Stage One: Remembering ~ Step Two: I Have Determined That I Was Abused

Step Two ~  I have determined that I was physically, sexually or emotionally abused as a child.

This step asks you to determine and then acknowledge to yourself that you were abused as a child and that the effects of the abuse may be causing some of your difficulties as an adult. Many of us who are in the process of recalling memories of our past may not yet have objective evidence of the abuse, and we may never find outside validation or corroboration of what happened. Instead, our evidence may be more intuitive. Even in the absence of "hard evidence," these intuitive feelings are significant and should not be dismissed. Many abuse survivors were either too traumatized or psychologically incapable of organizing memories into words and images that can be recollected years later. If this is where you are in your recovery now, continue to work this step to clarify the kind of abuse you suffered. If you need to, refer to the section on "False Memories, Real Memories," in Chapter One.

An important sub-goal in this step is learning to accept your feelings about the abuse, whatever they may be at this time. These feelings may not make complete sense to you, but they are there for a reason. In the same way that the pain from a bruise tells you of a physical injury, the feelings associated with your abuse signal an internal emotional bruise. Instead of ignoring the feelings, you should try to figure out what those feelings are telling you. As a survivor, you probably had your feelings invalidated by your parents or abusers, so not recognizing your feelings as valid now may be an old pattern you want to break. Give yourself the benefit of the doubt when it comes to verifying your feelings. You will need time and help to sort out what happened, free of the denial and distortion of the past.

You can find the Self Help exercises for this Step in the Survivor to Thriver Manual.  Please remember when working on these exercises that you should have a good support system in place including a therapist, support group, crisis hotline numbers, and perhaps a trusted friend.  If you become overwhelmed by your feelings and thoughts when doing the exercises, please put them aside for a time and utilize your self-soothing activity list and safety plan if needed.

As I have said before, YOU are in charge of your healing process.  You need not hurry through it for someone else's benefit.  You control how long it takes you to work through each step and how ever long it may take for you to feel you have completed the step is the exact right amount of time.  This journey belongs to you.

Courage and Time

Hello Friends,

My it has been a long time since we came together.  My deepest apologies, life sent things topsy-turvy for a while and I'm just getting my feet back on the ground.  So instead of jumping back into the ASCA Steps to Recovery, I thought I would share some things that helped me find my courage.

You see, a few years ago, I was in what I thought was a safe, healing space.  Unfortunately, someone in that group was a predator.  I will not go into the specific details of what happened to me.  I do not wish to trigger anyone else with my experience.  However, what happened to me sent me to a very dark place.  That place was darker than the one I was in when I first began my journey from survivor to thriver.  I felt out of control and had no idea what to do. 

When I was able to find some semblance of thinking in the days that followed, I knew I had to go

back to what I knew at the beginning of my journey.  I took out my journals from the time was in therapy and re-read them looking for ways to make sense of my feelings and find my footing.  I made sure I had the numbers for the local crisis hotline and my therapist in easy reach in case they were needed.  I set about making lists of self soothing activities I could do for when I started to feel out of control or ungrounded (do the dishes, drink a cup of tea, read a book, color, etc.).   I again went through the "Survivor to Thriver Manual" to refresh my understanding of the process back to myself. 

It was not an easy time.  I had to fight to find myself again after years of work to finally feel whole.  For a lot of us the word fight has a negative emotion connected to it.  When we are growing up, we are told not to fight with our siblings and classmates.  As a survivor, we are told during the abuse to fight our natural instincts of self-preservation when things feel wrong.  As people-pleasers, we are taught that our natural fight to take care of ourselves first is selfish. 

Wow, that's a lot of negativity connected to one word!  So it is not uncommon to feel that fighting FOR yourself is wrong.  One definition of the word fight is "to put forth a determined effort."  As a survivor, you MUST put forth a determined effort to heal.  This is even more crucial when you have been on your journey and experience a setback.  Setbacks can come in the form of a flashback, a trigger, a negative person who wishes you would just get over it already, or even in the person who abused you who is still in your life trying to convince you there is nothing wrong.  It is at these times that we must remember and utilize the tools available to use: a list of the crisis hotline numbers for your local area, your therapist's phone number, a trusted friend's phone number, a list of self-soothing activities, and any other things you have found helpful in grounding you on your journey. 

