THE COURAGE TO HEAL - A Guide for Women Survivors of Child Sexual Abuse

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“A ground-breaking book that will stand as a classic for many years to come.”

—Sandra Butler, author of The Conspiracy of Silence

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“Don’t run away from it. Don’t bury it. Don’t try to produce a different reality getting all strung out on something, or eating your way through your feelings. Don’t slash your wrists. Just deal with it, because it’s going to keep coming back if you con-tinue living anyway. It’s painful, but you just have to keep going. It’s just part of life, really.”

—Soledad, 28-year-old survivor

“Give as much commitment to healing as you did to surviving for the last ten or fifteen years.”

—Dorianne, 35-year-old survivor

“There’s more than anger, more than sadness, more than terror. There’s hope.”

—Edith Horning, 46-year-old survivor

This electronic edition is made freely available for scholarly or educational purposes, provided that this copyright notice is included. The manuscript may not be reprinted or redistributed for commercial purposes without

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We would like to thank the hundreds of survivors and partners who answered our ads, returned our calls, and shared their stories with us. We are also grateful to the participants in Ellen’s workshops who generously allowed us to tell their stories and describe their struggles. Their courage and determination inspired us and deepened our own commitment. This book would not exist without them.

There are many people who’ve provided invaluable assistance to us in completing this project. Together, we’d like to thank:

Janet Goldstein, our editor at Harper & Row, for her incredible support, brilliance, dedication, and her unwavering belief in this book from the beginning.

Katherine Ness, production editor extraordinaire, whose care, thoughtfulness, and attention went beyond the call of duty; Laura Hough, whose creative attention to design made for a beautiful book; and to our literary agent, Charlotte Raymond, for her ongoing encour-agement and support.

Sandra Butler, Lucy Diggs, Jeanne Mayer Freebody, Dorothy Morales, Nona Olivia, Kay Slagle, and Daniel Sonkin for their

inval-uable criticism of the manuscript as a whole. And Lucy Diggs for ex-tensive line editing, and for cooking a fine Christmas dinner.

Lola Atkins, Janet Bryer, Jesse Burgess, Mariah Burton-Nelson, Pandora Carpenter, Lauren Crux, Carol Anne Dwight, Rashama Khalethia, Edith Kieffer, Ellen Lacroix, Donna Maimes, Wendy Mar-yott-Wilhelms, Rose Z. Moonwater, Pat Pavlat, Amy Pine, Robin Roberts, Helen Resneck-Sannes, Ariel Ellen Shayn, Roger Slagle, Deborah Stone, and Karen Zelin for their careful reading of portions of the manuscript.

Kristina Peterson, Margaret Hill, Pat Saliba, and Emily Joy Hixson, Laura’s housemates, for love and patience all those days when Ellen slept in the living room and the dining room table was piled with papers.

Among the survivors we’d like to thank for their contributions are: Janice Avila, Rachel Bat Or, Shelley Bennet, Eileen Daly, Na-talie Devora, Martha Elliott, Jill Eainberg, Ely Fuller, Ann Marie Godwin, Jayne Habe, Barbara Hamilton, Margaret Hawthorn, Rashama Khalcthia, Edith Kieffer, Krishnabai, Dorianne Laux,

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Jen-nierose Lavender, Suzanne Leib, Cristin Lindstrom, Julie Martchen-ke, Erin May, Sharrin Michael, Janet Hanks Morehouse, Nina Newington, Kathleen O’Bannon and her daughter Maureen Davidson, Lynn Slade, Kay Slagle, Catherine Stifter, Teresa Strong, Josie Vil-lalpando, and Diana Wood.

Others whose contributions have helped along the way: Jane Ari-el, Beth Beurkens, Diana Bryce, Judy Butler, Don Cotton, Gabby Donnell, Linda Eberth, Saudi Gallant, Diane Hugs, Adrianne Chang Kwong, Julie Robbins, Kathleen Rose, Sue Saperstein, Theresa Tolli-ui, Donna Warnock, Mary Williams, and Linda Wilson.

The Fessenden Educational Fund, for help with expenses.

Ellen Bass

I have received such abundant encouragement and support that I can’t name everyone, but I would particularly like to thank:

All the workshop participants who taught me what survivors need in order to heal.

Mildred Bass, my mother, for giving me the wholehearted love and commitment every child deserves. And Sarah Wolpert, her moth-er, for giving that to her. So much of what I have to give to survivors I received from them.

Josephine Clayton, for being a second mother to me, when I needed one very much.

Pat Pavlat, my therapist, for being a model of excellence. And for inspiring me to climb Angel’s Landing.

Florence Howe, for teaching me the basics of facilitating groups: respect for each person’s feelings and thoughts. And for opening so many doors.

Marty Bridges, for promoting the first I Never Told Anyone workshops; Pam Mitchell, for bringing them to Boston; and Becky Northcutt, for bringing it all back home.

Susan Bass, for vigorously encouraging me to write this book, against all my protestations.

Laura Davis, for pushing me past what I thought were my limits. Saraswati Bass Nelson, for making me care so much.

And Janet Bryer, for loving my eccentricities instead of my vir-tues and for teaching me to fool around.

Laura Davis

Writing my first book on an issue of such deep and personal sig-nificance has been possible only because of the tremendous love and support I have received. I’d like to thank:

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Karen Zelin for being everything a best friend should be, Natalie Devora for many kinds of sustenance. Barbara Cymrot, Dafna Wu, and Ruby for being family, Nona Olivia for humor, encouragement, and wisdom, Aurora Levins Morales for cooking me duck and telling me to write, Roberta Rutkin for teaching me to honor my creativity.

Janet Bryer and Saraswati Bass Nelson for patience, love, count-less wonderful meals, and always making me feel at home.

Abe Davis, my father, for creative inspiration, his quick wit, and most of all his unyielding faith in me.

Linda Eberth for teaching me that healing was possible, even for me.

