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Nobody might want to hear this, but I do believe that there can be wounds created within a child by severe abuse that will never heal. These wounds are too deep and too awful from crimes committed against children during their growth developmental stages that are too much, too deep, and too overwhelming to ‘make go away’. Knowing this fact is why we accept that there is a category called ‘criminal’ in the first place.
We do not want to be a lawless society. We want protection. We want accountability. We want justice. We want these things because we do not want to be injured, wounded or killed. We do not want to be trespassed against. We do not want our rights to well being to be threatened by torture and terrorism. We do not want to pay the price that living with the consequences of these lawless, criminal actions requires.
Then why, at the same time, is it so hard for most people to understand that what life is truly like for a severe child abuse survivor, especially for those who were forced to suffer malevolent treatment from birth through the first 5 years of their lives, have lifelong serious damage as a result of powerful people harming them?
I am not saying that we survivors cannot work toward our healing. We do that with every breath we take. We always have, and we always will. But that does not give us the same quality of life, the same ability or chance to experience health and well being, that we would have had if we had been kept safe from criminals when we needed it most.
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We need more fortunate people to truly be able to hear what we are saying.
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I want to note here that I don’t intentionally keep my writing either clinical or sterile. I have difficulty realizing how people who do not have extremely severe early childhood abuse histories understand what I say and why I say it the way that I do. I know instinctively that the people I write most for are those with histories similar to mine. For us, especially if we have built-in serious ‘issues’ with dissociation, our brains do not work the same as more ordinary brains do.
We are therefore always putting ourselves close to internal danger if and when we choose to recall actual memories. It is not at all a given that feelings the feelings that were present when the abuse occurred is either wise or helpful. We must be extremely careful of ourselves, and I am, as the writer of these pieces, certainly no exception.
Neither at this point do I choose to put the ‘Disney Special’ twist to my stories, either. If any of you are interested, try recalling one of your own early childhood trauma events and write it. We can write from different points of view, differing degrees of closeness or distance from the experience of the abuse. I can never emphasize enough how important it is to keep ourselves safe while we disclose our abuse and work toward our own healing.
Because so few of us who need it will ever be able to access or afford the kind of quality state-of-the-art therapy we need and deserve in order to safely approach the kind of emotional-memory work that will usual accompany severe early trauma memory retrieval, we are left alone doing the best we can with the resources we have. That is NOT ENOUGH in my book. It reflects a serious lack of attention to the needs of adult survivors of horrendous child abuse.
When I speak of the ‘unitiated’ reader I do not intend to offend anyone. I do, however, mean that word literally. Those of us with severe child abuse histories know things as a result of having lived through what we did. Those who have not — most fortunately — been forced to have their childhoods completely stolen from them, cannot, I believe, ever know what those of us who did have ours stolen think like or feel like. There does exist, in my opinion, a line of differentiation between these two groups of people I am describing.
There is a vast difference between telling ABOUT a memory and telling the memory. The former is far safer for us to do than the latter. That is a fact. I suspect that a reader without a severe abuse history might be ‘dying to know more’ about what the experience of abuse a survivor might be disclosing, and wants the survivor to give them enough detailed information that the reader might think they know what the survivor is talking about.
I am not at all sure that this is possible. When reading good fiction the writer can give enough vivid description to enable the reader’s mind to actively imagine themselves as being IN the story. That is not what my kind of writing is about — at least certainly not yet. I am not writing fiction. At the same time I don’t see that I am necessarily writing nonfiction, either. I am writing the truth.
The truth is not clinical, stark, barren, dry or simple. Reading the truth, when it hurts, requires more than imagination. It requires a willingness to open oneself up to one’s own pain, to admit that even though there are certainly times when things were rosy and cheerful (not true in my case as a child but true for MOST readers), there were also times when someone bigger than you hurt you when you were most small and vulnerable, whether they meant to or not.
Those times matter. I encourage you to write about your stories yourself. Writing is different than telling someone a story verbally, though this means of disclosure is certainly valid and important. Writing about it uses another set of functions and abilities in body, brain and mind. It forces us to ALLOW a linear process or organization to give order to the chaos that our traumas have created within us. If you had no early traumas, you are most fortunate. If you did and they are healed, you are also most fortunate.
If you do wish to write and don’t already have a blogspace, I recommend WordPress.com as a wonderful place to start. I would love you to drop a comment over here about your writing as I would most definitely wish to come by and visit.
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Stop the Storm 
Thank you for this.
I stumble across so many people out there who kind of shove that idea that you have to tell it and remember it all in first person with every detail. Thankfully I have a great therapist who supports me and agrees I don’t need to do that, that doing so could be harmful to me & my system. I have a general “idea” from the flashbacks of being and infant/toddler and don’t feel like it needs every single detail, name or face to be worked on.
I definitely think I will give writing ABOUT those flashes from a different viewpoint a try.
MeMyself&Who, I love your ‘handle!” Boy, do I know what you mean!! I think having a good therapist is better than having the Hope Diamond! And it sounds like you have a wise one!! I am so glad! Please recommend my blog if you would like to!
