When it comes to Childhood Sexual Abuse I will work on forgiveness when the perps come to me admit what they have done and ask for it. It is my understanding that by definition that is forgiveness. Otherwise it is submission not forgiveness. I do ask God to have mercy on them. But in this life I am pursuing justice. There is a very definite and healthy line between tolerance and justice in the platonic sense not the revenge sense. By definition there is no forgiveness without the admission of wrong doing. Jesus responded to St, Peter's query If my brother comes to me and asks for forgiveness how many times should I forgive Him Lord 7 times, by saying if you brother comes to you and asks for forgiveness you should forgive him 70 x 7 times. In Hebrew numerology we know that 7 is the number of completion so Jesus told St. Peter he should forgive always an infinite number of times. And I do my best to live that way. However it also says when my brother comes to me and asks for forgiveness, Jesus did not say figure out the wrong yourself and go to your brother and forgive him for things he has not acknowledged as wrong doing. Again, the very idea of this is an absurdity perpetrated by modern day pop psychology and certain ism groups, for whom acceptance is the answer to all their problems. Complete nonsense. Forgiveness without admission is submission.
When I contemplate forgiveness of my perpetrators, I am presented with multiple levels to consider. As a Christian there is what Jesus said. I am either a follower of Christ or I am not. Jesus spoke specifically of this type of scandal. This is a source of hope and faith for me. It gives me great comfort to know that God incarnate, when asked who is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven, placed a child on His lap — this gesture given the realities of His culture speaks volumes. He then went on to speak of choirs of angels, milestones and the sea. God is love, and God values children most.
Then I contemplate the reality of 70 x 7.
Between the ages of 4 and 9 I existed solely for the sexual pleasure of the adults around me. This is the reality of the “family” in which I want to say grew up, but how can. We can see that the issues multiply from this reality. My life since that time has been defined by defense mechanisms symptoms and unrealized potential according to the world’s standards of success. My main defense mechanism was amnesia. Although I shall not go into the details here I am uniquely qualified to speak on this subject.
I pray for my perpetrators for God to have mercy on them. I do not forgive them in this life and I want the remaining perpetrator to receive the full punishment the law has to apply regardless of the statue of limitations. There is a time for tolerance and a time for justice in the platonic sense of the word,
Praying for God to have mercy on her soul is the high road and is forgiveness. Working for her punishment to be held accountable for her horrendous actions and my undeserved consequences is justice. I will not diminish myself by adding “this is the best I can do”. What I have described is forgiveness and righteousness. For her to get away without consequences for her actions then and throughout my adult life by keeping the secret and in fact shaming and blaming me for the consequences that she is responsible for in my life not to mention the lives of others whos lives I have touched and been close to is simply wrong. To not pray for God to have mercy on her would not be forgiving. It would be to deny my Christian faith and the reality of the after life while acknowledging the gravity of her sin, just as Our Lord did.
Lord please let me hang the milestone around her neck. And then at the moment of truth I would drop the stone, turn to our Lord and say Lord Jesus please forgive her, please have mercy on her and then I would walk away turning to His perfect judgement without regret or remorse.
This is forgiveness and release.
So, between the ages of 4 and 9 I existed for the sole purpose of sexually gratifying the adults in my life -- grandma, grandpa, and mom. I was also physically emotionally and verbally abused. My defense mechanism was amnesia ... a good one at the time. dad was a gambler on amphetamines who would come home rage and order us around and then pass out on the couch in his underwear. He criticized everything I did in athletics did his best to take credit for my achievements and then went behind my back undermining me. He admired the later before he passed. I am currently restructuring my thinking and feelings according to the reality. Not as easy as it sounds. I am divorced from my family of origin, but take for example Christmas well I found I still had feelings that were based on the false perceptions of my memories of Christmases past.
This next thing to deal with is the shame. The shame that goes along with being sexually abused. Even though I was too young to understand what was going on I still have that shame that all survivors have. The initial shame of knowing something is wrong. The adults know it . They give us 1000s of different messages that it is wrong and sneaky and bad and that we are bad. Then there are the things they whispered in my ear. How bad I am. What was going to happen to me if i talked. How I was a whore good for nothing but what was happening to me how hew did not want to do it but had to because of me. So, yeah direct immediate shame that rightly belonged to the perpetrator but fell to me. I did not know what whore was but just that I was one. My initial perpetrator was a male , Grandpa who sodomized me when I was 4. So yes I guess I was his whore, although I had no idea what that was at 4 except that I was one.
Then there is that other kind of shame. The shame I don't hear anyone talking about even at the SIA meetings. The shame of knowing that Grandpa is a child molester. The shame of knowing that Grandmas a child molester. But the worst of this type of shame is the shame of knowing that Mom yes my mother, whom has now become my incubator is a child molester. Yes who wants to think their mother is the unthinkable,but she is. and I am the proof she molested me But doesn't that make me bad? Mom is a child molester, she molested me so somehow I am responsible for the sexual abuse I experienced and for Mom being a child molester too?
I haven't exhausted what needs to be said about shame but I thought I should talk a bit about re-truamatezation. This may be controversial in some circles especially those have to do with pop-psychology and one of it's foremost culprits simply know as "recovery." Then I thin I should like to talk about Amnesia in the incest survivor. I don't know maybe we shall cover the gamut and even delve into triggers, which is a misunderstood area of incest survival..
So the pain of accommodating this reality is unfathomable sometimes. The information is there, the evidence the images the truth of it all. but still the constructs of reality must come to the forefront, and the constructs of miss perception must recede. For that is how the mind works by constructs Even though the constructivist model is not yet accepted by psychology as are cognitive, behaviorist even the it model of short term and long term memory are more accepted. But with regard to the human mind the contstructivist model more accurately describes how the mind works. Less like a cpu and ram and more like a relation database with tables or constructs events feellings connected to each other by keys Although the keys themselves.
Re-truamatization involves going into another ego state. I have the ego state that is me, the four year old boy that wants to be traumatized or has been traumatized that wants to understand and remember what has happened, and there is the ego state of the role I played in my family of origin when I was not the traumatized four year old boy. so, there I have three ego states. they are not multiple personalities but ego states in which I relate to the world. In each of two of the the traumatized 4 year old boy and the ego state I adopted to get through the necessity of growing up in a family structured where I was the four old traumatized boy the ego state where there was amnesia the ego state I used to exist and survive and yes please the family origin these two states always have to have the real me the third state repressed. They are both unhealthy in that way.
