As you visit this site and learn more about the Bill of Rights for Incest Survivors and Their Families, you might have questions for me, as the founder of
In Recognition of Incest Survivors (IRIS).
Please send me an email and ask your question:
[email protected]
I promise to give an honest and straightforward answer to any question that is asked in good faith and curiosity. Your question submittal constitutes your permission to post your question. I will use first names only and no other identifying information will be posted on the website.
(I will NOT answer questions that are abusive or exploitive, so
don't waste your time there!)
I am a real person with a lot of experience, compassion, love, and opinions to share -
try me!
[email protected]
From A Husband in the Complicated Middle
Michael writes:
Hi,
I just read a few of the bill of rights articles and found them to be very insightful and helpful.
Thank you for posting them. I am the spouse of an amazing survivor.
Can you recommend articles or reading resources to help me as an ally navigate my relationship to her family?
FYI, I end up in the complicated middle, we want our daughter to know her grandparents and relatives under healthy agreed upon boundaries, despite the degrees of estrangements my spouse initiates.
Yes the "trance" is still there and I prioritize the bill of rights as best I can. Grandma was not the perp and seems by my long view a positive for my daughter, but will not own her part in my spouse's abuse. Thus the baby granddaughter visitation planning is often up to me. I hope to find reading resources to help clearly think through my boundaries (no money for counseling for me now).
Thank you again.
From Another Mother:
Hi, Michael. Thank you for reaching out. I've been thinking all day about what I can say to you that might actually help. Families are so complicated! First, thank you and congratulations for being a supportive ally and spouse to your wife and an advocate for your child. I am sure they are both really lucky to have you in their lives. Second, I'm obliged to tell you that I am not a certified therapist or health professional, just a neighbor who has been through it and wants to help. So, take whatever I have to say or leave it alone - only you can decide.
We have found that the amount of literature out there is really limited at addressing the complex webs of different family interactions where abuse has occurred. In fact, the lack of appropriate literature about how to be really helpful as an ally, or how to reach for healing as a survivor without having some ideology or judgmental assumption driving the program, is what led us to develop our own website on the subject. Having said that, Laura Davis, one of the women who wrote The Courage to Heal (one of the first manuals for survivors and considered by some to be the Bible of recovery) has written a second book called Allies in Healing. It looks like there might be some good information about extended family relationships in the book.
Nothing beats a good support system, too, and many are to be had online and they cost nothing to join. I have found this one helpful: https://sexual-abuse.supportgroups.com/ You don't have to participate or sign up on this one - it's OK to just lurk and get a feel for it before you decide if you want to post. It can be graphic, so be forewarned - a lot of people are working out their trauma online. Also, your county social services office can lead you to real life counseling at very low or no cost, if you decide the need is imperative.
It sounds to me as if your wife is in the midst of a process of determining at what level she wishes to stay in relationship with several different people in her family of origin. If you don't mind my going beyond your original question, I'd like to say that this process can be a really lengthy one and it doesn't always go in a straight line. It's pretty abominable and hard to believe that many mothers do not take responsibility for their part, even if it was unwitting, in their children's abuse. I can empathize with the mother, but only to a point. There are many reasons why we abandon (literally or emotionally) our kids when they have been abused: it can be fear of violence or even death from the abuser, fear of public shame, fear of poverty or homelessness if the family breaks apart in the revelation of the abuse. Sometimes the mother also is an abuser herself, or is narcissistic and unable to empathize with the pain and emotional devastation her child is experiencing. It might even be that she is addicted to relationships and cannot imagine life without her spouse even if it means her child is sacrificed to that need. Some do it simply because the pain of having to acknowledge the greatest failure of their lives, the failure to provide their child with a safe and happy childhood, feels like too great a devastation to face.
There are a million reasons that a woman will abandon and thus re-abuse her child in the face of the revelation of childhood sexual abuse. A million reasons and NO excuses. Your daughter is right to be wary of her mother. Sadly, though, this is the usual scenario. It is rare for a mother to rise to her children's defense and then put herself in the way of any further harm to the child. If the revelation comes later in life, it is even more rare for the mother to instantly believe her child, leave the perpetrator, and offer any help she can, all her resources, to help her child heal. I was one of the lucky ones who was able to do this, and when I went looking for help I found very few resources, and those that existed were of a religious stripe that was not comfortable for me.
