"Learning to love yourself is the greatest love of all" if we are to be happy

One of the saddest, most heartbreaking things about being a victim of child sexual abuse (#incest) is that most of us grow up hating ourselves. Despite every effort, sometimes for years, to find something  we like about ourselves, let alone love about ourselves, we continue to find fault with ourselves. Why? Most likely because our abusers' voices keep screaming at us, reminding us we are worthless, unloveable unless we do what they want us to do. So we did it, even though it felt wrong, bad, but each time we gave in to them, we hated what was happening and hated ourselves for succumbing, being too weak to stand up to them. Then, if no-one knew what was going on and we didn't have therapy as a child or even as young adults to turn our thinking around, we grew into adulthood, middle age and even old age, if not hating ourselves, then at least, not loving ourselves either. 
When that happens, so many of us wonder why we fall in love with the wrong person and get hurt time and again. The reason is simple: we don't value ourselves enough. We don't consider ourselves worthy of love. So we sell out to what seems like the best of the worst choices. 
But you know, we don't have to do that. We can stop that from being our pattern by turning off those voices in our heads and replacing them with kinder, loving voices, the ones long ago buried inside us when we were children. Except, sadly, for those abused as infants, most young children actually really like themselves - a lot! It's narcissistic and it's perfectly natural. As young children, we want what we want and feel we should have it. Of course, parents will ultimately teach us that we can't always have what we want and that it's not acceptable to be narcissistic and think of ourselves before all others. And that's quite okay because as we get older, we understand why what they are saying is right and necessary. But abuse victims haven't had time, in many cases, to follow that more natural route to good self-love. Their journey to healthy self-love has been rudely blocked. They are plunged into self-loathing instead of brought gently from narcissism to healthy self-love. 
So now, how do we get ourselves back on track? We must begin by drinking deeply and often from the cup of self-love. I'm not talking about being selfish or narcissistic. I'm saying if a challenge comes our way, if an opportunity to move forward in our careers or personal life presents itself, we have to tell ourselves "Yes, I can do this" instead of "No, I can't". Every "NO" is disbelief in ourselves. It deepens our insecurity, feeds our negativity about ourselves and moves us further from healthy self-love. And why is self-love so important? Because without loving ourselves, we can't fully love others. We need to deems ourselves worthy of their love. By taking on more and more chances to prove our worth to ourselves, the more we are saying "Yes, I can" and "Yes, I'm okay" and "Yes, I'm loveable". It's that profound truth that Whitney Houston sung to us that "learning to love yourself is the greatest love of all". And that love is vital to happiness. 
That's what I did for the 40 plus years after I finally got away from my abuser, my father. Every time I heard his voice telling me I couldn't do this or have that, I replaced his voice with my own child's voice that said "yes, I can do this and yes, I can have that." And I added one more thing: "And you're not going to stop me!" I became a bit narcissistic again I suppose. But I needed to go there first before I could finally love myself as I had the right to love myself all along. 
I hope you'll watch my video above. It's based on the journey to self-love that I recounted in my second memoir "Learning to Love Myself". Everyone praised me for speaking out from under incest in my first book, "No Tears for my Father" but this second book is just as important, maybe even more so because of the hope it offers victims that we can have a better tomorrow. On this Valentine's Day, 2015, I wish you love. 
SPECIAL OFFER: Visit my website store at http://www.vigaboland.com/store and order your copy, printed or digital format of "LEARNING TO LOVE MYSELF" before February 17, 2015 and save 20% on your purchase when you type "tearsofjoy" into the coupon box on checkout. (no quotation marks!)

"EMERGING from BROKEN" to "LEARNING TO LOVE MYSELF" by being My Own Best Friend

Why have you visited this blog? What were you searching for when you came across the link to  "Coming out from under Incest"? Unless you're doing an investigation or research for a project or book, my guess is you came here for one reason only: you are a victim of incest or child sexual abuse and you are looking for answers and/or validation that you aren't the only one who has suffered this way, and above all, you are looking for help in getting over and past what happened to you perhaps 10, 20 even 50 years ago. Right?

Because that's what you want to find, I've decided today to share with you information from one of the best books I've ever come across to help people like you and me: It's "Emerging from Broken", by Darlene Ouimet, a fellow Canadian, a victim of child sexual abuse, and today a certified professional coach specializing in life transitions. She has a private practice and a massive following on her blog of the same name, "Emerging from Broken".

