Unit 6 Lesson 4, The Damage of Secrecy

Before I get started with the lesson, I just have to say that my jaw dropped when I cracked my book open and saw the title. God has laid so much on my heart over the last few days about secrecy... I cannot wait to get into this lesson and see what he has waiting for me here! I don't believe in coincidence. I believe that God has timed this perfectly, that I would be studying secrecy at the exact moment that I am taking big steps in revealing more about myself. Cannot wait to share more with you in the coming days...

Until then... The lesson:

Secrecy gives shame and guilt the power to torment you. Secrecy isolates you within your own mind. It can cause you to believe that you are the only one experiencing such devastating trauma. We spoke earlier of shame being like a plant whose existence depends on water. People, like plants, must have water to survive. A human can live for many days without food, but only three days without water. To use that metaphor in another way, secrecy is the water that the memories of the abuse depend on for life.

In your journal, describe your life of secrecy the victimization and/or your life of secrecy after the victimization. How does it feel to have a secret life?

As you tell your story - in a safe environment with a pastor, counselor, or support group - you will dilute and destroy the strength of the memories of the abuse. By telling the story you destroy the power of shame and guilt. By telling the story you gain power and control over the memories. In our analogy, the memories are the nourishment of the guilt. The kind of toxic guilt and shame experienced in sexual abuse leads to feelings of condemnation.

You are working to memorize Romans 8:1. "There is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus." Reciting this Scripture is not enough. Begin to move its wisdom from your head to your heart. Do this by quoting the Scripture, then writing a note to yourself every time a shame memory flashes across your mind. Determine in your heart to tell this memory to someone. As you apply the Scripture and break the silence, you will create an environment to neutralize the tendency for flashbacks. You may remember a new circumstance or incident. God will remove the obstacles blocking your memories and allow you to remember as necessary so that you can experience healing. When your memories cause you to feel shame, quote Romans 8:1 to remind yourself that there is no condemnation, no shame, or worthlessness. The memories can be just memories, without shame and guilt.

If you have not already done so, you are encouraged to begin writing your story when you are with a supportive person in a safe place. You need time alone to do your recovery work, but beware of isolating yourself. You need the presence and encouragement of others.

First review your affirmations.

• I accept God's love and kindness toward me.
• The truth will set me free!
• I am worth to have God lead me and comfort me.
• I am clean.
• I am wonderfully made.

Quote your memory verse for this unit and any other Scriptures that have been meaningful to you.

Write down as many details as you can about on incident of sexual abuse. Write as though you were a reporter, answering the questions - who, what, when, where. Use additional pages as needed or write in a separate journal.

If you could only write on sentence, celebrate your ability to do that! Go on a walk, take a bubble bath, or listen to your favorite music. It will get easier! For now, read your affirmations again and thank God for walking with you through this process. You will make it!

"There is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus." Romans 8:1

Unit 2 Lesson 5, Restoration Is Possible

I've mentioned several times that I've seen a lot of counselors. I think "early intervention" (counseling at age 12) helped to curb some damaging thought pattens. For instance, I have never blamed myself for the abuse, and that is probably the most common thought that survivors have. "I must have done something wrong/it's my fault/I deserved it/I'm bad." Perhaps getting counseling at such a young age helped to steer me away from thinking those things, and I am so grateful that that is one battle I did not have to wage within myself --- learning to accept the exact opposite of that garbage. So, while there were still a lot of awful and harmful things going on at that time (I was still being sexually abused), I was being assured by my counselor that it was not my fault (she did not know about the ongoing abuse). And I believed that.

A counselor I had in high school had a poster hanging on her wall. It said, "I am responsible for my day." At the ripe old age of 15, I was learning that it was up to me to choose whether or not I would let the garbage control my life. At that age, I was making a lot of right decisions and a few wrong decisions. But, just a couple years later, the ratio had flipped. I was making a few right decisions and a lot of wrong decisions. But, I KNEW the wrong decisions I was making. I just didn't feel like I had the power to do things differently.

