Recovery: It's More A Verb Than A Noun (Part 4)

Having caught up on a wealth of wonderful pieces of serendipity (as enumerated in my most recent post), I'm now ready to return to a topic about which I last wrote in August 2014. I had written a series of 3 posts on the subject of recovery and how it's not a 'place to be achieved' as much as it is an ongoing journey of discovery. I had written the first three 'parts' in rapid secession, and then been side-tracked by other events in my life.

My original intent on this 'Part 4' blog was to write a two-part essay on body memories and dissociation. But the more I thought about it (and wrote it 'in my mind', as is my approach to the construction of my articles), I realized that the issue of body memories was, all by itself, a potentially overwhelming topic, and needed an extensive focus as a single topic. In fact, as I gave it more thought, I realized that a lot of events in my life, that I would have previously seen as dissociative memories, were more properly the outcome of 'my body remembering', rather than the 'dissociated mind' remembering. In other words, they were more somatic memories than they were cognitive memories. Now, I do understand that 'cognition' and 'dissociation' aren't equivalent; cognition has more to do with conscious, in-the-moment, known-to-the-clear-mind memory, whereas dissociation is more about the memories being 'divided' from the conscious self, in 'parts of Self', that are often unacknowledged by the primary public personality (the one that is known to ourselves, in a conscious state) -- locked away in the 'parts of Self' that arose due to traumatic events in ones life.

Hence, the somatic (or body) memories are ones that don't have 'words' attached to them. It's a means of the 'body speaking for itself', because that's where the memories are located, locked away at a cellular level. 

Before I go any further, let me note that I've been very influenced, of late, by several books I've been reading that have opened a door to a kind of knowledge that was previously unavailable to me. I had read a book that a former therapist of mine in Albuquerque, years ago, had suggested - Embracing Our Selves: The Voice Dialogue Manual, by Hal & Sidra Stone. That opened my mind to the method of communicating with my 'parts of Self'. But though it dealt with the mental dissociation aspects of my personality (which I will cover, far more extensively, in Part 5 of this ongoing 'Recovery' series), it didn't, to the extent that I sought, deal with a lot of the bodily responses that the trauma has produced -- the nightmares, flashbacks, startle responses, tightening of muscles, fear in my throat, etc. So, I searched further for answers to that part of my post-traumatic stress disorder [PTSD]. The two books I discovered and have very much enjoyed reading (well, 'enjoyment' in the academic and thought-provoking sense, not that the subject is in any way 'fun' -- far from it!), upon which much of this essay is based, are The Body Remembers: The Psychophysiology of Trauma and Trauma Treatment, by Babette Rothschild, and, to a lesser extent (since I am still reading it) In An Unspoken Voice: How the Body Releases Trauma and Restores Goodness, by Peter A. Levine.

What both authors stress is that somatic memories don't have a 'voice' of their own, at least not in the sense of 'verbal language'. The memories do exist, however, but on a level that requires a much different approach in mental health therapy. Because the 'voice' is expressed in body sensations and responses to emotional triggers, the client must learn to 'listen' in a very different manner from the standard 'use of the auditory ear'. It's more about listening with an inner, 'heart' ear. And noticing how 'in our body' we physically respond to the world around us.

Ms. Rothschild talks about how infant amnesia is caused by the lack of a memory recording mechanism in the brain. Our memories are recorded in our hypothalamus, which doesn't reach full maturity -- and hence not complete ability to 'record memories' -- until the age of 3. Very young children don't remember precisely because there is nothing to remember with, no 'recording' mechanism in the brain. But that doesn't mean that they have no way to remember the trauma; instead of being locked away in the mind, it is locked away in the body and therefore has to be 'translated' in a wholly different way. 

But, additionally, as my therapist, Rev. Dr. Mark Robinson, points out, often the trauma is so thoroughly severe that even with a fully developed hypothalamus, past infancy, the victim is struggling to simply cope with the terror and stay alive; hence, the 'recording of the trauma' doesn't take place, at least not at a 'clear and verifiable' level. The recording mechanism in the brain is overwhelmed by the severity of the trauma. Indeed, the client often (though not always) knows that the event occurred, but the details are lost. And they simply may not be accessible at a later date, because they were not 'recorded' by our memory bank. (I hope I'm translating what Mark stated in a clear and accurate manner.) 

Ms. Rothschild, in The Body Remembers, discusses such an incident. A woman was raped, as an adult, by a man who was wearing a red shirt. The victim remembered that the rape occurred, but in the terror of the event forgot that the man was wearing the red shirt. For months afterward, every time she was out in public for a walk and saw something that was red (a dress in a store window, stoplights, stop signs, red lettering on a billboard) her fear was re-triggered and she avoided that location. 

Now, she has no conscious memory of her attacker having worn a red shirt, so she has no access to why she is having this reaction to the color red - in fact, since she doesn't realize it is due to the color red, she has no earthly idea why her body is freezing up, and her heart is racing in such situations. Eventually, she becomes locked away in her own house by a fear of going outside (agoraphobia). Thankfully, with the help of a competent therapist, she is able to access some of the memories of the traumatic rape, and gain additional knowledge about the details of the incident and her attacker. When she becomes aware of the 'red shirt', slowly she is able to desensitize her body, and venture out into the world again. 

But since, as Mark Robinson points out, the memories, at least in childhood, may not have been recorded by the mind, assuming that in therapy in later life the client can 'access those memories' may be a lost cause. The memories may simply not exist, at least on a cognitive level. And they may not exist even at a dissociative level. But, they may exist at a somatic memory level. And that's where the whole issue of 'body memory' comes into play. 

Now, having discussed the 'theory' of somatic memory (I would encourage the reader of this essay to access the books mentioned to gain a more in-depth understanding of somatic memory and its related outcomes), I want to address -- in the way that I make use of my own experience to portray the outcomes of PTSD -- some of the ways my own body has 'remembered' the sexual and physical trauma of my childhood.

Invisibility to my parents and adult sexual partners

Clearly, due to the nature of the sexual molestation that I experienced at the hands of both of my parents, my own needs as a child -- as their child -- were 'invisible' to them. Their sexual pleasure and 'fulfillment' (if one can accurately discuss pedophilia as 'fulfillment', given that it often occurs, for the perpetrator, in a state of their own dissociation) was achieved at my emotional and physical expense. They didn't 'see' me as a human being who deserved care and nurturance, surely not their care and healthy love. I had a body that could be penetrated (as in the case of my father) or made use of (as in the case of my mother) for their own sexual and emotional release. 

