What Keeps Us From Dealing With Sexual Abuse?

by on September 6, 2024

This week, we’re sifting through some of the “debris” that can hinder people from moving into the healing process in the wake of sexual abuse. 

Dan and Rachael talk about some of the questions that can keep people feeling stuck and silent: What if I don’t remember everything? What if my healing journey affects my loved ones? Shouldn’t I just forgive and move on? Can I wait until life isn’t so busy? What if facing this feels overwhelming?

By acknowledging these barriers, you can start to see a way through. Next week, we’ll discuss what’s needed to begin the healing journey from past abuse.

Please note that this episode contains discussions of sexual abuse and childhood sexual abuse, and may not be suitable for all audiences. Listener discretion is advised.

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Episode Transcript:

Dan: Rachael, we’re going to return to a topic that obviously involves a great deal of struggle and heartache. We’re going to talk about sexual abuse, and so I don’t think we often offer sort of that notion of a trigger warning, but I think it’s an advisable thing is I’ve heard a number of people talk about listening to the podcast and their children listening most of the time. I think that’s great. It’s just one of those moments I want to let listeners know we’re going to step in to some of the issues that we think need to be articulated, and it’s probably best to know, okay, do I want my son or daughter in the backseat to be listening to this? Probably not. So given that, let me just underscore that we’ve talked about abuse before, and I think it’s important in some ways, even though it won’t be the primary topic, what I want to address is how do we engage the debris that keeps us from actually entering into the conversation? All this got triggered for me when I was in a church setting a conversation that occurred and a person said, oh, you’ve written on sexual abuse. Is that right? And I’m like, yeah, I have. And she said, almost the next sentence. I have something like that in my life, but I just can’t even think about dealing with it. There’s just too much going on in my life right now. And frankly, I just don’t even wonder why people open the door to the past like this. Isn’t it just to be forgiven? And then she goes, but I also know that if I were to open the door to it, I’d feel like I was just in the middle of, there were four or five structural reasons why she didn’t want to enter into the topic. And I’m like, well, then why are you talking to me? If you don’t want to talk about this, why are you opening the door to even the conversation as to all the reasons that you shouldn’t or don’t want to engage? But I want to set some of the parameters first of what keeps us from being able to enter has to do with the reality of what we’ve spoken about before. That abuse always involves betrayal. Grooming, you were set up, whether it took two minutes or whether it took two months, someone groomed you, and already we’re in that realm of the breakdown of trust. So for anyone who’s got a history of abuse, hypervigilance is a pretty significant category, and that’s where what we’re up against as we begin to talk about the debris that keeps people from moving in at all or keeps them from moving further into truly the healing process, there is that hypervigilance that’s almost always so central. And then numbness that comes from that feeling of powerlessness and then isolation because we feel shame. So we’re covering it too quickly, but to be able to go, oh my gosh, there are so many realities from the past playing into the present whenever we’re addressing this topic, betrayal, powerlessness, ambivalence, and shame, and therefore contempt again, you kind of go, well, of course there’s debris. So as we jump into this, where’s your heart and mind go as we begin to talk about debris?

Rachael: Yeah. Oh, I just have so much compassion because I know even the language of debris we’re talking about what happens at the beginning of an initial experience of harm that especially if it’s happening when you’re a child, is so confusing. And we’ll talk more about the nature of grooming and those realities, but then to have a lifetime of debris and often debris that we haven’t made connections to. I hear the fear in the question of the woman that you’re talking about of why would I open that door? And yet, once you start to see how connected often our trauma is in ways that we’ve coped with the harm we’ve experienced, how much work has to go into not opening the door and what it costs us. So I just feel tremendous compassion. I also feel a desire for people to know that there is hope for greater healing and that we may always bear something of the scars of the harm we’ve experienced and we can taste something of new life or restoration, recovery of places. Because the thing is, if you keep something in the past locked down, it doesn’t stay there. First of all, it’s not how our bodies work. They’re way too integrated and interconnected, and our memories are infused in that. But also those are really core parts of us that then are exiled to the past. And so I feel both deep compassion and also a growing desire for people to experience more healing and to know that that’s possible.