There are many excellent books on the market like, "The Courage to Heal", designed to help abuse victims heal themselves but Darlene's book is the one to which I could most relate. Why? Because everything she writes in it is true for me! It's based on her own journey of emerging from broken, but her truths are truths that apply to all of us who have been sexually abused as youngsters.

And what hit home to me most, early in the book, is what Darlene said about believing the lies that I had grown up with, the lies that had been drummed into my head and into my entire being about myself. Lies like I was the problem; I deserved the abuse; that everything that happened was my fault; that I was a bad daughter unless I did what my father told me to do; that what I was living with wasn't unusual, quite normal in fact; that I had asked for it; that I had brought this on myself ... on and on and on. All of this led to self-doubt, low self-esteem, always trying to live up to someone else's ideas of what I should be or how I should act. Because the real me and what I wanted was being rejected by someone else far more powerful than me, a parent, as I grew, I too rejected myself and was always trying to please others.

But what we have to recognize, in order to heal, according to Darlene, is that our "validation does not come from outside ourselves". It must come from within. And ultimately, to do that, we need to face the trauma of the past, no matter how much it hurts, sift through the lies we've been told about ourselves and see them for what they are: lies! And then, yes, we need to re-program our thinking and what we are telling ourselves daily about ourselves, so that we eventually learn to love ourselves. That idea, by the way, is the theme of my second, just released follow-up memoir, "Learning to Love Myself".

Purchase a signed, printed softcover copy or a kindle or ePub version of
 "LEARNING TO LOVE MYSELF" directly from the author, Viga Boland

"Loving myself has so much to do with being there for myself" says Darlene. That's exactly right! It's finally putting ourselves first, not last, not trying to please everyone else and never pleasing ourselves. It's about having faith in our own judgement and decisions. And of course, that's not easy with all the voices of the past telling us we're stupid, incapable, selfish or whatever garbage was drummed into our heads by parents who more than likely had their own unresolved issues! You see, every time we try to conform to those lies they told us, we are rejecting ourselves! That has to stop if we are to heal. As Darlene writes: 

"It was when I stopped fighting to prove that I was right and just believed that I was right, that the healing really began. It was when I saw the truth through the grid of love that I realized that love doesn’t harm. It was when I stopped trying to get the abusive people in my life and the people who supported them and their practices to HEAR me, and listened to myself instead, that my world began to look brighter."

God that makes so much sense, doesn't it?

Speaking of God, Darlene brings up something else in her book (which is actually a collection of the first 2 years of the posts on her blog) that also thundered through my brain and had me hollering "Yes, yes!" Darlene brought up an answer so often supplied by well-meaning people who believe it's God's will that we suffer because

"You've been put on this earth to help others who went through the same thing"

Really? Really? If that is so, then as Darlene points out you and I would have to believe that "there is some grand plan for my life that included me being mistreated, abused, invalidated and devalued." Just like her, I cannot and will not accept that explanation. It's like she says elsewhere in the book that it's so easy for believers to simply say if you want to heal, read the bible. Well, Darlene takes one of the most famous biblical teachings that is used not just in Christianity but many religions puts a perspective on it, when it comes to abuse victims, that made my head spin with its profound wisdom. It's too long to copy/paste here but you MUST read it. You can find it here on her website:

http://emergingfrombroken.com/love-is-patient-love-is-kind-a-bit-of-a-rant/

If you were raised Christian and believe in and live by the bible, brace yourself. You might not like how she interprets it in reference to herself and other abuse victims, but you cannot deny its logic. 

You came to this blog looking for answers, for help in healing. I am suggesting you will find it in Darlene Ouimet's book, EMERGING from BROKEN. You will find the answers to your suffering there and you will find what you need to start healing. 

But she will tell you as I do: in the end, it's up to you to do the work yourself. All Darlene and other victim/survivors like me who write blogs and books can do is share what we've learned from our own struggles to emerge from broken. I've told my story of child sexual abuse in my gold medal book,  NO TEARS FOR MY FATHER, and now, have also shared my story of self-discovery and recovery from that abuse in NO TEARS FOR MY FATHER, PART 2: LEARNING TO LOVE MYSELF. 

