Not Preaching To The Choir

[sukioki]

Is there somewhere on-line where I can share my thoughts to NON incest survivors?

I've lost several friends because they could not empathize with my handling of my history, and I feel the general public needs their awareness raised re:the general long term after-effects of this scourge upon society.

I just wrote something up on my blog:

http://sukioki.wordpress.com/2007/12/03/get-over-it/

I'll probably edit out the first couple of paragraphs, but I feel the rest illustrates well how this crime lasts far longer than the events.

but I think WE all know about how it messes with every aspect of your life.

I'd like to preach, but not to the choir.

any ideas?

thanks,

Suki

[John]

I dont understand what your saying here sorry??? abit confused..

Im very sorry that you a survivor of incest, and I hope by coming here to AS we are able to help you in your healing journey.

You can heal, and I hope we can help you in your healing, I look forward to seeing you on the board and in chat soon.

Please take care and PM me anytime.

John.

[Survivors sanctuary]

Hi, welcome to AS, and I think I do understand what you mean.

Time and time again I feel as if people are putting us into a box that suits them even if that box is not correct, it's like going to the Doctors, they focus straight way on the depression part of the abuse effects, yet for me that is something I have pretty much under control so I get strange looks when I ask for help with flashbacks, panic attacks, nightmares, eating, self esteem, all the stuff I need help on, but because I can deal with the depression now after so many years of struggling, they can't seem to believe me ..

Why won't they believe that I am telling them the fundemental truth, often for abuse survivors we suffer a very unique set of problems, yes, they can be related to depression or PTSD, etc etc, however, to box them so tightly doesn't often take into account what we as survivors are REALLY saying .. So how do we make the public aware of what our lives are, many people over the years have told their stories and in a small way they help dispel the myths and stigma attached, but I sometimes feel we need to be heard as one voice ..

There was an advert in the UK a bit back, it was a Union advert, and it showed a single person going to their boss, but then showed the others of that union being behind her in spirit so she shouldn't feel alone, and that is how I think we are at times ..

A single person, but with the thousands of others out there with us .. But how do we make all those voices count?

I am not sure I have an answer for you .. But I admire you for wanting to do this, I often wonder how I can do something similar, but as a single voice it can be hard ..

:hug:

Edited December 4, 2007 by Survivors sanctuary

[sukioki]

So how do we make the public aware of what our lives are, many people over the years have told their stories and in a small way they help dispel the myths and stigma attached, but I sometimes feel we need to be heard as one voice ...

YES! that is it exactly.

i'm brand new to not going it on my own, or dealing with this thing head on, and i didn't until now on my blog go public because of the stigma - the stigma that you are damaged and probably unstable.

no acquaintences could tell what i carry inside, but i did tell my friends - which turned out to be a HORRIBLE mistake. because as soon as i did that, they started to make stupid assumptions about me based on myths that they have seen perpetuated in popular culture. soon they were explaining away perfectly normal behaviors and attributing it to my abuse. pretty soon EVERY action i took was attributed by them as part of my pathology and damage. pretty soon they were projecting how THEY would be all healed by now and that i was lacking in character. but when I attributed something to my abuse, then suddenly I was using my past as a lame excuse.

so my response is to go public. not private forum. but public.

all of this is born out of:

-misportrayal of incest victems in the media

-lumping all abuse symptoms together indescriminantly

-the over-prevalence (at least where i live) of armchair psychology, making everyone dangerous self-appointed experts

-the over-simplification of what we have to live with

-and, more sinister, the villiainization of the victim her/himself

and what burns me the most is when i'm told when struggling to "get over it"

not told this overtly, but that is the attitude that presents itself.

like most things that are important social issues, i don't feel support groups are enough. that's just not proactive enough. it just seems like (in my new and brief exploration of this topic) that most of the references in our culture to our experiences are reactionary and post-hoc. we seek restitution, prosecution, and justice or we seek healing or we seek support. - but i think we should seek ELIMINATION of the problem to begin with. and that takes awareness and recognition of not just violation and isolated events, but of the protracted disruption to a full and productive life and the tragic legacy that can leave behind.

i think a fun run for awareness isn't enough - that just looks like yet another run for yet another single issue charity.

i think these blog carnivals of stories aren't enough - those are just other abuse bloggers reading each others stories.

i think yet another ribbon symbol in another color isn't enough - it's becoming meaningless

when i go to the stories section here and see 99 pages with a dozen stories or more on each page, and those are just a few that have come forward to tell, it makes me freaking angry.

when i hear the joke "incest is best" come up, it makes me angry!

the general public needs to know that incest is ravaging and a cancer eating away at the very bedrock of civilization.

awareness of the hazards of smoking has reduced smoking and changed public law.

it works. it's got to change. it's got to stop being OUR shared secret and see the light of day.

just my 2 cents....

