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Archive for the ‘Advocacy’ Category

Sometimes we are called upon to do the very things in Life that we would rather avoid the most. By saying “yes” to these deep emotional and spiritual impulses, we find that the very things that make us believe we are weak or defective, can become our greatest assets.

Many of us feel a deep call within ourselves to “put ourselves out there” to advocate for a particular issue that resonates within us. For those of us who were previous victims of abuse, whether experienced as an adult or as a child, our advocacy is part of our recovery from that abuse.

Over the years I have written many articles about child abuse, and child abuse recovery, many of which are highly regarded. When I write, I move forward. When I don’t, I feel like I slide backwards, because I am not giving voice to a part of myself that will cry out to be heard as long as I live, and as long as there is someone out there who still does not understand the repercussions of child abuse, or the process of child abuse recovery. Even though this voice inside us cries out to be heard, allowing this voice inside us is also sometimes very painful, and seeing the magnitude of denial in our society is daunting. I sometimes despair, not wanting to put effort into something where I may never see results. But giving up on this voice is an abandonment of my truest, most honest self. I will not do that!

For the second time in two years, I have met a local doctor who confided that he advises child abuse survivors that “They just have to get over it” …. “What are you going to do, let it ruin your life?”, he says. I was shocked that I would run into more than one doctor in the same town who thinks this way. Although his statements were not directed at me (I don’t believe he knows my history), I was very uncomfortable. I knew that although discussion of the subject would probably not be very productive, I also felt my silence would convey assent. I waited a while for an opening (and for my own insides to calm down), and gently responded, with an attitude of “waiting to see what would happen”. I pointed out that a person must be careful when dealing with someone struggling with their past, because we may not know where they are on their recovery path, on a spectrum between victim and survivor. He gave only cursory acknowledgment of this, moving quickly to his next point of conversation. His next point was an intellectual remark about percentages of molesters in churches, and why people shouldn’t worry about a particular church. He had no idea that both my wife and myself were abused by priests when we were children, and that safe clergy are extraordinarily important to us when choosing a church. I guess it never occurred to him that we might be child abuse survivors, or clergy abuse survivors. We are both. Ever since that day in his office, I have noticed a need to write about it within myself that I cannot ignore.

Twenty-four years ago, I stood at the brink of choosing recovery. I was drawn out of my protective shell of frozen emotion, self medication, and fear by the weight of the pain I carried, but also by folks who knew how to provide the safety required to draw me out of my self imposed prison. They were proper advocates of recovery. I know absolutely what works because my history reveals what works.

What Works

In order to respond effectively to the needs of adult child abuse survivors, a number of things must be present in order to be effective advocates:

1. An advocate should have a true understanding of child abuse and child abuse recovery. They should be well versed in the emotional nature of abuse and recovery, and understand the monumental task that some survivors face. A survivor may avoid dealing with the abuse that they suffered for most of their lives, because they are avoiding pain that they believe will be too much for them. For a survivor, understanding abuse does not heal them, although it provides a map of where they’ve been, and where they must go, but recovery is truly an emotional process. One must go through the pain to get to the other side of it.
2. An advocate must practice emotional availability without intellectual constraint. They need to be relaxed and present. We are not present if we are involved in complicated intellectual constructs. Language should be emotional rather than intellectual, simple, not complicated. Doing so shows the survivor that you may be a safe person to open up to. Trust is the most important component. All abuse is a breach of trust, and damages our ability to trust.
3. An advocate must have good boundaries. Knowing instinctively where to “tread lightly”, knowing how “close” to be (emotionally, sexually, physically) depending upon the relationship with the survivor is an absolute must, or the survivor will sense the lack of safety.
4. An advocate listens, never lecturing or explaining. The survivor is the expert of their injury, not the advocate. Gentle encouragement toward treatment can be helpful, but only if they are ready.
5. Mirroring is very important. Saying things like “I see you are very angry (or sad, or fearful, or ashamed)” work well.
6. Advocates should be careful with their questions; being willing to give up their controlling need to understand, and allow the survivor to tell his or her story at their own pace, in their own way. Relinquishing controlling behavior often provides a sense of safety to the survivor. Safety is the fertile soil in which trust blooms.
7. Being absolutely non-judgmental about how the survivor has responded to the abuse, where we think they are on their recovery journey, and the speed with which they recover. Response to abuse is individual. Parts of a person’s recovery and the length of time they take before confronting their abuse are individual, and are affected by the environment they are presently in, and the severity of the abuse. Also, recovery is not linear. As a survivor proceeds, they may “revisit” a particular theme or event, gradually gaining mastery, letting go of more pain or fear. This may happen over and over, and is not an indication of where they are in recovery. Recovery takes a long time, and is a process, not a destination. That’s why we shouldn’t judge.

From the time I was 4 or 5 years old, I was beaten with an open hand on an almost daily basis. Later, I was punched, kicked, tackled, thrown down, and had things thrown at me. I was yanked by my arms until I thought my shoulders would dislocate. I was tied to chairs, beaten with metal vacuum cleaner pipes, and threatened with a butcher knife. When I was 9 or 10, my mother confided in a rage that she would kill me if she could get away with it. I was sexually abused by at least two men, one of them the parish priest. I witnessed my sisters being chased, screamed at, and beaten. The abuse that I suffered was extreme, but I am fortunate. I entered recovery at a time when we knew very little about how to help victims recover, yet here I am. If you are uncomfortable with what I have to say, then I am sorry, but I think that I have earned the right to be heard.

