Heal The Abuse - Recover Your Life Jason Goodwin (free ebook novel .TXT) 📖

something about my depression, but I haven’t followedthrough.

_____ 3. I have read self-help books, ortried to find information about depression.

_____ 4. I want to reduce my depressionbecause I’m miserable, but I don’t know where to begin.

_____ 5. I have talked with others aboutdepression and asked for advice on how to cope with it.

_____ 6. I am exercising, journaling, orworking to change my irrational thoughts.

_____ 7. I have gone to a doctor orpsychiatrist to get a screening for depression.

_____ 8. I am actively taking medication orseeing a counselor to reduce symptoms of depression.

_____ 9. I will continue to take medication,seek counseling, exercise regularly, keep a journal of my feelings,work to change my irrational thoughts, and do whatever is necessaryto cope with my depression in a healthy way. I deserve a normalchance of feeling happy.

Chapter 13 –Grieving

“When it seems that our sorrow is too great to beborne,

let us think of the great family of theheavy-hearted into which our grief has

given us entrance,

and inevitable,

we will feel about us,

their arms and their understanding.”

-Helen Keller

Grieving is the process of letting go of thethings we have lost. Survivors of sexual abuse often feel that theylost their childhood or their innocence. It is important that weallow ourselves to grieve.

Childhood was never meant to be a time forsuffering, chaos, or fear. Our childhood is the foundation for therest of our lives. When this foundation involves pain orinstability, our relationships, our self-esteem, and even ourperceptions of the world can change for the worse.

A poor foundation in childhood may influenceour goals for the future. If our home was ruled by fear and chaosor our relationships were abusive, we may repeat those patterns inour adult lives because we can’t imagine anything better.

The loss of our childhood is tragic. It isworthy of our tears. We need to cry for the things we lost. Perhapswe were never given the love we needed to develop healthyself-confidence. Maybe we were never taught to solve our problemsin healthy ways. Some of us feel a deep, empty hole inside ofus.

This loss is real. We need to grieve. We needto release our toxic pain. Healing is the process of letting go ofour past, and working towards a better tomorrow.

Men often have a harder time grieving thanwomen. Society tells men that crying is a sign of weakness. Don’tbelieve it. We are survivors of sexual abuse. We are the strongestmen in the world.

I sometimes ask my male clients one simplequestion. “Does it take more strength to face your pain or to runfrom it?” Avoiding our pain and our tears is not, and never willbe, a sign of strength. As a man, I cry whenever I need to.Expressing my feelings makes me a stronger man, not a weakerone.

Some women also have a hard time crying.These women may have come from homes where emotional expression wasnever encouraged or allowed. Emotions are not a curse. They are notbad. But they can be frightening.

Society tells us that we should stuff ourfeelings, or try to fill the holes in our lives with money, beauty,status, or power. Television commercials suggest that if we justdrink enough alcohol, our pain will somehow magically disappear.But that isn’t true. Painful feelings don’t go away until we allowourselves to feel them.

Sometimes we need to cry and really let itout. Other times, just feeling the pain inside of us and having afew tears is enough.

As children, we wanted parents who wouldprotect us and love us. If our parents sexually abused us, we mayretreat into denial. We may still have a hard time seeing ourparents clearly, even as adults.

Some of us learned to filter our parents’behavior. We exaggerated the times that they were good or lovingand avoided thinking about the times they abused us. We began tosee our parents the way we wanted them to be instead of the waythey truly were.

If our parents were abusive, it may have beeneasier to blame ourselves for the abuse. As children, we arevulnerable. Safety is our highest priority. Children do not havethe strength to cope with intense feelings of insecurity orfear.

At some point, we have to acknowledge thetruth. If our parents abused us, they abused their power. We needto stop justifying what they did. We need to forgive ourselves forwhat happened. We need to start seeing our situation more clearly.We need to accept that our parents may never change.

Everyone’s situation is different. Some of uscan say that our parents were usually loving, while others mustadmit that their parents were often abusive.

Of course, our childhood was probably not allbad. We may have a few good memories. There were probably timeswhen we felt their love.

It’s time to let go of the way we wanted ourparents to be. Healing, in this case, is simply a matter of seeingreality for what it is. Maybe we didn’t get the loving parents wewanted.

If you make excuses for your parents’behavior, blamed yourself for what happened, or always tried to bethe healthy parent your brothers or sisters deserved, I highlyrecommend that you read Co-Dependent No More, by MelodyBeattie. This is an excellent description of the reasons we becomecodependent, and how to break free from this unhealthy behaviorpattern.

Another loss many of us experienced was theloss of our self-respect. Over time, we began to behaveself-destructively. We stayed in abusive relationships, turned todrugs or alcohol, acted out sexually, or treated others andourselves as objects. We failed to respect our bodies and ourpersonal boundaries.

In her book, On Death and Dying,Elizabeth Kubler Ross describes the five stages of grieving. Theyare denial or shock, anger, bargaining, depression, and finallyacceptance. Letting go is something that happens after we havestruggled, processed our feelings of sadness, and gone throughdepression. It occurs when we stop fighting the reality of whathappened to us.

Accepting the fact that we were sexuallyabused is often a grieving process. We may have lost our hopes fora happy childhood. We may have lost our trust in other people orthe safety of this world. We may have lost our self-esteem and ourself-respect. When we accept the truth of what happened to us, wemay really begin to