by Band Back Together | Oct 24, 2010 | Abuse, Adult Survivors of Childhood Sexual Abuse, Anger, Child Sexual Abuse, Fear, Guilt, Incest, Shame, Therapy |
When I began counseling for childhood physical and sexual abuse, I was broken. A broken heart, a broken spirit. I had carried the guilt and shame of my childhood abuse for so long that it was like an old winter coat. So heavy to carry around each day. So hot that some days it was stifling. And yet it had the comfort of the known. It was scary to throw off that old heavy coat of guilt and shame and face what else was under there.
I thought we would begin slowly. I thought I would share just a bit at a time. My counselor agreed to go at the pace I set. But once I began talking, I kept right on talking. I told her EVERYTHING I could think of. If I thought of something in between sessions, I wrote them down so I could tell her next time. It seems that once I felt a crack in the dam that I’d built to protect myself, the floodwaters couldn’t run fast enough.
I let it ALL out.
It was scary. I shook like a leaf in a hurricane the first session and sometimes after that. But the overwhelming feeling was relief. My need to let it all out was greater than my fear of what my counselor would think of me (of course, that was my insecurities and had nothing to do with my counselor). It was such a RELIEF to release all the secrets I had been carrying.
Once the rush of information was over, we started working on issue after issue.
At some point in counseling, my shame and guilt turned into anger.
ANGER that the abuse occurred. ANGER at those adults who knew and did nothing to protect the little freckled girl with long braids that I had been. ANGER that I carried the guilt and shame of the abuse for so long. ANGER that my stepfather never was held accountable for his actions. ANGER at the days and nights of fear and pain and abuse I endured as a child unable to protect herself. ANGER at the bruises, welts and blisters I had to hide outside of our house. ANGER. ANGER. ANGER.
My counselor encouraged me to feel the anger, but I was terrified of the anger. I remember one conversation where my counselor asked my what about the anger made me so afraid. My reply was “I am afraid that the anger is so huge and so overwhelming that if I tap into it I won’t be able to control it.”
She asked me what I thought losing control of the anger would look like.
I told her I was afraid that the anger would take over and I would just scream and scream and scream until my throat was so raw I wouldn’t be able to scream anymore or that the anger would take over and I would break every single thing in my house. I truly was afraid to let myself feel the level of anger that I knew was raging inside of me.
Then she told me she had a plan, if I was willing. She took me out to her car in the parking lot. She opened the trunk. There in her trunk and in her back seat were huge plastic garbage bags of glass bottles. She had been saving glass bottles for a month or so. Not just hers, she had also asked friends, relatives, and neighbors to save their glass bottles for her.
Her idea was for me to find a place and time where I could be alone (or have a trusted person with me if I chose) and break the bottles. I could scream, cry, or “talk to” the people who I was angry at with each bottle I threw.
Her only “warning” – wear safety glasses.
I won’t lie. It sounded kind of corny to me. But I really trusted her by this point and I was aware that I really needed to deal with this anger before it exploded in some uncontrolled way.
My husband took the kids for a Saturday to go to a park, out to lunch, etc. I went into our basement and set the stage for a safe anger experiment.
I wanted to be able to contain the flying glass so I could avoid anyone being cut later on an overlooked shard. I hung up some plastic sheets so the glass would stay in one area of the basement. I lugged bag after bag of glass bottles to the basement, knowing there was no way I could break all of these bottles at once. I put on long sleeves to reduce the chance of me being hurt by flying glass and donned the ever-so-lovely safety glasses.
I felt stupid. I felt ridiculous setting all of this up. Do “normal” people have to go through all of this just to deal with some anger? But I soldiered on. I wanted to at least be able to say that I tried.
I threw the first bottle. It shattered, but I felt nothing. I threw the second bottle. Again, nothing. I threw the third bottle with some real gusto. Oooh, that felt GOOD! I started throwing the bottles as hard as I could. I eventually started yelling things like “THIS IS FOR NOT PROTECTING ME” or “YOU BASTARD, ROT IN HELL” or “YOU SHOULD CARRY THE GUILT AND SHAME” as I threw the bottles. IT. FELT. AWESOME.
Oh, I was ANGRY. REALLY, REALLY ANGRY.
But I can’t even describe how it felt to have an outlet for that anger.
Bottles were flying fast and furious! There were clear bottles, green bottles, amber bottles and blue bottles (the blue ones had the most spectacular shatter for some reason).
