Child Abuse Survivors Are Not Alone

Written By Don Shetterly

Far too many times we think we're all alone out in the world.  We believe there is no one else that has suffered through situations like we have.  We see our experiences as isolating us from others, when in fact, many have also walked in similar shoes on the road of life.

When I was first starting to deal with the memories of child sexual abuse, I thought I was alone.  I didn't think anyone understood.  I didn't know there was anyone else that had gone through these things.  Boy, was I so wrong!

In the early days, there were not the online resources that exist today.  There was not a team of therapists and support people that you could reach out to for help.  The internet was beginning to come alive, but resources were few and far between.  I remember going to one of the first support forums for male survivors.

The thing that this place helped the most was letting us all share our experiences and how we were struggling and dealing with them.  When you started to read the things other members wrote, you began to see that you weren't alone.  It was like a shot of a Hallelujah Chorus singing for all the heavens to hear.  It was that powerful.

When you go through abuse, even if the innermost parts of you can determine it is harmful and wrong, there's a part that says, "this is what is normal in life."  When you are a child experiencing these horrendous acts, it blurs the line between what is normal and what is not.  You carry that through into your adult years as if it is a conflicting truth which you have built your life upon.

Knowing that others have gone through experiences I had and that the trauma and abuse were anything but normal, helps significantly in reconciling your life with truth.  It is in that vulnerability that we come to know more of what the truth is.

One of the hardest things for survivors of abuse is feeling like they are alone and no one understands.  I'm grateful that there is a network of support out there for child abuse survivors.  The tricky part comes in getting those to see that they are not alone and others will be there supporting them as they begin their healing journey.

I can almost guarantee you that if you feel you're alone in what you are going through, there are others out there that understand this.  When you meet that individual, you will find a sense of strength and determination in healing from the horrors of your past.  It may not make the path easy, but at least you do not have to do this alone.

 Some great resources

1. Male Survivor
2. Surviving My Past
3. Mind Body Thoughts Blog (this blog)

---

Blog Post And Images (c) 2017 by Don Shetterly

• Permission required before any part of this blog post is reprinted, reworded or used in any form. 
• You are welcomed to share the LINK to this blog post.  

---

The Flashbacks Wipe Me Out

I've come a long way in my healing.  I've leaped over mountains.  I've not only survived what was done to me, but I have thrived and I'm conquering new worlds.  Yet, the flashbacks come up every now and then and wipe me out.

The feelings are the first to show up for the flashbacks.  Then it progresses to the hint of the images.  Next the images start to take a shape, and a larger view of what they are follows.

The night time becomes an exercise to convince my eyes that it is okay to close them for a few hours.  I try to coax my brain into turning off long enough to get some rest.  It becomes a tug-of-war, and who wins is anyone's guess.  The winner result will be known when the sun comes up.

As the images, thoughts, feelings, and sensations come on, my mind works feverishly to hide from them.  In this stage, I despise them.  I hate them.  I abhor them.  How dare they sneak into my conscious thought!  How dare they!

At times, I feel like a deer caught in the headlights, not sure what to think or what I'm seeing.  At times, I just sit there bewildered and caught off guard as if my thoughts are a million light years away.

My mind tries to rationalize the flashbacks as if there was some way to make sense of them.  There is no way these images are real, I scream violently back to them.  There is no way this could have happened.  "Are you so stupid that you would think they would," I chastise myself.

Yet, myself laughs at the ridiculousness of my aversion to the flashbacks.  It knows more than I see and sees more than I know.  Yet I'm not about to give up the control.  I'm not about to hand over the keys to something I don't know exists.  No way - no how!

Then I read an article in the paper about some father sexually abusing and torturing his 7 year old daughter.  My eyes turn to rage.  I want to make that father suffer as much as he made his 7 year old daughter suffer.  For I know that this will forever change her and it will be something she has to deal with for the rest of her life.  I try to silence my rage and anger, for they will lead me down a path that will not be good.  I can only hope they lock him up for good, but I know all too well, that often the child abusers get very little punishment if at all.

The flashbacks don't stop.

The flashbacks continue.

At times, my body feels like a wrung-out wash cloth ready to be tossed into the garbage.

At times my body feels like an exhausted mess of muscles, tissues and cells all frustrated with another episode of flashbacks that I have to deal with in my life.

This is what my life becomes at times.  This is the horrible world of flashbacks that I live with from all the abuse and torture that was done to me as a kid.  I struggle to write those words because what child would even think a family member could do anything bad to them.  "How dare the child think this?" I scream at myself!  It is hard to accept.

The images aren't pretty.  It isn't only my mind that remembers.  It is the physical reactions I can see in my legs and across my skin.  It is the shivering one minute, followed by heat and sweating the next.  It is the rash that shows up.  It is the burning that I feel one minute, followed by nothing the next.

Some days I wonder if I've gone crazy.  Some days I am so tired of dealing with flashbacks that I despise the air I breathe.  Some days, I just don't feel strong enough to face them.

Yet, I know - that this too shall pass.  One of these days, things will calm down.  Yes, I know, I've got more to work through in my life and when I get through these things, there will be greater peace.

Today, that all seems like a dream.

Today, I will hold on to that dream.

Today, I feel wiped out.

(From my journal on 6/22/17)

---

Blog Post And Images (c) 2017 by Don Shetterly

• Permission required before any part of this blog post is reprinted, reworded or used in any form. 
• You are welcomed to share the LINK to this blog post.  

---

Bully In The House

This was my life.  I grew up in a home where the bully was in charge.  The one that said, you must believe what I say or get out.  The one that thought their way was all that mattered or it was the highway.

There was no dissent.  There was no thought about dissent.  There were many threats if you even thought about telling anyone the secrets taking place in the house.

