YOUR
STORY
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Virginia
My Story:
A Note to Readers: Every survivor's experience is unique. These
comments reflect my experiences as a survivor of abuse on a journey of
healing and wholeness. They may give you insight into your experience
or the experience of a loved one, or they may not. I urge you to take
my words for what they are worth to you, and to take your own experiences
seriously.
I. Background
I was sexually abused by my maternal grandfather when I lived with my grandparents between the ages of five and eight. When I began to come to terms with the abuse at age 19, I was alienated from my entire biological family. My mother told me that I had false memories. My father said he couldn't judge my grandfather because he wasn't there (my parents divorced when I was a toddler and my grandfather was my primary male "role model" for lack of a better term). My older brother who also lived with my grandparents believes I am making things up. My grandmother has nothing to say, and my extended family members on my mother's side will not speak to me.
II. My Healing Journey: Beginnings.
My healing journey began with a choice I made at a low point in my life.
I was 19, and in my second semester of community college. It was a struggle
for me to get up in the morning, to cook for myself and to study. I was
quite depressed. Although not suicidal, I wondered if there was a reason
for me to live. I had just confronted the reality of what was done to
me by a person I loved and trusted. My mother had recently "diagnosed"
me with false memories. I was also worried about a few of my cousins who
were young and still had contact with my
grandfather. (Since this time, I have been assured that this contact is
not unsupervised, but I have no way of knowing if this is true or not
since I live on the opposite coast).
During this period, I became aware of several things. I realized that the choice for me to live or die was before me, in my hands, at every moment. I also discovered the conviction that there is no point in choosing to live if I am not willing to do all in my power to live fully. It was not enough for me to be unwilling to die but at the same time willing to live as a prisoner to shame, self-deprecation, diminishment and alienation from others. As I chose to live, I also made a commitment to heal, grow, love, and to be transformed in the process.
I felt bad almost all the time. I was frightened, discouraged,
disappointed and lonely often, so my decision to live and commitment to
healing and transformation were not easy. Since the experience of accepting
and loving myself, trusting others, and experiencing wholeness were foreign
to me, I had no destination to look toward. I didn't know if I would ever
experience these things. It was a sort of blunt and grinding determination
in the pit of my gut that held me together during those months and led
me along the first tangible steps toward healing.
III. Therapy.
It was during this period that I sought out counselling from a former professor at the community college I attended who is also a licensed counsellor. I had attended her course, "Psychology of Violence Against Women," which she taught with both compassion and insight. My specific reasons for choosing her as my therapist were:
1. I trusted her and felt safe in her presence.
2. She was appropriately credentialed as a counsellor.
3. She listened and responded to me in a compassionate manner and took
my experiences seriously.
4. She challenged me to grow and to move forward in a way that was helpful
and non-threatening.
5. Since she was also a survivor of sexual abuse, I felt that she was
someone I could look to as an affirmation that healing is possible.
One task I needed to do in therapy was telling and talking about what actually happened during the abuse. This was frightening and awkward. I found that there were things I literally couldn't say (like certain sexual acts, anatomy parts, and the names of certain emotions). I eventually got to the point where I could say these things without them consuming me. It eventually became okay for me to tell another person what happened.
Another task involved understanding and expressing how I felt about the
abuse. This was a strange process for me; I often didn't know what I was
feeling and had to learn to read my emotions through my physical sensations,
body language and reactions. It was quite like learning to read all over
again. For example, during one session, I made a comment about not feeling
angry at the same moment as I slammed a notebook shut
and thumped it on a table. I caught myself and learned that slamming a
book shut and thumping it on a table means that I AM probably angry about
something.
As I learned to read my feelings, I also learned to see them in the context of the abuse and my family's response. This was a slow process that continues for me today. There were certain feelings that began to come into focus relatively quickly (over a period of several months). Anger was one of those. I recognized and experienced my outrage at my grandfather abuse, his violations of my integrity and dignity, and how he warped my sense of trust and love. It took for other emotions and their contexts to emerge, but that happened too. What took the longest for me was experiencing the grief behind my anger. In fact, after four years into my healing journey, I am just beginning to be able to grieve for some of the losses I experienced.
Another task was to begin to recognize patters of abuse in my life and patterns in my own thinking and behaving that were consequences of the abuse. Like recognizing and experiencing feelings, this was a long process that is ongoing for me. The process involves lots of things. The two basic elements of this process for me are:
1. Exploring and adjusting my thinking and expectations of myself.
2. Exploring and adjusting my thinking and expectations of others.
I had to unpack all of those nasty things I learned to say to myself
over and over again as well as to see my (sometimes absurd) self-expectations
more clearly. For example, when I would raise my had in class and then
respond mistakenly when a professor called on someone sitting behind me,
my little internal tape recorder would start, "You're stupid, you're
bad, you're ugly, you're scum," and on and on ad infinitum. I gradually
learned to stop myself and rebel against these messages. I learned to
get at the self-expectation that
prompted all that self-deprecation--is it really productive to expect
myself to have eyes in the back of my head; to know exactly what is going
through my professor's mind when s/he points his or her finger at in my
general direction? I began to rebel against these warped expectations
of myself in the same way I learned to rebel against debasing myself.
Like all other tasks in my healing journey, this is an ongoing
process. As time passes, I am more gentle with myself, more reasonable
in my self-expectations. The same is true with my thinking and expectations
of other people. I used to fall apart inside if I asked someone in my
support system for some time to talk and they were unable to do so. I
have gradually learned that a "no" from somebody does not mean
that I am a despicable, useless person; it just means that that person
said no.