Dan: Well, you’ve talked about yourself as being a storm-born woman from growing up in Oklahoma, and it’s almost impossible to talk about debris without talking about just seeing the heartbreak of homes, and its swatches miles being ripped to shreds, and literally that image of debris is inevitable. We know it’s going to be the case with a tornado, and you have had direct experiences of that growing up in Oklahoma, but for whatever reason, we don’t actually think that we’re going to have that kind of debris after events that happened X amount of years ago. Decades. And that’s probably the first, shall we say, obstacle or debris field you have to work through, is that question of memory, I don’t remember. I don’t remember much. Why would I go into that? Because I know it happened, but I don’t really remember. And that’s at least, shall we say, some of the debris that we have to be able to go: well, yes, fragmentation is inevitable in any degree of trauma, and it’s not primarily that it happened 20, 30, 40 years ago. It’s that the experience itself could not be narrated into a story that has a clear beginning, middle, and an end, which is the nature of memory. Memory is a story that we have told ourselves or have heard from others that help us gain meaning for looking at a particular experience. And when fragmentation, when you are in that level of trauma Broca’s area, the portion that manages language is maybe not totally shut down, but it’s largely offline. So what you’re going to have to engage is that very few people have a memory that is highly articulable with regard to their past experience of harm more often than not shards or sensations or an image. And in that, what I have found is the question that people keep bringing up, well, how do I engage a memory I don’t remember? And part of this simple answer is, well, you honor what’s there. You address what you do remember and allow that to come into focus without the demand to be able to know before and after, but to be able to go, what do you recall? And will you tend to it with a heart that welcomes? And I think that’s where a lot of the debris is. How do I welcome what feels so dangerous and harmful?

Rachael: I wish I had a good answer to that question, but I think again, your language of honoring what is there, this kind of entering story, especially of sexual abuse, is being faithful to the small before trying to go to the large and growing a capacity to welcome or to tolerate. And we’re not saying, oh, welcome, because I think what people might hear is, welcome the abuser. Welcome… let’s do some bad theology here and talk about how God brought you this to bring all these good things. It’s like, no, we’re talking about welcoming the parts of your body that hold core memories that need to be engaged with a lot of kindness and wisdom in order to actually be healed so that they don’t keep wreaking havoc in your life with regard to hypervigilance and numbness and a deep sense of not being able to trust that love is good or for you. So, yeah.

Dan: Yeah, that welcoming is an important phrase because there is something again heartbreaking that one must welcome, but also we know by already naming it before we stepped into this debris that there’s so much shame, so many accusations, so much judgment. And so one of the dilemmas with memory is when you have bias, judgment in many ways, accusations, you hold against those young parts that were harmed, the reality is there is something in you that does not want to remember. And so yeah, it’s fragmented, but there’s also a bias that keeps us from being able to take in what’s there. And it’s just important to know that you can’t resolve that in a matter of, well, okay, I won’t be biased. Yeah, I won’t feel shame about that. But to be able to say, I welcome all of that to the table and I will not exclude you in the way that I have done. 

And I think that brings up a second huge issue. That individual I was talking with at a church function said, if I were to deal with some of the things that happened in my family, it would ruin relationships even more than they are today. And I’m like, oh, now we’re closer. Not just memory, but it’s going to bring largely unaddressed conflict to the surface, especially if you’ve got people who groomed you and abused you who are part of your family. And so when we look at about 24 to 27% of those who were abused happened within their own family or incest or intrafamilial abuse. So for those people to open the door to the harm, it’s going to likely create tremors, if not earthquakes, and then tornadoes with regard to the reality of their own home. But even more so what doesn’t seem true is that, well, I wasn’t abused in my family. It’s not going to bring up that much. Well, what we always address is the reality that abuse doesn’t happen in a vacuum, right? So even looking at how did the abuser know you were so desperate for care, how do they know that you were not listened to well? And so in many ways, the moment we address abuse, we’re always addressing the family of origin, even if there are no direct abusers in that context, there’s still the setup that the abuser read and to address, well, my mom was, my dad was my siblings were, and these are the factors that made my vulnerability. I always ask two fundamental questions. Would you have been believed if you had shared as a child? Less than 17% of those who were abused, ever share with an adult that they have been harmed. How come? Well, number one, would you have even been believed? And then second, even if you had been believed, would there have been direct action on your behalf to not only protect you, but to bring righteous justice to the one who has harmed you? And I think from that standpoint, we’re looking at not many families would’ve had the courage or willingness to open the door to it. So the moment you begin to name the nature of your own abuse, you are looking at your family of origin, and that sets you up for a whole, not just past debris, but in many ways having to sift through all that was ruined by that tornado.

