CAN ANYTHING GOOD, POSITIVE, EVER COME FROM #ABUSE?

I know most will answer the question "Can anything good, positive, ever come from abuse?" with a loud "NO!" And that response is most expected. But as I move toward the end of another year of my life, and another year further away from my past, I can look at that question from various angles, the most important one being from the perspective of a survivor instead of a victim. And when I look at it this way, and reflect on what has happened in the 40 plus years since I got away from my abuser, I see mostly positives. In fact, I see many positives.

When, as I wrote in my first book, "No Tears for my Father", (which has incidentally now won a Gold Medal) that my father refused to let me cry when I fell off my bike and scraped my knee because he told me I had to "get tough", I hated how he ignored my pain. But I did get tough ... tough enough that when the time came to get away from him, though afraid, I had developed the toughness I needed to cope with the next forty years of my life. I needed that toughness to survive the loss of a job I'd worked so hard to get. I detailed this in the chapter titled, "When Good things go bad" in my latest book, "Learning to Love Myself". Once again I was facing emotional and mental abuse, but the now ingrained toughness pulled me up and out of a sinkhole that threatened to set me back to the days of my childhood abuse.

Another positive thing that came from my childhood abuse was the compassion and caring I have for others who suffer. After speaking with so many survivors of abuse who have set up blogs, written books, run groups for victims, I know I'm far from alone. Having suffered as much as we did, we do not dismiss or ignore those victims who hang their heads in shame and think no-one will believe their stories. We do .. because we've been there ... and we know how horrible it feels to live and feel that way. I feel 100% sure that if life had always been easy for me, if I hadn't known such suffering, I could never feel the compassion and the need to help others that I do today.

As a result of the abuse, I also learned to rely on myself. I learned that when the world turned its back on me, when it seemed God had deserted me, there was still one person I could turn to: myself. As I struggled to understand why I had been the victim of abuse ... and there will never be a good reason for that ... I also came to understand that if anyone could change the situation I was in, it was me. You see, life is about choices. As I have written in my poem above, I can choose to live in darkness, in pain, or I can choose to take control of my life and turn it around. As long as I listen to the voices that brought me down, as long as I ate the garbage those voices fed me and believed it, I was a victim. But just as surely as someone can feed us garbage, we can refuse to eat it. We are what we believe. We can feed ourselves good food, good thoughts, as surely as we can feed ourselves bad ones. It's up to us to choose the foods that nourish, not poison you.

When we do that, something miraculous happens: with each little step in a positive direction, we begin to regain our self-esteem; we begin to see we are good ... we were never bad. We begin to like ourselves and if we stick at it long enough, keep on challenging ourselves to get better and better, sooner or later we come to love ourselves. And only when we love ourselves can we truly love others.

That is the primary message of my book, "Learning to Love Myself", written by a victim of child sexual abuse who became not just a survivor but a thriver, one who embraces life, never gave up on herself, and found happiness because she deserved it ... just as you who are reading this now do.

Do not read this post thinking I could ever condone any form of abuse. I most certainly do not. I deplore abuse. But, if you have been a victim of abuse, I can assure you that you too can become a survivor/thriver. Avail yourself of the help others offer; if you can afford therapy, take it. If you can't, read books like "The Courage to Heal". Subscribe to blogs like mine or Darlene Ouimet's excellent blog, Emerging from Broken. Immerse yourself in books written by survivors; read motivational books. The market is full of them, many written by people like you who have suffered enormously but found a way to turn bad into good. And do one more thing for yourself daily: journal your thoughts, good and bad. Remember, when you commit your pain to the page, you rob it of its power over you. It will no longer control you; instead you control it as you write it onto a page.  Above all, choose to be your own best friend. You have a friend in YOU.

I wish you all a happy holiday season, whatever it is you will celebrate, and may 2015 be a year of making your own choices.

Your friend,

Viga Boland
http://www.vigaboland.com

"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

WHY ARE VICTIMS of #INCEST or CHILD SEXUAL #ABUSE DRAWN TO OTHER #ABUSERS?

