When you’ve lived through a painful and paralyzing experience such as trauma, it’s easy and common to feel like a victim.
When it feels like no matter what you do, you can’t get to a place of feeling “normal,” many often begin to feel like a victim.
I know I’ve been there.
When I finally recognized that trauma isn’t my fault, but it is my responsibility to heal, I was finally able to take control of my recovery, my life, my destiny.
And much of it started with my frame of mind.
Making peace with your trauma, the details that surround it, and believing that you have the power and responsibility to heal and move past it is essential to your growth.
It’s not just all self-love & self-compassion like we keep hearing. “Love yourself before anyone else!”
It just doesn’t work that way. I actually think it’s the opposite: you can’t really love yourself until you love other people.
I don’t think it’s possible to be still incapable of seeing the goodness and beauty of other people and yet see goodness and beauty in yourself. One comes with the other.
When my life was miserable and I was isolated and struggling, it was somewhat driven by childhood PTSD and what had happened to me as a kid.
But mostly I was miserable because of problems I was having with other people in present time, as an adult. A good part of why I was having problems with people was because I wasn’t very good at caring about them – or paying attention to them, feeling empathy for them. Have you ever been in that place where you couldn’t give that?
We hurt, we stop making excuses, then we do our best. It’s not rocket science, but it is logical.
I know this because I’ve both changed and I’ve failed to change many, many times. And when I’ve successfully changed this is how I did it.
Today I’m miles and miles beyond where I was at the beginning of my healing. I have a long way to go, just like everyone. But I’m way past the highest point I thought was even possible for me in my life.
And each time I was able to make a breakthrough and change and grow in my capacity to love people and listen to them and be caring toward them, I’d think “Hey, I’m pretty good at this! You know what? I can do this. I’m making a difference!”
And when this is happening – I’m feeling it because I’m doing it – everything changes. And I discover that I love myself. And when I love myself, I’m a lot more at ease with other people. So, it’s a positively reinforcing cycle. I couldn’t love myself when I was focused only on MY feelings and MY hurts and trying to just stop being self-hating and just love myself. I had to take steps up – look outward.
When I lived at home with my father, I was favored. His favor included being backhanded when I showed the slightest sign of disobedience, rape, sodomy and playing the game Risk.
Oh, my family envied my favor with my father. You see, growing up in a home where the only attention you receive is abuse, when your siblings aren’t being abused as bad as you are, they’re envious of your position.
It’s a horrible thing, but I’m telling you the truth.
I was envied for the favor my father bestoyed upon me.
When I left his home and he could no longer “favor” me with his abusive ways, I lost his favor.
To believe anything different is to live in denial. Period.
We don’t seem to talk of hear much about adults who are complicit in sexual abuse (and other forms of abuse as well) – including parents – either one or both.
In other forms of crime we have a term for this and we call it accomplice. This person can be charged for a crime even if they were not the main perpetrator. But with sexual abuse… it seems we, as a society, as milder feelings about the horrific abuse of children.
The term silent partner is most often used in the case of childhood sexual abuse, but it can be used to refer to any situation relating to the abuse of another person. A silent partner is any relative or close family friend who takes the abuser’s side against the victim rather than confronting the abuser or attempting to rescue the victim from the abuser.
In essence, a silent partner, most often the wife or husband of the abuser, joins the abuser in a conspiracy of silence by not only refusing to confront the abuser but by keeping the abuse silent. It should also be noted that sometimes the silent abuser is also partaking in the abuse itself.
A silent partner is, as the name implies, often considered to be an actual partner in the abuse. She or he is partners with the abuser and, ultimately, wants to maintain that partnership at all costs. Without his or her active cooperation, the abuse would not be allowed to continue.
Saying that someone is complicit in the situation is another way of describing the role of the silent partner.
The Merriam-Webster dictionary defines complicit as: “Helping to commit a crime or do wrong.” The term complicity refers to the act of helping someone else behave inappropriately or illegally—being an accomplice.
Let’s hold all those accountable who are complicit in childhood abuse. Even if it pains us, makes us uncomfortable or sick to think about. Children everywhere need us to put them first and our feelings second.
On the discussion of fear, do youhave a good fear of religious people? If you don’t — you should.
