Incest Survivors Support Group
Incest refers to any sexual activity between closely related persons that is illegal or socially taboo. Consensual adult incest is very rare. Incest between adults and prepubescent or adolescent children is a form of child sexual abuse that has been shown to be one of the most extreme forms of childhood trauma. If you or a loved one is a survivor of incest, join the group...
This is a new year. And this year I have decided I will take more risks where sharing some of my thoughts on healing are concerned.
I often find myself reluctant to say all I believe about healing for fear a survivor will take offense or find my words and ideas too Pollyannaish. But, I do believe and know we can heal to unimaginable depths.
I believe in the power of our thoughts and beliefs and in the strength of the human spirit to overcome seemingly insurmountable obstacles.
I also know the path through healing, for me, has been long and hard with many set-backs and pain so I don't want to sound as if it's only a matter of making a decision to heal that will heal you. Yes, of course, making the decision to heal is critical, but more will be asked of you on this journey...much more.
That being said, I now risk your understanding what I am about to share and perhaps find hope in it.
It's taken me a long time to stay unruffled when I hear the words, "victim story". I'd get upset because it felt as if my actual experiences of incest, sexual abuse and rape were being diminished by simply calling it a story. Saying I had a victim story does not acknowledge the full impact it had on my life. Still, ultimately, all of life boils down to stories. Stories we tell ourselves and stories others tell us.
My feathers would also get ruffled when it felt as if I were being blamed in some way for even being a victim.
It took me a long time to be able to hear those words--Victim Story-- without getting rankled because back then, I could not separate the sexual abuse experiences from the deeper self of me.
There was no separation between the abuse and how I thought of and believed myself to be. I thought I was born flawed and that I could not be fixed. I believed myself to be damaged goods, less-than, unworthy and worse.
In a similar way, hearing of a "victim mind-set" would set my teeth on edge. A victim mind-set is any thought, behavior or idea that lets another person determine my value, makes me less-than, puts me down, or hurts me in any way either physically, mentally, emotionally, or spiritually.
With much healing, I now know that I am not the abuse. It was something done to me, but it is not who I am. Did it impact me? Wound me? Absolutely. But, it is NOT the essence of who I am.
With that psychological/emotional distance in place, I can now see that when I step into a victim mind-set and act out my victim story I can also choose to step out of this story with its false beliefs, on-going pain and endless putdowns by learning new ways to be.
Of course, this is easier said than done, but the alternative is less than inviting--lifelong victimhood. I choose instead to take safe risks in order to learn new behaviors, replace dysfunctional thinking, and reinvent myself.
I will continue to heal and to grow my awareness so that I do not inadvertently become the main character in my story again only to be victimized over and over again, thus cheating myself of a full and joyful life.
I refuse to BE my victim story. Instead, I will work to create a new story for myself--for we all have stories--but this time, I am the one creating the story.
What story will you embody?
I often find myself reluctant to say all I believe about healing for fear a survivor will take offense or find my words and ideas too Pollyannaish. But, I do believe and know we can heal to unimaginable depths.
I believe in the power of our thoughts and beliefs and in the strength of the human spirit to overcome seemingly insurmountable obstacles.
I also know the path through healing, for me, has been long and hard with many set-backs and pain so I don't want to sound as if it's only a matter of making a decision to heal that will heal you. Yes, of course, making the decision to heal is critical, but more will be asked of you on this journey...much more.
That being said, I now risk your understanding what I am about to share and perhaps find hope in it.
It's taken me a long time to stay unruffled when I hear the words, "victim story". I'd get upset because it felt as if my actual experiences of incest, sexual abuse and rape were being diminished by simply calling it a story. Saying I had a victim story does not acknowledge the full impact it had on my life. Still, ultimately, all of life boils down to stories. Stories we tell ourselves and stories others tell us.
My feathers would also get ruffled when it felt as if I were being blamed in some way for even being a victim.
It took me a long time to be able to hear those words--Victim Story-- without getting rankled because back then, I could not separate the sexual abuse experiences from the deeper self of me.
There was no separation between the abuse and how I thought of and believed myself to be. I thought I was born flawed and that I could not be fixed. I believed myself to be damaged goods, less-than, unworthy and worse.
In a similar way, hearing of a "victim mind-set" would set my teeth on edge. A victim mind-set is any thought, behavior or idea that lets another person determine my value, makes me less-than, puts me down, or hurts me in any way either physically, mentally, emotionally, or spiritually.
With much healing, I now know that I am not the abuse. It was something done to me, but it is not who I am. Did it impact me? Wound me? Absolutely. But, it is NOT the essence of who I am.
With that psychological/emotional distance in place, I can now see that when I step into a victim mind-set and act out my victim story I can also choose to step out of this story with its false beliefs, on-going pain and endless putdowns by learning new ways to be.
Of course, this is easier said than done, but the alternative is less than inviting--lifelong victimhood. I choose instead to take safe risks in order to learn new behaviors, replace dysfunctional thinking, and reinvent myself.
I will continue to heal and to grow my awareness so that I do not inadvertently become the main character in my story again only to be victimized over and over again, thus cheating myself of a full and joyful life.
I refuse to BE my victim story. Instead, I will work to create a new story for myself--for we all have stories--but this time, I am the one creating the story.
