Abuse February 2008 Verdadera is a publication created by and for Monta Vista teens for the purpose of instigating communication concerning the 'real world' of high school within the community. Each month, an issue on a topic relevant to the lives of our students is sent home for reading by parents and students alike. We encourage you to discuss and explore the issues and stories, as the publication aims not only to offer an outlet for expression but to improve our lives. Keep in mind that the emotions that flow through the text and the feelings behind the words could be those of your child, your classmate, or your best friend. While we do not edit submissions, we aim to publish personal experiences, not opinion articles. Please utilize all the resources present in the publication. Also, feel free to email comments and feedback. The Verdadera staff thanks you for your interest and support. Here are a few words from our professional for this issue, Mr. Brian Sackett. Dear Verdadera reader, When I attended the meeting on this topic, it came as no surprise that there were fewer submissions than usual. I told the committee I thought this was because of the discomfort most people feel, when hearing about the ways people are badly treated, or thinking about your own experiences. Talking about this topic can trigger unwanted memories and emotional pain. It’s often a taboo, and shame is a normal part of experiencing abuse. Several people were extremely brave to write about their experiences, and my hope is that will inspire others to also share their stories – which I understand would be posted on the Verdadera website. It’s comforting to know that you are not alone, that there are others who have gone through similar experiences. I appreciate the service Verdadera offers the community by bringing attention to abuse, which affects all of us.
Student Submissions
Some people tell me abuse is supposed to be continuous. That it’s supposed to be hell day in and day out. I think I’d rather have that. But no, in my family, it came in bursts. My dad would be angry one day, throw lamps, plates, food, against the walls, and yell. And the next he’d come back apologizing. Sometimes he beat us, sometimes he just stewed silently. I think we’d hoped that things would change, for a long time now. But it never really did. He’d give excuses like, I had a bad day, or I got angry, I didn’t mean to hurt you, I didn’t mean to yell, I didn’t mean to break it, I didn’t mean to beat you. It was exasperating, because I could see the human side of him, the trying, the trying so hard to be better, and not the rage that comes out sometimes. He might have even gone to therapy for it, but nothing really worked. One day he came home angry, he punched a hole in the wall. I remembered it because that hole was in my bedroom wall, and I see it everyday I wake up. Someone told me once that as long as we try, try harder, that it’d be enough. But then, why isn’t he better? Why aren’t we better? ______________________________________ _ “Child abuse casts the shadow of a lifetime.” – Herbert Ward ______________________________________ _ I don’t have any best friends. I’ve never really had the chance to make such a friendship. But I have really close friends who understand me perhaps better than I myself do. During the years of high school, my small group of closest friends began to drift apart as time ebbed by. We were all so busy and caught up in our future that slowly, we drifted apart. I’m grateful that one of my closest friends is still so close. She always listens to me whenever I ramble or just talk. She often comforts me when I am upset. She’s funny and friendly. She has the same sarcasm that I have. She does not really get
offended when I throw endless sarcastic remarks at her. But I have a secret. Everyday, in the morning, when I see her, the first thing she does to me is whip up her leg and give me a round house kick. Or if she’s too lazy, she’ll just kick me. She doesn’t, really. But it’s close enough. It’s just a few inches away. I usually smile and throw a sarcastic remark at her. But inside, I wonder, is that all I am to her? Am I just seriously a punching bag for her to kick around? Or is that her first thought when she sees me? Throughout the entire day, she goes through all the routines of punching me in the arm, thudding my head with something hard (usually her textbook), poking me incessantly, and calling me random names like loser and such. Then she smiles and tells me that I’m cute or funny. Throughout the entire day, I go through all the same routines of faking smiles, rubbing my arm, yelping out in shock or pain, and then telling that she’s evil. She grins back at me and tells me she’s cool that way and I agree. I don’t get it. Is that what friends are supposed to do? I mean, I understand that she’s merely joking, so I let her. But the punches get harder and her poking sprees last longer and I begin to wonder. How much of that punch was real? How much of that poking was considered jabbing and stabbing instead of a friendly tease? How much of that smile was a genuine pleasure? The words don’t hurt anymore. I think I’m either numb to it or because I get her sarcasm. But behind those pretended smiles and laughs, sometimes I get the feeling that she really truly does enjoy making me hurt. I get the feelings that she’s proud to be able to beat me. It really hurts on the inside. It really hurts. But I let her do that. I indulge her. Why? Honestly, I’m afraid of her. I’m scared that she’ll hate me if I don’t let her make fun of me. I’m scared that she’ll change her heart if I don’t act the way I do and make her laugh. Better yet, what if she already does?
