A social meeting I had recently with a counsellor included conversations about professional guidelines in dealing with child sexual-abuse survivors. He is both a survivor and a counsellor. His professional take was you never broach the subject or details of abuse with a survivor/victim unless they bring it up. I know this is the approach (or lack of it) because someone known to me was placed in counselling from the age 11 until 17, with the counsellor being briefed that she had suffered child sexual abuse TWICE…..once at the hands of a ‘random’ relation of her babysitter over the course of several days, and once tragically at the hands of her birth Father, now long-since estranged. And unbelievably, because the survivor never said LET’S TALK ABOUT MY ABUSE………..the counsellor spent all those years and resources discussing AROUND the issue, her annoyance with her Mother, her (unrelated) rage towards her Step-Father, her sibling jealousy etc etc …………..and the misguided (in my opinion) man even wrote his Master’s Thesis on his time of counselling and relationship with her!!
Talk about THE ELEPHANT ON THE TABLE………….THE EMPEROR HAS NO CLOTHES??????????????
Similarly, I was told of another youngster who had been abused/molested by her Uncle by marriage when she was 13. She displayed all the classic signs, lack of concentration at school, dalliance with drugs and alcohol in her teens, inappropriate choice of partners, sexual promiscuity, susceptibility to choosing abusive relationships, addictions etc etc …………….and yet I did not FULLY discern the depth of her suffering or the breach of her rights as a child and a human being, until YEARS later when I had the courage to say to her, “Tell me the details. I know it can be embarrassing. I know I can feel awkward and uncomfortable and shocked and horrified and squirming and guilty and so on and so forth……….like a much more serious version of a parent trying to tell their teenage kid about the Birds and the Bees………….but I will sit through the discomfort and embarrassment if you can trust me enough to go through the graphic details, detail by detail and moment by excruciatinng moment………….
How can we expect our child survivors to heal from the shame and embarrassment they LIVED through if we cannot even bear to broach the subject or LISTEN to their agony, so that they might re experience it WITHOUT the threats that always accompanied possible disclosure?? Their parents would be killed/lose their jobs/be disgraced…………..their siblings would be next in line to suffer………..the adults would die in one way or another…………or this was a way of teaching the victims a lesson/disciplining them etc etc bla bla bla
One teenager I worked with climbed into my bed on a sleepover…………which triggered me and made ME feel uncomfortable about whether that was inappropriate or might be misconstrued or was she gay or did she have a crush on me or bla bla bla…………..but it was not about me. She needed to disclose and I was her ‘safe person’. She told me of a family friend and frequent babysitter who had raped her. She told me of her attempts to tell her parents in a roundabout way which had fallen on deaf ears. She told me of her terror that her younger sisters would be next in line if she did not keep her mouth shut…………..
I was not a trained counsellor. I was just a survivor who could empathise and KNEW instinctively that the greatest service ANY adult or professional could offer a victim was a safe space in which to tell the truth. And not just say to the suspected victim……’You know, any time you wanna talk I am here’……..Sorry, but that is too passive!! You need to ASK the hard questions, OFFER and re offer the opportunities for safe disclosure……….and re open the wounds for as many times as it takes for the emotional cancer inflicted to be CUT OUT…………..so true healing can begin.
By supporting a survivor in going into detailed recall of each incident, (this is called actualisation in counselling terms), you allow them to re programme their emotions in a healthy way, thus empowering them to obtain some kind of closure. This takes out the ‘being stuck’ that so many survivors experience, and creates at least a better chance of true recovery. The shared experience of detailed recall, if done with a non-judgemental and empathic person, also de-activates the shame and guilt which is often so wrongly adopted by victims, and can render them emotionally crippled/paralysed and unable to move on.
Obviously with this approach one needs to beware of eliciting false disclosures or projecting one’s own woundedness onto kids whose problems may be as simple as I don’t like the amount of chores I have at home an I don’t like how my parents fight and argue. Believe me, by fostering and reaching out to many many damaged kids I have erred on that side of caution too, with one tragic outcome of a teen suicide. Not my fault I am clear on that. But I still feel bad that I may have projected. If a teen says they were NOT abused we have to honour that too, even if we think they are blocking stuff. It is ultimately their agenda and their time table, all we can do is facilitate. But not passively. That is my point in writing this note. Time is too short amd too precious to be either passive or politically correct! The sooner disclosure happens the sooner healing instead of acting out can commence.
So the teen who climbed into my bed on a sleepover with my daughter, after she had disclosed, ran out into the night in her pyjamas, screaming hysterically…………fell into ditches, sounded like a wounded animal that would immiinently perish……….found her way back to a neighbour’s house who was also a trusted adult and survivor herself. Rocked compulsively and seemed mentally lost forever. Until. UNTIL.
And that is my point again. She survived. Her disclosure stopped her compulsively self-harming and attempting suicide. She found herself on her healing path. She was successful in her later career altho that is not always an indicatior of true healing……………but she was on her way. And without the disclosure she may have succeeded in her very next suicide attempt even before the tender age of 16
So I would not dare to moralise or preach or judge or even unequivocally advise…………..I just speak with experience of being a child sexual abuse survivor……..of having seen the damage that can be inflicted by families who are too embarrassed or ashamed to deal with the issue full on, and not in hushed, ashamed tones…………of being frustrated with politically correct naive counsellors who let years go by without ever ‘going there’ with someone they know to be a victim………….and I also know that both addiction programmes and psychiatric units are vastly populated with victims of abuse who have never had a forum in which to disclose
I tell the story in my book and dvd of a woman in her 50’s, diagnosed and fully acting out as a schizophrenic, having her laces from her shoes and belt from her dressing gown removed for fear of suicide………..and telling me on a simple cigarette break that she had been raped as an 11 year old by a neighbour AND NEVER TOLD. She was 50 something. Her life was in ruins. We ALL need to be a safe space for people to TELL of their traumas so they do not need to act them out the rest of their lives………….so that they do not need to mess up in relationship after relationship after relationship………..so that they do not need to self-destruct with addiction…………..or worse, repeat the cycle into the next generation by their sheer woundedness
Anyone and everyone who knows me knows I love Jesus. Knows I believe He heals the broken-hearted. Knows I trust Him more than any human man that ever walked this earth. Knows I long to heal fully even at this late stage in my life. And knows I have found a JOY in living which is a kick in the teeth to past traumas. I may not always be happy but I always or almost always have joy, because I discovered I was loved unconditionally, and I found the key to healing. For the purists, forgive me if part of my life’s work is to show others how to WALK OUT this healing. It is rarely instant, almost always a path and a journey. Support and empathy with action along the way can shorten that journey and deepen the healing.
Peace, Love, Happy……………OUT xxx
p.s……………..I think it is ALWAYS appropriate to REPORT abuse to the authorities, tell and KEEP TELLING until someone HEARS you, and takes appropriate action, prosecution both legal and civil etc etc. And find support groups of like minded people, relating to people who understand is hugely healing. xxx