What story will you embody?
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I feel so dirty and used I was drunk and passed out at a party when I came around some guy was on top of me rapeing me he covered my mouth and told me to shut up afterwards he got up and got dressed and said I better not tell anyone I found my friend and reported that I had been raped after having medical checks and them getting DNA I've taken the morning after pill IAM just so depressed and...
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Upon his departure, he remarked, "I am in many people’s pockets; no one will believe you." Have you ever grappled with the silence that follows sexual assault, where the perceived impossibility of being believed necessitates self-censorship?
I feel that the two processes are too interrelated to be separated. You can heal all you want in the privacy of your own head, but you can't stay there. If the world you live in constantly subjects you to the same things that scarred you in the first place, your wounds will rip back open.
As for this end-stage of healing, I don't know if anybody really knows what the "end-stage of healing" truly looks like. In my own history, I wasn't waiting for some intangible end-stage when I broke the silence and told my mother what my father was doing. That step was taken when I was extremely vulnerable, at the ripe old age of fourteen. It was one of the most important things I could have done for my healing, and I'm very glad that nobody told me it wasn't healing-stage-appropriate.
That aside, We all know that we can only do what we can, at any given time. I don't see any posts here saying a person should be pushed into saving the world at the expense of their own health. But I do feel that when done appropriately, liberating ourselves and others from the oppression of society can be a big part of an on-going healing process... and not just an aftereffect of that process.
What's right for one may not be right for another. We have all been horribly wounded and we have a right to do whatever it takes to heal, so long as we are not hurting others in the process.
The reason I see social action as an end-stage aspect of healing is this. Having been subjected to the strong poison of denial all my life, my grasp on the truth and my grasp on myself can easily be shaken. It's always been "either they are bad or I am bad", and if I try to confront the forces of denial before I have a firm grasp of the truth, I may end up devastated, convinced that "I am bad". I hope that makes sense to you. I think it is accurate to say that there is going to be backlash to anyone who tries to challenge denial and victim-blaming, and for those of us who are not that stable and secure, it could destroy us rather than help us heal.
In fact, I respect you too, for posting in online groups and sharing your insight. That's a good way to help the world be a better place, and I would imagine that it's beneficial for you too. You didn't wait for an end-stage of healing to do that, and it turns out to be a win-win situation.
So back to my original thought- my point is that people have the option (not the obligation) to reach beyond themselves to benefit society and help heal themselves as an *adjunct* to ongoing therapy, at any stage (end stage, middle stage, or sooner). Whenever they personally feel strong enough... and safe enough. I don't think it compromises the traditional therapy at all.
My original post was simply asking survivors to look at their story. And here I want to share two instances where "my story" was a victim story, even though I was unaware of it.
This happened years ago. I was 32. My husband proposed. I said, "I'm not in love with you." He said, "I have enough love for both of us."
I didn't get it. I didn't get that he might as well have said, "It doesn't matter how you feel because I have enough love for both of us."
Victim Story: I didn't realize that my own feelings were important and mattered. Instead, I married him even tho I really didn't want to. I'd like to say it turned out wonderful. But it hasn't because my feelings, in the end, do matter.
I learned to love him deeply, but have never fallen in love with him. I now understand that the longing I feel in this "nice" relationship is because my feelings have never been addressed and only recently acknowledged. My feelings matter. I matter, contrary to that victim story that told me I didn't.
Victim story said your feelings have never been important--not as a child, not as a teen, and of course, not as an adult. Marry him. He wants you. And don't men take what they want, haven't they always? In my experience they had.
Victim Story Two: Self-judgment. More subtle. I went to see a therapist to do some regression therapy. Brought back that information to the therapist I am currently seeing.
I began sharing with him the things I had learned. I began by saying, "I know this sounds weird, but...." I shared the learning and afterwards he said he wanted to know why I had felt the need to say it sounds weird.
He then went on to point out that creators of modern art or authors or other creatives are unlikely to describe their work as "weird" or feel the need to defend it.
He said my experience of that regression session came from me and that I didn't need to defend it or explain it away as weird...just accept it without judgement.
Victim Story: Anything out of the norm must be called weird. If I don't describe it as weird then something must be wrong with me. I MUST appear to be as NORMAL as possible and to accept all that society says is normal.
So, to protect myself I must describe anything out of the ordinary as "weird," then I can feel confident that I'm "OK." The problem is I was judging myself and my experience as unacceptable not only to the therapist, but to society at large. I was valuing them more than myself and my experience.
This therapist is helping me to see and accept myself without apology. I am grateful that on this very long journey of healing my victim stories are being called out so I can change them.
I think with awareness we can see when we are living the victim story. I was told years ago that if I wanted to know what my beliefs were all I had to do was to look at my life.
I have just begun to look....
xx
SuzA
Rather, than describe them as stages, I'd describe my healing work more like a spiral. I may find myself battling self-doubt, work thru it and then as I move up the spiral (two steps forward one step back) I'm battling self-doubt again only this time I'm on a different level of the spiral and have a few more tools to use.
And so it goes....
As I find & use better ways to cope, heal my wounds, and learn new life skills, my voice gets stronger. Eventually, I may even have a positive impact for survivors--at least that's my purpose according to my inner guide.
I hope to be heard soon.
xx
SuzA