Where it all started...

To those I love, (none of what I say below is reflective of my parents)

Throughout my life I stood out, I was always different in some way and in that, some people were naturally drawn to me. I have a kind of childish, charismatic air that instantly makes people feel very comfortable around me or in many cases, very uncomfortable. It's never apparently clear what pushes us to feel these feelings. "Is it because she's too loud?”, "is it because she makes untimely jokes or comments?" I know these are the thoughts going on in some people's minds as over time I've become a master at reading people, their faces, their body language, etc. That may sound conceited but I assure you it was merely a survival mechanism. 

It has been scientifically proven (hasn't everything these days that works in your favor?) that a pedophile has a "type". There are certain qualities and traits that stand out to these people, who more times than not, have endured their own horrifying childhood traumas that they are now inflicting on others. A payback maybe? Or is it just the first time in their lives they have control over not only what happens to them, but control over someone else as well. That power as it is exhibited or assailed, is often the only means of them to feel anything. 

When repeated trauma occurs, especially when it begins at an early age, the mind is not capable of coping with such trauma. This causes the victim to "freeze-in-time" mentally and emotionally often. That means if you were a victim at age 3, as I was, then some of your thought processes and specifically how you deal with events of anger or pain, in the future, to be a response to the original trauma that occurred so long ago. Fight-or-flight.

I spent all of my childhood under a fog of disapproving glances or over-exuberant, salacious looks from men. Once you've been victimized, in many respects, you've been "tagged". These pedophiles recognize this child from as far away as the child recognizes their future abuser. I can walk in a room and instantly "feel sick" to my stomach based on someone that is in the room. In that one encounter, or several for most, you're given a "gift" from God. One to let you know when it's time to run. Hide.

So when you hear a "wild tale" from a girl or boy who says she's been victimized by (fill in blank here) # of men, believe him/her. No one who hasn't been a victim, be it a believable story or not, would make up such tales. She may say it flippantly as if she were telling you her shoe size, but there's no better way to spot a victim than this. It is only after repeated abuse that someone could use words such as these so lightly. Likely, she is screaming for help in the loudest voice she has. She has no hope or thoughts or dreams that there is ever a cure, other than to not have to awaken tomorrow. What has been done to her is unthinkable. It's the type of thing that makes you change the channel when you're watching the news because it's just too much to take. Imagine what it was like for that 3-year-old little girl. If she had to live through it and then with it for all of those years, the least we can do is never undermine her. 

Never tell her that if she had enough faith in God, she would be fine. As if somehow God was going to reach down and touch her, as he did in the Bible, and she's instantly healed. Can God do these things? YES! My God can do anything!!!! There is no doubt of the amazing power of Jesus; I have been washed in the blood of the lamb. However, God did not promise protection for those who loved him. On the contrary, he promised that those who loved him would suffer. We can all wonder how or why these things happen and I can boil it down quickly for those who do believe in Him, Adam and Eve. If it hadn't been them, it would have been their children but we didn't have to wait even that long to exhibit that "free will" that God has given us. 

In that "free will" we each have become whoever it is that we want to be. Whether it was because of the trauma you suffered that you become the victimizer, or because of the trauma you endured you become the therapist that helps those who have been victimized. "Free will" is both a blessing and a curse. Because of our "sin nature" it is a constant battle of wills within ourselves as to who we will serve because "no man can serve two masters". 

In that "free will" grown men may inflict unspeakable acts on small babies, young children, any innocent victim. In that "free will" I may choose to cut myself, find Jesus, sleep-around, lay it at the foot of the cross or kill myself because the pain is so intense that no amount common sense can make it go away; no amount of knowing what is right can sooth the wound that is unbound. No amount of happiness in the presence can make her past pain go away because her brain has been altered to process things as when she was 3 years old, her earliest memory of being sexually abused. Wow, I said it. That was too far. Too much to imagine or think of but ask her and she can tell you exactly how it felt, smelled in the room and where the physiological pain remained even 30 years later. One her doctor could never explain so he said, "it's all in your mind". What a terrible phrase that is. 

