On my blog entry entitled Not Recognizing Self in Mirror after Child Abuse, a reader posted the following comment:
It’s amazing to me how our culture and “the law” view abuse and how it is handled as opposed to the reality of it. It’s almost as though as a society we treat it like, it’s wrong, but not THAT bad. Put the abuser in jail for a few months, maybe and that’s the end of it… the child will forget and be just fine. End of story. It’s like it just never ends, right down to the fact that a lot of society just keeps on victimizing the victim and the perpetrators get a slap on the wrist.
I’m not sure this has anything to do with looking in the mirror, but it just hits me sometimes how EVERY facet of a persons life gets effected by abuse. The simplest tasks can require Herculean effort to maintain…. and it goes on and on, it doesn’t just stop one day. And for this a person may have to spend a little time in jail. It’s just so unfair and frustrating. ~ Mia
This comment really struck a nerve because it came on the heels of someone offline making a comment about a child being “molested.” I really, really hate the term “molest” because it means “to bother, interfere with, or annoy” ~ Dictionary.com. As Mia so eloquently stated, what I experienced at the hands of my abusers was so much more than “being bothered.” I can get over “being bothered.” “Being bothered” does not cause me to have ongoing insomnia, nightmares, flashbacks, and recurring triggers.
Also, as Mia pointed out, society has this ridiculous idea that children simply “get over” trauma. It is just coincidence that their lives explode after puberty with drug addictions, promiscuity, self-injury, eating disorders, etc. Those behaviors are viewed as separate, unrelated issues from the childhood trauma because “children are resilient.” I don’t remember where I heard this line (I think it was in a movie), but I think it is so true: “If children are so resilient, then why are there so many f@#$ed up adults?”
Have you ever noticed that only an adult (and typically only an adult woman) is referred to as “being raped?” If it is a child, s/he was “molested,” and s/he will get over it because “children are resilient.” People view an adult woman getting raped one time as being a traumatizing experience, but a child being raped 100 times is only “molestation” that the child will “get over.” WTF??
Call me jaded, but I think one reason for this shift in perception is because adult women can vote and children cannot. So, we have to take an adult voter’s experiences more seriously than a child’s experiences. Also, if we delude ourselves into believing that children are “resilient” and simply “get over” whatever happens to them, it absolves the adults from responsibility for protecting the children. Whatever the reason, it really makes me angry.
Photo credit: Hekatekris
I think it’s because of how grave the issue actually is.
You’ve said before, people don’t want to hear about children and rape or anything that involves sexual acts and kids. In the minds of people who are in denial, “Kids can’t be raped! Shut your mouth!” So ‘molestation’ fills that space. They’re right, in that it shouldn’t happen, but it’s sad that they can’t believe that it does happen.
People tiptoe around children in terms of sex. What I mean is, one generally doesn’t talk straight to a kid about sex, and much less about rape, if that subject is even broached.
I think this language, ‘molestation’, is some kind of weird and erroneous attempt to protect kids:
“Talking to children about sex, I must use less powerful terms so as not to scandalize them,” turns into:
“Talking about children and sex, I must use less powerful terms so as not to scandalize others.”
Maybe it’s adults protecting themselves and the mental image they have of children as being pristine and pure beings. That image must be preserved at all costs, even if it means minimizing or ignoring the terrible things done to children. So long as they still *seem* pure. But ignoring something, doesn’t make it go away. =\
I think Janet makes a very good point. Time after time it comes back to people just not wanting to think about bad things happening. Just World Phenomenon at work partly, I suspect.
“It is just coincidence that their lives explode after puberty with drug addictions, promiscuity, self-injury, eating disorders, etc.”
This really hit a nerve with me. Here in the UK at the moment there is a drive by the Government and media, working together, to paint anyone who cannot work due to illness and disability as lazy and feckless. They particularly have it in for people who are overweight or addicted to drugs and alcohol, engineering hysterical headlines about “X number of people TOO FAT TO WORK”, “£xMILLION GOVT HANDOUTS TO SMACKHEADS”. Those of us in the disability rights movements are trying to get it through to people that drugs/alcohol/obesity are very rarely illnesses in themselves, but symptoms, and with 1 in 5 children of High School age recently found to have already suffered abuse/neglect [Kidscape survey, I think], abuse is a very strong probable cause. In the USA I gather it’s even harder to get disability-related welfare.