Edited December 4, 2007 by sukioki

[sukioki]

for those who didn't bother to go to my blog, here is what i wrote there:

i am an adult survivor of childhood incest, who has grown up and learned to work around the issues (or so i thought) to my own satisfaction, but apparently not to the satisfaction of others. and so i’ve decided to go public and share with you what those implications are so your awareness can make you a better friend to others than my friends have been to me.

there is in this society a gross lack of empathy that produces insensitive statements like, “get over it,” or “speak to the hand,” or “those with baggage need not reply.” and there is also an over-abundance of armchair psychologists with no more credentials than stacks of self-help books ready to point out where you need to improve yourself.

to which i say, unless you’ve walked a mile in my shoes, you just can’t know how moronic and/or inadequate your recriminations and criticisms are, so i ask:

is it morally right to criticize the actions of a starving person when one is well fed?

I think not.

i am a victim. victimization exists and you don’t get over it. you live with it and pat yourself on the back that you’re not in a morgue somewhere. you are a victim and you will always be a victim and you’re proud you lived through it and nobody can take that away from you. you are a veteran of war and every day that you are not dead, you are a survivor. you are always both. victim AND survivor. you process the world and people differently after a hellish experience and that’s totally understandable. or rather, it should be. but in our world, it’s not allowed. to disclose any trauma makes you a whiner. to show anyone your weaknesses makes you disgusting and pathetic. this is a no-baggage-allowed kind of world. A pathological system where victims are partially to blame for their victimization and whereupon silence is defacto and isolation is perpetuated.

when, as in my case, you are adopted from a foreign country, into a strange world where nobody looks like you, into a family where your siblings resent you for just being present and your unstable mother doesn’t believe in affection so your daily life is spent entirely alone and emotionally neglected, and your father who has more than affection for you molests you in the shower, molests you in your bed, molests you whenever nobody else is around, when mothers and neighbors turn a blind eye and you are always being watched by your perpetrator, when your minister molests you and others try to rape you, that fundamentally affects your approach to the world. when you spend your entire childhood in silence due to threats and manipulation, you can confide in no one and are therefore shut off from normal relations with society / friends, and every minute of every day you carry this huge burden, this secret that will shatter multiple lives that you are the sole keeper of. you never know what it is to be a child.

when you were not allowed to express your needs as a child, during that time in your life when you are all about needs and unable to provide for any of them yourself, and worse yet are hushed and programmed to suppress your own immediate needs or inner needs - that cuts you off from participating in the rest of the world and you must just watch and be subjected to everyone else saying, me, me, me. especially when it’s your parents saying me, me, me, and they use you, a child, as a resource to take care of their own needs. your needs are always less important than everyone else’s needs. you no longer even try to express them. you forget how. you tell yourself you have no needs. you become an island unto oneself.

you learn how to get by. year after year after year after year of never-ending abuse with no options available to you save the potential equal horror of some foster family. you do what you need to do. you learn there is nothing anyone can do to you which can’t be lived through. you learn to participate without being present. you learn this while you are still in diapers. you learn no one is going to save you or take care of you. you have no family. you are the only family you’ll ever have.

this is not something you “get over.” it is something you deal with daily, something you try to improve upon, but you can never get over. it formed you indelibly. this is the message i want to get across to people: incest victims are to be applauded for making it through another year, and not to be pitied over the violation of their bodies, because that was a minor assault compared to the comprehensive restructuring of their lives in order to facilitate that abuse. they are to be sympathized with because they live life without having experienced innocence, without having had a childhood, never knowing how it feels to be care free or loved, and growing up entirely isolated, with no one looking out for their interests. monkeys die in environments like that. and the ones who live are never the same. and you would not say to that poor creature - oh come on, get over it - you’re so pathetic. and it is not something any self-help book or spiritual teaching is going to make go away. it is something that has become part of who you are. it is a parallel world that no one but another incest survivor can understand.

so there you are, like a feral child in a foreign land of well-adjusted people who know how to communicate, who know how to express their own needs, who champion their own needs, and who trample all over you because you are mute. and because you are so handicapped, you get exploited time and time again. and you can’t comprehend how most people who have experienced one tenth the trauma you have can act so inhuman, be so self serving, living so purposelessly, so lacking in integrity, so blindly and without conviction. the human race disappoints so much so you wonder if being isolated and feral isn’t somehow better.