Rachael: And I want to go back to something you put words to and just make a really explicit connection here that you’ve stated and just want to state it again for people, the role of shame in keeping, I mean, I think evil loves that sexual abuse brings so much shame because it can keep us so isolated because that’s part of why we have to go back and look. And it does make looking at that abuse never happens in a vacuum, Whether the abuse happened within our family or was in some ways set up by a failure of love in our family, but the role of grooming in sexual abuse always leaves us with feelings of complicity, feelings that this is something we must have wanted, something we must have invited. Why did we get chosen by this person? Why did we like the care that we received initially, even if we did not like at all what was happening to us? And I think that that’s where that connection sometimes to our family of origin becomes even more clear, right? Because part of what you’re talking about is how is shame addressed in family systems? How is shame dealt with exposed, exploited, punished? And so that’s part of why we do have to enter the story because there are ways in which the story begins to reveal to us who is actually ultimately the one or the people or the community that needs to bear the shame that we can’t make that kind of meaning when we’re little. And when we’re little, we can’t actually look at the deficit and be honest about it because that’s also too scary and threatening to be able to say, I’m not getting the care I need here or the nurture I need here. So I’m really seduced by someone who’s reading that I need care and they’re offering it to me. They’re seeing me. And so grooming is just, it’s such a hyper-attunement without any honor, without any sense of being able to also, it’s so exploitative, but it mirrors the care that we’re meant for as little people. And so I think you’re absolutely right. It will bring up more unaddressed conflict, and there can still be a process and a time and a space to know how and when to address that.

Dan: Yeah. Well, I can’t tell you the number of people over 40 some years who in addressing their past abuse, shared the reality with siblings or parents. And the phrase that is so often offered is heartbreaking. And that is “why didn’t you tell me?”

Rachael: Yeah.

Dan: Even the question, even if there is some degree of curiosity, it is a question that is more a structure of accusation. Why didn’t you tell me I would’ve done something? You are flawed. You are a failure. In that sense, we’re right back to that sense of complicity that you named so well, it’s so important to hear that if indeed you have engaged one of your own children or siblings with that question, you need to go back and be able to go, I am so sorry. I now know with greater clarity that that question was assaultive. Here’s what ought to be done. I am so heartbroken to hear, so heartbroken, and I have to start asking the question, what would’ve kept you from being able to share that with me? And that’s the beginning for a different engagement that we’ll talk about in another podcast. And that is, what do you need from your world to be able to address? But you can see why a third, what I would call debris field, is the work that you have done so well then. And that is the realm of spiritual abuse and the amount of, I don’t know what to call it. Bad theology is good enough, but it’s not good enough.

Rachael: It just feels a little docile.

Dan: I need to swear a little, but I’m just not feeling like it at the moment. But it’s just bad to hear somebody say…

Rachael: I would say sometimes it’s deadly theology, right? Is really… yeah.

Dan: Yeah, everyone just wants me to forgive and forget and move on. So that was one of the comments that my acquaintance at church like, shouldn’t we just literally just forgive and move on? And again, this is a conversation at an event that is really brief. And all I could say to her in the initial beginning was, for somebody who doesn’t want to talk about abuse, you’ve brought up a lot of reasons to not talk about abuse. So you’re in a bind, you’re in a bind. You have countless reasons not to talk about it, but you chose to talk about it with me, so thank you. How do we want to engage the fact you’re in this bind? And that’s when she said, well, I just think if we just understood that we’re just to forgive. I’m like, oh, the worst sentence that arose in my mind, I think God didn’t say it is well read a book called Bold Love. It wouldn’t have been helpful, not would’ve been helpful, but that’s the framework of we often get silenced by spirituality that bears a truth, but no truth in the context that it’s offered.