I'd like to leave you with this poem from my most recent book. It summarizes what both Darlene and I are trying to tell you: you need to learn to love yourself by becoming your own best friend: 

My Own Best Friend

Today I resolve to be my own best friend

To stand up for myself rather than bend

To pick myself up when I slide down

To undo the shackles that have kept me bound.

To silence the voices that stole my liberty

To trust my own judgement on what's best for me

To love the person emerging from the shell

And spend my days getting to know her well.

I will take on each day as if it were my last

I will decide my own future, uncontrolled by my past

I will move ever forward using what I've learned 

To discover the world for which I've yearned.

What's right for others, may not be right for me

But I'll do what I must to be the best I can be

Each day's another year to start all over again

And I have all I need when I'm my own best friend.

©Viga Boland, January 1, 2014

http://www.vigaboland.com

WHEN THE ABUSE IS SO BAD YOU HIT ROCK BOTTOM #INCEST #SEXUAL ABUSE #BULLYING

I hadn't planned to write on this subject today. In fact, I had a whole different blog, already half-written.

But this morning, my heart broke as I  looked at the photo of that beautiful 15-year-old girl, Amanda Todd,  who committed suicide when the bullying and her subsequent pain became too much to bear.

From what I gather from newspaper items and her sad YouTube video that was a cry for help and understanding, when she posted the video, she was  staying strong, struggling to hold onto her self-esteem, fighting as it were, for her life. And in the end, she gave up. How incredibly sad!

How much bullying and abuse can a person take before he/she breaks? How do some survive the taunts, the name-calling, the kicks, the punches, the beatings, the bruises and eventually emerge battered but alive, while others succumb. They just can't take it anymore.

As you know, I've been reading Patricia A. McKnight's "My Justice". While the details of the sexual abuse by her step-father are truly revolting, even more so than my own in a way, it's actually the physical, mental and verbal abuse she suffered that has bothered me even more. Her step-father was an ogre. But to then see her move on to her first real "love",  so happy to be finally away from her abuser, only to find that her first love is even more abusive than the step-father, made my jaw drop. By the time she got away from him, she'd suffered 2 concussions and sustained so much other physical damage that it just boggles my mind to think she's still alive ie. that one of them didn't kill her or she didn't kill herself! How much abuse can a person take? I don't know that I could have withstood what she did.

And as I read the posts made by members of my Facebook group, SPEAK OUT FROM UNDER, and indeed the many posts I'm finding on other group pages, I am simultaneously shocked and saddened by what I read, but at the same time, I'm in absolute awe of these brave victims who are now survivors and didn't end their lives despite the horrific abuse so many have experienced. Some of them are "coming out from under" bit by bit. Some are impatient with themselves for not healing faster, but the point is, they ARE healing, however slowly, each time they face the demons, talk about it and don't give in to ending it all. 

If only poor Amanda were older, maybe she would have found the strength to hang on. If only someone had recognized her pain, had truly listened to her and went out of their way to help her, maybe we wouldn't now be reading about her suicide. And yet, like Amanda,   like me and like you who are reading this, so many victims have cried out for help, turned to their parents or a relative, told them the story, only to be disbelieved or ignored. Patricia's mother refused to do anything though she knew all along what was going on.

And when some do finally tell all, like KYLIE DEVI, there is so often more abuse to face: those who ask "How could you tell all that!" "How could you shame our family with your lies!" "Just who are you talking about ... who did this to you?" That last one, in Kylie's case was asked by one of her abusers for heaven's sake!

It's too late for Amanda. Maybe if her parents and others had "filled her bucket of self-esteem" high enough, these bullies wouldn't have worn her down to where she hit rock bottom. If there is any goodness to come from such a sad story, it's that once again the rest of us are reminded of how devastating bullying is, especially to fragile young psyches. But now, what will be done about it? I hope Amanda's story isn't wasted like her life was. R.I.P. Amanda Todd.

CONTROL IS FEAR OF LOSING CONTROL. INCEST DOES THAT TO YOU.

Today's post is hard for me to write. I've been trying to understand over the past few years why the ever-positive persona I present to the world, my generally optimistic outlook on life, and my usually cheery disposition seems to be waning.

