Yeah, I’m Good Enough, Just For Today and Maybe Even Tomorrow

Posted on January 27, 2012 by Jackie Shaw

Shut Up

Who are you to speak like that and treat me in this way

You criticize me constantly, not one nice thing to say

You misuse me and abuse me and you don’t think it’s wrong

You always say I’m worthless and that I don’t belong

You’ve deceived me and you’ve lied to me for way too many years

Always bringing up the past, surrounding me in fear

Twisting my reality so I can’t see what’s true

So shut up mirror, shut your face

It’s time I put you in your place

I’m a divine creation, a ray of light

just for today I WILL shine bright

God created me, stay out of the way

I’m good enough, just for today

Thanks to my Higher Power, I have faced these thoughts of mine

for years they have kept me hopeless, frightened, lost and blind

I see I’ve grown addicted, to putting myself down

But my Higher Power’s shown me, that what was lost is now found

So shut up mirror, shut your face

it’s time I put you in your place

I’m a divine creation, a ray of light

just for today I WILL shine bright

God created me, stay out of my way

I’m good enough, just for today

Yeah I’m good enough, just for today

My friend wrote this poem.  She read it to me recently and at first, I thought it was talking about another person.  In my experience, I could have attributed the actions the poem describes to my father.  He ran me down and made me feel like I was worthless.

Then I thought it could have described the man I am divorcing.  He played a lot of games and everything was all about him.  I never felt like I mattered to him.  I mattered only for what I could do for him.  He told me I mattered, but again and again, he showed me that I only mattered if my thoughts and feelings were in accordance with his.

There was one day that he told me I was selfish.  A little voice in my head said that wasn’t true.  I had done nothing but sacrifice my job, my friends, my opportunities, and almost my sanity for him.  Having done that before for another man, once I finally got out from under his thumb, I felt like I could breathe again.

Then my friend read the line of the poem about the mirror.  “So shut up mirror, shut your face.”  In the few short lines of the poem that preceded this, I could point the finger at someone else.  This line made me turn the finger at myself.

Yes, my father had run me down.  Yes, the man I thought loved me had run me down.  But I had gotten so good at internalizing it, I didn’t need them to do it anymore.  I had become an expert at doing it myself.

My tears were still flowing, and my friend read on.  The next part of the poem that really struck me was, “Thanks to my Higher Power, I have faced these thoughts of mine.”  I struggle to find comfort in the Divine Higher Power.  The image of the higher power that is stuck in my head helped plant the seeds of self-doubt and shame.

As a lower-middle class Caucasian who grew up in a small town, most of the images of God I ever heard referred to a white man with a long flowing beard who sat on a throne.  In my young and abused state, that sounded a whole lot like my father.  He didn’t sit on a throne, but he certainly did have a chair in which no one else could sit.  What he said was law.  What he wanted to do, well, without question he did.  He acted as if he was above the law and he did things with little or no consideration for what anyone else wanted or needed.

The correlation wasn’t exact, but as young as I was, I could draw a direct line between God and my father.  I had never known a man who was all-knowing and wise, and not abusive.  He took his knowledge manipulation and control and warped my world.  I know people who experienced God as loving and gentle, because that is what they knew.

What I knew was very different.  What I experienced affected my relationships.  I didn’t know how to pick a good spouse; and picked two who were not good for me.  It took having some good and gentle male friends who weren’t domineering or manipulative to show me how a relationship could be.   I couldn’t imagine how it could be different from what I had experienced, but I now know that it can be.  I have the rest of my life to experience how it can be different.

Yeah I’m good enough, just for today.

I think that will help me remember that I’m good enough for tomorrow and all the following days too.  I’m not without flaws, but I’ve finally realized I’m good enough.

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Hoping for Hope

Posted on December 16, 2011 by Jackie Shaw

From the Christian perspective, this is the season of light and hope.  From a survivor’s perspective, it is often hard to see either light or hope.  The tunnel out of pain is long and dark.

The Christmas season is supposed to be filled with anticipation of the celebration of a child’s birth.  It is supposed to bring light and happiness to our world filled with dreariness and depression.

The birth of every child should be a celebration.  Every parent to be should want a child so much that they can hardly wait to hold that child in their arms and love them – in an approprite, safe parental way.

