Just Be Over It

By Mark Cooper

This is my story. It is not the same as your story. But I hope my story will encourage you to more fully live your story.

Those of us who deal with trauma recovery are probably familiar with the unhelpful concept, “Just be over it.”

My brother and I were enjoying dinner with friends. We got into a discussion about a former neighbor, a veteran of WW2, who battled alcoholism. My brother told us that the man’s son described his dad crying anytime the subject of the war was broached. My brother explained to us that the trauma of war no doubt contributed to our neighbor’s battle with alcohol. He then went on, “Of course, after a while a person should probably just be over [the trauma].”

I had to fight tears as I heard his words; his words felt like a mockery of my healing journey from abuse, but more than that, they exposed his own battles. My brother knows the pain of trauma in his life, but shows little evidence of facing that pain. His “just be over it” statement, rather than being an expression of callousness towards our neighbor, speaks of the harshness he feels towards himself; an expectation that by now he should “just be over” the pain of his wounds.

Those of us who have entered the healing journey know that we will never “just be over” our wounds. Rather, we have embraced the hard work of dealing with those wounds. We have accepted that our journey will include countless tears, frustration and anger. We know we must continually be honest with ourselves, with others, and with God. We face the raw truth of how we were hurt and how we have caused hurt in attempts to sooth our pain. But as the tough work of healing progresses, we eventually realize that we have more peace—even if it is fragile—than we once thought possible.

That peace would never have come had we told ourselves to “just be over it.”

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A note from Cec's assistant: Cec's publisher sent him a box of bookmarks for his upcoming book, More Than Surviving. If you would like to help Cec by distributing some of the bookmarks, please contact him at cec.murp@comcast.net and give him your mailing address. Thank you!

Roger's Response

Over the years, Roger Mann has been a generous contributor to this blog, and I’ve been impressed with his insights and honesty. I’ve asked him to write occasional posts to help out. His response to my request impressed me, and I asked his permission to share it with you. I look forward to his posts in the future. (Cec)

* * * * *

Years ago, I'd only been working on my recovery for five years or so, and all I wanted was to get fixed and get on with my life. Once I was "normal" I never wanted to hear about this stuff ever again or anyone else who had experienced it. It was ugly, dirty, shameful, and socially unacceptable.

I laugh now, because once I began to accept what happened to me and deal with it I became aware and in contact with others who shared so much of what I felt and was going through. It tugged at my heart, and I found myself responding, replying, and supporting them in their struggle too. I was not alone. It was not my fault. I needed to share those truths with others who also were hurting. I couldn't leave them.

The site I most frequent now I have two threads that I post on for my personal stuff—the single men's forum and the married men's forum. I have noticed I have six times the views of the next most popular thread. God has blessed me with insight and the compassion to articulate it. I guess I know why. Someone needs to say perhaps the things that I say and to share the hurt and victories that I experience.

And so I stay. Even though my wife thinks it's too much, I know I am needed there on those forums as His voice. Deep down I still wish I could walk away but I know I can't. I'm not done yet. God's not done with me yet.

That said, we both feel I should accept your offer and do what I can to help others along this journey, if only by pointing out what not to do. Let me know where to go from here and I will do my best to send you what I can.

Timing

“The earlier the abuse took place, the deeper and more traumatic the impact on the survivor.” I read that statement by an authority on childhood abuse. He never presented any evidence, but he did say that came out of his “30 years of practice.”

He also wrote something to the effect that the more deviant the perpetrator’s behavior, the greater the detriment to the survivor’s recovery. He seemed to believe that, as adults, they had deeper issues to work through.

He added something about the wider the age difference, the more negative the result.

That’s when I stopped reading, although I’m no expert who can disprove what he wrote. But what he ignored was the personality of the child.

We all heal differently, and his statements didn’t reflect that. Some boys are more sensitive than others; some survivors never seem to overcome the effects.