I am a survivor. I am grateful for all the help I have received. There are others like me. It took me 35 years to get to a doorway that led to recovery. I have been in the process of recovery for 24 years. I look inside myself, and I see the astounding amount of patience it has taken me to get to where I am. We survivors must call upon that same patience when dealing with those who offer no such patience towards us. Nevertheless, we must speak out until there is no one left who does not understand the journey of a child abuse survivor.

©2010 Ken Scully

When I read in The Dispatch, that October is National Domestic Violence Prevention Month, I wanted to write a column about Domestic Violence. When I write, I write from my heart, which means that I feel things intensely while I write. To do otherwise feels like a waste of time to me. So I approached my “task”, looking for my “entry point” into the issue. However, this time I felt stymied. I just felt sort of flat. What specifically should I write about? Then I read Margie Pizarro’s column in the October 16 issue of the Dispatch. I liked her column, she writes very honestly, and I like that. She mentioned the ancient adage “Spare the rod and spoil the child”.

I cringed inside myself, not from what Margie wrote, but from the misuse of that old adage that many adults use as an excuse for their own out of control behavior towards their children when they misbehave.   In families that experience domestic violence, if there are children, they are affected more than anyone else in the family.   If that violence is directed at a child and rationalized as “punishment”, it is still domestic violence, in fact worse than if directed towards a spouse.

Years ago I was taught two very important things about that Biblical quote.   Both are good examples of what that adage truly means.

Long before the printing press, in early Jewish households, families that were well off enough, had religious scrolls, perhaps a copy of the ten commandments, in a holder above the entranceway to their home.   The “rod” may have been a reference to this scroll in a tube above the doorway.   In that instance, “Spare the rod and spoil the child” might have been an admonition to teach our children to follow the ten commandments.   That makes a lot of sense!

Another explanation that was given to me had to do with a shepherd’s staff.   A good shepherd uses his staff to block any escaping sheep, steering them in the right direction, to keep them safe, and close at hand.   The sheep learn to follow his direction in time, trying to go off on their own less often.   They learn to trust and anticipate him.   He does not beat them with the rod out of his own frustration!   That would be a bad shepherd!

What I have learned is, that many adults confuse the difference between discipline and punishment.   The word “discipline” comes from the Latin root “disciplina” which means to teach, or to lead.   To discipline a child, is to make them a disciple!   A disciple is lead by example, and they want to be like the one they follow!   Discipline is not punishment!

• The purpose of discipline is to correct and promote positive moral and ethical development.
  The purpose of punishment is to inflict a penalty for an offense, to exact a “pay back” for wrongs.

• The focus of discipline is positive future behavior.
  The focus of punishment is past misdeeds.

• The attitude and emotional makeup of the one doing the disciplining is Love.
  The attitude and emotional makeup of the punisher is Anger, or worse, perhaps rage.

• The reaction of the one being disciplined will be security and trust, and a desire to emulate.
  The reaction of one being punished will be fear, guilt, hostility, or worse, perhaps terror, shame, and rage.

As you can see, both parent and child fare better in discipline than in punishment.   Discipline cannot be commandeered by an out of control parent in order to vent their rage and frustration on their own,  powerless children.  Punishment can.   When it is, we make both more victims, and more perpetrators for a world that already has too many of both.

Not long ago I went to my appointment with a new health care professional. I felt wary and a little defensive because he was new, and I was put into a position of having to trust him. I have trouble with that. He seemed like a nice fellow, with a good sense of humor, and I gradually started to relax. When seeing a health care professional for the first time, I believe it is important for adult survivors to mention that they are child abuse survivors, if they feel that it is important to do so. I attempted to do that, to give him information that I believed was necessary. Survivors often have issues that are reflected in the complaints they take to professionals. Survivors often have issues with touch, with trust, and many have PTSD symptoms that masquerade as physical problems. Survivors often have problems such as depression and panic disorder. Survivors also may have difficulty instituting new habits or regimes, which might affect treatment by a health care professional. Also, because of the non-linear nature of recovery, one time they may be just fine, while another time they may need medication to get through a particularly difficult period, perhaps having panic attacks, severe depression or despair. We can be very different from time to time, although that lessens with the length of recovery.

He smiled and said to me something to the effect that “I tell people that they have to stop thinking about it” (the child abuse). “All they have to do is stop thinking about it”. Without ever having met me before, and without knowing anything about me except from my medical chart, he proceeded to tell me, “Don’t take this the wrong way, but I think you might be using the abuse as a crutch.” “Some people use it as a crutch, telling everyone they meet that they were abused”.

I immediately felt exposed and awkward. I had a very hard time wrapping my mind around his uncalled for comments. Unsolicited advice is disrespectful. Interjecting oneself into such a very personal, private area of a person’s life without being invited to do so is extraordinarily tactless and hurtful. It shows a lack of empathy and understanding.

I thought ,”would you say that to a woman who was raped, if she was having difficulty recovering from the PTSD that follows the rape?” I also thought about those who, as adults were hurt in war, and suffer from PTSD and have difficulty recovering from that experience. I knew that it was not ok to say something similar to them. How much more are children hurt than adults! Often the trauma in their young lives happens not just once, but hundreds of times, sometimes more than that. They have neither the skills, nor the understanding, nor the training, nor the stamina that adults might have. The effects are more devastating, and more difficult to recover from, some lasting a lifetime. Often their recovery does not start the next day, but decades later. The fact that survivors are now adults makes no difference, other than the fact that we have more skills and resources. I knew it was not ok to say what he said to me. My anger rose, and kept me from “shrinking” (becoming “less than”).