You'd think when one's been victimized by an abuser, you'd run a mile before getting involved with another abuser. Yet, time and again victims tell me they left one abuser only to fall for another. It's like victims have indelible signs printed on their foreheads saying "abuse me!" But we all know that's the last thing victims want or need. So why does it happen?

Some reasons come to mind immediately:

Victims don't feel they deserve better
Victims feel whatever happened to them was their fault
Victims are needy, desperate for love. As such, they are easy targets for abusers.
Victims often hate themselves so much they believe they should be punished.

All of those reasons scream of the insecurity the victim feels as a result of abuse. They feel so empty inside, they rush to fill the void. They are looking for confirmation that they are worthy of love.

This thought came to mind after I read the words below posted by a friend, Johnnie Leonard-Yaegel on Facebook. She was reflecting on how it felt to lose someone you love and why one shouldn't rush to find a new love:

"Filling the spot of someone you have lost to a break up, divorce or even death with anything or anyone else is not always healthy. When the body heals, it focuses on that wound till it is completely well again. It doesn't add another human to the body to heal. So many are in a hurry to fill a void. But a void is room to grow. Sometimes we are too quick to put something there that inevitably slows our growth." 

Her words struck me as being applicable to victims of abuse. Now, you might ask "What has that got to do with abuse victims? They aren't mourning the loss of someone they loved." To which I say 

"Really? I beg to differ"

Here's why: Abuse victims are indeed mourning the loss of someone they loved. That someone is themselves! When we are abused, especially as children, we lose ourselves. Some of us spend a lifetime trying to find ourselves again. We are drawn into relationships, some as harmful as the one we escaped, in our desperation to find that person we loved and lost: ourselves.  We hope that somehow the new person in our life will convince us we are worthy of their love and that through him or her, we can once again learn to love ourselves. Some of us find that person who can do that for us. I did. But sadly,  too many of us never do. We drift from one relationship to another, from one abuser to another, ever seeking confirmation that we are worthy of love. 

But as my friend states above: "A void is room to grow." If we immediately seek a new partner to fill that void, without giving ourselves time to heal, we might end up filling that void with more emptiness, more insecurity. So why rush? Slow down; take the time to heal; let the wound close. Slowing down will give us time to clear our heads, to step back and look objectively at that new person who's saying all the right things but possibly for the wrong reasons. 

Welcome the chance to be alone; to think for yourself; to not have to answer to someone else or do what that person tells you to. In that period of alone-ness, not to be confused with loneliness, you might find someone you can trust and love: yourself. Remember, as Whitney Houston sang, "Learning to love yourself is the greatest gift of all."

That, by the way, is the title and theme of my new memoir, a love story of rebirth and recovery after abuse. All being well, it'll be available from my website in late September/early October. 

DOWNLOAD A FREE eBOOK of NO TEARS FOR MY FATHER and you might win a KINDLE too!

If you have subscribed to my personal blog, VIANVISIONS, on my author's website, you probably are aware that I am currently in the last stages of writing the Sequel to my true story of #incest, "NO TEARS FOR MY FATHER".  I wrote and published that book a little less than a year ago, and today, I have been thrilled with the sales and particularly pleased to see my book added to 6 Ontario libraries. 

Nonetheless, I know there are many thousands of victims of incest and their families who have never heard of the book, or even if they have and would like to read it, feel they can't afford to buy even the eBook copy.  I decided to remedy that if I could, at least temporarily. 

So I uploaded NO TEARS FOR MY FATHER to a site called STORY CARTEL. By joining this site (it's free) readers can download tons of ebooks for free for a limited time. My book can still be downloaded for FREE for another 12 days. So if you've been wanting to read it, here's your chance. 

What's the catch? There is none. 

And what's this about winning a KINDLE? 

