On my blog entry entitled Child Abuse Survivor Beats Up His Abuser, a reader posted the following comment:
“Our abusers definitely destroyed our innocence, but only we have the power to let them destroy our lives”. I think that may be true in some cases, but not in all. Not everyone is born with the same capacities, tolerance and physical/biological and psychological make up. For some people, it does destroy their lives, and I believe that they have no control over it. If they did, why would they choose to have their lives ruined? I do see what you are saying, but I also see that they “choice” is simply not there for some people. ~ Mia
I respectfully disagree with Mia because to say that some abusers have the power to completely destroy some people’s lives is to give away our power. I am not referring to child abuse victims who become psychotic afterward – that is outside of the scope of this discussion. My focus is on those of us who managed to survive the abuse as sane people, although we might feel completely insane at times thanks to post-traumatic stress disorder—PTSD symptoms.
I am not in any way minimizing the profound aftereffects of being abused. If you have read my story, you know how profoundly being abused as a child has affected my life – suicidal urges, self-injury, eating disorder, anxiety, obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD), phobias, depression, etc. Nevertheless, my abusers did not have the power to “destroy my life.” I can choose to believe that they have this power and live my life as if they do, but that is ultimately a choice I am making that I can “unchoose” as I awaken to the truths of my life and shed my abusers’ lies.
Mia asks why child abuse survivors would choose to have their lives ruined. My answer is that they believe that their abusers have this power. If you believe it, then you will act is if it were true even though it is not. Take the story of the four-minute mile. Nobody believed it was possible for a person to run a mile in under four minutes, so everyone accepted that this was a reality, even though it was not. Then, one day somebody did it, and then other athletes did it as well. Once athletes believed that running a mile in under four minutes was possible, others succeeded in doing it, too.
If you believe that your abuser has the power to ruin your life, then you are not going to believe it is possible to live in any way other than broken. It will become a self-fulfilling prophecy. Because your abuser’s actions when you were a kid seem to continue to control your life in adulthood, you are going to become more and more bitter toward your abuser, which only perpetuates the internal “attachment” you have to your abuser. I used to think about my mother/abuser multiple times a day as I nursed my bitterness. I only found freedom from this when I recognized that the only person I was hurting was myself – she was going about her life without any sort of “punishment” from all of the energy I was putting into hating her. When I chose to stop nursing the bitterness, her life did not change a bit, but I found enormous freedom.
I truly believe that every (sane) child abuse survivor can make the choice to find value in his or her life and heal. What healing looks like to going to vary from person to person, as is the pace and direction of that healing. However, I do not believe that any child abuser has the power to completely destroy his victim’s life. A child abuser is not a “god” or superhuman person who has the power to completely destroy another person’s life once the victim is out from under his control. We, as the victims, are the ones who continue allowing the abuser to wield that kind of power over our lives once the abuser is physically out of our lives. The great news about this is that we have the power to “unchoose” this and reclaim our lives!
Photo credit: Hekatekris
Knowing that I am able in part due to fate I can go with my experiences made it harder to be me.
In a way taking the time to heal feels like I am giving in to the abusers, that if I suffer I am giving in to them, letting them destroy my life.
I often get the sense that the abusers wanted to destroy me as I was not like them. That I was an affront to what they were not. In a way they wanted me to be like them, when I was not they would get more and more angry.
I like Fosbury, the guy that won a gold metal going over the high bar backwards. He had to fight all his coaches and was ridiculed. I love the reason he did it. “I could not jump as high another way.”
Healing from abuse is lonely. There will be no gold metal or a hero’s welcome. Not only will achievement not be seen as overcoming a horror that many will have not experienced it will be viewed as if no such experiences exist to make it harder to achieve anything.
[...] Abusers Do Not Have the Power to Destroy Our Lives (faithallen.wordpress.com) [...]
Again, I get what you are saying, but you are coming from your own healing experience. Many things came together for you as you have explained and you had a great therapist, and you got away. Some people do not have these circumstances in their lives, and do not know how or are incapable of making these choices.
In this post, you kind of proved my point when you said:”If you believe that your abuser has the power to ruin your life, then you are not going to believe it is possible to live in any way other than broken.” This is the way many many CA victims live. Just because they are able to function in the world to varying degrees does not mean they are necessarily sane. (I’m saying this in general terms, including myself) When I was in my 20s I was completely insane, I just didn’t know it, and I made damn sure nobody else did either, or so I thought. I don’t mean any of this in a derogatory way, I just mean that you found your way out, and that’s great. Not everyone has the community, support and yes, luck and fortitude that you do.