A setback does not mean that all is lost.  A setback means that you must fight that much harder to find and stay in the light!  You have already survived the abuse, so you can survive and ultimately thrive on your journey!  This is YOUR time!  The time to put yourself and your needs first.  The time to confirm that you are a survivor, not a victim!  Your time to believe that you have the right and the courage to take your journey to not just surviving, but thriving!  I know you can do it!

Stage One: Remembering ~ Step One: Breakthrough Crisis

Step One ~ I am in breakthrough crisis, having gained some sense of my abuse.

At this point, Survivors often experience a "breakthrough crisis." This is when something happens that releases a flood of old memories, feelings, and even physical sensations of their abuse.  Not all survivors are disturbed when this happens, however, for many it can be a very trying time in their recovery.  This may even be what pushes the Survivor to finally face their past and seek help.
The ways in which your breakthrough crisis manifests can depend on the level of abuse you went through.  Those who experienced less severe abuse may experience a low-grade, perpetual state of disorganization in which everything that can go wrong does go wrong.  This can reinforce your anxiety, depression and shame all your worst feelings about yourself.  Those who experienced more extreme and prolonged abuse in which terror or violence often experienced.  This leaves you feeling like the scared little child again, lacking any sort of adult control over your life. You may even think you are going crazy and may come up with all sorts of possible explanations for what is going on. Triggers for this type of reaction can include seeing a movie, engaging in a relationship that unexpectedly turns abusive or having a sexual experience that somehow parallels the childhood sexual abuse.

As a child, you developed formidable psychological defenses to protect yourself against this massive assault, and you probably continued to rely on these rigid defenses well into adulthood, until they no longer worked for you.  Like an earthquake, this realignment results in the release of powerful feelings and energy, and can create periods of disorganization, helplessness and incredible fear. If you are a survivor of truly severe abuse, you may have mini-breakthrough crises as each new set of abuse memories surfaces, although these smaller crises are usually not as tumultuous as the first.

Crises are scary. You have been used to screening out all stimuli that might trigger your out-of-control feelings, only to feel that now you have lost control over your mind. Although it is frightening to do so, it is best in the long run to let these feelings out. Although the breakthrough crisis is normal, you should take special precautions during this time to preserve your safety and to promote healthy integration of these memories and feelings. Anyone is vulnerable in a crisis, and there have been reports of survivors attempting suicide or engaging in other self- destructive behaviors in response to the crisis.  Your task during the breakthrough crisis is to minimize the danger to yourself by reaching out for help while riding the tidal wave of feelings safely into shore.

The Survivor to Thriver Manual has some great Self Help information and exercises.   It is important that you give yourself the time you need to work through each step.  You do not have to hurry.  Your healing is on YOUR timetable.  If you need to work Step One for several weeks, allow yourself that time.  Hurrying through the steps without doing the work will not help you in the long run.  Always make sure to have your list of support people handy and reach out if you feel you are having trouble.  If you find it hard to reach out to someone you know, please see the Resources page on this blog for contact numbers of centers that can help you.

Stage One ~ Remembering

Congratulations!  You have made it this far in your commitment to heal!

Now is the time to cinch up your courage and take the important first step on your path to processing your abuse and ultimately making changes in the self-destructive and maladaptive behaviors that have become your coping mechanisms.
As we discussed before, you must establish some level of calm in your life before embarking on this journey.  If you find you move from one disaster to another in your life, please revisit the Crisis Mode Stabilization post on this blog and the corresponding sections of the Survivor to Thriver Manual.

In Stage One recovery, your main task will be to acknowledge one of the reasons your life may be unsatisfying or even harmful to you your childhood abuse and then begin to regain some self-control and stability by identifying the trauma symptoms that may be left over from your past. Out of this new awareness of the long-term impact of the abuse is born a commitment to recovery. The steps in Stage One will help you begin to heal the wounds inside and thus pave the way for changes to be made later on in Stage Two and Stage Three.

How long will this take?  Each Stage can take anywhere from one to three years to complete.  This depends on the severity of your abuse, how much of your abuse you remember, and the extent of emotional wounding that occurred.  This may seem like forever and it may feel overwhelming to think of it in those terms.  Please remember, each individual survivor's journey is unique to that person.  That person alone is the only one who can determine the pace of their recovery.  Please do not compare your recovery to that of any other survivor.  We are all different.  We have all experienced different levels and severity of abuse.  We all have our own way of coping with our wounds.  Most importantly, we alone are the ones who can determine that it is time to move on to the next step.