Then, when I reached chronological adulthood (I stress chronology here, since I'm not sure I achieved emotional adulthood until much later in life), I had a series of female sexual partners who cared little about who I was or about what I needed as an individual male, separate from their cultural expectations of 'men' generally, and hence I continued to feel 'invisible' to them. It felt like I was a transparent being who had no solid form, and the only thing about me that was 'solid' was my genitals, which the women used for their own sexual pleasure, without much willingness to reciprocate -- in that most of the 'love-making' was about, for them, my 'making love to them' with very, very little focus on my own sexual needs [it did occur, but rarely]. This was not due to my being unwilling to enunciate those needs, in a fairly clear manner, but rather that there was no 'felt' responsibility, on their part, to engage in love-making in return. Again, that was the experience I had had as a child, when I was inappropriately and traumatically sexualized by my parents. That it was replicated in my adult sexual relations simply drove the 'sense of invisibility' even deeper. 

Thankfully, several rare partners were willing to 'know me for who I really was', as differentiated from their cultural expectations of males. Clearly my female partner of the past 7 years has been willing to 'see me and know me' -- and crucially respond to me in a reciprocal way -- which has allowed me to open my heart and be emotionally and physically vulnerable, knowing I can trust her. That has led to, and continues to promote, significant healing in my life!

Before moving on, let me use one other example of this feeling of being physically invisible to people around me. When, at the age of 45, I was attending my first year of graduate social work schooling in New Mexico (at NM Highlands University, a commuter program that was two hours drive from Albuquerque, where I was living at that time), I was having a conversation with my male traveling partner about my experience around the other students. I said that I often felt quite invisible in my classes, like no one noticed I was even there. My friend, in definite surprise, exclaimed that, at 6'8" with a deep resonant voice and a brilliant mind, I was quite visible to everyone around me. Yet, in spite of that, I felt invisible to them. He speculated that they were overwhelmed by my greater command of the subject (in that I was older than most of the other students and had had considerably more 'life experience', as well as having been a voracious reader all my life) and often 'ignored' me because they didn't know how to 'keep up' with my academic prowess. That observation 'stopped me in my tracks'; I was actually surprised by his perspective and yet took his words to heart. It allowed me, for one of the first times in my life, to feel bodily visible to myself, even if I continued to 'feel' that I was invisible to others around me. 

Lifelong pain in the sides of my chest

Since as far back as I can remember, I have had periodic sharp severe pains in my chest. For many years, I assumed I was having a mini-heart attack, which of course greatly concerned me. In my mid-20's, I talked to an orthopedic doctor at the University of New Mexico Student Health Center about this problem and his observation was that the pains were caused by intercostal muscle spasms, not the tightening of arteries to my heart. That knowledge was of some assistance; the pain continued (and has continued in the years since), but at least I know it's unlikely I'm having a heart problem. 

Around 1986, when I was recovering from a traumatic nervous breakdown (or 'breakthrough', as my therapist, Shoshona Blankman, termed it from a 'spiritual strengths' perspective), I began to have a series of nightmares that had the same theme, over and over again. [The nightmare was 'set' in Guam, where I was living at the time as an infant, and a set of numbers on the suitcases, that I later realized was a 'date', kept appearing in the nightmare, which had strong elements of traumatic terror.] Putting together knowledge about my early medical history, plus knowledge about the traumatic nature of my abuse, I speculated (and am now fairly certain this is accurate) that my father either anally or orally raped me when I was an infant -- once at the age of 9 months, and again around 2 and 3, and later at age 10. [I had what were, in my adolescence, diagnosed as 'epileptic seizures', but which I'm fairly certain now were seizures caused by traumatic sexual abuse.] My assumption is that when he was raping my infant body, he held me under my arms and pressed his thumbs into the sides of my chest. And that is why I have these pains in the sides of my chest, for as long as I have had any conscious memory -- the pain being a somatic memory of the abuse.

Release of toxic memories following bodywork

I have had a fair amount of bodywork in my adult life -- massage, acupuncture, cranial-sacral, trager, and similar modalities. It has been an excellent avenue for getting in touch with many of the traumatic memories that were solely accessible on a somatic level. In 1982, I had a series of migraine headaches, for weeks on end, to the point of often feeling suicidally depressed. My brain often felt like it wanted to vomit. The migraine headaches would last anywhere from 10 hours a day to 24 hours, and feel like they would never end. Finally, late that same year, a nurse friend suggested I try acupuncture, after tranquilizers prescribed by my doctor failed to resolve the issue. Over a period of 3 months and 10 treatments, the problem was indeed resolved, and I have only had about 3 serious headaches -- of the magnitude of a migraine -- in all the years since.

Often, when experiencing massage, I would start crying, feeling like I was fated to 'live and die all alone', with no intimate partners in my life who actually cared about me. I would see other people around me who 'appeared' to have healthy, intimate partnerships, but those relationships, for a great many years of my life, seemed like they occurred beyond a solid plexiglas wall: I could observe them, I could hear other people talk warmly and supportively to one another, but I rarely had the opportunity to experience such a relationship myself. It produced deep emotional angst in my heart and body.

The aforementioned nervous breakdown happened in 1985, following a very bad acupuncture experience [though I must note that I had also stopped all substance abuse and alcohol intake earlier that summer, and hence, I had no way to 'anesthetize' myself from the emotional tension that filled my life]. Generally I had had positive (though often strong) 'emotional and tension releases' due to acupuncture. But a particular session around July 1985 sent me 'over the edge into a sea of terror', the vast reservoir of depression and trauma memories that had filled my life for as long as I had had conscious memory. For about three months, nonstop, I was shaking uncontrollably, in a state of incredible unending terror. It was, to put it mildly, simply the most horrible three months of my adult life. The only way I survived it was to get acupuncture treatments, daily, from another Chinese medical doctor [CMD] to whom I was recommended by a friend.

