Evil is Complicated

The other day, during my presentation to an audience of medical professionals, one of the doctors asked a good question. “Many of these victims eventually become abusers, so what do we do when they start abusing others? How do we treat them when they are no longer a victim but a perpetrator?” I didn’t have an answer for his question. It is true that many victims of childhood violence will turn that trauma on others if they don’t get help. It is easy to focus on our victimhood. We have been wronged horribly and we deserve to be heard. As a matter of a fact, I believe most people spend a lot of their time focused on how they have been wronged. But there is another side to us. There is the angry, raging person who is fed up with this world. There is a criminal.

As We Start Our Family Tree

To my children as we start our family tree,

I cannot begin to describe the impact you have on my life. You are the blessings sent from the divine to wake me up. You are the little life tornadoes who never let me choose the easy way out of the pain. You are the epitome of forgiveness as I made mistake after mistake as a parent. You are the comic relief that comes just when I need it. And you are the reminder of how important the small, daily life events really are.

I have been hoping for a savior since I was born. I even found myself enmeshed with several people throughout the years who I thought might make things right. But of course, they didn’t. They didn’t make things right because the only person who could do that was me. And as I look back over the past seven years, I realize that I may have been responsible for my life, but I had help. I had two little saviors who came to help me figure it out.

You haven’t heard of parental guilt because you are only seven years old. When you asked me to tell you the hardest thing in the world, I wasn’t kidding when I said ‘raising children”. You laughed and said “no way”, but one day, you might be lucky enough to understand. And I do feel guilty for the bad days, the bad decisions. So today, I am going to apologize for the parts that haven’t gone the way I hoped. But I also want you to understand that I know I did so many things right. Parenting is dualistic like that. It is never easy. And it is never black and white. It’s just worth it.

The Pain of Shame

Recovery work is painful. It is the hardest thing I have ever done. It is no wonder that I spent two decades avoiding it. Deep down in my unconscious where the memories were stored, I had determined that the pain of the emotional memories was far worse than spending my life defending against them. And my overactive cortex was happy to oblige. I could come up with almost anything to justify my feelings or an image that may have flashed in my head. On the bad days, I could keep myself so insanely busy that there was no time to examine anything. My head would run in circles all day long, only stopping for sleep. It was exhausting. Some days, I felt like I had run a marathon from the anxiety and intensity of getting through the day. But it still seemed better than facing the pain.

After seven years of recovery, I can vouch that the emotional and physical pain of recovery is hard, but it is not as bad as the constant defending. Honestly, and a bit morbidly, it is unlikely that I would have survived much longer if I had continued down that old path of denial. I was getting physically sicker and sicker. There is no doubt in my mind that my life would have been cut short.

An Open Letter to Those Defending Woody Allen

When I read the article by Dylan Farrow, I was shocked at her bravery, honesty and resiliency.  I was surprised at how she was willing to stand up against someone who is revered by our society as a talented artist.  However, I was more shocked by those who are willing to defend Woody Allen, a man who has been accused of child sexual abuse by one adopted daughter and married the other one.  The myriad of reasons for this defense show a complete lack of understanding for the complex trauma of a child sex abuse victim.  Let’s discuss some of those reasons:

1.  She is lying because she wants attention.  As a survivor of child sex abuse, sometimes I am asked if I want to be on television or in the newspapers.  In reality, I do want to be on television or in the newspapers.  But I don’t want to talk about my childhood story of pervasive sexual abuse and trafficking.  I want be on television because I have won the Nobel Peace Prize or cured cancer.  Nobody wants to talk about being victimized, but there is a longing deep inside of a sex abuse survivor to speak the truth.  In many cases, speaking the truth may be necessary to heal from the abuse.  In some cases, speaking the truth may bring about the justice that was evasive for so long.  It is not about attention.

Have Trauma, Will Hover (Chapter 3)

‘Vacation’ is a funny word for a single mother of young children.  Before having children, the term ‘vacation’ would invoke a feeling of relaxation, but it doesn’t mean what it used to mean.  Now it means I will move my exhausted self and young children to a different place, so I can do the same activities with the same unrealistic schedule.  Nonetheless, we go to the beach every year.

I pick the beach because it is the least painful of the options.  I live within a few hours of numerous beaches so there are no long trips or plane tickets.  I don’t have to drag them (and more importantly their stuff) all over a city while trying to keep their attention at tourist attractions that may or may not be appropriate for their age.  And to be fair, they love the beach.  They start to jump up and down the minute they see the ocean and the sand.