Recovery: It's More A Verb Than A Noun (Part 2)

Today, I will continue my writing on the subject of 'recovery'. This is the 2nd installment of a multi-part article. See Part 1 for the previous issues addressed.

Believing that recovery will be a linear process is illusionary

I often feel that I would be happier if the process of healing from traumatic abuse were more linear, more 'straight-line' continuous, without so many bumps and detours in the road. The problem, though, is that the world around us changes while we're "on the spiritual journey". We change, and part of that change is the changes we've made before. What we had originally imagined would be the outcome of our journey becomes different as we move along the journey. The very nature of change is that change occurs within and at the same time as we heal and grow.

Thankfully growth is continuous even when we fear that we're stuck in a rut. Baba Ram Dass, in his book Be Here Now talks about the 13 steps of the spiritual journey (I highly recommend to any seeker of truth and healing that this book be read; written back in 1971, it still greatly inspires me and serves as a thoughtful guide). In terms of being 'stuck', he says "At some stages you will experience a plateau -- as if everything had stopped. This is a hard point in the journey. Know that once the process has started, it doesn't stop; it only appears to stop from where you are looking. Just keep going. It doesn't really matter whether you think "it's happening" or not. In fact, the thought "it's happening" is just another obstacle." Any person who has suffered traumatic abuse gets 'stuck' often enough due to serious depression or feelings of inadequacy -- those are constant 'demons' haunting us. But the further constraint is the hope, the strong desire, to continually move uphill and pray that you don't fall back into the abyss from which you've struggled so hard to extricate yourself.

The problem with that hope, which in our desire to have it be true becomes an expectation, is that it is incredibly illusionary. The stronger, more accurate probability is that we'll be moving along on our journey, finally making progress, and we will stumble and fall back. We'll lose our footing, we'll get sick, some tragedy will befall us, an addiction that we hoped had been cured will return, and we will lose the gains we've made before that point in the journey. The sort of "one step forward, two steps back" analogy. And it will seem like 'you'll never recover' from this setback. But if you just 'keep on trucking', as the cliche from the '70's goes, eventually you will gain some traction again and move forward once more.

It helps to have the assistance of a competent mental health therapist, plus non-abusive/supportive friends, maybe a supportive spiritual or religious community, and a healthy intimate relationship helps, as well, to solidify your gains. Of course, if you're having problems with one of those areas, reach out to the others with greater urgency.

One of the other problems with the journey is that as we grow and move toward the 'truth' and healing of our life, we add more elements to the mix. We uncover deeper realities that were unavailable to us before, either because we've now changed and other doors are being opened to us, or as we clear away some of the debris of the trauma, deeper truths reveal themselves (although, at the time they appear, they often don't feel like 'truths', but rather like more 'stuff' from which we have to heal). Here again, Baba Ram Dass comes in handy. Another of the steps of the spiritual journey that he enunciates is "As you further purify yourself, your impurities will seem grosser and larger. Understand that it's not that you are getting more caught in the illusion, it's just that you are seeing more clearly. The lions guarding the gates of the temples get fiercer as you proceed toward each inner temple. But of course the light is brighter also. It all becomes more intense because of the additional energy involved at each stage of 'sadhana' [the spiritual journey]." 

To use my own journey as an example (as I often do in these blogs), when I first started working on my therapy, it was to confront my father's physical torture when I was a child -- though he actually continued to hit me until I was 22, when I finally had enough courage to 'stand up for myself' and put an end to it. Then, as I uncovered the layers of the abuse, I realized the part my mother had played in the dynamic, how she had actively arranged for the beatings to take place (and had been in continuous denial that turning us over to our father for 'discipline' would result in profound physical abuse). Further down the road, I began confronting the various addictions I had added to my world, to overcome the depression I often felt, and the deep-seated feeling of 'emptiness' I had in my heart. Then, after many bouts of suicidal ideation, my therapist presented the Incest Model to me -- which both answered many questions I had about feelings I'd had my whole life (about sexuality, sexual identity, comfort with gender, etc.) and presented me with a whole new set of issues to face.

Each step of the healing journey, of necessity, presents the survivor with a whole new set of problems to overcome. Finding solutions to those problems -- or at least manifesting coping skills while you are healing, so the abuse issues don't continue to drag you down emotionally -- is necessary if one is to move forward on the healing journey.

Hence, 'stuff will arise' at every point in the healing journey, and how well you are able to cope with it will help to define how far you've progressed. Don't expect that you won't fall back, even while you're moving forward. There are also side-steps, loss of equilibrium, all the ills of aging, etc. to cope with. You're climbing a mountain and it's a difficult process to scale such an imposing structure. But take the time, periodically, to rest in the mountain valleys, before continuing the climb. The healing journey will, in the best of circumstances, take your whole life. That's the good news.

People in my family will understand; being raised together, they've had a similar experience

Not very likely!! Even assuming your siblings lived with you throughout your childhood, they are different people and their experiences are different from yours. If you were an only child, or if you were raised in a divided family, due to the divorce of your parents or the death of one of them, and being raised by in-laws or grandparents, etc. (there could be many permutations to this familial arrangement), that will not assist others to understand your experience. Plus, whomever in the family was 'the problem', from your perspective, the person [or persons] who perpetrated the traumatic abuse, is not likely to admit their responsibility or the part they play [or played] in the dysfunctional family dynamic. So, they surely won't understand, believe, or agree to what you say happened to you or how it negatively affected you.

