More Emotional Confusion (Part 2 of 2)

(an encore post by Cecil Murphey)

It's not easy for most of us to turn against someone we love and whom we thought loved us. Too often the abuser was someone within our family or our circle of relationships.

How is it possible to forget that relative or religious leader? Such people will continue to be part of our lives. Even if we avoid the perpetrator, others will speak of him. If the abuse isn't known, they'll likely speak well of him and wonder why we don't like that person. "He was always so nice to you," someone will say. "He really loved and admired you," another might say. We don't know how to respond and mistakenly feel it's too late to say anything.

Our perpetrator is rarely some stranger who assaults us. Most of the time it's a person for whom we retain good memories. The old man who assaulted me had always treated me warmly and kindly. He lured me into his room by giving me snacks. (And only in retrospect could I use the word lured.)

One of my friends told of his confused feelings. "What did I have to gain if I told on my stepfather?" By telling about the sexual assault, he not only felt he would lose his stepfather but the whole family. "And so I never did."

By speaking up, too often the victims get punished. They're not believed, or they feel they're blamed for "ruining" the family.

We're the victims of the abuse, 

and sometimes we're also victims of the ruined family.

Emotional Confusion (Part 1 of 2)

(an encore post by Cecil Murphey)

When a close relative abuses us, many of us experience emotional confusion. We love our aggressor—whether it's a parent, a sibling, or a brother-in-law. That person showed us attention and seemingly gave us the interest and affection we didn't receive from the rest of the family.

And yet we also hate that person. We detest him because he used our body for his own gratification, he violated the trust we put in him, and he destroyed our innocence.

As a result, we became confused and are unable to sort our contradictory feelings. How can we love someone we hate? How can we hate someone we love?

We deal with it in several ways, and the most common (in my opinion) is that we blame ourselves for the abuse. We don't know how to feel about our perpetrator so we turn on ourselves.

Here's part of my story. An old man rented a room from us, abused my sister and me, and my sister told. Dad beat him and threw him and his possessions out of the house. I was perhaps seven years old.

A few weeks later I was on a different street and saw my perpetrator sitting on a porch and yelled a greeting. He got up, turned his back on me, and went inside the house.

I wondered what I had done wrong. I didn't understand then what he had done to me and I felt some affection. And yet, because Dad threw him out of the house, I realized he had done something bad.

That's emotional confusion.

"I Hate My Body"

(an encore post by Cecil Murphey)

When someone makes a statement like that, the words disturb me. It's not natural to hate our bodies. Even if we're too fat, too short, or too anything, we still like our bodies. If we take care of them, they serve us well.

I read a report recently by a therapist who specialized in helping survivors of male sexual abuse. He said that slightly more than one-third of his patients reported that they had seriously considered suicide. Several of them had made at least one serious attempt. Aside from the mental anguish, some of them spoke about detesting their bodies.

The lengthy article went on to say that when questioned they said they couldn't live with the memories of their molestation. "The only way to get rid of the memories was to get rid of the body." That's the essence of several men's words.

They still bore the emotional scars, and suicide seemed to be the only way to free themselves.

I don't know if this is true but the therapist's conclusion was that the more frequently a boy was abused or the larger the number of abusers, the greater his tendency to take his own life.

If you're one of those individuals who feels there's no other way out, please get help. I was suicidal once, so I understand the feeling. At the last moment I couldn't go through it. I'm glad I didn't take my own life.

Get help. Please. And one day perhaps you'll also say, "I'm glad I didn't take my own life." And perhaps you can add, "I like my body."

Forgiving Myself

(This post comes from John Joseph*.)

Forgiving myself for my own sinful responses to abuse has been difficult. I have used the abuse a thousand times to excuse my acting out in sinful (to me) behaviors that have dishonored my body and soul. Those behaviors violate my belief system, my relationship with God, and my commitment to faithful marriage. Even if I didn’t physically engage in acting out, the mental/emotional cycle of addiction-repentance-addiction-repentance is enough to make me crazy.

Forgiveness is the ultimate creative act. It takes the aberration, the “sin”, the thing I don’t want to do but did anyway, into a new space that didn’t exist before, a place that says, “Okay, that happened, but it doesn’t define me. I’m not what I just did.” Forgiveness never ignores the behavior, but recognizes that the behavior is an indicator of a deeper need for connection, renewal, and belonging.