It was my younger daughter who pointed this out to me a few years back. She told me I was changing: ie. I'd become tense, jumpy, over-reactive etc.  I was under lots of stress at the time, having been unexpectedly saddled with almost full-time care of my then 7-year-old grand-daughter. Suddenly, my world, my retirement plans, my free time was snatched away from me. For the second time in my life, someone other than me had taken control of my life ... and I didn't like it. But for the second time, I also felt powerless to do anything about it. My father had controlled my childhood, my adolescence and even a bit of my early 20's. Now, my own children and their needs were controlling and dictating how I would spend the last few years of my life. I felt like I'd been hit by a brick in the face. Not again!!

Over the past 3 years, I've come to grips with becoming an unwilling mother in my 60's. I've settled into the routine. My cheery disposition and optimism have returned as I've adjusted to my new loss of control. But then, in the past few weeks, I see it disappearing again. What is happening here? I put it down to getting old, the horrible feeling that time is running out and there's so much I want to do and no longer have the energy nor time for. Every morning I've been waking up lately, hoping today would be a better day, that my mood would improve, that something wonderful might happen, but instead, I'm starting each day flat! I HATE this feeling!

Then, this morning, I read this latest post by a fellow victim/survivor of incest, Patricia Singleton. In her post titled

Are The Effects Of Incest A Life Sentence For A Survivor?

Patricia sounds a lot like me: someone who has come to grips with her past and moved on to live a good, productive life. But while her father, like mine, is long dead and buried, and she can even understand to some degree his own horrid behaviour with her, she still finds herself being sucked back under from time to time by something that triggers her deep inside. It seems these days, for me, this is happening too often. Have I been that good at ignoring my own needs and emotions all these years? Have I been so busy, hell-bent on helping everyone else in my family that I've ignored myself, put myself second most of the time. I think I have. And now, when I want the freedom to pursue who I am and do what I want, I'm getting too old, too achy (physically), too overloaded mentally as I try to do it all. It's overwhelming. 

Of course, those around me will say "Slow down Viga. Take time for yourself. Take a break. You can't be everything to everyone  etc etc." ... all advice I give others constantly but can't follow myself. What an irony! But there's more to this: it comes back to the issue of CONTROL. I'm feeling out of control again and I'm not comfortable with it at all. 

Now here we come to the crux and whole point of my blog post this morning: what I realized about myself most after reading Patricia's post is that like my father, but in a different way, I too have been controlling my own children, even my husband to some degree, for years now. My older daughter took till she was in her 20's to alert me to this. It had taken her all that time to drum up the courage to tell me how she really felt about her controlling mama.  Just like me, she didn't want to upset the parent she probably loved and hated simultaneously. She was "scared" to tell me how she felt, just as I was scared to oppose my dad. How could I be so blind? 

My younger daughter, an enormously talented performer, welcomed my control when she was in her teens, even demanded it because she wanted her career so badly that mom was good for pulling out all stops to help and promote her. Now, just turned 30, she is sending me signals daily that it's time for me to butt out and let her take control of her own life. And she is right. But it's so hard for me to do, to give up doing something I've been involved in and loved doing for over 15 years. It's like telling me to quit smoking cold turkey LOL!

And then there's my husband, now quite deaf, often irritable and impatient as he sees his own mortality staring him in the face, and sick to death of my telling him to take this pill or that, eat this, don't eat that, do this or do that! He too is telling me to leave him alone and let him make his own decisions. Yikes, what kind of monster have I become when I thought I was being terrific? 

No wonder I'm waking up feeling depressed: suddenly I'm realizing all the things that have given me a reason to live, to stay strong, to feel good about myself since getting away from my father are upsetting those I love most. I'm facing the fact that I need to back off, butt out ... give up that control that has kept me upbeat and positive for so long ... and maybe kept me from facing the demons I buried a long time back.

Patricia concludes her blog post with a few sentences that really hit home to me and prompted everything I've shared with you above. She wrote:

"You have to have awareness of behaviors before you can change them."

"I have learned that control hides fear - lots of fear."

She is so right. Deep within this 66-year-old woman who shows the world such a happy face, who is full of positive advice and encouragement for everyone, lives a very frightened child who lost control and has spent the rest of her life trying to regain it or keep it, sometimes at the risk of alienating those I love most: my husband and children. This is difficult. Will they understand what I'm trying to tell them now? Will they even read this? Probably not. Should I tell them about this post? Well if I do, aren't I really controlling them again, telling them to do something I want and need them to do but they may not want to do. Vicious cycle. How do I stop it? How do I stop controlling others when I obviously can't control myself?

