Past Tense of Abuse

A few weeks ago, I compared the rape of 15-year-old Maya, to that of male assault. She’s a major figure in the novel, Beartown. Today I finished reading the sequel, Us Against You.

It’s now months after her rape and the author shows us her heart—and her pain.

When people talk about rape, they always do so in the past tense. She “was.” She “suffered.” She “went through.”

But she didn’t go through it, she’s still going through it. She wasn’t raped, she’s still being raped. For Kevin it lasted a matter of minutes, but for her it never ends. It feels as though she’s going to dream about that running track every night of her life. And she kills [Kevin] there, every time. And wakes up her nails dug into her hands and scream in her mouth.

Anxiety. It’s an invisible ruler.[1]

Obviously, I made a comparison and realized the relevance. For us men, our assault remains present tense for a long, long time.

Once my memories of childhood rape came back to me, I relived them for months. I’m glad no one said to me, “that was the past. Just move on.” I couldn’t have moved on any faster.

Until we start healing inside, there is no moving on and no past tense. We feel it, and like Maya, we live and re-live it.

For me, it took more than a year before the worst flashbacks and memories stopped tugging at me. But gradually the healing showed. I can now say that my abuse has become past tense. Still back there, but no longer controlling my emotions.

Perhaps I’m not fully healed, but I keep getting a little closer to that goal. I rarely feel the pain—at least not the way I did “back then.”

I still hear from survivors who may not use the present tense, but it’s obvious, it’s still part of them. I want every survivor to live in the past tense. Even better, to live in the past perfect tense—an action fully completed in the past.

For a long time I lived in the present tense of pain. 

Now I’m experiencing it as a past event 

and getting closer to it being a past-perfect tense. 

[1] Us Against You by Fredrick Backman (Atria Books, 2017), page 255.

Rape

I recently read a powerful novel called Beartown, by Fredrick Backman, translated from the Swedish. Maya, age 15, is raped by Kevin, age 17. At the end of the chapter, the author writes this powerful statement: “For the perpetrator, rape lasts just a matter of minutes. For the victim, it never stops.”[1]

What does that mean for us—the survivors of sexual assault? First, as I’ve pointed out previously, we were raped. That’s a strong word, but we were molested before we were able to make our own choices. Chosen. Groomed. That’s also the reason I often used the term sexual assault.

Second, those words state the situation well. For perpetrators, it’s another conquest. I assume they feel satisfaction afterward; I hope they also feel guilt and shame. Regardless, they have the ability to push away such emotions and move on to the next victimization. To them, each of us was just another means to a temporary satisfaction.

But what about us—the victims? As Backman says, “it never stops.” Call it PTSD flashbacks or recurring memory. For us it never stops. At least not for a long, long time.

For Backman, the end seems hopeless. For some, that’s exactly what it is. But to those of us who are able to face our rape, pain, and humiliation, our stories can end in triumph.

For us, it’s not too late to have a happy ending. 

[1] Beartown by Fredrick Backman (Atria books, 2016), page 177.

Life Is Messy

(This post is from Roger Mann.)

Life is messy. Messier than I ever imagined. I grew up in a house that celebrated truth and honesty. At the same time, I was told/taught to keep secrets and lie. I was just a kid, but there was something about it that didn’t sit well with me. But being 9 or 10 years old, what did I know? “Father knows best” is what I was told.

Even as a kid I got an uncomfortable feeling in my stomach about what was going on, but I was conditioned to override that and obey my parents.

But stuff like that won’t stay silent for long. As a teenager I began to see that Dad was not so all-knowing and perfect as I had been led to believe, and that made me mad. I had been lied to, betrayed, and eventually set aside. He hadn’t given me much attention throughout my childhood, but what he did give changed to less and less as I got older. I think he began to worry about what I might say or do.

I let it go. There was nothing I could do that would not cause even more problems, so I left home as soon as I could. I think he was relieved. I thought I’d managed to get away and put all that behind me. I was wrong. All the secret abuse and lies didn’t stay buried. The older I got, the more problems I seemed to have until finally I had to deal with it all.