Everyone has potential I think is what you are saying, but hell, if we all lived up to our potentials (abused or not) there would be a lot more rich, people with great jobs, fulfilled lives and happy marriages, but we are different. Not everyone is meant to live up to their potentials, and some just cannot no matter how hard they try. They should not be judged for this.
mia
Hi, Mia.
I fear we are right back in the same place we were (meaning as a group, not specifically you and me) a few weeks ago with my blog entry that spawned so many comments about us being the ones who heal ourselves. I am not judging anyone for moving at his or her own rate of healing (or not moving toward healing at all, as the case may be). I am not even judging William Lynch for his choice of beating up his abuser.
My point is that another person does not have the power to “destroy my life” or anyone else’s life permanently. Yes, I have suffered from many aftereffects and continue to do so (especially during this time of year), but only I can choose to live in a closet when I can open the door and live in a mansion. I can choose to believe that I only have access to the closet and that there is nothing on the other side of that door, but that is **me** making this choice, not my abusers. My abusers lost the power to keep me in the closet when I got out from under their control.
You are correct that I can only come at things from my own healing experience personally because that it what I have lived. But I am not the only child abuse survivor that I know. My sister endured the same abuses that I did and dropped out of high school as a result. She did drugs for years (until her first child was conceived) and has struggled with poverty for most of her life.
Nevertheless, she would not tell you that her life was “completely destroyed” by her abusers because she found value, beauty, and meaning that her abusers did not have the power to take away from her, such as her love for her children. It took her until her mid-thirties until she opened the closet door, walked into the mansion, and earned her college degree. She is now working on her Master’s degree, and she is not getting help from anyone else to do this.
I don’t know if you know this, but the owner and operator of Isurvive (www.isurvive.org) is a quadriplegic who runs one of the best online support sites for child abuse survivors from a wheel chair. People could say that her life is “completely destroyed” because of her physical disabilities, but the hundreds, if not thousands, of child abuse survivors who have been blessed by her website would tell you otherwise.
There is no question that child abusers can turn our lives into living hells. My assertion is that they do not have the power to do this permanently. They can tell us that we must live the rest of our lives in a closet, but they are wrong. We have access to the mansion by choosing to open the door. I apologize if some people are misreading what I am saying to sound like judgment, but I am truly saying these things because they are **empowering**. If you have the power, and not your abusers, then you have the power to improve your life.
- Faith
Clarification for Mia and others…
It just occurred to me that we might be talking about two different things. I view the comment “completely destroyed my life” to mean that, no matter what I do, my life will always be destroyed. It is possible that Mia (and others) are referring to your life being destroyed at a particular point in time. I definitely agree that is possible, although I refer to it as “blew up my life” because something that has been “blown up” can still be fixed, whereas “completely destroyed” to me means that the damage is irreparable. I apologize if my own meaning to “completely destroyed my life” has caused confusion in this discussion.
- Faith
I think too of people in third world countries, that have none of the opportunities that we have to even know that there is such a thing as healing. Yes, some people have no choice; Thank God for ones that do have an opportunity to heal and like this sweet woman Faith Allen, can reach out and hopefully give hope to others who may not have had any hope.
Hi, Heavenly Places.
Thank you for your kind words. :0)
Based upon what I have heard about some third world countries, some of them have advantages that we in industrialized nations do not. My friend has visited Belize three times, and she has never seen a happier population even as they run around barefoot and are considered “rich” if they own a bicycle. My friend says that the Belizians she has met have an appreciation for the simple things that we in industrialized nations have lost.
Now, that comment is not directed toward those who live in oppressive societies. I read “A Thousand Splendid Suns” and was incredibly depressed by the reality that there are societies where there truly does not appear to be any hope due to societal oppression.
I will be talking a lot in the coming weeks about the book “Women Food and God.” The author’s views are very similar to my own — that we find healing when we love and accept ourselves as we are. I think that, in non-oppressive third world countries, some people actually have a leg up on us in industrialized nations in doing this. The key to healing according to my therapist, this author, and others is learning to be present in your life. The photographs my friend has shown me from Belize (many of which I have used on this blog) are quite inviting to being present in the moment. I often wonder how much easier it would be for me to stay present if I wasn’t spending so much time using technology.