I want to publicly thank Patricia for forcing me to think about myself in this light. I don't like what I found out but it was necessary. Maybe I can begin now to stop butting in, telling others what to do, live and let live, give advice when it's sought and remember that advice, unasked for, is not appreciated. Neither is control. To think it's taken this long to wake up! Ugh! And where do I go from here?

Let me finish this by again quoting Patricia: 

When you face your fear, you can give up the need to control. Letting go of fear makes room for you to start to heal.

GOD, IF THERE IS ONE, HELPS THOSE WHO HELP THEMSELVES

At least, that's the conclusion I came to when I was about 12 and my father began shattering my world as I believed it should be. Until then, despite the fact that he had been physically abusive since the first time he slapped my thumb out of my mouth because the sucking noise woke him up, I hadn't yet grasped that fathers can do far worse things than that to their daughters. Until then, I was a good Catholic girl who went to Mass almost every morning, thought receiving communion meant I was being filled with and protected by God's grace, went to Church every Sunday, sang out the Latin hymns with full voice, helped the nuns at school, and hung on every word our priest spoke in his sermons (though I must confess sometimes it was hard to stay awake!) My parents never stopped me from attending but they never accompanied me either. That was something I didn't quite understand but then, most kids don't get their parents, do they.

Now what I'm about to say is most likely going to ruffle thousands of believers and Christians (if I can be so vain as to believe that many might one day read this). But a very dear friend who is also writing a book on her own abuse, finds it very hard to understand why I don't believe in God and have no use for religion. For her, it is her salvation, her way of coping with the horror and heartache of her life and she prays and praises Jesus daily. I respect her belief. She has many who share it. But I'm not one of them. Nor do I believe that all that is, and was bad in my life is the work of the devil. For me, he (she?) doesn't exist either.

Both of them, God and the devil, vanished from my 12-year-old psyche when my Father began sexually abusing me. I couldn't believe this was happening to me. I prayed night after night that he would stop. I beat myself over the head, telling myself that God must be really mad at me and this was punishment for my sins. And I prayed some more, begging for divine intervention. As for that devil, when I looked at my father's angry face as he belted me or heard his voice spewing venemous words at me, calling me filthy names just because I was resisting or opposing him, I knew I was looking at the devil. He wasn't some fiery fiend with a fork burning away in some place called hell. He was a human being taking advantage of an innocent and helpless child, his own flesh and blood, in his own home.

And as the months slipped by and turned into years of mental, physical, spiritual and sexual abuse, all thoughts or belief in a god who would save me from the hell I was living in faded away. The prayers were falling on deaf ears. I didn't even believe the words I was saying in those prayers. I was praying to someone or something I didn't know, had never seen or met and as long as whoever he/she was kept allowing my prayers to go unanswered and the abuse to continue, how could I believe? After all, despite the shame and guilt I felt, I knew that under all that, I had done nothing to deserve this. NOTHING! What "sins" had I committed? And for that matter, why did I have to "atone for the sins of the world"? The worst thing I'd done by the age of 11 was wet the bed till I was 7 (wonder why?) or lose my temper when I didn't get my way at school. For those transgressions, I deserved THIS?! If Christ's figure on the crucifix brought me to tears, they were for myself, not him. Perhaps his figure was meant to symbolize me and all others subjected to undeserved suffering. As such, it served its purpose but it was nothing more than that to me. I concluded that no amount of praying, no amount of crying would help. The only help I could get had to begin with me.

Phew! That wasn't easy to write. I can just hear the outrage some of you who believe are feeling and I apologize if this offends you but I don't apologize for being honest about how I feel. So many of us cannot be honest, are afraid to say what they really think. No wonder there's so much misunderstanding, even between those who love each other. Because I love the friend I mentioned above, I'm being honest with her and the many others who suggest to victims of abuse that they pray etc. This blog post has also been prompted more by a post I read on a Facebook community page where someone asked "What do you say to someone who doesn't believe in God about how to handle their pain and shame?" The poster requested that those who reply not tell her to pray. That was of no use to her etc etc. How well I understood her feelings. But what advice could I give her instead? The only advice I can give is what this blog and my FACEBOOK COMMUNITY PAGE is all about i.e. come out from under. Share your pain with those who do care and want to help. There are as many of us as there are those who believe prayer is the answer. Talking about it helps. You may not be able to say it all at once. It's overwhelming. Do it in small steps. Take it easy. Be easy on yourself. Bit by bit, let  your story unfold. And you do start to feel better very soon if you have a willing listener. I saw that happening first-hand with another very dear friend this past weekend as this friend opened up to me. Despite how difficult it was, the joy at doing so was very obvious.