I don’t think it’s funny or fun or cute or cool to be poked. And it’s not just one poke. It’s like hard jabs endlessly until I just really want to yell at her and tell her to just STOP IT. If my brother even tried to do that, I would be screaming, slamming the doors, and throwing things around already. But I don’t do that. I just smile meekly at her and make the sounds that she wants to hear. If I don’t whine or yelp or make some noise, she won’t stop. And I just don’t understand how it’s fun. I just don’t understand why I hurt this much but all she does is tell my other friends to do this, too. But I don’t want to tell her. I don’t want to hurt her feelings. All the things we’ve been through since freshman year has made me so afraid that she’ll go off and do something crazy if I tell her the truth. Please don’t do anything crazy if you’re reading this and you know who you are. Please don’t do something that’ll hurt yourself. Because I can’t stand the fact that I’ve already killed so many of my friends on the inside. I can’t stand the fact that I’ve ruined so many lives because of my mistakes. And I can’t stand the possibility of losing you, too. I’m sorry. I don’t know why I’m writing this and even submitting this to Verdadera because on one side, I don’t want to hurt anyone anymore, but on the other, I just really, really need to get this out. I obviously can’t tell her this in person or even via email, and my other friends would probably just shake me off and telling me that I’m overreacting. I think it’s sad. I think it’s sad that one of my closest friends pokes me until I want to cry, hits me with things on the head so hard that I get dizzy sometimes, kicks me around so that I feel as if I were made of dirt, and then punches me like I’m some faceless bag. I think it’s sad that I have to go home and lie in bed by myself at night and cry over these things and wish that it wouldn’t hurt so much. I think it’s sad that every time I think about this, I have to cry and hate myself. I think it’s pathetic that I have images of hitting my closest friend or even killing her sometimes when I think about it. I
think I’m disgusting for thinking that and I think it’s even more disgusting when I have to go punish myself even more by letting her punch me until my arms turn red. But still, she’s my closest friend, and I can’t exactly change her ways. She’s stubborn and asking her to change is like asking her to punch me in the face. So all the options I have left is to let her continue doing that to me or kill myself so I won’t have to face her. I don’t know which one is better. Can you help me decide? ______________________________________ _ all throughout my childhood, i've seen my parents lose complete control. it's weird. sometimes we're one big happy family, my brothers and my sisters and i. we're a big family. and then sometimes, maybe it's just the personality of one of my brothers and my dad, but they just snap. they'll hit each other and my mom will cry and i honestly thought that they were close to killing each other once. it's made me so against violence. i hate when people argue because i feel like they're gonna lose control like my family does. at school, if my friends have an argument, i feel like all of a sudden someone is going to throw a punch even if it's not likely. it's scary. i'm afraid that one day, someone will lose control and it'll happen to me. or even worse, that it will be me. ______________________________________ _ “Don't abuse your friends and expect them to consider it criticism.” Edgar Watson Howe ______________________________________ _ I don’t like to look back on it. In fact, I do pretty much everything I can to avoid thinking about it. I guess that’s not healthy, but remembering it is so painful and literally makes me cringe. I didn’t tell anyone until a couple years ago, and when I did tell someone I told a group of people
that I hardly knew and never saw again. I don’t know why. Then, about two years ago I told my dad. I was sitting at our table crying in the middle of Chili’s. I don’t know why I told him. It didn’t make me feel better. I thought after that we would have a stronger relationship but we didn’t. Well, for a week maybe, but after that it was back to the same shitty way he treats me. The worst thing is I used to have to face him because no one knew. Now that my dad knew he barely did anything. I don’t know what I wanted him to do. Sometimes, I wish I didn’t tell him. I don’t know. I never know. I don’t think about it anymore though. I’ve gotten much better at averting my thoughts. I used to think about it at least once a day. It’s not like I wanted to. It just haunted me. A while ago he emailed me apologizing, saying the apology was really overdue. All I felt when I read it was disgust. For some reason, I kept the email. …He emailed me a few days ago. I didn’t open it. I don’t want to. I don’t think I ever will… but I kept it. God he makes me so sick. He used to be the greatest person to me. Now, I haven’t talked to him in years. He’s had a stroke or two since and several other health complications. He’s pretty sick actually. My uncle went to live with him and take care of him for a while. Secretly… I want him to die. I could not ever imagine a hatred like this. I never got why people hated like this, but now I understand it. That’s disgusting. When my dad went to go see him, I secretly wish he didn’t. I loathed that he would go show compassion for a man that is that awful. Now, after everything he did to me, I don’t trust men. Older men freak me out. If they touch me or embrace me, I hate it. Being alone with an older man, even a friend’s dad, makes me extremely paranoid. If I’m alone with a friend’s dad or any older man, I’ll be thinking of ways, if needed, to escape or call 911. Once, I briefly thought about pressing charges. But when I talked to a girl who was in a somewhat similar situation, she told me you have to repeat the story over and over again to many different people, and it is a very difficult, long process. I don’t think I could do that. Then all my family would know too.
