I am continuing to work my way through the almost 1,200-page book, Atlas Shrugged, by Ayn Rand and am really enjoying it. I came across another quote that I am mulling over and wanted to talk about with my readers:
That woman and all those like her keep evading the thoughts which they know to be good. You keep pushing out of your mind the thoughts which you believe to be evil. They do it, because they want to avoid effort. You do it, because you won’t permit yourself to consider anything that would spare you. They indulge their emotions at any cost. You sacrifice your emotions as the first cost of any problem. They are willing to bear nothing. You are willing to bear anything. They keep evading responsibility. You keep assuming it. But don’t you see that the essential error is the same? Any refusal to recognize reality, for any reason whatever, has disastrous consequences. ~ Atlas Shrugged, pp. 417-418, emphasis mine
I am finding this idea to be true in my own life, and I suspect this is true for many people who are reading this.
I have talked about this concept as applied to child abuse numerous times. To survive the abuse, abused children lie to themselves about reality so they will not lose hope. They tell themselves that the abuse is their fault so they can avoid the reality of having no power to make it stop. If the abuse is “my fault,” then I have the illusion of control over the abuse – if I change my behavior (stop being “so bad”), then I have the power to stop the abuse. The alternative is to accept the reality that the child has absolutely no power to stop the abuse, which as Judith Herman points out in her book Trauma and Recovery, would result in the one emotion abused children cannot afford to feel – utter despair.
Sadly, the refusal to recognize reality runs much deeper than in childhood. If that is where the self-delusions stopped, we might be able to process our child abuse in adulthood and then be done. That has not been my experience. I feel like I lived most of my childhood and the first 15+ years of adulthood “asleep.” Since beginning the healing process, I keep awakening to more lies that I need to unravel. I thought healing would only be about dismantling my childhood lies (it was my fault, I deserve to feel shame, etc.), but so much of my life – in just about every aspect – is filled with lies that help me avoid reality, which has had “disastrous consequences” because I do X, expecting Y, and Z keeps happening. This brings me back over and over again to challenging my premises.
More tomorrow…
Image credit: Amazon.com
Blooming Lotus 
That’s a really interesting quote; I’d never seen those two tendencies as two sides of the same coin before, at least, not so clearly. I guess the child’s tendency to assume too much responsibility can be partially what leads to Stockholm Syndrome.
I certainly experienced that phenomenon, although it was caused by a different thing. I never believed that the abuse was my fault or that I could do anything about it (I posted somewhere before that I believe this may be a result of temperament/personality, just a standard individual difference), but I knew deep down that if I admitted to myself what the people had done, I would probably kill them, and I didn’t want to sacrifice more of my life by going to jail. So I bought into the lie everyone else pushed about familial love in order to keep myself out of trouble. It’s still a case of taking to much on oneself though.
Hi Faith,
My comment is not in response to your post but to your picture. In general, I find your blog very relevant and a brave exploration of the challenges facing us survivors. But I find that sometimes the pictures that you post can be very triggering. This one in particular – of a nude man – is surprising for a blog that is so sensitive to the issues of sexual abuse victims.
I understand that it is the cover of the book that you are discussing and yet since it is the second time that you have posted this picture, I cannot help but point out how triggering it can be.
Thanks,
Ani
Hi, Ani.
Thanks for letting me know the book cover was triggering. This book has been released in multiple editions, so I have replaced the image with a different book cover. :0)
~ Faith
The result of my trauma was certainly not a distortion of reality. Rather a life of living a reality that most do not have to. No choice involved.
The concept that I chose to have memories not stored in my consciousnesses is not valid or credible in my case.
As an infant I only knew what was going on was wrong as my reptilian brain knew it was wrong. Until I had enough food, water and shelter at age 5 for more than a few weeks my brain was not able to start to comprehend that was happening to be was wrong or even that it was not normal.
Much of what is called reality is really a shared delusion given more power only by the number of people that share it. Just picking Penn State as an example. The current goal is to get back to being the good thing that they never were in the first place. Anyone wonder why the other institutions of higher learning are not condemning Penn State. They do not want to be exposed. They may not have happened to support a pedophile. They all have the same mind set.
I am finding that the effect of the trauma that I have experienced is tied into the reptilian brains shun response. That to be shunned to the reptilian brain means death. Having been shunned as part of the MKULTRA program in the public school system and often by my family I know there is a difference between the reptilian brains understanding and what is commonly understood to be shunning.
I have often wondered if the acceptance of other saying sexual abuse will have a life time effect is not a way to belong. It does not have to be that way. It can be it does not have to be.
I can not gain back the time in this life that was effected by the abuse nor the time I needed and need to heal. That effect is permanent although in the past. There is absolutely no way to know the over all effect in any meaningful way.
What I am finding as I begin to accept my truth and my reality, and most important, myself, it that I am leaving “role-playing” or childhood “Pretending” and entering into a new world or reality and in this new world I am finding freedom of expression- I am finding a new-found friendship with myself. I am becoming my own best friend, my own best advocate. But in all this process, I am also realizing, that most the people in my life are “role playing” and have not any intentions of leaving their roles.
Children role play- naturally. I have heard that development is arrested in childhood when abuse happens. Did I get stuck in the role-playing stage, and now as I am finally able to move up, grow up, the role play is leaving.
And as far as lying to self, I don’t think that is what happened. I think everyone was lying to me and was so convincing, I began to believe and incorporate their lies. Example:
I leave with a fav. uncle who is going to take me to get an ice-cream. Starved for attention, I go and get my first ever Banana Split. Next scene, I am in room with several people- things happening I have no frame of reference for. Same Uncle- different person.
Next- in car on my way home. Uncle back to who he was. I am groggy. “Where am I?”
Uncle answers cheerfully as if nothing different ever happened. Hmmmm, must be a dream. Already, memories evade me.
Go home, everyone goes on as normal. Nothing different there. Must have all been a dream. Dreams are easily forgotten.
As I see it, it has nothing to do with “telling myself lies, but rather the world around me lying to itself and me.”
LizAnn,
I just want to mention that the term date rape drug is new the drug is not. One was called a Mickey back in the 50’s and 60’s. As I process the memory of what happened does come back to me. It is often framed by a before and after. We have often framed it that way and then worked on it later as a way to “manage things.”
Medicine back then was much different and then as now there were a lot of horrible people in medicine. I find it helpful to know that a Dr in 1955 had the same amount of education and training as a nurse did in 1973. That is for the Dr that started practicing in 1955. Other Dr really had little or no training at all. Pretty much if you said you were a Dr you were a Dr. it was not anywhere near as organized as it is now.
I know of one Dr who would take off a whole month and be involved with the cults. He “traded” drugs and abortions for his perversions
I know that at least three cults had a Dr that was very powerful in the cult. Then there are the MKULTRA Dr’s and what other Dr’s and the cults learned with them and what the cults learned from the Dr’s.
Even in the country/backwoods drugs were plentiful for many. Valium was easier to get than pot is now.
yeah, we have our suspicions.
I’m glad to hear that you’re enjoying Atlas Shrugged and that you find that it applies to your life. I hope you persist to the end; it’s a great book that I think everyone should read. If you haven’t read Rand’s other novels, such as The Fountainhead or Anthem, I recommend those too.