For others, full therapy may be the answer. One of my fellow survivors posted an excellent note on my community page about this recently. She has given me permission to share it with you here. I support her advice. If this is what you need, and prayer or a willing listener, or lots of reading and encouraging sayings aren't doing it for you, then take her advice which I've pasted below. Thanks S.E. for sharing it with my readers.

And let me finish this by re-phrasing my opening headline. For those who do believe in God, believe also that "God helps those who helps themselves". Healing begins with YOU.

ADVICE FROM A FELLOW SURVIVOR:

For all those who are still struggling to overcome your abusive past: I just want to say how important it is to reach out to your family doctor or mental health professional and speak to a qualified practitioner. There are many programs available to help you through this. Group therapies for incest survivors are particularly helpful. You will learn that, although it can be cathartic to share details about your past, it's not what happened to you, but rather how it made you feel that should be the topic of conversation. To pour over details and factual stories alone, will not help you heal. Time does not heal. It's what you do with that time to recollect, recover and reclaim your whole self. While posting inspirational messages and sharing thoughts and information is certainly a progressive step, it cannot take the place of professional therapy. Healing from such an extremely damaging abuse is a long process. It is not easy and you can expect feelings to get much more intense before it gets better. But, I promise you, things will get better and before you know it, you will no longer be haunted every day by those horrific memories and flashbacks. It will no longer monopolize your thoughts in everyday activities. There are very strong emotions that need to be set free; shame, guilt, anger, confusion, unworthiness are just a few that will chain you with insecurities. Take back your power. Put down your load. You CAN reclaim yourself and recover your life.

WHAT COMING OUT FROM UNDER SEXUAL ABUSE OR INCEST CAN DO FOR YOU

This morning's post is short as I'm off for the day to enjoy some wonderful music by my daughter and her partner along with a good friend at an important fundraiser to help build homes for the homeless in Nicaragua. But before I go, I want to leave you with this little poem I wrote that captures what I believe can come to those who finally find the courage to face their fears, their shame, and all the other reasons they have held off sharing their stories of incest and sexual abuse with others. You MUST believe that when you finally come out from under, you will find a love of self that you've never known and so deserve, and with that will come the freedom you've been looking for all these years.

The video also shown below is about spousal abuse and its other victims, the children. The song was written by AndrewVictoria, mentioned above. Please share it too, along with this poem and this blog. And we'd love you to join our Facebook group too. If you're reading this, you've been given another day to come out from under. DO IT!

WHY ARE WE SO AFRAID TO COME OUT FROM UNDER YEARS OF SEXUAL ABUSE?

Look over to the top right of this blog and you'll see a poll I'm conducting asking what's holding you back from opening up about your own incest story. I should have made that more general ie. "sexual abuse", because as much as this blog is based on my own history of father-daughter incest, it's really aimed toward all who have suffered or are still suffering from sexual abuse. While the specific details of the sexual abuse will differ, the long-term ramifications and affects on our lives are most likely very similar. So, if you're reading this now, have been or are a victim, please take the poll. It's anonymous and time-limited.

And so back to the topic of today: why are we so afraid to come out and share our stories? This post has been prompted by the reaction I'm getting from friends on Facebook as the word spreads about what I am trying to do here. I'm very grateful to all those friends who are sharing this blog and my FB page, COMING OUT FROM UNDER. But as they do so, it's becoming obvious that some of them, like me, have been silent about their own sexual abuse for most of their lives. It's also obvious they want to talk about it, but are still holding back. So they will lurk anonymously around this blog and read the posts on Facebook all the while still fighting the urge ... and the need ...  to tell their own stories. Why?!

