Child Abuse Survivor

While we were vacationing down in Florida this week, I heard my wife laugh in such a free, gleeful way that it actually made me jealous of her for a minute. We were riding Space Mountain, and she was seated directly behind me. As you may know, the ride is very dark, so you don’t really see much more than a few lights and you rapidly scream by, but you do hear the other riders scream, or otherwise make noise. Through the din of other riders, and the sound effects of the ride itself, I heard the unmistakable sound of my wife giggling uncontrollably.

Luckily for me, it’s a sound I hear somewhat frequently so I recognized it. I was also incredibly happy that she was having a moment of unbridled glee just then. Those are the moments that make life worthwhile, whether they occur on a thrill ride while on vacation, laughing at a favorite movie, goofing around with our loved ones, or singing our favorite song. It’s those moments when we can’t help but express our joy. I know it’s easier for her to express joy than it is for me, but I also know there have been plenty of those moments for myself as well. Moments that make all the struggling and all the pain of healing completely worthwhile. Moments when I can honestly say that I’m glad I’m alive and experiencing this moment, right now.

I know I wouldn’t trade those moments for anything, and that’s how I know all that healing work paid off.

Much as Tracie mentioned in the last Blog Carnival Against Child Abuse of 2010, I’m not much for making New Year’s resolutions. On the other hand, I find birthdays, and new year’s, to be a good time to reflect on what’s going on, and check in to make sure I’m making progress in the areas I want to make progress in, as well as just generally making sure I’m headed in the right direction.

Sometimes those check-ins can lead to making something like a resolution, but as opposed to trying to do, or not do as the case may be, something different, I like to think of it more as tweaking the plan. This weekend, as the calendar changes to 2011, it’s clear to me that 2010 has stayed pretty close to on plan. Most things I set out to do a year ago were accomplished, but some were not. Sometimes life has a way of throwing you curve balls, and you have to adjust your plans. That certainly has happened more than once in 2010 too! The important thing is to be able, at the end of 2010, look back and see the improvements made in the past year. Years with progress, whether it be on a healing journey, or just a journey of self-improvement, are good years.

Looking forward, I know there are some things coming up that are a bit out of my control. That makes it hard to really plan for them, but I am aware of them now, and will be looking forward to things changing, even if I don’t know how, exactly, those changes are going to play out just yet. But I’ll be ready for them! On the stuff that is in my control, however, there are some tweaks needed. Mostly in terms of getting back into things that have slipped a bit this year, especially toward the end of the year when life got a little bit crazy for us.

In terms of this site, I couldn’t be happier. The site now has over 350 “fans” on the Facebook page, the Twitter stream has over 400 followers and I know even more are simply stopping in to read occasionally. I cannot thank all of you enough. That tells me that, despite the ups and downs of my ability to spend time writing, there’s some good coming from it.

I’m happy with 2010, it’s been a very good year. I’m hopeful that 2011 will be as well, and I’m ready to do what I need to for that to happen. I hope that you are as well, and that at the end of 2011, you will be able to look back and see the progress and improvements you’ve made this year!

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.

My wife recently returned from a trip to Israel. This weekend, over breakfast, she was telling me about meeting Eliezer Ayalon and getting to hear his story of surviving the Holocaust.

The one point of the story that really struck me was that, upon his arrival in Israel, no one wanted to hear about his being a survivor. In fact, society really seemed to assume that if you were taken to the camps, you must have done something to deserve that, and if you had survived, you must have done something to cause that too. It struck me because I honestly think this sort of attitude is somewhat present in our own society when it comes to child abuse, and sexual violence.

How many times have you seen someone try to “explain away” someone’s past experiences, making excuses for why we were targeted or playing the old “blame the victim” game? As I consider these people, and the people in Israel who wanted to point to something “bad” about Holocaust survivors and victims, I’m left with one simple explanation for both groups. Simply put, they are scared, and ignorant. Their world-views cannot comprehend the possibility of something like that every happening to them, or in their family, so they concoct excuses about why it couldn’t happen to them.

These are the same people who watch the news and count themselves as smart for living in a nicer neighborhood, not going out at night, only letting their kids go to the “approved” schools and activities, only interacting with the “right” people, only traveling to the best places, and on and on. There’s no room for sympathy for victims, because that would be admitting that maybe, just maybe, they could be a victim too. Obviously, since they’ve done everything right, they cannot be a victim, and you’re victim-hood is a result of your wrong decisions.

Their entire worlds would crumble into nothingness if they had to face the fact that people become victims for no other reason that someone else decided to do something harmful, and evil. There was nothing the victim could have done differently to avoid it, no poor decision that would have caused them to be in harm’s way, no mingling with the wrong crowd, no nothing. They were just living their lives, as anyone else would, and had nothing but the bad luck to targeted by someone wishing to do them harm.

Those who would deny that possibility lack the strength of character to see the world for what it is, and accept that there is always a risk of something bad happening, no matter what precautions you might take. It’s not just that they lack sympathy for victims, they need the constant, false, comforts of their own safety more. If they aren’t somehow better than these victims are, then this could happen to them as well, and they are too weak to accept that as reality.

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!

I’ve realized something about myself this week. I’m not exactly proud of it either. It seems that I’ve spent so much time learning to take care of myself, that I have a hard time admitting when I might need some support from my friends.

That’s not to say that I regret that I am capable of taking care of myself. That’s been a long time coming. And it’s not to say that I don’t get plenty of support and help from my wife. I absolutely do. But, with her traveling halfway around the world, and this having already been a stressful week, I realized that I just really wanted someone to talk to, but really don’t know how to ask someone to do that. I wound up emailing a few friends instead, and even then I found myself saying things like, “oh no, I’m fine it’s under control I can take care of myself, no worries”, because I just really didn’t want anyone to think that I couldn’t take care of myself.

Of course, logically, I know that part of taking care of myself is leaning on friends for support. I just don’t like having to do it. I want to be self-sufficient during the times my wife is traveling, no matter what happens. I don’t mind leaning on her, we lean on each other all the time. Those are the roles we play with each other. I’m used to playing a certain role with many of my friends, and I’m not really comfortable switching out of that role into one where I need them to help me. (Hmm, I like to play my role and not change anything up, sound like I grew up in a family with an alcoholic much? lol)

So my question is, how do I get out of my comfortable role and, more importantly, how do I know which friends can switch out of their roles and be a source of support when I need it? I’m not used to looking for that in my friends, but I have a feeling I’m going to find out which ones I can depend on.

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.

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’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.