When I had thrown EVERY. SINGLE. BOTTLE. I was breathing hard and exhausted. But I realized I had felt my rage, really felt my RAGE, and the world had not stopped turning. My house was still standing. My family was fine. All was well. Better than well. Not only had I started my anger work in a very satisfying way (I can not describe the satisfaction of yelling out “YOU ARE A SICK FUCK WHO TOOK ADVANTAGE OF A LITTLE GIRL ” and then hearing the shattering of the bottle) but I had also proved to myself that I could handle the anger without losing control.
I know it sounds a little “nuts.” I know it sounds kind of corny. But I am here to tell you – this exercise opened the door for me. It helped me get past my fear of the anger and bring it out in the open so I could work on it.
So thank you SR for being such an awesome therapist that you collected bottles from far and wide for me. Thank you for showing me a way to tap into that anger safely.
I saved a little glass jar of the multi-colored shards of glass. Blue, green, amber, clear. I smile when I walk past it now. Beautiful reminders of my righteous anger and SR’s lesson that helped me release it.
by Band Back Together | Oct 11, 2010 | Abuse, Adult Survivors of Childhood Sexual Abuse, Anger, Child Sexual Abuse, Guilt, Postpartum Depression, Shame |
My father is a terrible person. I’ve written my story before and I’m sure you will absolutely agree with that statement. What he did changed my life forever.
I’m in therapy right now. I started in April, three months after I was given the diagnosis of postpartum depression. I started anti-depressants right away, but I was too scared to go to therapy. I didn’t want to see what would come out.
But I went. And last month, something happened that I wasn’t expecting.
Anger. Lots of it. So much anger.
Towards my mother.
I didn’t know where this came from. I know it isn’t her fault that my father did what he did. She had no idea. How could she? It was actually because of her that it stopped.
So where is this anger coming from?
It could be from the talks we had after everything came out. She told me never to tell anyone about what happened, especially any boy I was dating. If they knew what happened, they wouldn’t like me any more. Boys don’t like to date, as she put it, “damaged goods.”
It could be the times we talked about marriage. She told me she took marriage vows seriously. In sickness and health. She believed my father was very sick, which is why he did what he did. If she’d had her way, she would have stayed married to him. The only way she would have left him was if he ever hurt us kids. But, like I said in the previous post, I guess what I went through didn’t count as being “hurt.”
It could be all the guilt she would make me feel any time I did ANYTHING with my father. I’ve never wanted a full father-daughter relationship with him, but it wouldn’t be so bad if we had SOME relationship. But anytime I talked to him on the phone or had lunch or dinner with him or invited him to anything, I would get a guilt trip.
It could be the fact that depression is bullshit. In high school, I was very depressed. She told me to knock it off and get over it, This family doesn’t turn to drugs to help us.” Enter extreme guilt when I started taking Lexapro for my postpartum depression.
It could be the fact that she uses me as her personal therapist. I’ve heard everything about her current marriage; the ups, downs, and (lack of) sex life. And when I tell her I don’t want to hear these things? “When my mother was alive, she and I were best friends and I always hoped that I could be best friends with my daughters. Sorry for wanting to confide in my best friend. I guess I’ll just have to go back to living in silence.”
It could be the fact that she told me several times that if it hadn’t been for my sisters and I, she would have killed herself a long time ago. She even “jokes” about committing suicide. But she masks it by saying she doesn’t want to take pills or anything. She wants to kill herself with chocolate. That way no one will know she’s trying to actually kill herself.
I wonder where this anger towards her is coming from?
by Band Back Together | Oct 5, 2010 | Abuse, Adult Survivors of Childhood Sexual Abuse, Alcohol Addiction, Child Abuse, Child Sexual Abuse, Coping With Domestic Abuse, Domestic Abuse, Incest, Psychological Manipulation |
I lived a childhood full of secrets. I could not tell anyone outside of my family about what was really going on in my life.
My step-father was an alcoholic.
My step-father physically abused my mom.
He abused his step-children.
He didn’t abuse my younger sister, who was his biological child, although her seeing what he did to the rest of us was powerful abuse in itself.
He sexually abused me.
He went into drunken rages.
He humiliated us by showing up at our school drunk, demanding we leave with him.
He thought of new ways to inflict pain, thrilled when they “worked”.