Anyway, the tabloid “newspapers” (owned by R Murdoch for anyone who’s interested) who print all these stories are exactly the same ones that run endless voyeuristic stories about paedophilia and name and shame innocent people as paedophiles, stirring up vigilante groups against them, thus ruining their lives, and they *refuse* to see any connection between the evil deeds of the “PAEDO SCUM” and the incapacity of the “WELFARE SCUM”. I think their attitude encourages the same double-think in their readers. While we’re still children we’re “little angels” (though I notice that’s no guarantee of getting any help), but if we’re so damaged we can’t work, as soon as we hit 18 we turn into “filth” and “drains on society”. It really doesn’t help.
Thank you Faith. You said that SO WELL! These are thoughts I’ve had for some time now and it feels good to see someone else voice them. Now if only this post was front page news around the world ….
Dawn
I don’t understands societies view about anything. I can not relate.
I do think that trauma for those that have not faced theirs or have not experience trauma it is seen as an event with a beginning and an end.
I think people delude themselves into thinking they both handled what ever trauma they experienced and that they could handle any trauma.
People tend to see things only as it relates to them and their experiences. This is even true of those that have experienced abuse. I have heard that rape is the worse thing that can happen to a child. That does not relate to my experience. There is an emphasis on sexual abuse which seems to overshadow other types of trauma.
When the abuse of a child is stopped and it is news worthy there are statements that include rescued and saved where the reality is it can or can not be the start of being rescued and saved.
I was involved as a board member taking away the right of a minister to practice in the United Church of Christ. I saw one of my fellow board members and was told this minister is not again practicing under supervision. He seemed pleased with the result. I asked him how are the victims doing. He babbles something and I replied. “You do not know do you.”
My head tells me the way to have society address abuse is to show them it is in their best interest.
Hi, Michael.
Having experienced numerous forms of abuse, the “worst” abuse that I experienced was the emotional abuse. I’d take 100 childhood rapes over seeing my dog killed while believing that I “chose” the dog’s death any day.
You are right — people often can only relate to what they have experienced themselves. When you have endured trauma of any form, it’s hard to imagine that it could have been even worse. :0(
- Faith
Just to add I agree Michael that other forms of abuse can be as bad as sexual abuse and society even more blind to them. Being made to watch others being hurt etc. There’s no straightforward hierarchy of abuse e.g. oral rape less bad than vaginal/ anal rape etc. It is all inhumanity and affects individuals differently and personally.
As a society, we don’t value children, or their experiences the way we should. But that also includes me, who says what happened to me wasn’t that much. It’s because I’m used to disbelieving myself — something I was taught. And on it goes…
Faith
This post really speaks to my heart.
People often tell me I have a big heart and I’ve a friend who survived torture in a warzone who says it is because of my big heart that I survive, psychically, all I went through.
Why does society not have this same big heart? To me, society – with such rare exceptions – prefers to be blind, deaf and dumb (no insult to people with those afflictions meant, I am of course speaking metaphorically) to abuse.
Children are still seen as animals to be broken even by mainstream mothers who use such techniques as ‘controlled crying’ instead of listening to and attending to their children.
The flipside of all this is that I truly believe we survivors hold some of the keys to a more positive human future, because we have seen, and somehow survived, the worst of human nature but are still able to seek out the good in each other and to affirm it.
In my mind, there will have to be a lot of changes to society before things get better: to name a few – people will have to stop self-sacrificing (either to the Army, to career burn-out, etc); people will have to spend much more time listening to each other and to children; people will have to value humanity over material wealth (in that sense, I am a committed communist, just don’t believe in violence of revolution); people will have to use their own minds to see that there truly are dark forces at work in society and decide not to give their power away to big organisations, to false politicians etc.
I am not religious but many good religious people who don’t just join a church to conform I think would agree with some of the above.
We definitely have a right to be angry about society’s denial and minimization of abuse: I always use the word ‘rape’ and ‘torture’ for what I went through. As a good friend said, it was nothing less than that.
