1
Round Rooms
&
The Reality of Woman Beating
I sat in the white wicker chair that contrasted sharply with the soft green room and the warm, roaring fire. With my feet propped on a log in front of the fireplace I enjoyed the soft texture and blend of the pinot noir and Bill Withers in a beautiful sanctuary that was my thirteenth restoration. I had worked hard restoring house after house to create beauty and safety in structures that witnessed terrible danger and ugliness. While these structures witnessed horrors that would haunt, they would never be able to bear witness. I would.
Aaron’s friends boisterously staggered down the two flights of stairs. Drunk, they said their good-byes, in the manly way of course, and Aaron disappeared. They had been “jamming” upstairs for the last four hours. Through the archway I saw Aaron reappear in front of the staircase and I smiled. These were times he often felt playful and loving, a wonderful contribution to the sanctuaries I built.
When the look on his face registered in my mind I remembered that this was also a moment in time where he could be primed for violence. I looked down and saw the duct tape in his hands. My first thought was that he was upset because an amp or a cord or some piece of equipment had broken. As he approached me it didn’t register that I was about to be “fixed” with that duct tape. By the time he grabbed me, threw me to the floor and I heard the tearing of the tape I realized that making anything better, at least by my definition, was not his goal. Terror set in as I felt the tape bind my wrists and ankles.
While he had hit me, terrorized me and threatened me before I was not prepared for the beating that would ensue with this novel use of duct tape. I was sure he had now tried everything to fix me. If I knew what was wrong with me I would have gladly expedited the process. But I didn’t. I had no idea why the husband I had just left beat me and even less of a clue as to why Aaron beat me. Like society, I blamed myself for the brutality in my life but I had no idea what was so wrong with me that even duct tape couldn’t do the job.
There was no hysteria or “loss of control” in Aaron and his calm premeditation made the experience all the more terrifying. In my naiveté I still believed that all woman beating came from a loss of control. But this was not my experience as he violently but methodically bound my wrists and ankles and then ripped my clothes from me. The speed of it added to my disorientation.
As he turned me over and over finally, face up, naked and bound he straddled me with all 260 pounds. I remained silent, afraid that my daughters would wake up. They had already seen so much in their little lives. Out of their presence I referred to their father as the fetus beater because his brutality started during pregnancy and pregnancy seemed to make the beatings worse. As Aaron brutalized my body I kept my mind focused on my babies, determined to hold my tongue.
While Aaron’s weight perched on my abdomen, as my ex-husband had done during my terms as an incubator, he hit me back and forth, right side, left side over and over until, through my dissociation, I heard screams. After a moment I realized there was more than one person screaming and none of them were me.
Being the oldest child of a violent, alcoholic cop I had learned early how to take a beating. My siblings were always amazed at how I could take a beating from our father and not respond at all, much less shed tears. But at this point in my life there was a new weapon for the men in my life to use, my daughters. I did not want them to have to learn how to take a beating, as I had. At the time, I thought I would kill before I allowed them to be harmed. But I was ignorantly allowing so much harm to seep into them. Still, they were a nifty tool for controlling me. While they had never tried duct tape, my severely dysfunctional birth family and ex-husband had been using these little girls to hurt me since their arrival.
During an earlier beating Aaron had learned how efficient using those little girls could be at controlling me. During that beating I was refusing to respond when Aaron jumped off of me, headed toward my sleeping daughters and growled, “I’m gonna get those girls.”
I immediately obliged him with enough begging, crying and pleading to satisfy. I was learning that part of Aaron’s gratification came from my response. That night he learned that threatening the babies would get it.
Hearing the screams, I turned my head to the left, toward the staircase and there stood my two little girls. They screamed, cried and clung to each other in their little, ruffled, floor length strawberry shortcake nightgowns. With their arms wrapped around each other, faces drawn in terror they screamed, “Get off my mommy. You’re killing her.”
Prior to their arrival I was dissociated, projecting myself into the fireplace where it was safe and warm, the same place I was enjoying prior to this rude interruption. This projection was always a last ditch effort to protect my mind at a time when I couldn’t protect my body. Dissociation is when, during a traumatic event, we try to protect our mind by disconnecting it from our body.
When I saw my babies I knew I had to keep all my parts together. This was no longer just dangerous for me but they were now within Aaron’s field of vision. Now I begged and cried, which generally pleased him. As he lifted his weight from my 100 pound, naked body he started punching me in the stomach.