But I digress… :0)
- Faith
Thanks for bringing this up Faith. It’s a good topic.
I agree with Mia on this. I am not sure, Faith, that you are looking at this from one point of view. Abusers do destroy lives. People who were abused commit suicide. People who were abused can become child abusers themselves. I have seen many people in the hospital system who have become so permanently disabled and have such little capacity to do anything over a period of years and decades. Whether all these people are “choosing” this path or not, is debatable. I don’t think it’s as open and closed as you. That’s why I agree with Mia on this (or at least I think I agree with Mia).
Yes, it’s admirable that many have chosen a path of healing. That many have chosen not to let their abusers’ ruin their lives or define its course. But I don’t think this applies to everyone.
Of course, theoretically, everyone has a choice to heal or not. But this is what institutions were for where people were put there forever. Not everyone makes this choice. I think it must be because not everyone is able.
As example, let’s say someone permanently maims another person in a vicious assault (or gun shooting or something like that) and the victim looses his ability to walk and see. Would you look at that differently? Yes, many who are victims like that can choose to heal. But many also do not. In the ultimate case, let’s say the abuser kills the victim. In that case, yes, they had the power to destroy a life. My case, and I think Mia’s, is that these examples scale. If they have the power in these extreme examples, then they can have the power in examples not so extreme.
Hi, Paul.
I guess it is a matter of what a person considers to be a “destroyed” life. I would not say that a person’s who can no longer walk and see ceases to have any value to his life. Yes, his life is forever changed and will no longer be what it might otherwise have been, but that does not mean that the person no longer has value to his life. Look at Helen Keller — Most people would say that a person who cannot see and hear has no value to her life, but Helen Keller proved otherwise.
We can agree to disagree, but I refuse to allow another person to have the power to “completely destroy” my life. If I thought that my life could not be resurrected, I would give up and no longer bother trying to heal. Because I believe another person does not have the power, I feel empowered to fight my way to health.
- Faith
Yes, but you are speaking now from your perspective. Your perspective is that you will not allow an abuser to destroy your life. But abusers have destroyed many. The only argument one needs to make is that many who were abused have committed suicide. In that case, their lives were indeed destroyed.
No one completely destroyed me or took my innocence. All I can really state it that is possible with the extreme trauma that I experienced.
If it was fate or my own being that made that possible I can not know.
I only know my own self and my own experiences. It is helpful to know that some can heal and that is where my attention is going to be focused.
It is not possible to compare lives.
Hi, MFF.
I agree that we can only know our own experiences. I am just not going to be the one to tell another person that healing is hopeless — that the abuser “completely destroyed” his life and that there is, therefore, no hope for him. I simply don’t believe that.
- Faith
I would never tell anyone they could not heal nor would I tell them everyone can that it is all up to them and in their control. They may not have the same opportunity that I had. In fact it is doubtful.
I consider that not only am I lucky to get the chance to heal it took a great deal of luck. This does not take away from my efforts.
I would find it reasonable to assume that most do not get to heal that trauma is common and healing is rare.
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I guess it maybe the term “completely destroyed” does come into play a little, but I think maybe we just disagree. And that’s ok.
I believe that some people really do not have the knowledge/support to fight their demons for whatever their reasons are…. I think that sure anyone can make a “choice” objectively speaking to recover/heal, or do anything else, but life is not objective and is not lived objectively. I think more people would make the choice to heal if they had good support, if more resources and knowledge were available in our society. As it is, the possibility does not make it equally so for everyone.
It’s kind of like they say in AA meetings, (I’m paraphrasing here), but it’s something like, “we are grateful that we lived through using and are grateful for every day we are clean. We send good wishes/ prayers for our brothers and sisters who will die using….”
I do have ADHD, so I miscue quite a bit and it’s possible that I misunderstood your meaning, but I think we just disagree.
Peace, mia
Hi, Mia.
I am completely okay with agreeing to disagree. :0) I think it is helpful for different views of a topic to be presented. Then, other readers can draw their own conclusions, use what works best for them, and leave the rest. :0)
- Faith
Sometimes hope is all we have…..it’s just that some people can’t see the hope. That is when it is important for those who can see it, to show it as best they can to those who can’t.
Some may never see that hope, and I suppose that could be for many reasons, but it does not mean the hope isn’t there, they just are unable to access it. When this plays out in someone’s life it is a tragedy, and in a way at least a part of that person’s life was destroyed, but not all of it.
