A Response to Hiding the Pain

(This is a response from Roger to the last blog post. I thought it should be shared.)

There is so much of my childhood I cannot remember. I sometimes wonder if I want to remember it. I know there were lots of good times; at least I think there were. But I can't seem to recall much at all. To be honest I am afraid to remember because I really don't know what all was done to me and more to the point I don't want to remember what I may have done too.

Deep inside when I read posts like this there is a deep uncomfortable feeling in my chest that rolls around for a while till I can distract myself with other activities. My life is good right now, why would I want to submerge myself in something so terrible and so long ago? What good could come of that at this point in my life? I just don't know and not knowing I suspect is better than knowing and facing the pain.

For me, there is enough pain and things to work on right now. Why would I want to add anything else on my plate when it is already full? I am determined not to crack up like my dad and do something stupid. I just want to survive.

Hiding the Pain (Part 1 of 2)

We hide our pain in many ways. The obvious is by denying it and refusing to admit it. One time, early in my healing journey, I mentioned an abusive experience to a small group and said, "But I'm over it."

One of the men in the small group said, "You're not over it."

"But I am—"

"Your voice and your face show otherwise."

And he was correct. I was hiding the reality from myself. No one ever asked if I had been sexually molested and physically beaten. And that's not a blaming statement, but I had no memories of the sexual assault until I was 51 years old. One day, while running, the painful memories tumbled out and I couldn't stop them.

In retrospect, that experience of being confronted said I was ready to face my pain. It also told me that all those years I had hidden the pain deep, deep within.

Shortly after the memories returned, I had a dream. I was underwater and saw a huge cement structure. As I got closer, I saw it was encrusted with seaweed and rust and sealed with a padlock. I wondered what was inside. I pulled at the lock, it broke and a passageway opened up and I stared inside.

"I didn't know that was down here." Something between revulsion and fear grabbed me even though I don’t remember what I saw. Then I awakened. Later, I realized my dream was telling me that my pain had been hidden and sealed—and had been that way a long time.

Now the lock was broken and the past had been unlocked.

Then the pain began.

But so did the healing.

Safe Boundaries

Because of my chaotic childhood, boundaries didn't seem to exist in our family. If any adult wanted anything, we gave it (even though we might have done so out of resentment).

Others intruded on our privacy by asking us questions I now realize were inappropriate, and treated us as if we had no rights. It didn't occur to me to refuse to answer.

Years later, I learned something about establishing safe boundaries. The lesson is so simple I've hesitated to express it: I can't set safe boundaries without acknowledging my susceptibility. It seems obvious now but it didn't in the past.

The first time I remember closing my bedroom door, without fear of being yelled at, was shortly after I married. I started laughing, and my wife asked me why. I said, "Now no one can come inside."

When Shirley looked puzzled, I explained that in my home none of us dared close a door. That was the end of the conversation; however, years later, when I began to face my sexual assault, it hit me: I closed the bedroom door as the first awareness of my defenselessness. Inside that room I was safe.

In many ways, I began to face areas where I felt unsafe. I associated that word with vulnerability. My dictionary defines the word as being easily hurt or harmed as well as open to attack. And there's another factor. The word vulnerable comes from the Latin word for wound, vulnus.

After I mentioned the origin of the word, a friend commented, "So once you face the vulnus, you are able."

I thought that was a clever way to say it.

"I'm able to heal," I said, "because I'm learning to establish safe boundaries."

I'm still learning.

Vulnerability and Weakness

For a long time I was afraid to be vulnerable—I didn't want others to see my weaknesses. If they saw me for who I truly was, they'd surely despise me.

But one day, a group of church leaders held an open discussion on sexual abuse. A recently retired professor from a seminary talked about sexual abuse and defined it exclusively as males penetrating females. Penetration was his primary word, which he used several times. When someone asked him about males being molested, he refused to admit that possibility.

Finally, one man stood and said, "Sir, maybe men can't be molested, but boys can. And they are molested! And your ignorance and closed-mindedness only perpetuates the myth."

Spontaneous clapping broke out before the man added, "I was six years old when I was molested—by my aunt—so don't tell me males can't be abused, and I refuse to submit to your macho BS."