I stared at my daughters, fighting back tears and at the same time trying to show him enough pain to satisfy him. I was stuck between his desire to see me suffer and my need to hide it for the girls. I had to measure my response to the trauma. It was harder to show the pain because that just wasn’t the way I had always survived it. My best tool was to high-tail it out of that helpless body and give the woman beater no response, at least no response that I could control.
Aaron disappeared from my view. But as I lay motionless on the cold, wood floor in front of them, bound and naked, I watched the deep eyes of my babies follow him. At that moment they were my eyes. Their nonverbal was all I needed to see. Their little faces, no longer innocent, suddenly turned white and I saw the terror heighten right before their screams turned to hysteria. They clung tighter to each other and began sucking air, heaving and muttering unintelligible syllables. I couldn’t understand a word they were saying but, just before he rounded the corner in the foyer, I knew that what they were seeing had to be ugly. And, of course, it was.
Aaron appeared carrying a large butcher knife and efforts to continue rationing out my reaction was overtaken by the enormity of the terror. As he approached I tried to crawl, bound at the wrists and ankles, like a naked worm, out of his reach. I worked my battered and bruised body hard to simply put inches between us. He grabbed me by my ankles and hoisted them into the air, hanging me like a newborn, slicing the duct tape and both ankles in one smooth swoop. Somehow, I think he had done that before.
Dropping my legs to the ground he grabbed for my wrists. Still confused I didn’t realize he was trying to free me as I struggled to get my legs under me. The girls were only feet from the front door but I feared that if I yelled for them to run he would turn his focus to them. I felt such shame that they were seeing me this way and such sadness that they now knew true human nature. During their fathers beatings their view was usually blocked by the uterus meant to protect them. They now had an unimpeded view to Aaron’s violence and I feared any wrong move, on my part, would turn his attention to them.
Holding my hands into the air he sliced the duct tape that held my wrists. He then let go of my hands and I crumbled to the floor. Aaron turned and walked into the parlor. Through the newly painted pocket doors I watched him stab the eight inch long butcher knife into the wall about seven feet up. He walked past my babies and up the stairs. Sara reached me first and I grabbed her, pulling her on top of me in a crude effort to hide my naked, battered body from her younger sister.
I awoke the next morning in my own bed. My babies slept peacefully beside me and I took a moment to study the differences. Sara was a six-year-old, fair skinned, straight haired, blond. She never hid the first-born traits that could make her a handful. She was the first born of the first born of the first born of the first born of the eldest of the first born. That was as far as I had been able to trace it. Given her personality, I think it went on to the beginning of time.
Spooned in Sara’s belly lay Amanda. Sara’s light complexion contrasted starkly with her sister’s dark complexion and long, brown, curly hair that made people smile with “cute”. At one point her Sara had become so jealous of the curls that she used a disposable razor to shave them. Sara was furious when they grew back. Amanda had the quiet, old-soul type personality while Sara was seldom silent and needed to learn every lesson on her own.
Their sleep was not peaceful as they tossed and fussed. Trying to stretch the silence I lay quiet admiring my babies as only a parent could, not yet remembering the night before and totally befuddled as to why the babies were in my bed, as opposed to Aaron.
Up until I left their father, about a year earlier, we had always shared a bed. But since Aaron came into our lives the girls shared a bed and Aaron and I shared a bed. Amanda turned over and I saw a streak of blood on the side of her cheek. I sat upright so quick that I woke them. Panicked I checked them trying to figure out where her injury was. I questioned them as I rolled, poked and prodded.
“Mommy, it’s you. Don’t you remember? Last night? Mommy you’re bleeding,” Sara said sadly.
It all flooded back like someone opened up the top of my head and emptied a dump truck full of garbage, confusion, shame and noise into it. It was the same confusion and shame I had felt the mornings after a brutal beating from their father and my father.
“I’m going to get ice for your face,” Sara said, climbing out of the bed. Standing no taller than three feet, she was the one that mothered us all.
“No! Where is he?” I ask.
“It’s okay mommy. He left last night,” she said.
Sara left to get ice but quickly returned. I could see the fury in her little face.
“He’s sitting on the couch, told me to get my ass back up here. Bastard,” pausing to frame a thought, “Mommy are we being held hostage?” she asked.
I didn’t respond.
I certainly didn’t believe we were being held hostage but had no idea what was going on and no idea how to respond to such a straightforward question from such a little girl. If we weren’t being held hostage then what in the hell was this? I couldn’t explain what was going on to myself, much less a child.