We lived on eggshells. We lived in fear. Fear of him. Fear of tomorrow. Fear of five minutes from now.
But I could not speak. It wasn’t done.
So I kept the secrets.
I kept them for a very long time.
I kept them until I was married.
Then I told some of them.
Eventually, I sought counseling and told all of them.
ALL. OF. THEM.
I learned something valuable.
It isn’t a cliché.
The truth really DOES set you free.
It frees your soul from the weight you have been carrying.
It frees you to work through the secrets and move beyond them.
If you have secrets you have kept because someone told you that you can’t tell –
You can tell.
If you are keeping a secret to protect someone else-
Who is protecting you? Tell someone the secret.
If you have kept secrets because of shame or guilt –
Tell someone, set yourself free.
Make sure you tell a very trusted person.
Tell a close friend.
Tell family.
Tell your spouse.
Tell your religious leader.
If they are too painful or shameful or scary to tell someone you know –
Tell a therapist.
(I found a wonderful therapist. It cost money*, but there is no price too high for freedom and healing.)
It is time to heal yourself instead of protecting someone else.
You deserve it.
You need to release that burden you have carried for far too long.
It is frightening to think of telling a secret you have kept for so long.
I know it scared the hell out of me.
My entire body shook with tremors when I began bringing the secrets to the light.
But I have to tell you – I am so grateful I found the courage to tell.
When a secret is out in the open, you can examine it.
You can see it from a different point of view.
My secrets were from the viewpoint of a child’s understanding.
A child does not have the capability to understand a lot of things we adults understand.
Seeing them out in the daylight, as an adult, I was able to examine them.
I could see who held the responsibility for the situation.
I could see it wasn’t me.
I could see a future without that weight on my heart.
I read a quote once that I have stored in my heart.
I keep it in mind so I’ll NEVER keep a secret that is detrimental to myself again.
The quote is:
We are only as sick as our deepest secret.
A secret loses it’s power when you speak it in the light.
If you are keeping a secret, I encourage you to find a safe person, take a deep breath and shine a big, bright light on that ugly old secret.
It will set you free.
*Many communities have mental health centers where the fees for counseling/therapy are on a sliding scale, based on your income and expenses. Our local mental health center is where I found help. It is where I found the wonderful counselor who helped me work through the past and find my future.
by Band Back Together | Oct 1, 2010 | Addiction, Adult Survivors of Childhood Sexual Abuse, Alcohol Addiction, Anger, Blended Families, Child Abuse, Child Grooming, Child Sexual Abuse, Childhood Fears, Fear, Incest, Rape/Sexual Assault, Shame, Therapy |
I was the first girl in my family. Six older brothers, one younger sister from my mother’s second marriage.
The man who became my stepfather was an alcoholic. He was abusive. He would beat everyone except my sister. After all “she was his” but we weren’t angry about her being spared. We were thankful. She was safe.
He would think of ways to inflict more pain during our beatings. He would gloat about his “latest idea”. He was so excited when he created a board for our beatings that had circles and lightning bolts cut out of it. Thrilled when he saw that his plan worked. The cut-outs left circular and lightning bolt blisters on us where he had hit us with it. Our butts, our legs, our back. Wherever his newest invention connected with our flesh.
We couldn’t control our stepfather. We couldn’t control his drinking. We couldn’t control his beatings. And by God, you had better cry when he beat you. One of my brothers tried to control the only thing he could. He decided not to give him the satisfaction of seeing the pain he was causing. When he didn’t cry, he was beaten harder. Then harder still. Then harder, until the rest of us were screaming that he was going to kill my brother. He finally gave up in disgust and went to the bar. My brother was home from school for a long time after that beating.
There were days that he felt “fatherly.” He would take me, at three or four years old, to the bar with him to show off his “little girl.” There I would sit, hours on end, surrounded all the other drunks who weren’t home with their families. Even at that age, I knew this wasn’t the right place for me. I didn’t like the way the men looked at me. Asked me to sit on their laps.
I was scared.
When I was seven, my stepfather upped the ante and found a way to scar my soul. He began sexually abusing me. He didn’t start out with other things to gain my trust, or tell me how special I was, or try to make me believe this was because he loved me, like so many other abusers do. No, he did what he wanted with no preamble. He took what he wanted violently. HE was angry with ME afterward. HE was disgusted by ME afterward. He had found a much more efficient way to destroy me than a beating.