Dagny Adamson, Marcy Alancraig, Ophelia Balderama, Theresa Carilli, Kimberly Jane Carter, Lynn Chadwick, Diane Costa, Carol Anne Dwight. Brandy Liger, Toke Hoppenbrouwers, Diane Hugs, Shama Khalethia, Wendy Maryott-Wilhelms, Helen Mayer, Jennifer Meyer, Nina Newington. Kathleen Rose, Paula Ross, Jane Scolicri, Ray Gwyn Smith, Catherine Stifter, Deborah Stone, and Cheryl Wade for friendship, encouragement, and belief in this project.

Irena Klepfisz, Sandy Boucher, and Tillie Olsen for inspiration, wisdom, and encouraging me to write.

Rick Eckel, Alan Burton, and all the reporters at Youth News for patience and flexibility.

Dorothy Morales for wisdom and generosity. Melanie Joshua for helping me stay in my body.

And finally my coauthor, Ellen Bass, for a million things, but mostly for changing her mind and saying yes.

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Ellen Bass

I first heard that children were abused in 1974, when a young woman in my creative writing workshop pulled a crumpled half-sheet of paper out of her jeans pocket. Her writing was so vague, so tenta-tive, that I wasn’t sure what she was trying to say, but I sensed that it was important. Gently, I encouraged her to write more. Slowly she revealed her story. In pieces, on bits of paper, she shared the pain of her father’s assaults, and I listened.*

Shortly afterward, another woman told me her story. And then another. And another. There were no groups for survivors of child sexual abuse then. The word “survivor” was not yet in our vocabu-lary. But as they sensed that I could understand their stories, more and more women shared them with me. The psychologist Carl Rogers once said that when he worked through an issue in his life, it was as if telegrams were sent to his clients informing them that they could now

*

This woman, Maggie Hoyal, went on to become a fine writer, arid her story, “These Are the Things I Remember.” is included in I Never Told Anyone (see the Bibliography.)

bring that subject to therapy. Once I became aware of child sexual abuse, it was as if women knew that I was safe to talk to.

I was stunned by the number of women who had been sexually abused. I was deeply moved by the anguish they had endured. And I was equally impressed by their integrity, their ability to love and cre-ate through such devastation. I wanted people to know about this, about their strength and their beauty.

In 1978, three months after my first child was born, five women from my workshops and I began collecting stories for I Never Told

Anyone: Writings by Women Survivors of Child Sexual Abuse. By

1983, when it was published, I had learned a great deal about the healing process. One of the things I learned was that writing itself was healing.

I decided to offer a group for survivors and designed the I Never Told Anyone workshops. I tried to create an environment safe enough for women to face their own pain and anger so they could begin to heal. At the first workshop, I mainly listened. I wanted to learn what survivors needed to talk about, what they needed to hear. Women

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wrote about their experience of being sexually abused, and read what they had written to the group. The simple opportunity to share with other survivors was profoundly healing.

The women who came to the workshops had no historical reason to trust. As children they had learned that their trust would be taken advantage of. And yet in the groups, they trusted.

This book, like the workshops, is based on the premise that eve-ryone wants to become whole, to fulfill their potential. That we all, like seedlings or tadpoles, intend to become our full selves and will do so if we are not thwarted. People don’t need to be forced to grow. All we need is favorable circumstances: respect, love, honesty, and the space to explore.

Since I began the I Never Told Anyone workshops, I have worked with hundreds of survivors across the country. I’ve facilitated workshops for partners of survivors and offered training seminars for professionals who work with survivors. I have solidified my under-standing of what it takes to heal from child sexual abuse. This is the knowledge I want to share with you here.

I am not academically educated as a psychologist. I have acquired counseling skills primarily through practice. Since 1970, when I be-gan working as a counselor and group facilitator, I’ve had the oppor-tunity to train with a number of excellent therapists. But none of what is presented here is based on psychological theories. The process

de-scribed, the suggestions, the exercises, the analysis, the conclusions, all come from the experiences of survivors.

I am also the partner of a survivor. In the beginning of our rela-tionship we struggled with issues of trust, intimacy, and sexuality common to many couples and exacerbated by the effects of sexual abuse. Now, several years later, the problems that caused us both such anguish are no longer wrenching. Sexual abuse no longer overshad-ows our relationship. I want to tell you this because when you are in the thick of the pain, it’s hard to believe that it will ever change. Yet it does. And it does not take forever.

As my grandmother used to say, “No one gets cheated from trou-ble.” I was not sexually abused as a child, but I too have had pain to heal from. In the three years since beginning this book, I have made major personal changes. I live in the same house, with the same fami-ly, doing the same work. But I am not the same. Inspired by the sur-vivors I worked with. I followed their example. Slowly, repetitively, step-by-step, little by little, my old fears, my desperate places, my limiting ways of coping, have receded. After saying “Healing is pos-sible” to hundreds of survivors, it occurred to me that it was possible for me too.

Sometimes people ask, “Don’t you find it depressing always to be thinking about child sexual abuse?” But I don’t think so much about the abuse. I think about the healing.

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The opportunity to be a part of women’s healing feels a little like assisting at a birth. It’s awesome to touch the miracle of life so close-ly. When women trust me with their most vulnerable, tender feelings, I am aware that I hold their spirit, for that moment, in my hands, and I am both honored and thrilled.

I want to see us all become whole—and not stop there. As we be-come capable of nurturing ourselves and living rich personal lives, we are enabled to act creatively in the world so that life can continue— the eucalyptus trees, the narcissus, the sunfish, the squirrels, seals, hummingbirds, our own children.

—Ellen Bass

Laura Davis

I remember calling Ellen one day a few months after I’d

first remembered the incest. I counted the rings—two, three,

four—she had to be home! She had to be! Five, six, seven—if I

didn’t talk to her right now, I knew I couldn’t last through

the afternoon. Eight, nine, ten—well, maybe she was outside

folding the laundry and was just slow getting to the phone.

Eleven, twelve, thirteen—I cannot stand another moment of

this pain. My heart hurts and I can’t take any more.

