Cutting Yourself

(an encore post by Cecil Murphey)

Until recently, I assumed self-injury or self-cutting was a female response to pain. Increasingly, however, I hear stories of young men who are cutters.

I've never been a cutter, but I've seen the results of several who are. Some cut their wrists or arms, but I hear more of it occurs on the legs so it's not readily seen. My understanding as a non-therapist, is that it's a form of self-medication—a way to control the pain. Using a knife or a razor blade, cutters hurt and they use self-injury as a temporary fix for their extreme pain or depression.

From what I've read, most self-harm or self-mutilation hits between the ages of 15 and 35. They're not suicidal and they know it's not a solution, but it is a form of self-medication.

"I wanted to stop," a teen-aged boy said, "but it was the only thing I could do to keep from giving up on life."

He has gone into a year-long residency at Teen Challenge. "I can't help myself, but God can help me through the people there."

How Do I Love?

(an encore post by Cecil Murphey)

One of the saddest telephone calls I've ever received came from Joe, an Hispanic from the Chicago area. He said he was unable to love—he had known that. But worse, he was unable to receive love.

He emailed me and I gave him permission to call. He said he had met a young woman who claimed to love him and he assumed she did. "I don't hate her, but I can't feel any love for her—not for anybody."

Joe emailed after hearing me on a radio interview about sexual abuse. "It was done to me," he said. ("It" was his constant expression for abuse.)

I don't know how much I helped Joe, but I was aware that his actions as a 22-year-old adult mirrored what he had lived as a child. His attitude seemed to say that he experienced only powerful or powerless relationships. If he didn't exert control, others would "use" him.

"I feel like a zombie," he told me.

I felt sadness for Joe. Being abused prevented him from developing the capacity to express himself. He said he had never been able to talk to anyone about how he felt. "I had to remain silent or get beaten by my older brother who did it to me," he said.

"I want to feel loved; I want to offer love."

Everything I said felt flat and weak to me. As I told a close friend, "My heart went out to him, but I wasn't sure my words offered healing."

Joe has become a lurker on this blog.

What can you say to help Joe?

Control Issues

(an encore post by Cecil Murphey)

Every person I know who was sexually assaulted struggles with control issues. Or perhaps power issues is the better term. We tend to have to be in charge (in control) of things or we surrender and give up any self-assertion. Some vacillate between the two extremes.

I am a controller, although many people don't recognize it. For instance, recently I was at a dinner meeting and five of us were at one table. I started the conversation going and kept it moving. One woman was largely silent while the rest of us laughed and joked. When there was a pause, I turned to her, a woman I didn't know well, and said, "You've been quiet. So tell us five things about yourself that you don't want anyone to know."

Everyone laughed. I was in control. She responded in a joking manner and entered the conversation. That's what I call benevolent control. There have been other times when my assertiveness (or aggression) has been more self-centered, such as my need to protect or defend myself. In the past, if a conversation tended to go in an unwelcome or dangerous way I cracked a joke or changed the topic.

I rarely need to do that these days.

I'm learning to give up unhealthy power—the kind of control that belittles or hurts others. I want to submit gracefully to those who still need to assert themselves. I recently spoke at a conference and the leader did a few things I didn't personally like, but I thought about her actions and said to myself, so what? Who'll remember? Who will care?

In that instance, I knowingly and consciously gave up control and it was all right.

When It's Time to Forgive

(an encore post by Cecil Murphey)

One anonymous reader castigated me for pushing people to forgive. I don't push anyone to forgive, but that's how he perceived the tone of the blog.

For those of us who were molested, the time comes during our healing journey when it's exactly the right time to forgive.

Forget about forgiving—until you're ready, until you feel the need to forgive. When that happens, that is the right time to forgive.

Although I can't remember exactly when I forgave my two perpetrators, I know it occurred several months, perhaps a full year, after I began to heal. That day I ran seven or eight times around a small lake in a park. (The circumference was about half a mile.) No one else was in the area, and I yelled at my long-dead abusers. I screamed at them for the pain they had caused me. Just before I started my final loop, I was able to say, "I forgive you." I had spewed out my anger and, to my surprise, it was gone. I was ready to release my pain.

If anyone had pushed me to forgive earlier, I would have gotten angry and felt guilty. Angry because I didn't want to forgive; guilty because I would have felt I should forgive. And I've received the should message several times in my life. For me, forgiving and "letting go of the pain" mean the same thing. When I'm ready to walk away and leave the pain behind, then it's time to forgive.

The important fact is that each of us must determine when it's time. Some of us forgive quickly; others need longer to process through the pain. Regardless, no one has the right to push anyone to forgive.

Forgiveness is always a choice. 

And it's sad but some people are never able to forgive.

Easy Answers

(an encore post by Cecil Murphey)

"Your blog is full of crap." That was the subject line of an email from someone who called himself J A. He used a number of obscene words (and I was familiar with them). About the third paragraph, he wrote, "Your blog makes it sound so easy. Just do certain things and you're home free."

The only defense I can offer is that he read words that I didn't put in my blog. Thus I wrote an email with the following information to state my position:

* It's not easy to overcome childhood sexual abuse. It will probably take years.

* You have to accept the fresh pain of facing your old pain before you experience any level of healing.

* You have to be strong and determined to persevere if you want to overcome the effects of abuse.

* You'll probably never be completely healed—but you can get close.

* There are no easy solutions and there is never one answer that applies to everyone. Each of us has to find our own path to healing.

* Our abuse was personal and individual; our healing is personal and individual.

J A didn't respond to my email. I'm sorry J A didn't grasp what this blog has been saying from the beginning.

There are no easy solutions, 

but there is hope for those who are courageous.

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.

He Thought He Was Gay

(an encore post by Cecil Murphey)

Brian told me about his abuse as a child and said, "For years I thought I was a homosexual." Because he seemed to be a rather well-adjusted heterosexual, I asked, "Any idea what made you feel that way?"

Without hesitation he said, "Because I enjoyed it. From the first time I had an erection and it felt good." When he was a little older, he ejaculated. "If it was that awful, why did I enjoy it? I thought I was gay."

Until he was in his early twenties and after Brian "tried sex with a man once," he spoke of enjoying it and hating it at the same time. He didn't try it again and found it revolting to think about.

"Am I gay or not?" he asked himself.

Shortly after that, Brian visited a group that focused on male survivors of sexual abuse. "The penis responds to stimulation," the leader says. "That feels good, and that's absolutely natural to get aroused. But it doesn't mean you're gay. It means you have responded in a normal, natural way."

That was the day Brian started to say, "I'm a healthy, heterosexual male." It was also the beginning of a new life for him.