He yelled up that I just wanted attention and that they were not to cater to me.
“Mommy what is cater?” Sara ask.
“He doesn’t want you to be nice to me,” I explained.
As the years went by I would sadly realize that was one request that she would incorporate, subconsciously, as she defined our relationship. In a matter of minutes we heard his weight coming up the stairs and I fully remembered the terror of the night before. I pushed the girls down between the wall and the bed and threw all but one of the blankets over them.
“Crawl under the bed. Don’t crawl out. Stay,” I whispered.
I covered myself with the last blanket as this waking nightmare came through the door. As his eyes met mine the fury simply drained from his face and I saw guilt, shame and compassion. That’s when I knew it must be bad. I had never seen those things in his evil, callous face before and I never saw them in Larry’s, the father of my children, or the face of Jim, my father.
------------------------------------
I sat curled on the couch avoiding eye contact with my sister, Rena. I was wrapped in a blanket so she couldn’t see the sliced ankles and wrists. I was so tired and I ached and throbbed with even the slightest movement. Rena didn’t mention the purple, swollen face or the fat lip. Just dropped in, didn’t stay long. I knew she was just rubbernecking. Where we come from woman beating was the norm. Apparently not even worthy of mention. From where I sat I could see the knife hanging in the wall, a symbol of tranquility, peace and self worth - up high, out of reach and a potentially lethal pursuit.
As children, violence in our home was not only acceptable but expected. I remember at 18 years old when my father-in-law du jour told me that he had never hit a woman. I was surprised. Even though I knew woman beating (child beating, animal beating, racism etc…) was wrong and never hesitated to speak my mind, I truly thought brutality toward weaker souls was considered not only normal but acceptable to anyone with the power to do so.
I was the oldest child in my family of origin and Rena was about eighteen months younger. Our father was only a handful of years out of a Communist Chinese prison camp and he brought the guards home as his model and the techniques as parenting tools. Rena and I were intermittently terrorized and brutalized. Our father had been taken hostage at only seventeen years of age and incorporated the treatment he was subjected to.
Despite that, my father’s father was notoriously brutal so even without the input of prison guards, domestic violence was going to be inescapable for Rena and I. And as I sat curled on the couch, facing the sister who also lived a life of brutality, I was unaware of how the Communist Chinese would influence my efforts to understand my history.
Sara, knew Rena’s phone number and I suspect she had called her aunt for help. Sara didn’t yet know that her aunt was being beaten by her husband, and on occasion, still being hit by our father. I thought that it would take many years before my daughters learned the hard lessons about relationships and who really cares and as I write this, a decade and a half later, I fear they may never get it.
That day, after seeing my face, Aaron called a crisis line and got us an appointment with a counselor. The notion that beating me was wrong and he needed to go to jail didn’t enter my mind. We, as a couple, needed help. He persuaded me that something was wrong with our sex life and that was the reason we would seek professional help, nothing to do with beating your partner half to death.
And aside from the fact that he felt some type of guilt over the incident I was forbidden to remove the knife from the wall. It hung firm and threatening for weeks. The one attempt I made to remove it and the one request Sara had to take it out was met with frightening threats. That knife protruded as a warning despite Aaron’s occasional proclamations of responsibility and remorse.
Aaron went from using adhesives to fix me, to recruiting every mental health provider that needed to fill a time slot. And while we waited to get into the first appointment I wasn’t allowed to mention the violence because it made him feel guilty. Yet the knife mocked the girls and me as a grim reminder of our recent history and our certain future.
I finally learned why he beat me that night so that now when my sister or father ask me I could answer that all too frequent question, “What did you do?” Turns out I “provoked” him earlier in the night when I went into his “music room”. One of his friends had called me a filthy name. At the time I had a mouthful of wine and I spit it at him.
You see, all those clichés are true; “we are the company we keep, birds of a feather” etc… Aaron’s friends were all woman haters and made sure none of “their” women ever forgot it. They harbored the same attitudes as Larry and my father. This was familiar to me, just the way men are, I thought. Anyway, when I spit the wine there appeared to be no harm done. No one seemed mad. My radar hadn’t picked up any terrible offense. Obviously my radar was broken.
By the time we got into the first counseling appointment the swelling in my face had decreased and turned to a nice shade of green that matched the sweater I wore. During the session Aaron minimized the attack on me and persuaded the counselor that it was “in the past.” He was one of the most charming men I had ever met and he made sure any service provider we saw was as charmed as I was during our courtship. He never failed to display his charm and shared it with anyone who might help to manipulate me.