Fourteen, fifteen . . .

“Hello, this is Ellen,” she said, cheery and calm.

“Ellen, this is Laura. Look, you’ve got to tell me just one

thing. Will I ever get through this? Is there ever an end? I

can’t take it anymore, and if you’ll just tell me I can get to the

other side, I’m sure I can last through the week.” I was

talking fast, my sentences piling up on each other.

“Hello, Laura. I’m glad you called.” Her voice was

smooth, reassuring. “And yes, you can make it. Healing is

possible. You’re already well on your way.”

“Well on my way? How can you say that? I can’t sleep,

and when I do, it’s all I dream about. I can’t think about

anything else. Every child I see on the street reminds me of

incest. I can’t make love, I can’t eat, my whole body feels like

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a giant piece of rubber. I’m crying all the time. My whole life

is flashbacks, going to therapy, and talking about incest.

Half the time I don’t even believe it happened, and the other

half I’m sure it was my fault”

“It did happen, Laura. Look at what you’re going

through. Would anyone willingly choose to go through this

torture? Why would you ever want to invent something this

bad? You were just a little girl, Laura. He was what—

seventy years old? You were a victim. You were innocent.

You didn’t do anything. It wasn’t your fault.”

Over and over, Ellen repeated those simple phrases: “It

wasn’t your fault. I believe you. Healing is possible. You’re

going to make it. You’re going to be okay.”

I expressed every doubt I could think of. Then I made up

some new ones. I knew other survivors didn’t make up this sort

of thing, but I was the exception. I’d always been the exception,

all my life.

“You can fight it all you want, Laura,” she said finally,

“but the door’s been opened, and you’re in the healing process

whether you like it or not.”

There was a long silence. ‘Then I said, “Isn’t there any

way out?”

“The only way out is through, honey, I’m sorry.”

I was quiet for a long time. “But it hurts, Ellen. It

hurts so much.”

“I know, Laura. I know. But there’s a way through this

stuff, and I know you’re going to find it.”

I wanted to write this book for probably the same reasons you are picking it up now—I felt a tremendous amount of pain in my life, and I wanted it to stop. Six months before I approached Ellen about col-laborating, I had my first memories of being sexually abused by my grandfather when I was a child. Since that time, my life had fallen

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apart. My lover was leaving me. I was becoming increasingly es-tranged from my family. I was sure I was going crazy. I needed to understand what was happening to me. I needed to talk to other wom-en who had bewom-en through it. Out of that need, my desire to write this book was born.

During the first year of our collaboration, it was my task to gather other women’s stories. Ellen and I placed ads in papers, wrote to the women who’d come to her workshops, put out the call by word of mouth. I screened hundreds of calls and spent days on the phone lis-tening to the stories of survivors, some of whom had never told any-one about their abuse before they read our ad, saw our poster.

Even though many of the women I interviewed had been actively healing for years, our conversations were never easy. One woman came to my house with a bag of food and ate from it for the whole three hours we talked. Another had to get stoned to tell me her story. A third burned sage and cedar, cleansing the room to make it safe. Sometimes the women cried. Sometimes we both did.

The honesty and courage of these women continually gave me hope. When I found it impossible to make love because of flashbacks, I’d ask a woman I was interviewing how she had healed her sexuality. When I started to wish I could shove the memories back where they came from, a woman would tell me that healing was the greatest mir-acle in her life.

As the months went by and the number of interviews grew, it be-came clear that there were tremendous similarities in the stories. The black ex-nun from Boston and the ambassador’s daughter from Ma-nila described the stages of their healing process the same way. A pat-tern started to emerge. What I was going through made sense.

As I moved along in my own healing, my relationship to the book changed. The acuteness of my own needs began to fade. It became in-creasingly important for me to communicate what I was learning. I began to talk more freely about the book with people I met. Within the first few minutes of any conversation, I’d be asked why I was writing it, and it would all be out on the table: “Because I’m a survi-vor myself.”

Many people quickly changed the conversation or turned away. But an astonishing number responded with stories of their own: “It happened to me too.” “My best friend says her swimming coach used to touch her.” “My neighbor’s kid reported her father just last week.”

There are many phases involved in writing a book. For me, they have felt just like the stages of the healing process. With each new juncture I’d freeze, certain that I couldn’t possibly jump over the next hurdle. I couldn’t confront my family. I couldn’t begin to write. Then I’d take that first terrifying step forward, and be set in motion again.

Throughout the first year, I wrote nothing about my own experi-ence as a survivor. Ellen began the first draft while I kept busy

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tran-scribing and editing the interviews. Underneath, I knew that this book was as much about my life as it was about theirs, but I successfully avoided the inevitable moment when I, too, would have to speak my truth.

I remember the day very clearly. It started with a sentence I came across in one of Ellen’s drafts. I was lying on the floor of her living room, reading through “Disclosures and Confrontations” with a red marker in my hand. Ellen was explaining the fact that family mem-bers may be sympathetic when first told about sexual abuse, only to turn on the survivor later on. She had used me as her example:

When Laura told her mother about the incest, her moth-er’s first reaction was to send her one of her favorite night-gowns, so that Laura would be comforted; but after she’d thought about it for a while, she called Laura back and she said . . .

After that, Ellen had left a blank. She’d forgotten the exact content of the call.

When I read what she had written, my breakfast curled up into a tight little ball in my stomach. I started to tremble, and then I started to sweat. Anxiety shot from my stomach straight through my head. The fact that I was writing a book about my experiences in healing from incest could no longer be denied, abstracted, placed in a vague

never-never land. There was the sentence, clear as day. “This is about me! This is about my life. That’s my mother she’s talking about.”

“You’ll have to rewrite that part,” Ellen said with studied casual-ness. “It’ll be much better in the first person.”

