Child Abuse Survivor

From a highly recommended article on Slate, How what happened in State College forced me to confront my own abuse.

Several of my friends, for example, were shocked when Rick Reilly reported that, according to a 1998 study on child sexual abuse by Boston University Medical School, one in six boys in America will be abused by age 16. For girls, it’s one in four by the age of 14. They were shocked, no doubt, because concrete examples of abuse are not as available to them as the statistics suggest. Most people don’t think they know any abuse victims.

But they do know victims. They just don’t realize it, because so many of us have been unable to reveal ourselves. This breeds a false sense of security, with too many adults believing abuse is someone else’s problem.

By now I’m sure most of you are familiar with the recent charges brought against former Penn State assistant coach Jerry Sandusky, as well as charges of perjury and failure to report against Penn State officials. If you aren’t familiar with the details, you can read them here, although they are quite disturbing.

When I first saw the story, Sunday night, it made me absolutely sick that this person was seen in a shower with a “10 year old boy”, 9 years ago, and was just now being charged with a crime.

After having a couple of days to digest the allegations, and read up on the details, I have to say, that as sick as it makes me, I’m not necessarily surprised. This is the Catholic Church, various boarding schools, junior hockey coaches, etc. all over again. Claims are made against “one of us”, whether it be a priest, a fellow coach, a board member, and we are hesitant to believe them or pursue them. The people in positions of authority don’t want to believe that this sort of things is happening under their noses, or being done by the same people they live and work with daily, so they do the minimum, if that. After all, Sandusky was one of them, and they wouldn’t do this, so surely there must be some misunderstanding, right? It’s called cognitive dissonance, and it’s actually quite normal, this ability we have to filter information in favor of what we already believe to be true. This is what makes it possible for abuse to go on right in front of us, with all the signals and hints visible, without people really seeing them, because we already believe good things about the people we are close to. Bad things struggle to crack our awareness.

Obviously, in this case, a couple of officials have been charged with not even doing the minimum, legally, but the focus has now switched to head coach Joe Paterno, and the graduate assistant who made the initial claim. They, apparently, met the minimum requirements of reporting it to their superiors, but did they really do the “right” thing? Did Paterno owe it to those kids to see past his dissonance when it came to his long time assistant, and personally get involved in making sure this was investigated? Did the university have an obligation to do more than simply tell Sandusky not to bring children to campus?

Personally, I believe that they did, but I also acknowledge that it’s sometimes easier said than done. I’d like to believe I would take serious any charge of child abuse, even if it was levied against someone I am close to, but when push comes to shove, are any of us willing to believe that our best friend, our spouse, our family members, our friends and neighbors, are capable of such heinous acts? Aren’t we sure they are just like us, and incapable of such things?

If this tragedy teaches us anything, it should teach us that abusers come in all shapes and sizes, ages, make and female, and just because we think we know someone, doesn’t mean they aren’t hiding horrific secrets. We owe it to these children, and the potential future victims to put aside our dissonance and take these kinds of claims seriously.

We should also raise our awareness of who pedophiles are. We like to think of pedophiles as those creepy guys from the TV movies, who we all know to avoid, but the reality is much more complicated than that. Pedophiles can be anywhere, and the best way to protect children is to stay closely involved in their lives, including keeping up with the people they are spending time with. Jerry Sandusky couldn’t have had a cleaner image at Penn State, and it was that image and prominence in the community that he used to cover up what he was doing, allegedly.  Abusers don’t announce themselves, assuming kids are safe just because no one “creepy” is around, is a huge mistake.

I was listening to the latest BS Report podcast on ESPN today, an interview done by Bill Simmons with Sugar Ray Leonard. I was aware that Ray openly discusses the sexual abuse he suffered as a child in his recent autobiography, but I hardly expected that to be a major portion of the interview.

If you want to hear that part, and don’t care much about the boxing talk, skip the first 20 minutes or so.

The interesting thing that I took away from the discussion, among a few really interesting things about the difficulty of talking about sexual abuse in a macho culture, was his description of telling his wife early in his marriage. Actually, the same scene played out in both of his marriages. He told his wife, she just stared at him, not knowing what to say, and he changed the subject, never to bring it up again.

It got me thinking that, even as a survivor myself, when people tell me about being abused, I’m not sure what to say either. I hate to think that is causing them to change the subject and never talk about it again. I hope that hasn’t ever happened, but if it has, I hope whoever it was is reading this now!