The counselor agreed with him on the definition of “past” and they decided that I either needed to get over it or move out. I was initially appalled that “in the past” could actually occur before bruising healed but, the counselor said I either had to forgive him or get out of the relationship and “they are the experts”.
Being a full time student, single parent, with no income and no place to go I decide that maybe he was right. It was in the past and I should forgive Aaron. Besides he had told me on numerous occasions that he would kill me before he let me go and I believed him. Three weeks later he nearly killed me anyway. It gets to the point that you know he’s going to kill you. The question becomes: do I die in the privacy and small comfort of my home? Or do I die at my place of employment, in front of the kid’s school or like a dog in the street being shot by a rabid cop?
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We sat in the living room dressed and ready to go. The girls were with Larry for the weekend and Aaron and I were going out with friends. They weren’t our friends. They were Aaron’s friends. Once we became a couple, my friends were shut out and I was expected to take his group of misogynists as my support system and allies. Aaron was in a bad mood, angry. He slammed back more wine as we waited for his friends to arrive.
The bruising in my face had finally faded and I was dolled up in a pair of flat sandals, a denim mini skirt and a tank top. As short legged and flat-chested as I was, this was a pretty benign outfit. Our night out drinking hadn’t helped his mood. Imagine that, and by the time we got home it was a full blown fight over the outfit he loved when we left. He sat down in a chair in the living room and I headed upstairs, indignant and determined from alcohol.
I had chosen this home because of the restoration it needed. You couldn’t find window cleaner anywhere but drywall cement and paint cans seemed to chase you. As I went up the stairs, drunk no doubt, a can of paint went thudding down two flights of stairs, losing its lid somewhere along the way.
Standing at the top of the stairs I looked down at that gallon of spilled paint. I didn’t yet realize that I would be looking at my hands, hair and feet outlined in this shade of yellow, mixed with my blood, over the entire house. I did not realize this was the last time I would see that paint in such a manageable pool. I felt his every footstep shake the house and before I saw his tense body I knew what was going to happen.
As he stepped right into the pool of paint, with a splat, I put my back to the wall and slid to the floor, limp. I know that it doesn’t hurt as bad when you let go of all your muscles, feelings, reasoning, thoughts and most importantly, your “self”. I don’t own my body, or dare come near it, as Aaron grabs my still sore ankles and pulls me down to a landing between the two flights of steps. As he pulled my ankles my head thudded down each step.
I was a spectator as my body was rolled over and over in the thick, yellow paint. No feeling or thought only a slight resemblance to anything that could be construed as living. No matter which way he turned me, threw me or rolled me I stared straight ahead, blank, projecting my mind outside of my body, the only safe place for it. The girls were not home so I did not have to respond. Time became irrelevant but I knew his anger would not be quickly spent. It never was.
When I felt myself still and knew he was gone, I quietly crawled up the stairs, trailing yellow ooze like a slug, into the bathroom. I slowly removed the gooey clothing that had become heavy with paint. I carefully piled the clothes in the sink, ironically trying to avoid any drips, and started the water in the claw foot tub I had added to the finished bathroom. I felt the floor vibrating and turned to face the six foot frame of the man I was certain I loved, whose anger my strength could never match. Why did he need to go another round? I wondered. I was quiet, submissive and compliant.
His unharnessed rage was more energy than I had ever seen as he grabbed me and dragged my body to the stairs again, this time threatening to throw me outside. Aaron had frequently bragged about stripping his ex-wife naked, throwing her outside, turning on the lights and calling her father to come and get her. He laughed about her cowering, naked behind a shrub and felt a sense of pride in his creative methods of terror. With all of his bravado he shared this story as a conversation topic and laughed about it with his friends.
I knew he meant it. Again, his threat worked. Naked and covered in paint I begged for my last shred of dignity. We owned a large historic home on zero lot line. The houses were so close that the neighbors could hear you cough. They knew I was battered and never called the police. I didn’t want them to see it too. I felt my feelings, emotions, thoughts and “self” flood back through my body, initiated by the shame of being a battered woman.
I begged and pleaded, fighting against his adrenaline pumped body. Reacting worked again. He stopped dragging me toward the door and began beating me with his fists and banging my paint soaked head on the hardwood floors. Each time my head hit the floor my long, brown hair left beautifully artistic splays and outlines that would later haunt me and prompt many questions from my daughters. Guests never asked. They knew because the paint was also displayed his footprints along with a print from every part of my body. That night he beat me for hours in every room of that four thousand square foot house. After a while I didn’t know who was doing this to me and it didn’t much matter. I stayed dissociated, high up in the ceiling until his anger was temporarily spent.
