Dena, thank you for this question. The best advice I can give is to make sure you're not taking agency away from that person. Childhood rape and sexual assault can leave a person with a lasting feeling of powerlessness, so self direction is paramount. That can be the hardest thing for people who love the survivor, wanting to rescue them or take away the hurt.
Here are some more based on my experiences over 34 years of disclosing and acting in various stages as an adult:
- Sometimes, just listening is the best thing. Listening without any other response but "thank you for trusting me with this." Just being there.
- "I'm here for you, whatever you need." This lets survivors know they can count on you but without expectation that they act at all, or in any set way.
- Go with them, but only when they ask. My husband flew with me to the jurisdiction where many of the crimes occurred so I could give an in-person statement to the police, but I was alone with the police for the statement and forensic interview.
- If they don't want a hug, holding their hand could be a good substitute.
- For perfectionist/achievement-oriented survivors like me, it can be helpful to hear, as I did from my brother, "I don't know that what you experienced will ever completely go away." I am an A-class "fixer," so I aggressively attack any problem, and that can itself become a problem. Sometimes survivors just need to feel the intense anger, grief, and pain for a while, to process and move through it, knowing they might have to do it again. From a religious perspective, acknowledging that evil exists in the world and that God never guaranteed there would be no suffering in this life--this framing was helpful to me and might be to others.
I hope this helps. I think you just gave me a topic for another post!
Your suggestions seem that they would also be helpful for people with less traumatic issues bothering them. Once we get moved, Tom needs some serious de-stressing after these last few years. Wouldn't hurt me either.
Yes, he did feel shame when applying for his CPP last year. We were at the end of the financial rope, but he still felt like a failure. I told him that CPP was EARNED, and very necessary if we didn't want to lose our home to back taxes. Not to mention other bills!
The thoughts you write here are compelling. I have not previously been friendly to the idea of “unforgiveness.”
“Forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors” the Lord’s Prayer says. But you quoted a dictionary definition, that at least in English, forgiveness includes an absence of a desire for the person to be punished. Many times there is not good correspondence between modern/Western concepts and ancient/Eastern ones. Yahweh said, “Judgment is mine, I will repay” (Deuteronomy 32:25), quoted for an example for Hebrews 10:26-27: “If we deliberately go on sinning after we have received the knowledge of the truth, no further sacrifice for sins remains, but only a fearful expectation of judgment and of raging fire that will consume all adversaries.”
Yahweh put the thirst for justice in our hearts: “I will put my laws on their hearts, and write them on their minds,” Hebrews 10:16 quoting Jeremiah 31:34. What else would guide our morality? God’s justice has nothing to do with allowing the innocent to be hurt and the vicious to continue unhindered in their destruction. God made the Law in part to deal with evildoers and protect the innocent. The Law was not for withholding punishment and accountability, but for stopping revenge spirals going on for generations and hurting more innocents.
The fact of someone hiding and denying their crimes is incontrovertible evidence they know they did wrong. They ‘go on sinning’ when they don’t make any attempt to apologize to you and do what they can to help you. They sin when they subvert attempts to hold them accountable. I would interpret your sister to say, “I’ve swept this under the carpet, and you should join me in enabling predators.” Your sister is completely wrong. Your father has a “raging fire” waiting for him because he chose to become a demon instead of a human. He left a wake of generational destruction and pain. God will take care of it in the eternal sense. But in the meantime, we have an earthly system of (very imperfect) justice patterned after what God instituted, here on the physical plane. Running defense for a predator as your sister and mother did/do is WRONG. It is a satanic inversion of God’s law.
Perhaps forgiveness as Jesus taught is more about our own inner freedom. We need our anger to seek justice and hate sin. It’s part of our makeup. But anger can also become a sin in its own right if it takes over our being. I have a lot to forgive my mother and aunt for trying to make me a prostitute as a teenager to “pay for college, clothes, and dinner,” as well as growing up in abject neglect. I confessed to my priest several years ago that I still struggle to forgive my mother. He asked me to consider praying for her by name, whenever she came to mind. So I did that. She has dementia now, I ended up taking care of her for two years. I didn’t care for her well, but I did what I could. Now she is in a memory care facility and honestly I have to force myself to go see her. I’m not saying this to say, “look at me, you should do the same.” No, not at all. I’m still struggling with doing what I can. I’m still struggling to forgive. I’m still struggling to heal. And so are you. You are doing what you can. You’re a hero for going to the police. Survivors know how righteous and brave that act was. You stood up for yourself, you stood up for us. God bless you for that. Anyone out there telling you you’re not doing enough to forgive, they have no business judging you.
Your piece has given me a lot to think about, how many of the ideas of forgiveness we hold as a society and even as Christians are inverted and satanic, and feed the trauma cycle. Forgiveness is not numbness, dissociation and denial. Thank you for writing about this so clearly and bravely.
Thank you for sharing this with your followers, @Margaret Fleck. 🙏
I appreciate your writing about a painful experience. Sometimes this helps others deal more than anything else.
That is my hope. I really had to push myself, with a big push from God behind it.
What would you say is the best way one can support a survivor of childhood sexual abuse?
Dena, thank you for this question. The best advice I can give is to make sure you're not taking agency away from that person. Childhood rape and sexual assault can leave a person with a lasting feeling of powerlessness, so self direction is paramount. That can be the hardest thing for people who love the survivor, wanting to rescue them or take away the hurt.