This abandonment wound is almost as devastating to the child as the original abuse, and at the same time, even as an adult the child is terribly reluctant to give up on the hope of recognition, sympathy, love and acceptance from the parent. That's why your wife is not ready to let go of your mother-in-law, and stays connected to her vicariously through your child. You are in a very unfortunate position here. Not being connected emotionally in the same way, you have the luxury of feeling the full indignation and upset at her mother's abandonment on your wife's behalf, but you are the one stuck on supervised visitation.
I want to say as carefully as I can that you have choices here, too. You are correct to be concerned about your own boundaries (and your own well-being). Be careful not to have other peoples' conversations for them, and be vigilant about straying toward codependency in this situation. It is all right to tell your wife that you do not want to serve the role as visitation proctor. You have the same rights in this situation as the survivor - all 10 of them, and any others that feel important to you, as well. Guard your own equilibrium in this situation, even as you are supporting your wife in finding the help she needs to heal and making decisions about how (or whether) to go forward with each person in her family.
Please forgive me one last intrusion here. You have not given me details, but I sense that the "long game" assumption that contact with your wife's side of the family will benefit your daughter might work while she is very young, but I am concerned for her safety. There is a lot to be healed in the dynamics of your wife's very troubled family of origin. The trance is handed down the generations by the people who are still in the trance. It's very sad, but being willing to cut off contact in order to save your child might turn out to be an option. Keep believing the hairs on the backs of your necks, stay vigilant, and don't ever leave her alone with any of them.
I am working on a book of our own based on the material you see on the website, and for what it's worth, I am attaching the last chapter in case you find it helpful: Right number Ten: You have the Right to a Loving, Supportive Family. The chapter goes into a bit more depths about my thoughts on the subject.
I wish you all the best, Michael. Your instincts are correct, and I'm so glad you are asking the right questions and taking care of your amazing survivor and your beautiful child.
Stay in touch if you wish.
With love and hope,
Another Mother
Hi,
I just read a few of the bill of rights articles and found them to be very insightful and helpful.
Thank you for posting them. I am the spouse of an amazing survivor.
Can you recommend articles or reading resources to help me as an ally navigate my relationship to her family?
FYI, I end up in the complicated middle, we want our daughter to know her grandparents and relatives under healthy agreed upon boundaries, despite the degrees of estrangements my spouse initiates.
Yes the "trance" is still there and I prioritize the bill of rights as best I can. Grandma was not the perp and seems by my long view a positive for my daughter, but will not own her part in my spouse's abuse. Thus the baby granddaughter visitation planning is often up to me. I hope to find reading resources to help clearly think through my boundaries (no money for counseling for me now).
Thank you again.
From Another Mother:
Hi, Michael. Thank you for reaching out. I've been thinking all day about what I can say to you that might actually help. Families are so complicated! First, thank you and congratulations for being a supportive ally and spouse to your wife and an advocate for your child. I am sure they are both really lucky to have you in their lives. Second, I'm obliged to tell you that I am not a certified therapist or health professional, just a neighbor who has been through it and wants to help. So, take whatever I have to say or leave it alone - only you can decide.
We have found that the amount of literature out there is really limited at addressing the complex webs of different family interactions where abuse has occurred. In fact, the lack of appropriate literature about how to be really helpful as an ally, or how to reach for healing as a survivor without having some ideology or judgmental assumption driving the program, is what led us to develop our own website on the subject. Having said that, Laura Davis, one of the women who wrote The Courage to Heal (one of the first manuals for survivors and considered by some to be the Bible of recovery) has written a second book called Allies in Healing. It looks like there might be some good information about extended family relationships in the book.
Nothing beats a good support system, too, and many are to be had online and they cost nothing to join. I have found this one helpful: https://sexual-abuse.supportgroups.com/ You don't have to participate or sign up on this one - it's OK to just lurk and get a feel for it before you decide if you want to post. It can be graphic, so be forewarned - a lot of people are working out their trauma online. Also, your county social services office can lead you to real life counseling at very low or no cost, if you decide the need is imperative.
