Yesterday was a rare sunny and relatively warm day, so I took the dog out for a walk on my favorite trail. I have done many hours of post therapy processing on this trail, and I knew that I needed some help working my way through what had come up the previous day in session.
Sometimes the obvious can hit me in a way that I had never considered before, however when I try to write about it, it comes out in a “well, of course” sort of way, even though there was a huge impact when it came to me. Yesterday’s “stop me in my tracks” realization was just that way…
I had absolutely no choice about the abuse. All that I could do was to adjust to the circumstances as best I could. It is likely that when he “gave me a choice,” he knew full well which I would pick, because the other was so much worse. I was completely manipulated by him and I was so young, I had no way of understanding that he was manipulating me.
I did not choose the abuse in any way. No matter what he convinced me of, I did not choose the abuse. The abuse did not happen because of anything that I did or said. There is nothing that a child could do or say that would cause an adult to sexually abuse her; the adult only abuses a child because the adult decided to. I remember an old therapist of mine telling me that a child could dance naked in front of an adult and the adult would bear sole responsibility for any decisions that he/she made. A child cannot cause the abuse. Period.
But I also think that parts of me may have held on to a sense of responsibility as a way of keeping some hope that I might be able to do something to change what was happening. I seem to remember hoping that one day I would do whatever it was that he really wanted and then finally he would be satisfied and it would all stop. I couldn’t figure out what he wanted and I desperately wanted to, because I wanted for him to get what he wanted out of me so things would stop happening.
The reality is that there was no way that I was ever going to be able to satisfy him. Even now, I don’t fully understand what it was that he felt like he needed/wanted, but I am positive that there was no way that I would ever have been able to do something that would satisfy him for all time. At least part of of what he needed was to have power over me and make me hurt in multiple ways and that would have been something that he would have come back for over and over, then the only way to stop the abuse was to get me away from him. No matter what I tried to do while I was alone with him, it could never have prevented the abuse.
The only thing that I could have done was explicitly told my mother what was going on. I do believe that if she had been confronted with something that she couldn’t pretend away, she would have dealt with it. But I didn’t understand that then. And I think that I was trained so early that it was impossible for me to tell that I will never fully understand how it happened.
There are a few things that I am sure that I remember from when I was older and some more that I seem to remember from when I was young. I know that he showed me a boiling cow’s tongue and told me that if I said anything, then he would cut out my tongue. Later that evening he tried to force me to eat the tongue, but I chose to eat nothing rather than eat it. That was the celebration dinner for my parents coming back from their 2 1/2 month long trip when I was 10. It seems that there was something about cutting off other body parts, as well, but that is vague.
And I seem to remember a young belief that my mother had to have known that something so huge was happening. That it was impossible for him to hurt me so much and for her to not know. So she must know and she must either be unable to stop it or think that it wasn’t such a bad thing.
I want to wrap that child up in a blanket and hold her in my lap while I rock her. What terrible options- either believe that I might be able to have some influence over the abuse and feel responsible or live with being totally and utterly powerless and helpless in the hands of such a terrible person. I do know that a part of me is convinced that by making the choices that I did, I kept him from killing me. I don’t think that he would have in reality, because it would have been impossible to hide, but I do believe that he carried in him a murderous rage and I had every reason to believe that I was in real danger of being killed.
He is the only one who made choices that dictated whether the abuse happened at all, whether it happened at every opportunity or rarely, and what sorts of things happened. The sad reality is that all that I could do was to do whatever I had to in order to keep myself as intact as possible.
Exactly. All you could do was survive. There is no choices in survival. Not really. I can obviously relate to the murderous rage a lot and I’m sorry that you had to be on the end of that too. You are doing so well in your therapy and your progression through all this horrible stuff. I’m so glad that I met you on those forums. Really glad. Lots of love from me xx
Thank you. I’ll admit that my mind is skittering away from all of this right now. Obviously I need a break. So I think that it is time to get ready and go out with my family to the library and a chili cookoff. Then there are more boxes to unpack later.
That is a very important understanding ,”that all that I could do was to do whatever I had to in order to keep myself as intact as possible.” As a survivor we spend a lot of time looking for the reason “why” and the reality is there is no answer that will satisfy so we have to focus on healing us and realizing we did what we had to in order to survive. Sending you comfort and support. x
Thank you! Right now comfort and support is much appreciated. And I think that I need to remember that sometimes that is what I need more than I need to “work” on any of this. Because the comfort and support is in the now and I really need to remember that I won’t ever really be then and there again.
CM what an incredible realisation, freeing yourself of the idea you and any responsibility or control over the abuse. And yes now there is facing the horrific truth of being a powerless child who barely survived, but that can be mourned and is much healthier than living with inner self hatred.
I’m working on it, but this is one of those times when I am going to need to work on multiple layers over time.
Sounds very similar to where I am in my own process. Not that I’ve completely relinquished a sense of personal responsibility but I have moments when I can see that I had no choice over what happened and that even if my body told me otherwise, I hated being abused. Hugs to you xx