I am thankful to those of you who have spread that message of hope, it makes a difference, and we never know when another survivor just might catch a glimmer of it.
barbi
Have any of you read any of the author Torey Hayden’s Books? She was an educational specialist who specialized in working with children with elective mutism. One of her books “Ghost Girl” is about a ritually abused little girl. It took someone else to reach out to these children to give them hope.
Most of us felt so completely alone not realizing how many thousands of other people out there suffered as we did.
For me, I have lived a great life, been a good mother and wife- I stepped out of my parent’shome and left it behind. I read the Bible for myself and prayed and was saved and God gave me a new heart and a new and fresh perspective on life.
Yet at age 4o I began to fall into depression and started having nightmares. The first thing I did was to reach out and ask some that I have learned to trust to read a private blog as I wrote my story. (what I remember) One man that has been a friend for years, has been pivotal in my even trying to deal with my past because he showed me compassion, something I had never felt before. Sometimes it just takes intervention. Some cannot just heal on there own.
I cannot speak for ones who have lost their mind, that has not happened to me, but you have to wonder- has nobody ever taken the time to reach out to these in real loving concern?
Torey Hayden reached out to a boy who sat under a table and would never talk or come out for anyone. All she did in the beginning was talk and talk and talk and show an interest. It was a very long and grueling process to get through to this boy and to get him to a place of trust. But she was undaunted and she reached him. The story is fascinating and very sad- because he went through horrible abuse.
My therapist told me today, that I need to take my power back, because I do not feel anger yet, only fear, and most my memories are still repressed and whenever I get close to them, I freeze up in terror.
Its just hard to say- if we have opportunity, yes, we can tell others that no one can ever destroy them, and reach out and give them that confidence. This site has given me so much hope because I feel, if Faith Allen can overcome what she has been through- so can I. But what about ones that never are reached out to? What about ones who have destroyed lives?
Who can be the judge of whose fault that is? Until we walk in their shoes… I think I will leave that to God.
For me…when I believed that I would never be who I was meant to be, that I would never know who I really am or what I could really accomplish/become because of the abuse…that was as if the abusers still had power over me.
When I realized that I could still become all that I was meant to be, to discover who I really am…they lost that power over me.
It hasn’t been easy, some days have been the darkest, unspeakable hell where I wish that they killed me instead…but it’s also been an exciting, thrilling wonderful journey. Still on it.
It becomes somewhat frustrating at times, when people continually tell you that ‘you can change how it affects you now,’ and ‘you can heal from this–it doesn’t have to ruin your life–unless YOU LET IT!’ So basically, you are saying that it is my fault because I am doing something wrong, or not doing enough to change it. But you can’t change it!
Faith is coming from the perspective of being farther along in the healing process, where some of us, are in the beginning stages. I can barely look at tomorrow; much less see a year or five down the road. I can not, at this point, see that things will be any different. I don’t have any support, other than my therapist, and psychiatrist–NO ONE ELSE KNOWS ANY OF THE DETAILS OF WHAT HAPPENED! If I had the other support, maybe I would be able to see ‘the light at the end of the tunnel,’ but right now, when I see that light, I fear another train!
Everyone,
I ask this question in all sincerity, and I am asking everyone (not just Theresa) — How is my saying that an abuser does not have the power to completely and permanently ruin your life equate to me judging another survivor for not being healed? Why would any survivor prefer that I say that some survivors will never have the ability to heal and that they should just give up? Or am I missing the point of these comments?
I can understand a survivor feeling judged if I tried to place a time limit or method on healing. However, I am not doing this. My point is that, as long as you are still breathing, hope and healing is available to you. Why is that perceived by some to be a judgmental comment? I truly do not understand.
- Faith
That is not a judgmental comment. I understand what you are saying. I think that miscommunication is so inevitable on these types of things because people are so sensitive especially people trying to heal from a life time of abuse. I think what you are trying to say, is given the opportunity, people can heal, they do not have to allow their abusers to destroy their lives.
However, others, who may at this point, feel like their lives have been completely destroyed, may be taking that as meaning they have no right to feel that way, when in fact, for them, where they are right now, that is all they see- a destroyed life. They are having a hard time grasping onto that kind of hope.
However, you are just trying to give hope, and “light at the end of the tunnel” that one can reclaim happiness and soundness of mind.