I picked up the manuscript, and I crossed out the “Lauras.” It wasn’t easy to do it because I was holding my breath and my hand was shaking. Every time the word “Laura” appeared, I substituted the word “I.” And whenever I saw the word “her,” I put in “my.” Then I finished the sentence. When I was done, it read:

When I called my mother and told her I had remembered the incest, her first reaction was to tell me she loved me and supported me. She had an old favorite nightgown. It was cot-ton, well-loved and broken in. She said she was going to send it to me in the mail, so I’d have something that smelled like her, since she couldn’t be with me to comfort me in person.

A week after the nightgown arrived, my mother called me at four in the morning, waking me out of a sound sleep. She was screaming: “I’ve been up all night, and you’re going to be up all night too! My father would never have done any-thing like that! You’re just making this up to destroy me! You’ve just jumped on the incest bandwagon. You’ve always been into the ‘in’ thing. It’s all because you’re a lesbian. You all hate men. You all hate your families. You just want to kill me! You couldn’t have done anything worse if you’d shot me.”

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The words flew out in a torrent, filling the whole side margin and curving around into all the available space at the top of the page. They wavered before my eyes, a field of red. “I did it,” I said to Ellen, my voice high and tight. “Wanna hear it?”

“Sure,” she said. “What have you got?”

I read it to her. She pretended not to notice the tremor in my voice. “Sounds better,” she said. “Sounds a whole lot better.”

For days after I wrote those words, I lived in a state of raw, un-paralleled terror. I became convinced that Ellen did not really want to write the book with me. It was clear the whole collaboration was go-ing to fall through. There was a conspiracy against me. Every day my anxiety increased, more and more out of proportion.

It wasn’t until my friend Aurora, who is a very wise writer, invit-ed me over for roast duck, finvit-ed me, soothinvit-ed me and listeninvit-ed to me, that I quieted down enough to hear her say, over and over, in a hun-dred different ways, “Yes, Laura, it seems that you and Ellen will have to talk, but what about those sentences you wrote?”

It’s been my experience that every time the subject of incest comes up in any kind of personal way, I reexperience the terror I felt as a child being abused. It’s the same terror I saw in the faces of the women I interviewed when we finally sat down, small talk and tea finished, and I nudged them, my voice gentle: “What happened to you?” It’s the fear I’ve seen flash across the faces of other women

who ask what my work is, and who cannot bear to speak to me once they’ve heard the answer. It’s the terror that’s silenced us.

This book has been a way for me to break silence. But it has been more than that. It has been a steady source of inspiration and amaze-ment for the past two and a half years. It has taught me that it is pos-sible to take something that hurt me so deeply and turn it around. I hope it teaches you the same.

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“He pulled his hand out of my pants and spit on his fingers and rubbed them together. He didn’t even seem aware of me. The sound of his spitting made me sick. Then he put his hand back down my pants and started to say something in that sing-ing voice he used.

The front screen door slammed and his hand ripped out of my pants like it was burned. Then he turned on me and whis-pered harshly, ‘Don’t you say anything to your mother ever. If you do, you’ll be sorrier than you’ve ever been in your life.’ ”

—Maggie Hoyal, from “These Are the Things I Remember” “I can’t scream, I can’t speak, I can’t breathe. My mouth, my whole face aches from his thrusts. I cannot see him, only huge arms, only dark brown hair around a wet red penis, pushing and pushing. I kick at the chair. I scratch his arms and skin comes off in my nails. He laughs, pressing harder, pushing his penis down my throat. ‘Kiss it, kiss it.’ ”

—Experience Gibbs, from “1952, and Other Years” “Then one afternoon when I was just waking up from a nap, he sat next to me on the side of the bed. He put his big heavy fingers in my pants and began rubbing my clitoris. I had no idea what he was trying to do. He asked, yet sort of told me, “It feels good, doesn’t it?” All I knew was I couldn’t say no. I felt powerless to move. I said yes.”

—Karen Asherah, from “Daddy Kanagy”*

*

All quotes are from Ellen Bass and Louise Thornton, eds., I Never Told Anyone: Writings by Women Survivors of Child Sexual Abuse (New York: Harper & Row, 1983.)

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If you have been sexually abused, you are not alone. One out of three girls, and one out of seven boys, are sexually abused by the time they reach the age of eighteen. Sexual abuse happens to children of every class, culture, race, religion, and gender. Children are abused by fathers, stepfathers, uncles, brothers, grandparents, neighbors, family friends, baby-sitters, teachers, strangers, and sometimes by aunts and mothers.* Although women do abuse, the vast majority of abusers are heterosexual men.†

All sexual abuse is damaging, and the trauma does not end when the abuse stops. If you were abused as a child, you are probably expe-riencing long-term effects that interfere with your day-to-day func-tioning.

However, it is possible to heal. It is even possible to thrive. Thriving means more than just an alleviation of symptoms, more than Band-Aids, more than functioning adequately. Thriving means enjoy-ing a feelenjoy-ing of wholeness, satisfaction in your life and work, genuine love and trust in your relationships, pleasure in your body.

Until now, much of the literature on child sexual abuse has doc-umented the ravages of abuse, talking extensively about “the tragedy

*

For sources on the scope of child sexual abuse, see Conspiracy of Silence by Sandra Butler, The Best Kept Secret by Florence Rush. Sexually Victimized Children and Child Sexual Abuse by David Finkelhor, and The Secret Trauma by Diana F. H. Russell. Listed in the “About Sexual Abuse” section of the Bibliography, these books cite a variety of studies you can refer to for more complete statistics.

†

See footnote on page 107.

of ruined lives,” but little about recovery. This book is about recov-ery—what it takes, what it feels like, how it can transform your life.

People say “time heals all wounds,” and it’s true to a certain ex-tent. Time will dull some of the pain, but deep healing doesn’t happen unless you consciously choose it. Healing from child sexual abuse takes years of commitment and dedication. But if you are willing to work hard, if you are determined to make lasting changes in your life, if you are able to find good resources and skilled support, you can not only heal but thrive. We believe in miracles and hard work.

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When you were a young child or teenager, were you: ● Touched in sexual areas?