I handled this experience surprisingly well. Of course I did. I have 22 years of “training” through various therapies, have read as many books as some “experts”, and have practiced what I have learned through my recovery since I was 35. I am 57 this year. I struggled with the fear, shame, and finally the anger I was feeling. I felt exposed and vulnerable. I struggled with the dissociation that threatened to overwhelm me. I took some calming breaths for a few extremely uncomfortable seconds. My response was simple. I said calmly, “I don’t do that. You needed to know because you’re the doctor”. His response was something like, “We’re all the same as everyone else”, as if that was some lesson he was delivering to me. I felt my anger rise again, and felt like I was in a “power struggle”. I breathed again to give me time to react the way I wanted to. I assumed he didn’t mean it in a negative way. We all have equal value in God’s eyes, and we should in each other’s as well. But in a very real sense, some survivors have experiences far beyond what others experience. They have experiences that can teach others about things that can literally change the world we live in. I am more in some areas, and less in others. That has to do with skills, experiences, but not value. I saw that I knew that, and that he didn’t seem to know that. I said, “yes we are”, holding back the rest of what I knew.

I did not “get into it” much further with him. I was surprised and somewhat confused that he didn’t know why that information might be useful, or for that matter necessary. Perhaps he believed that the type of abuse I experienced does not exist, or since I seemed rational, it could not have been severe. He could not have been more wrong.

Many of us have a lack of understanding about the effects that child abuse has on adult survivors. Many of us have a lack of understanding of what “recovery” looks like for an adult survivor. Many of us have no idea of all that a survivor might have to deal with on a daily basis in their recovery, (and inside themselves). Many of us believe that when someone says they are a survivor, that they surely couldn’t be standing intact in front of them if their abuse was severe. Many of us do not understand that recovery is a journey. It is not a destination. Recovery is remarkably personal, and depends on our makeup, gifts and the type and severity of the abuse. Some journey farther than others, some have suffered more than others. There is no abuse that cannot be recovered from. Sometimes survivors “circle” an event or theme of abuse until they are ready to resolve it -sometimes even years. All survivors are looking for resolution, even if it looks like they are not moving forward! Who are we to judge what a survivor’s recovery should look like? Who are we to tell them that we know when it is time for them?

Another misconception is that if only a survivor changed his or her thinking, then they could get past the trauma. Although how we think, and what we think about, does play a large role in our daily attitudes, thinking mostly is not where we were hurt, and might be described as being in an “outer layer” of our being. Our emotional nature, and our acceptance of how we are, who we are, and where we are on our journey, is what are most damaged. Survivors are always looking for resolution. When they are focused on the past, they are doing so because they have not found resolution, and are looking for their own personal resolution, not someone else’s! Often our thinking reflects what we are feeling, even if we do not know that. Many Survivors have “frozen feelings”, meaning that they cannot get in touch with their deepest wounds. It takes sustained focus on the past to get to these feelings. Unless we go through the pain, feel it and share it, we will not get to the other side of it. It will sit in us festering, looking for expression in our daily lives, rather than describing the events of the past. In this way, the past contaminates the present. Although our outer thinking may influence our outer feeling, it does not affect those feelings near the core of us. In fact, much of our thinking is driven by feelings from our center. Some call this “primacy of emotion”. In my experience, no amount of thinking or not thinking will heal the wounds of the past. Discovering the frozen feelings from our pasts, giving voice to them, fully feeling them, having empathy for how vulnerable we were, and how tenacious – these are the things that lead us into the journey of recovery – no matter how long it takes us!

I stand before you in a process of recovery, even though I started that recovery 22 years ago. I stand before you relatively intact, although at one time I was completely crippled. I stand before you imperfectly healed. I stand before you not as victim, but as survivor, there is a difference. I stand before you sometimes with a cauldron of feelings that threaten to overwhelm me, feelings that most would recoil from, yet I do not fall apart, nor do I deny or avoid them. I am a survivor, and I am responsible for my own recovery. No one can do it for me, although I have invited God into the process of my recovery. I am proud that I am a survivor, because it embraces all of my past, not just the “acceptable parts”. I stand before you, and I tell you that I am both more and less, not the same as those who have not been abused. I am less in those areas that still interfere with what I want to do, and I am more, because I have experiences that can teach all of us how to behave with each other, so that no one gets hurt like I was. I stand before you so that you may hear my voice. I use my voice so that others may know it is ok to do so also. I use my voice so that others may start their journey of recovery. I use my voice to bring empathy into areas where we have none. I stand before you as a survivor, and it is a badge of courage and accomplishment, not some sort of excuse or crutch to gain sympathy.

Gary Tool’s Column Terribly Wrong in last week’s Community Times Dispatch got me thinking. Two people can witness the same event, and each may see it in a totally different way. Native Americans say that each of us sees from a different place on the Medicine Wheel. I like that imagery. I agree. We each experience life through the lens of our histories, training, strengths, weaknesses, and most of all, our fears.