I can only answer from my own experience. What things made me keep my mouth shut all through adolescence, marriage, motherhood even menopause (LOL)? The first answer that comes to mind is SHAME.  I know I wasn't to blame for what happened to me, but the shame grew year after year, even when I'd long left my maternal home. I would think people looking at me could see what was being done to me and conclude I was allowing it! Imagine what it was like heading off to primary school knowing that an hour earlier I had left my father's bed! (My book will supply the actual details). I was sure that as I greeted my playmates, they knew. I felt like I was covered in excrement and they could see it. I felt dirty, ashamed and I hated myself and him.

When my dear husband came into my life, to my horror, he was a photographer. His greatest pleasure was taking photos of me, very close up on my face at times. He didn't know, but I was cringing. All I could think was what was he really seeing through that macro lens he was so busy focussing on my eyes? Couldn't he see that under the smart teacher's clothes I was wearing and behind the professional smile I had for all my associates and students was someone so despicable and ugly? Shame!

And then, of course, there was the FEAR so deeply instilled in me by my father. Fear that he'd kill me if I told anyone; fear that my mother would be infinitely hurt; fear that no-one would believe me anyway. Dad had made sure of that last one: he reminded me of it constantly. Yes, he probably felt pretty safe knowing that even if I did tell, most people would think I'd just lost it. Who could believe that smiling, proud papa who everyone else liked was messing with his adolescent daughter that way? FEAR!

And as I moved into marriage and eventually motherhood, fear continued to hold me back. What would my handsome groom think if he knew the ugly truth about his bride? Would he ever want to touch such  horribly soiled goods again? Best to keep my mouth shut. So I did. Then there was the children, my two lovely girls. How could I let such a secret out? How would they take it? What would be the effect on their lives? One was aspiring to a career on the world stage as a singer. If she made it, would the dirt hunters come looking for something sensational to gossip about. An incestuous mother makes for juicy reading. No, keep it to myself. Tell no-one. What others don't know doesn't hurt them, right?

And then there was the RESIGNATION: he had won. If I told, what would it achieve? I didn't know at the time that there are things like Children's Aid Societies who could step in. But even if I had and they showed up at our door, dad would have thrown them out saying I was talking nonsense. With his temper, he would have sent them packing. Mom didn't know anything about any of it, so she would have backed him up. And when the door had closed, I would have been beaten to a pulp. Who needed that? I became resigned to my life. I was in my early 20's when I met my husband and by that time I was resigned to being daddy's concubine for the rest of my life. Thankfully, falling in love saved me.

Of course, one of the strongest reasons for not coming out from under that I'm sure most of us share is that fear of what everyone will think of us. Our society is so geared to "how would it look?" "what would people think?" "what would people say about me?" etc. etc. that we are held back daily from doing the many things we know we want and should do, let alone exposing our darkest secrets. Our need for approval supersedes our own need to even be honest with ourselves. We let it stifle us, strangle us, keep us from being who we really are and saying what we really feel. And no wonder after years of being unable to say "NO!" to my abuser that I still have the hardest time saying "NO!" to anyone. So great is the need for approval and above all, love.

Can you relate to all this? Even if you've not been victimized by sexual abuse, I bet you can from other aspects of your life. But it's just so much harder to speak up and come out when you've spent 20, 30, 40 or more years holding it back because of shame, fear, resignation and the need for approval.

Well I've got news for you: now that I am finally talking about it, what I'm getting the most is support and approval! How wonderful is that? With that support, love and approval, years of fear, shame and resignation are melting away with every word I write here and in my book. And it feels SO GOOD!

Join me. Subscribe to my blog here. Take the poll on the top right. Face your fears. Face yourself. Join my Facebook group, OUT FROM UNDER. The more I research and read online, the more I realize I am not alone. You will too. It helps to read about people like us and there are so many like us. Why should we be ashamed? Why should we be silent? Come out from under with me.  I need your courage to help me finish what I've started here.

Thanks for reading. Please share this blog and my Facebook group page link.

Graphic from Peggy Loretta Hornbake

RUNNING AWAY, BURYING THE MEMORIES, PRETENDING SEXUAL ABUSE NEVER HAPPENED ...

is tantamount to living out our lives wondering, feeling soiled, dirty, unworthy ... unworthy of that very necessary love of self and unworthy of the love of others ... and so much of the time, if we haven't addressed the memories for what they are, not knowing why we  even feel that way.