Well, if you download my Free book, and leave me a review at AMAZON (and anywhere else you like e.g. Goodreads, Barnes & Noble, Apple iBooks, Kobo, GooglePlay) within the next 15 days, you will be entered for a chance to win that KINDLE, or an Amazon or Barnes & Noble Gift or more...just for leaving me a review. 

Why is your leaving a review for me important to me?

Because the more reviews my book receives, especially at Amazon, the higher it goes in the rankings, meaning many readers are likely to find it. And if they want or need this book, to help them heal, to help them realize they are not alone as victims of incest, then that's important to me.  

Won't you help them, or perhaps help yourself, by downloading NO TEARS FOR MY FATHER absolutely FREE, leaving me a review? Even just a few lines would help. 

Thank you in advance for doing this and I hope you'll share this blog post with others who might like to take advantage of this FREE offer. As for my sequel, where I cover the years since I left my abusive father and built a new life for myself with my husband and children, look for it to become available in the next few months. 

Title?

LEARNING TO LOVE MYSELF. 

To understand and enjoy LEARNING TO LOVE MYSELF, it will help to have read NO TEARS FOR MY FATHER. So go grab yourself a FREE copy now from STORY CARTEL. 

SABRINA'S STORY: #INCEST VICTIM STILL IMPRISONED AFTER 40 YEARS

Sabrina is in her 40's now and still lives at home with her mother and step-father. She works in their shop but receives no salary. Her step-father thinks she's insane and wants to have her committed. Her mother is abusive and narcissistic. The rest of her relatives think Sabrina is crackers too. Everyone tells her to stop talking rubbish and tarnishing the family name with her ridiculous allegations of incest by an uncle who is today a very prominent member of society. He also wields lots of power. Sabrina is scared of what he could do to her and her family if she ever goes public. So she stays silent. 

She's told her mother the story time and again. One minute her mother says she's making it all up; the next she tells her to get over it: it happens to lots of girls, so just get over it. But Sabrina can't. 

She was only 7 when 'it' happened. Her parents had left her in her uncle's care. She trusted him when he said she was being taken to have a needed medical procedure. There were 4 "doctors" in the room. She was put under. When she awoke, one of the doctors was on top of her. No, correct that: he was inside her and she hurt. Then the other doctors took turns. And they took photographs too. And they laughed. 

They took turns. 

When they finished with me, I was told the procedure went wonderfully. 
I was sore. 
I was tired. 
I was confused. 
I wanted to throw up. 
I didn't want to be near him anymore. 
I sensed something had changed my relationship with him forever. 
I sensed something had changed me forever. 
I just wanted to go home. 

I was 7-years-old

Sabrina never forgot and never got over it. She did what all incest victims do: she went quiet because she was fearful of what would happen to her if she told. 

Sabrina has been quiet for 40 years now. She's gained weight, on purpose. She doesn't want men to get interested in her. That doesn't mean she wouldn't love to have a good husband and children and all the rest, but she's too scared and she can't trust any man. The same relative abused her again at a later date under different circumstances and not to the same degree. But his abuse just cemented her fear and buried her silence even deeper.  She's written about it in her blog, LIGHT DANCING IN THE SHADOWS. Click the link to read her side of the story. Right now, her only support is readers like you and writers like me. 

Sabrina wants to leave home but has no money to head out on her own. She's a prisoner of her past and her present. She's trying to fight back using the only weapon she has now: words. She is speaking out from under incest. She's committed to writing a book about it and has already started. And every day, her parents keep her chained, convincing themselves and everyone around her that she is nuts. 

We other victims of incest know better. Sabrina is not nuts. She needs support and ears willing to believe her side of the story. I have promised to help her publish her book when it's done. As much as I wish she'd find the courage to get out of the prison she's been in for 40 years, that is ultimately up to her. Only she can change her life. But writing her story is a beginning. Don't back down Sabrina. Fight for your life and your freedom. Fight for your chance to be the beautiful woman you can be and are, away from your persecutors. Others have done it. You can too. Courage and love my friend. 

