INCEST

Nov 28, from “Strengthening My Recovery” daily reader

“Those of us who were sexually abused struggled for years trying to accept what happened to us. Mostly, people told us to shut up about it, or if they were a little more polite, they let us know that we should somehow just “get over it,” put it out of our minds, stop dragging the family down, or some other such sentiment. We lived with this burden for years.

When we’re working Steps Eight and Nine, the most important amends we make is to ourselves. We stop trying to push those wounded parts of ourselves down with food, anxiety, stinginess, and pornography – things that make us feel as if the abuse was either deserved or acceptable in some way.

We learn to set boundaries with our perpetrators and those who protected them, including our sisters and brothers who told us they couldn’t talk about it. We put ourselves first for the first time in our lives.We detach with a hatchet if we have too, but we detach.

Forgiving our perpetrators, who we can finally view for what they are, may take time. But we will eventually find a way to move forward.Then forgiveness will be easier because we no longer have to pretend that the abuse didn’t happen.”

My experience:

Luckily for me, my parents did not sexually abuse me.  But I can equate this topic to the physical and emotional abandonment that I endured. Yes, people have said, “just get over it; we have all had some of that.”  What I say to those people is, you haven’t gotten over it, you are only pretending.  It is affecting you in ways that you don’t even realize.  But you think you are ok.  You are not ok.  I know that as I make amends to myself and put myself first, I stop denying the pain. I stop trying to mask it with food, sex, stinginess, etc.  I feel the pain, I acknowledge what was done to me.  I understand that they had no idea what they were doing to me as they too grew up in dysfunction.  However, because they are still practicing this dysfunction, I have learned to detach. I no longer need to place myself in harms way.  I no longer need to take the looks of disappointment, the negative talk, the non-acknowledgement of my accomplishments that make me feel like I did when I was a child.  Forgiving though will take time.  I am working on it, but I am not there yet.  Every time I think about forgiveness, my internal gladiator shows up to protect me.  This is probably some form of PTSD from enduring a lifetime of hope that I get extended some form of acknowledgement or love.  My gladiator is trying to protect me from more disappointment.  I need to exorcise the gladiator in order to get to a place of forgiveness.  But it is scary.  I say this because I need you to know that this is a program of progress not perfection. I am not perfect, I no longer expect myself to be, I am no longer hard on myself because I am not perfect.

Once you accept that you no longer need to be perfect, a weight will be lifted.  Join me!