About

I’m a 30-something year old female recovering from the devastating effects of incestual childhood sexual abuse (CSA). It started at the age of 9 and lasted until I was 18, and my abuser was my stepfather who was loved and admired by my family. To many, he was the paradigm of self-sacrifice for his family. To me, he was someone to be feared, avoided.

When I was 24 and living thousands of miles away from my family I felt safe enough to stop denying the sexual abuse to myself. I wrote in my journal a statement I hoped no one would ever read: I dislike Tom because he was sexually attracted to me. With that one statement I felt as though I were shedding years of being blamed by my family for not liking him because I was an intellectual snob (he hadn’t finished high school/I went on to complete a PhD; he pumped gas for a living/I was more inclined to the academic life). Even if I never thought about it again, I couldn’t deny it to myself any longer. It was finally written! If I never told anyone what had happened, there was still that journal page, however inaccurate my original take on the situation was (I know now it wasn’t about sexual attraction and my ‘dislike’ was the understatement of the century).

After a while, the journal page wasn’t enough. I didn’t have the words ‘abuse’ or ‘incest’ or ‘rape’ to describe what had happened to me, but I had ‘molested’, and I started telling a few close friends. It was terrifying. I thought everyone would ask why I hadn’t said anything sooner. None of them did. Their supportive responses made it possible for me to go beyond recording my confessions and memories in my journal and to start seeking the help I needed. During those initial months of healing (for that was the beginning of my journey, though I certainly didn’t realize it at the time) I’d go for long stretches of time without remembering the previous days (dissociation). I’d reexperience various aspects of my abuse almost daily either in the form of flashbacks or intrusive memories. I’d miss work without being able to account for my time absent. I remember thinking that if that was what healing from CSA encompassed, no wonder I had avoided thinking about it for so many years. Healing is difficult – the hardest thing I’ve done – but it doesn’t have to be done alone.

After seeing 3 different therapists, I was convinced I was never going to get better – that the nightmares, flashbacks, dissociation and hypervigilance were either going to last forever or that I was going to have to figure out a way to deal with them on my own. I started reading academic books on sexual abuse, incest, child abuse, etc – and I finally had the words to put to my experience: incest, abuse, rape, PTSD, dissociation. These books led me to my current therapist (one of the world’s best *wink*) with whom I have been in treatment for close to two years (as of the close of the 2011 calendar year).

I’m currently in therapy three times per week (twice for individual therapy with aforementioned ‘one of the world’s best’ and once for group therapy). It hasn’t been easy but hands down, with no qualifications, ifs ands or buts, I would rather be going through this healing than not.

Other general thoughts

What is a good life? What is important in life?

Although this blog is, on the surface, about my day to day recovery from childhood sexual abuse (and the PTSD and DID that resulted from it), I’ve come to realize my healing isn’t solely about the abuse. Rather, it also encompasses realizing my own values (which are not defined by my abuse)  and striving to live by them. I’ve tried to crystallize what is important to me: knowing oneself (inscribed, in ancient Greek, of course, at the entrance to the Oracle at Delphi) and contentment/peacefulness in life. Achieving these things is very much a life project, one which contains my journey through PTSD and DID.

One of the turning points for me in working toward contentment and reducing daily anxiety was the start of practicing mindfulness and meditation. At the same time, I also began reading and thinking about self-compassion/loving kindness (metta). These practices, perhaps more than any other single coping skill I have learned and more than any psychiatric medication I am on, have been instrumental in my pursuit of peacefulness.