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Reviews on this page are by P.M. © Copyright

Un-Wounding the heart: hope for adult victims of childhood sexual abuse

Note: also see the interview with Dr. Freda Briggs, author of 'From Victim to Offender'
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THE deepest hurts can take a lifetime to heal. About a year ago, I was seeing a psychotherapist to deal with work-related stress. During one session, I raised a matter about which I had spoken to only a handful of people - I told him about how when I was a child I had been sexually abused by someone I loved and trusted.

Why, I asked, why am I incapable of recalling my feelings or emotions in relation to those events? Why is there a void? Should I confront my abuser? I recall certain incidents, were there others which I have suppressed? There were so many questions and in that one-hour session we only touched on a couple of them, but I walked out greatly relieved that I had at last stated to myself that there was a problem.

In July last year, as I finished the final draft of a largely autobiographical novel, I realised that what had taken me years to write was, in fact, an in-depth evaluation of the consequences of childhood sexual abuse - a descent into emotional confusion, acute loneliness, sexual ambiguity, heavy-duty drug abuse, suicidal episodes and generally self- destructive behaviour. Until then I had never consciously linked all this with an episode of sexual abuse in the first chapter of the novel. The night that I finally made the connection in my own mind, I couldn't sleep. I stayed awake until dawn, composing a letter to my abuser - a letter I have yet to send. But, again I felt strangely exhilarated because I had taken another step on the way to confronting my demons. A couple of months ago, by chance it seemed, I was pointed in the direction of a support group for male survivors of childhood sexual abuse.

At the first meeting I met three other men who had no difficulty in understanding everything I said - they were all survivors. Before I went to that meeting I had begun reading everything I could find on the subject - magazine articles, papers in psychology journals, self-help books, accounts by fellow survivors. No one source could explain it all, but in each there was something that helped me understand and explained me to myself. What follows is my response to a small selection of some of the books which have helped in the healing process. None has all the answers - but they all help.

A SAFE Place to Begin - Working to Recover from Childhood Sexual Abuse, is a very straightforward and practical introduction to the healing process, without any heavyweight psychological, moralistic or religious baggage - indeed it is a safe, user-friendly place to begin.

Authors Rex Bradley and Caroline Johnson-Marshall are, respectively, a director of Spectrum, a centre for humanistic psychotherapy in London, and a teacher of children with special needs in London. The way they address the reader is also direct and informal, speaking mostly of 'we' and 'you', rather than of clients, patients or third-person subjects. The cases they cite are quite varied, including men and women, and they follow them right through the long recovery process. They describe the environment and mechanisms of abusive relationships, the consequences, and a variety of ways of entering a healing process - with a therapist, in support groups, with a partner and on your own.

They are quite emphatic about the need to find the right therapist and stress that you, as a patient, have rights which a therapist should not infringe. They warn that there are therapists who actively prey on abuse survivors: 'Rex has worked with several male clients who had been sexually abused by female therapists from different schools of therapy... Each client was encouraged to have a sexual relationship with their therapist while carrying on having therapy with them. This means, in effect, that the client was being charged for having a sexual relationship with a therapist, while the therapist maintained themselves in a position of power. Certainly, once the therapist begins a sexual relationship with a client, true therapy ceases. The relationship becomes a confusing and negative power game.'

In terms of confronting the abuser, they suggest taking an understanding and supportive friend or partner with you, to back you up, or even protect you if the abuser becomes aggressive. They also caution that such confrontations may be looked forward to as the ultimate catharsis, but in many cases your accusations are likely to be met with outright denial.

In terms of the work survivors can do alone, suggestions include: keeping a journal with writing, pictures and a dream diary; reclaiming your body through nurturing care, massage, bathing, and drawing yourself; getting in touch with the needs of the inner child; reclaiming memories by constructing a lifeline of all the significant events in your life, using photos as reference and aids to recollection; and reclaiming your feelings by expressing emotions, especially the suppressed pain, outrage and anger - shout, scream, cry, howl, swear, beat a cushion, tear up phone books, let it out.