The romantic part of me, or some part I cannot name that makes no sense, wants to only focus on the hope and the light.  I want to believe that every child born is wanted and that nothing bad will ever happen to him or her. 

My live has shown me that is just a fantasy for some people.  Many people do come into this existence and are genuinely loved and wanted.  Many people, however, do not.  They have to struggle for everything in life that should just be a given.  It should be a basic human right that everyone has enough food.  It should be a basic human right that everyone has shelter.  It should be a basic human right that everyone is loved and cared for and no one is ever abused.

Knowing that abuse is real and that even basic human rights are not guaranteed, it has often been difficult for me not to give up hope.  Believe me, I wanted to give up on it.  I used to believe that if I could give up hope, and just accept what was happening to me, it wouldn’t be so hard to know my father was treating me like a sex object.  It would have been easier to just succumb to the fate he had in mind for me.  What he did was pretty extensive, but I think he was stopped before he was ready.  I never had to deal with what he truly had in mind.

As I listen to women and men struggle with the abuse they have suffered, I feel the anxiety and their willingness to give up hope.  Without hope, it is easier to take all the crap and say it doesn’t matter because I don’t matter.

Well, you do matter.  You don’t matter to your abusers because they are so selfish they can’t even see you, but to at least one person in your life, you do truly, unequivocably matter.

And that may be the hardest bit of hope to handle.  I have been in a place in life when I didn’t want to hope.  It felt like hope hurt too much and that it was an unattainable, tricky thing.  Hope made me want to believe that things could be different when I didn’t really believe that they could.

And how would I have to be different if hope was real?  I was already going through hell and felt like my heart was broken.  Healing sometimes hurts about as much as getting hurt.

Hope allowed me to go on, even when I didn’t want to.  I would say that I had given up, that it was too much hassle and struggle to go on.  In the depths of my soul, I held on.  I would take out the hope and examine it and wonder why I couldn’t just throw it away.  I wondered why I kept it – it didn’t seem to be doing me any good.

I kept going.  I kept getting up every day and even if I felt like my life was a complete ruin, I couldn’t stay down.  I never understood why, but it was as if I couldn’t help but go on.  I trudged through the tunnel that never seemed to end, but finally I got to the other side.  I am not without scars, but I am a better person than I thought I could be.  I have found that I can love and hope and dream without feeling like my life is about to end in agony.

And it feels so strange to say, but I am actually happy.  Happiness always felt as illusive to me as the Lock Ness Monster or a unicorn, but now that I have found it, I cannot imagine being with out it.  I am actually at a point that I not only believe I can be happy and have hope, but that I deserve it.

And as we progress into this season of hope, it is my sincere hope that you know you deserve happiness too.  You are brave and strong, no matter what your abusers tell you or have told you.  You are ok and it is ok to hope, even if it feels weak and a little awkward.

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I Refuse To Do It For Him

Posted on November 16, 2011 by Jackie Shaw

Music has always been a big part of my life.  I am at a point where I can no longer sing with much melody, but in my head, I still hear the right notes.  One particular song has been running through my head for days.  A friend asked me if I knew why.  I said yes, but was not ready to say it yet.

The song, Three Wooden Crosses, sung by Randy Travis, is one that I have always liked.  It is not my favorite, and I struggle with the notion of a cross.  In this song, however, the crosses are the road side memorials for people who have died in accidents.  They are always troubling to see, but a different kind of cross.

As I have moved from a victim of abuse to the person I consider myself to be now as a thriver, I have often wondered how I made it.  The stark reality is that many people do not.  They succumb to the pain.  In saying that, it is not my intention to pass judgment on them or claim that they are weak because they cannot take it anymore.  No one should ever have to survive the abuse I have lived through.  And I know many people who have survived much more severe abuse than I have.  I am by no means playing down what I experienced.  It was horrible.  But it stopped and I have been able to work through a lot of it, even though it still affects me every day.

The one line of “Three Wooden Crosses” that has been running through my head is “There are three wooden crosses on the right side of the highway.  Why there aren’t four of them heaven only knows.”