The anger didn’t go away. The flashbacks and the bad dreams that scared my wife led to my trying to deal with it on my own. That only made it worse. I was a lost soul, and the foundation I had so carefully laid began to crumble beneath me at around 45 years old. I needed help and I searched to find it.

When we reach a certain age, we often look back on things. That’s when the façade shows its cracks. For me it was 45, and I have talked to many others around that age with similar stories.

Whatever your age, get help. 

You can’t do it alone. 

The results are worth it.

A Note from Ben Franklin

Last year, at age 62, I began seeing a psychiatrist for sleep problems. On my second visit, he told me I showed classic signs of depression and PTSD and asked how long I’d been depressed. I mentioned the verbal and emotional abuse I suffered at the hands of my father, but some of the traumatic events were blocked from my conscious thought.

One day, my wife asked why I was so angry. I told her about flashbacks I had of my father violently raping me as he accused me of being a reminder of two men he had sex with during his time in the army. Because I was named after those two men, he couldn’t forget what he had done.

My wife was dumbstruck. By the time I finished my story, I was huddled in a corner of the patio with tears streaming down my face. I had never told anyone. Who would I tell? Who would believe an eight-year-old child?

Back then I didn’t understand the sexual content. I just knew the physical and emotional pain and the betrayal. After the rape, my father never hugged me again. He never said he loved me, and he belittled my accomplishments until he died.

My psychiatrist transferred me to a psychology resident. He’s been wonderful help along this journey. But while reading your book Not Quite Healed, I realized that many of the trials and tribulations I’ve dealt with all these years aren’t unique to me. I see myself in almost every chapter, and I can usually read only one or two before tears overtake me.

When my therapist asked me what I hoped to get out of our sessions, I told him I wanted to quit hating myself. You’ve helped me take the first positive steps in that direction. Thank you!

My wife is reading your companion book and is trying hard to work through this with me. Just writing this to you has helped. I’m not quite healed, but I’m working on it!

Ben Franklin (not my real name)

From a Wounded Man

This comes from Tommy, who gave me permission to post it on the blog. I think it would be wonderful if some of you would comment words of encouragement to him. (Cec)

* * * * *

Through my wanderings searching for help, I found you on the internet and am about halfway through Not Quite Healed.

I am 58 years old, successful, married for 34 years to a terrific woman who I am crazy about, and absolutely devoted to my Boston Terrier who helps keep me sane because he loves unconditionally and is with me nearly all the time.

I have known for many years through a vague and foggy memory that I was severely physically, emotionally, and verbally abused. And yet every psychiatrist I saw asked the same question (paraphrasing): “Do you remember sexual abuse?” I didn’t. But when I read the characteristics of men who had been abused as boys, I met 17 or 18 of the 20 or so bullet points. And then my mom passed away, and as I was going through her things, I found a semi-pornographic picture (for the 1960s) of me. And I felt a flood of memories that were new but still the same fog and vagueness.

Since then, I can remember as clear as day never having privacy in the bathroom no matter what I was doing. I can remember my dad showing me his genitals. I remember “baths” with Dad. And I remember that picture. That picture haunts me. And I remember my mother forcing me to sleep in the bed with her until, at 18, I just said no and left.

I have nightmares. Awful nightmares. Snakes. Demons. Rickety high towers and ladders that make me feel like I’m falling. Rushing water that seems to overtake me. Sleep paralysis that has me neither sleep nor wakeful and yet I see the door to my bedroom opening. That’s all. Just an opening door.

I have inexplicable fits of rage. I have weeping that makes no sense, at a movie, for example. And I have sampled all the evil that this world has to offer, and it makes me sick to my stomach. I know God loves me, but I don’t know how to let God love me. I don’t blame God for what happened, but I do wonder why He let it happen. God help me!

I guess I would have to say that I am either on my first step or maybe a few steps into the realization that “my little boy” was really badly abused. My wife is a bit of a picture person, and there are pictures of me as a youth of various ages around the house. Sometimes I pick one up, with my wife present, and sob, asking, “How in the world could someone do that to that little boy?” My wife is completely supportive and yet clueless as to what to do, as am I.

I suppose I have many years of work to get through this horror that we have all felt and endured. But knowing that others have, helps me know that I can too.