Above all, they stress that the healing process takes time, lots of time, and should be undertaken with care and support.

JOHN Andrews' book, 'Beyond Closed Doors - Growing Beyond An Abused Childhood', an autobiographical record of the healing process, takes the form of a dialogue in letters between Big John and Little John - the adult and the child coming to terms with the abuse they suffered at the hands of Mrs Jones, a baby- sitter neighbour in a very dark past.

Speaking through these two distinct voices, Andrews and the child within probe the past and slowly peel away layer upon layer of pain, fear, shame, loathing and anger. It is a very moving and illuminating account that must have taken a great deal of endurance and courage to write - it is a very personal working through of one man's/boys' particular life but it has much in it to give heart and hope to anybody involved in the self-healing process.

Little John was physically and psychologically tortured - including electric shocks, choking and being forced to eat excrement - as well as being sexually assaulted. Reading his unique doppelganger account of recovery over four years made me realise just how much some victims of abuse have to contend with, and how deeply it affects their lives decades later. His testimony also gives great encouragement to anyone trying to exorcise the demons of abuse and reclaim their feelings of self worth and emotional security.

The way in which the dialogue is played out between Big John and Little John is like a dynamic on-going conversation between two very distinct personas - both are hurt, angry and confused about their shared time in hell. But in their exchange they offer pieces of the puzzle, insights, encouragement and the love they both need so desperately to repair the deep, festering wounds. At times Little John finds it hard to cope with Big John's acceptance of what has happened - for Little John it is still happening. But, because he is still 'there', he can offer specific information that Big John has forgotten and repressed.

Little John is angry and hostile when Big John begins talking about how his faith has helped him deal with his problems. Little John still feels abandoned, forsaken like Jesus on the cross.

The depth of this image is most relevant when the question of 'forgiving and forgetting' is discussed. All the books on healing that I have read agree that one cannot - and should not - forget: each survivor of the personal holocaust owes it to himself and other survivors and present victims not to forget, but to speak out if they are able against the evil of childhood abuse and to end the conspiracy of silence, especially the fallacy that 'it doesn't happen to boys'. However, forgiveness is a trickier question. Other faith-based books on healing are very hot on forgiveness, which can be extremely hard to even conceive of for most survivors. Big John's debate with Little John on the question is one of the most moving parts of the book.

The revelation for me is in Andrew's explanation of Christ's words on the cross: 'Father forgive them, for they know not what they do.' In Big John's reading of those words, Christ asks God to forgive his abusers. Crucially, this does not mean that Christ forgives his tormentors - or that the abuse survivor can forgive the perpetrator. But the abused can hand the question of forgiveness over to God - in time, through the process of healing, we may be capable of forgiveness, but it is not asked of us in the heat and agony of present or remembered torment.

For some survivors, the nature of their abuse may have totally estranged them from the church, especially if the church would not listen to their anguish or, worse still, if the abuser was a member of the clergy.

Another difficult aspect for some readers will be the fact that the chief abuser of Little John was Mrs Jones, a woman. Some political correctoids will not admit to the fact that some women are abusers. For them, a woman abuser must be a victim of male abuse. If a woman victim of abuse finds it hard to excuse a male abuser who claimed he had been abused, why should a boy like Little John excuse Mrs Jones if she made a similar claim?

Most victims and survivors are tormented by two simple questions: 'Why me?' and 'Why did you do it?' Recent research in the US and Australia has shown that while most (around 80%) male adult abusers claim to have been victims of childhood abuse, about 70% of abuse survivors do not become abusers. The 'excuse' from an abuser - male or female - that 'I did it because it was done to me' does not gain any sympathy or understanding from victims or survivors who do not choose to extract revenge for their suffering on another helpless person. What determines whether or not an abuse victim grows up to be an abuser or not? It seems there is an imperative to identify victims as early as possible and start the healing process before the damage engenders life-long habits of denial, evasion and escape.