Now, I saw the same commercial that the good Reverend saw, yet we each saw two different things. The commercial in question is the one where a little boy shakes a bottle of soda and accidentally sprays his momma, who then joins in with the sprayer from the kitchen sink.

The good Reverend sees this scene as an example of a dysfunctional family behavior, and as an example of the devil using technology to destroy folks. Now, I don’t want to get into a tug of war over which one of us is right. I do not disagree that evil operates in this world, as well as Good. I do not disagree that folks watch too much TV to their own detriment. Nor do I disagree with the good Reverend’s prescription for better living. However, we did see that same commercial with different eyes.

As the 2 liter bottle explodes a plume of soda towards his momma, shock and surprise are very apparent on the child’s face. My imagination tells me that he is waiting for the axe to fall’. He knows “he is in trouble now”! As my attention turns towards his momma, I see a look of shock and disbelief on her face. I expect anger next. In fact, I don’t just expect anger; I expect rage, because of my own personal history. But I’m surprised. Her look of shock gradually melts, and is replaced by amusement, as she reaches for the sprayer from the kitchen sink. As she sprays him back, her amusement blooms into full blown childlike glee. His expression of shock and fear is abandoned to one of total playful glee as well. There is no screaming, no tears, no bruises, nor any childhood trauma. There is no adult, anger driven over-reaction that we see so much in our violent society. There is no shaming. There are just two souls, letting go to their playful spirits. How wonderful!

Now, in my imagination, after all is done, his momma talks to him, and tells him not to shake soda bottles, because even though they had fun this time, next time he would be in trouble. (After all, it is a commercial about paper towels, and whether we know it or not, we have been using our imaginations all along!)

What I saw in this commercial, was far more functional than what I experienced as a child. I saw real connection between the child and his momma. I saw two souls, who felt safe enough to let go, and really have fun. Granted, we don’t see the lesson “don’t shake the bottle”, but I believe, we see an even more important lesson, despite any evil influences that may or may not be involved.

I had a wonderful Christmas holiday. My son, Shawn and his girlfriend Rebecca visited from California, where Shawn goes to Stanford University. Actually they had visited for part of the week before Christmas, and had to leave right before the actual holiday. I couldn’t shut up the whole time they were here! I found myself more enthusiastic and boisterous than usual. I couldn’t seem to contain myself! My son played the guitar and sang one evening, and I was moved by how unbelievably good he was! It had been years since he had last played for me. Rebecca is an opera singer. That same night she brought us all to tears, so beautiful was her rendition of “Oh Holy Night”! I have never heard a voice like that! We all talked about “real” things, you know, those things that we care deeply about, are deeply moved by, etc. We allowed space and safety (lack of any judgment), so each of us could be fully authentic, playful, and open. It was wonderful! Read the rest of this entry »

I wrote this in response to a minister’s newspaper column in which he promoted the view that people shouldn’t listen or seek out therapists, that all they need to do is read the bible.

“Be afraid, be very, very afraid”. That is the “mantra” of folks who want to control us, to have authority over us, for us to “stay in our place”, and to think “inside their box”.

I have often said that I am a voice of experience, rather than one of authority. What I mean by that is that I write about my direct personal experiences, what I”ve learned by my experiences, rather than what other people have put inside me. That does not mean, that I do not listen to what others say, or read what others have written with honest appraisal, or to take in the gift of their experience. Nor do I automatically disregard tradition, culture, or religion. I am a very good listener, and do not automatically discount what anyone else says, nor do I automatically believe what I hear either. I have faith. I believe in God. I believe God, and this journey I am on, have made me a good listener. My history of experience far outside normal experience gives me a unique perspective. For many years I have struggled to develop a rigorous honesty that questions what is inside me, how it got there, and whether it is true or not. In truth, I do not do this alone, but ask God to guide me, because quite frankly, alone, the task would be too daunting and lonely. I started on this journey many years ago, for my own survival and sanity. My trust in God has grown exponentially over the years, but also, surprisingly, my trust in myself. I do not mean that in an egotistical or narcissistic way. What I mean is that I accept that I know what I know, feel what I feel, and am starting to accept myself as I am at this point in my journey, knowing that there are still many miles ahead on this journey. I do not want power, or riches. I simply want the truth.

I”m sure you have heard of the term “thinking outside the box”. Often those who “think outside the box” accomplish great things for our human family. Sometimes they see what others don”t see, or have a unique perspective or approach to problems that we have that helps us solve those problems. Sometimes they come up with completely new explanations, inventions or theories that shake up the prevailing culture, and its attitudes and beliefs. I believe that this is part of God”s great plan for us. I believe that change is one of the only constants in our experience here, yet we want to hold onto things so tightly out of our fear of change, a fear that is intrinsically dishonest. To be able to think outside the box, we must find our True Selves, that part of ourselves that is underneath what others have put inside us. This part of ourselves is honest and perceptive, beyond what we usually experience in daily life. This part of us lives within the moment, absolutely embedded in the present moment, receptive, and without fear.

Fear is a great thing when it makes us run from a fire, or keeps us from falling off the edge of a cliff. However, too many of us are stuck in our fear, and don”t even know it. The fear that we are stuck in is a dishonest fear. It tells us that God has no power, that He does not protect us, or provide for us, or guide us. It fuels our black and white thinking, and takes us out of the present moment. Black and white thinking sets us apart from each other. This person is good, while that person is bad. Democrats or Republicans are bad, while their counterpart is good. Baptists are good, while Mormons are bad. Rich people are bad, while poor people are good. The more we see this group as bad, while the other group is good, the more we lose our perspective of the vast majority, the shades of gray between the black and white. We limit our empathy, our compassion, to the limited few.