Immediately I think of John, a member of a small group of six men I joined during the initial year of my coming to terms with my abuse.

In one of our first meetings, John told us about his painful childhood of abuse, and it sounded much like mine, except his was a single perpetrator. He had been seeing a therapist for 20 years. He ended by saying, “I feel like a bag of shit.”

Our group met every Thursday for four years until I moved out of the city. On the last meeting, John made the same statement about himself.

I haven’t seen John since, but I wonder how he feels about himself today. My guess is that he’s probably at about the same level as he was back when he was part of the group.

Why was John unable to recover after more than two decades of therapy? I don’t know. I’m hesitant to say it was because his abuse took place so early. Or blame the length of it. I could say the same things about mine. John knew his abuser was at least 25 years older. The old man who assaulted me was at least 55 years older than I was and the woman was 35 years older.

Why have I been able to achieve almost-but-not-quite healed status and John seemed stuck? I don’t know.

I’m grateful for the friends and loved ones who have stood with me and helped me. I’m even more grateful to a benevolent and compassionate God.

Why me?

Why have I moved so far down that road?

I have no idea, but I’m filled with gratitude at the growth and progress.

Healing Is Tough but Worth It

(By Gary Roe)

Healing is tough but worth it.

My daughter recently broke both her arms, one of them very badly. The pain was terrible and she nearly passed out several times. After the doctors assessed the damage, they did surgery. The recovery process was slow, difficult, and painful.

Can you imagine what would’ve happened if we had refused surgery and chosen to ignore that fact that she had two broken arms? Ridiculous, right?

Yet we often minimize the pain and damage of what I call our soul injuries. The abuse perpetrated on us was far worse than two broken arms. The damage was internal and extensive. In order to heal, we’re going to need some soul surgery. The recovery and healing process will be hard, lengthy, and at times painful.

But as we stay with it and remain committed to healing, we’ll find ourselves slowly improving. We’ll be less burdened and live with greater freedom and purpose. And one day we’ll look back and say, “Yes, it was so worth it.”

So stay with it, my friend. Make your healing a priority. It’ll be worth it.

My soul injuries need my attention,

so I choose to make healing a priority.

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

Getting Unstuck

(By John Joseph*)

Plateaus, deserts, valleys—whatever you call them—they’re no fun. The fact that we seem to be bogged down in our efforts to recover from childhood sexual abuse is discouraging, at best, and at worst, leads us to setbacks.

We become restless, listless, and even sleepless. Depression or anxiety begins to creep in and affect everything else in our lives—relationships, work, and recreation. People begin to notice and even wonder why we’re no fun anymore.

We're stuck.

What can we do to get unstuck? What will pull us up out of the mud and put us back on the road to recovery? What will help us re-center and tap into the joy of being alive?

Although the answers may seem elusive, I believe there are a couple of very important things we can do to jump-start the recovery process and start to feel human again.

The first thing I do when I realize I’ve gotten stuck is to gift myself with grace. Grace isn’t an excuse for where I am, but a kind, human-to-human response that I would want to give to anyone else I knew who was stuck. Instead of beating myself up for messing up again, I take a moment to do some healing self-talk that says, “Okay—so we’re stuck a little here. No worries. Just think about it. What do we need to do to get things going?” I don’t know why I always talk to myself in the plural. It just feels good to think there’s more of me here than just "I."

Then I take a little while to journal and meditate, then I wait. Sometimes the very thing I need to get going again shows up in a book or online. Occasionally, it hits me in a conversation with a friend. At other times, I keep pushing into different things and I realize the wheels haven’t really come off the wagon. They’re turning again, even if slowly, and I find myself back up on the road to become the person I am intended to be.

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

Journal to the Center of the Soul

(By John Joseph*)

One of the simplest and most effective tools in my recovery has been soul journaling. There’s something powerful about the act of writing out the pain, the people, and the prayers (positively and negatively) that put them all in a better perspective. I don’t know if it’s the power of the words themselves or just the fact that I write them out of my head that brings some relief, but time and again I’ve experienced good things from journaling.