It sounds to me as if your wife is in the midst of a process of determining at what level she wishes to stay in relationship with several different people in her family of origin. If you don't mind my going beyond your original question, I'd like to say that this process can be a really lengthy one and it doesn't always go in a straight line. It's pretty abominable and hard to believe that many mothers do not take responsibility for their part, even if it was unwitting, in their children's abuse. I can empathize with the mother, but only to a point. There are many reasons why we abandon (literally or emotionally) our kids when they have been abused: it can be fear of violence or even death from the abuser, fear of public shame, fear of poverty or homelessness if the family breaks apart in the revelation of the abuse. Sometimes the mother also is an abuser herself, or is narcissistic and unable to empathize with the pain and emotional devastation her child is experiencing. It might even be that she is addicted to relationships and cannot imagine life without her spouse even if it means her child is sacrificed to that need. Some do it simply because the pain of having to acknowledge the greatest failure of their lives, the failure to provide their child with a safe and happy childhood, feels like too great a devastation to face.
There are a million reasons that a woman will abandon and thus re-abuse her child in the face of the revelation of childhood sexual abuse. A million reasons and NO excuses. Your daughter is right to be wary of her mother. Sadly, though, this is the usual scenario. It is rare for a mother to rise to her children's defense and then put herself in the way of any further harm to the child. If the revelation comes later in life, it is even more rare for the mother to instantly believe her child, leave the perpetrator, and offer any help she can, all her resources, to help her child heal. I was one of the lucky ones who was able to do this, and when I went looking for help I found very few resources, and those that existed were of a religious stripe that was not comfortable for me.
This abandonment wound is almost as devastating to the child as the original abuse, and at the same time, even as an adult the child is terribly reluctant to give up on the hope of recognition, sympathy, love and acceptance from the parent. That's why your wife is not ready to let go of your mother-in-law, and stays connected to her vicariously through your child. You are in a very unfortunate position here. Not being connected emotionally in the same way, you have the luxury of feeling the full indignation and upset at her mother's abandonment on your wife's behalf, but you are the one stuck on supervised visitation.
I want to say as carefully as I can that you have choices here, too. You are correct to be concerned about your own boundaries (and your own well-being). Be careful not to have other peoples' conversations for them, and be vigilant about straying toward codependency in this situation. It is all right to tell your wife that you do not want to serve the role as visitation proctor. You have the same rights in this situation as the survivor - all 10 of them, and any others that feel important to you, as well. Guard your own equilibrium in this situation, even as you are supporting your wife in finding the help she needs to heal and making decisions about how (or whether) to go forward with each person in her family.
Please forgive me one last intrusion here. You have not given me details, but I sense that the "long game" assumption that contact with your wife's side of the family will benefit your daughter might work while she is very young, but I am concerned for her safety. There is a lot to be healed in the dynamics of your wife's very troubled family of origin. The trance is handed down the generations by the people who are still in the trance. It's very sad, but being willing to cut off contact in order to save your child might turn out to be an option. Keep believing the hairs on the backs of your necks, stay vigilant, and don't ever leave her alone with any of them.
I am working on a book of our own based on the material you see on the website, and for what it's worth, I am attaching the last chapter in case you find it helpful: Right number Ten: You have the Right to a Loving, Supportive Family. The chapter goes into a bit more depths about my thoughts on the subject.
I wish you all the best, Michael. Your instincts are correct, and I'm so glad you are asking the right questions and taking care of your amazing survivor and your beautiful child.
Stay in touch if you wish.
With love and hope,
Another Mother
Regarding Recent Developments:
As Another Mother, it has been my privilege to walk with many of you on your healing path. It has been my honor to introduce and discuss with you the Bill of Rights for Incest Survivors and Their Families. To do this work, it is important for me to stay centered, optimistic, and fiercely determined to persist. And yet despite my best efforts, to say that the preceding months, weeks, and days have spun me into personal crisis would not adequately convey a scintilla of the deep despair and rage I have been feeling since Election Day. We have witnessed a man who admits to dehumanizing and assaultive behavior, a man against whom child sexual assault charges have been filed (and then withdrawn because of the number of death threats received by the complainant), elevated to the highest office in the land.
To many of us, this election result can be interpreted as a mass invalidation of the pain and concerns of millions of survivors of childhood sexual abuse. I have spent many nights corresponding with survivors who are triggered everywhere they turn in the media. The constant barrage of images and sound bites from a man with an entitled and controlling persona and behavior made our blood run cold, re-opened wounds and shriveled our souls. Some of us experienced flight-or-fight panic every time we turned on our TV.