Sometimes even our ministers resort to this black and white thinking, using fear to motivate us into living correctly, yet I have the suspicion that God intends us to live our lives with Love as the fuel that drives us, not fear. When fear is a filter through which we see the world, our true perceptions are altered, and we cannot experience the gift of living in the present moment. When we are in the present moment, we are teachable. When we live in the Now, we are good listeners. When we live in the present moment, we have true, non-judgmental compassion for others. When we are in the present moment, we are being as honest as we can be. We see all the shades of gray, not just black and white. We have everything we need in the present moment, because God is there, and we are receptive.

Miraculous things happen when we are in âthe present moment. I have written on numerous occasions about abuse I survived as a child. I am sure that the abuse I suffered as a child, was never God”s Will. I am sure that He did not condone what was done to me, but I do know that He has used my experience for good. I do know that He led me to the help that I needed. That help included group therapy with others who suffered similar abuse, and two therapists, George and Theresa (a husband and wife team), who I will forever be grateful to for helping me on my journey. During our therapy sessions, I felt God’s Presence many times, and watched Him work miracles in our group. These two wonderful therapists had 25 years of experience, had their Masters Degrees, and all the training that entailed, but allowed their impressions and direct experience to guide their actions during therapy. They did not let their training get in the way. They dropped their fears as best as they could, allowed themselves to relax into the Now, and were guided by honesty, and letting go of control. They let go and let God without any religious pretense, and miracles happened in every session. I cannot tell you how important they were to me, or how important what they do is. I hate when I hear someone proselytizing to folks that are hurting, that they don’t need therapists. God saved me through them. The black and white thinking that presumes to know the Mind of God is arrogant, irresponsible, and ignorant. George and Theresa taught me that absolute internal honesty is how we navigate the maze of prejudices and black and white thinking that we find inside ourselves. In removing more and more of this dishonesty, we find ourselves. In trusting God, we disarm our fears. As we drop our fears, we find the always present Now, and find that we have everything we need. We learn to think outside the box.

I am not always like this, of course.  However, in the course of my life, I continue to cycle in and out of my issues to gain mastery over them.

I try so hard to be good. I try so hard, that sometimes, it consumes me. I allow myself no wiggle room, no permission to just be human. Sometimes, I try to anticipate my wife’s bad moods, watching what I say and do, and how I say and do. Maybe I do her thinking for her, so that she doesn’t have those moods, or I might help her do her thinking to get her out of those moods. Sometimes if someone is angry, or going to be angry at me, I do everything in my power to keep that from happening. I am rewarded for this, by others seeing me as “strong” or “together”. I am smart. I am kind. I am respectful. I am attentive. I am empathic, and I am dead tired. Sometimes I am so busy doing all this, and being responsible for everyone else, and everything else, that there is no room for me, inside me. I know why I do this.

In 1955, when I was 4 ½ years old or so, I followed Chuck Hexter and a bunch of neighborhood kids down Circle Drive, in our little town of Trooper. We ended up playing in the open basement of a house that was being built. Now I realize that, but at the time I was too little to understand. After an hour or so, when they decided to leave, Chuck’s older brother told me I had to stay there or he would beat me up. Now, a 4 ½ year old kid takes something like that seriously! Even after they were long gone, I stayed there. I was terrified! I thought I was going to die there, all alone, that no one would ever find me. I distinctly remember that being my fear.

Eventually, my mother came looking for me, and “beat the crap” out of me as soon as she found me. I could make a hundred excuses for her -  she was scared because she hadn’t known where I was, or she was scared that she could be in trouble, or be seen as a bad mother, or any number of other excuses. But the fact remains that at that moment she remained focused on herself, and had no empathy for a 4 year old child’s distress! She put responsibility on me, not herself! She should never have allowed me to be in that situation. Her responsibility was to keep an eye on me, not allow me to wander off with older children for hours at a time! That was her responsibility! This is the earliest memory I have of her beating me. There would be hundreds, if not thousands of more times that her beatings would occur, their force, her rage, my fear, her contempt, and her lack of taking responsibility growing each time.

At 4 years old, I was a needy, gentle, naive, deeply feeling, intuitive, impulsive child “ just the way I was meant to be. I looked to others for their definition of me. Let me say that again: I looked to others for their definition of me. I looked to others for their definition of me, their acknowledgement, love, attention, and reasoning. I looked to others to show me how to fit in, how to express my thoughts and my feelings, to learn what was right and what was wrong. I trusted that what my mother told me was true, and that how she acted was right. There was no argument about that in my little 4 year old mind. I would have to try harder to be good.

My mother’s violence towards me, taught me that I was worthless and defective. Her demeaning words of contempt would eventually solidify my view of myself.