it is not true that you seek out powerless situations. it is more that almost anyone who can express themselves wins out because they are always more powerful, because your voice was taken away from you so you never gained any skill in its use. it is human nature for others to get away with as much as they can. they see your lame struggles to assert yourself as tacit approval for whatever they want. they don’t see that you are trying to form the word “no.” it is a silent scream. it is always at this point that your survival skills kick in to autopilot.

so you win and i’m your puppet. but you can never ever do anything harmful to me, because you can’t reach that deep. you play dead. and you live.

it is also not true that you have no self esteem or that you hate yourself. for to not end up like the infant monkeys that perished for science speaks a lot about self love and preservation. that all incest victims have not killed themselves is amazing. the positive side effect of living all your formative years in an untenable position is an appreciation for all things that do not cause you pain, and the knowledge that you have inner strengths unknown to most people is a source of pride. but the resiliency of children becomes brittle as you age, and you lose hope as each interaction with the rest of the world fails.

what is true is you have no clue how to form relationships. because you never really participated in the world, in fact, you were barred from participating in the world, you don’t understand how people connect with each other or how they communicate or what makes people laugh or what fun is. you can’t relate to them and they can’t relate to you. you have been sentenced to a life of never-ending isolation. you pantomime what others are doing so they can relate to you, but your message is lost on them. and the message is:

you are privileged and so, so lucky. be kind to your fellow man. be kind to wounded animals and abused children. be generous to those who struggle with skills you take for granted. be less self-serving and make the world a better, safer place.

my disappearance was due to a breakdown. an inner rage and grieving for that innocence everyone else knows that i can never know. rage for trying so hard to live an authentic life of integrity and meaning, doing an admirable job, yet ending up empty handed and alone and abandoned by those i love. rage that the only time i allow myself to trust i am betrayed. rage that i am judged so harshly for my social ineptitude. rage that i am criticized for not managing my life the way a normal person would. disappointed in humanity and its lack of integrity. i looked into the abyss of hopelessness and nearly threw myself at its mercy.

but somehow, the part of me that never gives up came to my rescue again. only this time, i go to therapy to learn how to live better amongst the rest of you, because you can’t do it through self help and you can’t leave it to the clueless. and today i choose to end the silence and express myself.

i’ve been reading and reading and reading other people’s stories on the net and it is so apparent that awareness is so lacking in the general population as to the effects of incest on victims as adults. i just thought it was my duty to let people know they’d met one and that they can’t/shouldn’t fit them into the paradigm of what they know. we had to thrive under unique circumstances and our methods are almost hard-wired into us. that we don’t choose to be victimized. that we don’t seek out co-dependent abusive relationships, but that we are more susceptible and vulnerable. that the victimization was so insidious as to affect every aspect of a person’s life, and that the struggle to adapt in a world where everyone else has the requisite tools, but you are lacking them, should be looked upon with charity instead of the disdain that it is. that the rest of my days will be spent debriefing and learning social skills you take for granted.

*****

and to you “no baggage” people, i will NOT get over it. being an arrogant hard-ass does NOT make you stronger than everyone else, and you have no grounds discounting everyone who has issues. because someone who has no issues like yourself but can deliver “get over it” statements obviously has A LOT of issues.

this is my baggage.

i’m proud of what it’s been through, that i survived.

i deserve respect

[sisterinsurvival]

Yahoo, !
We love you, and are glad you've found AfterSilence!

[sporty070882]

Yahoo, !

We love you, and are glad you've found AfterSilence!

Hi. I just joined but I was reading your forum and I guess I'd like to put in my two cents. I have been in the military and have been a survivor of rape and abuse for a couple years. The military preaches that sexual assault is not tolerated but that is far from the truth and women that come forward usually get labelled inappropriately as well. Most of the guys involved or even not involved see it as a consensual act, that the girl was just a sl*t and trying to salvage her reputation by crying rape, and either way it goes, you get labeled as "that girl". That's why I didn't say anything for so long and when I did, I still filed restricted reports as opposed to getting others involved so I didn't have to go through the abuse I know I would get from my chain of command. I finally did talk to a victim advocate and with a military lawyer and they are the one's that are starting an investigation into the "command climate" of the unit I was in and will try and make changes based on what they find. It leaves me out of it but I feel that I took a good step in ever reporting what was going on.

I think if you want to go public the best way is to get involved in an advocacy and education group. A lot of workforces require sexual harrasment and assault classes and usually that is a great way to try and educate non-survivors about the misconceptions that other people have. You can just throw yourself out there but you have to be very strong and willing to take a lot of mental and emotional abuse from people who will never see things for what they really are. I know cause I've been there and done that. I don't know how you want to go about this but I could get you some information probably if you wanted on educational opportunities for non-survivors and such. Thanks for listening.