And for me, it’s not just one incident I’d have to replay. It was a whole childhood of hell. I’m not in a stable household or place in life where that would be okay… I just want it to go away. ______________________________________ No one likes to be abused. In high school, it just happens. Not like teachers sleeping with students or inappropriate touching, but people using their so called friends to further their own ends. Is it wrong to be happy that you are in a group with a smart person? It can be as little as giving the funny guy the chief role in the presentation, you're using him to his best extent. I think abuse is when you force someone to do what they don't want. You think that we live in Monta Vista and everything is hunky dory, right? Well sure, its better than most anywhere else but this isn't paradise. Kids can still be perverts and everyone is obsessed with grades. It isn't on the surface and its not that bad. At least for me. Most of the time. There have been occasions where my buds want me to cheat, do stuff I don't want, or act in a manner which I shouldn't. Often it isn't direct, more of a felt thing, like doing it would make me more part of the group. Peer pressure is stifling, and doing the right thing sucks, and I personally don't always have the guts to go it. I am weak. The worst is when you see someone picking on someone else and don't say anything. That is really bad. But you can't do anything for fear of being the next victim. You still feel hecka bad
for the current victim, but you walk away. I walk away. I don't have the guts. I am weak. Then you tell yourself you'll be strong next time. And you're not. Its nothing terrible, like rape or mugging, but little things, like name calling, cheating, and messing with their stuff. I have seen a lot. I haven't stopped a lot. ______________________________________ “When personal freedom's being abused, you have to move to limit it.” −
Bill Clinton
I have always had to protect myself from things that were meant to protect me. As a child, I was beaten up by my teachers, robbed by my fellow classmates, and battered by my mother. I was one student out of a 100 in one classroom. For every question we got wrong we were smacked with a ruler. For talking too loudly we had to kneel in a corner o the room with our hands up. This went on for months, until the punishment escalated, soon the teachers made students take their clothes off stand in front of a classroom, and the rest of the students had to chant “shame”. Some teachers would take a group of misbehaving students, room to room for the “shame” chant for hours. I don't know if it was fear, a sense of power or our age that dove us to listen, but we never rebelled against authority. I don't know when I invited my classmates to steal what little I had, but no one ever stopped them. Every day I went home without any supplies, so I couldn't do any of my homework. Some days they would steal my uniform ribbons and unbraid my hair, or rip and spill stuff all
over my uniform. The next day would start with beatings or my shabby appearance, and it would end with more beatings for the homework I couldn't do. Finally my teacher beat me on my overall “laziness”, so I found a piece of glass and cut into my arm. I tried writing with my blood, but ended up staining half a page before the cut healed up. When I opened my notebook for my work to be checked my teacher only saw a blank page, and made me sit outside to do the assignment three times. Because of this I was late to my next lesson. So after school when I was robbed of something or the other they stole the watch my dad gave me before we were separated. It was a little pink baby watch that was too small for my wrist, and as much as I wanted to believe I didn't want the watch I struggled to keep the tears in as I met my mom. I avoided showing her my wrist, and when she asked me for the time I pretended to look at my wrist and called out a random number. She gave me $5 and told me to never come home until I found that watch. I didn't know my own way home so I stalked her, and waited outside my house for hours before I got cold and hungry and begged to come inside. And she let me as long as I promised to get that watch back the next day. I told the teacher the next day, and she called the thief's parents. For once the teacher supported me, and let me decide the girl's punishment, but I couldn't think of anything. I believed God was punishing me. God controlled my fate and suffering. So how could I decide hers? My mother never wanted my love. I still don't know, nor do I yearn for the reason like I used to. As a a child she used me as an excuse to get money from my relatives and my dad. Yet, she let me starve for days and locked me inside a room because I was an evil that should die
without ever been seen or heard. Even now, she pretends to give a damn about my life, and acts as if the decisions she makes are to help me in the future. People often see her as a nice, classy, sweet old woman. And although her ulterior motives are hard to prove, they're still there. There have been times when I believed I would never escape my situation. Where everything seems so routine and trivial, but the pain is unbearable. Some days it's too hard to get up in the morning and pretend to know the outcome of my day. But now I have the chance the escape and make the best of my current situation. I want to give the world my best, because they haven't seen it yet. And when the world sees what I have to offer, no one will be able to deny my existence. I don't think I turned out the way most people expect. I'm not an abuser and I don't try to escape my reality. My parents are too caught up with their own lives to care about my grades or my health, so I became very selfdisciplined. People wonder why I work so hard, or whether I'm faking my happiness. My answer is.. I want things that people, who have their whole lives laid out, can envy. And I don't know how to fake happiness. ______________________________________ _ “The real sin against life is to abuse and destroy beauty, even one's own even more, one's own, for that has been put in our care and we are responsible for its wellbeing.” Katherine Anne Porter ______________________________________ _ Sesame Street, Mr. Rogers and Barney ruled my life in first grade and I was a great colorer. The teacher would hang my assignments up on the wall whenever I stayed in the lines. There is nothing admirable about staying in the lines. I
rarely actually breathe. Instead I freeze like a possum and use minimal and shallow air filtering. I have to remind myself to breathe in and breathe out; to fill my lungs with oxygen and to release carbon dioxide; to feel the breaths throughout my entire body. Sometimes I wonder if my sister, a methodist minister, ever prays for me and if she ever does, when that thought settles, what that really means to me. My brain has this inbuilt imprinted process where everything I say aloud or write down is always censored. My thoughts come but are never allowed to the surface they are stopped. So, I either believe I have nothing to say that is worthwhile or what I say is completely butchered from it's original context into something more valued by the rest of the world, but not to me. Usually, I can not tell the difference because this censorship is no longer an outer force and has become my own, my innate censor. The only person fully present emotionally and in a healthy manner is my therapist and the only thing I have to speak about from the present is my therapy. It's debilitating to stop and really think about how dependent I feel that I am on this; the only nonjudgmental positivity in my life. On Sunday, I tried a different form of psychotherapy aside talking and art. My progress seems so limited. In other words, there is a complete lack of progress mentally and so it was a new option and another attempt. It is called Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR). There is a study that shows "eye movements can reduce the intensity of disturbing thoughts, under certain conditions" (or so this nice little pamphlet tells me so). Another therapist recently trained in for this particular therapy came in to administer. In my case, I chose to have a device called a cricket to hold in the palm of my hands. You hold two parts of it in the palm of both of your hands and it vibrates back and forth, switching from left to right. The idea is that when talking/thinking of traumatic things that both sides of the brain are