I’m not a write-in-the-journal-every-day kind of guy. I write when I feel like I need or want to. It’s sporadic, and weeks can go by in between entries. Sometimes I write four or five pages; at other times, only a paragraph.

Recently, when I needed to do some journaling about my mother, I could write only one sentence: “Mom . . . upside down spells ‘wow.' ” Obviously I have some work to do on that relationship.

I think it’s important to write positive things as well as negative. It’s good to celebrate even the smallest victories in our recovery from abuse—a day with less depression or the realization that each day is a gift. It’s also possible to address the true self in our journals—that part of our soul that responds to nurturing through self-affirmation and blessing. There’s a lot of healing we can gift to ourselves through positive words.

Writing things out is an ancient prescription for soul health. Journaling, even sporadically, can be part of your journey to the center of who you really are.

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

Courage to Heal

(By John Joseph*)

The recovery process is an active one that demands a lot from me. It isn’t a passive progression that happens on its own—I must be a daily, and often aggressive, participant. I don’t like that, but it is true.

To deny my responsibility to pursue wholeness in the areas of my broken soul is to give my past power to destroy me through addiction, depression, and shame.

Am I going to let that happen?

The terrible truth is that there’s something in me that works against me. Call it my “addict," my “disease,” my “inner child,” or the “devil." Its name doesn’t matter. It's still out to take me down in any way it can.

John Mayer wrote some poignant lyrics about this in his song Gravity:

Gravity is working against me
And gravity wants to bring me down
Oh I'll never know what makes this man
With all the love that his heart can stand
Dream of ways to throw it all away[1]

How many of us survivors have found ourselves on the edge of the emotional cliff, ready to jump off again? How many times have we acted out the same demeaning behavior only to go down the shame spiral again? Why do we feel the constant weight of what Mayer calls gravity in our bones that brings us to the brink, again and again, of throwing it all away?

Our various faith traditions may call it karma, fate, fortune, or sin. Whatever it is, it will gain the upper hand and destroy me if I am lazy or unmindful of it.

To recover is to have the courage to heal every day.

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

*****

[1] Writer(s): John Mayer

Copyright: Reach Music Publishing-digital O.B.O. Goodium Music, Specific Harm Music, Sony/ATV Tunes LLC

Codependency

(By John Joseph*)

I’m the kind of guy that, if I saw you first thing one day, I would say, “Good morning! How am I today?” Yes, I am a codependent. What is a codependent? It is someone who is dependent on another person to define his or her feelings about themselves. It is a psychological term that came into use a few decades back to describe the behavior of family members living with an alcoholic.

Far too many wives and children become codependents, sentenced to the hell of merely reacting to the dependent behaviors of the alcoholic. They’ve been forced to define themselves based on the addictive behavior of another. Although they aren’t the addicted person, they are co-dependents and much of their lives are wrecked by the addiction and the addictive person.

Thus I’m a codependent. Maybe you are one, too. The sad truth is that someone else’s addiction to sexual abuse has affected our ability to live normal lives and to define ourselves in the healthiest ways.

What do we do now? How do we untangle the wreckage of the past? How do we cease living as codependents and find emotional health?

The first step is to move out of a dependent relationship. If someone in your life is abusive or addicted, leave them. Get out. Then get good counseling and enter a recovery program. It’s only when we rise up to reclaim our personhood that we cease to be dependent on others, no matter who they might be.

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

“Males Are Less Traumatized than Females”

I wonder how many people have written or spoken words like that. They parrot the idea that females are more emotional and more damaged than males. They don’t produce any evidence, but make strong assertions.

Societal climate is more open to females writing and speaking about their sexual assaults. (Check Amazon.com and see for yourself.)

This much seems obvious to me; however, we males are more severely damaged by society’s reluctance to accept our victimization. We’re afraid of being called gay, sissy, or being judged as being less than male.