Paul warned the Colossians about such people when he said, “I tell you this so that no one may deceive you by fine-sounding arguments.” From BibRef, “The Greek word Paul uses is paralogizētai, which means “to fool, cheat by trickery, or deceive.” It carries a clear sense of dishonesty, not merely confusion. In other words, the challenges Paul refers to are not complex arguments, but deceptive arguments: those which seem believable, but which are actually false.”
Doesn’t that sound like many pedophiles? So many of them hide behind the cloak of religion believing they are hidden. Then, many of them actually teach their victims about God.
Do not believe a person who doesn’t demonstrate the love of God. Instead, fear a person that hides behind fine sounding words but is hurting children in secret or doing anything in secret! They are not to be trusted. Period. And, their religion is worthless.
Jesus told us, “These people honor me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me.” Mark 7:6.
This is so important and it’s sound. Simply put — don’t believe someone who deceives.
I pray for the survivors who are still trapped in the cycle of trauma and feel hopeless.
Re-framing your life after a deep upset – getting your story right – can require considerable energy and imagination. All traumatised people have lost something. Usually the thing they have lost is the safe, predictable world that they knew; it can touch a person at the deepest existential level. Trauma creates a rupture in a person’s life story.
God, let our traumas teach us about the shortness of life, the preciousness of life, the closeness of mortality, the possibility that their loved ones may be gone tomorrow. Let us lean on you to draw inward to our natural resilience.
Let us live as if ww were living already for the second time and as if we had acted the first time as wrongly as we are about to act now.
Remind us, Father, that no valley is too deep for You to fill and no mountain is too tall for You to climb.
From A Prisoner by No Crime of My Own. Incest. Rape. Murder. Then, I turned Four. The journey of healing. If you are not a reader but would rather listen, get the audiobook. Heres
Grab your copy here (audiobook, paperback or Kindle):
Question: Does my body belong to me or is it more of a public space?
Coming through childhood sexual trauma wreaks havoc on our own personal space. We have none.
If children grow up in such an environment, what do you suppose happens in later years when someone attempts something sexual?
These children do not suddenly have an awareness of space, and they do not understand that they have the right and responsiblity to say no.
The lessons these children learned early on are deeply imbedded. They assumed that the space their body inhabits is public property where trespassing is allowed or even encouraged.
On the threshold of hope, diane mandt langberg, phd
On the discussion of fear, do youhave a healthy fear of spending all your time seeking pleasure?
I grew up in our house on Delaware Lane for the first four years of my life. My father had full reign to exercise his demonic desires of pedophilia whenever he wanted. It was an absolute free for all, and I do mean all. My dad, my mother, and their friend, Craig.
Dad ran the house like it was a brothel. Instead of women on the menu, it was children. His own children.
Just becauseyou can, does it mean you should?
I am convinced that nothing but calamity lives in their souls. Peace escapes them as they try to reason their way out of their lack of integrity and pitiful existences.
My full forgiveness they can have. That doesn’t stop the consequences of their choices. Their lives are living disasters.
It created a desire in me to keep the benefits of selfish, pleasure seeking behavior in check in my life. I enjoy life largely but I hold a lot more than just my own desires in my heart.
The question I ask myself is, “am I giving back or just taking in life?”
What comes to your mind when you think of gentleness?
A common misconception is that gentleness is weakness or passivity. True gentleness, however, is just the opposite. It requires great strength and self-control.
Gentleness comes from a state of humility. Therefore, someone who lacks gentleness is often prideful and easily angered, or feels the need for revenge.
In order to be gentle, we must not view ourselves as better than someone else. Rather than asserting superiority, someone who is gentle wants to help others, even when they have been done wrong.
An example of gentleness can be seen in John 8, when the Pharisees bring a woman who was caught in adultery to Jesus. The Pharisees told Jesus that the Law of Moses commanded them to stone such a woman, to which Jesus responds, “Let any one of you who is without sin be the first to throw a stone at her” (John 8:7).
After everyone left, Jesus did not condemn the woman, and said to her, “Go now and leave your life of sin” (John 8:11)
Being gentle with myself is new, but I kind of like the places it’s taking me, the kinds of relationships I’m forming, and what becomes possible for me in my life and work because of it.