It’s like the parable of three blind men feeling an elephant at different locations and calling it something different. They were all right, they were all just coming from different points of view.
I think you are the least person I would worry about being judgmental. You are caring and very loving and careful and I appreciate what you do here.
Don’t be discouraged. I run into this sort of thing a lot whenever I share some of my blog with more than a couple people and it is never easy for me. It just causes me to go back into my shell.
You’re doing a good work Faith, and I respect and understand your point of view in this article and I think it is very hopeful and enlightening. For me, to see what you have overcome, is astounding and FULL of HOPE!!!
Thank you, Heavenly Places. :0)
- Faith
I thought I did a pretty good job of explaining where I was coming from. I’m not saying that you are judging me–I’m just saying that, atleast right now, I am so far down in the muck, that I just can’t SEE that hope is even possible. Try to think back to when you first started realizing all of the horrible things that happened, and then maybe you can see more clearly where I, and others, are coming from. My abuse started as an infant, and continued many times a day, every day, until I was in high school. So I am not only dealing with all of the abuse issues, but, also with trying to understand why I never said anything. I feel like I ‘let’ it continue to happen. So, for me, there is just so very much happening in my mind right now, it just isn’t possible to see that there is hope, or that they did not destroy my life, because right now, in THIS moment, it feels like they did!
Hi, Theresa.
Thank you for explaining further. Now I understand what you are saying — it is about where you are **now** and having trouble seeing that things can ever be different.
When I was first in that place, it felt hopeless. Then, I found isurvive.org, and I met other child abuse survivors who had been where I was and were no longer there (or at least in a better place than I was). Knowing that others had been there and were now “out” gave me the hope that I needed.
I am not saying that I was always hopeful and positive — I definitely was not. Whenever I found myself in “the pit,” I would write about it on isurvive, and someone who had “been there” would offer me hope.
Also, six weeks into my “breakthrough crisis,” I experienced a four-hour reprieve in which I felt peace. Then, I got sucked back down. I would hold onto the memory of those four hours as hope that the fog would lift again.
Those are the tools I used in the early days and continue to use when I am in a bad place. I did not want to hear that there was no hope. I wanted to hear that someone else had survived this because, if they could survive, then I had hope that I could survive it, too. :0)
- Faith
This comment comes a long time after this discussion took place… but it ties so closely to a thought that has been on my mind recently that I need to add it.
When I was in my teens (before I had any recollection of my abuse) I can remember my mom making comments that stuck in my head. She was talking about rape- I believe she was speaking out of concern for my sister and me. She would say things like “It would destroy your life” or “you would be ruined”. And I believed it- that this was an experience so terrible that a person could never recover from it.
These words and this belief on the one hand convey just how terrible a thing it is to be raped- unimaginable, terrifying, damaging. But on the other hand, these words add to the damage. Not only have you gone through the terrible experience, but on top of that you are now “ruined” and there is nothing you can do to change that. Talk about taking away someone’s power!!
I’m pretty sure that this belief quadrupled the pain around acknowledging that I had experienced sexual abuse. I don’t know where I am in the healing process (I don’t think it follows one set path). Right now I feel pretty steady and strong, but I’ve also kind of “set it aside” recently- accepting the truth but not yet ready to look. I went through a long period of anger, terror and self-destructive thoughts, thoughts of suicide- this was as I came to terms with the truth of it. Could this have been less painful if there wasn’t such a stigma dumped on people who suffer this fate? The truth about the abuse was not going to go away- I had to acknowledge it. But that meant accepting these other labels: destroyed; ruined. I feel much better than I did then- but I suspect I may not yet even have begun healing the pain of my abuse. I think what I have healed is the pain caused by this very damaging belief: that one person can destroy the life of another. You can hurt me physically and emotionally. You can torment me and scare me. But NO ONE can EVER destroy me.
The possibility that we can heal from this experience does not dismiss or trivialize the experience or the pain it causes. I kind of expect that the healing goes on for a lifetime. But I don’t think this means I have lost the opportunity to be happy, expansive, radiant- to be my very very best. To be exceptional. To do what I want with my life. I am no “less” than anyone else because of this experience. Healing requires that we are willing to nurture ourselves. I found this hard to do when I saw myself as ruined. I am SO much kinder to myself now. And it makes all the difference.
Hi, Christine.
Thank you for these wonderful insights! :0)
- Faith