Here are some more based on my experiences over 34 years of disclosing and acting in various stages as an adult:
- Sometimes, just listening is the best thing. Listening without any other response but "thank you for trusting me with this." Just being there.
- "I'm here for you, whatever you need." This lets survivors know they can count on you but without expectation that they act at all, or in any set way.
- Go with them, but only when they ask. My husband flew with me to the jurisdiction where many of the crimes occurred so I could give an in-person statement to the police, but I was alone with the police for the statement and forensic interview.
- Co-regulate with them, when they seek it: Hugs, when wanted, can be very healing, and I mean that literally, from a neuroscientific perspective, as they lower cortisol and prompt a cascade of feel-good hormones: https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/the-asymmetric-brain/201811/can-i-have-hug-the-surprising-neuroscience-embracing
- If they don't want a hug, holding their hand could be a good substitute.
- For perfectionist/achievement-oriented survivors like me, it can be helpful to hear, as I did from my brother, "I don't know that what you experienced will ever completely go away." I am an A-class "fixer," so I aggressively attack any problem, and that can itself become a problem. Sometimes survivors just need to feel the intense anger, grief, and pain for a while, to process and move through it, knowing they might have to do it again. From a religious perspective, acknowledging that evil exists in the world and that God never guaranteed there would be no suffering in this life--this framing was helpful to me and might be to others.
I hope this helps. I think you just gave me a topic for another post!
Your suggestions seem that they would also be helpful for people with less traumatic issues bothering them. Once we get moved, Tom needs some serious de-stressing after these last few years. Wouldn't hurt me either.
I think they would be! This modern world is full of stressors, so I think we all need a toolkit of responses that help.
Also, shame is, sadly, universal.
Yes, he did feel shame when applying for his CPP last year. We were at the end of the financial rope, but he still felt like a failure. I told him that CPP was EARNED, and very necessary if we didn't want to lose our home to back taxes. Not to mention other bills!
Best wishes to you both, and I'm heartened to know you can apply my suggestions to your own situation.
This will help a lot of people.
I hope so. Thank you for saying that.
The thoughts you write here are compelling. I have not previously been friendly to the idea of “unforgiveness.”
“Forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors” the Lord’s Prayer says. But you quoted a dictionary definition, that at least in English, forgiveness includes an absence of a desire for the person to be punished. Many times there is not good correspondence between modern/Western concepts and ancient/Eastern ones. Yahweh said, “Judgment is mine, I will repay” (Deuteronomy 32:25), quoted for an example for Hebrews 10:26-27: “If we deliberately go on sinning after we have received the knowledge of the truth, no further sacrifice for sins remains, but only a fearful expectation of judgment and of raging fire that will consume all adversaries.”
Yahweh put the thirst for justice in our hearts: “I will put my laws on their hearts, and write them on their minds,” Hebrews 10:16 quoting Jeremiah 31:34. What else would guide our morality? God’s justice has nothing to do with allowing the innocent to be hurt and the vicious to continue unhindered in their destruction. God made the Law in part to deal with evildoers and protect the innocent. The Law was not for withholding punishment and accountability, but for stopping revenge spirals going on for generations and hurting more innocents.
The fact of someone hiding and denying their crimes is incontrovertible evidence they know they did wrong. They ‘go on sinning’ when they don’t make any attempt to apologize to you and do what they can to help you. They sin when they subvert attempts to hold them accountable. I would interpret your sister to say, “I’ve swept this under the carpet, and you should join me in enabling predators.” Your sister is completely wrong. Your father has a “raging fire” waiting for him because he chose to become a demon instead of a human. He left a wake of generational destruction and pain. God will take care of it in the eternal sense. But in the meantime, we have an earthly system of (very imperfect) justice patterned after what God instituted, here on the physical plane. Running defense for a predator as your sister and mother did/do is WRONG. It is a satanic inversion of God’s law.
Perhaps forgiveness as Jesus taught is more about our own inner freedom. We need our anger to seek justice and hate sin. It’s part of our makeup. But anger can also become a sin in its own right if it takes over our being. I have a lot to forgive my mother and aunt for trying to make me a prostitute as a teenager to “pay for college, clothes, and dinner,” as well as growing up in abject neglect. I confessed to my priest several years ago that I still struggle to forgive my mother. He asked me to consider praying for her by name, whenever she came to mind. So I did that. She has dementia now, I ended up taking care of her for two years. I didn’t care for her well, but I did what I could. Now she is in a memory care facility and honestly I have to force myself to go see her. I’m not saying this to say, “look at me, you should do the same.” No, not at all. I’m still struggling with doing what I can. I’m still struggling to forgive. I’m still struggling to heal. And so are you. You are doing what you can. You’re a hero for going to the police. Survivors know how righteous and brave that act was. You stood up for yourself, you stood up for us. God bless you for that. Anyone out there telling you you’re not doing enough to forgive, they have no business judging you.
Your piece has given me a lot to think about, how many of the ideas of forgiveness we hold as a society and even as Christians are inverted and satanic, and feed the trauma cycle. Forgiveness is not numbness, dissociation and denial. Thank you for writing about this so clearly and bravely.
There should be a ‘love’ button for comments like these. You are my new favorite reader.
🥹