Thus many of us tough it out and remain silent. By not speaking up, we don’t have to face taunts and pointing fingers. But we also miss healthy affirmation, sympathy, and acceptance.

And why does it have to be a comparison between the genders? Shouldn’t it be enough to say, “I am a survivor of sexual assault that stole my innocence”?

I’m not concerned about proving I was more traumatized than a female. I am concerned about admitting my deep-seated pain and recovering. The more we males speak up, the more we push others to accept us.

In 1990, I heard a scholar insist that boys were not abused. Does anyone still hold to that? We’re making progress. And it’s up to us, the survivors, to gain acceptance by speaking out.

The more I face my abuse, the more I heal;

the more I speak about my abuse, the more I help other men to heal.

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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.

Good Things

(This is an encore post from John Joseph.)

One of the side effects of the childhood sexual abuse is the pervasive sense that I don’t deserve good things. Maybe it’s the way I was treated by my abusers, in that I was only worth what they wanted out of me. Or maybe it’s a self-imposed sentence that condemns me to languish in the land of ne’er-do-wells.

I can’t shake the feeling that I’m undeserving of life’s simplest pleasures. Is it just me, or does everyone cower inside waiting for the next tragic thing to happen? If tragedy isn’t happening fast enough, am I the only one smart enough to choose self-sabotage as a means of controlling my circumstances? Isn’t something predictable— even failure—better than the excruciating fear of the unknown?

The current of fear and the desperate need to control life runs deep. It’s not that I don’t want good things; it’s tough to believe that I should have them. And even more difficult to believe I deserve them. Someone else is always more deserving, better looking, or better qualified. Call it low self-esteem or the fact that I always sucked at sports. Regardless, I always seem to think I deserve to lose.

Even my faith in God suffers on account of this. I assume that I'm the exception to grace. I’m the one who succeeds in out-sinning his forgiveness. I’m the one who stumbles on the unpardonable transgression and falls headlong into it. I’m the one who is mighty enough to predestine myself to eternal damnation because I certainly don't deserve heaven or happiness.

A big part of my recovery is to accept and relish the good things that come my way. I have to choose to by-pass self-sabotage and make peace with the unknown events of my future, no matter how they turn out.

Letting go of some of my control and trusting others again (including God) can be healthy choices and effective steps toward my healing.

"Get Over It"

No one has ever used those three words to me: Get over it. However, they've implied that by now I should be free from pain and agony.

It hurts because they don't understand that our childhoods were shattered. When someone implies that statement or something like, "I don't understand why you're not over it. It happened a long time ago," I've wanted to respond, "Don't you think I'm doing my best to get past the pain?"

Although I doubt that I could do so, I've wanted to say, "You're right. I need to get over it. Please tell me how."

The difficulty is that they probably have answers—simplistic ones. "Talk with a professional." "Pray and read your Bible." Wow, why didn't we think of doing things like that?

Or they minimize our pain by saying, "It's not that big a deal." That statement angers me. Who are they to say it's not a big deal? I feel belittled when they say such words.

Childhood abuse is a big deal;

I'm still recovering.

It's Not Fair

While a member of a recovery group sponsored by the State of Georgia, one man cried out during the second meeting, "It's not fair!" He went on to compare himself with his older and younger brothers who, seemingly, were not molested and had no serious problems.

After allowing him to rant for several minutes, the therapist said, "You're right. It's not fair, but it is real."

Dean, the quietest man in the group, pulled up his left pants leg and showed his prosthesis from just below the knee. "And this isn't fair either. It's not fair that I'm alive and my dad died in the accident."

We were stunned and hardly knew how to respond but Dean added, "You can groan all you want about the unfairness, but nothing will change. If you're willing to grow up, you'll accept the reality and ask, 'Now how do I live the rest of my life'?"