I am seeing a therapist who has helped me get to the point that I am. We will slog on.

Thank you, and God bless you for your work with us.

“You’re Not Alone” (Part 2 of 2)

We battle alone, but we also need to know others are there to support us. We can ask the questions, and others can make suggestions, but it’s still a personalized, individual battle that only we can fight for ourselves.

Others can help by their presence and caring. A common biblical story inspired me when I was going through a dark period. In the book of Exodus, chapter 17, the Israelites are fighting their first battle with the Amalekites, led by Joshua. The leader, Moses, stands on a mountain with his hands raised as a symbol of victory. Joshua’s troops are winning.

Moses’ arms grow tired and he starts to lower them. When he drops his arms, the Amalekites prevail. Two men, Aaron and Hur, make Moses sit on a boulder and they get on either side of him and hold up his arms. And that continues until they thoroughly defeat their enemy.

Holding up our tired arms makes a powerful image for me. We get frustrated, confused, and feel lost. One of my problems was that as memories came back, my deep resistance was to say, “That’s only your imagination. That’s not true.” But when I told the two people who held my arms, they helped me accept the truthfulness of my flashbacks and memories.

When I doubted that I’d ever get healthy, they assured me that I would. They held up my weak, weary, and discouraged hands until my biggest battles were over. We all need those caring people who are there to lift up our arms.

Who is holding up your arms?

Why the Memories and Flashbacks Now? (Part 3 of 3)

“How do I know the memories and flashbacks are real?” one man said. “I’ve always had a good imagination.”

My answer: You know the difference. The question isn’t “Are they real?” but “Can I accept them?” When the memories first started pouring into my heart and mind, like many others, I didn’t want to believe them as being authentic. But I knew.

No matter how hard I tried I couldn’t convince myself that I had made them up. I knew.

I didn’t have a lot of flashbacks—where childhood memories forced themselves into my head. What I had most were dreams—nightmares—and I awakened in a sweat and sometimes shaking. Those dreams were quite literal, as opposed to what I call the hamburger-and-onion type—the kind that troubles me over something I ate.

In the dreams, I was a child again and I relived most of the tormenting, painful abuse.

Particularly, I remember the old man who rented a room from us. In the nightmares, he was ugly and I was afraid, but I went up to him anyway. When I was awake, I thought of him as having a kind face and he smiled often.

In my dreams I especially remembered his male-pattern baldness with no hair except on the sides of his face. Unless he went outside, he wore sleeveless undershirts and tufts of white, curly hair showed over the top of the shirt.

I mention the hair because he knelt down (or in some dreams he put me on his lap) and had me feel this hirsute chest. My dreams never went beyond that, but I knew—I knew it was real because I couldn’t face what followed.

Dream after dream came to me over a period of months. Each time I awakened abruptly, feeling frightened, and sometimes couldn’t go back to sleep.

Once I learned to accept the reality of those scenes, they went away. I don’t need them because I faced the pain and betrayal, and mourned the loss of my childhood.

Through the help of God and my friends, I’ve stayed on the healing path. I’m closer to the end of the recovery road. Until then, I have to say, “I’m not quite healed. But close.”

Why the Memories and Flashbacks Now? (Part 2 of 3)

My friend Ed Toms has said many times, “Your abusive memories don’t come back until you’re emotionally ready.”

For Ed, the breakthrough was the unfreezing of his emotions. “Once the emotions thawed, I cried for a long time—something I hadn’t done since I was about seven years old.”

I smiled remembering a similar experience in my own life.

“It wasn’t just the crying,” he said, “but it was downloading my serious emotions.” He focused on crying because he said kids learn, either by direct words or implication that boys don’t cry.

“Crying is a feminine activity—something for sissies. I heard that often enough.” The last time he cried his father told him to “suck it up and take it like a man.”

“That’s denial. It shuts off the emotional download,” he said with eyes that blinked with tears.

“The return of tears came the night I saw my newborn son. I hugged the infant and said, ‘I’ll always protect you.’ That opened me up, but several years passed before I learned to cry for myself.”

We’re all different and we don’t respond the same way. If you don’t feel safe, you won’t unlock your heart. And when you finally do open up and struggle through the flashbacks and memories, it’s hard to believe that’s part of the healing process. It’s something most of us have to go through to get past our pain.