This abuse went on for years. I started walking to a little country church every Sunday. It began as a way to get out of the house. It became my only source of hope.
He tortured my brothers and I. He waved guns in his drunken stupors. He humiliated us by bursting into our grade school classrooms drunk and demanding we leave with him. (This was in the 70′s. The school let him take us when he could barely stand. I would hope that wouldn’t happen to children these days.) He would be gone for days or weeks at a time. We would learn not to relax when he was gone, as soon as we did he would return. It was as if he knew we were suddenly feeling safer in our home and he couldn’t have that.
When I was in sixth grade, my mother divorced him. I felt guilty for the internal relief I had over him leaving our lives. After all, the Bible says to honor your mother and father. I struggled with that for such a long time. Now I know that I couldn’t be expected to honoring a man who was so unhonorable. No loving God would ever expect that.
I haven’t seen him in the 30 something years since the divorce. Thank God I haven’t seen him again.
I followed the Family Rules for a very long time. I didn’t tell anyone outside the family. I took on the shame. I took the responsibility. I took the burden. I took the pain.
But eventually I grew up. I married. I told my husband some of what happened after we had been married a little over a year. I regret that, I should have told him sooner. But I couldn’t. I wasn’t ready. Thankfully, he is a wonderful, gentle soul and understood why I didn’t tell him sooner. And he didn’t run from my pain. He didn’t run from my past. He didn’t see me as the damaged goods. He was supportive. He was awesome. We have been married 30 years now.
We had children. A boy and a girl. As my daughter grew, the childhood I tried to forget started pushing itself forward in my mind. First a whisper, then a speaking voice, and eventually screaming YOU CANNOT IGNORE ME! I was a mess. So emotional, so raw, so frightened to face it – to speak the truth.
Eventually, I had to seek counseling. I could not get through a day without the memories forcing themselves front and center, in my dreams at night, in my day with flashbacks. Horrible, painful, frightening memories.
I was blessed. I found a wonderful counselor on my first try. She guided me. She gave me a place to speak. She encouraged me when I felt overwhelmed (most of the first year). She HEARD me. She didn’t judge me. She showed me that the shame and disgust didn’t belong to me. They belonged to HIM. It took a while for me to believe her. That pain, shame and disgust had been mine for so long.
Eventually, the shame and pain was transformed into anger. No, that isn’t quite right…it turned into ANGER! Anger that frightened me with it’s intensity. But finally I was feeling the anger at what he had done to the little girl I once was. Once I found the anger it was a very good thing that I didn’t run into him (he lives in another state). I would have ripped his manhood from his body and shoved it down the throat that used to tell me it was my fault.
I went to therapy for a year and a half. I won’t sugar coat it, it was a very tough year and a half. There was a lot of hard emotional work to be done. But oh, what a gift that therapy was for me.
I KNOW it wasn’t my fault. I KNOW I didn’t deserve what he did. I KNOW it wasn’t the clothes I wore, the way I acted, the choices I made. It was HIM. He is a sick perverted person.
Therapy made me a stronger person. My hard work transformed a victim into a survivor. It helped me become a better mother, a better wife, a better human being. It helped my soul to be set free from my past.
My younger sister? The one that was “really his”? The one he spared the abuse? She grew up to feel horribly guilty for what her birth father did to us. (We are all still thankful she didn’t suffer along with us.) She couldn’t escape the pain of her guilt. She began abusing drugs as a teen. She is forty three now. She has spent the last 27 years in a deep pit of drugs and alcohol trying to escape the past. She lost custody of her son when he was five, due to her addictions. My husband and I adopted him. We couldn’t stand to let him go to strangers and lose everyone he had ever known. We couldn’t stand to lose him in our lives either. We continue to help him battle the demons his past have created. Spared her? I don’t think so.
I am no longer angry. Don’t misunderstand me, I don’t want to ever be anywhere near my stepfather. But I don’t want to harm him anymore either. Growth. Now, if I think of him, I feel pity for the twisted, dark, hurtful person he is. But I don’t feel sorry for him either. He made his choices. If what he did haunts him when he least expects it, that is his consequence. Somewhere deep inside of him he knows what he did, who he is.
I don’t want to give him one more minute of my life. A minute I spend hating him, is one more minute he owns. He took enough. He took too much. He can’t have any more.