Even before the major sexual abuse by my father started, I felt a bit like that about myself, but didn't really know why. Then today, I happened across THIS POST in another blog. The writer states that we CAN and MUST stop the sexual abuse of our children and believes it can be done, if we are forever on the alert for the signs and encourage children to talk about it. Perhaps if someone had cared enough about me when I was still prepubescent and got me to open up, I might have told them about the older girl, still in elementary school, who lured me to her flat with the promise of milk and cookies, and then pinned me in the washroom and using the inner tube of a toilet roll, simulated sex with me. I had no idea what she was doing, but I remember fleeing, crying, scared and being utterly confused. No-one, not my guardian at the time, nor my parents knew anything of this incident. Later in the week, a nun at the Catholic primary school I attended approached me. She asked me about the girl. Had she ever done anything to me, asked me to go home with her etc etc. Obviously the nun knew something about her, but I remember my shame as I answered her questions. And yet, I had no idea why I felt ashamed.

Of course, in retrospect, it's entirely possible, and even probable, that this girl too was being sexually abused by a parent or relative. But again, the post I mentioned above triggered my memory of this incident and others. There was a Catholic "brother" who liked me to visit his room at the local church. He would give me candies and soft drinks AFTER he sat me on his lap and ran his fingers up and down  my little legs. And he always sent me home reminding me not to tell anyone if I wanted more candies.

Then there was my playmate's father. He was all smiles and had 3 little girls I loved to play with. One day, I arrived to play but the 3 girls were out with their mom. He invited me to stay and wait for them, saying they wouldn't be long. He gave me some cake and suggested I sit beside him on the couch to read a book. Then he coaxed me onto his lap so we could cuddle while he read the book. Next thing I knew he'd stopped reading and his hand had wandered into that most private spot. Instinctively, I knew this wasn't right but I didn't want to offend him as he was my playmates' dad. When he was done, he too told me to not tell anyone and gave me a dime ... hush money I guess ... and promised there'd be more dimes if I visited again. I never went back there. My playmates never asked why. But I wonder if eventually they too found out daddy wasn't as nice as we all thought.

How did the POST ABOVE unleash all these memories? Here's what that writer said:

"the statistics of child sexual abuse (CSA) are beyond the pale – 1 in 6 boys and 1 in 3 girls are sexually assaulted by the age of 18. As I have also written, "stranger danger is a myth". It's not the unknown that our children have to be leery, it's the ones we know best; our clergy, teachers, caregivers and yes, even family members – they are the ones that are ALMOST ALWAYS guilty of stealing the innocence of our children. The statistics vary, but not by much, somewhere in the neighborhood of 90-95% of all CSA transgressions are by those we KNOW and TRUST. That's right, the ones that molest, rape, sodomize and abuse our children are NOT strangers…they are our pastors, our 5th grade teachers, our fathers and aunts, and even sometimes they are the child down the street that plays with our kids. I recently read an article about an 8 yr. old molesting a 7 yr. old that lived just two doors down – a trusted neighborhood child.

As a survivor of sexual abuse by a member of the clergy, I know all too well how this trust is built up and then destroyed. It's called "grooming" but the bottom line, it's how these trusted ones get inside the psyche of a child and use their authority over them to sexually and psychologically control them, as my youth minister did me."

How true is that! Isn't that what happened to me ... or maybe to you who are reading this? The molesters are indeed all around us and sadly, around our own children. We can help them and ourselves, but first of all, we need to face our own memories, our own demons. If we haven't yet shared our troubled past with someone who cares, if we haven't fully accepted that yes, this did indeed happen to us and was most likely not our fault, then how can we help others who may be going through the same thing? We might recognize it but close our eyes and our minds to it, telling ourselves it couldn't be what we suspect. None of us wants to believe that someone close to us, someone we trust, could molest or abuse a child, especially their own child. Well, if it happened to you then you know it can, and does happen. Just check those stats again:

1 in 6 boys and 1 in 3 girls are sexually assaulted by the age of 18.

Stop running away. Stop burying the memories. Stop pretending it didn't happen. Spit out your horror, your disgust. Tell it like it is or was. Just let it all out so you can come out from under.

Please share the link to this blog with others who might need encouragement to do the same. And please  LIKE our page at Facebook: COMING OUT FROM UNDER