Integrating fear and love: a story of sexual abuse that thrives under the iceberg
Revelations continue to emerge about the sexual abuse of children occurring more frequently than anyone wants to know. This problem continues to appear as a worldwide social problem on its face. Those who are shocked and horrified and those who continue to seek ways to invalidate the brave who lived through this experience seem to be making judgments, laws and social decisions without truly understanding this lived experience. Many like me who have experienced childhood sexual abuse quietly live their lives drawn to other wounded souls with whom they can share love and care when they have not learned to do so themselves. This ability to love and give to others is a wisdom disconnected from the spirit that lives within but that until it is integrated does not help the bearer. It also keeps us silent for fear of rejection from others who can so easily express their opinions on something that they have no experience other than what they have learned from books and research. While the research is useful, it is not even the tip of the iceberg of the thoughts and feelings that lie below and need an island of safety before they can emerge and be expressed. The investigation gives us ideas about a certain group but not the individual experiences lived. So this article is not about generalizing to everyone. It is my story, my struggle to find my voice and give words of expression to what I keep discovering lies under the iceberg of my life.
I think I came into this world with a spirit of Love. I loved life. He loved people. I loved my family. I feared my family. We had good and bad times. They confused me. They hurt me. They did what they knew. I did everything I could for them. From what I have been told I was the center of the world of my mother, grandmother, great-grandmother and grandfather. In conversations later in life, my stepdad told me that he thought she was spoiled and that he needed to get me in line. My parents divorced before I was born. I had episodes of childhood visits with my dad who has since passed away. About a year later, my mom married my stepdad. In my memory it was the December after my second birthday during a drive-in while my mom was having a baby shower for my sister that the abuse began. My mind flickers with fragments of that memory that haven’t left me. I remember being confused at first, but my stepdad’s face looked so happy that I thought he must have done something good. I was so excited when I got home that I tried to tell my mom, but she was too busy. The abuse continued until I left home at 17. I don’t remember how often it happened. I don’t think that matters. I remember the first time there was penetration and I started bleeding. I went to tell her and she told me to go tell my mother. She proceeded to tell me that this is what happens when girls grow up. It didn’t make sense to me because in my mind it had more to do with what my stepfather had done to me than growing up. But her face was happy and it seemed to mean something to her, so I accepted what she said and denied my own valid experience.
Fast forward to age 13. My mom found my stepdad in my bed one morning and all hell broke loose. I heard her say things like ‘you told me you’d never have another woman’, he’d say it was because she was wearing short nightgowns, my brothers were coming out of their rooms in hysterics and I was frozen in fear of ‘what had I done wrong’. Later my mother confirmed that it was my fault and she told me that she didn’t respect her but she needed to respect my stepfather. The situation left me feeling totally responsible. My stepdad told me that if my mom asked him to tell her that she had only been going for a while because she didn’t want to have sex with him. She never asked. (I’m not sure it occurred to me that they had sex. I think I had grown up believing it was between us, even though I knew it was going on with my other stepsister. I didn’t find out until years later that he had abused my younger stepsister. too.) I wondered how long it had been going on. I realized that it had been going on for my entire childhood. The positive that came out of the situation was that she now had permission to say no. It never occurred to me to say no. (My stepsisters told him no when they were teenagers and he stopped.)
Oh, I take it back. There was an incident when I was about 5 or 6 years old where my babysitter caught me and a couple of my friends acting like we were kids with penises. She was so mad and then she went and told my mom. Her faces were very angry. She really scared me and confused me, because my stepdad pointed her penis at me and put it between my legs. He was just representing my experience. None saw my behavior as a red flag. I also remember one time he had me in the playhouse and I heard my Nannie calling my name. She covered my mouth and told me to shut up. It wasn’t so much that I wanted to get away from him, but my Nannie was everything to me and I wanted to go with her. I remember realizing that she didn’t know what we were doing and he didn’t want her to know. He just didn’t know what to do with that information. I assumed everyone knew.
Other things happened during my childhood like physical abuse, emotional detachment, and multiple losses and moves. My iceberg is made up of so many issues that it’s hard to know what contributed to what. I survived physical and sexual abuse. I have no physical scars from either of them. Most of my injuries were to my developing self trying to integrate and make sense of the confusing messages and experiences within a family that seemed to the world like leaving it in the hands of a beaver. We were involved in church, scouting, school activities, and we had friends. I think that’s why I see life as both and rather than one or the other. We had it all. I also believe that the confusing and unanswered questions not only contributed to my guilt but also to my shame.
I remember after we got involved in the church and I learned that my sins could be washed away, I was so happy. I admitted that I had sinned (I didn’t say what I thought my sins were, but that I had sinned) and accepted Jesus into my heart. I felt a freedom and a burden released after being baptized. However, the shame returned. Sometimes I would get baptized while bathing and imagine the dirty feelings going down the drain. I just couldn’t seem
Letting go of my feelings that it wasn’t right. God couldn’t forgive me. He could forgive others. Now I know that it was I who did not forgive me. In my distorted thinking, being connected to the service of others was my penance for life. I think that belief came from never feeling like what I was doing was good enough for my family. I couldn’t get my parents to stop yelling and fighting and I couldn’t get them to stop hitting my brothers. I couldn’t make my mother a mother. Before I was 18 years old, the belief in my failures ran my life and I could accept any mistreatment as validation of God’s judgment on me and my ‘lot in life’.
Over the years I have confronted my parents and we have reconciled. My humanity needed them and by not getting my legitimate needs from them, I lived in great fear of abandonment and rejection. This fear organized my beliefs and motivated me from a place of fear. My spirit of Love could not abandon them and on some level understood them as children lost in adult bodies. Now I am learning to give myself that spirit of Love. I am learning to nurture myself and give myself the personal care that I deserve. I realize that it was not God who did not forgive me; I was the one who didn’t give myself up. I think it was easier to accept and take the blame and have an illusion of power and control than it was to accept my overwhelming feelings of powerlessness, helplessness, shame, and pain. The emotions were too much to bear, so they had to go somewhere. Children not only readily accept blame for adult failings, they resist any attempt to tell them otherwise. I see it every day in my private practice.
It is a challenging journey from the fear that keeps you locked in self-unforgiveness to accepting and validating your innocence and returning to the Love of your spirit.
Sexual abuse is not just about sex, it is a journey to integrate fear back into Love. Sexual abuse is not just about the sexual acts, but what happens after the disclosure. How sensitive can others be if they don’t understand the dynamics of this problem and that the experiences are individual, not general? The thoughts, feelings and experiences of each person must be honored and recognized, as well as their continuous integration. I experienced sexual abuse and it is not who I am; is what has happened to me. I am now giving those experiences a voice to add to the chorus.