I continued seeing therapists through my first couple years in college and was honest and forthcoming about what was going on in my life (and my head). I told them the truth and they always told me the truth about the mistakes I was making and the changes that should be made. I always learned the "lesson" of what they were helping me to see, but I didn't always change my behavior in response to the truth I'd just learned. Change takes time.

Then I got married --- "rescued" is what I was hoping for. And I was rescued from daily life with my family. We'd moved across the country and life was no longer abusive; but it became increasingly lonely given all my secrets and acting out. I made an absolute disaster out of my marriage - the most regretful mistakes and poor choices of my life. This man did not deserve the mess I made of his life. When I left him, I was fully aware of how I tore through his life like a tornado. When I left, nothing was as I'd found it. Just like when my abusers left my life - nothing was the same with me. I knew I needed to make major changes, as I never wanted to hurt someone else, or myself, like that ever again.

I was suddenly alert and aware as I never had been before. Shortly after my divorce, I was dating someone special and had made a commitment to myself to not lie or keep secrets from him (now my husband). I worked hard at being intentional with my words and actions. Getting my tantrums and insecurities under control was no easy task, but it was important to me. I was upfront with everything I struggled with (which I had NEVER done before). I trusted him completely.

A year and a half after marrying, we started attending church. Getting involved in different church groups changed me a great deal. Many things were really good.... However, I was still mad as all get-out at my mother and struggled in general anytime I'd think about my birth family. That's when I decided to go back to counseling. She was a Christian counselor at my church. At our first meeting, she gave me two things to do for homework. 1- Read "Dorie, The Girl Nobody Loved" by Dorie VanStone. 2- Read the story of Joseph, Genesis chapters 37-50. While reading the story of Joseph, I was to journal everything in his story that compared to mine. I journaled practically the entire story!!! And I discovered that from the very beginning of time, families have struggled, families have betrayed one another, people have had evil intentions, and those who were abused and mistreated can overcome!

Long story short... Joesph experienced massive betrayal. His brothers tried to kill him, then sold him into slavery. While Joseph was a slave, his master's wife tried to seduce him. When Joseph refused to be seduced, he was falsely accused and thrown into prison. In prison he helped others, but when they got out, they forgot about Joseph. But Joseph did an amazing thing. He kept believing in God. Eventually God delivered Joseph from prison and made him second-in-command over all of Egypt. God made Joseph forget the pain, the anger, the loneliness, and all the other distressing emotions he must have felt.

As I completed this homework, I felt relieved to know that God is familiar with families mistreating one another. You will also find a story about the rape of Tamar in 2 Samuel 13:1-39. What we are dealing with is not new to God. He knows what we've been through, what we're feeling, and exactly what we need to heal. Joseph is the perfect example of overcoming horrible betrayal and going on to be hugely victorious. There is hope for us!

All of this to say... Over time you can be fully restored. With every passing day, I discover more and more good health in my life. But, there was only so much I could do without God. I had corrected a lot of my poor choices and bad behaviors before bringing God into the equation... But, the thoughts and feelings that I held deep in my heart and mind could not be fixed without His lovingkindness, compassion, forgiveness and grace.

Romans 12:2 says, "Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind." As I ponder this verse, I feel it is telling me to not allow the world or my painful experiences in the world to determine how I live, think, act or feel. Like that poster in my therapist's office said all those years ago.... "I am responsible for my day." Will I make the choice to carry the baggage with me every where I go, or will I choose to lay the garbage down and accept a renewing of my mind?

God wants to make us new again. He wants to renew our minds and heal what our abusers have done to us. Sexual abuse is not the will of God. He is not using the sexual abuse to "teach us a lesson". His will has always been to restore to our lives that which was stolen by the abuse.

Just as the effects of abuse become evident without prior awareness of how the abuse was affecting you, God's restoration happens without your awareness of His work. One day, you are surprised by the joy of realizing that you have been changed! You are better.

Beginning Recovery

Tomorrow is the first day of group study. Please be in prayer for the ladies who will meet together for the next 13 Thursday nights, and also the men and women who are following this blog. I am not going to retype the entire workbook, so instead I will select parts of each lesson to blog about each day.

