sexual abuse
Today I have got a story which I need to get off my chest. I have no idea if its useful, if it has purpose or if it has its place on the forum. There is nothing I particularly need to debate...rather I just want to share and see what happens. Perhaps others can read this and can use this or perhaps it has no use at all.
As part of my own therapy for several issues I work with (family) confrontation settings ( I can explain this principle later if you do not know how this works, but I am not going to do so in the OP). Since I have a "knack" for reading people and intuitively feel their emotions and energy I was asked to participate as an experienced coach who either observes or who participates in the different settings during the day.
Since my own background gives me some insights I often work in settings with people who deal with problems which either have their origins in abuse or whose problems are worsened by abuse. I mean abuse in mental, physical and sexual nature...either self inflicted or inflicted upon the participant (none of them are abusers). Not all the problems deal with this directly and not every setting has abuse as a topic.
I am goign to share parts of one particular story, because for some reason this one affected me deeply on a core level. I can and am allowed to share a story and I have the participants concent to share it but, for obvious reasons, I will just give a rough general outline and what this did with me.
As is often the case I read people beforehand. This is an automatic process on a deeper level and is not very conscious though it has its overlaps. There were several people in the group and this time it was a mixed general group. I am not their therapist so I often know nothing about these people. And usually, as part of my nature, I assess and read everybody and try to get a bearing on who somebody is and what their problems are. Usually I am very good at spotting those who deal with sexual abuse. And in this instance the signs were very clear.
I can not explain them all but one of these was the way she was dressed and behaved. And you have to bear with me on this one and try to understand what I am saying. In this case (for it definately isn;t always so)...there was something explicitly sexualised about her, in the way she dressed and looked (especially at men). I am definately not saying she wanted to have sex. What I am saying is that she behaved in a certain way because she has been sexualised at a very young age which has influenced the way she interacts with and behaves towards men. I can not explain this any different...but at the same time she is behaving in that certain way she is also "not there" as if her behaviour is triggered as a reflex.
It turned out that I was right. Normally I feel the emotions deeply but have little problem disassociating with them. But this time it was so much different.
She lived in a small rural village when she was a child. At the age of 8 she was send by her mother to the vicar for religious education. She was sexually abused by him. Then when she was 10 she was sexually assaulted in the swimming pool by another unknown man. At the age of twelve she was structurally abused by the coach of the footbal team. And when she was 15 she was sexually abused by a cop who worked at vice childrens department at another sports event where he was participating.
4 different men...4 different men who used and abused this girl.
When she was young she tried to tell her mother, who was also a victim of sexual abuse, and her mother did not believe her. She did not want to talk about this and she forbade her daughter to speak about it to anybody because otherwise "there would be talk". She continued to force her daughter to go to the vicar, she forced her daughter to go play soccer and she ignored all the pleas and all the anxiety. None of these people were ever punished or caught and since they all lived in the same village she often met them and was forced to interact with them as if nothing happened.
The trauma and pain, which I can not put in words, was so immense....so totally devastating and so utterly dominated her life...now...13 years later that it affects her and her current loving (thank god) relationship to the core. Everything she does, everything she doesn't do and every tiny detail of her life has been influences or is influenced by what has happened to her in the past.
When we did the confrontation setting I looked into her eyes and the emotions and conflict I saw where so utterly overwhelming and filled me with such deep and utter disgust over what had happened to her that I felt ashamed not for her, but because I was a man. And that feeling was shared by all the men in the group. Not one single one of them was unaffected...all of them felt the same way: ashamed...utterly ashamed.
Her emotions were felt so visceral, so deeply that, several hours later, I still get goose bumps from it and a cold chill running down my spine and I can't stop shaking with anger...because this beautiful woman, both in looks (though that m akes little difference) and in spirit but more important as a person, has had to endure and live with the effects of this and still tries to fight to regain herself...and how much it affects and sabotages the relationship with the one person she trusts and loves and above all herself.
And yet she keeps on fighting. And I admire this...and it touches me...and at the same time it makes me so sad for all the people who have to endure this kind of abuse and who either make it or don't make it.
There is no moral. No point I want to make. Take from this what you will and if you feel the need...respond.
Thanx for reading this.
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