A child has no grasp on their own impulsiveness. They are a cauldron of churning, boiling feelings. Their impulses are fueled by those feelings. How ferociously this cauldron boils is dependent upon their experiences. When they are met constantly with craziness and terror; when their caregivers are dishonest, violent, and impulsive themselves, the “cauldron” often boils over. They are seen as “bad”, defective, or worse, by adults who themselves do not understand either their own or a child’s impulsiveness. They do not understand that children operate by impulse, those impulses fueled by feelings that the children have because of how they are treated and seen by these very adults! How is a child to untangle themselves from such a “catch 22″ situation? They cannot. Often they never will, even as they get older. They mature in years, seeing themselves as these adults have seen them, never understanding the nature of their impulsiveness, seeing themselves as “bad”, defective or worse. Escalation is an integral part of this mechanism. As the adults continue to see these children acting on their impulses, their misguided view of the children is solidified. Their reactions and judgment continue in themselves, and reactions in their children continue to escalate. Often other more favored children are brought into this drama, seeing their brother or sister as the parent sees them. The child singled out for this drama, is completely alone, “knows” that they are different from everyone else, because they see every member of their family treating them that way. Isolated from those who see the child this way, the child is left to their own devices in dealing with the violence and craziness, and more importantly, the feelings they are left with because of it.

All through my childhood, I could never seem to do anything right. Frustration doesn’t even begin to describe what I felt growing up with this. I remember feeling listlessness, loneliness, and a tightness in my chest, that seemed to contain something unknown and hungry, something that needed to be filled or satisfied, but never could be. Rather than soft, gentle, warm, fuzzy, happy, content hopeful feelings, I had internalized the TERROR and DESPAIR of being raised by someone who more often than not was out of control. I never knew what to expect from my mother. Sometimes she was childlike and “nice”, while other times, she was like a wild animal, ready to devour me if I said or did the “wrong” thing. It would have been less crazy, if she had been wild all the time.

Over time, I learned to read her moods, in order to avoid her during her worst times, but my own impulsiveness set me up to do things that got me in trouble anyhow. My language skills grew as I tried to talk myself out of trouble. Nothing I said (or did) made any difference with her. I found better more precise ways of saying things so I wouldn’t be in trouble, all to no avail. I tried so hard to be “good”, but my own impulsiveness would get me in trouble. No matter how hard I tried, it was never good enough. I was never good enough. Nothing I did or said was good enough for her, or later, for me! If only I could just get it right! But always the axe would fall, and I would find myself dealing with an enraged, out of control woman, ready to hurt me. The fact that she could so easily rationalize her own behavior, made her exceedingly dangerous. At any time, she might have killed me. Over and over and over, I was terrified of her, and terrified that she would kill me. Unless you experienced this, you cannot know what it is like. But I am asking you to try.

As a society, we have grown enough to recognize that it is wrong for an enraged husband to beat his wife. “Just a little hitting” is not OK. We even understand the mechanisms in him that allow him to do this. We understand how his abuse affects her. We understand that he is teaching her that he “owns” her, that she is powerless, in fact even defective and worthless! A mother who beats her children because of her own out of control rage teaches these same terrible lessons to her children. She fills their hearts with terror, rather than love, despair rather than hope, worthlessness, rather than integrity and value.

As a society, we must stop making excuses for parents who beat their children. I am tired of all the excuses. The Law looks for marks on the outside, but we must learn to see the marks it causes on the inside! We must stop automatically defending the right of a parent to beat their children by calling it child rearing, or shifting responsibility to the child by seeing them as “difficult” and the parents as blameless. “Just a little hitting” is not OK!

As a society, when we have grown enough to value our children enough to truly protect them, then perhaps, we can turn our attention toward helping so many others, child and adult alike, who have already been injured. That is the one right place to “try so hard”!

The purpose of this website, and my writings, is NOT to imply “I am good, and they are bad”. It is not about character assassination, disrespect, lack of boundaries, irreverence, put-downs, name-calling, or other disfunctional behaviors towards abusers, or others for that matter.

Simply put, my writings have been a gateway to feelings I had when I was hurt as a child. Feeling these feelings in their most honest and powerful form, sharing them with others, unlocking deeper, more repressed feelings about my experience as a child, and finding myself going through a very long grief process that had been interrupted as a child; all this has brought me to have empathy for the child I was, to be able to see myself now as I am, not as others saw me long ago, and to gain empathy for children today, in a manner that seems not present in our society at large, a society that in some ways, still condones certain forms of child abuse.

I believe this process of healing that I have experienced, is a natural process that we are born with, but tend to ignore. We are taught to ignore our inner feelings and processes, and our reaction (as children) to abuse reinforces that separation from our feelings and processes! It is very uncomfortable, sometimes, to be in touch with our deepest feelings, but doing so allows us to notice subtle reactions in others, to notice when we hurt others, especially children, which is the way we are meant to be!

Some writings are VERY angry. Some describe my TERROR. Some describe tremendous sadness and despair. Some have a lighter emotional texture. All are expressions of the child I was, so long ago. I have been taught that ALL emotions are OK, they are neither good nor bad, they just are. These are about how it was for me as a child.

The more I write, the more I discover about myself; the more I discover, the more I keep changing. Change is good, even though I tried to avoid change for half of my adult life. Change keeps me moving forward, towards whatever God has in store for me. For me, real change only comes after navigating the seas of emotional upheaval. The rise and fall of the waves in this sea are part of daily life, and will forever be a part of daily life. Larger waves were created far in my past, and tell me about how I felt during those past events, and why I am the way I am today. By allowing this natural process, I become more than I am today, because I recover pieces of myself that were lost. There are always treasures in the sea, after a ship wreck!   Ken S

A word of caution: Many of the pieces that you find on this site are triggering. You may find after reading some that feelings arise that you weren’t quite ready for, or didn’t know that you carried. So please be careful, and make sure you have a good support system. Many of the pieces here convey feelings I had as a child, feelings that I went through in my healing, and don’t necessarily represent how I feel now. I had to go through the Rage, Sadness, Terror, or Despair to get to the other side. These are here to help you get in touch with those frozen feelings from the past.

