Child Abuse Survivor

Crossposted to Mikemac on Sports.

I was listening to a recent BS Report, a podcast about sports on Grantland, in which Bill Simmons had Mike Tyson and Jalen Rose on, and got Mike talking about some of the issues and demons that he has had to deal with throughout his life.

It was an interesting interview all the way around, but the thing that really caught my attention was when Mike said that early in his career, after he had found some success and starting making money, and people kind of came out of the woodwork wanting to be his friend, and attach themselves to him, and his money, that he knew they were using him, but he wanted to be used.

Now, it is hard to imagine someone as physically strong as Mike Tyson wanting people to use him, but he began to explain, and mentioned Stockholm Syndrome, and how when you grow up with nothing, being bullied and abused, that you start to simply expect this is how people will treat you, and it’s what you deserve. As he was talking I could really see how this made sense. He never had anyone growing up, suddenly people wanted to be his friend. He never really had any friends, but wanted some, so if being used was the price for having friends, and as far as he knew at this point, that was the way it is, then he would accept that and let people use him and his money.

The more I let that sink in, the more it really made so much sense. How many survivors have I talked to who simply accept being used, or abused again, as adults? How many simply assume that is the trade-off to being in a relationship, or having some take care of them financially, or have a partner in raising a child, etc.? Does that not sound like Stockholm Syndrome, where kidnap victims being to identify with their captors, and minimize the very real damage being done to them as a hostage? It’s a false belief that the only way to get love, companionship, friendship, etc. is to trade yourself for it, to let people use you however they see fit.

The struggle, of course, is to embrace the reality that is your past, accept it, and also learn to see it for what it truly is. In other words, to learn that you are more than something to satisfy the needs of other people. It sounds like Tyson is finally getting that, and trying to do different things with his life and make healthy choices. I hope he can continue to do that, just as I always hope the same for all survivors.

With the big media attention that’s been paid recently to things like the Sandusky case at Penn State, the Boys Scouts, Jimmy Savile in the UK, and other abuse cases, it seems like there almost a hunt for the “next” big story, leading to a handful of accusations being made, and being made very, very publicly, long before there is any proof.

In the UK, it was a case of the media actually making a mistake and identifying the wrong person. In the US recently, we’ve seen Bernie Fine, a former assistant basketball coach at Syracuse University, removed from his job, publicly shamed on every major news outlet and a year later, after a long investigation, quietly having the case dropped, and now just this week, we’ve seen Kevin Clash, better known as the voice of Elmo, suspended for what was described as ” a sexual relationship with a minor”, who it turns out, was a consenting adult, not a minor.

Why do I bring these up? As a community we are constantly telling ourselves that abuse victims should always be believed, and never lie. We aren’t always so good at recognizing what that means. and how people will respond to that sort of environment. Think of it this way, we now know, and understand, that there are certain professions, and volunteer activities, that have adults working closely with children. We also understand that, especially in volunteer capacities, that adults who wish to abuse children, use those positions as a way to groom victims. Traditionally, though not so much any more, volunteer coaches, educators, and other roles were seen as “trustworthy” by the community at large, and therefore people began to misuse that trust. Any time the conventional wisdom says that “x” must always be true, someone will immediately try and take advantage of it.

This truth is not well recognized among survivors, but that doesn’t make it untrue. The fact is, by promoting the idea that abuse victims never lie, we’ve invited people to lie about it. What better way to truly ruin someone’s life than to make an accusation that the community at large will never question, and will automatically be accepted as gospel truth? Not only will it be believed, but we will be welcomed into the community and hailed for having the courage to speak up. The fact that there’s no proof any of it is true, will not matter. The media will soak it up, there will be multiple TV and radio shows dedicated to discussing the case, and by the time the authorities get around to completing an investigation, it won’t come close to undoing the damage caused.

The question then becomes, how do we encourage victims to speak up, without inviting the cause of supporting survivors to be undermined by those who simply wish to destroy someone’s life with a false accusation? I don’t know how we do that. I want to be able to support and have those who are willing to come forward be believed, but I also want to support the notion that until the claims are fully investigated, that innocent people should not be publicly tarred with the “P” word. (Are the allegations true against Fine? I don’t know, but barring any official charges, how can we ever truly know, and what should be the proper way to treat a person when an investigation is dropped?) How we determine that balance will say a lot about us as a society, and I suspect, will also say a lot about the survivor community as well. Many more cases like these, and we may just find ourselves the group that cried wolf, and that would be a tremendous shame.

I found myself reading this article about Queen Underwood, a female boxer represeting the US at the Olympics earlier today. The headline grabbed my attention, because she is a survivor of childhood sexual abuse, but the story actually contained something I don’t see often, although I doubt she is alone in this. She admits to regretting telling her story.

No, she doesn’t regret telling her story because she’s in danger of repercussions from her father, or her family. She regrets it because people made assumptions about her:

A few months ago, Underwood did an interview with the New York Times in which she revealed her father Azzad sexually abused her for years. She described how Azzad would creep into her room as a child and touch her, often taking her older sister Hazzauna off to another room. Later, she said, Hazzauna would return, weeping.

