Hope in Despair

(This is an encore post from John Joseph.)

When it comes to recovering from childhood sexual abuse, hope is essential. Without it, there’s no chance of holding on until things get better.

Hope is an anchor tossed into the future to help us get there. Hope is the soul’s seed that grows the healthy crops of emotional wholeness. We all need hope, especially survivors.

At times, hope seems elusive. As a recovering person, I've gone through many seasons of outright despondency. I can’t count how many times my future seemed so dark and empty that I found myself depleted and discouraged. That's when my addictions can kick in, which leads me deeper into gloom and self-loathing. The vicious cycle of hopelessness, despair, and acting out fuels more vicious cycles.

As a survivor, I tend to turn small problems into catastrophes. The future can be habitually in a state of calamity in my mind, and remembering hope is one of the greatest tools I’ve found to bring me out of it.

Hope rises to the surface of my soul when I take a few moments to meditate on the current good in my life. It settles me down again in a way that nothing else can. My goal is to learn how to live in hope every day.

Afterward

If we continue to move forward in our healing, eventually we reach a place we never would have expected. We can look back and give thanks for our life. It's not that we're glad we were sexually assaulted. But we realize that as terrible as our childhood trauma was, we're actually better people for having gone through the pain.

First, of course, we have to go through the pain—through the shame, guilt, anger, despair, and a myriad of negative emotions. They are parts of our healing journey and as one wise man said, "The only way out of the pain is through the pain."

Second, if we continue to move forward, we learn to forgive our perpetrators. And as we've said on this blog many times, we do it for ourselves. We do it so we can continue to go forward. And for many of us survivors, forgiving may be the most difficult and painful step for us to take.

Third, we finally are able to examine our lives and rejoice in being who we are. I'll tell it as I perceived it. One day I was able to say to God, "Thank you for all I've gone through." I could say that because I had learned important lessons. I was able to feel compassion and tenderness toward others.

How could I possibly have understood what others go through and reach out to them if I hadn't been abused?

That's why I call this blog entry "afterward." It doesn't mean I'm fully healed, but it means I'm maturing and growing in kindness, sympathy, and mercy. I can identify with other survivors and reach out to them in their pain.

And so can you.

Afterward.

If you're not at afterward, may you reach it soon.

Others need you.

Keep Going

(an encore post by Cecil Murphey)

At a time I was going through a particularly painful period in my own inner healing, I read John Bunyon's classic allegory Pilgrim's Progress. Near the end of book one, the pilgrim, Christian, must cross the river (death) to enter into the celestial city. He's terrified, cries out, and wants to turn back. One of his companions says, "You must go through, or you cannot come into the gate."[1]

Christian's other companion, Hopeful, stays with him and urges him on, telling him that even though it seems as if he might drown, he won't. "Be of good cheer, my brother; I feel the bottom, and it is good,"[2] he says. Because of Hopeful, Christian makes it to the other side safely. When he gets there, he realizes he was not in any real danger, but that fear had made him want to turn back.

I understood. I had been at the place of despair. I hurt. As I daily opened myself to those painful memories of childhood I wanted to give up. I prayed, "God, is it worth the pain?" Some days I didn't feel I could keep going.

That section of Bunyon's book gave me courage to keep going. I felt as if God whispered, "Don't give up. Keep going forward." I stayed with the pain and I discovered, as Bunyon's character did, that it was solid on the bottom and I wouldn't drown.
________________________________________
[1]London: Thomas Nelson, undated, p.165.
[2] ibid

Hope in Despair

(This post comes from John Joseph.)

When it comes to recovering from childhood sexual abuse, hope is essential. Without it, there’s no chance of holding on until things get better.

Hope is an anchor tossed into the future to help us get there. Hope is the soul’s seed that grows the healthy crops of emotional wholeness. We all need hope, especially survivors.

At times, hope seems elusive. As a recovering person, I've gone through many seasons of outright despondency. I can’t count how many times my future seemed so dark and empty that I found myself depleted and discouraged. That's when my addictions can kick in, which leads me deeper into gloom and self-loathing. The vicious cycle of hopelessness, despair, and acting out fuels more vicious cycles.

As a survivor, I tend to turn small problems into catastrophes. The future can be habitually in a state of calamity in my mind, and remembering hope is one of the greatest tools I’ve found to bring me out of it.

Hope rises to the surface of my soul when I take a few moments to meditate on the current good in my life. It settles me down again in a way that nothing else can. My goal is to learn how to live in hope every day.

Self Loathing

(This post comes from John Joseph.)

One effect of my early childhood sexual abuse has been self-loathing. For the longest time I didn’t understand that was what I was dealing with. I thought I was just so messed up that I didn’t deserve the air I was breathing. I constantly compared myself to others, especially men, and I never measured up. The problem with that perspective is that it kept me from being the best me that I could be.

Self-loathing is an emotional habit rooted in envy. As a child my body was never as big as the men who abused me. They were taller, stronger, and their genitalia were bigger. I could never measure up. I can see clearly now that my lifetime of irrational comparisons was founded in those moments of abuse in which I was weaker and the abusers stronger. It wasn’t a fair fight. I was a child.

My continuum of self-loathing ran from a minor comparison of hair or height to athleticism or financial status. At best, it caused an irritation. At worst, it caused deep anxiety and self-destructive behavior such as addiction or depression. A few times I was so distressed by not being like someone else that I despaired and could have taken my life.