Therapists are welcome to use my writings with their clients, but need to contact me for use in books or any other publication media, including other websites. Those of you who have already asked and received permission in the past, I thank you for showing respect by asking, and I am honored in that request!

Please note: In deference to my sisters’ disagreement about the website and their need for privacy, I have removed our last name, and even some first names from the site.

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Everyday, I hear something on the news that “makes me” mad. Notice the quotation marks around “makes me”. That phrase is in quotes, because it’s something we say in polite conversation, but it’s something that’s totally untrue. Nothing can “make us” feel anything. If something happens to us, one time we might be sad, while another time we might feel angry, depending on what is already going on with us at the time. Our reactions are our own responsibility. We are making decisions to react or not react inside ourselves all the time, even though we may not notice that subtle subconscious landscape. A more honest way of saying the same thing would be: “I feel angry when I hear some things on the news”. That way I “own” my own anger, I am responsible for it, not the news. I use this as an example of how pervasive and un-noticed our dishonesty is. Let me start over -

I often feel angry when I hear dishonest things on the news. I feel angry, when people are being dishonest with me. When people are being dishonest, they are usually attempting to manipulate others, and that is what I get angry about. Manipulation is an attempt to force someone to think, feel, or do something, and I don’t like being forced! They may not even know they are doing it! Folks have a terrible time with honesty. They also have a terrible time avoiding the impulse to manipulate others. Worse than either of those two is the fact that folks often have trouble noticing dishonesty and manipulation. When I watch the news, I see people in power trying to manipulate us, and they succeed handily! Government officials, political pundits, various authorities in religion, education, business, foreign affairs, and economics all push their particular views – or more correctly stated, the views of their organizations. They use faulty logic, lies of omission, and various other techniques, and quote others using the same tactics!

The news is a maelstrom of dishonesty. On every side of every issue, people attempt to manipulate how we think and feel about that issue. Whether the War in Iraq, Global Warming, or the latest mistake made by some politician, people on both sides of every issue tug at our minds and heart-strings in order to get us to “see it their way”. Most of us can sometimes see the manipulation that goes on by “the other side”, but do we see the manipulation that goes on in “our own side” as well.

Advertisers know how easy it is to manipulate us. The more one has been manipulated, the easier it is to be manipulated! Governments know this principle, and use it. Those in power within those governments attempt to make us see things with their particular slant. It allows them to consolidate power, and to do what they want, whether their motives are good or evil. It is a terrible danger to us as a society.

Why are we so easily manipulated? Why do we have such an awful time with honesty? It is because of this rule: The more one has been manipulated, the easier it is to be manipulated! Most us of were introduced to manipulation and dishonesty when we were children! I don’t mean to imply that all parents are “bad”, that all families are “bad”. Many parents are unaware, sometimes, of what they feel, think, or sometimes why they do what they do. What I am trying to say, is that to a certain degree, deep, penetrating, internal self honesty has been lacking in most of our families to one degree or another, and it causes us to become accustomed to manipulation and dishonesty long before we are “out in the world” ready to be influenced by the forces there. We all are still operating in the “trance” that was created in our families. We only see what this “trance” allows us to see, and we react in predictable ways, based on the tenets of our family trance.

For quite a while, many family therapists have been aware of this. In Transactional Analysis, also, therapists have been aware of this dynamic, as well as those therapists who treat addictive disease. We have all heard of the term “denial”, and have heard about how dishonest and manipulative active alcoholics and other addicts can be. Perhaps we have heard that addiction is a “family” disease, that all members are affected. The forces that bind members in a good way can also be forces that bind them in ways that are not so good.

There is a teaching tool that has been used to describe the processes that bind us in families and similar groups, and keep us in a state of denial (keep us dishonest, or unable to recognize dishonesty and manipulation). This teaching tool is called “The Drama Triangle”. The powerful processes of “The Drama Triangle” train us to be victims. I won’t get into The Drama Triangle’s dynamics here in this article, but if you are interested, do a search for it online.

In all families, children fall into roles that provide stability or credibility to the family, and that role then overshadows their “True Selves” (who God wants them to become). A good example of this is when an older brother or sister becomes the pseudo parent of their younger sibling because of some lack in that family. They can become more responsible than a child should be, and lose touch with their own true child needs and desires, because the role that they have to play in the family becomes foremost in how they see themselves, and how they “act”. Now, for the family, and perhaps sometimes for the little sibling, this can be a good thing, but for the one who takes on the role, they become actors in their own lives, completely unaware of that happening to them. They become super responsible, always striving, but completely unaware of their true feelings and intuitions. Granted, it is a good thing to be responsible, but it is a very bad thing for them to be forced unconsciously into that responsibility, because they lose touch with their own innermost feelings, intuitions, and desires, their “True Selves” . Living out the scripted responses of a family role in this unconscious way, is dishonest living, even though the child never chose to be this way. Another good example is the “black sheep” of the family. No matter what that child does, parents and siblings see him or her as defective: stupid, bad, dirty, disgusting, irresponsible, etc. The more they are seen that way, the more they act and see themselves that way, and the more the family continues to see them that way. But it is all a lie, a scripted role created for them by the family! They go on to continue to act out that role in adult life.