How do I know I'm ready to move on to the next step?  Listen to the voice of your newly developing self that fair, honest and objective sense inside you that is growing stronger day by day. Listen to this voice and cultivate its developing wisdom. This voice will signal when you have resolved the task or issue presented by each step. The step is accomplished if you can demonstrate the task in action with another person your therapist, partner or ASCA members and thus begin to integrate it into your new self. If you move forward to another step prematurely, simply admit it to yourself and return to the earlier step until you resolve it. Remember, too, that the 21 Steps are flexible and that you do not have to work them in a linear progression.

Your recovery may not be flawless and that is perfectly fine!  Follow your journey of recovery YOUR way, in YOUR time, at YOUR comfort level.  This is not a race.  You do not have to heal at anyone else's pace or according to anyone else's concepts.  You are in control of how your journey progresses.  The most important thing is to consistently re-enforce and integrate the new standards and values you are creating for yourself.  These will form the foundation on which you will continue to build in Stage Two and Stage Three.

Take time to calm and center and we will begin Step One in the next post.  You can do this!

The Adult World ~ Repercussions of Child Abuse

As a Survivor of child abuse, we should understand that just because the abuse is over doesn't mean that it no longer affects our lives.  Many of the long-term affects of child abuse often have a pervasive impact on all areas of a survivor's life.  Chapter Three (pg. 42) discusses some of the most frequent types of problems encountered by survivors.  We will discuss them briefly here.  Please take the time to read this section of the Survivors to Thrivers Manual and utilize the journal questions to help you understand where you stand on these issues.  Not everyone shares all the different types of symptoms, nor do all survivors experience the same degree of intensity of the problems. You will have to determine which of the problems are primary and which are secondary in your life.  Remember that the fact that you experience any (or all) of these problems does not prove that you were abused as a child or that the abuse you suffered is the cause of your current problems. These self-perceptions and problems can stem from a variety of other sources, both internal and external. 

Relationship Problems
Adult survivors often have a difficult time initiating, maintaining and enjoying relationships. Any kind of relationship, ranging from collegial relationships at work, to personal friendships, to parent-child relationships, to intimate, romantic relationships, may be problematic. Relationships for survivors may reflect the all-or-nothing syndrome: either too few or too many relationships that seem to come and go like people through a revolving door. In some relationships, the survivor may assume a particular role and proceed to play out a replication of the past abuse. Given that child abuse most often occurs in the context of family relationships, the possibility of your repeating old patterns in personal adult relationships should not be underestimated.

Low Self-Esteem
If there is one quality most survivors share, it is low self-esteem. Chronic feelings of being bad or unworthy are intricately connected to all the other "self" words that are used to describe the adult survivor: self-effacing, self-deprecating, self-conscious, self-blaming, and so on. Low self-esteem causes survivors to become their own worst enemies by turning against themselves in a damaging reenactment of their own abuse.

Self-Sabotage
Where low self-esteem is the primary feeling of the adult survivor, self- sabotage is the corresponding behavior pattern in the external world. Self- sabotage is any kind of conscious or unconscious behavior that undermines your successful functioning in the world. Self-sabotage may range from buying a "lemon" of a used car to losing one's checkbook to becoming involved with an alcoholic partner to engaging in life-threatening activities. You may allow yourself to be exploited by a boss or engage in physically harmful or potentially dangerous activities such as cutting yourself or engaging in unsafe sex. Typically, one's pattern of self-sabotage is closely related to one's personal issues and family history. Survivors who grew up in addictive families may self-sabotage by driving while drunk or getting caught with illegal drugs. Survivors from violent families may tend to get themselves beaten or injured. Survivors from wealthy families often find themselves losing money, getting swindled or making bad investments. Studies have shown that survivors of child sexual abuse are more likely to be assaulted as adults.

 Sexual Problems
A variety of sexual problems are associated with childhood sexual abuse, although there is also evidence to suggest that physical and emotional abuse can affect the survivor's sex life as well. Survivors of sexual abuse often mistrust their partners, experience anxiety over the demands of intimacy and feel uncomfortable with their bodies.