I can't remember how the exchange went after that, except the it's-not-fair complainer yelled and groaned. He never came back to the group, and was our first dropout.

Maybe the poor man couldn't face the reality of his situation. Storming against the unfairness of life does no good. If anything, it makes it worse because we can't accept life as it is.

It took me a long time, but I finally began to say, "What is is what is." That's my shorthand way of saying, "That's the situation and I can't change it. But now I can make decisions on what to do next."

A Response to "Be Kind"

(This post comes from Roger.)

I discovered at some point in my recovery I was actually angry at my younger self for not resisting, not standing up to my dad and for just going along with what I knew was wrong for the sake of what I could get out of it. I had held that resentment for decades without realizing it. Every time I thought about my young or teen self I would get angry, resentful, and found myself irritable for reasons I could not quite grasp.

Then one day a counselor pointed out that every time I spoke about my youth I would sound harsh or resentful. I would make joking derogatory comments all the time. I was kind of shocked.

He helped me to see that my young self did what he could to survive. He was a boy. I was a man and I was judging him as a man and not seeing him as a kid who was clueless and did what he had to do to stay sane and get me to adulthood. Sure, I understood all of this now. I could see the mistakes, bad decisions and poor judgment from my perspective as an adult but back then I was just a kid. It was time I began to cut that kid some slack.

I am doing pretty good right now but I am here because my young self made some decisions no kid should ever have to make. I am here because my young self allowed things that no boy should ever have to allow. That boy had no one but himself to rely on and yes as an adult I would never allow such things in my life but I was not an adult back then with money, friends, and the power to leave and go be somewhere else. As a boy I was stuck where I was and knew nothing else.

That boy is my hero. I love that boy. When I think of that boy now I give him a mental hug and kiss and tell him it's ok we made it, we survived. I thank him for his ingenuity in keeping me together during and very not-together time in my life. I am proud of him and I tell him so.

There is a peace that has come to my past. I am whole now or more so than before because I stopped beating up emotionally on a small abused boy I knew a long time ago for something that was NOT HIS FAULT.

Irrational Comparison

(This encore post comes from John Joseph.)

Many men never graduate from the eighth grade. That's usually the year competition begins in earnest between boys, especially in the locker room. We're discovering our bodies in new ways; puberty is raging, and the comparisons of everything from push-ups to penises set the hierarchy in the schoolyard.

I was never going to be the alpha male, of course, and bore the brunt of ridicule for being smaller, uncoordinated, un-athletic, and downright sissy. Eighth grade was hell.

The unfortunate thing for me as a survivor of childhood sexual trauma is that my abusers were like the bigger boys at school. I couldn't measure up to them in any way.

That sick comparison has stuck with me throughout life and has made me miserable. I've constantly compared myself to other men and always come up wanting. My comparisons aren't ever accurate, but the result is always the same: I can never be as good, as strong, as muscular, as sexy, or as secure as any other man I encounter. They always win.

The only way I’ve found to counteract such an irrational comparison is to recognize that, at its root, it's nothing but envy. I want to be as big, strong, muscular, successful, and handsome as they are.

Forgetting the fact that I just may be similar to them in many ways, envy blinds me to my good qualities I may have, and causes unwanted anxiety and depression.

My body works just fine, no matter how big or small it is. To want what someone else has is a sin against myself and even my own body. To recover means to be thankful for who I am and for what I have, even if I still can’t do many push-ups.

Holding On

My older daughter, Wandalyn, walked quite early, but she was also fearful. She put her weight on her own feet and, if I allowed her to hold both of my index fingers she tottered across the room.

One day I had an idea, and I held a clothespin in each hand. She took hold of the other end and we walked. That went on for a few days. One day she grabbed hold of the clothespins and we started to walk. I let go of my end and she kept on walking. Before she reached the other side of the room, she realized what I had done.

She dropped the clothespins and after that she toddled around the room on her own.