being stimulated and therefore, rethinking about it later will decrease the feelings associated with it. During the session, I cried nearly the entire time. The therapist administering the EMDR, Jennifer Holden asked me to imagine a time recently where I felt anxiety being around people as being around people has always caused anxiety for me as is quite evident in my current situation of social isolation. I thought about Thanksgiving in New York being around family and feeling insignificant/unimportant, ignored, judged and alone. Next, I was instructed to think of a time when I was a child where I had the same feelings and fears. Current feelings in situations stem from past feelings as a child. I thought of being around six years old and curled up by myself with my sisters and parents around. It was the same situation as Thanksgiving except I was fifteen years younger. Still, the same feelings now as then. During all of this my eyes are closed to be able to picture and imagine and I am balling my eyes out through this whole experience. After the initial feelings, there is supposed to be a new positive outcome for what never did occur. Jennifer Holden asked if I could imagine a nurturing figure in my life coming to take my sixyearold self away to somewhere safe and loving. And it completely broke me that the only nurturing figure currently in my life is Robin. So, I pictured my adult self and Robin coming to get my sixyearold self and taking her to a place of safety. It was a meadow with tall green grass going for miles. In the meadow were animals and people dancing and playing instruments. There was a picture of what my ideal family would be there also. This is my place of safety. At this moment, I started to become calm. This is where the EMDR session ended. From the intensity of it, it seems as though feelings came up from other traumatic events in my life also and were seen and felt through simply the idea of what my family has done to me. I can't say if it helped in the longrun to decrease the feelings. It seemed so at first but
afterward, I felt the emotions coming back more strongly than before like they had been suppressed and I was not ready to deal with them all right then, in the span of an hour and twenty minutes. Maybe I should be making more effort to reach out to definite things such as attending support groups for depression, PTSD, sexual abuse, anything. Support groups are more or less certain even if the people change. I mean, they will always be there. But the downplaying, the minimization, the fear of doing things alone and denying of the severity of my feelings overtakes any want to actually join these groups that will inevitably have at least one person who will sympathize. It is another reason for me to stay scared and stuck and to harbor all emotion, to not deal with anything difficult. I have been thinking about violence and how it is not always physical in nature that one can sense the anger in others voices and body language and that can feel very much so just as physical violence and have the same affects that emotional abuse is full of hidden violence. My handwriting could constitute as violent at times the lashing and quickness and pushing down of the hand. When I used to cut myself that was violent. The picking the skin around my nails to the point of bleeding and biting of my lips is violent. The act of pulling out every eyelash that has taken the place for the rest of these actions I have ceased is violent. When one thing destructive ends so I replace it with another. It never stops. Nothing is ever solved or gone. It simply shows and replaces itself by another means that achieves the same outcome. I always wait for something "good" to occur and when it does, or something turns for the better, there is always another negative thought for me to focus on to take it's place, to keep myself down and negative before another person has the chance. ______________________________________
_ My dad abused my mom a lot, when I was little he used to beat her at night, and she had to do whatever he wanted because she didn’t want to wake me up. I’m not sure how I found out. I remember one day when I was reading a book about parents splitting up, and divorce and I wondered how it’d be like if my parents were separated. I must have left the book sitting face up, because my mom saw it, and she gave me a talk. She cried. She was crying because she understood that it hurt me, to see my family like this. I told her it didn’t, that she should divorce my dad, because he wasn’t treating her right. My mom didn’t, not for quite a few years anyways… I think her aim must have been to give me what protection she could, give me what remnant of a family life I could have had. But it made her suffer; it meant that she had to deal with threats, beatings, and mistreatment. This ended not too long ago, when my dad left. The details are sketchy, and I don’t think I’d want to remember even if I could. Afterwards, I don’t know if I felt any different, my mom probably did, but the thing was, I didn’t feel like I ever really had a family to begin with. There was always yelling, screaming, and I don’t think I ever really liked it in my house, I ended up going out on the porch a lot, or out on the roof. Sometimes I wonder if there’s supposed to be some kind of moral in a life story, I never really figured out. I’ll be off to college soon; I just hope I can leave all this behind. ______________________________________ _ ““I was angry about the fact that my father would beat my mother on a daily basis, that my mother would take it in turn and beat on me. I was an abused child. I was mad about all those things, very bitter and very angry.” Rick James
______________________________________ _ Spending today thinking about how and what to write on this topic has done enough to completely exhaust me. It makes sense; sleep has always been a way to cope for me and to stop from exploding or feeling when I can't allow myself that. I question whether it makes sense to be all of a sudden addressing the last few topics as I have been doing in here all at once because they do affect me and much still feels traumatic. In the end, I figure it is better for me to be revisiting and acknowledging these events and feelings while I still do not have many other external stresses. There is nothing worse than not facing things and having them all come back while your daily life does not permit you to fully examine everything. Fortunately, right now, I can. I know many other people are not allowed that privilege to be allowed to truly take care of themselves emotionally. Also, what I am going to write in this entry is particularly important to me. I have always felt really alone on this. Therefore, I am asking if you read this, if you could please acknowledge in some way that you have even if by simply saying you did read it. That's all I need to know. No one that I am allowing to read this strikes me as someone that would but hopefully, if you do not read through this, you will not comment and say you read it anyway. Nonetheless, I do want to make it clear. I met Andrew either in sixth or seventh grade. Right now, I do not recall what one it was but we got along right away and became close friends fairly quickly. We talked a lot in class and in school. Soon, we began hanging out at the mall and going