I saw the sun coming up as I retreated to my bedroom naked and numb. Yellow paint and red blood covered the black and blue bruises donned by my insignificant body. Finding a corner I backed into it and slid down the wall once again. I felt no pain, only a few basic, rhythmic lines repeating themselves over and over in my brain:
You can bounce off the walls
You can scream until dawn
Hide in the corners and tremble alone.
You can beg, you can plead,
No refuge you’ll find.
For the rooms are all round
With no corners to hide
….4
Tool Box
For Trauma Survivors
&
Those Who Love & Support Them
After the nightmare of surviving a trauma (rape, assault, woman beating etc…) a whole range of new thoughts, feelings and behaviors are thrust upon us. We find that not only are we different but we see the world differently and, in turn, the world responds to us differently. Our loved ones behave differently around us and we have fears and frustrations that we can’t even verbalize. This new way of being is confusing and frustrating as we find that all the rules we were taught about being safe and good aren’t true.
After a trauma the victims may find friends and family distancing themselves because, people who are going through trauma can behave in ways that are perplexing to others. It can help to keep in mind that the victim is as perplexed as anyone over her actions and reactions.
Those that support them may also be frightened and overwhelmed by the needs of the victim/survivor because they have little information and virtually no tools for coping. This goes for both the victim and their loved ones. Information on surviving trauma is not readily available and leaves both the survivor and their loved ones in turmoil. This lack of information and skills leaves the victim even more isolated. Teaching victims/survivors and those that support them can make this painful period in life smoother, providing a better opportunity for a good outcome and minimize the damage to the entire family.
This chapter, and the next, offers specific tools for victims and those that support them. These tools can work for all types of trauma survivors, secondary victims like the relatives of homicide victims and combat veterans. These tools come from decades of trial and error and are the tools that hundreds of victims have found most helpful. Just like a hammer is not designed to sand furniture, not all of these tools will work for everyone in every situation. That’s why you need a large and varied tool box.
Find the tools that work for you and keep them close because recovery is a long process. Have you ever wondered why some people emerge from a trauma better while others are left bitter? Often the difference boils down to the tools (coping skills) they have available to them as they emerge from their traumatic journey.
I am a victim offender ameliorator, not a mediator. Inherent in the term mediation is the concept that both parties give and compromise. In the area of violent crimes, and that is the only area I work in, compromise is inappropriate. The victim has already given more than they ever consented to and it is inappropriate to ask for anything more. I teach people how to take a terrible experience and find its highest and best use.
About trauma, people often say things like “it will make you better” or “what doesn’t kill you makes you better” etc… This is not true. It’s just a saying that makes people feel better for a moment in time. Just because it didn’t kill us doesn’t mean it made us better. Many people become worse. Some people may become worse only for a short time and others may be forever scarred. If we have the option, it is ours, to become better. Again, just because a trauma didn’t kill us doesn’t mean we are automatically enhanced. We have to work to find the highest and best use. It doesn’t just pour over us because it didn’t kill us.
The experience itself does not make you better or stronger. The victim/survivor should have the opportunity to make themselves better and to learn and use the experience. But not all victims/survivors are offered this route. They are frequently left to incorporate the traumatic experience unprocessed, unexamined. This can leave them with all kinds of problems including criminal behavior, like my adolescent sex offenders. This chapter is designed to help those who want to not only survive the experience but want to learn as much as possible from it and possibly be enhanced by it. This chapter is for those who don’t want to waste a terrible trauma. It also provides those that support the victim the information they need to do no harm, and actually even help….
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…God
Q: “How could God do such a thing? (How could God do this to me?)”
A: God gets blamed for everything when, in fact, all religions and science acknowledge both a negative and positive energy. Christianity speaks of God and the devil. Science notes the negative and positive energy and the Chinese Yin and Yang. God is not responsible for everything.
I would have no faith in a God who would use the types of traumas I’ve seen, to teach people. My God is compassionate and loving and when She sees children raped , animals tortured and man’s inhumanity toward anything he can catch, She weeps with us. As a Christian (and Buddhist) I was taught that Christ died so that we could have free will and when humans use that free will to harm other beings my God is not responsible, but disgusted.