We have seen this before. We know who the predators are. We have learned to read the hairs on the backs of our necks. It felt like crisis to many of us.
And so I sat up nights trying to find a way to console survivors who suddenly found themselves living with low-grade, constant anxiety or acute spikes of panic attacks. The comfort I was dispensing before the election seems so ironic and silly to me now. Hang in there, I said. This is not going to last. It is an opportunity to finally begin a conversation on a national level about the human rights of sexual abuse survivors. People are going to see and understand the predatory personality writ large across the national headlines, and we will be empowered to be more visible. More vocal. We will be heard, we will be believed; we will be vindicated. That is the good coming out of this point of pain for all of us, I said.
We were weary, burned out, and beyond ready to have this peculiar blend of mental stress and defiant rage fade in our rearview. Instead, we now face a very uncertain path forward for humanity and our planet with no end in sight. For me personally it was a shock akin to falling into a vat of boiling water. I feel singed, stunned, and shaking with a primal fear such I have not experienced since I stood in court across the aisle from my predator, seeking a restraining order.
And I don’t know what to say to you. I can validate your feelings: feelings that the entire country just abandoned us. Feelings that we lost in one night the momentum we had worked for years to build about safety and visibility and empowerment and public engagement in this most serious issue of child sexual abuse. Feelings that our children will be no safer than we were as kids. Feelings that the predators get away with it because they hold the power. The power that the people gave them.
These things are heartbreaking and crazy-making, and I cannot tell you where it leads from here. Just like when we were kids, the message is clear: No Help is Coming. It seems easy to give in to despair.
But I can tell you that we have not been abandoned. The people who loved and supported us before this election still love and support us. This President was elected by a minority of our fellow countrymen and women. He does not represent the best of us.
And the even better news is that we are grown, now. We can show up for ourselves. For ourselves, yes, and for every child who desperately hopes that help is coming. The answer was never outside of us, but always within. No one needed to give us permission to speak, to act, to assert our Rights, because our Rights are inherent and no permission is required.
So, all we can do now is show up for ourselves and each other. We can speak even though our knees knock and our voices shake. We can speak out against injustice wherever we see it. We can hold everyone else we know, including our public institutions, accountable for protecting the rights of the vulnerable. We can have the national conversation despite the fact that the anticipated euphoria has been cancelled. Most importantly, we can assert our Rights under the Bill of Rights for Incest Survivors and Their Families and fight for those rights on behalf of people who cannot fight for themselves. We will not wait for permission from anyone or anything outside of ourselves.
These things were always ours to do. Maybe there never was a better time for it, after all.
with love and hope and ferocious determination,
Another Mother
November 15, 2016
To many of us, this election result can be interpreted as a mass invalidation of the pain and concerns of millions of survivors of childhood sexual abuse. I have spent many nights corresponding with survivors who are triggered everywhere they turn in the media. The constant barrage of images and sound bites from a man with an entitled and controlling persona and behavior made our blood run cold, re-opened wounds and shriveled our souls. Some of us experienced flight-or-fight panic every time we turned on our TV.
We have seen this before. We know who the predators are. We have learned to read the hairs on the backs of our necks. It felt like crisis to many of us.
And so I sat up nights trying to find a way to console survivors who suddenly found themselves living with low-grade, constant anxiety or acute spikes of panic attacks. The comfort I was dispensing before the election seems so ironic and silly to me now. Hang in there, I said. This is not going to last. It is an opportunity to finally begin a conversation on a national level about the human rights of sexual abuse survivors. People are going to see and understand the predatory personality writ large across the national headlines, and we will be empowered to be more visible. More vocal. We will be heard, we will be believed; we will be vindicated. That is the good coming out of this point of pain for all of us, I said.
We were weary, burned out, and beyond ready to have this peculiar blend of mental stress and defiant rage fade in our rearview. Instead, we now face a very uncertain path forward for humanity and our planet with no end in sight. For me personally it was a shock akin to falling into a vat of boiling water. I feel singed, stunned, and shaking with a primal fear such I have not experienced since I stood in court across the aisle from my predator, seeking a restraining order.
