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!

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!