● Shown sexual movies or forced to listen to sexual talk? ● Made to pose for seductive or sexual photographs? ● Subjected to unnecessary medical treatments? ● Forced to perform oral sex on an adult or sibling? ● Raped or otherwise penetrated?

● Fondled, kissed, or held in a way that made you uncomforta-ble?

● Forced to take part in ritualized abuse in which you were phys-ically or sexually tortured?

● Made to watch sexual acts or look at sexual parts? ● Bathed in a way that felt intrusive to you?

● Objectified and ridiculed about your body?

● Encouraged or goaded into sex you didn’t really want? ● Told all you were good for was sex?

● Involved in child prostitution or pornography?*

If you are unable to remember any specific instances like the ones mentioned above but still have a feeling that something abusive

hap-*

Between 500,000 and 1,000,000 children are involved in prostitution and pornography in this country; a high percentage of them are victims of incest. See Sex Work: Writings by Women in the Industry, edited by Frederique Dellacoste and Priscilla Alexander (Pittsburgh: Cleis Press, 1987.)

pened to you, it probably did (see “But I Don’t Have Any Memo-ries”.)

Women who come to Ellen’s workshops are often afraid that their abuse wasn’t bad enough for them to be qualified to participate. They will say, “It wasn’t incest—it was just a friend of the family,” or “I was fourteen and it only happened once.” or “He just showed me movies,” or “It was with my brother. He was only a year older than me.”

Such statements are a measure of the gross minimizing of abuse done in our society.

The fact that someone else has suffered from abuse more severe than your own does not lessen your suffering. Comparisons of pain are simply not useful.

There are many ways of minimizing sexual abuse. A particularly offensive one is to claim that if a man didn’t force his penis into some opening of your body, you weren’t really violated. This is not true. The severity of abuse should not be defined in terms of male genitals. Violation is determined by your experience as a child—your body, your feelings, your spirit. The precise physical acts are not always the most damaging aspects of abuse. Although forcible rape is physically excruciating to a small child, many kinds of sexual abuse are not physically painful. They do not leave visible scars.

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Some abuse is not even physical. Your father may have stood in the bathroom doorway, making suggestive remarks or simply leering when you entered to use the toilet. Your uncle may have walked around naked, calling attention to his penis, talking about his sexual exploits, questioning you about your body. Your tennis coach may have badgered you into telling him exactly what you did with your boyfriend. There are many ways to be violated sexually.

There is also abuse on the psychological level. You had the feel-ing your stepfather was aware of your physical presence every minute of the day, no matter how quiet and unobtrusive you were. Your neighbor watched your changing body with an intrusive interest. Your father took you out on romantic dates and wrote you love letters.

Nor is frequency of abuse what’s at issue. Betrayal takes only a minute. A father can slip his fingers into his daughter’s underpants in thirty seconds. After that the world is not the same.

Children often cope with abuse by forgetting it ever happened. As a result, you may have no conscious memory of being abused. You may have forgotten large chunks of your childhood. Yet there are things you do remember. When you are touched in a certain way, you feel nauseated. Certain words or facial expressions scare you. You know you never liked your mother to touch you. You slept with your

clothes on in junior high school. You were taken to the doctor repeat-edly for vaginal infections.

You may think you don’t have memories, but often as you begin to talk about what you do remember, there emerges a constellation of feelings, reactions, and recollections that add up to substantial infor-mation. To say “I was abused,” you don’t need the kind of recall that would stand up in a court of law.

Often the knowledge that you were abused starts with a tiny feel-ing, an intuition. It’s important to trust that inner voice and work from there. Assume your feelings are valid. So far, no one we’ve talked to thought she might have been abused, and then later discovered that she hadn’t been. The progression always goes the other way, from suspicion to confirmation. If you think you were abused and your life shows the symptoms, then you were.

No matter how committed you are, it is extremely difficult to heal from child sexual abuse in isolation. Much of the damage experienced is the result of the secrecy and silence that surrounded the abuse. Try-ing to heal while perpetuatTry-ing that lonely silence is nearly impossible. It is essential that you have at least one other person with whom you can share your pain and your healing. That person may be anoth-er survivor, a membanoth-er of a support group, or a counselor. He or she

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could be a nurturing partner or family member, or a sibling who was also abused. Ideally, you will have a combination of many resources. (For help in finding support, see “Healing Resources”.)

You may be reading this book at any point in the healing process. You may not yet have identified yourself as a survivor. You may be just starting to make the connection between sexual abuse and its ef-fects in your life. On the other hand, you may be years into an active healing process. Or you may simply want an affirmation of how far you’ve come. This book can provide specific suggestions, support, and validation no matter where you are in the healing process.

Reading this book can be a cathartic healing experience. As you begin to realize that your life makes sense, and that you are not the only one who has suffered, you may experience a tremendous feeling of relief. But relief is not the only response you may have.

In the course of writing this book, we shared parts of the manu-script with many survivors. In response, women have gone out and confronted abusers, renewed their commitment to heal, or shared honestly with their partner for the first time. Some have had break-throughs in their sexuality. Others have stopped blaming themselves.

Women have also reported feeling terrified, furious, and an-guished. Others have connected with forgotten pockets of grief and pain. Women reported having nightmares, flashbacks, new memories. One survivor, a recovering alcoholic, began to crave alcohol as she read. Another woman began fighting with her lover. Several went back to therapy. All said their lives were changed.

If you have unfamiliar or uncomfortable feelings as you read this book, don’t be alarmed. Strong feelings are part of the healing pro-cess. On the other hand, if you breeze through these chapters, you probably aren’t feeling safe enough to confront these issues. Or you may be coping with the book the same way you coped with the abuse—by separating your intellect from your feelings. If that’s the case, stop, take a break, talk to someone for support, and come back to it later. It’s important that you don’t “bear” this book the way you bore the abuse: numb and alone. If you come to a part that stops you, you may be having a hard time with the material in that section. Don’t force yourself to read it. Try a different chapter.