In that one phrase you tell that VICTIM that everything that happened to them really didn't or that they were just "too weak" to handle it. What is in our mind is actually there. The mind is not some fictional place that we go when we feel like a vacation. We live there, just as you do, every single day. These physiological issues exist whether or not it's too much for your mind to comprehend. Her mind has simply been broadened beyond what it ever should have been, simply give thanks to our God that you don't have to be able to believe it. You were given the same "free will" to stand in a group of people and declare that "faith" should be enough. 

Those words cut worse than anything anyone could ever say. I am a believer, mother, wife and a friend to many that would not have been so lucky if it weren't for the saving grace of Jesus. Without faith, I would be a drug-abuser, a prostitute; I would have killed myself when I tried the first time in the 5th grade. 5th grade!!! What could possibly have happened to an eleven year old that would make them consider suicide. Did they really want to die? No, they simply wanted the pain to go away, to be able to live with the same innocence that others do. The ability to be able to pass judgment on someone else’s mind, yet never having to face any of the traumas they did. It’s a gift; don’t ever stop being thankful for it.

I have more faith than most people who have survived what I have. Faith can move mountains, faith can heal, faith is trusting that Jesus will not give you more than you can handle. I have that faith. I know that no one loves me as much as Jesus does. I know that despite ignorance and prejudice Jesus will always give me help.

If your house was on fire and your small child was upstairs trapped and you were afraid of heights, would you have her stay in the burning home instead of jumping into the safety net below?

If your child had cancer that was 98% curable with the proper medications and treatments, would you deny that because she needs to have “faith” that God can heal her? GOD CAN HEAL, GOD DOES HEAL; however, he does give us the “free will” to choose to escape using the methods he has provided. We also have the “free will” to say “that way is not good enough”. He will allow our child to be in that 2% that dies if we choose to deny his treatment. After all, man is created in His image and He is the reason we are able to create amazing medications and treatments to fight the ills of this world that were brought on by our “original sin”.

In as much as your child being saved by a cancer-killing medication, if your child was that 3 year old victim, when she was older, would you deny her the medications she needed to be able to help her keep her head above water? Would your ignorance allow her to slip into the typical abyss that generally consumes victims of repeated trauma? Your words of intolerance could be the last she ever hears.

The good news is, there are people, amazing people, like Freud for example, who have dedicated their lives to help those that, even in our advanced culture, are stigmatized as “crazy” or “dramatic”. The truth is, there is no one cure for anything. Period. That cure for cancer that works with every other person in that 98%, doesn’t work with TWO PERCENT of the people. In that room of 100 people, I would hate to be the mother or father of those two.

The same goes with psychology as any other illness. There is no one thing that works for everyone. With much prayer and research and people surrounding you that love you, your faith in the Almighty will be what pulls you through despite the pain inflicted by well-meaning, good people who haven’t had their “faith” tested to such lengths.

I am forced to bite my tongue so often I’m surprised it still has a tip. I, as a SURVIVOR of childhood sexual abuse, by more than one person, am still in the 21^st century, forced to have more self-control than those whose minds cannot possibly even conceive that acts that could be and have been portrayed on others.

How can I continue to do this? I ask myself this often and every single time I hear my Father in Heaven whisper to me “give them grace as I have given it to you.” Even though I have been victimized, there is always someone who can one-up me. I thank God every single day that I am not them. I thank Him for the trauma that I endured, because it is mine and no one else’s. It could have been SO much worse.

The truth is, in the end, I will see Jesus and Lord willing, so will you. No matter how you view me, or how I deal with my past pain or my “Complex Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder”, we will stand next to Him, side-by-side and neither of us will care how we got there or what we did on this earth, all we will care about is that we are there, at His feet, singing praises to our Creator.

I have faith that can move mountains, my mountains, created by abusers, not by myself. I have faith and that is why I know that God’s grace is sufficient for me.