The workbook we are using is Shelter From the Storm, by Cynthia Kubetin Littlefield and James Mallory, M.D.

Since group starts tomorrow, I'm going to share a little of the Introduction with you. (I will italicize when something is coming directly from the book.)

"Our lives have been distorted by the trauma of sexual abuse... Nothing in life isolates us from healthy human relationships and from a relationship with God as does sexual abuse. Any experience of sexual abuse - but especially child sexual abuse - violates our boundaries and our trust. The experience teaches us not to trust appropriately. It sets us up for a life that combines times of painful isolation interrupted by experiences of blindly trusting, which set us up to be victimized again and again. Shelter From the Storm will help you to understand yourself. You will begin to identify destructive patterns that the abuse began and that other influences and choices have strengthened in your life. As you identify these harmful patterns, you will be able to make Christ-honoring and life-enhancing changes. It will help you learn how you can experience God's love, forgiveness, and power in all life's circumstances. You will learn to not only understand the storm of sexual abuse, but to move from victim to survivor to thriver.

As we go through this process, you will have the means to identify the ways that your past experience is damaging your present circumstance. You will be equipped to begin a healing process which will bring you a clear sense of identity and a healthy relationship to the Lord built on positive experiences and His unconditional love."

As I read through that, I am reminded of what I've heard counselors say over and over again. "Most of the time, someone doesn't come in saying that they need to process through childhood sexual abuse. What generally happens is that someone comes in to discuss other issues and over a period of time it is revealed that they were sexually abused." And when I think about my own counseling sessions, I can vividly remember saying that my current problems had nothing at all to do with the abuse ---- "I was over the abuse. It was history. Who cares about that? I am not damaged! My (ex) husband was a jerk. I was justified in walking out on him because he didn't meet all my needs. It is all my mom's fault that our relationship is rocky. I am not "needy", I just enjoy flirting. I don't withdraw from others, they ignore me. Why not just pick up and start again, I'm young? Now that I'm all grown up, I will control everything." And there are many more defensive, justifying statements that I'd tell myself and others to keep from ever dealing with what was at the core of my pain.

Friends, in the coming months, we will unpack a lot and will discover "treasures hidden in the darkness - sweet riches", Isaiah 45:3a. I look forward to writing more tomorrow and reading what you have to say in the comments. Many prayers and blessings as you begin this journey.

Professional Counseling

Before we get into the support group lessons, I am going to beat the support person drum a little more. This blog is meant to inform, encourage and support survivors and their loved ones. However, if you are a survivor who has received little to no counseling, this blog could be very upsetting and lead to trauma you are not prepared to handle. I wish to encourage you to seek professional counseling.

Sexual abuse is the most personal and damaging form of betrayal. Recovery from sexual abuse is the most intense and emotionally challenging form of recovery. Survivors of sexual abuse often struggle with powerful issues such as shame, thoughts of suicide, addictions and even dissociation. Most sexual abuse victims experience profound emotional isolation. Virtually all sexual abuse survivors could benefit from professional care.

I saw non-biblical counselors very regularly from the age of 12-20. I learned to cope with my trauma, but never learned to process through it and actually recover from it. There was a lot of pop culture, philosophy and coping involved in my non-biblical therapy, but no love, no real compassion and certainly no God. I experienced a lot of immediate change and healing with biblical counseling. I want to encourage you to contact your church to get connected with a biblical counselor who will be a good fit for you.

When a church gets into the business of helping the hurting, they are honoring God. The bible clearly teaches us to "bear one another's burdens and thus fulfill the law of Christ." (Galatians 6:2) We all experience physical, psychological, spiritual and emotional pain as part of the human condition. In Luke 4:18-19, Jesus said "The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he hath anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor; he hath sent me to heal the brokenhearted, to preach deliverance to the captives, and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty them that are bruised, to preach the acceptable year of the Lord." Only the Lord has the power to fully heal the brokenhearted, deliver you from your prison, and liberate you from your pain. And a biblical counselor is the perfect person to help you discover His healing and deliverance.