My God does not punish us or brutally take our child because “She needs another angel”. Those are the acts of man. Some choose to use their free will to greedily loot anything they can and others use the same free will to enhance all they touch. Hearing horrible acts attributed to my loving God saddens me.
Q: “God doesn’t give us anymore than we can take.”
A: Again God does not give us trauma. And people are faced with more than they can take all the time. People “snap” and go on shooting sprees, kill their families and commit suicide all the time. “God won’t give us anymore than we can take” is a nice thing to say and may provide some temporary comfort but it just isn’t true. It could actually be harmful if we leave it all to God and don’t do what we need to do to support traumatized people. “God works through us” is more accurate.
How we take trauma depends a great deal on how we work to endure it and then overcome it. If we acknowledge the traumatic event and then vigilantly work to understand and ameliorate it, thriving afterwards is as close to a guarantee as we can get. If we deny the trauma, try to hide it and dismiss it we may survive but thriving may not come.
Instincts
Q: “I knew this was going to happen. Why didn’t I listen to my gut?”
A: Everyday, 24 hours a day, we are taking in information about ourselves, others and our environment. We are taking in so much verbal and non-verbal information that most of it is unconscious going to our subconscious. Our brains could not possibly acknowledge everything that’s coming in all the time. Regardless, the information is coming in and being filed.
When you get a gut feeling it could be an answer or a warning coming from that massive filing cabinet in your brain. We can’t put logic or words to that gut feeling but we know it to be true. We can’t rationally explain it and therefore we want to just dismiss it. Often we want to dismiss it because it isn’t telling us what we want to hear. Maybe we tend to dismiss it because that’s what we’ve been taught to do with things that come from our gut.
Many lives could be saved just by listening to that little voice in our head (heart or stomach, wherever yours is). Imagine a horse in the wild who gets the feeling that danger is around but dismisses it. Instead the horse just stands there and tries to analyze why he feels a need to flee. In the time that the horse has wasted she has probably sealed her place on the dinner menu. Horses are prey animals, which means that other animals eat them. In a world where a woman is beaten every 18 seconds and 3 out of 4 girls are sexually assaulted prior to age 18, the majority of our population also consists of prey animals. Like animals, humans are also prey and predator. Animals follow their instincts. Humans dismiss them, to their detriment.
We are so much more than we can explain and our capacity for knowledge and information storage is incredible. Maybe you picked up nonverbal cues from your father or boyfriend right before he beat you. You were so preoccupied with reducing your injuries that you didn’t stop to intellectualize and analyze the information. And that is certainly wise. Somewhere in your brain you noticed, and filed the fact that, right before he hit you his right eye twitched. You did not have time to intellectualize then and you may not have the time now. Maybe you were only half listening to the description of the rapist that was broadcast on the news. But as this man approaches your car something inside of you is screaming. Listen!
If you have seen something once, you have a good chance of predicting it in the future. This does not mean that if you fail to predict an assault it is your fault. Offenders can be quite resourceful and charming when it comes to picking and grooming their victims. But, if you’ve seen it once you certainly have an advantage. The trick IS to know you have seen it before and to react to the answer stored, without logical explanation, in your brain.
There were reports that when the World Trade Center was attacked, people were fleeing the building when they were sent back to their offices by authority figures who told them it was safe. These people’s instincts told them to flee the burning building. Yet many of these people set aside their instincts and common sense for a more comfortable scenario offered to them by an authority figure. This may have contributed to the deaths of many people who chose to dismiss what they knew to be true….
…Facing The Problem
Q: “Why do I have to deal with this? It’s over and done and I just want to move on with my life.”
A: You have been physically, spiritually and emotionally wounded. You will remember it whether you want to or not. How much sense does the following scenario make to you?
You are hit by a car and an ambulance comes to take you to the hospital. Both your right arm and leg have horrible lacerations. When the doctor comes in she stitches your injuries without first cleaning the gravel and road dirt out of the wounds. She sews you up including dirt, gravel and everything else that found its way into the wounds. You would probably stop her and insist on being tended by someone who knew what they were doing. You would, hopefully, insist that the debris be cleaned out before closing the wound because you know that if it isn’t you will get an infection. The debris might not be a problem for a day or two, maybe a week or months. Maybe you could even hold the infection at bay for years. But eventually that debris will demand that you deal with it. This is what you do for your body. You take care of it.