I was the “black sheep” in my family. The remaining members of that family still see me that way. So be it. That is a betrayal. I am sad, and I am angry about that. The forces of their drama still control them, and even though they describe me in all sorts of negative, contemptuous ways, I see me differently! Those who truly love me, see me the way I truly am! Although sometimes, I have very strong feelings about the poor treatment I received as a child, and how I am seen by estranged family members now, I am blessed. I am blessed not because of the abuse that I suffered as a child – that was most definitely not God’s Will for that to happen to me or any other child, but because He provided everything I needed in order to start unraveling the extraordinary dishonesty that was put inside me, and has allowed me to see how these fascinating and powerful forces work. I have spent many years of my adult life (in my 30’s and 40’s) in therapy, with some of the most genuine, loving, intuitive folks, who have been able to give me what my parents could not, and I will be forever grateful to them, and to God for that! For a period of 15 years I read everything I could get my hands on, in order to find my way out of the prison that was created for me. You would be surprised to find out how common that is, for abuse survivors to become experts in the forces that formerly bound them!

I speak from experience rather than authority. These forces that are in all our families to a small degree in some, an enormous degree in others, are what cause us to be so easily misled by those who want to manipulate us. When we live in a sea of dishonesty, dishonesty doesn’t catch our eye!

So what do we do about this? How can we undo this tendency in us that allows us to be manipulated into believing what is not true, buying what we don’t need, supporting those who would hurt us or others by their policies? We have to rigorously cultivate deep, penetrating, internal self-honesty. We must learn to question everything, to not take anything for granted. Just because we have “always” believed something, doesn’t make it true. Most of what is in us was put there by others. Much of what we find will be untrue. This is an extraordinarily uncomfortable process, and most people are unwilling to even attempt it. We are not very patient, and find anything that takes a long time difficult. Also, we have been taught to protect our deepest beliefs, but if they are true, they need no protecting! When who we are, what we feel, what we do, and what we believe is truly and authentically our own, what is inside us needs no protection. There is no uncertainty, except that which is supposed to be in us – we are not omniscient! We do not know everything, and never will. We are human, and will always have some vulnerability, but we were not made to be manipulated by others. We need community, but need to be uniquely and authentically ourselves inside any community. We need to be aware of any community that promotes the value of community over the value of the individual – both are equally valuable. Any group or community that sacrifices the needs of the individual for the needs of the group cultivates the same forces that have created these injuries, or vulnerabilities in us.

Those of us who are believers (in God) may be frightened that our relationship with God might be affected. I started out my journey, by trusting God to lead me on this journey, and quite frankly, I never expected that journey to take me where it has. If anything, my trust in God has grown exponentially during this journey. I started out having trouble trusting anyone. Now I trust both myself and God more than I thought I ever would.

Finally, like many things we seek to develop inside ourselves here on this Earth, this journey is a journey without a final destination, and on this journey our constant companion (along with God) must be vigilance. We must constantly watch what we say, and think, to start rooting out anything that is less than honest. As we do this, not only do we find much that is untrue, but we will start to notice how much of what we hear out in the world that is untrue as well!

“God-damn-it! So help me Christ, I swear there’s something wrong with you, you rotten son-of-a-bitch”, she screamed. I see her in my mind’s eye, above me, always above me, glaring at me, red-faced, her mouth full of teeth, sharp and somewhat yellow-stained, ready to throw more bony fisted punches if I dared to challenge her omnipotence. She said things like that to me in a voice tinged with hysterical rage. Actually, not tinged, (if the truth be known), but filled with rage, overflowing with rage.

I never knew how far she would go, how much she wanted to hurt me, how much she would allow herself to inflict on me, or how long she would continue. Her rage became my terror.

Her “disgust” of me was convincing, I know she believed her own lies. Unfortunately, my sisters and I learned to believe them too.

I wonder why she started on this crusade to convince not just me, but the whole family, that I was dirty, defective, broken, lazy, bad, stupid, and maybe even crazy. She started when I was 4 or 5. I was a child, and children do “bad” things, especially when they are getting the crap scared out of them by an out of control adult like my mother. I think she needed me to be “wrong”, so she could be “right”. I had to be scared, so she could feel powerful. I had to be “bad” so she could feel “good”. She must’ve done that to me 10,000 times if she did it once. Back in her childhood, she had felt a lack of power, and she was bound and determined as an adult to feel that power that she had missed.

My sisters believe that my mother loved them (and me). They believe that I should believe that too. They tell me that I should focus on the “good times”, and all the “good” things my mother said. I don’t remember her telling me too many “good” things!

I can imagine that after just one terrifying episode with my mother, I was probably immune to the next 100 compliments (if they would have been available.) That’s not a defect in me, that’s just a fact of life!

I learned to not trust adults because she, quite frankly, was untrustworthy. There has to be trust for a compliment to do its job. A compliment is like food for our emotional system. As children we need many each day for us to feel OK, competent, strong, loving, and calm.

Looking back, I believe often she hated me, and barely tolerated me other times. For some reason, she saw all the bad things in herself, when she looked at me. There was no reason for her to do that, other than the fact that I was an innocent, intelligent, sensitive child, with all the self-centered needs that all children have. She taught me to see myself in the awful way she saw me from the start. I didn’t have a chance to see me any other way.