The cure for self-loathing I have found, is to recognize that envy hurts me. I am learning to celebrate myself—my body, and my lot in life. What I have is what I have. Comparing myself to others causes me to devalue myself. As I grow in recovery my goal is to love and appreciate who I am and to resist falling into the abyss of self-loathing.

"He Said He'd Take Care of Me"

I had an email in which a young man, age 19, said he had "done things" with his Sunday school teacher for four years. "He bought me things and took me places."

The boy's parents were both "drunks and pill poppers" who "didn't know I existed unless one of them needed me to grab a cold one from the refrigerator."

He went on to say that the teacher promised, "I'll take care of you. You can't live with me because you're a minor but when you're older we can live together and I'll take care of you."

After a few more details the boy added, "Just before my 18th birthday I asked him about moving in. He said he couldn't do that. He wanted to but he couldn't."

He told me about his agony and feelings of rejection, especially when the teacher began to make excuses for not getting with him regularly.

"It was all a lie. I reminded him of his promise and he cussed me out and told me I was evil and that he had tried to help me but he had failed."

The young man had attempted suicide once and had undergone psychiatric treatment for depression.

He has emailed me three times, so that encourages me to believe that something positive is going on. He also reads my blog (which is why he contacted me). "You can use my story," he said in his last email, "but you can't give my name."

I wish his story had a happy ending.

Maybe one day it will.

A Woman Cries Out

(The woman who wrote this has chosen anonymity.)

I can't be the only woman who has been used in a marriage for sex, then completely ignored outside the confines of the bedroom. I have lived for more than 25 years in a marriage with a dark shadow.

Sex is part of a marriage, but when a wife is used to meet his need and ignored elsewhere, there must be more to his story.

What is his deep seeded secret? Why doesn't he pay attention to me outside the bedroom door? Why does he dote on the kids, love them with words of affirmation and outward affection of attention, and there I stand, unnoticed?

I don't even know my husband. His walls are very high, especially with me—the woman he vowed to love, cherish, and honor the rest of his life. However, to those outside our front door he is kind, loving, thoughtful, caring, and a charmer.

I'm an object to be used only for sex, then to be ignored, criticized, or negated the rest of the time (this includes emotionally, spiritually, and financially). He allows no questions regarding the financial mess we're in and that we'll soon lose our home.

Not once have I heard from my husband’s mouth what his deep wound is. From my extensive research and my discernment, I am pretty certain sexual abuse is at the core of his gaping wound. If you saw my copy of Cec’s book When a Man You Love Was Abused with pages full of comments and highlights, you would realize why I believe he was sexually molested.

The emotional abuse has been curtailed and sexual abuse has been stopped. With God’s healing word and years of counseling, I have implemented healthy boundaries. Even though I am for a whole and healthy marriage, I am uncertain whether my husband will allow God to miraculously heal him.

Separation may need to be next and yet I keep my focus on my Creator. Pray for us, that my husband will address his pain.

Wayne's Story (Part 2)

This is a second post from Wayne and even more graphic. This isn't to offend anyone, but this is the reality of the world in which we live.

—Cec Murphey


I don't remember everything. I know I don't want to. But what do I do now? Cec, you had support groups and people to talk with. I don't and I'm not sure I want to. At times I just want to forget again.

But what I want most is to be normal. I want to be whole.

Most of my abuse came as singular events--hit-and-run predators. One was a relative, and it happened only once. Most were nameless, and only one threatened violence. It started when I was in elementary school when I was in 3rd or 4th grade, maybe younger. The last three took place after I was an adult--on my 18th birthday and during the following year. All three were strangers.

Most of the abuse I committed was short-term. Only the adultery that ended my marriage to my first wife and destroyed my family was long-term. And much of the sex, even though with initial consent, became abuse. I raped a girl; today they'd call it date-rape. I molested a teenager. My sister set me up with an older woman who used and abused me. I also committed incest with another sister.

I've done almost everything you can think of and fantasized about the rest. And I just want to forget about it all.

—Wayne

Keep Going

At a time I was going through a particularly painful period in my own inner healing, I read John Bunyon's classic allegory Pilgrim's Progress. Near the end of book one, the pilgrim, Christian, must cross the river (death) to enter into the celestial city. He's terrified, cries out, and wants to turn back. One of his companions says, "You must go through, or you cannot come into the gate."[1]

Christian's other companion, Hopeful, stays with him and urges him on, telling him that even though it seems as if he might drown, he won't. "Be of good cheer, my brother; I feel the bottom, and it is good,"[2] he says. Because of Hopeful, Christian makes it to the other side safely. When he gets there, he realizes he was not in any real danger, but that fear had made him want to turn back.

I understood. I had been at the place of despair. I hurt. As I daily opened myself to those painful memories of childhood I wanted to give up. I prayed, "God, is it worth the pain?" Some days I didn't feel I could keep going.

That section of Bunyon's book gave me courage to keep going. I felt as if God whispered, "Don't give up. Keep going forward." I stayed with the pain and I discovered, as Bunyon's character did, that it was solid on the bottom and I wouldn't drown.
________________________________________
[1]London: Thomas Nelson, undated, p.165.
[2] ibid