I could never figure out why I survived.  The pain and anguish I used to feel should have driven me to my knees.  In some respects, it did, but it was also part of my nature to get up again.  It was not something I could explain, and I always hesitate to say things like this for fear of sounding arrogant.  I cannot explain it, but I did get up – again and again and again.

Now, it doesn’t hurt so much.  I feel strong enough to handle it.  In looking back, I have a different perspective on the hurt.  I will never believe that there was a reason for it.  There was no divine plan that allowed it to happen so I could get to this place in my life.  It happened.  It was unbearably awful.  I have done a lot of work to get through the pain and the scars, but now I’m here.  On the other side of abuse, the world looks different, but it was forever changed because of someone else’s selfish and brutal actions.

In a conversation with a dear friend yesterday, I got a different perspective.  It was one of those things that just finally clicked in my brain.  If I had killed myself and had not been able to survive, I would have been doing my father a favor.  In his own way, he was trying to kill me.  If not the physical me, my sense of self and safety.  He was trying to kill my soul.  My friend said, “I refuse to do it for him (sic).  There are times when I am suicidal but when push comes to shove I refuse to do it for him (sic), he can damn well do it himself.”

And she is right.  Why should I help him kill me?  He was doing a pretty good job on his own, but why should I help him finish me off?  I can’t.  I can’t help him take that final blow against my humanity.  He has my blood on his hands, but I refuse to finish what he tried to start.  He isn’t worth it.

But I have finally come to the realization that I am worth the fight.  I am worth the fight against every bit of pain I have known.  I have something to say.  I matter.  And it is still hard to write those words.  It brings tears to my eyes for me and for anyone who ever had to doubt that they were worth it because of what someone else chose to do to them. out of selfishness and greed.

It is my hope that I offer an ounce of hope and courage when people are not feeling very courageous.  One of the beauties of the internet is that people can find anything if they are looking; and sometimes when they are not looking.  You can find a whole lot of junk on the internet, but I hope just one person finds this post and can finally begin to answer the question why their cross isn’t added to the many who have succumbed to the pain of being sexually abused by people who are supposed to love them.

You are worth the fight.  Keep fighting and don’t let them, or him, or her, whoever is abusing you make you help them in killing your soul.

I know I have used this poem before, but it still speaks to me in a voice that is loud and clear.  My high school English teacher gave me a copy of it when I was a senior and I have carried it with me ever since.  It speaks to my soul and helps me remember why I’m still standing.

DO NOT GO GENTLE INTO THAT GOOD NIGHT

Do not go gentle into that good night, 

Old age should burn and rage at close of day; 

Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Though wise men at their end know dark is right, 

Because their words had forked no lightning they 

Do not go gentle into that good night.

Good men, the last wave by, crying how bright 

Their frail deeds might have danced in a green bay, 

Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Wild men who caught and sang the sun in flight, 

And learn, too late, they grieved it on its way, 

Do not go gentle into that good night.

Grave men, near death, who see with blinding sight 

Blind eyes could blaze like meteors and be gay, 

Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

And you, my father, there on the sad height, 

Curse, bless me now with your fierce tears, I pray. 

Do not go gentle into that good night. 

Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

 Dylan Thomas

So, rage on my friends.  Do not help them kill that light within you.

Namaste

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Let’s Unpack

Posted on November 2, 2011 by Jackie Shaw

A few months ago, I had to move.  The whys and hows are long and tedious, so I will not bore you with them.  I had boxes in three different states which I have finally gotten all together.

I live on the second floor of an apartment building so I have had to lug all these boxes up the stairs.  A few of them, I have lugged up the stairs, opened, and lugged back down the stairs.  They are either filled with books I now longer need or things that I no longer need or want.  So, I have been taking them to the library or Good Will.

In some of the boxes I have found things that made me smile.  Presents from dear friends or momentos from things I have done.  I found medals from a choir competition in middle school.  I found pictures with friends in places I had forgotten I had been.

Some of the things I found touched the edges of memories I did not want to uncover.  I found picture albums, which I have not gone through yet.  I will have to be in a particular mood before I am able to look at the pictures.  Now that I have identified the dissociative stare, I am sure I will see it a lot in those pictures.  That will take some time.