When I first told my wife and my best friend, I didn’t know if they would laugh at me, sneer, or turn away in disgust. Both of them hugged me. That gave me the courage and the ability to continue to open up to others.

Why the Memories and Flashbacks Now? (Part 1 of 3)

A few years ago I read a fascinating master’s thesis about men who faced their childhood abuse in what we call middle age—late 30s to early 50s.

Why then? I don’t know all the reasons, but I’m among those middle-aged types. At age 51, the reality of my childhood broke through—and it was a painful time for me. For days I couldn’t get past flashbacks and vivid memories.

Why did it take me so long to face the ordeal and the pain of those early years? The most satisfying answer I’ve found is that it didn’t happen until I felt safe. I’d been married to a caring woman for nearly 30 years. Although I use the term safe, another way to express it is that I finally understood I was loved for who I was and not for what I said or did.

For most of those years, I had been an ordained minister and heavily involved in others’ lives. On some kind of unconscious level, I believed that if I behaved kindly and warmly, I’d be loved and accepted. That may be true, but it also meant I worked to earn that kind of acceptance.

When I finally grasped that I was loved for who I was without conditions or qualifications, I was ready to face my past.

How about you?

When did you face your abusive past?

“Believe in Yourself”

After insisting I could write a book for her publishing house, an editor said, “Believe in yourself.”

She meant well, and I smiled. At the same time, I wondered, And how do I accomplish that? People throw out those empty statements all the time, but they never tell us how.

“Just get over it.”

“Surrender everything to God or your higher power.”

None of them ever says, “And here’s what you have to do.”

I want to believe in myself. I want to believe I can win over every challenge. But it feels as if I’m putting together a complicated gadget and no one included the instructions.

Self-belief doesn’t come easy for some of us. Braggarts, whom people sometimes mistakenly identify as overly self-confident, too often hide behind powerful words. Inside, they’re filled with doubts they try to silence by boasting.

Over the years, I’ve been learning to believe in myself and vanquish the trauma of childhood. Once in a while, flashbacks hit me (not often and not as severe as they did five years ago). Or I’ll reflect on something I did and realize I’ve regressed to an old form of behavior.

But that realization tells me I’ve made progress. Then I say, “Yes, I’m learning to believe in myself.”

Even so, I wish people would stop giving me those empty slogans. I’ve learned to shut up and ignore their advice. One time I did respond to a motivational speaker in a private conversation when he said, “Just believe in yourself.”

“Now tell me how.”

I embarrassed him and he sputtered for several sentences until I decided to help him save face. “Yes, I know it’s my battle, isn’t it?”

Perhaps it’s yours as well. I have no how-to advice, but I sincerely affirm that as I learn to accept God’s love for me and the affection of others, I believe in myself.

It’s not easy to believe in myself, 

but I’m learning.

Flashback: A Step Forward

(This is from Mark Cooper’s blog and used by permission.)

It lasted for only a second. Previous flashbacks had involved one or maybe two of my senses. But this time I not only saw him, I also experienced his presence through my sense of touch, smell, and taste. The touch, smell, and taste were not defined, but I knew they were present. It was the first time I’d had a multi-sensory flashback.

Pondering this particular flashback, I’ve realized that I was there. When I was abused, I was not watching from a safe distance. I was there and my mind was recording what my senses were experiencing.

I suppose in some ways I’ve looked at my abuse as one dimensional. I’ve acknowledged it happened, but have not allowed myself to fully grasp its reality on a sensory level. This is what the flashback is starting to restore.

Perhaps this flat, one dimensional view accounts for my inability to fully grieve the past and embrace today. If I have been guarding myself from accepting that I was really there, feeling, smelling, tasting, hearing, seeing; am I also inadvertently blocking myself from experiencing life today? Is this why I feel sensory overload at times?

I’m a bit nervous about future flashbacks. I also know that God uses flashbacks to help me open up more of my wounded places. He wants to heal those places, and he can’t while I’m denying their presence.

And I also take comfort that he will not require me to remember more than I need, in order to continue my healing.