By forgiving myself, I create a new space where I can actually be more of who I really am and not be bound to the acting out of who I’m not, the addict, the broken, the depressed, anxious, or otherwise messed up person. Today, I forgive myself.

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

Hardcore Porn

(This post comes from Mark.)

I just reread your chapter "I'm Addicted to Pornography" in Not Quite Healed. Recently I got a cell phone. Last night I used it to access some hard-core, gay porn sites. I didn't want to, but I wanted to. Yes, in this area, I'm still a divided man.

I had not seen any hardcore porn for three years. (I say hardcore, because seeing a man's picture in the weekly Walmart flyer can serve as porn for me. My imagination can fill in what my eyes do not see.)

After church this morning, I confessed to my sponsor. He was gentle with me. Thanked me for confessing to him. Told me I hadn't had to take that choice. He asked me if I'd been able to confess to God (I had) and reminded me that whether I feel it, or not, I am forgiven.

He asked if I would be comfortable handing over my phone for his wife to see if she could install blocks to prevent a recurrence. I was, and I did. For me, the only other option would be to get rid of the phone. I cannot have devices that allow me that kind of access. (My sponsor's wife had already put Net Nanny on my computer, and she holds the passwords - that gives me a lot of protection when I'm on-line with my computer.)

My sponsor put his arm around me and prayed, acknowledging before God that I was hurting. He also told me he loved me. Touch and speaking the words "I love you" are not easy for my sponsor. Like me, he is also a survivor of childhood sexual abuse, family dysfunction, and addiction.

This afternoon, my sponsor's wife has sent me an email, expressing her words of encouragement.

Why am I writing all this to you? I appreciate that your book deals with issues such as pornography by sharing real experiences from real men. And writing this to you is another way of helping me to face the reality of what I did, in the light, rather than cower from it in the darkness.

I found it to be no accident that part of this morning's message in church dealt with Philippians 1:6: being confident of this very thing, that He who began a good work in you will carry it out until the day of Jesus Christ.

During my teen years, when I lived in a dark world of sexual sin and brokenness that I cannot put into words, God used that verse repeatedly to let me know that my life would not always be lived in that hell.

And this morning, hours after falling back into the sin of hardcore gay porn, God literally displayed those same words across the screen of my church.

As I look back at a very rough day, I see that God has responded to my failure with gentleness, tenderness, compassion, and restoration. All day long He has been saying, "Son, I love you."

Healing in Community

(This post comes from John Joseph*.)

Recovery from childhood sexual trauma doesn’t happen in isolation. Of course, we want it to, hoping that we’ll never have to share the grisly details of our abuse or have to feel awkward that there was some part of it we may have enjoyed. Childhood violation is a very complicated thing and always requires the love, understanding, and intercession of a community to progressively heal.

Telling our story in a safe environment is one step toward healing. Being able to receive the love and encouragement of others is also a healthy step. Coming to the place where we can own what happened, own our responsibility for our sinful responses, and even moving slowly toward forgiveness are important progressions often facilitated in a healing community.

The abuse happened in secrecy, but the way out is by acknowledging it and sharing it with others in safe environments. Much of my own healing has occurred in 12-Step meetings or one-on-one counseling or prayer encounters in which I could safely share what happened and how it has affected me.

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

Knowing Our Bodies

(an encore post by Cecil Murphey)

I'm sure that caused my distorted concept, but it now seems strange to write that. When I looked in the mirror I didn't see myself as fat, but I thought I was probably a little overweight. If you knew me, you'd realize how silly that sounds. My assistant, Twila, teases that I have zero body fat—exaggerated but close. I am thin, or sometimes people called me wiry. But I didn't know I was thin.

That's one of the strange things that happens to us survivors. Many of us carry around distorted perceptions of our bodies. And most of us know it affects our behavior and attitude.

After 20-plus years of dealing with abuse I've been able to look at myself and see what I look like. About a year ago I stared at myself in a mirror and thought, my legs are thin, aren’t they?

Right after Christmas I saw a picture of myself when I was about 30 years old, taken in Africa where we lived, and long before I faced my molestation. "I was thin!" I yelled out, hardly able to believe that I had always been on the slim-and-trim side.

As I stared at that picture I thought, if I couldn't see my body properly, how much of myself did I see incorrectly?

I can answer only that each day I see my true self a little more clearly. And even better, I like myself more than ever before. Or is it the other way around? Because I like myself better, I have a true picture of who I am.