I think packing and unpacking is much like healing from abuse.  When I packed these boxes, I put a lot of things in them, usually because I had run out of time to pack.  I didn’t sort through what I put in each box and I packed it all in such a way that it fit perfectly in the box.

With the memories of my abuse, I had to pack them inside and make them at least look like they all fit.  As I lived and had different experiences, the memories shifted around.  Sometimes, they shifted into a painful position.  Then I had to get help, usually through therapy or a good friend, to reshift the memory so it was not so painful.  Sometimes it took a long time to move the memory and get in a place that caused me less pain.

This move, I am doing a lot of sorting.  I have been carrying around a lot of stuff that I do not need.  In the same regard, I have been carrying around in my soul a lot of memories and attitudes that I do not need.  As the sorting goes on, space is freed up for more appropriate attitudes and memories.

And I am in charge of them now.  I get a say in my experiences.  I have choices.  When I was a child and being abused by my father and silenced by people who did not want to know what was happening.

I realize that there are things in life that will happen which are out of my control.  But the realization that I had a choice in what happened to me was at first terrifying, then freeing.  I am no longer that chained up little person with no choice and no self.

I am a person of worth and I do not have to carry memories and pain which I did not choose.  This did not happen over night and I am by no means saying it is easy, but I’m saying it can get better.

As we travel through life, we pack things and carry them, some of which we need and some of which we do not.  Each time we make a move or make a change, we have the choice what we take and what we leave behind.  It is a process of examination, remembering, mourning, anger, healing, and letting go.

As in a move, we will be in a new place and if we are willing to do the hard work of unpacking and examining, we can have a new perspective and a new start.  The break isn’t easy, the work is strenuous and in some ways, feels just as bad as the abuse we suffered, but when you’ve gone through the process, think how much lighter the bags which you are carrying will be.  The difference will change your world, and in the process, you will change the world.

“There came a time when the risk to remain tight in the bud was more painful than the risk it took to blossom.” ~ Anais Nin

 

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Through Many Dangers

Posted on October 18, 2011 by Jackie Shaw

As a survivor of sexual abuse, I have been in many emotional places in my life.  Many have been painful, but there have also been the highs most people experience.  Since I started writing this blog, I have not written from a place of direct pain.  I have not been in a place of pain related to the abuse for a while, but that is where I am tonight, and so I write from here.

Survivors talk about triggers.  If that does not make sense, it is a place, a smell, a sensation or a particular something that takes the person back to his or her abuse.  I used to have more triggers, not as many as some, but enough.  I have been able to work through a lot of them.  Except one.

I have mentioned this before, but in a detached way that did not touch the pain it brings me.  My trigger is a song.

No matter how little of it I hear, it stays with me for hours, sometimes days.  Since I heard it tonight, I will have to wait and see how long it stays this time.

I like to set my radio on scan until I hear a song that I like.  Sometimes, this is a dangerous idea because this song is played on the radio and occasionally I stumble upon it.

“I remember Daddy’s hands, soft and kind when I was crying, hard as steal when I done wrong…But there was always love in daddy’s hands.”

I do not have to hear even a single word of this song.  I took enough music lessons that I recognize the notes alone.  When I hear it, my heart starts to beat faster.  I frantically look for the button on the radio to make it stop.  The “off” button never comes to mind.  I hit the scan button, but that makes it stop on that channel so I have to listen to more of it instead of less.

My stomach gets tight and I feel like I’m going to vomit.  My trigger has been set.  My mind sees one thing.  Hands.  Coming toward me in a way that is far from loving.  I will not go on, more for me than for you.

Then I’m very distracted.  It is hard to fight off the images.  There are many tactics for fighting off flashbacks, very few of which I’ve ever found effective.  This particular trigger is only banished by another song and the battle between the two is epic.

“Amazing Grace, how sweet the sound.”  That is as far as my brain will go.  Then “there was always love in daddy’s hands.”  Then “Amazing grace, how sweet the sound.  Back and forth, back and forth, back and forth, until I can get to “that saved a wretch like me.”

I always wanted to be saved from the abuse, but didn’t know how.  I felt wretched.  I did need to be saved, but realize now that i was not the one who was wretched.