Rachael: Well, and it’s like, yes. I mean, forgiveness is collapsed. So many accountability, repair, rebuilding trust, reconciliation are collapsed into this idea that forgiveness is basically just giving someone a pass for what they did because it’s been forgiven by God. And so we just move on. Well, someone has to eat that harm. And so what you’re really saying is just eat the harm because we don’t actually want to deal with this. We don’t actually want to have to change or be transformed or be in grief or have to encounter some kind of justice as a part of that transformation. And then we don’t get any comfort. We don’t get any presence because actually what is meant to happen even in forgiveness is a kind of presence that is deeply restorative. And that doesn’t happen for most of us. That might not ever be a safe option, but even if we say, oh, just forgive, it’s like, well, what are we forgiving? The event that happened? What it’s cost me throughout decades of my living, the addictions I have to deal with the harm that nobody wanted to engage, so therefore I’ve had to find ways to cope. Are we forgiving that or just the event? So I think that’s where it just feels like, well, yeah, if we want to say you’re just forgiving, what are you forgiving somebody from? And have you been able to enter your story enough to know what it is you are even forgiving? Because it’s rarely just the event of harm itself. It is everything it has cost you in the wake. So again, we’re back to the debris. Do you even know what the debris is?

Dan: Yeah, this feels like, again, I keep having the image of the homes that I’ve seen on the evening news, devastated swatches of ground and cars flipped over again. It’s so important to hear that’s what’s happening internally when you receive truth that isn’t true. It in one sense is so confusing. And again, for somebody who’s already highly susceptible in their own fear of complicity to find a fundamental deep flaw and fault in themselves, when they get slapped in the face with the category of forgiveness, it just confirms shut up, silence, ignore, deny, and move on. The complication is that at least as a therapist, I’ve heard people say, this next category is debris, and that is I’d be open to dealing with the past, but my present is so crazy right now. How would I even have time to think about all that occurred when my marriage is a wreck, when my kids are not doing well, where I don’t like my job? And I think one of the hardest things to bring to that is that often the past is playing itself out in the tragedy of reenactment in terms of the things that you’re struggling with have their own unique, shall we say, pathway. But there’s also something underneath it. And the idea of, well, the fruit on this tree is not as I would prefer. In fact, there’s something really wrong. Then to be able to go, well, we have to dig down, we’ve got to do a bit of excavation to be able to get to where the roots are that actually are influencing how this tree is growing and how the fruit is not as you would wish. So again, the complication is it is going to get worse for most of us before it gets better, and it’s easy to postpone. We know this with regard to our health, with complications, with regard to other portions of our life. The effort today feels too hard, yet not engaged. That effort is going to be even harder in the next year or two down the road. So when you hear that debris field of, I just got too much of my life, I can’t really deal with this, where does your heart go?

Rachael: I mean, part of where it goes is, and this is why I have so much compassion for the woman that you’re talking about in this conversation, is like, yeah, and what the past five years have brought to so many people is a sense that one trauma doesn’t stay separate from the other traumas we’ve experienced. So there’s a lot of, I mean, the kids are not okay right now. There’s a lot of people right now who are being pushed into places of complete overwhelm where your system starts to shut down because it can’t manage and keep at bay this thing because there’s too much other trauma going on. And so I would say, oh, tending to these places that are feeling like one thing I feel is true is when our bodies start to remind us of things that need to be dealt with, I think it is a way we can trust something is saying it’s time, it’s time. And I think we have to trust the spirit to also provide all the things that will be needed. It does have to be a slow process. I think about women who in the process of being pregnant and having doctors in parts of our bodies that we’re not used, how that can trigger trauma memories. And they don’t have the luxury of saying, oh, I want to postpone this because the body is being engaged in the way that whether they want to deal with it or not, they have to deal with it. So again, trauma can surprise you like that. So you can think you can postpone something and push it down the road, and then you might hit that wall in a way where it just becomes too much. And whether you’re making the connections that that’s what’s happening, things in your life are showing you can’t cope as easily. You’re past the edges in a way that you need a different kind of help. So there gets to be a slower process. There gets to be a wisdom and compartmentalizing and having help with doing that there gets to be good somatic care. And again, multiple processes, whether it’s therapy or writing or pursuing pastoral care or story work with people who are trained to engage stories of sexual abuse. It’s like any kind of recovery process, like healing takes time. And it’s not something you have to just take on alone. In fact, I would never advise that it be like a healing process. You just take on alone.