If the threats were not enough, you watched as your pets were killed and your body was whacked with beatings and pain.  You hunkered down as the violence happened and the yelling intensified.

I grew up in this home where you either believed and thought and talked like the bully of the house wanted or you were nothing in their eyes.  If you didn't do as they wanted, you were outcast.  You were shunned.  You were given the silent treatment.

There wasn't just one bully either.  There were two.  The second felt as if I was the physical punching bag he needed.  He was bigger than me and weighed almost twice as much.  I still remember his knees jumping up and down on my shoulder as he pinned me to the ground.

Both bullies molested me and raped me and made me hate myself.  It was the house I grew up in.  I despise bullies.  I despise child molesters and rapists.

The bullies used their church and the bible and their God to torment me, and keep me in line.  It kept me silent.  They used the teachings of Jesus to proclaim to me that they did these things to show God's love to me.  They were bullies.

They brainwashed me to think that everyone else was wrong and should be despised and talked about and shunned.  I grew up learning this and seeing it in action, even as they took time out to pray to God, read their bibles and preach love.

It is easy to say not all people are like that, but when you've been through what I have, you see that those words fall short.  For you see what truly lies in a person's actions and words.  You see evidence of it every day with grandstanding, but no matter what, the bullies are still alive and kicking.

I grew up in a house where I didn't know who I was and love was something that was proclaimed, but I knew very little about it from the example I was shown.  You wouldn't have been able to convince the bullies of this.  For they thought they were self-righteous and honorable and the best loving human of all times.  They were the greatest in their own eyes and they made sure everyone knew it.

Little do they realize as they continue to practice their hatred of those who don't bow down and worship at their feet, that I no longer participate in their bullying practices.  I no longer wish to allow them to rule over me.

Yes, it means that I no longer live in that house or talk with the bullies.  It means that I am blazing my own path.  Yet, I see time and time again, evidence throughout our land that the bullies I grew up with are present everywhere I go.

It takes more than words and actions.  That's all a bully has to defy human existence and love.  A bully will convince you they are not a bully, but if you believe that, you will sacrifice your own soul in the quest for life and for your soul's existence.

---

Blog Post And Images (c) 2016 by Don Shetterly

• Permission required before any part of this blog post is reprinted, reworded or used in any form. 
• You are welcomed to share the LINK to this blog post.  

---

Do Labels Hurt Or Help?

Many years ago when I was first recovering and beginning to come to terms with the child sexual abuse I experienced, I kept trying to find labels that applied to me.  In fact at the time, I could have used several labels.

Some of the labels that I could have put on myself included the following

• Conversion Disorder Survivor
• Depression
• Child Sexual Abuse
• Anxiety
• PTSD
• Trauma

There are probably many more that I don't recall or would have to really search for the proper label.  It is my understanding that labels for mental health and other conditions came out of the DSM or the Diagnostics And Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders.  In fact, Dr. Bessel Van Der Kolk talks about this in his book, The Body Keeps The Score.

(click image)

During one point of my recovery from child sexual abuse, I was struggling with porn and adult bookstores and all the 900 numbers that were around in those days.  It got to the point that one month I got my phone bill and wondered how I was ever going to pay the $600 that I owed.  Keep in mind that this was many years ago and $600 was a heck of a lot of money back then (still is today).

In addition to that, I was seeking out the anonymous sex in adult book stores and almost got arrested a couple of times but luck was on my side.  Every weekend, I would exclaim I was not going to go to these places and I would keep exclaiming that up until the point when I walked into one of the booths.

I started to use labels... but she stopped me

As I finally got the nerve up to share this with my therapist, I started to use labels like sex addict and addicted to sex and other things that I thought described me and my behavior.  She stopped me dead in my tracks and urged me to not apply the labels.  Paraphrasing her, she said that if I used the labels, then there would be a much better chance that I would try to live up to the expectations of those labels.

At the time, it seemed confusing.  I didn't see the harm, but I trusted her.  Lo and behold, years later, I understood exactly what she meant.  Where we focus our mind, that is where the body follows.  If I focused on being the label, then I had to evolve a world that fit around that label.  It was a double-edged sword because on one hand it might have been able to help me, but on the other hand it would cut through me like knife in a brawl.

Labels can help...

Labels can help.  I'm not going to deny that because sometimes you need the starting point.  However, if you take the label and put it on as one of your most comfy shirts to wear, then you're entering the danger zone of needing to evolve a world based upon that label.

I'm not sure the DSM helped anyone with mental disorders, but it gave those that help people suffering from mental health issues a way to communicate.  It gave insurance companies a way to bill and classify the problems many face.  Is that helpful?  I'm not sure I am qualified to say.  I can see the pitfalls and dangers of the labels.  I can also see the necessity for this practice.

My final thought in labels hurting or helping you is that be careful with them.  In the early days of recovery and healing, labels can give you stilts to walk through some of the muck.  However, if you're not careful, the stilts begin to swell up from the moisture and soon they will not be lifting you above the muck.

Find ways that use the labels effectively, but not that they hold you back.  So much of this is unconscious and so sometimes it is hard to see that we are doing it.  Just be aware of it and look for ways that the labels become something that you needed, not what you have become.  All of us that have been wounded in life are much more than what was done to us.  Let us honor that part of ourselves.  Let us honor the part that survived and is now making it in life.

If you would like to read more about my own story, check this blog post out 

• Hope And Possibility Through Trauma (click to read)

What's your thoughts?

1. How do you use labels?
2. Do labels hurt or help you?

---

Blog Post And Images (c) 2016 by Don Shetterly

• Permission required before any part of this blog post is reprinted, reworded or used in any form. 
• You are welcomed to share the LINK to this blog post.  

---