to see the movies often. Sometimes, I would go over to his house; the usual gettogethers that teens somehow think are magically awesome. As a side note, I never have liked having people over my house. I always went over to other people's home's because I never enjoyed being at mine. Anyway, Andy
and I got along really great. I went on a trip to New York City with him and his church. He really was probably my closest friends at the time. Some would comment that we looked so cute together and that we should be a couple. But by that time, we had hung out so much and got along so well that I really only saw him as a close friend. I did not have a romantic interest in him and presumably, it was pretty clear to me that he did not either. In the summer after eighth grade, he invited me to go down to his family's summer cottage in Cape Cod. I felt excited about this never having been to Cape Cod and hearing how beautiful it is. I convinced my parents and there I traveled to stay with Andrew and his family for a week. At least for the first few days, everything was going well. I got along with his parents, older brother and younger sister. We all had previously met from the multitude of times Andrew and I hung out together. Then, there was one night where we were on the couch together watching television. Everyone else was asleep at the time. He began massaging my shoulders, putting his hands on my stomach, starting to reach below my pants and to right below my underwear. At that point, I backed off to the opposite side of the couch so I would be face to face with him and at a distance. I didn't say anything about it. I just moved away. I didn't understand what was happening. I did not get it. I kept thinking, Andrew is my best friend, what is he doing? One has to understand, no one had ever had any talk with me at this point and never did. And when I say talk, I refer to the sex talk, the birds and the bees. Or the puberty talk. Or the period talk. Or the your body is sacred and no one should and can touch it without your permission especially those private areas. I did not know what he was doing was sexual even though I had to be fourteen, almost fifteen, at the time. I was not misinformed but rather gravely uninformed of anything of importance. And I am sure Andrew was never shown how to respect other people and their bodies. I am sure someone had either shown and done what he was doing to me to him. And he did not
understand either. In no way does that take away the pain he inflicted upon me or make it right. No, that is not true at all. What I did know at the time is that I felt extremely uncomfortable. I felt my body was invaded. I allowed myself to feel that. I could understand that much. But I did not know to walk away or tell someone or what else to do but slowly back away and stay still and hope he does not do anything else. So, we are still on the couch. My feet are up on the couch. He grabs my foot and slowly slides it up his shorts, using my foot to massage his penis. Again, I let him. After, I remember staring at him in question, wondering what the hell was going on and why he would do this to me. It was after this thought and glimpse at him that I decided to go upstairs to go to bed. I could not sleep well at all that night. I listened to music on my cassette disc player trying not to think about this. I was sleeping in the same room with Andrew's little sister, so I silently cried. The next morning, I did not want to get up. I think Andrew's mom tried to get me up saying that Andrew's two friends from Cape Cod were coming down, that they were all heading to town and that I was welcome to go along. I did not want to get out of bed. I did not want to see Andrew and so I didn't. When I knew that he had left, I got up and waited around until he came back for the day. Now, there were also these two girls he was friends with and so it was no longer him and I alone. I was able to pretty much ignore him at this point. I was only down there for a day or two longer so it wasn't terrible. After this incident, I stopped talking to him completely. And through that effort, I really did repress what happened in this time period because after a few months, Andrew and I were in contact again. He would say how his mom was wondering what he did to make us no longer talk. And I genuinely could not remember. I convinced myself that I just was angry at him for some silly reason and stopped
talking to him. I convinced myself it was a silly reason because I did not remember what happened. It was the only explanation. So, for the next few years onandoff, I would have casual conversations with Andrew. I even hung out with him a few times. The last time I saw him was only about a year and a half ago. Up to that point, I blocked all of this out. What brought back what happened was somehow I received a request for a password change at this online blog I used to use back when this happened. I forgot I even had this blog or used the site. I logged into my account and read an entry that I wrote almost directly after this happened. When I read the entry, everything started coming back. If I had not documented this or received a reminder that I even had these entries still, I probably would still have this memory blocked. That alone really scares me that I have or have had the ability to completely blockout entire traumatic events. The whole instance with Andrew is helping me make sense of part of the reason I was feeling so awful back at the time. It really helps piece events together. After Jennifer broke up with me right before the start of my junior year, I started feeling worse. I felt that I no longer had anything to fall back on and no one that loved me and clearly, I had no idea how to love myself. To say the least, I was incredibly lost. I was in a chatroom online and this man made a comment towards me saying that it was great that someone my age had such wit and humor. I started talking to him. Once again, he came across as a really nice guy. It never hit me that it was strange for a thirtyfour year old man to be talking to a seventeen year old. Plus, I am not one for ageism. But I do see now, that there is or should be such a difference between a seventeenyearold and a thirtyfour year old. Although there is also a huge difference between a twentyyearold and a thirtyfouryearold mentally and developmentally but somehow, it is magically all right for such hypothetical two people to have a relationship since the younger person is
passed the age of consent. I don't know, it makes no sense... I feel really embarrassed by all of this to this day. I feel like I was incredibly naive and dumb. We talked about general stuff. It was a very friendly talk as two platonic friends would speak. It wasn't any "To Catch a Predator" direct sexual advancing conversations. If that was the case, I would not be talking to this guy at all. What else makes me embarrassed and guilty about this is that a part of me did have a romantic interest in this man. Okay, I had never even met this man and I had a crush on him. These initial feelings I had make it harder for me to accept that I did not bring what he did onto me, even though I never outwardly said to him that I had any interest in him as more than a friend. But I felt it and so what happened next has been fairly distorted by thoughts and any sense of reason is out the door. We had been chatting for a few months and he said he wanted me to come visit him. In the summer before my junior year, I did. A part of me knew what I was doing was wrong because I did not tell my parents. I was actually going to visit a friend my age that had a place in Queens that he stayed for the summer. That is how I got away with it because I really was, except I left out that before I did this, I was going to Mamaroneck, NY to visit Vladimir, the thirty four year old. I stepped off the train onto the platform at the Mamaroneck town stop and there he was to my right. I ran over and hugged him and we walked back to his home at the time that he was sharing with a few other roommates. After I put my bags down, we walked around town for a bit and went to a pizza parlor. We came back to the house. I want to describe what his room looked like. It was small and the bed taking up a large amount of the space in the middle. He had lots of movies on one side along with a window. And then on another wall he had lots and lots of cassette discs. On the wall nearest the door,