[sporty070882]

And just a side note, it's only baggage if you let it weigh you down. However when we grow and learn and survive it becomes just another life experience hopefully with something positive in the end.

[sukioki]

thanks for sharing your story (nightmare) and yet staying on topic.

i believe advocacy, while a lifeline and extremely valuable, is still addressing the AFTERmath of the problem, instead of the source. by the time it gets to the advocacy stage, a child's life has already been ruined. and when you are a child, the person who should be your advocate is also your tormentor and your fears of reporting generally come true when you do report. as adults we know this is an improvement, but a child doesn't know these things.

i'm all for education, but what is really needed is a consciousness-raising and awareness campaign that is farther reaching than the limited audience of most educational programs. it is a societal issue that crosses all cultures. it needs to be addressed in new parenting classes and sex education classes in schools. it should be mandatory. and not appealing to the sensationalism of a traumatic event, but illustrating the long term effects of prolonged trauma. society doesn't see when incest is happening. they don't know the markers. i would like to see a safe place for perpetrators to go to get help. i would like to see voluntary sterilization programs for anyone who feels they have no control over their urges.

i would like a message that comes to people instead of people coming to it. i would like it to seep into everyone's brains the way advertising does. i would like something similar to a just say no campaign or smoking prevention campaign. i would like to see the elimination of or calling out of every pop culture image that sexualizes children and exploits them. and i'm not talking porn here. it's everywhere. maybe adbusters can do a series on it, so more advertising houses will curb their use of those images.

my observations repeatedly tell me that almost all instances of addressing the topic of child sexual abuse appeal to adult's imagery of rape. the image might show a child alone and looking disturbed, but the adult is thinking rape. it doesn't address being trapped and helpless. it doesn't address the absence of nurture. it doesn't address the malformation of future generations. it doesn't address the cycle of abused becoming abusers. it doesn't address how normal everyone looks on the outside. it doesn't address it as a social problem at all. and to my mind it is a huge social problem. instead, it is viewed in isolation. it is too afraid to even use the word incest, which is how most children are sexually violated. and even the cautions to children, if someone is touching you inappropriately...are inadequate. they don't know the difference between appropriate and inappropriate. and neither do the perpetrators half the time. an awareness campaign might have some impact.

anecdotally, one time my mother went away for a week because my grandmother was in the hospital in another state. it was summer and the neighbors were chatting out on their porches and my father and i stopped to be sociable. they asked my dad how he was carrying on with my mom gone, and he told them that it was great because i was the being the mistress of the house. he even went on to brag how i kept him company and how i was his little bed partner. (for this week i was set up in their bed and never even saw my own bed) obviously, my father was proving to me that he was master of everything by putting up a smokescreen and with cunning, using total honesty as the foil. i was totally helpless to do anything but try and smile, while inside i was screaming, pleading with the neighbors to save me. which they didn't. times like these, he always gave me little hugs and such which forced/required an oscar nomination from me showing the public i ate up his affection. they just said aw, isn't that cute...

i believe with more public awareness, scenarios like mine would not slip past or be dismissed so easily, and maybe more people would come to the trapped child's aid. more importantly, with a climate of greater awareness, maybe a perp such as my father, who always crossed the line, would recognize that line better or feel enough shame to censor himself. that was back in the dark ages, when the only awareness out there was the admonishment to beware of strangers. it's getting better, but there's still so far to go. i was once a case-worker aid for child protective services, and believe me, everything we're doing is too late.

i feel that preemptive counter measures must be taken to protect children, so our jails and mental institutions and morgues are no longer filled up with csa victims. it's a social issue, and all of society need to become advocates.

[sukioki]

And just a side note, it's only baggage if you let it weigh you down. However when we grow and learn and survive it becomes just another life experience hopefully with something positive in the end.

agreed. but what i'm saying is it's perfectly normal to have baggage and we should live in a climate where traumas are viewed with sympathy instead of disgust. otherwise, our baggage must be put in a closet and it's harder to lighten your load when you've forced to feel ashamed about it and work on it in isolation.

[sukioki]

Well, this organization seems to have the mission I'm talking about and some famous people supporting it. But I would criticize how they spent their air-time.

It's too cute. It should be more provocative. It should inform without assuming people are going to take the time to investigate further, because they typically aren't going to bother.

http://www.darknesstolight.org/AboutUs/current_media.asp

maybe I'll volunteer there in some capacity.

Thanks, everyone...