Symptoms of Trauma
Psychic trauma is a psychological condition caused by overwhelming stress that cannot be controlled by normal coping mechanisms. It can result from a number of situations in addition to child abuse, including war or battlefront experience, natural disasters, being held hostage and being in the middle of a bombing, hijacking or shootout. Perhaps the most common symptom of such traumatic exposure is panic attacks involving hyperventilation and severe anxiety. These can be triggered by anything your senses associate with your past abuse. Insomnia, sleepwalking, nightmares and night terrors (a more extreme type of nightmare occurring during non-dreaming sleep cycles) are other signs of unresolved trauma of some sort.

Physical Ailments
Adult survivors of physical and sexual abuse frequently complain of a host of illnesses and psychosomatic problems during their adult lives. The most common generalized effects include stomach problems, difficulty in breathing, muscular tension and pain, migraine headaches, incontinence and heightened susceptibility to illness and infection. In addition, skin disorders, back pain ulcers and asthma are common ailments that are stress-related and may signify unresolved childhood abuse issues. In cases of sexual abuse, the breasts, buttocks, anus and genitals may be the site of discomfort, chronic pain and otherwise unsubstantiated sensations. If the survivor was forced to have oral sex, s/he may experience episodes of nausea, vomiting and choking that are unrelated to a physical or systemic cause. Incontinence has been found in survivors who have been sodomized. Again, we remind you that any or all of these problems may be caused by non-abuse-related factors or conditions as well.

Social Alienation
Because of their abuse experiences, most adult survivors feel stigmatized and experience people as dangerous and not to be trusted. Attending parties or other social gatherings can evoke anxiety, insecurities and concerns over not being "good enough." Fear of rejection is also a common concern for survivors. And, because they were usually harmed by adults whom they trusted, survivors tend to carry their fear of being harmed by others into the present.

Handling Feelings
All adults carry feelings that are rooted in their childhood developmental experiences. Adult survivors, however, may have particularly powerful feelings that are left over from their abuse. These feelings can be triggered by circumstances that are somehow reminiscent of the abuse and, in the context of being a survivor, may have particular importance. Anxiety is the result of not having known what to expect or how to act in social or family situations. Fear and anger are both natural responses to the threat or act of assault. Sadness results from recognizing that your parents or another trusted adult could abuse you. Shame and guilt tell you that you still hold yourself responsible for what happened.

Rage is the built-up reservoir of the anger that could never be safely expressed within your family. Frustration is the feeling you are left with when nothing seems to go your way. Confusion is a sign that you don't know why something has happened or what you can do about it. Alienation from others is the result of too many disappointments. Helplessness, hopelessness and powerlessness are the feelings that tell you that you are resigned to life as it is and may have temporarily given up on it ever being better. Your feelings always tell you something important about yourself, even if sometimes the message is frightening, troubling or saddening.
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Recognizing that child abuse may continue to impact you past your childhood is a necessary step in your recovery. The tendency to sabotage yourself in various aspects of your life does not mean that you are a bad person; it means that you are a wounded person. Identifying the wounds and acknowledging the difficulties that grow out of them is an essential part of healing.  When doubts about being able to handle your recovery begin to surface, remember that you have survived the torment as a child, and that this is the worst part of the abuse. As an adult, you have new capabilities, new choices and a great deal more control over your life. Be open to new understandings of what you experienced. Most of all, you are not alone.  Change can be scary, but it can also be healing.  Perhaps it's time to find an ASCA meeting in your area and see what happens next. 

With the next post, we will begin our journey through the steps of recovery.  

Understanding the Types of Child Abuse

As a survivor, you may be thinking, “I think I know what abuse is, I lived it.” We all “think” we understand what abuse really is, but we need to look at some concrete definitions and statistics. Why? So we can compare what we have experienced to what is generally known about child abuse. It is important that we learn to distinguish what really happened to us and whether it constitutes child abuse.

The Survivor to Thriver Manual discusses these issues in Chapter Three (pg. 35). As a note of caution, these things may be painful for you to read. You may want to wait until you feel you are prepared to handle the feelings that may come up. You may want to read this section with a friend and discuss your reactions with members of your support network or your therapist. Remember that while you are an adult now, the feelings that surface may be those of a child.