Years later, I was talking to Linda Bebee, a close female friend who had studied acupressure. When I explained what had occurred, her speculation was that the fellow who produced the overwhelmingly negative reaction probably checked my 'pulses' (using the meridians upon which acupuncture doctors base their treatments) and determined that my 'heart meridian' was weak and needed strengthening. However, as my friend pointed out, she had learned, from a couple of years of doing acupressure on me, that emotionally traumatized people do indeed have weak heart meridians, but the worst thing that a CMD can do it go 'straight for the center' and try to strengthen the meridian directly. Her speculation was that this fellow had literally 'blown me out of the water' by releasing all the emotional trauma all at once, instead of allowing it to 'bleed off slowly', as had been the approach of all my other bodyworkers. (I might note that this particular CMD quit that profession as a result of what happened to me, realizing he wasn't as sensitive as he had assumed.)

And this 'hypersensitive' reaction to bodywork has continued since that time. Every massage therapist I've worked with since 1985 has learned that I can only tolerate light pressure and at most a half-hour session. Full-hour deep tissue massage is simply too powerful and leaves me swimming in an ocean of toxic energy, a most frightening outcome. In fact, of late I've asked my massage therapist, Alice Sanvito, to add some very light work on the sides of my chest, where I've had those life-long intercostal pains, and sure enough, even at that careful level, within an hour or so later a powerful bit of toxic 'terror' spews into my bloodstream and makes me unduly frightened. Alice (and I) have learned to only engage in massage on those areas for a couple of minutes, to allow the 'terror to bleed off slowly', given how many trauma-based somatic memories are locked in that part of my body.

Fear of walking past any man who is seated on a bench

This has been another life-long fear. It generates extreme terror in my body, on a regular basis, even up to the present time. The fear is of being attacked from behind, and overwhelmed physically, while the man anally rapes me. Now, as an adult man who is 6'8" and fairly strong, this fear doesn't make much sense. I can generally, at this age, defend myself from such an attack, or at least could put up a good fight. But since the fear arises over and over again, clearly it is a somatic memory from childhood, maybe even infancy, that I haven't sufficiently 'processed' and moved beyond. It happens with any man, sitting on any bench, in any park or other location. It's not 'that specific man' who is a perpetrator; frankly, 99.9% of the time he's probably just sitting there minding his own business. But the fear arises in my body. I literally have to consciously think "this is about a body memory, you're being triggered by something in your past, this is not 'about what is happening right now'". For at least the next 50 feet or so, my gait becomes very 'stilted' and my butt muscles tighten up, and my arms move into defense mode. It's something I can't much control, even with that conscious processing in my mind. Then, as I move away and feel 'physically safe' again, the fear subsides. 

What I would emphasize is that the fear is not simply 'fear', but a feeling of terror. I'm not simply 'scared', I'm having a difficult time breathing and want to get away from the situation as fast as possible.  That it's 'about something in the past' and not 'about what is happening right now' doesn't seem to help much. The feeling of terror is very, very 'real' to me in such a situation.

Fear of highs, especially tall buildings

Another significant fear that I have had most of my life is a fear of tall buildings. What is paradoxical about this fear is that 'heights' alone are not the problem. I love to sit next to the window on an airplane and watch the earth move by far below, and I have no problems with being on tall mountains, as long as the edge of the high point is not a shear drop of more than 20 feet. But in tall buildings, anything over 2 stories, I am absolutely terrified. I've had to pass up employment opportunities in the past because the organization's offices were on the 20th floor of the building. I've had to pass up educational opportunities because the classrooms were above the 2nd floor. If I do attend a meeting in a tall building (I've slowly desensitized myself to some extent), I make a point of not sitting near a window -- in fact, of sitting where I can view the window from a distance. In tall apartments or condos, I strictly stay away from floor-to-ceiling windows. 

From my mental health therapy, I have speculated (and again, given his bizarre behavior, this is not unlikely) that my father 'held me by my feet out a window' probably in his odd sense of life 'to make a man out of me'. [That was a major expression he was constantly making.] Of course, given all the other trauma I experienced at his hands, it only drove my fears even deeper. 

Hence, again, I strongly feel that this fear of heights in man-made buildings is a somatic memory of a PTSD event.

Periodic panic attacks, since early childhood

I have, since childhood, been subject to periodic severe, debilitating panic attacks, resulting in racing, chest-slamming heart palpitations and overt fear of not being able to escape a particular situation or location. These panic attacks, at least the 'out-of-the-blue' ones, have subsided somewhat in recent years. But I continue to have significant fears about materials [especially 'allergic' clothing reactions], foods [instantaneous nausea and disorientation], chemical fumes [severe headaches and tightness in my lungs], and a general sense of paranoia about almost anything, at any time, that doesn't feel completely 'safe' to me. In fact, safety has been one of the major 'watchwords' in my life -- whether specific individuals were 'safe' to be around, or whether meetings or locations are 'safe' to be in. A lack of safety causes tightness in my chest, a feeling of suffocation in my throat, and general disorientation in any given situation. I've had to learn how to cope with these situations in a way that I can survive them, but that being 'triggered' by them leads me to experience widespread terror, in the moment, is clear evidence of their being related to somatic memories from my childhood. 

Lastly, but significantly, somatic memories about my body itself

One of the common outcomes for survivors of traumatic sexual abuse (molestation, rape, penetration, and including emotional incest) is an emotional disconnect from their own bodies. Survivors of sexual PSTD, especially when it is combined with physical torture and emotional abandonment -- which is not uncommon -- literally have a feeling of 'floating in the corner of the room, observing their bodies, but not existing within those bodies'. A sort of quite negative out-of-body experience. This is a survival mechanism: the trauma is often so severe that the only way to survive it emotionally is to disconnect from the feelings it generates and 'lock yourself away' in a dissociative part of Self. 

For most of my life, it has been difficult to be comfortable within my body, especially the gendered nature of my male body. Again, this is quite common. Mike Lew, in his book Victims No Longer: Men Recovering from Incest and Other Sexual Child Abuse, talks about this body disconnect and the feeling that ones gender is the problem. [Mike's book is one that I would strongly recommend to any male survivor of traumatic sexual child abuse. It has assisted me in my own healing in the past, in a wide variety of ways. I would also as equally recommend Abused Boys: The Neglected Victims of Sexual Abuse by Mic Hunter.] To be able to live 'with comfort and ease' in my male body has been, many, many times in my life, absolutely painful at a deep emotional level. 