More applause broke out. The old professor stared stonily ahead and didn't say another word.

That courageous man who spoke up did so much for me. I had only been dealing with my abuse a short time before that meeting. It must have taken great courage for him to speak up, especially to refute an authority figure.

He isn't weak, I thought. He's strong. It takes deep, inner strength to do what he did.

Over the next few days, I pondered that event and realized something: It takes the greatest amount of bravery to be transparent. It took a man of immeasurable strength to stand defenseless in front of others and expose himself.

From that time on, I wanted to be like that strong man.

The Inner Circle

Over the years, many other men said, "You're my best friend," and they sincerely meant it. But none of them was my best friend. That's not to blame them, but to admit I didn't know how to open up and trust another man.

Several men included me in their inner circle; I wish I could have included them in mine.

I wanted to open up, but I couldn't. My trust had been stolen as a child, and for me to expose my inner feelings was to suffer the abuse again. It seemed safer to lock up my past.

I had my inner circle—which consisted only of myself. For a long time, I couldn't even open up to my wife, and yet she was the most loving and trusting soul I knew.

My first break came through a friend named Martin. He told me that at age 15, his drunken mother had seduced him. After he told me, I marveled that he trusted me with that deep, deep secret. Years later, he told me that I was the first person he'd told, and that it was the beginning of his healing.

Another man, Steven, assaulted by a teacher, cried as he talked of his trauma 40 years after the fact, but I sensed he experienced some healing just from the act of sharing.

Martin and Steven included me in their inner circle, even if they didn't use those words. They also opened the door for me by modeling trusting behavior.

When I haltingly told my wife about my childhood assault, I expected rejection and revulsion. Instead, Shirley said, "I'm sorry," and hugged me. That same day, I told David, who later became my best friend. Just by the way he listened, I knew he accepted my pain. He didn't try to fix me; he simple accepted me.

Shirley and David were the first members of my inner circle and because of them, I could invite others into it.

As I openly spoke of my pain, I was giving others permission to face their past and open up.

Filling the Holes

Long ago I read the statement that we abused men have holes in our life buckets. Nice imagery. The obvious meaning is that we can never live a full life until we do something about getting rid of those holes. Many keep trying to fill the bucket, unaware of the leaks from the bottom, and they don't understand why they aren't healed.

For instance, years ago I was a member of a group of six men that met every week. The first week, John stated he felt like a bag of manure. Four years later, John was still talking that way. He had been in therapy for more than a decade but hadn't gotten better. To use the bucket image, he was filling the bucket with good things, but he wasn't doing any work to seal the holes.

Repairing the bucket is hard work, and we may have to try to seal it several times before we figure out how to do it effectively and to make it last. In my case, turning to God gave me the courage to repair the holes. I needed to realize that I couldn't do the repair work myself, but only through divine intervention help.

God may not be the repair kit for everyone, but he was for me.

And he has been for countless others.

What are you doing to fill the holes?

Running from the Past

My friend Gary Roe sent me a copy of his book Heartbroken: Losing a Spouse. Much of what he writes applies to healing from abuse as well as from the loss of a spouse.

One sentence stayed with me long after reading: "As we allow ourselves to feel the pain, our hearts will begin to heal."

Wonderful words, but the problem comes for many with the statement, "allow ourselves to feel the pain." That's what many won't or can't do.

"It hurts too much," is a common response.

Of course it's painful and traumatic. If it didn't hurt, the healing would have taken place long ago.

Instead of facing the situations, too many medicate themselves so they can run from their past—and it's not a conscious choice. It's our individual way of coping. Some resort to drugs, others by cutting off their emotions. My medication was busyness. For years, I was a driven man but had no awareness of it. "That's just the way I am," I often said.

Gradually, I learned to stop running (which is what my busyness was accomplishing). I wrote gradually because that's probably the best expression I know.

After I became aware, I decided to do something about coping with my drivenness. I read everything I could on how to live in the present and slow down. Taking time to read, in itself, was part of my slowing down. Yet slowing down was painful because I had time to think. And to feel. But I stayed with it and I'm making progress.

The struggle to run from my pain was useless. I couldn't outrun my childhood trauma.

But I could face it.

And I have.