IV. Finding Family
Throughout my healing journey, during therapy and beyond, there have
been a few people in my life who have supported, loved and nurtured me
and who have allowed me to love, support and nurture them. These people
are not biologically related to me, but over the years I have come to
see that they are family. (If members of your biological family, like
so many who have shared their stories on this website, are supportive
of you that's wonderful! Cherish those relationships in the ways that
you can, and continue to let these relationships grow in trust and love.)
My relationships with these folks have transformed me
in ways I cannot express. Like therapy, sustaining these relationships
involved several processes or tasks.
One process was learning that these folks really love me and that it
is okay for me to love them. This has taken years for me, but what a remarkable
(if not fast) discovery!! My friend and mentor M., who is like a mother
to me, started saying, "I love you," at the end of our phone
conversations about six months after we became friends. At first, it was
scary to hear. I would think, "She loves me? What does she want?"
Gradually, I understood that M.'s "I love you," meant, "I
honour who you are, I value who you have become in my life" etc.
In other words, I came to understand the difference between M's authentic
love and my grandfather's abusive behaviour that he called love. I needed
much more time to move from understanding that people really loved me
to actually allowing myself to experience that love. That didn't come
all at once, but in little moments here and there. At first, the experience
was quite rare for me. But as time passed, and I continued to trust the
supportive people in my life, those rare moments
transformed themselves into a consistent inner awareness that I am loved
by them.
Sharing my love for those who have become my family was and is a
transforming process. Like receiving love, sharing it was frightening
for me. I constantly wondered if I would be rejected, manipulated, deceived
or hurt if I was vulnerable enough to express love for those I cared about.
I learned that while these fears can be help me avoid being abused again,
they can also hinder my relationships with people I care about and who
are trustworthy. I began to express love for others
around me by taking small-calculated risks with "designated safe
people," like my counsellor and my mentor M. Little by little, I
become more spontaneous with these folks and more willing to take calculated
risks with others. I have discovered that while not everyone is worthy
of my trust, there are many people with whom I can share love, care, and
friendship. In many cases, the risks have been worth the rewards.
IV. Transformations: Lessons I've Learned Along My Way
First, it does get better. My healing journey was and is not all about feeling horrible. Glimpses of joy and wholeness turned into moments. Moments turned into days and weeks. Days and weeks are turning into months and years. (This is not to imply that there is has been a moment at which everything turned "rosy and wonderful forever." I always have ups and downs, but these have become less like a roller coaster ride and more like the normal rhythms of life.)
Second, for me, the greatest question in my healing journey has changed from, "why is life so hard right now?" to, "what is life asking of me at this moment?" Victor Frankl, a psychiatrist and survivor of the holocaust came to believe that one can survive even the hell of a concentration camp with dignity and humanity if one holds on and responds to the question, "what is life, right now, asking of me?" My experience tells me that Dr. Frankl is correct. This question invites me into living fully, authentically, and compassionately a step at a time each day.
Third, as I continue on my journey, my conception and search for
wholeness are transformed. I no longer see wholeness as perfection, or
never feeling bad, or being at perfect peace. Instead, I have come to
see wholeness as integration of all the different elements of who I am
as well as recognition of my intrinsic worth as a human being. My search
for wholeness has changed along with my understanding of it. I concentrate
more on living out whom I am day to day than on worrying about what might
happen or not happen in the future. I am more at ease
with the both the wondrous and awful mysteries in life than I once was.
I can sit with those mysteries now rather can constantly seeking answers
that may be impossible for me to find. I am discovering that the source
of my wholeness is within me (and perhaps beyond me in a power greater
than myself) rather than in how other people think about and respond to
me. Finally, I am discovering that wholeness is not something that I "get,"
but something I already am, something I will spend my life growing into.
Fourth, reaching out to others who are hurting (if both you and the other person feel safe doing this) is a powerful source of healing and hope. I have no words to describe what it is like to have the honour of listing to someone share their story, their hurt, joy, hope, and fears. There's nothing like it. In being present with others in this way, I give what I do not realize I have to give, and I receive more than I can imagine.
Fifth, for me humour is essential to survival, healing and hope.
Learning to laugh with life, to see the comical dimension of
situations, and discovering the capacity for joy in others and myself
are wonderful treasures I have found on along my journey.
Finally, not only have I discovered that healing and wholeness are possible, I have learned that I deserve nothing less. I believe this is true for you or your loved one along with every human being. We deserve nothing less!
V. One last bit to share. The following is a declaration of safety I wrote for myself early on in my healing journey to remind me that my time with my counsellor was a safe time. Feel free to use it for yourself if it is helpful for you.
"My Declaration of Safety"
On this day, the 29th of July 1999, I declare this office and the time I spend here with my counsellor __________ to be safe.
- I give myself the authority to say the words: penis, semen,
ejaculation, vagina, sexual intercourse, oral sex, anal sex, and any other
such words.
- I give myself the freedom to tell the truth and to believe what I say,
feel, and remember.
- I give myself permission to be angry.
- I give myself permission to feel sad, hurt, unkind, and vulnerable.
- I give myself permission to speak with childish words.
- I give myself permission to feel strong.
- I grant myself the freedom to be emotionally present.
- I give myself permission to blame.
- I give myself permission to trust myself.
- I give myself permission to trust my counsellor _______.
- I give myself permission to grieve.
- I give myself permission to cry.
I give myself permission to heal, because I have a right to heal.
I deserve nothing less.
I declare this office to be a place where I can continue my healing journey with integrity, love, patience, and gentleness.
Signed by: (my signature).
Witnessed by: (my counsellor's signature).
My prayers go with you as you or your loved one find a way along
your/her/his journey of healing.
Peace and blessings,
Virginia
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