I tell this story because it works like that for some men in recovery. As long as they have someone to hold on to, they seem to do well. It might be a therapist, a pastor, a support group, or a friend they've been able to trust.

At some point, they have to walk without holding on to others. When that happens, it means they've overcome their shame and a sense of failure. Their self-worth soars.

We also call it maturity, because they can stand on their feet. It's not to say that they don't need others—we always need others—but maturity means we can walk by ourselves and walk beside those we trust.

But as long as we hold on by depending on someone else, we don't mature. We have to let go and give up the human crutches. We might fall a few times, but once we know the freedom and joy of walking without holding on to some safe support, life takes on a deeper meaning because our pain diminishes.

"I Need to Be Healed."

"I need to be healed," *Eric's email began. "I want to stay in the fight, but I'm tempted to turn back. I want to forget what happened, to ignore the problems, and lie to myself that everything will be all right if I turn my back on the healing process."

Eric went on to say he was worn out trying to overcome the struggles, the pain, and "my own shame and failures." He wrote to me because he said that the struggle doesn't end for him. "The shame eats at me from the inside, and I feel like a failure."

We emailed back and forth five or six times, and on one of them, he wrote, "This remains private. I can't tell anyone."

"That may be part of your problem," I replied. "You probably can't do this alone. If you had a tumor, wouldn't you consult a surgeon to cut it out?" I tried to point out how much all of us hurting survivors need to connect with others who have the same background.

The first time I spoke publicly to a group of six men, I told my story with many tears—but only after I heard theirs. For the first time, I knew I wasn't the only one. Certainly other boys had been molested and I knew that intellectually. I didn't realize their pain and struggles were like my own.

In my last exchange, I reminded Eric that he said, "I need to be healed," in his first email. "If you realize your need to be healed, please face it. Get help. Don't try to do it alone."

His last email to me said, "I need to be healed. I'm determined to do it alone." I never heard from Eric again. Twice I emailed to ask how he was doing. He never responded.

I share this downer account because not everyone recovers. Not every man has the courage to keep fighting through the threshold of pain. But to those of us who do, we know we did the right thing to keep on.

I wish every survivor would keep on. As one friend said, "I tried to pretend that everything would be all right if I just stopped struggling. But it doesn't go away. This is going to be a lifelong journey, isn't it?"

And yes, it is a lifelong journey.

And it's worth it.

More on Discouragement

(This is from Roger in response to John Joseph’s post Dabbling in Discouragement.)

Discouragement is a constant companion some days. I can relate to the posting above a lot. Some days it doesn't take much to send me spiraling into a what's-the-use frame of mind. There is so much that has gone wrong in my life. So much that I've contributed to out of anger, ignorance, or discouragement. But there is much that I have to be grateful for too, and why this seems to get lost in my sadness is hard to explain. I have a good job, make good money, am married to a wonderful wife, and my kids are doing okay too. My health is good, could be better, but I am not on disability or anything so there are a lot of people who would happily trade places with me I know.

Recognizing the telltale signs of discouragement's attempt to dislodge my attitude of thankfulness and learning what to do to derail that little train of thought is what a lot of my recovery has been about. I just wish I had gotten into recovery decades ago. Who knows where I could have been today. But that is another train.

Self-Pity

(This post comes from John Joseph.)

D.H. Lawrence once wrote “I never saw a wild thing sorry for itself. A small bird will drop frozen dead from a bough without ever having felt sorry for itself.” (Complete Poems of D. H. Lawrence). I wish he could say the same for me. Of all the issues raised by my lifelong recovery from childhood sexual abuse, self-pity is one of the most pernicious and destructive. Would to God that it would drop from the bough, but it doesn’t.

The best that I can do with self-pity is to manage it like an addiction. Addictions have a mind of their own, a life of their own, and exercise control over me by promising relief from existential, mental, or emotional distress. Unfortunately, addictions never deliver what they promise. They can’t. The details may differ addiction to addiction, but the results are always disastrous and lead me to a mouthful of corn husks with a pig pen for a penthouse. They just never pay off. And that’s where managing them comes in, especially in recognizing that feeling sorry for myself is a slippery slope into addictive behaviors. I’m so predictable.