Big John and Little John do not resolve all these questions, but John Andrews' unique testimony and novel approach to rediscovering the child within is an inspiration for all who wish to understand or undertake the process of healing.

ROBERTA Nobleman's Victim, Survivor, Celebrant - The Healing Journey from Childhood Sexual Abuse is pitched at 'non-professional caregivers' - those who love and care for survivors who are making the perilous journey back through the Valley of the Shadow of childhood abuse. However, because it is written by a survivor who has gone on to become an educator and caregiver, it is authoritative and caring in a very personal way, and is most inspiring for survivors by example. Roberta Nobleman, an actress who was abused by her father, has put her experience of torment and healing into her one-woman play, Masks and Mirrors, which she brought to Australia a couple of years ago. I missed the play when Nobleman presented it in Hobart, but a close friend who saw it, herself a survivor, attests to its cathartic impact. Telling our stories, sharing them with others who understand, and being believed are all very necessary elements of healing.

Nobleman was burdened with further trauma when she discovered that her teenage daughter had been abused by grandfather - he tried to rape her - so mother and daughter had been abused by the same man and Nobleman had to contend with the guilt of not having protected her own daughter from a man she knew was an abuser.

Being a Christian, Nobleman goes fully into the spiritual implications of childhood abuse and its consequences, and the question of forgiveness. A related point she makes most forcefully is the question of revenge. Revenge is un-Christian - 'Vengeance is mine says the Lord, I shall repay.' Indeed, human revenge is petty and inconsequential compared with the vengeance that God is capable of. So, if we are believers, and we want revenge on our abusers, perhaps we should leave it up to God. His justice is perfect, where ours is merely reactive.

Out of her faith and her unique experience, Nobleman comes up with intriguing observations. As a child she enjoyed acting because it was an escape from the self she hated and was ashamed of. As an adult she has used her various stage persona to act out and exorcise the shadows she was powerless to deal with as a child. Also, she now does modelling for life-drawing classes - 'Modelling is sensual, but not sexual, and as a survivor of incest as a child, I find a sense or reparation and restoration in that quiet, safe sitting... If Jesus or Mary walked into an art class, I think they would take up a brush and start painting. The Gospels tell us Jesus did draw in the sand when the woman taken in adultery was brought to him. Some say He was buying time while he thought up that terrific reply: "Let the one who is without sin cast the first stone." But I think she was an interesting looking lady, so he started to draw her.'

And while she is sustained by her faith, she is realistic about the fallibility of fellow humans in the church: 'One of the best little books on the subject was written by none other than Jimmy Swaggert, and maybe, if the book is from personal experience, it shed light on some of his sexual misdemeanour in later life. In Rahay Prison, the child molesters who persist longest in denial are the priests and the ministers, the religious ones, the psychologists tell me.'

People who are enraged by childhood sexual abuse sometimes see the phenomenon as evidence of the absence of God - if God existed he would not allow such outrages; therefore, because there is sexual abuse, that proves that God does not exist. However, Nobleman's response to her time in hell - her teaching ministry on stage - shows that God may indeed move in mysterious ways, and may show some of us the very depths of the pit in order to move us to help others out of suffering through the lessons learnt in our own process of healing.

DR DAN B. Allender's The Wounded Heart - Hope for Adult Victims of Childhood Sexual Abuse is perhaps the most full- on spiritual approach to the subject of abuse of any of these books. While John Anderson and Roberta Nobleman are recounting their experiences and explaining how faith was central to their healing, Allender teaches at the School of Biblical Counselling at Colorado Christian University - he is a professional caregiver.

However, in his ministry he realised something his formal education never taught him. He had been surprised that some people took so long to face the fact that they had been abused. Several times he had been asked during his seminars whether he had been abused, and each time he had said: 'No.' Finally, a close friend asked the same question and probed further: had there ever been times when he felt sexually uncomfortable and debased? His own response was a revelation: 'I had a steam of memories return about forced masturbation at a camp I had attended as an adolescent, of a homosexual invitation I had turned down in Boy Scouts, and a sexual assault that occurred at a football camp. He looked at me with stunned sorrow and said: "Doesn't that fit your definition of sexual abuse?" I was dumbfounded. It was not that I had entirely forgotten those events, but I would never have allowed them to be labelled with a word that might open the door to further exploration. There is deep reluctance to begin the process of change by admitting that damage has occurred.'