So survivors, here’s your chance to let folks know, how should people respond, what should they say? Is it ok to not know what to say? For me, I think it’s ok to not know what to say, but say that. Don’t stare at me like I’m a freak, I already feel like a freak for having experienced this, and now talking about it. Just admit, you don’t know what to say, and show that you care. It goes a long, long way!

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.

Wow, that turned unto quite a long title, didn’t it?

Anyway, this months edition didn’t see the same number of entries that recent editions have, probably owing to the weather getting a bit nicer and people spending a bit more time away from their computers I’d guess. However, don’t let the number fool you, there is, as always, some excellent stuff in here!

As you know, with this month being the month St. Patrick’s Day falls, and your host having quite a bit of Irish blood flowing in his veins, I wanted to focus on the way I view my Irish heritage. I’ve always considered the Irish to be a people that managed to live through their suffering by always looking forward, always willing to enjoy what they have to look forward to, and apply that to survivors. To me, having the ability to enjoy the little things in life, and having positive things to look forward to is a real key to healing, and I shared my own thoughts on the matter through the words of my grandmother in the post Family Wisdom.

Katie picked up on the theme and submitted an article she had actually written in Feb. (She was ahead of the game!) called What Makes you Happy?

Marj was also ahead of the game, submitting a post from July, 2009 entitled Helping Your Inner Child Help You along with this explanation:

I’m submitting this post for our “Surviving with Joy” theme because working with my inner child during my recovery has provided me with many little moments of joy.

Meanwhile, Issue Knitting also picked up on the theme and submitted Finding Joy, which literally made me smile as I read it!

Lastly, Paul took an interesting twist on my Irish Heritage theme, and talked about the Irish Famine Memorial in Boston, and how he relates to the struggle and the need to continue marching forward! How true, Paul!

Of course, each month the Carnival also gets plenty of great submissions in the regular categories, so please take a few moments to enjoy these as well!

Advocacy and Awareness:

Cornut32 added a post with a link to an article talking about protecting LDS church members from abuse, titled Sisters Speak: Teaching about Sexual Abuse. In it she shares the comment she made on the article about ways to teach church members about the topic. Good lessons for us all to keep in mind!

In the News:

Morrigan wrote back in Dec. about the ongoing scandals in the Catholic Church in Ireland sharing thoughts on what is going on there in Bad Apples or a Bad Barrel? Sexual Abuse and the Irish Catholic Church.

Poetry:

As far as Survivor Poetry goes this month, we had two folks send in some of their work. Robert shared a couple of haikus, every night freight trains and we turn.

Meanwhile, Rick Belden added One Day.

Survivor Stories:

Had a few folks submit stories, including at least one newcomer to the Carnival!

Growing Up Broken shared how far she has come in Looking Over your Shoulder. Good for you!

Achieving Peace sent in Surviving, Conquering and Forgiving -My Story

And, Ligeia, who learned about the Carnival recently over on the Survivors Network made her first entry into the wonderful community that has built up around this monthly carnival, What’s in a Name?

Healing and Therapy:

Saving the best, or at least most popular, category for last this month, we had a number of entries in the area of healing and therapy.

Dr. Kathleen Young contributed her thoughts in What’s Love got to Do with It? Self-love and Healing!

Patricia Singleton wrote something very similar to Dr. Young, almost creating a mini-theme for this month, in Loving Yourself First is Being Real. She also sent in a second post in this category, about Fear, which has some good information about learning to admit and acknowledge the things we fear.

Paul also added a second entry to this month’s Carnival in this category, Dissociative Identities and Healing, proving that there’s usually more than one good thing to be added to any Carnival, a note I will surely make to myself!

Lastly, but certainly not least, Mia sent in an educational article, about Color Therapy. Even though the blog isn’t a Survivor blog per se, I still found the 30 Things You Should Know about the Psychology of Color to be quite interesting, and you might too!

So that’s it! Just 18 entries this month, but all well worth taking a few moments to read! Thanks to everyone for the great writing they have submitted, and thanks to Marj for allowing me the honor to highlight just a small taste of the many great blogs written by and for curvivors out there! I hope you enjoy, and have found a new voice or two to read. I also hope that you will consider submitting your own articles for next month’s Carnival, and will continue to support this wonderful endeavor with your posts well in to the future!