If you’ve never attended a Twelve Step meeting, it’s difficult to describe the inherent power of Step One—admitting that you and I are powerless over whatever is controlling us. A billion words or more have been written about this first step, yet few ever come easily to them. We mostly come crawling to them after waking up in the dregs, bruised, bleeding, and drenched in the sledge of whatever’s gotten hold of us, whatever we’ve given ourselves over to for the umpteenth time, be that heroin or hatred. To finally admit that something has control of us is just the admission that God, our Higher Power, is waiting to hear.

Once we can bring ourselves to admit that we aren’t the center of the universe and admit that we’ve surrendered all of our self-control over to a substance, a feeling, a destructive behavior, or to another human being, healing and freedom can break in. For me, admitting that self-pity is not only unattractive but overwhelmingly destructive and controlling is a great first step to freedom from it and from all the awful things that come with it.

Paper Parachutes

(This is an encore post from John Joseph.)

Addictions are like paper parachutes. We assume the plane we’re on is going down. We snatch the nearest thing and jump only to find that the parachute is made of newspaper. As it shreds into thousands of pieces we fall faster and faster, hurtling to the ground at warp speed.

Once again, something we thought would save us accelerated our destruction. The crazy thing is that the plane probably wasn’t going down, but was having only minor problems. Had we not reacted in hysteria we would have landed safely.

As a sex-abuse survivor, I’ve jumped needlessly thousands of times. My paper parachutes have been forays into drug and alcohol abuse, sex addiction, hyper-spirituality, affairs, and even suicidal ideations. I’ve hit the ground so hard at times that it is a miracle I’ve survived and been able to maintain the relationships around me.

I've discovered about my recovering self that I must resist. Panic is my enemy, not my friend. The bizarre tendency I have to turn minor upsets into major catastrophes must be tamed.

One technique I have used to curb panic is to breathe. As a passenger, my job is to keep breathing and not jump. I’m not the one flying this thing. The pilots know what they are doing (insert your Higher Power here).

Turbulence, even severe turbulence, doesn’t mean we’re crashing. It just means we’re traveling and making progress toward our destination. Mechanical problems and delays rarely result in the mangled and flaming tragedies we imagine and are normal to the process.

Recovering from childhood sexual trauma won’t happen without turbulence along the way. We'll face setbacks, delays, bad weather, and crying babies in the seat beside us. The secret to staying the course and moving from victim to victorious survivor is simple: Keep breathing and don’t jump.

Laughter and Tears

(This is an encore post from John Joseph.)

There’s often a thin distinction for me between laughter and tears. Folk singer Joni Mitchell pined years ago that “laughin’ and crying/You know it’s the same release” (People’s Parties, from the album Court and Spark, 1974). I’ve thought about that lyric many times. I’ve remembered it especially in moments of laughter that seemed to strike something deep in me, some sad feeling that could just as easily have come out as tears as easily as laughter. Emotions are funny things sometimes.

As an abuse survivor I often experience confusion around my emotions. I question myself when I feel something deeply and I tend to censure myself. As a child I had to “stuff” my emotions down inside because they weren’t acceptable in our family system. We didn’t deal well with anger or with any topic that was “embarrassing”. In this way I learned that my feelings were suspect, at best, and unacceptable, at worst. I grew up distrusting my emotions and never knowing what to do with them.

As I have matured in my recovery I have come to see my emotions as a gift. I have them for a reason and they point me to greater realities in life as I come to understand them. Someone has said that, “emotions are terrific servants and terrible masters”. This is true for everyone, but how much more for those of us who have been violated to the point of rejecting our healthy feelings and who have been forced to bury them deep inside of our shattered hearts.