As you read, it’s important to look inside, paying attention to your own thoughts and feelings. The idea of developing such a rela-tionship with yourself may be foreign to you. As women, we’ve been taught to meet the needs of others, that focusing on ourselves is self-ish. But healing requires a willingness to put yourself first.

The other morning, when Ellen listened to the messages on her answering machine, there was one that said, “I called to let you know

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that I really am healing. And this is the sweetest feeling I have ever known—to be whole.”

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Over two hundred survivors volunteered to be interviewed for this book. Out of these, we talked to fifty women in depth. We could not tell everyone’s story in its entirety, but we have included portions of each woman’s experience.

We have also included stories from the participants of the I Never Told Anyone workshops, as well as workshops for partners and for counselors. All these women and men generously gave us permission to include their experiences.

The survivors presented here represent a broad range of women. You will meet women who vary in terms of age, economic back-ground, race, and sexual preference. Some are in committed relation-ships, others are single; there are mothers and non-mothers; women who were abused under different circumstances and by different per-petrators. You will read about women who are at different stages of the healing process and women whose approaches to healing have varied.

The quotes and stories included throughout this book come from survivors and the partners of survivors. Throughout the text, you will see many unidentified quotes. Each quote stands alone and represents

one person’s experience. Sometimes two or more survivors speak on a single page.

We chose not to place a name with every quote because it would have been unwieldy. Yet when it was essential to the story or when someone specifically asked to be identified, we did use names. We wanted to respect each person’s right to choose whether they wanted to use their real name, a pseudonym, or no name at all. (For more on the use of pseudonyms, see “Names or Pseudonyms: The Right to Choose”.) As authors, we also had personal experiences we wanted to share. At those times we identify ourselves by our first names.

The creative writings are primarily by survivors or supporters of survivors—partners, friends, and counselors. The others are poems we thought would have significance for survivors.

Although we’ve included the experiences of male partners and supporters, we chose not to address male survivors directly. Many boys are abused, and male survivors need and deserve support in their healing, but we wrote this book for women because women’s experi-ences were what we understood best. Since most of the healing pro-cess is universal, we hope men who read this book will find it helpful. There is a growing movement of support for male survivors, and

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we’ve included some references in the “Resources for Male Survi-vors” section of the Bibliography.

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In the I Never Told Anyone workshops Ellen leads for adult sur-vivors of child sexual abuse, ten to twenty women come together in an environment of support, confidentiality, and safety to explore their feelings, mourn their violation, gather their strength, and celebrate their survival.

Participants are asked to write about being sexually abused as children. So often survivors have had their experiences denied, trivi-alized, or distorted. Writing is an important avenue for healing be-cause it gives you the opportunity to define your own reality. You can say: This did happen to me. It was that bad. It was the fault and re-sponsibility of the adult. I was—and am—innocent.

By going back and writing about what happened, you also reex-perience feelings and are able to grieve. You excavate the sites in which you’ve buried memory and pain, dread and fury. You relive your history.

One handy thing about writing is that it’s almost always availa-ble. At three in the morning, when you’re alone or you don’t want to

wake your partner, when your friend’s out of town, when your coun-selor’s answering machine is on and even the cat is out prowling, your journal is there. It’s quiet, cheap, and portable. A journal can help you figure out how you feel, what you think, what you need, what you want to say, how you want to handle a situation, just by writing it through.

Using writing as a healing tool can be helpful whether or not you participate in an organized workshop with other survivors. You don’t need to think of yourself as a writer or even like to write. You may have had a limited education. Perhaps you can’t spell or think you’re a terrible writer.

Some survivors have special blocks associated with writing. If your mother read your private diary, if your father was an English teacher and always criticized your written work, if your best friend passed your intimate letters around the junior high school cafeteria, then you may be wary of putting words on paper. But all of us have a deep need for self-expression. Yours may take forms other than writ-ing, but if you’d like to try writing as one method of healwrit-ing, even

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previous blocks need not stand in the way. Many women who have been reluctant to write have done these exercises—and benefited enormously.

Choose a time and place where you won’t be interrupted. Though it may take some arranging, you deserve such a time. Half an hour is a good actual writing time for each exercise. Although you can write for longer if you want, setting a specific time can help you feel com-fortable.

Since writing about sexual abuse can bring up strong feelings, don’t squeeze in your half-hour of writing time between picking the kids up from school and starting dinner. Make sure you give yourself a little time afterward to absorb the impact of the writing.

Writing itself is very helpful, but sharing what you’ve written is important too. After you write, read your writing to someone who will listen attentively and be responsive. Make sure you protect

your-self by not choosing anyone who will reabuse you in any way.

If there’s no one you can read to right away, read out loud to yourself—at least you will be reading to one attentive listener. Just saying the words out loud can make them more real.

If you read your writing to someone who has no experience in lis-tening to personal writing, tell that person what you need. You may say that you’d like them not to criticize or judge what you say. You may want them to ask questions, to help you talk about it more, or you may want them simply to listen quietly. You may want comfort-ing and you may not. People usually respond in more satisfycomfort-ing ways when you tell them what you want.

Try to forget everything you’ve ever been told about writing. What you’re going to do is a kind of free writing, or stream-of-consciousness writing. It’s not about making art or polished crafting or trying to make sense to someone else. Rather it’s a way to short-circuit some of your censors to get to what you need to say.

Write without stopping. Go at a pace that’s comfortable for you, and don’t stop. If you get stuck or can’t think of anything to say, you can write “This is the stupidest exercise I ever heard of,” or “I’m hungry—I wonder if time’s up yet.” One woman who was writing about her abuse stopped every few lines and wrote “I cannot say any more,” and then went on to say more. Allowing herself to refuse to go on, saying no, made it possible for her to go one more step each time.

You needn’t use full sentences. You needn’t spell or punctuate properly. It can be in English or in another language. Sometimes if another language was spoken when you were a child you will

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re-member in that language. If you were abused before you learned to talk, your writing may come out as baby talk.

