Along the Path of Healing Pt.1 : The End
I wrote Pt.1 in the second person. I wrote it as addressing other survivors, hoping it might be helpful but aware, too, of how much that distances myself from them. And I worry about that.
Of course, it is I. It is how I feel. It is my end. Other survivors might have a different experience, or they might use different language. Or they might have consequences, both physical and mental, that cannot so easily be separated from the past. Everyone’s path through this is uniquely their own. I can’t really speak for them and speaking to them sets me apart.
I sometimes feel like an imposter here in this group of survivors, because I had my end. It is a feeling very like those I had when I first started on my own journey actually; self-doubt and minimisation and thinking I didn’t have a right to call myself victim. And it is actually very hard to see so many people around me in pain when… I’m okay.
That isn’t a complaint. I suppose it is like survivor guilt, the kind the living sometimes feel when someone has died. I just try to take it as a reminder of what life used to feel like and as a way to maintain my empathy. I know enough not to accept those feelings at face value or let them weigh me down with responsibilities that aren’t mine, but I also know enough to realise that sometimes being okay can seem like a condemnation to those who haven’t reached the end yet. I remember using others to beat myself down that way. When I was trapped in the worst of it.
So… I worry.
But I keep going because while my own need to talk is gone, somewhere – everywhere – there is another small child being damaged right now and talking is all that I can do about that. Putting my hand up and saying -I am a statistic, is all that I can do about that. And somewhere – everywhere – there is yet another person just stepping into their past and thinking that there is no way out of it. So saying, -Yes, there is an end… That seems important.
And somewhere – everywhere – there are people who don’t realise, or don’t want to realise, how close to home child abuse is, how very commonplace it is, and that is what I consider one of the biggest hurdles to changing the realities of far too many children in our society. So… Here I am, Exhibit A, putting my hand up.
But really, it is so much easier not to.
Before the end, and after all those feelings of self-doubt had been silenced, when I was made of nothing but pain and anger, all I did was talk. And talk and talk and talk. I let myself be that victim and I used all the sympathy and support I could find around me, sometimes to the point of exhausting it. And sometimes I talked when it wasn’t “socially appropriate” at all because coming out and saying it made it real and I was screaming to be heard.
And that is good. And that was necessary. But there was a cost involved as well.
When you work so hard to define yourself as victim there is no guarantee that those whom you have given that identity to will be able to see beyond it when you don’t need it any more. Those closest to you had to learn to cope with your “crazy” by reminding themselves that your moods, behaviours, reactions etc were related to the circumstances of your past rather than taking them personally and that is difficult to unlearn. When you are better and you have a genuine issue that relates to their behaviour, well, your credibility is damaged. The habit of distancing themselves and deflecting, which was once necessary for their survival, becomes a real problem.
For me, that meant some relationships were damaged beyond repair. Other relationships, I didn’t even bother to stick around for because I just couldn’t stomach the identity I saw reflected. I wasn’t “her” any more.
And for new relationships? There was a desire to be understood, a desire for the history of my pain to be real to them because it was so central to who I became but at the same time I just wanted to be that person, without the baggage. It is a difficult balance to find; exposing large vulnerabilities and having someone else recognise only strength.
It is much easier just to leave the past behind.
And the same problem exists in society at large. For those who have managed to avoid being touched personally by the issue, all they have to measure their understanding against is what the media presents to them, so when you speak up you once again become defined as victim. They have their righteous indignation about it – because everyone is disgusted by child abuse – but you, as the “victim”, are simply an object of voyeuristic curiosity. You are the car accident they slow down to look at.
No. Of course not everyone is like that but there are enough who are to make continuing to speak when you no longer have a personal need to come with a price. I don’t mean this as a criticism of people at all. And I don’t want it to seem negative. For the most part, I think it is self-defense at the societal level: Child abuse is an ugliness people don’t want to let into their lives. However, when you’ve worked so hard to move from victim to survivor to person, being seen as an object, a statistic, rather than a very self-aware individual with the authority to speak is a bitter pill to swallow.
As someone whose journey ended many, many years ago, this remains a bitter pill to swallow. For long periods I have chosen to leave it alone, chosen to just have what I earned. And now, I just try to accept what it costs. I don’t like it. I don’t know that I can change it.
I guess my point is this… After the war is over, it sometimes still feels harder to remember than to forget. But putting my hand up remains all I can do.
You can only do what is best for yourself, other people are only peripherals and their thoughts/feelings/needs are secondary in this situation. Sadly, too many peripherals try to make themselves central.
I agree. I think it is in some ways entirely my issue – as in how much I choose to be aware of it, or take it on board. But I have to say, it is a conundrum that bothers me sometimes.