The cost of therapy

Look at me. You’d never know it. But I am a survivor of sexual child abuse. Why didn’t any one report it? Why wasn’t anything done? How could this have happened? Well, it happens all the time. And nobody ever knows about it. This is a dirty, dark secret that so many people have. It happens in all classes, to people of all races, all countries, all situations. Educated, ignorant, wealthy, poor, it doesn’t matter. Abuse is not prejudiced. It affects everyone. It is easy to jump on the bandwagon and scream for the end of child abuse. It is easy to point the finger of blame. It is easy to make a list of possible signs of abuse and wonder why things continue on as they have for centuries.

The thing is, there really aren’t any signs. There are no clues. Unless the incident is violent and results in disease, pregnancy, or serious physical injury, you have no clue that something bad is happening. I am not, of course, talking about those absolutely horrible examples of abuse and neglect you see on the news. Stories of children locked up in basements, half starving and barely able to speak are sprinkled here and there throughout the media as sordid examples of human degradation and how the state comes in like knights in shining armor to save the day. These are tragic examples that pull at our emotions. They are horrible, vile examples of human wretchedness.

But what I am talking about is more prolific, more hidden, and therefore, more dangerous. Everything that in hind-sight causes you to kick yourself… I should have seen this! I should have known… everything… can be explained away and overlooked as normal. Potty training regression? It doesn’t cause a light bulb to go off in your head until a certain age. Aggression, teen angst, sullenness and pouting, lying about cleaning the litter box? What child doesn’t go through all of these? I went through my whole life and nobody knew I was a victim of child abuse. NOBODY. After I was older (about 18 years old) I would secretly tell a few select friends. Often times the other girl would share a similar experience. But we never elaborated on it. It was like we all belonged to a secret club and spoke in secret codes. I would look, nod my head, and say something like “Well, YOU know.” and she would reply with a nod “Yeah, THAT.” As I got older I even encountered guy friends who had suffered similar abuse. And yet still, it seemed like a girl’s suffering. I even foolishly thought that my first child would be safe from what I experienced, simply because he was a boy. How blissfully ignorant I was.

My oldest son never liked chocolate. One Easter Sunday (about three years ago), after returning home from a weekend trip with my parents, my son stuffed a pound of solid chocolate in his face while hovering over the kitchen sink. I was shocked, afraid, stricken, heartbroken. He didn’t understand why I was so upset. To this day he has no recollection of being abused. It was my only sign. But, after living as a victim for so long, and living a life of secrecy and denial, I told myself that our family could take care of this ourselves. After all, this could have been anything. Maybe I was being over sensitive because of my own abuse history. This wasn’t, after all, your typical sign of abuse. I thought we could handle this. After all, I had “handled” my own abuse for my whole life. But the reality was that I wasn’t handling anything. I was doing what I had always done, pretending that life was fine, that everything was just dandy. I thought that if I was a good mother, I could heal all hurts with kisses and hugs. I thought by just avoiding my father I was dealing with my own abuse. But this was so not true. About a year ago I learned about EFT (Emotional Freedom Technique). I didn’t think about it much at the time until a small incident in my own life caused me to realize that I needed real help. I scrambled onto the internet and dug up that article. I ended up contacting an EFT practitioner and went in for a session. The result took us both by surprise. I had worked on my own childhood abuse and came out a better, more whole person. One hour, $50 out of my pocket, and real tools that I could use brought me closer to real healing than I had ever been in my life. But that was just me. I didn’t realize that my children were suffering too.

Why is this happening to me? I love God and follow his commandments. I practice the Law of Attraction. I have spent the last two years of my life transforming my spiritual, mental, and physical health. I still need to exercise more and quit smoking, but I’m more totally healthy now than I have ever been my entire life. Why now? If everything in my life is because I willed it to be so, did I cause this? I read an interesting book by Joe Vitale, Zero Limits. The Ho’Oponopono guru was talking to Joe Vitale about this very issue. He states something to the effect that, how do we know that a person has attracted problems into their life. It is possible that God has allowed tragedy to happen for a greater purpose. It is definitely something to think about. My thoughts around my children were always hopes and dreams, a bright glittering future of endless possibilities. Is that all over now? Amazingly, I still have hope. I will do whatever it takes to help my children achieve their best future, even if it means telling the world about my secret history, the shame of my childhood. I have been poor for a long time, both financially and spiritually. I didn’t get professional help for myself because I thought I couldn’t afford it. I didn’t get professional help for my children at the beginning because, again, I thought I couldn’t afford it. How many other people are in the same situation? How many other people are struggling along in secrecy and shame because it seems there is no other alternative? How many other people are hurting like this?

I don’t want this history to continue hurting my family. I love them all dearly. It is time for me to move beyond my own healing and look to bring healing to everyone I love… everyone that matters most to me… my children, my husband, how many more people need to be hurt because of what my father did. No more!
This is too important to sweep under the rug again. Paying for therapy is going to really hurt us financially, but this is all too important to ignore.