The Effects . . . page 36 Coping . . . page 56 What Happened to You . . . page 90 The Child Within . . . page 132 Grieving . . . page 139 Disclosures and Confrontations page 169 Reconstructing Family History page 175 Changing Patterns . . . page 199 Your Family Now . . . page 348

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“People have said to me, “Why are you dragging this up now?” Why? WHY!? Because it has controlled every facet of my life. It has damaged me in every possible way. It has destroyed everything in my life that has been of value. It has prevented me from living a comfortable emotional life. It’s prevented me from being able to love clearly. It took my children away from me. I haven’t been able to succeed in the world. If I had a comfortable childhood, I could be anything today. I know that eve-rything I don’t deal with now is one more burden I have to carry for the rest of my life. I don’t care if it happened 500 years ago! It’s influenced me all that time, and it does matter. It matters very much.”

—Jennierose Lavender, 47-year-old survivor

The long-term effects of child sexual abuse can be so pervasive that it’s sometimes hard to pinpoint exactly how the abuse affected you. It permeates everything: your sense of self, your intimate rela-tionships, your sexuality, your parenting, your work life, even your sanity. Everywhere you look, you see its effects. As one survivor ex-plained:

It’s like those pictures I remember from Highlights for

Children magazine. The bicycle was hidden in a tree, a

bana-na was growing from someone’s ear, and all the people were upside-down. The caption underneath said, “What’s wrong

with this picture?” But so many things were disturbed and out of place, it was often easier to say, “What’s right with tins picture?”

Many survivors have been too busy surviving to notice the ways they were hurt by the abuse. But you cannot heal until you acknowledge the areas that need healing.

Because sexual abuse is just one of many factors that influenced your development, it isn’t always possible to isolate its effects from

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the other influences on your life. Is your self-esteem low because you were a Black child raised in a racist society? Because you grew up in a culture that devalues women? Because your mother was an alcohol-ic? Or because you were molested when you were nine? It’s the inter-play of hundreds of factors that make you who you are today.

The way the abuse was handled when you were a child has a lot to do with its subsequent impact. If a child’s disclosure is met with compassion and effective intervention, the healing begins immediate-ly. But if no one noticed or responded to your pain, or if you were blamed, not believed, or suffered further trauma, the damage was compounded. And the ways you coped with the abuse may have cre-ated further problems.

Not all survivors are affected in the same way. You may do well in one area of your life, but not in another. You may be competent at work and in parenting but have trouble with intimacy. Some women have a constant nagging feeling that something is wrong. For others, the damage is so blatant that they feel they’ve wasted their lives:

As far as I’m concerned, my whole life was stolen from me. I didn’t get to be who I could have been. I didn’t get the education I should have gotten when I was young. I married too early. I hid behind my husband. I didn’t make contact with other people. I haven’t had a rich life. It’s not ever too late, but I didn’t start working on this until I was thirty-eight, and not everything can be retrieved. And that makes me very angry.

The effects of child sexual abuse can be devastating, but they do not have to be permanent. As you read this chapter, you may find yourself nodding your head—”Uh-huh, me too”—recognizing, per-haps for the first time, the ways in which the abuse affects your life. Look at the following lists and ask yourself how you’ve been affect-ed. Such recognition will probably be painful, but it is, in fact, part of the healing process.

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When you were abused, your boundaries, your right to say no, your sense of control in the world, were violated. You were power-less. The abuse humiliated you, gave you the message that you were of little value. Nothing you did could stop it.

If you told someone about what was happening to you, they probably ignored you, said you made it up, or told you to forget it. They may have blamed you. Your reality was denied or twisted and you felt crazy. Rather than see the abuser or your parents as bad, you came to believe that you did not deserve to be taken care of, that you in fact deserved abuse. You felt isolated and alone.

Many abused kids are told directly that they’ll never succeed, that they’re stupid, or that they’re only good for sex. With messages like these, it’s hard to believe in yourself.

WHERE ARE YOU NOW?

● Do you feel that you’re bad, dirty, or ashamed? ● Do you feel powerless, like a victim?

● Do you feel different from other people?

● Do you feel there’s something wrong with you deep down in-side? That if people really knew you, they’d leave?

● Do you ever feel self-destructive or suicidal? Or that you simp-ly want to die?

● Do you hate yourself?

● Do you have a hard time nurturing and taking care of yourself? Are you able to enjoy feeling good?

● Do you find it hard to trust your intuition?

● Do you feel unable to protect yourself in dangerous situations? Have you experienced repeated victimization (rape, assault, battery) as an adult?

● Do you have a sense of your own interests, talents, or goals? ● Do you have trouble feeling motivated? Are you often immobi-lized?

● Are you afraid to succeed?

● Can you accomplish things you set out to do? ● Do you feel you have to be perfect?

● Do you use work or achievements to compensate for inade-quate feelings in other parts of your life?

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As a child you could not afford to feel the full extent of your ter-ror, pain, or rage. The agony would have been devastating. You could not have done arithmetic with other second-graders had you known the depth of your sorrow. And you could not think about killing your father when you relied on him to feed you.

Because your innocent love and trust were betrayed, you learned that you could not rely on your feelings. The feelings you expressed may have been disregarded or mocked. You were ignored, told you had nothing to worry about, molested again.

If the adults around you were out of control with their feelings, you got the message that feelings led to violence or destruction. An-ger meant beatings or furniture thrown across the room.

You may have learned to block out physical pain, because it was too devastating or because you did not want to give the abuser the

sat-isfaction of seeing you cry. But since you can’t block feelings selec-tively, you simply stopped feeling.

● Can you recognize your feelings? Tell the difference between them?

● Do you have trouble expressing your feelings?

● Do you value feelings or see them as an indulgence?

● Are you comfortable with anger? Sadness? Happiness? Calm? ● Do you feel confused much of the time?

● Do you experience a wide range of emotions or just a few? ● Are you prone to depression? Nightmares? Panic attacks? ● Have you ever worried about going crazy?

● Are you afraid of your feelings? Do they ever seem out of con-trol?