The first song reminds of what was supposed to be.  My father was supposed to treat me in a loving way.  He let me down again and again.  He hurt me.  There was not a single loving thing in his hands.

And it is nothing short of amazing that I survived.  But that is true not just for me.  Every single survivor who survives is nothing less than amazing.

So, I’m still a little teary and a little raw, but “Amazing Grace” will win out.  Daddy’s hands will never win.

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(And after the song, a prayer I can never say.)

“Through many dangers, toils and snares, I have already come.”

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You’ve Come A Long Way Baby

Posted on October 13, 2011 by Jackie Shaw

There have been a lot of transitions in my life of late.  Transitions often mean sorting through things that have been put in boxes.

As I sorted today, I found pictures of past relationships, past experiences, and something I had not planned to find.  I found pictures of my past self, and some of them were barely recognizable to me as me.

Other survivor friends have talked about seeing pictures of themselves and what they have described as the dissociative stare.  It is the look in the eyes in a picture that most people would not recognize, but survivors recognize it in themselves as pain.  They see the dissociation in their eyes that they learned to avoid the pain.  Dissociating is a coping mechanism I am not sure I can explain if you have never felt it, and I honestly hope you never have to learn what it means.

The first picture I found was from my passport.  I took a trip to Russia in 1997.   By that time, I was no longer being abused.  My father had actually already been released from prison.  Nonetheless, when I look in my eyes, there is a pain I can almost not tolerate to see.

I know you can’t see it well in this picture, but my eyes look completely glazed.  I was on the journey to healing, but in the throws of hell.

The second set of pictures was taken when I lived in California in 2001.  My sister was attending photography school and one of her friends needed some models for pictures.  In these pictures, I am not quite so dissociative, but my weight was the greatest it has ever been.  I was in a better place, but far from a good place.

I have said here before that weight was always a struggle for me.  It is not the sweater and the turtle neck making me look that way.  It’s truly how I was.  That was closed to the most I ever weighed.  Being larger than society says you should be is not bad, but for me, it was just a sign that I was not taking care of myself.  At all.  I was unhappy in my life, in my relationship, with the fact that I could not get the counseling I needed because I simply could not afford it.

I have changed so much since 2001 when this picture was taken.  I was going through hell and had been for a long time.  In 2001, I was twenty-five years old.  I had been dealing with the life-altering results of abuse for a minimum of eighteen years.  That includes only the time when I remember things being inappropriate with my father, not the whole dynamic of having a child molester always living in my home.

I am now thirty-five.  It is hard to realize that the percentage of my life dealing with abuse will never be less than the percentage of my life when I didn’t deal with it.  And it will never go away.  No matter how hard I work and how much I heal, it will always be a part of me.

I have gotten to the point that it is not a bad thing to be a survivor.  I wish I had not gone through it, but I did and I have lived to tell the tale.  And I tell it every chance I get.

I was sitting with a group of women the other day, none of whom I knew well.  I was asked to introduce myself and explain what I did.  The introduction was easy, the general pieces of what I do where also easy, but then it was time for the next step.  It was time to describe this blog that I write and why I do it.

I hesitated.  It wasn’t that I was ashamed or afraid to say it, but I wondered how I could say it most gently so as not to hurt anyone at the table.   Considering there were seven other women sitting at the table, statistics told me that at least one of them, excluding me, had been affected by sexual abuse in her lifetime.  No one cringed or looked pained as I talked, but it still left me wondering who the other survivor was.

As survivors, we go through a lot of stages.  I know the five states of grief, but do not know that anyone has ever created stages for survivors.  Right now, I’d say I’m in the liminal space.  I’m not in a hurting place; I’m not in a thriving place; I’m just in between.  it isn’t a bad place to be.  It’s just where I am.

I keep thinking to myself, “You’ve come a long way baby.”  It’s true, and I have a long life ahead of me to go.

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I’m No Super Hero

Posted on October 7, 2011 by Jackie Shaw

Of all the emotions I have had to face on my journey to be a survivor, anger is certainly the hardest.  Anger is an emotion, at least in my opinion, society has decided it is not safe to have.  The perception is that women cannot control anger, and therefore should not have it.  Anger is a masculine emotion.