there were musician and a few movie posters with his computer in the corner farthest away from the door. So, he continued to show me this photo album of his family. He told me stories about how his mother left him when he was young and that he had kids that he barely ever saw since he was now divorced. He had his arm around me and I felt sympathy for him. What I see about this whole situation now and why the hell I would choose to go visit him was that it was my strange and false attempt at fulfilling the empty relationship I have with my own father. This never entered my mind at the time or I would have been enlightened about the situation and never have gone to visit Vladimir in the first place. It all would have been avoided. But once again, I did not get it at the time. And so for a while, it really was this father & daughter dynamic when he was telling me stories about his family and had his arm around me. In reality, he was only a child too. The day progressed into night and by this time he had shown me videos of him when he was a younger age practicing with his band. Vladimir's a musician. So, what I think about him doing this now is he was using me to relive his time when he was closer to my age. He was connecting to me to get closer to being that age again himself. That went on for a long time. He had at least a few hours of videotapes of him playing keyboards and singing. He was very insistent upon that. Somewhere between all of this, one of his sisters called and he talked to her for a good amount of time. Afterward, we watched an old zombie and a new(er) horror movie. Everything was going fine up until then. He took out lotion and began massaging my legs and body. I was on my back and I have no idea why I was letting him. Actually, I do. It was because I was incredibly scared. Once again, I used the tactic of slowly sitting up and backing away. I tried to attempt to sleep at that point suggesting that I was tired. I was wearing a dress and he undid the buckle and began
touching my breasts. He was breathing hard. His penis was hard. What I did at this point was stare at the ceiling. I fixated on a part of the ceiling and just froze and kept staring. I kept trying to imagine I wasn't there and that I was actually somewhere else. I do think I had an out ofbody experience to a degree, at least mentally because I imagined myself not in the moment. It wasn't that I was not in the room, but I was certainly mentally shutdown from everything that was happening to me. The next thing I remember, I was curled up in fetal position in the corner of the bed up against the wall of compact discs. I was huddled covering my ears as he kept tapping my shoulder. He said, "I'm sorry." I ignored him and eventually, he left the room. I think I fell asleep. Some time had passed and he asked if I wanted to go to a fair. I said no. He asked if I wanted something to eat and I just wanted to get out of that room at this point so I agreed. We went to the kitchen and he cooked me spaghetti. "Oh, uh, if anyone asks, tell them you are 18, okay," he said. Once again, I pretended nothing had happened. I felt more fearful that he would do something worse to me and I would not have a way out as no one else seemed to be in the house at the time than I was confident in attacking back in anyway. The following morning, I woke up and heard him singing in the shower. I changed while he was in the bathroom. He complimented me on my clothes. He showed me kittens that had just been born currently residing in a room of the house. I took some photographs of him. He gave me a pink bracelet, some gum, signed me an Edgar Allan Poe complete works book, burned me some mix discs and walked me to the train station. Waiting for the train, he told me he would have to come visit me sometime. I hugged him and left. When I look back on that, it is odd to me that I just pretended that nothing had happened. I did this in both instances. I even talked to Vladimir a few more times in the coming week while I was still in New York visiting my friend.
Whenever I feel afraid, I freeze in attempts to protect myself. And I also attempt to still have a relationship with people who do these things to me, as if somehow continuing contact and conversation will make up for what they have done. Boundaries. I let this happen to me repeatedly. I have been learning recently how to set boundaries for myself and to realize when I feel uncomfortable and to feel safe within myself to say and do something. I look back on myself after both of these events occurred and I see that I attempted to use my sexual appeal for attention. I believed I was a sex object and it didn't matter that the attention was unhealthy. It was the only attention I knew and what I learned that I deserved. And I have definitely let a good number of people walk over me and use me. There are both Mike's. There is the guy at the club in Bangkok who felt up my skirt. There is Danny who tried to have sex with me when I barely knew him. And then there's Denny who didn't like me but, "To be honest, I would have sex with you..." That was a really heartcrushing thing for me. What that is saying is, hello, you aren't good enough to have an emotional relationship with but I would completely f*ck you. And I never say anything back to ANY of
these people. Because somehow, I convince myself I brought it upon myself. And actually, I willingly have made attempts after all of these occurrences to still have friendships with these people. So, what I am saying to both myself and other people is it doesn't matter how shitty you treat me, I will put up with it and you will get away with it. I disgust myself. This is why everything I view as a sexual advance gets to me and affects me negatively so much. And this is why any jokes about sexual abuse never make me laugh and I can and never will find funny. And this is why when old men look at me, I see something else in their eyes even if it is their intention or not. And this is why I tend to look down at the floor instead of in people's eyes. ______________________________________ _ “People who treat other people as less than human must not be surprised when the bread they have cast on the waters comes floating back to them, poisoned.” James Baldwin ______________________________________ _
Resources National Domestic Violence Hotline [1800799SAFE (7233)/18007873224 (TTY)] at http://www.ndvh.org/. This hotline answers more than 16,000 calls every month from “victims, survivors, friends and family members, law enforcement personnel, domestic violence advocates and the general public.” They provide completely confidential help and support to any caller who is suffering in a domestic violence situation. Child Molestation Research & Prevention Institute at http://www.childmolestationprevention.org. This website contains plenty of national statistics as well as links to research journals, current prevention programs, and ways you can stop child abuse if it is happening around or to you.. Feeling Good by David D. Burns, M.D. is a selfhelp book that helps readers form a new mindset about life and encourages new ways of thinking after suffering from abuse or some traumatic experience in order to move forward in life without the past holding you down. Family Violence Center is a full service center and a safe place to go if you are being abused. It is located at 125 East Gish Road, San Jose, CA. (408) 2773700.