Dan: So well said. And again, to underscore, this is much repair of a broken bone. And not only will there need to be this period of attention due to the slow process of the bone reforming in a cast, but you know that the major work is not that three weeks, six weeks, whatever, it’s the PT work afterwards. And that physical therapy often referred to as PT: pain and torture. That’s what it feels like for people often to go see a therapist or begin the process of sharing something of their story. It feels so vulnerable and it adds to the complexity of life. And now the interplay, like you pay now or you pay later, you’re going to pay what bears more honor. And as long as people know this is not diving into the deep end and then getting it over. It’s entering into the water. Even if it’s just putting your feet in and then maybe slipping into the portion of the pool that only has two feet of water, you’re in the water and that process needs to be engaged. But what I found in the conversation with this woman who actually very courageously wanted to explain why she wasn’t going to engage, she finally got to this point, and that is, I actually am just, if I were to step in, I’m afraid. I’m afraid of all that I would feel. And she used a phrase that I think a number of people have used. It feels like I would be hit by a tsunami. And that phrase, that notion of if I start crying, I fear, then I’ll never stop. That’s right. This is where we’re at in some ways, the deepest sense of debris. And that is I feel like I would be crazy. I already feel crazy. I already feel like if people knew what was happening inside my brain, they would be shocked and surprised and actually put off. But nonetheless, I’m able to cover, I’m able to function. Nobody really knows about my past, but if I were to begin to address this, I would feel like I was overwhelmed. And that again, I want to come back to such wisdom that you just said, no, there are somatic processes that are intended to be part of the engagement of your story so that you learn how to appropriately, not defensively, dissociatively, compartmentalize, but to be able to go at this moment, I am not ready to go any further in this, but your ability to step into the water actually creates the possibility of being able to know. I get to determine how fast, how far, how deep the process will take me and the timeframe it will engage. And I think that’s just so crucial that people understand. We really are afraid of, again, a more technical sense of being psychotic, of being overwhelmed, of literally losing our minds if we enter into that.

Rachael: Well, yeah, and I think this is a part of the debris, right? Because if this has been unaddressed harm and we’ve known a deficit of care, which is part of why we have not found the courage to address it, the imagination is I will have to address it alone and therefore I will have to provide myself what I need and I won’t be able to provide myself what I need if I open those floodgates. And I think that’s part of the bind, right? Because we’re not even from the time where tiny babies, I have a 2-year-old who still needs constant touch and containment to help regulate all that’s pulsing through her body. We are entering toddler land multiple times a day. She’s getting a hug, an invitation to take a breath, like an acknowledgement of the deep emotional turmoil that’s happening in her world without needing to justify that maybe I might perceive it’s ridiculous. It doesn’t matter. It’s not ridiculous to her. It’s real. And so that’s the kind of care we’re really wired for and met for when we’re entering painful waters that dysregulate our nervous system. And so that’s part of the slow movement, is growing trust with the community of care. And I know we’re going to get to that in the next podcast. What are some of the things you need? But I think when we feel that sense of, I’ll start to cry and I’ll never stop. So often our imagination is we will be utterly alone and that it will be up to us to find a way, and that’s just not what we’re meant for, but that’s can be a bind because so much of our world invites us to be in isolation. So it’s a countercultural move toward healing.