Memories and Flashbacks

Some of us struggle more with memories of the past than others do. They come back as quick spurts of something in the past and they're gone. Or they torment us, often for days.

During those in-an-instant experiences, we relive our molestation. Despite their brevity, often they’re so intense it feels as if the abuse is happen­ing a second time. "I felt like my priest was molesting me again," one man said. "It was horrible."

Who wants to re-experience such terrible moments? It's natural to want to deny them or medicate ourselves so that we don’t hurt again.

But what if we valued flashbacks? What if re-experiencing is a required step toward wholeness? What if they’re signals for us to pay attention because they aid us in our healing?

I hated it when memories haunted me—until I figured out something. I need them. Only by bringing them to the surface once again can I free myself from them.

At least four years have passed since I've had any in-a-flash memories of my childhood abuse. Their absence says enough healing has taken place that I no longer need them.

I need to face the past

to heal the pain of the present.

(This post was adapted from Not Quite Healed, written by Cecil Murphey and Gary Roe.)

* * * * *

Are there questions or specific topics you'd like Cec to address in upcoming blog entries? If so, please send an email to his assistant at the following address: cecilmurphey(at)mchsi(dot)com.

PTSD

(Joe W., one of our faithful readers, asked me to blog about post trauma stress. This is an encore, especially for Joe.)

* * * * *

It surprised me the first time I heard sexual assault linked with the idea of post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and yet it fit. Until then I'd associated PTSD with military veterans who continued to relive their horrible ordeal. When I was a kid, the experts used the terms shell shock or combat stress. 

My connection began when I read an article about PTSD and learned about their having flashbacks and recurring dreams. I said aloud, "That describes many of us survivors."

In my first year of healing, those flashbacks occurred several times a week. I felt as if the abuse were happening all over again. At other times, especially when I faced an extremely emotional situation, I numbed out, which was also listed among the symptoms.

One man who wrote me privately told me about his PTSD and said, "When the flashbacks occurred, I dealt with them by drinking them away. I called it recreational drinking, but I was self-medicating."

It's not just the symptoms, but how we react. For some men, the effect is debilitating. I was fortunate because I'm a fulltime, freelance writer. For three months after I started my healing, I didn't work much and I was able to stall on projects. Because the pain and the memories were so new and invasive, I told friends I was just taking off a little time for myself—it lasted three months.

I wasn't cured, but during those three months, an almost nightly recurring dream stopped. The flashbacks came less often with lower intensity.

I'm still not fully healed,

but I'm getting closer all the time.

Why Then?

Why did I suddenly open up about my sexual assault at age 51? (And I've since learned that many men don't deal with their rapes until they're in their late 30s to early 50s.) I fit that pattern.

Perhaps it's because we reach a level of maturity that we no longer have to be afraid; maybe we're tired of being tortured with flashbacks and recurring dreams.

Early in my healing journey, I heard others speak about feeling safe. That's probably the best answer for me: I felt safe enough to open up to my wife and my best friend. Because they were safe—and expressed their loving support—that gave me the courage to speak out to others.

No matter when we open up and no matter how painful, it seems to be because of one of two reasons: We feel safe or we can't take the pain any longer. Or perhaps it's a combination.

And those of us who have taken the step of telling others are the ones who truly find acceptance, understanding, and love.

PTSD

It surprised me the first time I heard sexual assault linked with the idea of post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), and yet it fit. Until then I'd associated PTSD with military veterans who continued to relive their horrible ordeal. When I was a kid, the experts used the terms shell shock or combat stress.

My connection began when I read an article about PTSD and learned about their having flashbacks and recurring dreams. I said aloud, "That describes many of us survivors."

In my first year of healing, those flashbacks occurred several times a week. I felt as if the abuse were happening all over again. At other times, especially when I faced an extremely emotional situation, I numbed out, which was also listed among the symptoms.

One man who wrote me privately told me about his PTSD and said, "When the flashbacks occurred, I dealt with them by drinking them away. I called it recreational drinking, but I was self-medicating."

It's not just the symptoms, but how we react. For some men, the effect is debilitating. I was fortunate because I'm a fulltime, freelance writer. For three months after I started my healing, I didn't work much and I was able to stall on projects. Because the pain and the memories were so new and invasive, I told friends I was just taking off a little time for myself—it lasted three months.