I never wanted to be angry because I did not think I could control it.  I thought once I tapped into the anger, I would never stop being angry or that I would be consumed by rage.

Anger can lead people to be out of control if they are not in control of it.  Anger can be taken out on others inappropriately, but anger is also powerful.

I have joined a support group for survivors of sexual abuse.  The stories these people, who are predominately women, tell are astounding.  They have been tortured by members of their own families.  These are people who are supposed to have loved them.

These people have been bound and gagged, electrocuted, kidnapped, raped repeatedly, harassed, burned, drugged, gang raped, raped with objected, beaten.  I can barely tolerate to hear the stories of suffering.  I am angry at their abusers and angry at systems of “justice” that fail to act.

If we heard any of these peoples’ on the news, we would be appalled.  The outcry would be so loud and cries for justice would drown out the sound of traffic in New York.  There would be thousands of people storming the gates at the Hague to raise cries of crimes against humanity.

Because that is exactly what child sexual abuse is.  It is a crime against humanity and a violation of human rights.

I did not get that for a very long time.  I knew what happened to me was bad, but I did not realize how bad it was.  To use an overused phrase,  I could not see the forest for the trees.  I was so broken by the abuse, I could not see how bad it really was.  I could always see how bad it was for others, but for myself, I simply could not see how bad it had been.

It was so bad, it almost destroyed me.  And there are parts of me it actually did destroy.  My thought process has been permanently altered.  I have struggled to feel safe, to form a lasting relationship, to be in charge of my sexuality, to live my life to the fullest.

But I have battled back.  I am in charge of my life and even thought the abuse has changed me, I push on, even when it’s hard.  I get up every day and try to live life to the fullest.  Some days I don’t succeed, but I’m come to the point that I can take that in stride (at least for the most part) and get up again the next day and try again.

I don’t do that because I’m a super hero.  I wish I had a cape, but that would just make me a regular person with a non-breathable polyester cape.

I do it because again and again, I see the people in this group get up and battle back.  They express their pain and frustration, then in the next second, they are comforting someone else who is hurting.  I do it because I see people move from being broken and feeling victimized to saying, “I won’t take this anymore.  I’m choosing me.”

It is worth it to deal with the anger, even though I don’t like it because on the other side of the anger, there are amazing people living every day.  It is hard, and it is hard for them, but they go on and show such strength and such admirable courage.  I will keep writing my little blog posts, spurred on by the courage and strength of others.

I make no suppositions that I do this on my own.  I write for myself, but then I write for every survivor who keeps pressing on.  I also write for the survivors who did not make it, and for whom the pain was too great.  There is no shame in that, except that we as a world full of human beings, do not feel the collective anger necessary to stop abuse.

We don’t feel that anger because we don’t feel connected, and we don’t hear the stories.  But there are people who have heard the stories, and their lives and perspectives are changed because of it.  I don’t give up because I know peoples’ perspectives can be changed and then they are aware.  The awareness may not change the world, but it is one step closer to a changed world because another person recognizes the horror of abuse.

So, I’ve been dealing with the anger and the outrage, and in the process, I got a reminder that every bit of it is worth it because I’m not the only one who feels it or who fights against abuse.  For me, that is more than enough.

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In Ways I Cannot Describe

Posted on September 25, 2011 by Jackie Shaw

I just got back from a wonderful vacation in Florida.  While I was there, I saw five dolphins.  To me, dolphins represent the freedom that I have never known in life.  They are so majestic and beautiful.  I have stood and watched for them for hours.

When I am lucky enough to see even one, it is as if my heart beats in a smoother pattern.  It beats as if there is a peace in the world and I may some day know it.  It touches my soul at a depth I cannot describe.

In 2001, my sister and I went to California.  Before we left, I had done some research into getting a tattoo.  I found an artist in Santa Barbara.  I loved her work and decided I wanted her to do my tattoo.

I wanted a dolphin.  I wanted a piece of that freedom as part of my body.  I felt like so much had been taken from me, I wanted a visual reminder of where I had been and how far I had come.

We went to the shop and realized it was almost closing time.  Pat Fish was congenial, though gruff.  I didn’t want flash, but was so nervous I couldn’t ask her to design something for me.  So I chose a design and she tattooed me.