And I don’t know what to say to you. I can validate your feelings: feelings that the entire country just abandoned us. Feelings that we lost in one night the momentum we had worked for years to build about safety and visibility and empowerment and public engagement in this most serious issue of child sexual abuse. Feelings that our children will be no safer than we were as kids. Feelings that the predators get away with it because they hold the power. The power that the people gave them.
These things are heartbreaking and crazy-making, and I cannot tell you where it leads from here. Just like when we were kids, the message is clear: No Help is Coming. It seems easy to give in to despair.
But I can tell you that we have not been abandoned. The people who loved and supported us before this election still love and support us. This President was elected by a minority of our fellow countrymen and women. He does not represent the best of us.
And the even better news is that we are grown, now. We can show up for ourselves. For ourselves, yes, and for every child who desperately hopes that help is coming. The answer was never outside of us, but always within. No one needed to give us permission to speak, to act, to assert our Rights, because our Rights are inherent and no permission is required.
So, all we can do now is show up for ourselves and each other. We can speak even though our knees knock and our voices shake. We can speak out against injustice wherever we see it. We can hold everyone else we know, including our public institutions, accountable for protecting the rights of the vulnerable. We can have the national conversation despite the fact that the anticipated euphoria has been cancelled. Most importantly, we can assert our Rights under the Bill of Rights for Incest Survivors and Their Families and fight for those rights on behalf of people who cannot fight for themselves. We will not wait for permission from anyone or anything outside of ourselves.
These things were always ours to do. Maybe there never was a better time for it, after all.
with love and hope and ferocious determination,
Another Mother
November 15, 2016
Thanksgiving 2015
I am thankful for you. For each of you, every way you are and in each moment that I find you. The shouters, the strugglers, the lurkers, the flailers. The mourners, the warriors, the weepers, the proclaimers and those who have been stunned into silence.
If anyone had told me that the greatest tragedy of my life would lead me to the real purpose and the sacred work of my life, I never would have believed it. I never would have wished for it. I wish I could do anything to un-do it. But I am here. And you are here. And I love you fiercely and with pride and hope. Thank you for being my reward for saying "yes" to the rest of my life. I would not have agreed to stay around for anything less important than what we do together here.
with love and hope,
Another Mother
I am thankful for you. For each of you, every way you are and in each moment that I find you. The shouters, the strugglers, the lurkers, the flailers. The mourners, the warriors, the weepers, the proclaimers and those who have been stunned into silence.
If anyone had told me that the greatest tragedy of my life would lead me to the real purpose and the sacred work of my life, I never would have believed it. I never would have wished for it. I wish I could do anything to un-do it. But I am here. And you are here. And I love you fiercely and with pride and hope. Thank you for being my reward for saying "yes" to the rest of my life. I would not have agreed to stay around for anything less important than what we do together here.
with love and hope,
Another Mother
My Message to Fathers on this Father’s Day, 2015
My father passed away almost a year ago. He was a complicated man, and loving him was not always easy – especially if you happened to be one of only 3 or 4 people who knew him really well, as I did. For this reason, I have had a difficult time finding my path of grieving for him. My grief has been on hiatus as I explored the after-effects on my life of his irascibility, his completely opposite-from-mine worldview, his tendency toward hyperbole, and his tendency toward a temper. These things have stood in the way of my ability to grieve for his quick humor, his ability to be tender-hearted when you least expected it, and the fact that he was one of only 3 or 4 people who know me really well.
I am not coping only with the death of my patriarch. My stepfather of thirty years died almost a year before my father, and my informal “third” father, the man who helped me through some of my darkest times and the first member of my family of choice, died this last spring. I am fresh out of daddies, forever.
I am consoled by the thought that all of them. All. Of. Them. loved us, had our back, and was completely and firmly on board with all of our efforts with IRIS, with the Bill of Rights, with the website, with the manuscript that will, one day, become our book. They listened to me, they read the manuscript, they gave advice, they gave money. Much more importantly than any of those things, each one of them told me more than once that the abuse my children suffered was not my fault. They said they felt sad that it happened on their watch, too, and they shared my grief and guilt about that. Don’t even ask me what several of them would have liked to have done to the perpetrator.
Which brings me to Those Fathers. Yes, those. If you had one, if your father abused you, please, skip this day! Go to the library and read a book, or better yet, take your grandmother and/or mother out to dinner. Stay away from the beaches, the barbecues, or anywhere people might be celebrating and, for heaven’s sake, turn off the TV!
