6 Steps to Shatter the Silence of Abuse

 by Dawn Scott Damon

I wish I had a different story. I wish it wasn’t one of horrific pain that left my life in a pile of ashes, filled with shame and sorrow. But I don’t have a different story.

What I do have, however, is the power to decide how my story will end.

Today I look at myself in the mirror and choose not to be a victim any longer. Today I choose healing. Today I choose life. I’m a survivor of childhood sexual abuse. I tell my story hoping that others will feel encouraged to start their own conversation, and eventually, gain empowerment to overcome.  

My story is unique to me, but it is not uncommon. One night I went to sleep with the carefree innocence of a ten-year-old girl, and the next morning I awoke with agonizing shame and confusion. My father, childhood hero by day, had become my perpetrator by night.

Over the next seven years, I was sexually molested, but I never told anyone. I believed that if I quietly endured the assaults, I would spare my other siblings from experiencing the same fate. Ah, the fantasies of children.

I spared no one a thing.

Today, I can’t be silent. A silent survivor can’t help anyone break free from the despair of abuse. I shatter the silence to break the grip of shame that had me bound by secrecy.

Because we can be healed from the trauma of sexual abuse.

6 Steps to Shattering the Silence of Abuse…

1. Secure your Safety

If you’re in immediate danger or fearful for your or others safety, contact emergency services immediately. They will help you secure a place of safety. 

2. Share your Secret

Telling your secret is powerful. It releases pent-up hopelessness and despair, and many survivors feel better right away. Choose someone you can talk to who is safe, like a friend, pastor, counselor, family member, or medical professional.  

3. Seek Medical Support

If you’ve been sexually assaulted or abused, seek medical help and support. You will not only receive appropriate medical care if you need it, but you will also find valuable support, such as counselors, guidance, and resources.

4. Stay Grounded in Reality

Trust yourself. It’s common for an abuse survivor to question themselves about their abuse after they begin to talk about it. If someone has assaulted you or is abusing you, it’s difficult to feel confident about what to do next, and victims can slip into denial. Stay focused and remember it’s never ok for someone to assault or abuse you for any reason.

5. Start Your Journey

Healing is a process. The journey to wholeness takes time, so be patient with yourself. Keep talking, sharing, and clarifying the truth about your abuse. Resist the fear to stop the process and return to a place of isolation. Healing is on the other side of the journey.

6. Speak and Stand

Don’t be afraid to know your legal rights. Help can still be yours, even if your trauma took place years ago, or you choose not to take it to the law. You can still be aware of what the law says and what options you may have.

Is it time for More?

Is it time for More?

          Some survivors are perfectionists, if they can’t do something perfect,  they won’t do it at all.

         

         Some survivors are performance driven, working hard to convince everyone—including themselves—that they’re valuable.

         

         And some survivors play it safe, seeking to be invisible, often living smaller than they should. 

I want to focus on that dynamic for a moment.

          

       Perhaps small living comes from the desire not to be noticed, just blend in and no one will hurt me again we tell ourselves.  But living small—keeping it safe by making easy choices, doing just enough to get by, refusing to push ourselves to reach, grow and discover—is robbing us from the full life we deserve. More is just waiting to be grabbed, if we will push past self-erected limitations, extend our hand and take it.

        

  Does this describe you? If so, read on.

          This past week I heard the story again of Christopher Columbus. He was a dreamer, a visionary who could see past what was into More. When popular opinion and belief taught that the earth was flat, Christopher Columbus, an explorer of unknown territory, refused to believe that fearful notion. He knew there was more to be discovered than what people could see with their human eye.

          So he approached the Kingdom Authorities in hopes of securing permission to set sail for places unknown, believing that he would certainly discover More.

          Columbus was right, the earth was not flat as many naysayers supposed. Indeed, it was round. There was More after all, and Columbus got it! Although he faced storms, and drought, and fears, and trials,         Christopher Columbus sailed on past the enemies of success to find his dream of America.

          Ok, so I am not a history buff, but the illustration inspires and energizes me. The lessons are appealing, dripping with powerful applications.