It took two hours.  It didn’t hurt because my arm quickly fell asleep because it was tucked under my body so she had easy access to my shoulder as flat as it could be.

It is deep, and I bled a lot, but that is also somewhat symbolic.  All the pain I went through when I was a child was hidden.  I kept it all inside.  The tattoo reflected the pain and the hurt, but made it visible, and turned it into something beautiful.

Pain is not beautiful, but so many survivors turn their pain into passion and speak for themselves and other survivors as often as they are able.  In that way, the experience is transformed and something beautiful comes out of it.

My tattoo is in a place where I can show it if I want, but usually chose not to show it.  That, too, is similar to my experience.

When people find out that I have a tattoo, they are often surprised.  I often hear, “You don’t seem like the type to have a tattoo.  Why do you have one?”  I usually ask if they really want to know.  That gives them a second to think about it, and gives me a second to gather the strength to tell my truth.

It takes a lot less effort to tell my truth than it used to, but there are always implications, for me and the person listening.  For me, it is telling something that people do not really want to hear and risk touching the pain all over again.  For them, it risks touching their pain of they were abused as well.

There is no beauty in what happened to me.  Absolutely none.  I hope that I bring beauty to it by telling the story with grace, truth, courage and care.  I also hope it makes it easier for others to speak their pain.  That is the best result I could every possibly experience.

That, like the dolphin, touches my soul in ways I cannot describe.

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But The Bad Days Don’t Last Long And I Know What It Feels Like To Be Whole

Posted on September 7, 2011 by Jackie Shaw

Jennifer’s Story, Part II

The first adult I told about “my affair with the pastor” was also a minister, who served at the denominational college I attended (recommended by my pastor, who continued to see me on visits to campus).  I was having trouble in a class at college and this man was asked to look in on me.  When I confessed to him what was going on, he said was outraged at my pastor but never considered turning in his colleague and friend.  It remained a secret, as I started going to him for counseling.  For the next year or so, we talked frequently and he tried to help me understand what had happened to me.  He admitted that he too had been attracted to girls my age when he was a pastor at a church and told me how tempting some girls were.  He made it sound like it was just one of those things…wrong but sometimes inevitable.  He asked me in our “counseling sessions” when was the first time I pleasured myself, concluding that I was one of those early sexual girls.  We eventually stopped “counseling” but remained friends while I was at college.  Just before I graduated, he started trying to have sex with me.  I guess he finally couldn’t resist.

The second person I told about what happened to me in my church was the Campus minister.  He informed me that if I wanted to, I could bring church charges against the pastor.  He said that if I chose to do so that I should be prepared to put my family through hell and have my entire sexual history exposed.  He recommended that instead, I focus on healing my own pain and guilt.  Basically, he treated me for sexual addiction.

The third person I went to for help was also a minister, from another denomination.  He waited three days after I told him about my experience as a child to start molesting me.  I was 25.  He was 65.  When I tried to break it off, he became enraged.  He wrote letters to my boss, my friends and my husband describing the sexual contact we had been having.  He was defrocked by his congregation and forced into retirement.

The first non-minister, woman I told about my abuse was a professional counselor at the college where I was getting my masters.  She invited me to join a support group for survivors of sexual abuse.  We had a group of five and met regularly.  The group encouraged me to report my first abuser to the church, which I did.  I wrote the Bishop and told him that I had been molested as a minor, and named him.  I received a letter back from the Bishop weeks later saying he was very sorry but the statute of limitations had run out and there was nothing that could be done.  I’m sure that if my counselor at that time had known of his response, she would have been outraged.  She never got to see it, though.  She was killed in a car accident on the way to work.  The group disbanded.

From that point on, I went through periods of time, when I tucked my abuse away, other times when I went to therapists and worked on issues.  Little by little, I got healthier and understood more about myself.  But, for the next 20 years I carried one very unhealthy belief with me.  Deep down, I still believed that what happened to me at 15 was somehow special…unique, and that I was at least partially responsible.  That changed when I found out in 2008 that another woman had brought church charges against my abuser AND HAD LOST!  Suddenly, I realized that what happened to me was in no way special or unique.  For the first time in my life, I owned that I was a victim.  A victim of a master abuser.  I have heard so many times that in order to heal, you have to stop being a victim and become a survivor.  But truly, for me, real healing started when I stood in the realization that I was a victim.  Since that time, I have become a survivor and I have found the self that was lost for 30 years.