The older I get (almost 58) the more I realize how important it is for me to know about body memories. I know that as long as I live absolutely NOTHING is going to take those memories away — no matter how many facts I can’t remember with my brain. We live in a culture that nearly worships the mind and it’s intellectual abilities. How silly is that if it means what the rest of our body KNOWS is left out of the picture? (Speaking of picture, did you read my adulthood story page on doing art therapy?)
We’ve been given too much information as a result of having experienced overwhelming traumas. Those things happened to us in malevolent worlds and do NOT fit into the benevolent world we are trying to live in today. That mismatch means that we have to be extremely creative as we try to find ways to lessen the amount of unused trauma information our body carries. I think the ‘writing about’ the memories helps me understand AT THE SAME TIME exactly how that information is affecting me in my body at the present moment. Just giving ourselves permission to say anything as it comes into our mind when we do this is enlightening! It lets our body give us information through our right brain that our left brain can then grab onto and say, “Oh, I HEAR WHAT YOU ARE SAYING. FINALLY! In the end, it is increasing our knowledge about our own self that means the most!
Have at it! I’m always here to read anything you’d like to post a link to!!
Thank you for writing this. I have a blog and write nearly daily, but at this point i’ve been writing about my present struggles…and have not really been able to write much about the specifics of the abuse from my childhood.
I’ve been in therapy w/my current T and still cannot speak much aloud, in her office. I have written some, but very little.
Maybe someday…
~ Grace
I am so happy that you commented, Grace. It means a lot to me. I hope you work the heck out of that blog, all the time deciding what to keep private and what to keep public. It’s a wonderful tool that is a gift to those of us working on healing in this new technological age.
Like Durdle put it, we have to do the WORK not only of staying alive in the first place, of having to grow up in SPITE of what happened to us, of trying to stay ‘right side up’ and compete in a world we were not prepared for, of trying to heal nearly impossible wounds — while all at the same time knowing that those who suffered like we did are barred from ever being to understand our reality, as much as the might want to. Which is OK on one level because it means they did not have to suffer what we did — but — I honestly think that a lot of people who don’t understand are not willing to actually TRY to. I think as I write this that it’s a combination of a very common human characteristic we all share: stereotyping (thinking we know all there is to know about someone or something based on simple information that may or may not be true) AND prejudice (“Why isn’t everyone just like me? I’m better, and they could be better too if they only tried hard enough!”)
Severe childhood abuse experiences are devastating, like Durdle says. There’s nothing tolerable about it. There are LOTS of well intentioned therapists who really cannot hearing our truths, either. We are always testing them out — even if they tell us we are — Are we? It takes time to build that safety and security, and we have a lot of inner wisdom about it. We can trust that. The insecure attachment disorders we have as a result of enduring terrible childhoods makes it hard for us to EVER feel those feelings that most people CAN take for granted.
I hope you stop by here often, and drop a comment and pop off a link any time!!! Thanks, Linda
I know exactly what you mean when you say that people who have not experienced extreme childhood trauma have no way of understanding what they are reading or listening to. Let’s face it, you can’t satisfactorily describe emotional pain or fear.
I think I would go further than you when you talk about having one’s childhood stolen – in my view it extends into one’s adult life as well. I also think that becoming aware of not only what has happened to you but how that can continue to affect all your ongoing relationships, personal, romantic and working (anything, in fact where you have to relate to another person) is the first step to acknowledging that there is work to be done. Having first having had to keep ourselves safe, we now have to learn how to heal ourselves. This always seems grossly unfair to me but, on the other hand, it does promise positivity and hope. I do believe that where there is a will, there is a way – and that is what keeps me asking questions and exploring. I need to learn how to improve the quality of my life.
I would be very interested to hear what your thoughts are.
It is such an affirmation to me to find these comments in my hopper this morning. I had a conversation yesterday about the stories I wrote earlier in the weekend. This dear friend could not understand why I wrote so ‘clinically’. She told me many stories about her early life that described a childhood that was far from perfect (seriously alcoholic mother, for one). But as she talked I could tell the vast difference between us. Her overriding and under-riding attachment platform is solidly a safe and secure one. I could hear that coming through loud and clear for every story she told me. That’s because no matter what happened to her, that secure attachment surrounded and informed her, keeping her safe and secure on her insides no matter what was happening on the outside around her. I am HAPPY for her. She is also a strong and positive person, able to take on a challenge without fear — but also without fear of failure or fear based on experience about how bad things can really be.
And you are RIGHT – not only our childhood was stolen, but our safe and secure adult life span, as well! And you are RIGHT that the first step is knowing there is work to be done because something happened to us that was not only terribly WRONG, but that nearly mortally wounded us. In fact, I think many severe child abuse experiences WERE mortal wounds — but we survived them ANYWAY — by paying a price. As we heal anything, anytime in any way we are lessening the price we are paying!!
I am honored to have you a visitor, Durdle! Please post again!