·      *  God has created a full life for me. I should not play it safe by living small, staying as close to my comfort zone as possible.

·      *  God has given me permission, authority, and favor to “claim” new territories for my life, I should take it. Get wisdom and ignore critics.

·      *  I won’t fall over the edge into a black hole if I push myself into new discoveries. Instead, I will experience a breakthrough.

·      * If God has given me a dream; a vision, I owe it to him and myself to set sail and discover His will for my life.

·       * No remembers the other guys who said, “The earth is flat.”

·        *We have to defeat our fears to find More.

     

     I’m personally ready to set sail to the land of More. I have dreams still waiting to be birthed. Goals, ideas, and desires. I’m not going to play it safe and live small. Abuse has taken enough.

What about you?

Forgiving God, Forgiving Myself  Pt. 2

Our other difficulty in forgiveness is forgiving ourselves. 

I easily forgave my father, but I was hard as steel on myself. I gave myself no mercy or compassion. Eventually I realized my lack of self-compassion was unforgiveness. I wasn’t letting myself free from my own judgments about me.

A child who is abused has committed no wrong, and she’s never to blame. Logically we understand that, but deep inside we can be captive of our own self-judgments. We’re not consciously aware of it, but we are holding ourselves responsible for the sexual assault against us. We did nothing wrong, but we feel culpable.

Why didn’t I stop it?

I should have told someone. Maybe then it would have stopped.

That’s what I get for being a stupid, gullible kid.

It’s my fault for being at the wrong place at the wrong time.

Maybe I asked for it. After all the attention felt good.

The list of lies is endless, and we can stay angry at ourselves for a long time. But we need to go all the way with forgiveness--we need to release ourselves from blame and unrealistic expectations and remind ourselves that a child is never to blame for their abuse.

Forgiveness of ourselves is an important step toward recovery. Forgiveness allows us to have closure from the past because we use our emotional energy different. Instead of remembering with resentment the horrific past, we focus on a bright and joyful future.  The beauty of forgiveness indeed sets a prisoner free—me.

 How about you? Have you forgiven yourself?

Forgiving God, Forgiving Myself  Pt. 1

Dawn Scott Jones 

The two beings we most often forget to forgive after childhood abuse are God and ourselves. But the truth is, we don’t actually forget.

We’re typically unaware that we harbor resentment toward ourselves and God. We don’t want to admit we’re resentful. Yet many of us are angry with ourselves and God.

      Very angry.

            It may sound sacrilegious to think we must forgive God. But forgiving God doesn’t mean he did something wrong. Of course he didn’t. It’s just that survivors have an expectation of how a “loving God” should have responded to our abuse. When our expectations—and we all have them whether we realize them or not—weren’t met, we became angry, hurt, and bitter. We often distance ourselves from God or conclude that he is neither fair nor trustworthy.

Many of us have our share of unending, agonizing, questions:

“Where was God when I was molested? “Why didn’t he stop it?”

We wonder why God would allow abuse at all.  After all, He is sovereign. He could have stopped it.

         No pat, universal answer can soothe every wounded heart, although counselors and pastors alike have tried.

           Perhaps you’ve also searched for a comforting answer to that perplexing question, looking for peace. Well, before we can settle our disappointment with God, it seems to me we all have to find an answer to this question; “Where were you when I was being abused?” Forgiving God can happen as we satisfy that “nagging unknown”.

          As I sought to understand God’s attitude and response to my abuse, I found comfort in believing God was there with me, feeling my sorrow, grieving my pain, just as he was with his own Son during his death on the cross. And just as Jesus had a resurrection, I too would rise up from this pain and be revived, remade, and restored, to live a free and full life.

           I also understood that if God stopped every single person from committing horrific acts of violence against the innocent, we would live in a perfect, flawless world. Why then, would we need a Savior? Jesus would have died in vain.

          But because God is love—he doesn’t just have love, he is love—His love includes giving us a free will. Sadly, many use their freedom to hurt others.