[sporty070882]

I have a book you should read. While it is addressing the military side of it, it addressed the abusees becoming the abusers and the similarities between families and the military in abusive situations. It's called "Honor Betrayed...Sexual Abuse in America's Military". For me it was like reading a biography but it has so much information on mentalities of the public and what they think and what survivors have to go through that I think it would be worth your read. The author has nothing to with military and that's what drew me to it. I wish that I had your mentality toward educating others and I agree with most of your views but I don't think I'm at the point yet where I would be able to do what you want to do.

[sporty070882]

And just a side note, it's only baggage if you let it weigh you down. However when we grow and learn and survive it becomes just another life experience hopefully with something positive in the end.

agreed. but what i'm saying is it's perfectly normal to have baggage and we should live in a climate where traumas are viewed with sympathy instead of disgust. otherwise, our baggage must be put in a closet and it's harder to lighten your load when you've forced to feel ashamed about it and work on it in isolation.

I've had to work in isolation for years with no way to lighten my load. I'm just glad I've gotten to where I'm at now and that I don't consider it baggage but I would much rather be viewed with sympathy or empathy rather than disgust. I'm not damaged goods no matter what any one else thinks. I guess I just have to find someone else at this point in my relationships that agrees with me.

[sukioki]

I wish that I had your mentality toward educating others and I agree with most of your views but I don't think I'm at the point yet where I would be able to do what you want to do.

Well, I am spared the backlash you would get, so it's understandable.

But I think, like Survivor's Sanctuary said, if there were many of us united, it wouldn't be so hard.

[sukioki]

I've had to work in isolation for years with no way to lighten my load. I'm just glad I've gotten to where I'm at now and that I don't consider it baggage but I would much rather be viewed with sympathy or empathy rather than disgust. I'm not damaged goods no matter what any one else thinks. I guess I just have to find someone else at this point in my relationships that agrees with me.

lately i have decided that perfect people are less interesting people. i much prefer to call myself a misfit and i much prefer the company of other misfits. i have come to believe that quirky, neurotic, damaged people are really the beautiful ones. the ones more in touch with their feelings, who have retained a sensitivity and humanity that i gravitate to. i call myself damaged, but i don't think of it as derogatory. it's just semantics. all goods will be less than perfect through use. because we've been kicked around so much in so many ways, we are the true empaths.

i like to think i'm special in a way. as are everyone here and yourself included. we have stared death in the eye - literally or metaphorically - and we live on a higher existential plane. to have ever found yourself in crisis you have to deal with more important topics like, how is life meaningful and what makes life worth living, etc., etc., i think we are more mindful of what's important, and we are less likely to waste our time on the planet.

i think we have a lot to teach and share with others.

i share the discomfort and frustration of others not viewing us that way. but we can turn them around by giving them all the empathy they don't give and being all the healing they don't have and by making all the progress they don't make and being inspirational quietly through surviving with grace.

at least, that's my hope.

[sporty070882]

lately i have decided that perfect people are less interesting people.

i think we have a lot to teach and share with others.

i share the discomfort and frustration of others not viewing us that way. but we can turn them around by giving them all the empathy they don't give and being all the healing they don't have and by making all the progress they don't make and being inspirational quietly through surviving with grace.

at least, that's my hope.

I've always said if we were all perfect, we'd all be soooo boring. And I really like how you think about terms just being semantics. It's all in how we view ourselves and in the end how we help the others around us to come to view us, hopefully in appropriate and more empathetic terms. Right now, one of the biggest things I'm working on is changing how I view myself and changing the way I think about what I've been through and trying to forgive myself so reading how you have embraced otherwise negative connotations was quite the eye opener for me. I've never considered myself "normal" and I get called crazy quite often for what I do but I've embraced that term as you've embraced the word damaged. I guess sometimes what gives something it's greatest character is its flaws.

You are so right about abuse being a silent and quiet social issue. Most people do not recognize the signs and most would ignore them even if they did I think. At that point it becomes the other person's problem, not theirs.

Thanks for all your insight and I hope we can continue this conversation and that you will find the outlet and support for your mission of making these things a public issue. I will get to that point myself I know and have already taken some baby steps of my own. If you do find a way to accomplish these things, please let me know. I would like to participate.

[sukioki]

I guess sometimes what gives something it's greatest character is its flaws.

Yes. Appreciating the imperfections in life and what makes everything unique is a beautiful vantage point.

Thanks for all your insight and I hope we can continue this conversation and that you will find the outlet and support for your mission of making these things a public issue. I will get to that point myself I know and have already taken some baby steps of my own. If you do find a way to accomplish these things, please let me know. I would like to participate.

It's my pleasure!

Please see my new post re: badges