Being made to watch your beloved dog die was definitely torture, and it was deep inhumanity towards you by someone psychopathic.
Unfortunately society often chooses psychopaths for its leaders. I’ve read alot about why this could be, it’s not easy to understand but again I think we readers of this blog are more likely to have insights into this because of our past.
I’m honored that you would reference me Faith. Honestly, our system is so broken and the people that run it are so entrenched in the dysfunction it makes me wonder how anything of value and goodness ever gets done.
I can’t even comment further because it’s sort of like a red hot trigger for me.
Anyway, thanks for all you do and for your kind reference. It’s good to give our triggers a voice.
Peace,
m
Barbara,
I agree that people do not value children. The can not see who they are only what they might become.
I do think it is getting better. My parents saw me as the eldest son as one to become wealthy to take care of the family. Might have worked if they did the protect me thing rather than try an make me strong by having me take care of myself as soon as I could walk. Perhaps before that.
When I am with a child I consider it a gift it is as simple as that. Some adults think that the child is privileged to be with them.
My biggest thrill so far as and artist is one of my marbles was taken to show and tell. How neat is that!
Michael
congrats on your marble being taken for show and tell!
Thanks Lilo
I think that the atrocities that some children live through are just so hard for ones who to have to listen to, and acknowledge. It messes up their perception of a “safe” world. I have not even been able to read about Faiths dog. I just know that will absolutely plunge me for days, maybe months trying to work through the why and how could someone do something so horrible? I am way too sensitive. One of my best friends will not allow me to tell her any details about anything I went through simply because it distresses her so much. I respect that. I have others that can and will listen.
In times past, children were to be “seen and not heard.” I grew up with the idea that I was not going to count, be important, until I became an adult. I had no rights at all, no right to be.
That is just how it is though. Faith is doing something very commendable here on this blog in beating a path through the ignorance of general society about what it really is like to live through and then later deal with childhood abuse.
I don’t fault people. Who knows how we would be given their position. They have not walked in our shoes nor have we walked in theirs. And I would not wish any of this on anyone.
thank you for this post. i also hate the term molestation. i also don’t like the term sexual abuse. i prefer to say that i was terrorized and tortured, because that is what it felt like.
Another thing to note is that people seem to not connect that children WILL grow up and vote. And often become bigger/taller/stronger than the abuser.
Thank you for this validation. I really thought I WAS resilient until recently. The trauma doesn’t go away. It grows untended and disfigures. It sucks life from your soul. We have a long way to go, spiritually, psychically, as humans.
Faith, will you ever, or have you already, have a dog again? You will outlive it even if it has a long life, probably, which is the downside, but I can see it as something so healing for you in more than one way.
Treating children like they are not people or are less valuable people has to be one of the most prevalent and ignored forms of discrimination out there. And it seems so obvious that you can’t grow up to be an adult with a strong sense of self-worth unless you felt that as a child. I get glimpses of feeling ‘worthy’. But mostly every time I venture out of my shell feeling like I have something to express in the world I get absolutely knocked down by feelings of unworthiness. I have been able to create a pretty ‘normal’ exterior- I don’t have drug/alcohol issues or an eating disorder and I am for the most part able to conceal what people might call my ‘laziness’, but I still feel like even some of the kindest people I know will tell me to ‘get it together’ or ‘get over it’ if I share the pain I feel. After all, it was a really long time ago… Maybe I am not giving people enough credit, but I don’t imagine many people will willingly sign up for supporting me with this. Anyhoo… just feeling kind of dark today… therapist moving away and I have been isolating myself emotionally from friends lately so feeling kind of alone. Here’s something I have been wondering about and would love to hear back on: I feel like I could really benefit from having a romantic partner in my life (which I haven’t had for several years now, other than a couple of very brief interludes). Is it fair to invite someone into this world? Would anyone willingly join me here? Or do I need to heal to some degree first? Just thinking about dating seems to activate the evil wolf… but I feel like some of my healing can only happen if I am willing to open up to someone in this way… Thoughts?
I just wanted to add I have no problem with a person who can not deal with me speaking about trauma. It is the not being able to deal with it and stating that it is not important or does not matter I have a problem with.