I wasn't cured, but during those three months, an almost nightly recurring dream stopped. The flashbacks came less often with lower intensity.

I'm still not fully healed, but I'm getting closer all the time.

Flashbacks

(This is a letter Philip wrote to Cecil Murphey.)

I read your book and it gave me great encouragement through a very tough time last year with flashbacks that I was getting through the abuse that I went through as a child. You answer questions that no psychologist or counselor (I have seen a few over they years) have given me. No doubt because you relate it all back to God, and that is how we can get meaning through this madness. God did not do this to us, was crying when we went through it, and he rejoices when we see his plan through this even though the acts we suffered was evil.

I am 42, and I'm not sure when the abuse started, maybe when I was 6, and it continued through my teenage years. It was mainly women, though men were also involved. I didn't remember the abuse. I knew there were gaps of time, and I had lots of questions about these gaps.

My mother was diagnosed with schizophrenia when I was young and I did not want to be mad like her, and I didn't ask the questions about what was going on.

I blocked people out and kept to myself. I haven't been in relationship because of a fear that for a long time I did not know that was there, I just accepted that I was strange.

Since 2005, I have experienced flashbacks off and on, and I've been on different medication to help me cope. I hide away and don't talk to anyone, or return calls, or develop close friendships.

I have accepted the flashbacks. It's in the long term past so that I can deal with because these gaps of time don't occur any more.

Now my question: How recent in the past do the events that produces does flashback, intense memories and emotions of sexual experiences need to be?

Right now I'm as scared as I have ever been because of intense memories and feelings of sexual experiences that I have no memory of. I have zero memory of those events and as a result I seriously think I am going mad. I take no drugs and very rarely drink alcohol.

I don't know what to do with this, and I restarted taking medication because I am struggling to concentrate and to be happy. All I seem to do this week is to have the memory in my head while I talk to people and this is full on because it involves both men and women. I know the medication is not going to fix it, but I need a break from this. It's getting difficult to drive a car because I get distracted so easily.

The two people that I can trust to talk about this, a close friend and a psychologist, are both overseas and will be back at the end of July. I feel shattered and running on empty.

If this memory is true or not it has such huge impacts for me either way and both of them are scary. I yell to God that I want life to be easy like it was and it is far from that.

(Here is Cec's response. We welcome your comments.)

Thanks for writing to me. Flashbacks are normal.

I'm not a therapist, but I have a theory. Those long-hidden memories start to return when we're equipped to cope with them. (I realize you're having trouble coping.) Many of us unconsciously developed a form of amnesia, which is a form of denial. That was our method of surviving childhood. I was almost ten years older than you are when my memories started to return. And they hurt. Deeply.

The only advice I can offer is, "Don't fight them. Accept those flashbacks." Because you sound like a praying man, here is where you learn to rely on divine help.

The flashbacks rarely come in complete form, but usually in fragments. Or as you say, you have gaps. I still have them. Even today, I can't give you details of my sexual assault, but I know the events happened.

Be kind to yourself, Philip. I don't know if this will help, but when I went through the worst of my flashbacks, I said to myself repeatedly, "This is the best I can do at this stage of my development." Some days I wanted to give up, but I knew I couldn't. I kept on.

The really good news is that eventually the flashbacks go away.

First Steps

Robert emailed me and I was so touched by it, I asked him for permission to share what he sent (with minor editing for his privacy). He agreed.

* * * * *

I am reading your book Not Quite Healed: 40 Truths for Male Survivors of Childhood Sexual Abuse. I can't tell you how this is emotionally impacting me today. I can't put it down, although I have felt like I was going to throw up while reading it this morning.

Thank you from the bottom of my heart for writing this book, I feel it is starting me on the long road to healing. I have a memory of being sexually abused by a male babysitter and older family friend sometime around age six, but I am certain there was another person who abused me as well earlier because I am having flashbacks now at age 52.

I don't see the person in my flashbacks, but I see how I did strange sexual things as a five year old which indicates I was very disturbed.