In the light of the above, Allender's observations on what constitutes sexual abuse is very pertinent: 'Sexual abuse is any contact or interaction (visual, verbal, or psychological) between a child/adolescent and an adult when the child/adolescent is being used for the sexual stimulation of the perpetrator or any other person... Sexual abuse may be committed by a person under the age of eighteen when that person is either significantly older than the victim or when the perpetrator is in a position of power or control over the victimised child/adolescent. When the sexual abuse is perpetrated by an adult or older child who is a blood or legal relative, it constitutes incest or intra familial sexual abuse.'

While some readers may find Allender's depth of religious interpretation daunting, or even frightening, even if you don't share his convictions, his explanation of what abuse does to your being is inescapable. Call it your soul, spirit or simply your innermost self - in the most basic, precious, vulnerable sense - if you are a survivor of abuse, you have been damaged in a way which most non-survivors can never understand. And, as Allender and others point out, the damage that abuse does to your soul or self often leaves you so lacking in self-esteem that you may become cut-off, frigid, guiltily a-sexual or, conversely, promiscuous - desperately seeking love and affirmation of self-worth in relationships which are patently exploitative. You may see this vulnerability to further damage as dysfunctional behaviour or as a soul in torment - cursed by an on-going evil that you feel you can't escape.

Some young abuse victims are sexualised by their experience - this may make them vulnerable to further sexual exploitation, or likely to seek it out as some kind of affirmation of their lovability. Many prostitutes, male and female, are survivors. Statistically, survivors of childhood abuse are more likely than non-survivors to suffer sexual harassment, abusive relationships or even rape in later life.

Some bits of Allender's book may be very difficult for survivors, even Christians, to accept. When he speaks of forgiveness, he also talks of the need for the survivor to seek forgiveness. You may ask, 'Me, the victim, seek forgiveness? What arrogance from the therapist. I was sinned against!'

However, on reflection, you may realise that your survival techniques may have turned you against life, towards darkness, despair and a kind of light-denying 'death in life'. I am frigid - I do not accept love or the physical joy of love even from someone who is not an abuser, someone who genuinely loves and cares for me. I am promiscuous - I lead others into loveless, selfish sex; I do not trust my myriad partners and I make it impossible for anyone to trust me. I am a self-hating, depressive pessimist - my experience of evil has made me cynical, destructive, unwilling to believe in the possibility of good, I may even have become an abuser, betraying the trust of others even as my trust was betrayed. I may have lost my faith - fearing, like Christ on the Cross, that I have been forsaken by man and God.

In the Christian perspective, I need to confess these sins against my self and others before I can find forgiveness and self-forgiveness, before I can love others and be loved, before I can understand God's love and mercy.

Everybody child has a right to a loving upbringing. However, a childhood lost to abuse cannot be reclaimed. Nevertheless, as an adult you can reclaim the truth of that childhood. If you are a survivor of childhood abuse, you can claim the truth of that abuse, realise that is has affected you deeply and undo some of the damage that persists in adulthood. You can be freed from myths ('We were always a happy family!'), ghosts in the bedroom that destroy enjoyment of adult sexuality and loving, and crippling defensive habits that allowed the child in you to survive but are limiting in an adult.

Each survivor can make the choice to embark on the healing process. It is not a simple process and may take a long time. It is painful and daunting as you come to realise just how deeply the experience has scarred you. It may involve formal therapy, working with other survivors in a support group with other survivors, spiritual counselling, or a combination of all of these. Whatever your perspective or your needs, these books are a starting place to begin to understand the damage that has been done to you and how to undo it. Healing is possible. You are not alone. Peace be with you.

Reviewed by P.M.