Within my own family, my eldest brother very strongly denies that any sexual abuse occurred. Like all three of the brothers, he has clear memories, though, about the physical abuse. But he adamantly denies that any incest occurred. And, for all I know, maybe it didn't 'happen' to him. Maybe it only occurred to the two younger brothers, or he is simply in denial about his own experience, or he doesn't remember. In any case, talking to him about it is quite worthless, because for him it 'didn't happen'. My middle brother has his own incest memories, but as is true for many survivors, they are vague. Still, he admits that there is a strong probability that it occurred, and he has been on his own traumatic abuse healing journey for many years (though not to the degree that I have been, since both of us suspect that I had the worst end of the abuse).

I simply don't expect that other members of my family will see the issue 'from my perspective'. It would be foolish to have such an expectation. I ended up severing relations with my father 20 years before he died; he had shown some desire to 'connect' with his son after his divorce from my mother, but by then the relationship was so thoroughly poisoned from the abuse and incest that I had no desire to continue the interaction. Quite simply, I did not trust him or feel safe in his company. And my mother was, until her passing, in more or less total denial about her husband's sexual abuse (frankly, she largely denied the severity of his physical abuse). As noted in a previous article, I never did confront her about the issues concerning her own sexual abuse, primarily because since she was already in profound denial about everything else, I realized how futile it would be to 'go there' in conversation.

Hence, for survivors of traumatic abuse: remember, it's your journey and it's unlikely anyone, except maybe your mental health therapist, or your minister, or your intimate partner, will 'understand' and 'accept' that reality of what occurred to you. (An excellent resource to give to someone who cares about you and wants to understand how best to be sensitive to your experience is Allies In Healing: When the Person You Love Was Sexually Abused as a Child, by Laura Davis.) But that someone who cares about you accepts and validates your experience -- that's the key, that's what helps to encourage you to continue the healing. It surely helps to have self-confidence and 'to believe in yourself', but that will take some time to manifest. You're not alone, no matter how much it may seem otherwise at times. There are many, many survivors of sexual child abuse who can help you on your healing journey, who can validate that "yes, it's true, it happened, and it happens to many others". Physical and sexual child abuse has occurred for something like 42 million Americans, and many hundreds of millions more worldwide. It's an epidemic. If you have 'outcomes' which appear to be related to such traumatic abuse, seek help. It is important, though, to remember that assuming the other members of your family will agree that it occurred (or is presently still occurring) is unlikely. Helpful if true, wonderfully supportive if available, but not to be readily expected.

Mental health therapy may be the 'ticket' to healing, but it is too painful

That is very true, don't let anyone tell you otherwise, healing from traumatic abuse is emotionally painful. The traumatic abuse was already painful enough, we say to ourselves: why would I want to subject myself to further emotional pain?

The problem is that the only way out of the trauma is to go through the trauma again, with a support system (therapist, friends, intimate partners, spiritual community, men's or women's wellness groups). Avoiding the feelings of depression, or trying to overcome the awful angst through the use of alcohol or substance abuse, or 'acting out' your rage about the abuse, are all 'avoidance techniques' which, in the long run, are going to hurt you even more. It's a rare healing journey that isn't filled with pain. But with a competent mental health therapist assisting, you can take the journey in small steps, ones which aren't going to throw you headlong back into the midst of the abuse.

On the other hand, it's like getting a college degree and then expecting that you'll find a great paying job. Getting the degree is often the basic 'entry ticket' to professional employment (unless you're some kind of software tech wiz who drops out of college and becomes a multimillionaire), but having one doesn't guarantee anything. You may be unemployed for many years, or underemployed in some field that has little to do with your skills. Therapy is the same, in that even when a survivor has gone through many years of sometimes horrifically painful healing, the 'light at the end of the tunnel' seems, if anything, even more distant. There are no guarantees in this life, and that applies equally to emotional and sexual healing. Recovering from traumatic physical, emotional, spiritual, and/or sexual abuse is often just damned difficult and it's a life-long endeavor. There aren't any 'silver bullets' or 'magical pills' that one can take (and frankly, for anyone who has tried to suppress their painful angst with substance abuse, one becomes rather wary of any kind of 'pill', no matter how much it is purported to be a 'magical cure').

There is also no guarantee that the pain will disappear with extensive therapy. It is similar to "the infinite onion" analogy: you peel back a layer at a time and often you cry. And there are an infinite number of layers to peel back (at least infinite within the bounds of your existence on this physical plane). On the other hand, like the college education, engaging in the healing journey is the basic necessity for moving toward recovery. It surely helps, and it will, with competent assistance, increase your coping strategies; and it may, potentially, 'heal the wound' of the trauma, at least to the extent of allowing you to have a reasonably happy life.

But pain-free? Not likely. But is there any other route to our healing? If there is, I'm not aware of it. We'll get to the 'promised land' eventually, as long as we have the expectation that the 'promise' is something we make to ourselves, and only require ourselves to fulfill it. Others can help, though. As Lord Byron said "we enter this world alone and we leave this world alone", which doesn't mean we can't develop some wonderful friendships and intimacies along the journey to help us achieve emotional, sexual, and spiritual healing. Those help immensely, and without them, this life can be intolerably empty. We are social creatures. We need social, sexual, and emotionally connective relationships with others to help us grow in this life.

Just remember that it is your journey, you 'own it', you're paying the bills for it's occurrence and growth. Others can help, others can advise, but be careful to not allow those others to further perpetuate the abuse from which you're trying to recover. There's no need to further replicate the pain that you experienced as a child, you have had enough of that already (in your memory, in traumatic flashbacks, in the often dysfunctional behaviors that result, in adulthood, from severe trauma). Life can and often is inherently painful. No one leaves this life without some pain in their lives. Hence, approach mental health therapy with the knowledge that while it may indeed be a painful journey, it can, with the best of outcomes, be ultimately redemptive.

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That's enough for this installment of my article on recovery. I'll return with Part 3 soon, with more observations about the healing journey.