Your book has already helped me in just one day. I have never been able to tell anyone my awful secret, what I have been filled with shame about my entire life. I have an irrational sexual attraction to other men. There, I said this to another human being for the first time in 50 years.

I know this is just an email, but I am already feeling empowered by typing this to you. I have never engaged in sexual intercourse with a man, but I do have a temptation for what I call "soft porn," on the internet. I feel like I dance as close as possible to actually getting on a porn site and the urge is overpowering. I do well for a time, then it hits me hard.

It seems like in the last couple of years reaction to the abuse has gotten worse. I am emotionally off, make assumptions about people, and see myself negatively. My childhood was so dramatically affected by the abuse, and I am just now understanding it with the help of your book.

I have been happily married more than 30 years. We have three wonderful kids.

I loved the part of your book where it talks about this desire is "irrational." This email is my first step in recovery and I am so grateful to you and Gary for writing this book.

Erasing Negative Emotional Scripts

(By John Joseph*)

From infancy emotional scripts are being created in our minds. We learn without even knowing we’re learning that mother is safe and cares for us. We learn that significant others are available to meet our needs and that we can trust them, too. Unfortunately, we also learn negative emotional scripts when mother isn’t available and, worse, when she or someone else near to us is abusive. Those of us who’ve been sexually violated in childhood were infused with a commanding negative script (maybe many of them) that we carry into adulthood.

This damning script says you are scum. It says you are worth nothing more than a rag and you deserve to be used this way. It takes great faith and perseverance for anyone to overcome these pernicious inner messages that seem to come out of nowhere. Many of our relationships have suffered for these scripts. Certainly we’ve suffered from them inwardly even if we’ve had the willpower to act outwardly as if we were “just like” everyone else. But can a powerful mental script be broken or changed?

In my experience the answer is yes with some strong cautions. Through therapy, medication, and a loving network of people around me I am getting better, albeit slowly. The abusive flashbacks are less frequent and shorter. The triggers that would hurl me headlong into shame are losing their strength as I grow in my understanding that I have a lot more control over them than I ever knew before. I am growing more hopeful that the thoughts and deep emotions that have controlled me, these negative scripts, will eventually be completely erased.

(*John Joseph is a pseudonym of a pastor. He's a regular contributor to this blog.)

Memories and Flashbacks

(By Cecil Murphey)

Some of us struggle more with memories of the past than others do. They come back as quick, spurts of something in the past and they're gone. Or they torment us, often for days.

During those in-an-instant experiences, we relive our molestation. Despite their brevity, often they’re so intense it feels as if the abuse is happen­ing a second time. "I felt like my priest was molesting me again," one man said. "It was horrible."

Who wants to re-experience such terrible moments? It's natural to want to deny them or medicate ourselves so that we don’t hurt again.

But what if we valued flashbacks? What if re-experiencing is a required step toward wholeness? What if they’re signals for us to pay attention because they aid us in our healing?

I hated it when memories haunted me—until I figured out something. I need them. Only by bringing them to the surface once again can I free myself from them.

At least four years have passed since I've had any in-a-flash memories of my childhood abuse. Their absence says enough healing has taken place that I no longer need them.

I need to face the past

to heal the pain of the present.

(This post was adapted from Not Quite Healed, written by Cecil Murphey and Gary Roe.)

Flashbacks and Dreams

(This post is an excerpt from an unsolicited email from Mark and is printed with his permission.)

I recently read your book Not Quite Healed. I have always had a brief memory of sexual abuse that occurred when I was 4 or 5 years old. Two years ago I entered a Celebrate Recovery program to begin to deal with out of control porn addiction, same-sex attraction, and a host of fear and anxiety.

I began to experience flashbacks. At first I didn't understand what they were. My sponsor is an abuse overcomer and was able to get me helpful information on flashbacks.

It wasn't until reading your chapter on flashbacks and dreams that I realized you men were speaking my "language" and describing my experience.

Not only that, but I also realized that given my memories, and the additional evidence of the flashbacks, it is right for me to say that, to the best of my understanding, I was raped as a young boy.

Beginning to use that ugly word rape has brought peace. I'm no longer fighting and doubting myself. I am allowing myself to accept that I was a victim.

Thank you both for your book, for your vulnerable honesty.

Mark