Here we will briefly touch on the definitions and information outlined in Chapter Three of The Survivor to Thriver Manual. Please see the manual for complete review of this vitally important information.

Child abuse is defined as an act of omission or commission that endangers or impairs a child’s physical or emotional health and development and is usually broken down into three categories: physical, sexual and emotional.

Physical abuse is defined as any physical act committed against a child, which results in a non-accidental injury. Examples of physical abuse include hitting, kicking, biting, slapping, and burning. The bodily signs that may indicate physical abuse can include bruises, burns, bites, welts, broken bones and many others. Most, if not all, of these physical signs may also be the result of natural causes not related to child abuse. It is extremely important that you keep this in mind while assessing what happened to you, and in any instance in which you observe such signs on another person – child or adult. Please take the time to read the rest of this section in the Manual and answer the journal questions.

Sexual abuse is defined as any sexual act directed at a child involving sexual contact, assault or exploitation. Sexual abuse is divided into two categories: contact and non-contact. Acts of contact sexual abuse include fondling, incest and intercourse. Examples of non-contact sexual abuse include exhibitionism, presentation of pornographic material, and sexual story telling. Physical signs of sexual abuse include sexually transmitted diseases, pain when urinating or defecating, and stomachaches or headaches. Remember some of these signs may also be the result of natural causes not related to child abuse. Please keep this in mind when you evaluate your own history. Please take the time to read the rest of this section in the Manual and answer the journal questions.

Emotional abuse is defined as a pattern of psychologically destructive interaction with a child that is characterized by five types of behaviors: rejecting, isolating, terrorizing, ignoring, and corrupting. Emotional abuse involves the use of "words as weapons." The scars left may be more psychological than physical, which makes emotional abuse harder to identify. Physical signs of emotional abuse may include malnourishment, small physical stature, poor grooming and inappropriate attire for the season or circumstances. Because these signs can result from other social and environmental causes, we again encourage you to take care in assessing your own personal experiences. Please take the time to read the rest of this section in the Manual and answer the journal questions.

Now you can use this knowledge as a standard to determine what actually happened to you. If you have some memories that you determine were abusive, write them down in your journal. If you have no or few memories from the past, you may still need more time to remember. Or, you may not have been abused. If you weren't in fact abused, you don't want to get caught up in the feeling that you must have been.

Learning Self Comforting Techniques

Once I stepped on to the healing path, it was important for me to learn how to soothe myself. Self comforting is learned when we are children through healthy bonding relationships with our caregivers. Examples of healthy bonding behaviors include cuddling, holding, mutual gazing with love and adoration, and protection from abusive or violent experiences. These are things caregivers do when a child is upset. As an abuse survivor, we have been groomed by our abusers to not trust ourselves or those around us who love us. We may have been told that our parents will hate us if we tell. This leads to a lack of trust and a distancing of our childhood selves from those we thought should protect us. This interruption in healthy bonding with our caregivers leads us to not understand how to comfort ourselves. It may also be that if our parents or caregivers were abused, they don’t understand how to soothe themselves which leads to not being able to help their child comfort themselves.

When we grow into adults without the ability to comfort ourselves, we tend to try to fill that empty space that should have been filled with our comforting skills with other things. We tend to run toward tension-reducing behaviors such as smoking, drinking, drug abuse, self-harm, compulsive gambling, overeating, purging, self-starvation, and sexually risky behavior. Once you begin your journey to recovery, you will experience a wide range of thoughts and emotions. Some of these things may send you into a panic attack or make you feel out of control. For these reasons, it is very important for you to develop your self-comforting abilities. At the beginning, it is a good idea to have a list of self-soothing activities written down and available to you. In this way, when you begin to experience anxiety and tension in your journey, you can look at your list and find something to help take you out of the anxiety and refocus on the present. For more on self comforting, please see the Survivor to Thriver Manual, pg. 32.

Each survivor is unique as is their journey to healing. Please take the time to find the self comforting techniques that work for you. If you are finding that you are having a difficult time with self soothing, please reach out to a person on your support list. If you do not feel that you can do that, please contact your therapist or an emergency hotline in your area. The Resources page on this blog lists some local Pennsylvania resources as well as some national resources. Please know that you are not alone. There are many survivors out there. The journey may be bumpy now, but you are making progress. You can do this! I believe in you!