I respect that some therapists can not handle all types of trauma as it is to much for them. Stating that it is definitely not part of healing I am not OK with.
The therapist that I was seeing when the memories first came into my consciousness understood that she was not the one to be my therapist and helped me find one that was.
Mental health professions seem to differ from other professionals as they do not refer other than a therapist refers to a psychiatrist.
Admittedly in my profession I know more about what is ahead than a therapist. I can also work along side someone if I get in over my head. I have told clients that I am not the one needed in the middle of a project. It is in any ethics that I have ever read that a professional does not practice what they are qualified go do if they are not component. It is also in all ethics that I have read that they do not reject the understanding of their profession.
As an example I do not feel that wetland exist on a 15% slope. I have to delineate them as that is the standard. I don’t get to not believe in them.
I remembered how brilliant Alice Miller is on this issue, there are a number of articles on how society needs to change to stop child abuse on her website.
Recently, I’ve come to realize, that I”m a lot less resilient than I thought I was…
Interesting comments. Hi Michael.
dog. hmmm.
Fortunately the dog we saw shot and killed (age 6 or 7) was right next door, right thru the head. The owner said he had rabies; gathered us children to watch. Oh well.
Dog. We don’t wanna go there (sigh). for other reasons. tho I do so sorely love animals. always have kept a pair of dogs. Don’t know why.
Everyone. It’s time to start discussing the COSTS of child abuse. Hit them (society) where it hurts: right in the ‘survival’ skill mode. Tell them about the monetary costs to their own pocketbooks in terms of dollars and cents and sense.
Look at it this way. I go to therapy (I don’t; can’t get nor afford). But that money (for those who do) is taken from your disposable income. That means less money for merchants. Affecting their pocketbooks. Affecting their lives. Affecting their survival. And this is non-abuse ‘victims’ of OUR abuse. People around us don’t know.
Look at the costs. Prisons and jails. Rapes and things. Police supplied counselers. The list goes on and on and on. PBS bulletins. Supplies needed by therapists in treating survivors. The $$$ costs to the survivors themselves.
I wrote a big thing on this. Question: should I post it on my blog? Will any of you use this as an auxiliary weapon in our fight on child abuse? We have only contacted one person on this and I’m thinking she’s too busy. This goes with my Marine Corps philosophy: you don’t go in with one gun blazing – you go in with them all (and a nuclear bomb or two if you can find one.) It would just be added to your current arsenal (blogs, communications, whatnot).
I am unsure. Apathy is a wonderful thing. People use it all the time in avoiding social issues; along with a sense of helplessness. Posting sad stories might stroke their heartstrings – but something that threatens their survival usually gets folks off their asses (see 9/11- which, BTW, is a birthday of mine. LO dry L’ing.)
Until later. Let me know. And take care of each other and yourselves. All the time.
With love and grace
Bowing out. (gotta go fix a pump/elect. system: won’t be back until midnite, probably, if I don’t end up as toast!)
LOL’ing!
Bye
Jeff, Friends, et all.
[...] His word was lay. He was a child rapist (I’ve changed this from molester after reading this link from Faith). He had no preference; he would and did sexual abuse both sexes – male and female. It [...]
To be honest, I don’t really understand this post- my feeling is that in the UK, violence to women is *fine*, but victimisation of children & animals provoke an insane response. But, and it’s a *really* big but, it is all lip-service.
The issue in the UK seems to be that they love to hate things, and what with political correctness, that attention has turned to paedophiles (where previously it might have been racial/gender or whatever targets). People * know* that children *suffer* in whatever type of child abuse, and get hysterical about it (as long as the target is white and blond/e, or there is a freak factor about it, such as a Nigerian witchcraft, …). But then there is a lack of meaningful support for the victims. Not enough welfare/health support, intolerant employers (I won’t start on my horrific situation, except to say it was with the authority responsible for child welfare policy for England), and being voiceless. All the focus remains on paedophiles, as I ranted about at
http://theurbanworrier.wordpress.com/2011/04/08/when-is-a-paedophilia-joke-not-just-a-joke.