This month’s theme is “birthdays”, and the carnival just keeps on growing. Looks like yet another large collection of posts!

Head over to Issue Knitting and check for yourself! It should give us plenty to read for the weekend.

Marj isn’t doing a full blog carnival against child abuse this month, a nod to the craziness that is the holidays for most of us, but she is going to be putting together a collection of Holiday Survival Tips for Survivors. If you have written some tips be sure to go over and let her know you’d like to be included, and if you’re in need of some tips for this holiday season, keep an eye out for the collection when she posts it! I’m sure there will be some good ideas!

Last night, instead of relaxing and spending a quiet evening watching the latest episode of Ken Burns documentary on America’s National Parks, I sat by the TV with my laptop reading about the people defending Roman Polanski, and getting very angry that anyone would try and defend someone who raped a 13 year old girl.

And my outrage, justified as it is, did no one any good.

I broke one of my own rules about staying mentally healthy. I let my life be affected by something I have no power over. So, i vowed to keep an eye on the news stories, and to try my best to not support anyone who is making excuses for him, or arguing that he shouldn’t have to face justice for what he did all those years ago, but I’m not going to waste my time arguing with people who want to go online and support his freedom. After all, anyone who could possibly dismiss the rape of a 13 year old girl isn’t really worth my time and effort, and isn’t going to suddenly see the error of their ways because of something I say.

So, I’ll keep my outrage and I’ll stay aware so that if there is anything I can do, I’ll be at the ready, but then I’ll go back to living my life. I can’t decide whether Roman Polanski will be extradited to face the State of California, but I can continue to do the work I do for survivors, and continue to live my life the best way I know how. That’s the road to mental health, not the one that focuses on my anger and outrage.

It’s troubling that so many are willing to ignore what he did to that girl all those years ago, but as survivors, are we really surprised? Haven’t we all seen example after example of people who want to do the same to our own pasts? How many people would like us to be quiet and just “get over it”. How may don’t want to believe that someone they know could do this? How many simply don’t believe you? Those people aren’t part of our healing, they should simply be left behind in their own ignorance. We’ve got more important work to do than argue with them.

Got this email today and wanted to pass it along, if you’re interested go ahead and contact Christina at ctorres at healthyplace.com:

My name is Christina and I?m a producer with the HealthyPlace TV Show, an online mental
health tv show that airs live over the HealthyPlace.com website.

http://www.healthyplace.com/mental-health-tv-show/

Our next Tuesday night show (June 16) is on adult survivors of sexual child abuse and its
impact later in life.  I?m writing to ask if you would consider providing any contact
information for potential guests for the show. As you know, sharing your personal story
so that others may learn from it helps others know they are not alone in their own
experiences.

The show airs at 7:30p central, 8:30 eastern.  All that is required is a webcam attached
to a computer.  The interview would run about 15-20 minutes.

Please send me any contact information along with a good day / time for me to call and
I’ll be touch.

Thank you,

Christina Torres
Producer, HealthyPlace TV Show
HealthyPlace.com – America ‘s Mental Health Channel
“When you’re at HealthyPlace.com, you’re never alone.”

There’s some research out now suggesting that it might:

The researchers found support for deeper self-disclosure from bloggers resulting in a range of better social connections. These included things such as a sense of greater social integration, which is how connected we feel to society and our own community of friends and others; an increase in social bonding (our tightly knit, intimate relationships); and social bridging — increasing our connectedness with people who might be from outside of our typical social network.

I think there might be something to this. I know that way back when I started writing online about being a child abuse survivor, that connecting to other survivors, learning from each other, and supporting each other was a tremendous help to me, in terms of increasing the ways in which I was connected to other people and just felt like I belonged somewhere. Of course, I think that also has stepped outside of just “blogging” and into all of the various other technologies that are online currently helping people connect to each other. Just take a look at Twitter, Facebook, and even our own Abuse Survivors Network. I see exactly what they are talking about in this study, occurring each and every day on those sites as well. The technology is not only making staying in touch easier, but is helping folks like survivors, who have traditionally had a difficult time in social situations, to feel more comfortable and safe, and thus giving them freedom to be more expressive.

What do you think, has being active online, and connecting with other survivors, or just other people in general, been beneficial to your mental well-being?