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Children learn about the world through their bodies. When you were sexually abused, you learned that the world was not a safe place. You experienced pain, betrayal, and conflicting sensations of arousal. Children often learn to leave their bodies to avoid these feelings—or they numb themselves as best they can.

● Do you feel present in your body most of the time? Or are there times when you feel as though you’ve left your body?

● Do you ever use alcohol, drugs, or food in a way that concerns you?

● Do you have a full range of feelings in your body? Or do you sometimes go numb?

● Are you aware of the messages your body gives you (hunger, fear, tiredness, pain)? Do you respond to them?

● Do you have a hard time loving and accepting your body? Do you feel at home in it?

● Do you have any physical illnesses that you think might be connected to your abuse?

● Do you enjoy using your body in activities such as dance, sports, or hiking?

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The building blocks of intimacy—giving and receiving, trusting and being trustworthy—are learned in childhood. If children are given consistent loving attention, they develop skills for establishing and maintaining nurturing relationships. Unfortunately, if you were abused, your natural trust was skewed by adults who misused your innocence. You were told, “Daddy’s only touching you because he loves you” or “I’m doing this so you’ll be a good wife to your hus-band someday.” You grew up with confusing messages about the re-lationship between sex and love, trust and betrayal.

● Do you find it difficult to trust anyone? Do you have close friends?

● Can you imagine a healthy relationship?

● Is it difficult for you to give or receive nurturing? To be affec-tionate?

● Are you afraid of people? Do you feel alienated or lonely?

● Do you tend to get involved with people who are inappropriate or unavailable?

● Have you ever been involved with someone who reminds you of your abuser?

● Do you often feel taken advantage of?

● Do you find that your relationships just don’t work out?

● Do you have trouble making a commitment? Do you panic when people get too close?

● Do you find you’re able to get close to friends, but can’t seem to make things work with a lover?

● Do you find yourself clinging to the people you care about? ● Do you repeatedly test people?

● Do you expect people to leave you? ● Can you say no?

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When children are sexually abused, their natural sexual capacity is stolen. You were introduced to sex on an adult’s timetable, accord-ing to an adult’s needs. You never had a chance to explore naturally, to experience your own desires from the inside. Sexual arousal be-came linked to feelings of shame, disgust, pain, and humiliation. Pleasure became tainted as well. And desire (the abuser’s desire) was dangerous, an out-of-control force used to hurt you.

Children often leave their bodies during sex with the abuser. You numbed yourself or disappeared. You disconnected from sexual feel-ings.

When abuse was coupled with affection, your needs for nurturing were linked with sex. You didn’t learn to meet these needs in other ways.

● Are you able to stay present when making love? Do you go through sex numb or in a panic?

● Do you try to use sex to meet needs that aren’t sexual? Can you accept nurturing and closeness in other ways?

● Do you find yourself avoiding sex or going after sex you really don’t want? Can you say no?

● Do you feel your worth is primarily sexual?

● Are you sexual with partners who respect you? Have you ever had partners who sexually abused you?

● Have you been a prostitute? Or used your sexuality in a way that had elements of exploitation?

● Do you experience sexual pleasure? Sexual desire? Do you think pleasure is bad?

● Do you ever think, sex is disgusting or that you’re disgusting for enjoying it?

● Are you turned on by violent, sadistic, or incestuous fantasies? ● Do you find you need to control everything about sex to feel safe?

● Do you ever experience flashbacks to the abuse?

● Do you have sex because you want to, or only because your partner wants it?

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If the abuse took place within your own family, or if your family did not protect and support you, you grew up in a dysfunctional fami-ly. You did not have the benefit of healthy role models. Until you

ac-tively face your abuse and begin to heal from it, you are likely to re-peat the same kind of parenting you had as a child.

● Do you feel uncomfortable or frightened around children?

● Have you ever been abusive, or feared you might be?

● Do you find it hard to set clear boundaries with children? To balance their needs with your own?

● Do you have a hard time feeling close to your children? Are you comfortable being affectionate with them?

● Have you had trouble protecting the children in your care? ● Are you overprotective?

● Have you taught your children to protect themselves? Have you talked to them honestly about sex?

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Relationships are distorted in incestuous families. The essential trust, sharing, and safety are missing, and in their place there is secre-cy, isolation, and fear. If you were abused by a family member, you may have been made the family scapegoat, repeatedly told that you were crazy or bad. You may have felt isolated, cut off from nurturing contact with others.

Since alcoholism and other dysfunctional patterns often accom-pany sexual abuse, you may have had to cope with these problems as well. Adult responsibilities may have been forced on you.

If the abuse took place outside your family and you weren’t ade-quately heard, you got the message that your pain wasn’t important, that you couldn’t rely on your family to protect or understand you.

● Are you satisfied with your family relationships? Or are they strained and difficult?

● Is the sexual abuse acknowledged in your family? Do the peo-ple in your family support you?

● Do you feel crazy, invalidated, or depressed whenever you see your family? Have you been rejected by your family?

● Have you confronted your abuser or told other family members about your abuse?

● Do you feel safe when you’re with your family?

● Do you expect the people in your family to change? To take care of you? To see your point of view? To believe you? Do you keep hoping?

● Does incest still go on in your family?

If you feel overwhelmed reading this chapter, remember that you have already lived through the hardest part—the abuse itself. You have survived against formidable odds. The same abuse that undercut you has also provided you with many of the inner resources necessary for healing. One quality every survivor can be confident of having is strength. And with an understanding of what it takes to heal, that strength leads directly to determination. As one woman stated: “No one’s gonna fuck with me no more.”

(See the basic method for writing exercises on page 25.)

Write about the ways you’re still affected by the abuse. What are you still carrying in terms of your feelings of self-worth, your work, your relationships, your sexuality? How is your life still pained, still limited?

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Write about the strengths you’ve developed because of the abuse. Think of what it’s taken for you to survive. What are the qualities that enabled you to make it? Perseverance? Flexibility? Self-sufficiency? Write about your strengths with pride.