Mother’s Day, which came first, has historical significance in several different ancient and modern cultures. Father’s Day is an afterthought (sorry, dads, it was) constructed by greeting card companies and bad tie manufacturers. It was an opportunity to sell button-down shirts and barbecue sauce. Forget it. You have no obligation to attend a family gathering or in any way acknowledge the person who stole your childhood and failed you in his most sacred duties toward you. Be elsewhere. Don’t pick up the phone. Hide on a deserted island.
And for you, you fathers like mine, thank you for being those people and for showing up. I am humbled by the knowledge that very few people have the amount and quality of emotional support that I have had the unreasonable good fortune to have. To this and to the forgiveness I received from my children, I attribute the continuation of my life, and I dedicate the rest of it to this work. So, we will need you! Please, show up for your children, your grandchildren, the kids on the bus whose parents don’t show up on time, the kids in your neighborhood who look lost and scared. Pay attention. Show up. Treat your own daughters with love and respect and show the same to their mothers, because that is how girls grow to understand their worth and their value – they learn it from watching how you treat women.
And you, you fathers who think incest cannot happen in your family, you fathers who are over-absorbed in making a living, who have opted out of full participation in the gargantuan task of preparing a small human being for a safe, balanced and happy life, I am calling you out. Wake up! This crisis is beyond description and we need you to wake up, pay attention, and speak out! We need your voices!
Really Dad – don’t sleep in on Father’s Day. Show up, instead. We need you.
With love and hope,
Another Mother
My father passed away almost a year ago. He was a complicated man, and loving him was not always easy – especially if you happened to be one of only 3 or 4 people who knew him really well, as I did. For this reason, I have had a difficult time finding my path of grieving for him. My grief has been on hiatus as I explored the after-effects on my life of his irascibility, his completely opposite-from-mine worldview, his tendency toward hyperbole, and his tendency toward a temper. These things have stood in the way of my ability to grieve for his quick humor, his ability to be tender-hearted when you least expected it, and the fact that he was one of only 3 or 4 people who know me really well.
I am not coping only with the death of my patriarch. My stepfather of thirty years died almost a year before my father, and my informal “third” father, the man who helped me through some of my darkest times and the first member of my family of choice, died this last spring. I am fresh out of daddies, forever.
I am consoled by the thought that all of them. All. Of. Them. loved us, had our back, and was completely and firmly on board with all of our efforts with IRIS, with the Bill of Rights, with the website, with the manuscript that will, one day, become our book. They listened to me, they read the manuscript, they gave advice, they gave money. Much more importantly than any of those things, each one of them told me more than once that the abuse my children suffered was not my fault. They said they felt sad that it happened on their watch, too, and they shared my grief and guilt about that. Don’t even ask me what several of them would have liked to have done to the perpetrator.
Which brings me to Those Fathers. Yes, those. If you had one, if your father abused you, please, skip this day! Go to the library and read a book, or better yet, take your grandmother and/or mother out to dinner. Stay away from the beaches, the barbecues, or anywhere people might be celebrating and, for heaven’s sake, turn off the TV!
Mother’s Day, which came first, has historical significance in several different ancient and modern cultures. Father’s Day is an afterthought (sorry, dads, it was) constructed by greeting card companies and bad tie manufacturers. It was an opportunity to sell button-down shirts and barbecue sauce. Forget it. You have no obligation to attend a family gathering or in any way acknowledge the person who stole your childhood and failed you in his most sacred duties toward you. Be elsewhere. Don’t pick up the phone. Hide on a deserted island.
And for you, you fathers like mine, thank you for being those people and for showing up. I am humbled by the knowledge that very few people have the amount and quality of emotional support that I have had the unreasonable good fortune to have. To this and to the forgiveness I received from my children, I attribute the continuation of my life, and I dedicate the rest of it to this work. So, we will need you! Please, show up for your children, your grandchildren, the kids on the bus whose parents don’t show up on time, the kids in your neighborhood who look lost and scared. Pay attention. Show up. Treat your own daughters with love and respect and show the same to their mothers, because that is how girls grow to understand their worth and their value – they learn it from watching how you treat women.