Your mind and spirit deserve no less. After a trauma, your mind, spirit and often your body are injured and need to be dealt with properly. Hard as you might try to ignore and conceal the debris, it will rise to the surface through addictions, sexualizing, anger, self-loathing…pick your dysfunction, and you will. Ignoring the debris will make it even more determined to be acknowledged. You can clean it now, reopen it and clean it later or spend your life fighting infection….
…Q: I was ordered into counseling with the man who beat me. He denied everything and the counselors response was “There is no reality, only perception.” How can this be?
A: There is no reality, only perception. Yeah, tell that one to the judge. “Your honor, there is no reality, only perception. She just thinks I raped (cheated on, assaulted, murdered (where does it end?) her). That’s not my perception.” It can’t be. Anyone who is thinking clearly knows that there is reality and there is perception. While there are gray areas and misunderstandings, there are also undisputable truths and yet we are subjecting trauma survivors to this denial strategy of “I can say it ain’t so, so therefore it isn’t, end of discussion.” Having their reality invalidated by “educated professionals” is terribly damaging to the victim/survivor.
Psychology has given many abusers an out by rewarding their denial. The message is, all you have to do is deny your behavior and that’s the end of that. While you sit with a blackened face and busted mouth being told it is only your perception, he has been handed denial and validation, end of discussion, because it is only your perception, according to mental health service providers. And the offender thanks God for the out. Find a new counselor or enlist the help of your local battered women’s organization to have a stop put to the court ordered revictimization.
Q: “Will I ever get over this?”
A: It depends on how you define “over it”. You have gone through an experience that has forever changed you. You will never be the same, so forget that goal. As I said earlier you can be changed for the better or for the worse. While the trauma may not have been your responsibility, it is your responsibility, if at all possible, to squeeze as much positive out of that lemon as you can. This is not to say that your torture and trauma had a divine purpose. It is to say that you have an experience that you really do not want to be in vain. You can use it to benefit yourself and others or degrade yourself and others.
Right now the experience feels painful and awkward to you. It is new. It may feel as if you have a third arm sticking out of the middle of your chest. The arm is painful and it flops around a lot. You don’t have much control over it and it causes you to cry a lot. You are, predictably, furious that you have been saddled with this third arm. You may be ashamed of and embarrassed by this seemingly ridiculous appendage and you can’t seem to get control over it. You can’t predict from one moment to the next what the damn thing is going to do.
You go through the stages of grief. You try to bargain with God. You deny the arm is really there and sometimes you just feel furious. But, as time goes on you get more comfortable with the arm. You just start accepting it. You are learning how to control it and all of a sudden you are noticing how many other people are also walking around with this stupid arm. In time you realize that you can use that arm to rock another baby, wipe another tear or stroke another head. While you often see people using the third arm to hurt other people, maybe they are using it to hold an extra weapon. You eventually hone your skills with it and find it to be a great asset.
You will never be the person you were before the trauma. You will be better, different or worse, but you won’t be the same. You can’t “unsee” what you’ve already seen. You can deny it but what you have seen has still been filed in your brain. They are still in your subconscious. You HAVE seen it. When we see former addicts working with addicts, formerly battered women working with battered women and survivors of rape working with victims of rape, it is because they have learned to use their experience positively. They have developed the muscles in that third arm. “They have come to see the power in their knowledge and they chose to use it to help others.”
Reaching out to others is a vital part of recovery. When we see others who have a third arm it alleviates our shame and embarrassment. When we spend time with people who have a third arm we learn skills from them. When we can help others who are struggling, our lives are enhanced immeasurably. It is very difficult to rock a baby dying of AIDS and still feel overwhelmed by our own trauma. This is not to say that we cover our own trauma with the trauma of others. Wait until you have done your own recovery and then reach out to teach and help others, especially when we have experiences and wisdom they desperately need.
The experience, like the arm, will never go away. People often say, “I need closure.” Some doors always remain cracked. Not all of them can be closed. You can choose to become comfortable with it, allow it to become a part of you and eventually have a great asset. You can use the asset for peace; healing and enlightenment; for evil; or you can just let it flop around. Regardless of what you choose, the arm is yours now and forever, to do with as you please, which includes spending a lot of time and energy pretending it isn’t there. Be patient with yourself. If recovery and thriving is what you seek and you are taking the steps, it will happen.”
Q: “I am left with such a big hole in my life. There are things I need that my parents never gave me. How do I fill these holes?”