Dan: Well, and again, if we try to combine everything that we put words to, the sense of the world of spirituality around me doesn’t want me to engage that, that’s my family doesn’t want me to engage that my spouse, my children don’t want me to engage it. They don’t want more disruption. And we know that there is going to be, and this is true in every area of life, there’s no maturing without disruption. We don’t just mature because it’s additive. Like, oh, I know the scripture better. I pray more, I’m better. Yeah, there is an element of growing in a kind of accumulative way, but if we understand the gospel, the gospel inverts what we think is true and real. And so the subversion of our idolatry, when we begin to actually name that in so many ways, though I am not by any percentage, not 0.0001, responsible for the harm I’ve endured that in so many ways. What I’ve attempted to do to cure my own potential for being harmed again. My hypervigilance has actually been some of the basis of my level of exhaustion. When I begin to look at how I have numbed myself, that’s actually kept me somewhat disconnected, not just from my own body, but from those I care about wonder. So when you begin to go and hold the reality of I am a victim, and I’m simultaneously, again, hear the word slowly, I am not responsible. I am response-able to engage what I’ve attempted to do to find salvation, which actually has often put me in the position of saying, I will be my own God. When you are in that, shall we say calamitous, and at times overwhelming complexity. I can’t metabolize that in any form quickly. And so being able to honor that the spirit is going to lead, I know that just sounds too fled too fast. But the reality is if you open the door to engaging, you’re not going to be dragged through all this. You get the choice. You have taken that first step. What are you doing to, in one sense, escape entering? That’s the debris field. That’s the debris that we’ve got to begin to, in one sense go, yes, you’re afraid of being overwhelmed. Yes, you’re afraid of creating more trouble for yourself and for those around you, can we honor all the debris and begin that slow process? I’ve never been in this position of what do we do with a collapsed home? How do you move all the lumber, all the furniture, everything ruined? But what I’ve noted, at least what seems to be true is that people don’t try to remove the debris field before they go after a few of the items that are still extent and there and precious, the one photograph, the piece of furniture that is still intact. And it’s such an important beginning point to say, even in all the debris, there’s a certain truth we can honor and engage, take it. But now don’t be so overwhelmed by all that’s scattered around you that you refuse the beginning of being able to step into this. Any final thoughts, Rachael?

Rachael: Yeah, there’s one final thought I have, and I won’t be able to nuance it as well as I’d like, but I just feel the spirit prompting me to say it. I think oftentimes another thing that stops people from entering is that they often have as a part of the debris stories where they’ve perpetrated harm, which can be such a reality of people who have experienced sexual abuse as children, that there’s not only a reenactment of trying to escape the harm, but there can be a reenactment of replicating the harm. And you’re not going to get any closer to the kind of repair and healing and honor that you hope for others by withholding care from yourself because you feel like you’re not worthy of it. So can there be a canopy of grace that is also a part of this process? And I think you and I could both say for ourselves, there are still stories of harm that we have yet to be invited into addressing that we’ve experienced. And there are stories of harm that come into more clarity. The more we understand the harm we’ve experienced, the debris we may have brought to others, and the opportunities to enter that with more integrity, more compassion, and more honor. I just felt like I need to say if someone got to the end of this and is like, yeah, but…

Dan: Yeah. Oh, well said. And again, what it prompts is so many of the men that I have worked with who struggle with pornography, who have had affairs, who have sexually harmed others as children and leader perhaps as adults, it’s so important to hear we’re not looking to excuse you as if because you’re abuse, the harm you’ve done is no big deal. But on the other hand, again, this is the complexity that our world can’t bear, and that’s the reality of nuance. We are responsible for the harm we have perpetrated, but it also comes from a context, it also comes from a soil. And so if we are able to enter into the harm that was done to us, I think it frees us to open the door to looking at the harm we’ve done to others. But if what we start with is the harm we have done to others, what generally is the movement is one of increased contempt that masquerades as actually repentance when it’s just a vilification and then asking for mercy for what a wretched, wretched, wretched evil person I have been or am. So when we’re inviting you to this, oh my gosh, it’s a scattered debris, isn’t it? And grateful that you brought that last point to the surface. But what we need to address is what you need in order to make this journey well, meaning none of us are going to create a kind of individual task of coming into that devastated home and doing all the work by ourselves. You generally see communities come together to begin to address those debris fields, and that’s what we need to engage.