And you, you fathers who think incest cannot happen in your family, you fathers who are over-absorbed in making a living, who have opted out of full participation in the gargantuan task of preparing a small human being for a safe, balanced and happy life, I am calling you out. Wake up! This crisis is beyond description and we need you to wake up, pay attention, and speak out! We need your voices!
Really Dad – don’t sleep in on Father’s Day. Show up, instead. We need you.
With love and hope,
Another Mother
On Shame:Most incest survivors live with truths about which we cannot speak. Most of us never were given words that match up with the feelings we carry inside. Instead, we lived with words and actions that created terrible feelings inside of us, and then as adults we were set loose to navigate the world without a means to manage the enormity of our inner landscapes.
Our un-nameable ball of inner dread overwhelms us until we come across someone who articulates our inner feelings – then, we experience a moment of pure revelation. When that person goes on to explain more fully the mysterious feelings we carry inside, we are humbled and filled with exultation at the same time. At least, that was my experience when watching the following clip of an interview between Oprah Winfrey and Dr. Brene Brown: http://www.oprah.com/own-super-soul-sunday/Dr-Brene-Brown-Shame-Is-Lethal-Video Go ahead and watch it – I’ll wait. Now, was that not amazing? Don’t you want to spend several days with this woman and learn everything she has discovered in her research about shame? When I saw this clip, I immediately went to youtube and watched everything Dr. Brown has posted. Click here to read the rest of this article . . . 2015
This Mother's Day, I am thinking about those heartbroken moms who feel the deep shame and sting of failing their children. Most moms keenly feel their shortcomings as mothers - and, being human, there always are many of those to count. But the mothers of incest survivors have a special burden to bear - the burden of hindsight. How we yearn to go back and see what we did not see, know what we could not know, stop what we had not the courage to confront. And if we did know that our children were being abused, the burden is even greater - the burden of guilt over all of the abuse that we could have stopped, but that continued because we were (fill in the blank): too frightened, broke, abused ourselves, ignorant and misinformed . . . a million reasons and no excuses. We have to live with them every day. If we are fortunate beyond reason, our children are still in our lives today and we are recovering together. We accompany them as best we can in this new relationship, in our new way of relating to the truth of our lives. We see each other in new ways, and move forward as people who are doing the exciting work of becoming whole. If you are that fortunate mom whose kids are still in your life, please adopt as many others as you can. Help every survivor you can find to help, and thank your lucky stars that you get a chance to right some wrongs. If we are less fortunate, we still mourn our children. Maybe they don't want any part of us - maybe they have been lost to the many ways that some abuse survivors express the childhood wounds in their adult lives. Maybe they just don't feel like extending forgiveness to us. Maybe they are still in the trance of the abuser. If your child is not currently in your life, may I make a suggestion? Find someone else to help. There is someone who needs you to accompany her on her recovery walk. This person will challenge you to be your best recovering self and will give you insights into what it means to survive such a wound. This suggestion will not bring back your own child, but it will help you. It will help you a lot. And if you are a survivor who is not in relationship with your mother, please find a loving, healthy someone who will mother you a bit - at least until you are ready to mother yourself. It's OK to have a family of choice, and not of birth. Someone needs you to need her. With love and hope, Another Mother |
From Survivor J: Can you recommend any prayers for Christian Survivors of incest such as a website you could recommend? Thanks so much.
Hi, Ms. J - We don't really make recommendations, per se, but I can point you to this website as a place to start: http://www.christiansurvivors.com/forums/. I have to say that I have not fully delved into its religious philosophy, and so I can't tell you whether it is "shame-based" or preaches that you yourself need to be forgiven for having been a victim of abuse, or worse, that you cannot be "healed" unless you forgive or reconcile with the abuser. These things are totally against our philosophy. However, each person comes to a healing path through their own door, and there definitely is a spiritual component to the woundedness, and so a spiritual component of healing is always called for. We recommend that you tread carefully to ensure that you do not trip and fall into any philosophy that blames you or shames you. Take care to keep your own boundaries intact while you explore a spiritual support system, and remember that you can back out of one door and open another - in the end, you decide what is healthy for you. And, Dear One, I am praying for you. with love and hope, Another Mother Beverly's DilemmaWhat it sounds like in a family where LOVE RULES - a tribute to my stepfatherTai Chi - New Lessons from an Ancient PracticeYou Are My TeacherLove Letters - A Study in Unconditional Love with Accountability
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