Words On Abuse Brian Sackett, Ph. D Is This Abuse? Example 1: You walk into the door at home after seeing a movie with friends. Your father screams at you, “What are you doing wasting time on a movie? You didn’t finish your math homework, and you got a B+ on your last quiz. What’s wrong with you? Get to your room and study!” You had done your math problems, and even some of the odd numbered problems that hadn’t been assigned. You enjoyed being with your friends and the movie made you laugh. Sometimes everything was fine at home, and other times, unexpectedly, nothing was good enough. You could never relax, wondering when the next yelling would start. Example 2: Your mom says some variation of this at least four times a week: “I know you try hard, but you’ll never do well. You are too emotional . . . too sensitive . . . too distracted. You are never going to amount to much.” If you are upset and show it by crying, or by raising your voice, the response is being told to go to your room and think about it. You get the idea it’s never OK to feel things. Example 3: When your parents go out and leave you with your brother, he pins you down and tickles you. Even when you beg him to stop, he says, “It’s just a game,” and continues tickling. He’s stronger than you, and you can’t push him away. You get so frustrated you hit him, but he pushes you over, pins your arms behind you, holds on to them with one hand, and pokes you in the ribs with a stiff finger. When you tell your parents, they don’t believe you. There are never any bruises or cuts to show that something happened. Abuse comes in many forms and levels of severity. Example 3 shows a degree of violation (of your wishes to be left alone, and of your body) but some would say it’s not serious, and it’s kids being kids. In Example 1, the father probably thinks he’s trying to protect his child and prepare her for surviving well. In Example 2, the mother probably doesn’t recognize how undermining her words are, or maybe just doesn’t think about what the effects will be – and probably doesn’t recognize how revealing it is of her own insecurity. I believe that any time a person is not treated with caring, respect and appreciation, it hurts and there are consequences. *** Wikipedia defines abuse as: Abuse refers to the use or treatment of something (a person, item, substance, concept, or vocabulary) that is seen as harmful. The term comes from the words "abnormal use". It can be used for anything ranging from the misuse of a piece of equipment to the severe maltreatment of a person. Several types of abuse include: •
Spiritual abuse : abusive or aberrational practices identified in the behavior and teachings of some churches, spiritual and religious organizations and groups.
• • • •
• • • • • • • •
Sexual abuse : The improper use of another person for sexual purposes, generally without their consent or under physical or psychological pressure (which may include children whether abused by parents, those in loco parentis or strangers). Physical abuse : Where one person inflicts physical violence or pain on another. Verbal abuse : When a person uses profanity, demeaning talk, or threatening statements. Emotional abuse or psychological abuse: coercion, humiliation, intimidation, relational aggression, parental alienation or covert incest: Where one person uses emotional or psychological coercion to compel another to do something they do not want, or is not in their best interests; or when one person manipulates another's emotional or psychological state for their own ends (see battered person syndrome), or commits psychological aggression using ostensibly nonviolent methods to inflict mental or emotional violence or pain on another. Drug abuse : the misuse of drugs, alcohol or other substances, usually a form of addiction. Law enforcement officials, among others, often define drug abuse as "any" use of illegal drugs, whether or not use is actually harmful to the user or to anyone else. Child abuse : Abuse, usually physical, emotional or sexual, directed at a child. Spousal abuse (or domestic violence): Abuse, usually physical, or psychological abuse, directed at one's spouse. Elder abuse : Abuse, most often physical or in the form of psychological threats, directed at the elderly, especially in nursing homes and similar institutions. Human rights abuse : Violation of human rights. Animal abuse : Abuse or cruelty directed at animals. Legal abuse: Vexatious litigation or malicious prosecution to retaliate, coerce, or emotionally/financially harm a person. Internet abuse includes a wide range of inappropriate online behavior, such as unsolicited promotional email, intrusion attempts, and phishing.***
As a therapist, I specialize in working with trauma and severe forms of sexual, physical and emotional abuse. I have learned that most people have experienced some type of abuse, even those who would say they grew up in a loving and nurturing family. This is partly because abuse can be unconscious and unintended, and partly because hurting one another seems to be part of being human. When Abuse Becomes Overwhelming People who have the most difficulty in dealing with the ways humans abuse one another are often those who grew up as young children with parents who, for whatever reason, could not connect with love and caring strongly enough to form solid emotional bonds. Our fundamental sense of security in life and the world is formed from those early experiences. Lack of strong emotional security doesn’t have to come about from direct acts of physical, emotional or sexual abuse – it can result from being ignored, not touched or not having been looked at lovingly. At whatever age, most of us react to experiences that overwhelm us emotionally by hiding, splitting, and going off in our minds somewhere away from what hurts. If this happens more than a few times, we develop strong defensive systems to protect us from external threats. Over time, those same systems work internally to keep us from noticing the wounded, sensitive parts. We learn to numb ourselves and eventually this becomes automatic and unconscious.