That severe discomfort was the major reason for my work on men's emotional wellness. When I first discovered the men's movement in the mid-1980's, it was, frankly, a godsend moment [I'll use that term, though as a devout Unitarian, 'God' language is also a bit uncomfortable to me -- but you get the point -- a revelatory, life-changing event in my life]. That there existed a version of 'maleness' that felt 'safe', that was not invested in hard-bodied macho perspectives, was the lifeboat that I needed for my healing to move forward in an emotionally healing manner. Still, it has been difficult and continues to be difficult. This male body disconnect is something I will deal with more fully in my next blog on dissociation (Part 5). For now, let me note that not being completely at ease with my maleness-of-birth has been a major somatic memory that is clearly and distinctly related to the severity of the sexual child abuse that I experienced. 

In conclusion

I come back to a favorite quote from Victims No Longer [page 72] that sums up so many of my feelings about male sexual child abuse: "What victimized children experience is the perversion of childhood. What they lost was every child's right to a normal childhood -- loving, protective, and nurturing. The abusive childhood hasn't been lost at all. It remains with the survivor every minute of his adult life."

The mind may or may not have forgotten all the aspects of the traumatic abuse, but significantly and quite hopefully the body has not forgotten. It's true that we hope to cope with our lives in ways that allow us to grow and prosper as human beings, and hope that the PTSD outcomes don't crush us with their insidiousness. But knowing that we can remember what happened, at least on a somatic level, gives us the opportunity to heal from the trauma and shame. At least, we can 'remember' in some way, and that ability to remember allows us a path out of the terror. Sometimes we wish we could just forget it all, when the terror becomes so severe that our chest tightens up, or we feel like we are going to suffocate from the tension, or our bodies freeze up and cramp due to the somatic memories. That's the downside -- and a terrifying downside, indeed -- to the trauma. But knowing that the memories are accessible on some level makes room for healing and moving beyond, into a brighter future.

For that, somatic memories are a blessing. Sometime they feel only too much like a curse, but without them we would be stuck with the traumatic outcomes without a window on their causation. And that would be infinitely worse. 

Focused Serendipity

I was doing really well on writing blog postings in July and August of this year, working on installments of the "Recovery" focus -- which I plan to return to soon. But, around that time, a whole new set of events occurred that encouraged me, at least temporarily, to set aside that focus and concentrate on another path.

Over this past year, when I made connections on LinkedIn -- as people accepted my invitation to 'link' -- I sent out a 7-paragraph 'bio' that talked about what my activities had been, in terms of men's emotional wellness, how I had arrived at 'where I was presently', and listed the Internet links to the Mariposa Men's Wellness Institute [MMWI] website and blog. I was gratified that about 50% of the people to whom I sent my bio responded. Most of the replies were in the nature of "thanks for the information, it's good to connect", which was pleasant, but additionally a number of people said "I really like what you're talking about and want to connect at a stronger professional level". For those replies, I wrote back and engaged in a short, but vital conversation. And then, a few people 'acted upon' the information in my bio and said they wanted to interview me for articles or radio shows. That was the most amazing part: it's gratifying when I am able to 'link with lots of other professional people', but it's even more empowering to carry on real conversations with LinkedIn connections and make the connections 'real'.

So, I am going to discuss the most resilient of links that I made and what has resulted from them heretofore.

KETC, Channel 9 Community Producer Class

Before talking about the links, I want to focus on a Video Editing class I took at KETC, the St. Louis PBS channel (it ties into what follows). KETC sent out an invitation in August, inviting nonprofit organizations to engage in a Video Editing class at the station, with a special emphasis on Community Producers who had taken the class before. I had taken the class in 2012 and produced a short video for their "Homeland" project.

We had a choice of any community focus that we wanted to engage in, for our projects. Most of the class decided to focus on the events in Ferguson, Missouri, following the murder of Michael Brown by a white police officer, Darren Wilson. That had been dominating the news for several weeks and had raised (for very good reasons) community anger about police brutality and the overt discriminatory enforcement of the law at the expense of African American citizens -- which, frankly, has been going on for a very long time in Missouri. But this death, in particular, was 'the straw that broke the camel's back' and finally lit the fuse of anger in the African American, and St. Louis antiracism, community.

As much I have been, throughout my community organizing career, focused on antiracism issues, I decided to focus my own video on the issues of adult male sexual abuse survivors, which is the primary focus of MMWI. The class lasted 6 weeks, and I completed my video right before I left for New Mexico (see below). Given the time constraints, I decided to interview myself [as a male sexual abuse survivor], Linda Fiehler, my significant female partner, and Rev. Dr. Mark Robinson, my therapist. The class agreed, at the final session when we showed our 'product', that I had the most professional video, the most 'completed' one, at least in part because I had the advantage of having taken the class once before.

The subject of my video, which was posted on the KETC website, is "Achieving Intimacy After The Devastation of Male Sexual Child Abuse". The video can be accessed at: http://youtu.be/b9BcIr3GhVs.
(If you reach a 'Something went wrong' point, just ignore that and hit the 'follow this link' in the lower right corner, which will take you to the video.)

St. Louis Business Journal - Part 1

One of the people to whom I offered an invitation to connect on LinkedIn was the publisher of the St. Louis Business Journal. I didn't 'know' her beforehand, mainly I was reaching out and making connections to people within my own community whom I thought had interesting positions and ideas that would be beneficial to MMWI. In addition to people in Missouri, I focused on connections with people in New Mexico [where I lived for 32 years before moving to St. Louis], Native Americans, plus professionals working in the fields of psychology, mental health, human anti-trafficking, domestic abuse, art therapy, and other fields that related to the mission of MMWI. I was also focused on spreading my connections worldwide, and managed to make connections in Canada, Europe, South America, Africa, the Middle East, and Asia. I enjoy having that 'global perspective' and accessing ideas and approaches to issues from many different perspectives.

Anyway, to my delightful surprise, the publisher at the St. Louis Business Journal (I found out later) read my bio and thought 'this would be an interesting person to interview' for their "Character Profile" article, which they have in every weekly edition. She directed one of her editors to pursue the interview and he in turn contacted Meg Crane, who is one of their writers, who in turn contacted me. This all occurred in mid-September. Meg called and asked me for an interview. This was the first time in over 10 years that anyone had taken an interest in finding out more about the mission of MMWI (there had been two articles in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch in 2001 and 2002 about the organization, which had generated some community interest, but then media coverage had fallen silent).