After finding out that my abuser was able to avoid a conviction in the church when my letter had established a prior history, I became extremely angry.  I started looking for the woman who had had the courage to bring charges.  When, I found her, it was incredible.  She told me that my letter was read aloud at her pre-trial hearing and even though it was determined that it could not be brought as evidence, it gave her the strength to continue when doubts filled her mind.  Life is amazing, and after she lost her battle to convict him, she continued on her path to becoming ordained and she is now the pastor at the church where I was abused!  We have become soul sisters and visit regularly, but I have not visited her in my home town yet.  I’m working on the courage to visit the church and let her make it a safe place for me again.

Every paragraph in my story is a story in itself.  I would like to start writing about my healing process and the insights I have embraced.  I have been blessed with finally finding and loving myself…most days.  Some days are still very hard.  The slightest thing can set me off.  But the bad days don’t last long and I know what it feels like to be whole.

Thank you so much for sharing your story, Jennifer.  I know it will help other people heal.

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My Name Is Jennifer Part I

Posted on September 6, 2011 by Jackie Shaw

I have lifted up the offer to several people for a guest blogger.  Someone has finally taken me up on the offer!  This is Jennifer’s story, Part I.  Thank you for your courage and your strength.

My name is Jennifer.  I am a survivor of sexual abuse.   My abuser has never been stopped from abusing people, even though he has been accused multiple times by multiple people.

I grew up in a small, Midwestern town in the sixties and seventies.  I was born with a difference; I am one-handed.  In a small, Midwestern town, we didn’t get very many “different” people, so I experienced a lot of overstated reactions as a child.  People would gasp, point, cringe, and pity, and almost everyone I met asked “what happened to your arm?”  I didn’t know how to answer.  Nothing happened to my arm,   so I would answer ‘I was born this way.”

7th and 8th grades were particularly hard for me.  I wanted more than ever to fit in, be accepted, and couldn’t.  I found it difficult to talk to my parents about things, so I turned to my youth group pastor for counseling.  He was a wonderful man.  All the youth loved him, and he always made time if you needed to talk.  We did a lot of talking and I finally started to feel as though someone really cared for and accepted me.  Then he left.  He decided he wasn’t cut out for ministry and he left the church.

In my denomination, pastors were assigned by the bishop.  The conference was having some problems with another pastor who had gotten into an argument with his secretary and slapped her.  She sued for assault and won.  The bishop decided that a new start was what this man needed, so he was assigned to my parish.

I see now that I had already been groomed to be his victim.  I was isolated, depressed, hungering for acceptance and love.  I didn’t talk to my parents, didn’t have many friends and was eager to please.  He must have been salivating the day I walked into his study and introduced myself, asking for help.  He dropped everything, stopped his unpacking and listened to me describe my fears, anxieties and woes for over an hour.  At the end of my visit, he hugged me long and hard and told me he hoped I would come back.  He mentioned that Saturday mornings were a good time because it was quiet in the church and he could spend more time with me.

On one hand, he was very quick to act.  He was touching me on the hips, buttocks and small of my back.  On the other hand, he was so patient.  He waited months for me to decide that he must be in love with me and “make the first move”.  He asked me to show him around the new church, asked me my opinion about decisions he had to make, caressed me when he talked to me in private.   We were sitting and talking one day on a couch in a Sunday School room, and eventually started hugging.  When I stood up to go, I noticed a lump in the front of his pants.  It so happened that we were studying human reproduction in Biology class at the time and soon after, I saw an animated film that told how when a man is in love with a woman and they want to make love that a man gets an erection.  Suddenly, I knew — he was in love with me and didn’t know how to tell me!  The next time we met, I let him know that I loved him too, but I wasn’t sure that it was right that we have sex.  Again, he was so very patient, but the touches became much more sexual.  I would have done anything for him at 15 years old.  And I did –for three and a half years.

The rest of Jennifer’s story will be forthcoming tomorrow.  Thanks again for your courage and your strength!

 

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