When people are abused at a young age, it’s intolerable when it keeps happening, and the only way to stand it is to think that there must be something wrong with me – because as long as I think it’s my fault, I can try to correct that. Even if my attempts to correct what’s wrong in me don’t work, I still have hope and can try to fix myself a different way. If I let in the thought that this person on whom I depend to provide what I need to live is broken and doesn’t care enough about me, I’m dead. So in an odd way, people take on the idea that I’m not good enough or I’m a screwup, in order to have hope and stay alive. Depending on the level of abuse, these defensive systems can save our lives but then over time will make it difficult to connect with our feelings, creativity and enthusiasm and will cause us to respond rigidly and defensively at school or work and in our relationships. What saved us initially drains the life out of living. As a society, we don’t support each other in dealing with abuse and its consequences. Seeing other people being abused is uncomfortable and scary. Did you notice what your internal reactions were as you read the stories in this issue? I imagine some of those included thoughts of “That could never happen to me” or “It must have been her fault she got into that situation” – thoughts that serve to distance and protect. Much in our society seems organized around diverting attention through entertainment away from noticing ourselves and how we treat each other. The above paragraphs are important in understanding the frustration and hopelessness of a young person who is being abused. Because of the selfblame often present, students don’t understand that they deserve not to be abused. Instead of stopping the abuse, they keep trying to fix themselves. Abusers reinforce this out of fear of being discovered. Abusers also may threaten harm to the child or others the child loves, to keep them from telling. Often the abuser is loved, and an abused child fears the anger, denial and controversy that would be stirred up in their family, and sometimes the breaking up of the family and the imprisonment of the abuser if they tell what’s being done to them. Even when an abused person finds the clarity and courage to speak up about what’s happening, they are often not believed – especially by the person who would have to admit that their mate is doing the unthinkable. In a society fueled by denial and diversion, other responsible adults can unconsciously downplay the importance of an abused person’s tentative calls for help. This is changing slowly, with the amount of education and attention describing abuse – but it’s important not to take this for granted and to pay attention when someone asks for help. Trauma and abuse have longterm consequences and aftereffects. Traumatic memories are stored differently than our normal memories. Instead of having made sense out of what happened and putting the experiences into a linear sequence in time and place, traumatic memories are timeless and perceptually vivid – and can be triggered by a similar smell, color or texture so that the scene is intensely relived. Young parts of self can be frozen in time, and unconsciously you can react from that young place even when it’s not appropriate. Severe abuse can result in fragmented personalities. It’s important not to try to get over it by forgetting or just avoiding thinking about it. This is why it’s critical to get help and not just think you can deal with this on your own. Transmission Of Abuse Over Generations Being abusive tends to happen because someone abused us. All of my sexual abuse clients abused by a parent or close relative, when asked about what the abuser’s childhood was like, related stories of harsh
treatment that often included being sexually abused themselves. Often you can trace this abuse back to grandparents, greatgrandparents, and so on. When you’ve been abused, numbing your feelings in order to cope inadvertently cuts off your own ability to feel empathy – and soon you are treating your own kids harshly – knowing intellectually that you hate this, knowing first hand what it’s like to be treated that way, but finding yourself doing the same things. It takes great courage to develop enough consciousness to say, “No more, this stops with me,” to find the help that teaches you how to recognize the unconscious defenses, and to make different choices. Defenses Can Be Your Friend A psychologist named Richard Schwarz, in a book called Internal Family Systems Therapy, describes some of the defensive systems that arise when abuse or trauma becomes overwhelming. “Manager” parts do their best to function effectively, and to protect the vulnerable parts by pushing them out of attention. When an exiled vulnerable part threatens to take over attention, i.e. demands notice, the manager parts call in a “firefighter” to push the vulnerable part out of consciousness. Firefighters divert your attention – alcohol, drugs, cutting, thoughts of suicide, movies, television, emotional storms, etc. – and serve to draw your attention away from scared, hurting, open vulnerable parts. If you think about how you feel when you notice one of these protective parts, and you want to push that part away, or criticize it, often you end up in a fight which you don’t win. The protectors are there saving our lives. We get further with them by appreciating their purposes and trying to negotiate a different strategy to attain that same protection without the negative costs. It’s counterintuitive to think positively of cutting or drugs or any of these behaviors, but welcoming all parts instead of rejecting or criticizing them, and agreeing with the goal of finding safety, gives you the chance to talk those protective parts into trying better strategies to keep yourself safe. What To Do If You Are Being Abused First of all, ask yourself right now, do I deserve to be treated with love, respect, and appreciation? If there is the slightest hesitation in answering yes, look inside yourself. Part of you knows that without a doubt you do deserve this – but this part may be hard to find because life has been difficult and it’s not what you experience daytoday. You may be using the “It’s my fault” defense to keep at least a shred of hope that things can change. Look at this deserving question over and over until you can answer without hesitation or doubt, “Yes, I do.” Once you get to that, if you are being hurt or disrespected, talk to the person hurting you. If they won’t get it, and won’t change, talk to other family members and ask for help. Talk to a school counselor, a friend’s parent, a religious leader or ask your parents to take you to a therapist. Keep talking until you find someone who is effective in helping you to stop the abuse. You don’t have to put up with this, even if it seems to you that you do. We may not be able to make it perfect for you, but I guarantee that it can be made better – if you don’t give up on life, yourself and your right to be treated compassionately. Respectfully, Brian Brian Sackett, Ph.D. Psychologist, License Number PSY18785 1745 Saratoga Ave. #203
San Jose, CA 95129 4082576662, Ext. 2 (Office Number)
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Abuse February 2008 Staff: Paulina Dao, Gillian Decker, Hermes Huang, Nita Chen, Natasha Desai, Dinah Draluk, Kai Kang, Serena Lee, Yifang Qiu, Robert Rodine, Evelyn Shaw, Tim Wheeler, Vicky Xu, Matisse Yoshihara Advisor: HungWei Chien, Carol Satterlee, Kathy Fetterman Visit us at www.verdadera.org