It took a while to set things up, but finally we engaged in the interview in mid-October. As it turned out the only day we could do it was right before I was headed off to the Southwest to visit Bryce, Zion, and the north rim of the Grand Canyon, see friends and family in Albuquerque, and attend the New Mexico Men's Wellness Conference at Ghost Ranch. The schedule was so tight that we arranged a photo session and the interview on the Friday before I was leaving on Sunday. At the time of the interview, the KETC video (noted above) had not yet been posted, but I told Meg I would encourage KETC to post it before the publication of the St. Louis Business Journal article, so they could include the link in the article.

The interview was really quite enjoyable (Meg Crane is a very professional interviewer). We scheduled it to last an hour, but it ended up going for 2 1/2 hours! At the end, Meg said she hoped that someone would 'take the bait' and be willing to fund MMWI, based on its focus on men's emotional wellness and the issues of male sexual abuse survivors, especially given how that no nonprofits in Missouri have that dual focus.

Off to the Southwest, and An Interview in Albuquerque

After a delightful week traveling with my long-time significant female partner to Bryce and Zion Canyons, and the north rim of the Grand Canyon, we returned to Albuquerque to visit with my brother and sister-in-law, and visit my close friends. On the second morning we were in town, we turned on the local news, mainly to see what the weather was going to be that day. As it turned out, there was an announcement about some police-community relations hearings at the Albuquerque Convention Center that evening. Albuquerque has had it own share of police brutality problems over this past year, with 37 police killings of citizens (some of them caught on video, which lead many citizens to be concerned that the killings were more like executions); a recent Economist article talked about Albuquerque having the most violent police department in the United States.

I noted to my significant partner that I should attend those hearings, given my former role as the Chair of the Albuquerque Policy Advisory Board (1981-82). After a day of seeing friends, we attended the hearings that evening. As it turned out, the forum was mainly a presentation about how a series of meetings were going to be held in the spring of 2015, to address citizen concerns about police behavior. One of the speakers was the mayor, who encouraged people to talk to him afterwards. I took that opportunity offered, and approached him and talked about my former role on the APAB. After giving him my business card and noting that I now lived in St. Louis, I offered my advise on how to set up an effective police-community review board.

As I was leaving the meeting, I noticed that there were several reporters from the local Albuquerque television stations in the back of the room, and being a 'media savvy' person, I approached one of them and noted that she might be interested to know that I was the former Chair of the Albuquerque Police Advisory Board. Immediately she turned to the cameraman and said "turn on that camera" and conducted an interview. Upon returning home, I told my brother about it, and we recorded the broadcast of the 10 p.m. news on KOB Channel 4, which had a portion of the interview. The following morning, Linda and I had breakfast with Jerry Ortiz y Pino, a former supervisor of mine, who is now a New Mexico State Senator. Jerry smiled and laughed "you've only been in Albuquerque 24 hours and you are already on the news!" He was happy that my experience with that Board had gotten some coverage again.

New Mexico Men's Wellness Conference

I hadn't been at the New Mexico Men's Wellness Conference since 2005, mainly due to financial constraints. But it was great to return and see old friends. This year's conference was the 30th Annual and I felt that was a great reason to come back. Many of my old comrades thanked me for returning, noting that "we're happy you've returned, because you have been a constructive critic of this conference over the years and we've been motivated to change some of it's foci as a result of your comments." I thoroughly enjoyed myself, making new friends in the process.

One thing that made the whole experience so empowering for me was that I came back to the conference having 'accomplished' something, concerning men's wellness, in Missouri. I had been a critic of the conference over the years, feeling that it's focus had been almost exclusively on both white, middle- and upper-middle class college educated men and on men in only the larger New Mexican cities of Santa Fe, Albuquerque, and Las Cruces -- thereby ignoring men of color and men from the smaller towns in the state. [I had organized Mariposa Men's Wellness Institute in Missouri precisely to counter those limitations and more inclusively spread the message about men's wellness to communities of color and working-class males.] To my delighted surprise, several of the attendees were non-white males, and there were several men from other New Mexico cities and from out-of-state, which told me that their 'outreach' efforts had been successful. This year, I had, to my delight, had the interview with the St. Louis Business Journal before coming to the Conference, and I told my friends about it. I had been trying to motivate the Organizing Committee to promote men's wellness 'far and wide' and had, in the most serendipitous sort of way, successfully promoted it in Missouri. Many of the guys were very happy for me, and encouraged me to send them information about the article once it was published.

St. Louis Business Journal - Part 2

When I was visiting Zion Canyon, Meg Crane had called to tell me what she had written for the article and asked me to confirm that she had gotten the information correct. Shortly after I returned from New Mexico, the article was published (in the October 31-November 6 edition). I sent links to the article to a great many friends in Missouri and New Mexico. Unfortunately, KETC posted the video too late for the information about that link to appear in the St. Louis Business Journal article. But I was able to tell lots of my friends and colleagues about the video, and many people had a chance to view it, as well as read the Journal article. Many people responded warmly, thanking me for giving them the opportunity to know me better and to know about the mission of Mariposa Men's Wellness Institute.

In addition to many other positive outcomes, my Unitarian church is assisting me in setting up a Men's Wellness Ministry. The title of the St. Louis Business Journal article was Mariposa ministry and Meg had included, following upon my encouragement, a note about how my minister at First Unitarian had been working with me on the organization of that program. My plans for the ministry are widespread and inclusive, and I'll be talking about them in more detail in subsequent blog postings.

The one thing, though, that hasn't been generated from the Journal article, not really to any surprise, is 'someone coming forward to fund MMWI'. I never figured it would 'happen by osmosis'. I knew I would have to pursue that connection if it was going to lead to funding. But years ago, when I was in the Nonprofit Management and Leadership Certificate program at the University of Missouri-St. Louis, one of my professors had noted that it was unlikely I would ever be funded unless I could find someone, hopefully who had experienced sexual abuse as a child, who had their own 'deep pockets' who would be willing to fund the nonprofit, given how few foundations fund men's wellness issues (Meg had repeated this advice in the Journal article). And, frankly, I don't know those kinds of people. So, while the article was powerful and personally empowering, and it has given me the opportunity to let my many connections know what I do professionally, it hasn't, heretofore, generated any income for the organization.

A Fine Time for Healing

Now, I arrive at the 2nd major result of my LinkedIn connections. Randi Fine, a psychotherapist who is one of my LinkedIn connections in Florida, offered me the opportunity to appear on her BlogTalkRadio show to discuss the issues of male sexual child abuse survivors. She felt the subject is rarely discussed (something I have noted extensively on the MMWI website and blog) and wanted to give me the opportunity to talk about in on a national forum.