Male survivors

At the risk of being socially and politically incorrect, I want to say a few things about male survivors. I feel as if society treats sexual abuse differently, depending on the victim's gender. Take the recent stories you've heard on the news of female teachers having relationships with male students. That is abuse, but many times society is sending the wrong message to those young boys. I can't tell you how many times I've heard an older man chuckle about how he wishes he'd had a teacher like that. Or how a boy must be gay if he doesn't want to have sexual relations with a grown woman. And I can only imagine how many boys have questioned their own sexuality after having been abused by a man, thinking something along the lines of, "I must be gay if Coach Bob is doing this to me."

There seems to be more freedom for a female victim to talk about sexual abuse - less judgment, less shame, less disbelief. Although, all of those are reasons why victims both male and female do not report, and ALL unreported crimes are a tragedy. I'm just saying that it seems like it is even harder for a male to talk about such things.

My husband has had very little go wrong in his life, certainly no history of any kind of abuse or maltreatment. That said, I know the burden he carries everyday in being the provider and leader of our household. That is the way God designed family and my husband takes it seriously. He constantly strives to keep a good balance of fun, love and tenderness with the kids, while also being consistent with training and discipline. He's the one who's in charge of our finances, paying the bills and working outside the home. He sets aside alone time for just the two of us, keeping our marriage about us and not merely revolving around the kids and work. He's involved in our church and serving the Lord. None of this is easy for him (or anyone, for that matter). But, I cannot imagine how much harder it would be if he were also carrying around the shame and isolation of sexual abuse because there aren't many safe places for a man to talk about it.

I want to encourage everyone to be mindful of your attitudes towards sex, and the words that come out of your mouth. You never know when a survivor may be sitting beside you, looking for a soft place to land. It could certainly be very uncomfortable if your buddy turns to you and unexpectedly tells you that he was sexually abused as a child, but your friend needs you. He chose to tell you because you're trustworthy. So, friend, honor that and give him the support he needs.

Guys, there is no shame in what has happened to you. You are not at fault, you are not to blame, you do not have to be defined by this. This is someone else's sin, for which THEY should be ashamed! Be encouraged to find a counselor or friend and begin processing through the pain.

A support person

Having supportive people in my life has been critical to my recovery. It wasn't until my husband (we were not married at the time) came alongside me and encouraged me to process through what I was feeling (anger, pain, abandonment, rejection, etc) with the focus being getting to the other side, that I finally felt strong enough to really examine what was going on. We all need a support person. This can be a friend, family member or counselor. You just need someone... For some people, this will mean actually asking someone to be your support. That may be an overwhelming idea, but it is a first step towards coming out of isolation and secret-keeping.

What does it mean to be a support person? It does not mean taking care of or being responsible for the survivor. The support person needs to care about and listen to the survivor without giving advice. A support person is not responsible for fixing the survivor or removing their pain. The support person will help the most by merely being available to the survivor as he/she learns to deal with the pain and with the results of the abuse. Supporters - ask your friend how you can help!

Here are some helpful DO's for supporters:
Support, accept, love, allow the survivor time to feel what they are feeling, be understanding, take an interest in their recovery, offer forgiveness when needed, believe them, pray for them and with them, encourage, trust them, offer validation.

Survivors of sexual abuse need open, honest, accepting communication. When you (the support person) do not know what to say or do, tell your friend and ask how you can help. Frequently, the answer will be that you just need to listen and support.

Survivors - know that this is complicated and possibly very unknown territory for your support people. Be willing to help them help you.

One last note... As you enlist support people, be aware that you may receive a wide range of responses. You will get positive and negative responses from those you ask to support you. Someone you really care about may not be able to do it. Accept this without taking it personally. The reasons could be: fear, schedule, other personal demands, feelings of inadequacy, personal recovery issues of their own, or other personal problems. Their inability to help you at this time is not about you or how they feel about you!