A: Inside all of us we have inner children. All of us actually have several inner children which represent critical periods in our lives. Inner child work can be powerful. How old were you at critical moments in your life? Do you have a neglected four-year old? Do you have an abused ten-year old or a raped twelve-year old? Do you find them running the show at inopportune moments?
Do you find yourself reverting to a ten-year old after being with your family for the holidays? Does your wife complain that you act like an eight-year old over toys? Do you experience anger that you felt when you were fifteen and the cheerleader took your boyfriend? Acknowledge these inner children, bring them into the light and give them the attention and guidance that they need. The have gone unacknowledged for far too long and as an adult you now have the power to give them what they need. Not only do you carry these inner children around with you but you now have a more experienced, more mature adult to give them what they need to heal.
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Elliot was a dangerous, 18-year-old sex offender who had been incarcerated, in one way or another, all of his life. He had gone from foster homes to group homes to the correctional facility. Elliot desperately needed help and for a long time I refused. I believed that Elliot was not sincere and that he and the staff viewed working with me as his ticket out of the facility. Whenever I thought that was the case, I refused. I am a firm believer in what I do with offenders being in addition to, not instead of, consequences imposed by the courts. Anyway, I finally agreed to help him with his lack of empathy and to do this I had to put the trauma he experienced face-to-face with the trauma he caused.
Elliot had been so traumatized that I had to spend the first weeks teaching him to communicate so I could understand him. All of his life, anything that he may have wanted to say to the world was drowned out by his slurring, mumbling and stuttering. People usually just dismissed him as opposed to putting in the work required to understand him. Elliot progressed quickly and I soon found out that I had been right. The staff had used me to facilitate Elliot’s release and I knew that I either had to get this right or step up and fight against his release. I didn’t want to do the latter because my policy is not to help or hinder their release. I had to get some important information into his head quick.
“You remember a beating when you were 7?” I asked.
He nodded shyly.
“So a wounded 7 year old is part of what you carry around?” I asked.
Again, he nodded.
“And the 14 year old was the one who violently raped your sister. Is that right?” I asked.
Again, he simply nodded.
“And right now you have an 18 year old who knows a lot more than the hurt 7 year old or the angry 14 year old,” I said.
He again nodded in agreement.
“So, Elliot, what are you going to do with that 7-year old and 14-year old when they start wanting to run the show?” I ask.
For the first time that day I saw his facial expression change. It was clear that Elliot got my point. Prior to that day the only tools he had to control his dangerous inner child was the restraint of the guards. He was about to add one that he could control.
“I want you to close your eyes and imagine that hurt, wounded little 7- year old. I want you to hear the horrible things your mother would say to him and the names she called him,” I paused to give him time to frame up the images before I added another, “And Elliot I want you to think about that cowering position he used to take as she hits him over and over.”
I could see the hurt on his face as his eyes remained closed.
“He’s totally helpless Elliot and he has no one to protect him, does he?”
Elliot nodded as his face seemed to collapse inward. His shoulders began to slump and his hair fell back over his eyes again. I knew he was hiding. This was a response we had spent a lot of time on but now it was okay, safe for him.
“But that’s not true today Elliot. Picture yourself as you look today,” I paused, “You are a strong young man and your 7-year old needs you. Imagine your 18 year old walking into the picture and scooping the hurt 7 year old into your arms. Hold him on your lap, really close to you, Elliot. You are no longer seven and you can protect him. You can hold him and love him and protect that hurt little baby boy for the rest of his life. That’s one of the benefits of growing up. We have age, skills and tools to help us through life.”
I could see the peace taking over his face. He raised his head and moved his hair back. I was surprised that he trusted me enough to really go there. So often people feel stupid or afraid to actually go to the hurt they feel. This young man wasn’t and I knew his willingness to go there could be his saving grace and, quite possibly, that of others.
“Sit down with him Elliot and hold him in your lap. Have your 18- year old tell him how important he is and how much you love him.”
Elliot’s eyes opened, flooded with tears. He looked at me with gratitude and wonder.
“Elliot you no longer have to leave the 7-year old in pain or let the 14- year old be violent. You have an 18-year old that can love and honor the 7-year old and make the 14-year old behave. Think about it. If you were running your own business would you let one of them run the show?” I ask.
“No,” he answered quickly, shocked at the prospect.
“Well you certainly can’t let them run your life, because your life is your business. It’s all you have and those two just don’t have the skills to run the show. You have an 18-year old for a reason. That 7 and 14-year old need you. And in time you will have a 23-year old and a 30-year old that know even more.”…