My new friend, Shy, is suffering from lasting effects of child molestation and incest from age 4 until 12 with adult family members. Six years after the last incident, the molestation, rape and other abuses seem to taint her life and empty her of any joy. She's having trouble figuring out why to survive the sexual abuse. For more information, see these recent books on sexual abuse survival and recovery. This article is to help her, and you, to find a reason.
We Survive Because We Didn't Cause It: Our abusers would like us to think we brought this on ourselves, that somehow, something we did, or something we were, caused them to violate us. But it was something they did and what they are. Their treatment and threats were violence that they committed upon us, things that sicken us and manipulate our emotions years later. No matter what they said or did, we will survive because we know it is not our fault. It doesn't matter what the feelings were, we didn't cause this.
We Refuse To Give In To Our Abuser: We survive because we refuse to give one more thing to our abusers. They stole our innocence, our security, our sense of self worth. They twisted our emotions and sense of intimacy and love. Enough! We will give them no more of our lives. We survive to take back our lives, to regain our self esteem, to rebuild our security, to refuse them one more moment of our time. We will capture every waking moment by filling our lives with things that please us and give meaning to us, be it education, career, family or friends. They may have robbed us of our past but we own the future and we're not giving it up.
We Use The Emotional Pain To Make Us Strong: Our abusers may have thought they broke us, beat us, dominated and manipulated us, but they strengthened us. They may have thought they took advantage of our weakness but the weakness is theirs. Their twisted behavior has left us with deep emotional pain but that pain makes us strong. It strengthens and reinforces our resolve to recapture every part of life they tied to steal. Every time their abuse comes to mind, we force it out with happy, pure, thoughts, until our minds are overflowing with joy. Every time we sense an emptiness, we fill it with useful, meaningful activity. Those times when this is too difficult, we ask God for help, and His love strengthens us.
We Survive To Help Others Survive: We get even stronger when we know there are other victims out there who need our help. Oh, how we wish there were someone we could confide in during those deep dark times when we dreaded seeing our abusers and feared for our lives if we refused them. Now, we can be there when someone else needs us. We can become that person who understands and comforts...maybe even saves another from abuse. There may be no greater reason to survive than to help others become abuse survivors in recovery.
We Survive To Confront Our Abusers: While this thought is terrifying in the beginning, one of the reasons we survive is to confront our abusers with the truth. This may be as subtle as a life well lived or as direct and forceful as a legal confrontation. At first, our motivation may be to see them rot in jail or to make then powerless in some way, so they can see what it feels like, which, I must admit, they deserve. Punishment or imprisonment may be the only things that stop some of them. For the others, as we get stronger we begin to understand that our abusers have been overpowered, manipulated, abused and raped, too. It may not have been sexual abuse but we can be sure it was abuse. When we're ready, on rare occasions we're given the opportunity to confront our abusers with compassion and forgiveness. Sexual abuse survivors who can forgive their abusers have gone from healing to healer...a miracle...for sure. What are your reasons to survive?
Whatever your reasons, for now, all you need to do is survive and have faith that life will follow and fill in the gaps. Faith that our help comes from God. He can help us recover. He can heal those deep wounds. He raises your self esteem by letting you see yourself as He sees you ...someone He lovingly created to be just the person you are. He has your picture in His wallet and goes all around showing everyone His favored child. If you want God's help to recover, click on Help me God.
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