VICTIMS of #INCEST or #ABUSE of ANY KIND HELP THEMSELVES HEAL THROUGH #WRITING and/or #JOURNALING

After writing and publishing my own true story of #incest, "No Tears for my Father", I began mentoring memoir writing groups for my local library. This most rewarding volunteer position brought me, and the participants, a few surprises, the biggest being what many of the members were experiencing as they completed various writing exercises I assigned: they found what they were doing ... writing ... was therapeutic!

Of course, I'd known writing was therapeutic since I was a teen: in my unhappiness,  I'd begun penning poems and writing songs that captured my angst and heartache, and in doing so, I often found release for my pain and bottled up rage. I had no-one to talk to about the incest. But putting what I was feeling down on paper somehow helped.

And now, the members of my memoir group, even those who hadn't necessary come into the group to write about trauma or personal tragedy, found that as they recalled their past, remembered things about their childhood, even incidences like feeling awkward at puberty, or their first crush, were finding that writing about these things was "freeing". They realized that even now as adults, some of their present insecurities and hangups harked back to those earlier days. Writing about them now brought them face to face with some issues they still have trouble dealing with day to day in their personal lives and careers. And hence came the realization for them all that writing is utterly therapeutic, because, as Adair Lara once stated:

“When you pin your misfortune to a page, you rob it of its power. You begin to get distance from an event the moment you write it down. Even the most intimate and horrendous details of your life become transformed into material”

That misfortune could be something as current as losing a job you've worked years to get, or saving money for a trip only to have to use it to fix a leaking roof. It doesn't have to be something as horrendous as incest or rape, but when it is, then the therapeutic nature of writing becomes incredibly healing.

One of the members of my memoir writing group had always been a writer, but she only wrote fiction. Suddenly, in the memoir class,  with every exercise, her past surfaced so strongly she couldn't stop writing about it.  It was she who first said to us all, "I'm finding these sessions, the writing, the exercises are therapeutic," and everyone agreed. This same discovery was made by the authors of that famous book, which I highly recommend for those wanting and needing to heal, THE COURAGE TO HEAL.  They point out again and again how therapeutic it is to write your pain onto the page. 

Have you tried writing your pain on a page yet? Try it! Try it the next time you have a flashback that knocks the wind out of you. Or the next time you hear your abuser's words mocking you, frightening you, reducing you to a blubbering mass of tears. Wipe away the tears by writing down everything that is on your mind, all the tortuous thoughts. You don't have to share it with anyone. This is just for you.

And as my memoir member recently wrote on our writers group page at Facebook:

"Vomit flows freely from my past, cleansing the depth of my soul at last."

Let this happen to you. Heal yourself through writing and/or journalling.

*****************
Did you know you can read excerpts from "No Tears for my Father" for FREE? Just click on the book title to read some sample chapters now!

Purchase your signed, printed version of NO TEARS FOR MY FATHER directly from the author, Viga Boland.

FACELESS CHILDREN, SILENT VOICES: THE CHILDREN OF #INCEST

A funny thing happened to me this past week. A friend in England wrote to say he was telling others  about my upcoming book, NO TEARS FOR MY FATHER. He commented what a hard job I, and others like me who decide to blog, write poems or books about incest have ahead of us, because when he tells folks what my book is about, 

"I sometimes notice a glazed, or uncomfortable expression appear on their faces..."

Why did I think this was funny? Because that very same day, when I told a neighbour I was writing a book and she smiled and brightly asked "on what?" and I came out without blinking an eye and said "incest", her eyes glazed over, and she didn't know where to look or what to say next. She was so obviously uncomfortable I felt bad for telling her about what to me, is now becoming the most important thing I've done with my life. I'm willing to bet that all victims of incest or child sexual abuse who have found the courage to speak out publicly about.

It shouldn't be so. Why is it so? We talk about rape, the sex trade, sex trafficking of young children, murder ... all of it, without our eyes glazing over. We feel sad, angered, helpless do do anything about it, but we're not uncomfortable and our eyes don't glaze over hoping the speaker will change the subject because we don't know what to say about fathers, brothers, mothers, sisters, grandfathers, uncles, aunts who use their own children for sexual release! Does this very discomfort we feel not indicate how important it is that victims speak up when they can, and as often as they can? Somehow, we have to get our families, our teachers, our neighbours, our communities to acknowledge incest might be happening right in the homes of those with whom we're sharing beer over the barby or chatting with at swim club. 

Incestuous abusers are so often pillars of the community, high profile people, the nicest guy or gal in the neighbourhood. No wonder we go into shock when we read some guy shot his sweet mother to death or some gal took a knife to her dear old grand-dad in the house down the street. We don't want to consider that maybe, just maybe that guy or gal had a really good reason to do so ... that they simply lost it after years of sexual abuse at the hands of someone they trusted. I see and feel the rage, the hurt, the anger that comes out of the victim/survivors in my private Facebook group. They are mentally writhing in agony, even years after the abuse has stopped. They try to get on with their lives, pick up the pieces of what's left of them after their abuser is gone or finished with them, but the pieces are so scattered, buried so deeply in horrible flashbacks, they break down time and again. The sexual abuse may be long over but the mental, verbal, and spiritual abuse they have endured lives on in them, forever a part of their everyday activities and reactions to everyone else around them. There is no such thing as "just get over it" because "it" never goes away. 

But the eyes of those who hear that it happened to you or a friend glaze over. They shift uncomfortably, look anywhere but at you, you who deserve and need understanding and love above all else. Maybe their eyes glaze over because they too, or someone in their own families, have been victims of incest and they, together with their families, have covered it up and now you're threatening to tear down that wall of silence that has kept them and their dirty family secret protected all these years. And you know what I say to that? 

Tear down the walls! Shake them up! Get them talking about it. Take off the blinkers! Incest exists and it's real and it's happening all around us in numbers that are downright frightening. According to the article AT THIS LINK:

"One in three-to-four girls, and one in five-to-seven boys are sexually abused before they turn 18, an overwhelming incidence of which happens within the family. These statistics are well known among industry professionals, who are often quick to add, "and this is a notoriously underreported crime."

I call on all victims of incest to do what you can to change those statistics. You might say, "What can I do? I only know my own case and no-one in my family believes me or helps me." Well remember one thing: a single drop of rain will not fill a barrel but a downpour will not only fill it but cause it to overflow. Let's make ourselves heard. Blog, write, talk, do whatever it takes to open those glazed eyes to the truth. Together, we are strong. Let's not forever be what my poem states above:

"Faceless children with silent voices".

 SPEAK OUT FROM UNDER INCEST!