Hence, I will be the featured speaker on the A Fine Time for Healing BlogTalkRadio show this coming Friday, September 26 (the day after Christmas) at 11 a.m. EST. The link for the show is: http://www.blogtalkradio.com/randi-fine/2014/12/23/promoting-male-sexual-abuse-awareness-with-donald-b-jeffries.

Listeners can call in to talk to me at (424) 220-1801. If anyone misses the show on Friday, they can still access the link at a late date and listen to the show, as it is archived.

Focused Serendipity

I used that terminology because of my sense that it is about being 'focused', in that I engaged in efforts to send my professional biography to my LinkedIn connections, but 'serendipitous' in that I had no idea what would result from my efforts and the results have been quite amazing! As my brother advised many years ago, "just keep planting those seeds and you never know which ones will sprout". Between the St. Louis Business Journal article, my reconnections with my friends at the New Mexico Men's Wellness Conference (I've volunteered to be on their Outreach Committee and to assist in organizing next year's conference), my antiracism work in St. Louis, the development of the Men's Wellness Ministry at the First Unitarian Church of St. Louis, and the BlogTalkRadio show this week, who knows what will result from the 'planting of these seeds'. I'm excited and empowered by all these wonderful events of the past several months.

One last note: after doing the interview in Albuquerque, about police-community relations, upon returning to St. Louis I followed up by forwarding a letter I had written last year to the St. Louis Mayor's Office -- concerning my experiences with the Albuquerque Police Advisory Board -- to Alderman Terry Kennedy, who recently introduced a bill before the St. Louis Board of Alderman to form a Citizen's Review Board for the City of St. Louis. I also sent copies of the letter to the Chief Sam Dodson at the St. Louis Police Department, and to Ray Hartmann, publisher at St. Louis Magazine, who has been quite vocal about the need for such a local Board. I haven't heard back from any of them, but I've 'put out the word' about my experience with that process, and hence 'planted another seed'.

Who knows which of these seeds will sprout and how that will effect the long-term outcome of my life and/or Mariposa Men's Wellness Institute? I wait with positive feelings, even while continuing to "do the work that needs to be done" concerning men's emotional wellness, male sexual child abuse survivors, and antiracism community organizing. As a close female friend said to me years ago "Sometimes you have to sit back and allow the Universe to express an opinion". I await those continuing empowered results.

Recovery: It's More A Verb Than A Noun (Part 3)

For this 3rd installment of my articles on the outcomes of recovery, I am going to focus on the sexual issues that arise for survivors of sexual child abuse. As usual, given that this blog is related to the Mariposa Men's Wellness Institute, I will focus on the ways in which sexual trauma has deleterious aftereffects on male survivors, with the understanding that such outcomes can affect female survivors in similar ways.

Defining, for ourselves, what our 'original' sexual orientation or identity was

This is a difficult journey, indeed. When a survivor is sexually abused, especially when it occurs in childhood, the abuse is truly 'age inappropriate' (abuse is abuse, but what I'm referring to is that for the child the nature of the sexual child abuse is so thoroughly outside the realm of anything they can conceptualize as 'normal' or 'understandable', given that sexuality of any kind at that age is completely bizarre to them). As a result, a 'message' about what their future sexual 'nature' is or should be becomes imprinted at a time in life when all the child really knows is that the abuse is painful and unwanted. 'Knowing' what one 'should become' later in life [sexual orientation, sexual identity, sexual desire], based on the 'natural' constitution of the child, is completely messed up by the profoundly age inappropriate sexual nature of the child abuse. 

This is even difficult to discuss, and hence I have to approach all of this very delicately.

As the child grows into adolescence, and the hormones of puberty 'kick in' (and adult sexuality begins to 'make some degree of sense'), the sexual confusion evoked by the earlier sexual child abuse comes to fruition. For victims of sexual child abuse, having any clear idea of what one's original sexual nature 'is' or 'was' becomes frightfully difficult to access. In most human societies, the 'sexual messages' are strongly tilted toward heterosexuality; which is fine, if the young person has a comfortable ease with an attraction toward members of the other sex. But what if their 'sense of themselves' is manifested by an attraction for members of their own sex? While I feel that a sexual desire rooted in heterosexuality or homosexuality (or any wide variety of other mixtures on the sexual spectrum) is quite appropriate -- given the mutual 'consenting' comfort with the behavior by both partners in a sexual interaction -- my point about the problem for survivors of sexual child abuse is that they have no earthly idea if their sexual orientation or identity is rooted in personal desire or the aftereffects of the sexual trauma that they experienced in their childhood [and even, possibly, are containing to experience]. There is no way to 'know' or objectively distinguish between what 'the original nature is' and what is the 'manufactured nature, resulting from the sexual child abuse'. 

I stress this issue of 'original nature' because, as a survivor of sexual child abuse, I have always wondered what choices I would have made in life -- about my own sexual identity or my sexual orientation -- if I had not be sexually abused from infancy forward. What choices would I have made, based upon my own 'natural emotional constitution', if my perception of the world around me had not been so effectively obliterated by the painful sexual trauma? I'm well aware that it is sort of an exercise in futility: it's like knowing the outcome of the null proposition (if it hadn't been what it was, what would have been the outcome). And yet it is important to me because it effects my healing journey of recovery.

Let me quote, here, from Mike Lew's book Victims No Longer: Men Recovering from Incest and Other Sexual Child Abuse, p. 41, to make my point clearer.

Since men "are not supposed to be victims," abuse (and particularly sexual abuse) becomes a process of demasculinization (or emasculation). If men aren't to be victims (the equation reads), then victims aren't men. The victimized male wonders and worries about what the abuse has turned him into. Believing that he is no longer an adequate man, he may see himself as a child, a woman, gay, or less than human -- an irreparably damaged freak. Some survivors resort to broad parodies of "acceptably masculine" behavior in order to counteract this self-perception.