           The point is, many of us are angry at God. 

So why not make peace with Him?

"Lord God, I confess I have been angry. I wanted a God who would deliver me from pain, not through pain. I wanted you to rescue me out of harms way, not rescue me after harm had it's way. Still, I need you in my life Lord, you alone can heal. So today, I lay down my broken expectations and instead choose to trust you and your way. I look to your will for my life. I choose to believe that you give beauty for ashes, and that you will make something beautiful from this mess. You will use my life God... not in spite of what has happened, but BECAUSE of what has happened. Amen."

Have you harbored anger towards God? Tell me about it...

 Feeling the Pain    Part Two

I didn’t understand the severe impact sexual abuse had on me.  For years I wasn’t able to grasp the depth of my pain. I knew something was wrong, yet I rejected the possibility that it was connected to my childhood sexual abuse.   I criticized myself and minimized my experience.

 Stop overreacting; you’ve only suffered a minor offense. It’s no big deal.

You’re weak and incapable of shrugging off a bad experience. Move on.

But I couldn’t move on.  More guilt. If the solution was that easy, what was wrong with me?

Was I too weak? Defective?

 Why couldn’t I forget my abuse?

I must have asked myself those questions hundreds of times. I wanted to bury the past or at least ignore it, but it wouldn’t go away. I was stuck.

Today I know I wasn’t weak. Struggling with the effects of sexual abuse is expected and the rule, not the exception. My past and all its pain were knocking on the door of the emotional closet I’d stuffed them into, and those emotions wanted out.  

I understood that opening the door and acknowledging the past were the only way to move on, but I couldn’t do it. Facing the raw truth of sexual abuse terrified me. Instead, I suppressed my pain and remained emotionally frozen.

As long as I was strong and in control, everything seemed okay.  But when I opened the door of my past sexual abuse, I felt overwhelmed; afraid of my vulnerability and emotional weakness.   

I have to feel this—I need to heal.

It took me months to form those words in my thoughts and even longer to say them aloud. But once I accepted that I needed to feel if I wanted to heal, I repeated the words to myself out loud.

I needed to feel, to grieve my unresolved sorrow, and find peace with my past.

I’m not alone.

Sexual abuse is a wounding invasion—a molestation of mind and soul. When it happens, (and it happens all too often) it shatters our emotions, our trust, and our ability to trust. It destroys feelings of security.  We are stripped of our boundaries. We feel powerless, vulnerable, and fearful. We’ve been intimidated—our self-confidence, decimated.

 Survivors have described other struggles:

      •     Shame and guilt

      •     A sense of worthlessness and damaged self-esteem

      •     Fear, anxiety, and panic attacks

      •     Sleep disturbances

·       Eating disorders

      •     Impaired memory and flashbacks

      •     Fear of trust and intimacy

      •     Depression and suicidal thoughts

Yes, sexual assault cuts deeply.  To be whole we must be honest about the psychological imprint abuse leaves on us as survivors. Everyone’s experience is different, but no matter what form of sexual abuse we encountered, it left its mark.  

  For me, being honest about my abuse meant accepting the fact that it wasn’t my fault, I wasn’t bad.  I worked at feeling compassion toward myself by thinking kind and sympathetic thoughts that replaced the voice of my ever-present, inner-critic with the disappointed, scolding tone.

I still teetered on the side of intolerance when my emerging, tender spirit  showed signs of breaking through, but  that’s  when I mustered the words to remind myself,

Sexual abuse is a big deal, I will acknowledge that what was done against me was horrifically wrong.

Self-compassion is still a challenge for me. It’s easy to slip back into my default system and become harsh and demanding on myself. I have to remember I’m not bad for having needs, and I’m not flawed for wanting love.

Do you have a story too?  Sexual abuse, regardless of its nature, has left a horrific impact on you. It’s scarred your heart.

  I encourage you to be honest about the pain of your sexual abuse and recognize and feel the damage that was done to you.  Healing is possible, and you can explore the depths of your wounds and begin recovery.

How has abuse affected you? Please share.