It was a powerful story, made more powerful by a small tour of TV interviews the sisters made. And then, a boxing official says, she came to regret all of it, because instead of being a fighter, she became something else. Something weaker.

…

“It’s not who I am today,” she says. “People are trying to make connections that aren’t there. I’m strong because of my mindset.”

Now boxing is a very tough sport, one in which you do not want to show any weakness. Most of us will never know what it’s like to step into a ring with someone who’s job is to hit us as often, and as hard, as possible. Given that, I can see why she is offended by anyone who assumed she is a weak victim. She is anything but weak. But it’s illustrative of how we deal with abuse survivors that she has now come to regret saying anything about her abuse, because the general public made assumptions about her, based on nothing more than a news story about her being abused as a child.

I’ve seen the same thing, over and over again, in the Jerry Sandusky coverage. There are a lot of stories that describe for us what the witnesses lives must be like now, what sort of issues they are dealing with, etc. without one of these “experts” actually talking to any of those survivors. There are a lot of well-meaning advocates who feel the need to tell us how difficult live must be for these men, ho they’ll never lead a normal life, or that their lives have been ruined beyond repair. I’ve already talked about how dangerous it is to talk about survivors in those terms, letting all survivors think there is no hope of healing and overcoming their past, but there’s another, more personal, reason these statements bother me so much. That’s because, as someone who has been vocal about my own story, I’ve seen lots of people come to this site, and make plenty of assumptions about me, based solely on this one fact of my life. I am a survivor of child abuse.

Other than that fact, you don’t know me. It’s dangerous to assume that you do, and it’s offensive to many survivors to assume that you know them. If the statistics are true, and 1 of every 4 girls, 1 of every 6 boys, is abused, that means there are millions of survivors currently, just in the US. To assume that we all have the same ideas, share the same political affiliations, and have the same opinions about how to protect children and how to support survivors, is insane. We are all individuals, and we are all dealing with our past in different ways, with different results. I try to be welcoming to all different survivors here, and I would hope any survivor blogger, community, website, etc. would be. But, just because I am a survivor, and I willingly share that fact, doesn’t mean you can make assumptions about me. In fact, I’ve been doing this a long time and have seen plenty of assumptions made about who I am, what sort of beliefs I hold, and what my personality is like. Some of them were correct, some of them weren’t even close. Most of them, however, were misguided assumptions based on nothing more than being a survivor.

Queen Underwood and I are both survivors of sexual abuse. You may also be one. Aside from that, we’re each our own combination of  many, many, things, and there’s nothing wrong with that.

With childhood sexual abuse a hot topic in the media right now, I’ve seen numerous news stories, and opinion pieces all over the internet. I’m sure you’ve seen plenty of them as well. I will not be adding to those voices more than I already have. There’s enough of that out there. I do, however, want to make a couple of suggestions to the media, to survivors and supporters, to those who do feel the need to add their voices to the current news cycle.

First, and foremost, can we stop competing with each other to describe sexual abuse in the worst possible terms? Childhood sexual abuse is horrible. No one in their right mind is arguing against that. On the other hand, child victims and adult survivors do not need to constantly be told that they will never recover from this, that their lives are irrevocably ruined, that there fate is worse than death, etc. Statements like “sexual abuse is worse than murder”, do not send a hopeful message to the survivors, do they?

How about, instead, we state simply that sexual abuse is bad, that what happened to them will have long term affects, and how the survivors need our support to overcome what has happened and live better, fuller, adult lives? How about realizing that survivors are already dealing with more stigma than you can imagine every single day, and try our hardest to not add to it?

Secondly, can we, as survivors, please stop wishing for prison rape? We sure do like to stand up on our soapbox and talk about how rape is never funny, it’s never justified, and can never be accepted, yet send someone to prison for sexual abuse, child pornography, soliciting, and boy we can’t wait to jump in with gleeful comments about how much the prison population is going to show them what’s it’s like! If you consider yourself an advocate for rape and/or sexual abuse victims, and wish for some people to actually be raped, do I even need to tell you how much of a hypocrite you are? How much damage you are doing to your own cause?

Again, the message you’re sending is actually that rape and sexual abuse aren’t justified, unless it’s someone you decide actually does deserve it.

Lastly, while we’re on the subject of how we discuss survivors, and abusers, can we please have a rational discussion about how best to protect children? One that does not include name calling, or worse yet, assuming anyone who disagrees with the orthodoxy of rape/sexual abuse/ domestic violence advocates is actually an abuser in hiding, or someone who wants to see people abused? Because I don’t see a lot of that. The fact is, what we’ve been doing, obviously isn’t working all that well. How about if we allow people to actually voice some disagreement about what we are doing, what we should be doing, and what we might want to consider, instead of shouting them down at every chance? The truth is, we don’t have unlimited time, money, or other resources to put all children in a 24 hour, constantly guarded, protective bubble to keep them from being abused. Even if we could, it might not be a great way to raise children anyway. Can I say that without being accused of not wanting to protect children? I’m not all that sure that I can, and while we have emotional outbursts about it, more children are being abused. They deserve better. They deserve our best ideas, our best minds, our best attempts at finding solutions. We’re not going to get there if we’re walking around afraid to disagree with each other.

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.