Thanks for your comments about molesting vs rape; it’s really interestingto me to see how language is perceived- I’ve now lived long-term in two-English speaking countries and molest is far worse than rape. Australia isn’t quite as bothered about child abuse as the UK, but even there, children are worth more than women. A woman ‘being raped’ is just a verb; it’s something that happen*ed*. Being molested is something that goes deeper (the interfere part of the definition).
[...] blogger talks about surviving mother/daughter sexual [...]
Amen…I do think that to some extent, children are resilient. They *can* be, anyway, and more than adults. But I really don’t think that this happens with child abuse. More like…maybe your parents got divorced and you bounce back a little faster. [Truly, I don't know, as my parents didn't divorce. So I apologize if that's an erroneous example.] But like…things that don’t necessarily wound a child down to their soul. You can bounce back a little more, even though it obviously affected you.
But this? Oh no. This, I forgot for over ten years and it still affected me throughout my entire childhood and adolescence. It made me split. Staring into the mirror like there was someone else there. Constantly forgetting things. Self-injuring. I was suicidal when I was *9*. I wanted to die when I was 9 years old because of child rape. It wasn’t molestation. It was rape. I have a very hard time labeling it as such because of all the rationalizations that pop into my head. Things like–well, he pulled out. Well, he didn’t *actually* break my hymen. Well, it couldn’t be that. Well, his thing was inside me. And he didn’t just do that and take it out immediately. Actually, it was a game to him. He told me that if he DID go all the way, it would make me unlovable. How is it not rape? On more than one occasion, too, because it was a good way to hurt me, I guess. I don’t really know his motivation and I’m guessing I’ll never know. I don’t see how I can “bounce back” from that experience. When it was my own father who did it. I’m not that resilient. I don’t see how ANYONE is that resilient, child or not.
Although…I have also noticed that child abuse gets paid lip service and not much else. Like it’s so horrible that children are abused–but if it comes down to it, people don’t want to know that someone they KNOW was abused as a child. They don’t want to know that the child living down the block is being raped at night by her step-father. Or that the child next door is being beaten every day. It’s like they know about it in the abstract and of course, are filled with righteous outrage, but as soon as it comes down to “you know this person and you could HELP them,” it all turns into “I don’t want to be involved.” And I think that is actually the same for adults who have been raped. Around here, the most talk you hear about rape are *jokes.* “I totally raped that test.” “That video game raped me.” No, they didn’t, and no, you didn’t. It’s not a joke! And again–even if someone is vocal against rape–rape is bad, rape is wrong, rapists should rot in jail–it yet again turns into uncomfortableness and “I don’t want to be involved” when you find out it’s someone you know. Not everyone. But way too many people. They just don’t want to know and don’t want to bother. And meanwhile…God knows how many children [and adults, for that matter] suffer.
“children are resilient.”
No, we don’t think so. We think children are ACCEPTING. They accept what comes as part of their own lives. They may not like it – but they know no better. So they ‘accept it’. They may try to escape; may squirm away – but they ‘accept it.”
In our book “The Boy” we make mention of this animal type of acceptance.
“”….how much more abuse the child’s resilience could take before it broke and Jeff went insane.
Even the strongest things have their limits, a clinical part pointed out as another side admired the amazing adaptability of the survival mechanism mother nature had given her children, and even the most flexible of ropes can fray. … He suspected a lot of that so-called resilience wasn’t resilience at all, but an animal-like acceptance of events. In a child’s innocence, things happened because things happened. And sometimes things happened to them. Having no other reference, no ruler to measure by, they met the world with an unbiased eye, accepting what they experienced as a part of that life – no matter how bizarre the rest of the world might find it. Matt had often wondered if that was what innocence was – and if it was perhaps the very thing child predators found so appealing. But even a child could know pain was wrong, he mused, whether inflicting or sustaining it, and he was certain that Jeff had suffered more than his share. Both emotionally and physically, he thought sadly ….”
And how the Child sees it:
“words meant nothing. They were all long hot days, or long cold ones. Some were nice; more often not. It didn’t matter. Now was now. He accepted each day, moment by moment, much as any simple being absorbs fate.” (This also holds true for his ‘abusive’ situations.)
and that’s that. What “we” made of a child’s “resilience”.