GRANDPA WILL LOOK AFTER YOU SWEETHEART: #INCEST

You have to go out to pick up some groceries and don't feel like getting your youngster all dressed up to take him or her with you. Grandpa's watching TV and having a cuppa. You wonder if he'd mind looking after the little one for an hour. You promise not to be long and you tell your child to be good and do whatever grandpa tells him or her to do. And you're out the door.

When you get back, your little one runs into your arms and starts crying? Did he or she miss you that much in such a short time? Why does he/she looked scared? Oh it's probably nothing. Your little one's just a bit tired ...

Meet Angela: she's in her 20's now and a member of my secret incest group on Facebook. She wasn't that little when "it" happened. She had just graduated from Grade 8, but she waited another 3 years to tell on Grandpa. As she wrote to me recently:

"As I was still too young to stay alone over night, I went to my grandparents' house. The night started off as any other, watching some boring shows that my grandparents just loved. My nana decided to have a shower while my papa and I just continued to watch the television. I heard the shower turn on and that's when the night took a turn for the worse. My papa got up out of his usual seat in the rocking chair and came over and just looked at me. He then proceeded to lift up my blue nightgown and touched me; he fondled my lack of a chest, and kissed me,  trying to stick his tongue in my mouth. He must have gotten spooked because he suddenly went back to his chair and sat down. But not even five minutes later,  while I was still trying to process what had happened, he was in front of me again. He held his finger up to indicate "one more time" and repeated what he'd just done 5 minutes earlier.  When I heard the shower water turn off, I'd never been so thankful in my life! I ran into the bathroom with cramps (which I later learned happens when ever I'm nervous) and begged my nana to call my parents. She called and called and finally my dad came and picked me up at 3 in the morning. He asked what was a matter.  I told him I had cramps he said it must be my period coming on. I agreed, unable to tell him the truth. When we got home I went right to my room and cried and cried and cried."

Maybe to the reader of this post, that doesn't sound so horrific. Perhaps readers have experienced what they consider much worse happen to them at the hands of a grandparent. But all children are different in how they react to violation of their bodies. Some take it much harder than others. But none of them ever walks away and forgets about it.

And the bottom line is NO GRANDFATHER has the right to do what Angela's grandfather did! To this day, though Angela's come a long way thanks to some therapy for this and other abuse she later suffered at the hands of others, she still has a lot of "self" issues.

Before writing this post, I did a quick Google search on "grandfathers, sexual abuse". Pages and pages of articles, forums, blogs came up, like this one:

http://www.southshorenow.ca/en/20140115/News/16612/Grandfather-sexually-abused-girl-for-years.htm

and this one:

http://www.psychforums.com/sexual-abuse-incest/topic52830.html

Read the articles. Feel the pain. Now tell me this isn't happening again and again with those, whom next to our parents, we should be able to trust most: our grandparents!

And then there's this information I found at this link: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/1393732:

"Using a sample of 95 case records of sexual abuse substantiated through child protection investigation, this study confirmed several findings from earlier studies of sexually abusive grandparents: (a) virtually all perpetrators are male, (b) the vast majority of victims are female, (c) a disproportionately large share of abusive grandfathers appear to also be sexually abusive fathers, and (d) stepgrandchildren appear to experience greater risk. Additionally, it was noted that stepgrandparent perpetrators were more threatening and physically violent. However, contrary to some earlier studies, evidence was provided that this form of abuse is inappropriately described as "gentle." Explicit threats and overt physical assault were noted in 14 cases. Moreover, the other tactics used to gain children's compliance, such as overpowering them, suddenly grabbing their genitals, and attacking them in their sleep, appeared to seriously compromise children's autonomy and personal integrity."

 I was intrigued by that sentence above that said these forms of abuse were considered "gentle". I guess they were like Angela's case. That statement makes such abuse sound less significant, something moms leaving their children with grandpa needn't worry about even if the old man does decide to lift the child's nightie and cop a feel or stick his tongue in her mouth.  After all, it's only grandpa. Right Angela?

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.