ve had massage therapy by other providers, but that usually means I’m a bit more on edge, not as relaxed, because it’s not the same level of trust, but there’s enough of a professional trust to still benefit from it. If anyone else tried to touch me like that, it would be pretty inappropriate for one, and I would not be comfortable with it at all. Again though, it’s not the touch itself that makes me uncomfortable, it’s who is doing the touching. The same holds true for all different kinds of touch, and really all different sorts of behaviors that might trigger flashbacks or just a feeling of uncomfortableness.

The old saying about there being “no such thing as non-sexual touch” for sexual abuse survivors is actually only partially accurate in my case. There is such a thing when I trust that the person doing the touching is being non-sexual (or is my wife, someone who I have permitted to actually touch me in that way), but you have to gain that trust first. Like Susan said in the book, I have to know who you are.

I found myself identifying quite a bit with a recent post by Faith Allen, Risk of Identifying Too Strongly with Being a Child Abuse Survivor.

Not necessarily because I have a fear any longer of leaving the online survivor community, I’ve always been loosely associated as opposed to an overly active member of it anyway. On the other hand, I believe keeping the communities, forums, online relationships, etc. at arm’s distance has always been part of not wanting to be identified as “just” a survivor of child abuse. As much as I’ve dedicated my time and energy into this site, it’s never been my only website. I’ve always had something else online, and always linked the two very clearly, while also adapting them for different audiences. I believe there are a couple of reasons for this choice, and I think, for me, they are quite valid reasons as well.

First, and foremost is the reality that learning how to build a life of my own, by necessity, means that I cannot spend all of my time focused on being a survivor. Yes, I am a survivor, and yes that healing has taken a large chunk of my time and energy, and still continues to take some. But I am also many other things. I have relationships, hobbies and professional interests that have nothing to do with being a survivor, and I have never wanted to sacrifice those things for time spent on the larger community. It’s not that I don’t care about the larger online community of survivors, but I know my limitations, and what I need to do for my own health.

Which brings me to my second reason, the risk of burnout. I see it all too often in this community, actually. I’m sure you have seen the person who comes into a forum site, a new blog, your own blog comments etc, like a whirlwind, commenting on everything, sharing every detail of their struggle, devoting every extra minute of every single day to speaking out about abuse, and spending all night chatting with other survivors. After a few months, they then disappear, never to be seen again. It’s all well-intentioned, this desire to be the ultimate, tireless advocate, but it’s also completely unsustainable for 99% of the world. There are those who can be tirelessly driven to advocate for survivors, and they have my admiration. I’m not one of them. I firmly believe that one of the biggest reasons I have been able to keep this blog going for 9 years is the fact that I’ve not striven to be that. I’ve paced myself, allowed myself to write when I want, to experiment with new features when I want, interact with other bloggers at my own pace and never seen myself as “responsible” for the health of anyone who happens to be a part of things here. I write, and if I can help you through that writing, or help you find resources more in line with what you might need, I’m glad to help. I care about each and every person who reads this site, and interacts with me in some way online, but I’m also going to live my life, and let you live yours. In fact, I have to, or run the risk of harming my own health.

So, as much as I belong with this community, loose-knit as it may be, I belong elsewhere too. Being a survivor, and an online advocate, is one of the roles I play in my life. In my efforts to continue to play that role, I sometimes let it take a backseat to other roles. Not because it’s any less important, but because it’s equally important and I need the balance of other roles in order to keep it up. I hope that you can find your own balance, and contribute as part of your overall life as you continue to heal!

Interesting that, after falling behind the last few days on my blog reading, I would both find a new blog by a male survivor, and see that Marj is going to be giving up regular blogging.

I’ll miss reading Marj, and I can’t say enough about the work she did starting and carrying on the Carnival Against Child Abuse, but I certainly can understand the desire to spend the time and energy doing something else. In fact, seeing both of these things today really provides a good example of how things move and change in the world. The survivor community online is no different. Folks change, time passes, and we develop new interests and goals for our lives. I know exactly how Marj feels, after spending years deeply involved in the community, and in my own healing I don’t spend near the time I used to involved with everyone. I also know how Edward feels, when healing is the center of everything, and you need to reach out and start a blog as a way to communicate. It’s not much different than the healing journey itself, it ebbs and flows and finds it’s own way.

As much as I understand what Marj is doing, and why, I don’t have any plans to stop blogging here. Obviously, I have reached a point in my life where I’m spending less time on things here, but I also still find myself running into survivors online and in real life that tell me how much they get from reading things here, or who help me think about healing a little differently, or help me see new observations about life as a survivor. I still love having a place to share those thoughts, no matter how infrequent they might be. If the time comes that I don’t want to commit to sharing them any more, or I just don’t have the desire to write about healing any longer, I won’t. For now though, I still enjoy it, and I hope you do as well.

I spotted a post by Rainbow Gryphon’s blog the other day, mostly due to the fact that she linked to this blog as an example of how men can suffer emotional abuse. As I read her post, I realized that for all the years I’ve been writing here, I haven’t really gotten into the details of how emotional abuse affected me, or men in general. Obviously, when you’re talking about having been physically, and sexually, abused the fact that there was emotional abuse sort of goes without saying. In fact, in terms of my own writing, it pretty much has gone without saying. But it is interesting to consider that the emotional abuse is part of the overall impacts that we deal with as adults.

It may also be impossible to separate out the effects of the emotional abuse too. I grew up without learning how to make decisions for myself, too busy surviving what was happening to me to pick up normal adult behaviors that other kids learned. Is that an effect of emotional, physical, or sexual abuse? Really, it’s an effect of all of it.

The depression I lived with in my twenties was also an after-effect of all of it, but I think that’s where you can really see how emotional abuse plays it’s part. It’s not the fear of people hurting me, or the issues I had with relationships, especially with males, which were obvious signs of being beaten and molested. It’s looking at yourself at the age of 27 and seeing nothing worthwhile. It’s growing up without any sense of self, with no concept of the value of your own life. It occurs to me now that those were not a result, directly, of what happened to the physical me, those were the result of not having any unconditional acceptance as a child, of never being “good enough”, of having no underlying sense of being of value to anyone.

It also occurs to me that, as an adult, it may be unlikely that I will ever have to deal with being physically harmed, even less likely that I will have to deal with being raped, but even if it did happen to me now, I’d have a core sense of myself, and my position in the world, to help me deal with it. I have enough emotional health in myself, and enough sources of support, that it wouldn’t be as catastrophic as it was when I was a child. If I had been a child with a stronger self of self, a strong sense of belonging and love, I would have stood a better chance of protecting myself, possibly even being strong enough to tell someone what was happening. The emotional abuse left me without any of those things. I had to learn them myself, as an adult, and I continue to struggle to see myself in a more positive light. I’m not sure that you ever can completely recover that sense of self worth later, but I try my best to get a more realistic sense of myself little bit by little bit.