There are two issues raised in Mike's quote: knowing 'what' a victim's sexual orientation or identity was before the sexual abuse, and being at all comfortable with 'being a victim' in a society that has major problems with allowing males to be seen as victims. The further issue Mr. Lew brings up, later in his book (and it has been a significant theme of both my articles and my nonprofit) is that, by not allowing men to see themselves as having been victimized as children, by perpetrators who had 'power over' them, they have a difficult time admitting that victimization -- either to themselves or to others, including their intimate partners -- and therefore often don't seek mental health resources to deal with the very painful emotional outcomes of the abuse. [Whether such resources are actually available, given that most incest groups and mental health therapists focus their resources almost exclusively on female survivors, is questionable. But that is separate issue, and one that I have dealt with extensively on the MMWI website.]

My point is that many survivors [and I personally] were really messed up by the sexual child abuse. I did not have a consistent idea, as an adolescent, about what 'sexual identity' I had or wanted to have (to the extent that I had conscious choice) or what sexual orientation felt 'natural or desirable'. And that confusion has continued to plague me throughout my life. It's still a major struggle. For now, and for the past decade or so, my orientation has been heterosexual, and I have been able to manifest a mutual long-term loving intimacy with a female with whom I feel a strong emotional and sexual attachment. But while that heterosexual orientation was generally the case in the past, it hasn't always been so. Given the confusing sexual messages I was given by the sexual child abuse and the peculiar unresolved traumas of my perpetrators,  I've both been attracted to and rejecting of females, and I have sought other avenues of intimate fulfillment at various points in my life journey. (In many ways, even though I wanted to manifest a loving relationship with heterosexual women, I had conflicted feelings about that desire. I felt a fair amount of anger toward females, primarily based upon what I perceived to be their often unilateral financial, sexual and emotional expectations of me, as a male, which I found painfully discounting of 'who I was'.)

And as for any kind of consistent sexual identity, well, that has been problematic itself. I 'know' that I am male [since the age of 16, I have been a 6'8" man, with a deep and resonating voice], but whether I have felt comfortable with that fact has been, and continues, in some ways, to be problematic. I think for now that's all I want to say about that, given the delicacy of this issue (as I noted at the start of this installment) and the need to remain 'safe'. Let me simply say, at this juncture, that the emotionally confusing nature of this issue was one of the major motivations for becoming involved with the men's wellness movement and focusing my life's work on men's emotional wellness.

For many male survivors (for many survivors of either sex) having a consistent 'sense of one's sexual nature' is truly a problematic issue. Being sexually victimized as such an early age simply destroys that personal sense of 'comfort' with one's personal sexual identity. And when the sexual abuse occurs in infancy, before the brain even has a chance to actually 'remember' anything (more on this later) -- when one has only, at best, 'body memories' of the trauma -- having any grounded idea what one's 'original sexual identity' was, or is presently, is thrown into a place of profound confusion.

Which brings me back to the original point of this article: that recovery is a process, not a destination. One rarely reaches a point of 'being recovered', for more than a very short period, before it's necessary to 'continue the healing journey', uncovering deeper and often more traumatic aspects of one's abuse.

Taking responsibility for our own sexuality

Again, a very difficult issue (the rationale for this installment is a willingness to finally face some of those really difficult 'sexual' issues on the road to recovery from sexual child abuse). How can one take responsibility for their own sexuality if an individual has no rational basis upon which to support a sense of what personal responsibility looks like? The very nature of sexual child abuse is that responsibly for the child's 'sexuality' was in the hands of a perpetrator who cared little for the child's safety or care. That they are or were perpetrating behavior which is completely traumatizing for the child (or infant) is not something that a pedophile is concerned about: this is a behavior which is based far more on power and control than upon caring in the least about the feelings of the victim.

And the result for the victim, as they grow up chronologically (I'm being careful not to say 'matures', simply because maturation is such a major confusing issue for a trauma survivor), is that 'having control over our sexuality' is, itself, deeply problematic. How can one exercise effective conscious control over one's sexuality if the message they have received from the trauma is that they have no control over how others treat them sexually?

And yet, it is entirely necessary to reach that point, however one does it (hopefully, with good mental health intervention, often over many years of therapy). It is necessary both because one needs to have a consistent idea of what kind of behavior is healthy and non-abusive, and because it is the only way to truly recover from the sexual trauma. To know that you personally are 'in control' (to the extent that anyone is in control of anything in their lives), rather than their partner or another perpetrator, is the point one needs to 'reach' if there is to be any kind of healthy long-term sexual outcome.

In this regard, I want to make a point about 'sexual objectification'. We live in a society where, in reaction to a discomfort with true intimacy, people of both sexes are apt to 'sexually objectify' potential partners. The 'classic' pattern is that men objectify women sexually and women objectify men financially. Men who are fearful of healthy intimacy (of deeply connecting on an emotional level with another human being) look at women as 'body parts', as an 'object that can be manipulated in order to fulfill one's short-term sexual desires'. Women who are fearful of healthy intimacy look at men as paychecks, as 'an object that can be manipulated in order to fulfill one's desired economic lifestyle or as the primary financial supporters of children and family'. My own experience has shown me that there is a secondary level of objectivity: that if a man doesn't believe he can objectify a woman sexually, he will objectify her financially (abuse the relationship to obtain economic support), and that if a woman doesn't believe she can objectify a man financially, she will objectify him sexually (abuse the relationship to obtain non-reciprocal sexual satisfaction).

I sometimes hear other males say, in mock 'humor', in response to the often stated female complaint about being sexually objectified, "Boy, I'd love it if a woman would treat me as a sexual object!" And I say in response (either directly to them, or 'in my head') "No, you really would not want to be treated as a sexual object; what you want is for women to be more sexually responsive to your overtures, not to abuse you sexually." I say this from experience. In my early sexual life, when I was deep in the aftereffects of the sexual child abuse I had experienced (and had not recovered from the abuse, on any rational level, largely because I was not, at the time, aware that I had been the victim of incest as a child), I often was either treated as a sexual object by females, or unconsciously 'presented' myself for such abusive objectification, because 'that's the message I had received from the trauma' [that my only value was as a sexual object]. And, further, since I had few economic resources, the women who I met saw no point in pursuing me as a financial object. They wanted company and they wanted sexual satisfaction, but only at the level that they felt comfortable with [which often, as noted before, was basically "I want what I want, and will offer not much of anything in return"].

One night (among many) in particular made this situation clear. I went to a party in my mid-20's, and met a woman whom I found attractive. As is the nature of 'hitting on' and 'sexually socializing', we mutually seduced each other and ended up driving back to her house, in her car, and having sex. The following morning, she needed to go to work. I requested that she give me a ride back to the party location, on her way to work, so I could pick up my car. Her response, delivered quite pertly, was "No, I won't. Have someone else drive you there. I need to get to work and you need to leave my house. Now!" In other words, in the most clear of intentions, "I got what I wanted sexually and you need to leave. We may have used each other last night, but there is no intended reciprocity, from me, this morning. I got what I wanted and now get out of my house!" As I left her house, finding myself a bit geographically and emotionally lost and looking for a phone booth to call someone I knew to help me, I thought "Oh! This is what it means to be a sexual object. Now I get what women have been talking about for years. She got what she wanted, with very little reciprocal investment in return, at my expense. That's abuse!!"

Now, don't get me wrong. It was a 'one-night stand'. Neither of us was in doubt about the dynamic surrounding the sexual encounter. But my experience, in talking to female friends, was that they felt if a man had sex with them and the following morning basically threw them out of their house, in a most undignified manner, they felt (I believe quite justifiably) like they had been treated as a sexual object by a man who only wanted a 'piece of ass', without any degree of even minimal polite care. Knowing that, whenever I had had a superficial sexual interaction with a woman, I always had the courtesy to offer her a ride home, to display a basic degree of human care. That this woman clearly behaved like the men my female friends saw as abusive made me realize how uncomfortable that 'objectification' was. Hence, having first been expected to provide the majority of the sexual pleasure, to my partner, the night before, and then having that partner unceremoniously kick me out of her house, without the 'socially expected decency' to drive me back to get my vehicle, was not simply discourteous, but downright abusive. Which is why I felt like I had been treated like 'a piece of ass' (or a 'roving penis') -- as, in fact, a sexual object -- by this woman. Context is important in defining any human interaction!

This sense that I as being treated as a sexual object was further evidenced over the years of my life when various female 'partners' would say they wanted to talk about 'the deep pain in my life' and made it clear that my willingness to listen, with care, would signify loving investment. Having heard that clearly, I intently listened to their often painful emotional stories. But when I felt it was 'my turn', to talk about my own pain (which, objectively, was damned profound, almost like laying molten lava on someone else) their reaction, quite often, was "I need to go somewhere else, do something else, etc.", or in other words I don't want to hear about your pain because your primary utility in my life is as a sexual performer and an ear for my pain. Beyond that, knowing you and caring about you is not something I want to engage in. That was clear and definite. It only changed as I slowly and gradually healed emotionally and sexually. The world began to look and feel different as I recovered from the sexual child abuse, and as I learned to 'present myself' to others as other than a sexual object or a person who was open to be victimized. In other words (and this is the difficult transition of recovery) I learned to be less of a victim and therefore others were less likely to victimize me.

When I began participating in the New Mexico men's movement in the mid-1980's, I finally 'began to know' that I had 'sexual choice', that I had the 'right' to say 'no' to the sexual overtures of females and that I had a 'right' to decide with whom I had sexual relations. And that I had a 'right' -- and responsibility -- to 'own' my personal sexuality. And further, and most importantly for the continuation of my sexual healing journey, that I had 'human value' in other areas of my life beyond as a 'unilateral sexual satisfier'. It finally dawned on me that I had might have human value other than as a sexual object who was expected to fulfill other people's desires, with minimal expectation or hope for mutual pleasure. Wow! That arose in my consciousness both as a profound revelation and as a needed transition for deeper emotional healing.

To 'seal the knowledge' in my own head (and to assist other males who had experienced similar trauma) in 1993 I gave a presentation at the New Mexico Men's Wellness Conference (held each year, since 1984, at Ghost Ranch, near Abiqui, New Mexico) on "The Sexual Abuse of Men By Women". When I first began my talk, there was significant questioning in the eyes of the audience; but as I dove deeper into my topic, distinct lights of understanding arose, to chants of acknowledgement. Afterward, in private, several men approached, noting that the pattern I was describing had occurred in their lives, but that since men aren't supposed to be victims, they hadn't come to grips with the behavior and how they were abused by it. My willingness to confront this subject, and my openness about how it is not simply something that happens only to females, as a result of abusive male behavior, was enlightening to them and allowed them to more deeply explore their own healing journey.

The real 'leap' that I finally made in my sexual healing came about in the mid-1990s, when I finally had the courage of my emotional convictions to decide, firmly and consciously, that I would not have sexual relations with women unless and until they evidenced a clear willingness to invest emotionally in the relationship. That constituted a major 'ownership' of my own sexuality. It also resulted in a significant drop in the number of females who were willing to date me (or that I was willing to date). For all the vaunted desire of females to engage in emotionally invested relationships, my painful -- but necessary -- experience was that, in demanding emotional investment initially, the 'pool' of potential partners plummeted.

When I had been available as a sexual victim who could be used, women were quite willing to use me for the satisfaction of their sexual needs while only rarely feeling a minimal responsibility to fulfill my stated desires in return. And as a sexual abuse victim/survivor, I was 'trained' to accept that, no matter how painful I felt it to be [at the least, it was 'familiar' to me]. But when I made it clear that I would not engage in that kind of sexual activity -- or any sexual play -- unless they were willing to evidence a willingness to invest emotionally, I hit a wall of rejection. But, as I say, this was necessary, because it was 'what it took' to heal from a lifetime of being used sexually by other people. Eventually, as noted above, about twelve years later I finally found a female who was willing to make that kind of emotional investment. I surely felt rather hopeless until it was finally manifested in my mid-50s!

And now, though, with that positive, loving, and intimate emotional foundation beneath me, I can 'pass forward' the healing lessons I have learned from a lifetime of sexual abuse and emotional rejection. There is a light at the end of the tunnel! There are no guarantees in this life, and there is, hence, no guarantee that working diligently on our healing journeys that we will find a partner who cares about us  and is willing to work through the emotionally and sexually 'tough spots' with us. But, as a survivor of sexual child abuse, I can say, definitively, that it is possible. I have now had that experience in my life. It was grueling and painful and exhausting 'getting here', but I thankfully lived long enough to see and feel it within this lifetime. For that I'm very appreciative. And while there are still many healing journeys to engage in within my life -- recovery being an ongoing process, one that never really ends until our death -- I've enough 'success' under my belt, within my emotional toolkit, to know that the journey is well worth the effort.

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That's enough for this installment of my 'recovery' article. I'll talk about other outcomes of the sexual trauma of males in the next part of this continuing series.

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.