What is the nature of sexual abuse?

Well, one reason the numbers are skyrocketing is because now it is acceptible to report it! Things really started picking up in the 80s and 90's. Now people report if the neighbor kid was spanked. in my day (in the late 70-80s) it was still pretty unpopular, but if a kid had a ton of bruises they were finally getting noticed. I never reported - but i have reported for 3 kids when i went into working with kids.

So things have changed. It is slower than we would like. In my childhood, the word "counseling" was a bad word and i would have been killed for suggesting it. now, i'm in therapy (a word i finally learned to use just a year ago - no joke). It takes time.

And it takes people willing to look at it. Pachy was clear that we are not denying anyone, their emotions, their pain, or their sufferings. And clear that this would be a triggering thing probably not for everyone. It takes a lot of guts to step into the onslaught of unpopular words and thinking.

If we (who were affected) never step up for change (by understanding the mechanism that makes the monster tick) than who will?

I was going to post in this thread ,,, Butttt Then I saw how much I would be reading ,, at this hour I would not be able to give it fairness one way or the other as an educated like thought out reply ....I have something to ............................. But Ya know after I read this ,, what I would have added or said ... has Maybe already been addressed . Take Care as we say and >>> I give this > ((((( Hugs ))))).

i wasn't talking about educating just the offender... but the people who are responsible to protect children... (and by the way i know first hand how useless the programs for offenders are)... ignorance was bliss when i was growing up... maybe if the people in the schools and the community knew how to handle a little girl who was being abused they wouldn't have sat around while i was being taken to bed by drunks! even if i didn't tell anyone what was happening... the signs were there... and at the very least the drinking, screaming and fighting were all reasons to intervene in the situation... i had all the classic symptoms... why didn't the schools, church, neighbors or more importantly my mom take steps to protect... i have spent hours in trainings and without them i wouldn't know how to help the children i work with daily.... so yes the education and therapies we have in place are inadiquite... but doing nothing isn't the answer either.

> they still have the choice to abuse or not to abuse...

Have you ever felt the need to do something so strongly that you seem not to have any choice at all?

> so what causes some to cross that line?

I think that is an excellent question. And I do not think I know the answer. Sometimes I think "There but for the grace of God go I."

> i think it's important to understand the reasons for abusive behavior... but not let them off the hook because of it... i have
> made excuses for my abusers...

Understanding does not mean you have to "let them off the hook" or make excuses. Something should be done, that's for sure. Something that has a chance to cure the disease, and not solely to make the victim feel temporarily better. To do that requires comprehension of what is going on.

> i am the one with ptsd and they are seemingly unscathed

I know. I think if you look at it closely, though, you may see that they are not. Believing that they are not makes you feel better about yourself.

> my question is, what is the difference between those people and the ones who do become abusers?

As I responded before, I do not think I know for sure. In my case I had one parent who treated us like human beings. That may well have helped me.

> I can't imagine treating another the way I was treated.

When I was growing up I swore not to become someone like my mother. Later I found that at times I was so messed up that I did have the urge to attack someone or something. Even now I have occasional thoughts about harming my kitties -- if only to revenge myself somehow for all the injustices that it seems I have been subject to.

> none of those answers are going to heal me.

Are you sure they won't help in doing so?

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Riptide said:Why do you feel the need to understand what happened ---- is this not an intellectual defense mechanism to remove yourself from feeling the pain of what occurred?

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Is reducing your pain by actually understanding what happened a bad "defense mechanism"?

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The recividism rate is SO high among these people, that they deserve no thought or excuses for their behavior. They deserve to be punished for their crimes, no given excuses.

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And why is the recidivism rate so high? Is it because they have not been punished? The ones you say keep returning to their bad ways, how have they been treated?

In my childhood my mother thought that the only way to change my behavior was through punishment. That only drove it underground temporarily. It did nothing to enable me to decide to change because change was actually better for me than not. All she wanted was to force me to conform or die.

> Am i the only person who finds this thread insulting to SURVIVORS of abuse???

But I am one too. Am I insulting myself?

> if this thread is supposed to help survivors of abuse...i'm obviously too stupid to get it!!!...could somebody explain it to me please?

I am not sure I can. Actually I did not set out to try to help other people, except maybe those that could see where I was coming from. It helps me when I put things together in my thoughts by writing them. It also helps somehow if I don't have to keep it all to myself.

I did put a trigger on this thread.

> that isn't to say that i think that the abuser isn't responsible or shouldn't be held accountable.

I think they should be held accountable too. What do you do when you hold them accountable? In my ideal world, isolate them if necessary so they do not hurt others, and then (if you can figure out how to do it) use understanding of causes and effects to alter the previous outcomes.

> i agree with riptide on that people never change...

If that is true then we do not have much hope.

I think I have changed. I'm still working on it.

> by the way i know first hand how useless the programs for offenders are...

I do not have personal experience, but I suspect you are right. To me that only means that the present programs are not much good. My personal experience has been that most mental health programs that I have tried are not much good either. I keep looking for ones that will work. I think there are a few out there. All is not lost.

Is it?

i hope it isn't

i think the reason this is such a "hot" subject is because many times our abusers are so good at deflecting their responsibility onto others... my abusers would tell me that i made them want me... i am not sure how a small child does that... but even when i was a teen... i believed their lies... and even now i struggle with my responsibility... my mother often explained away the behavior of my grandparents as "they are from the 20's and drinking was a way of life" or "alcoholism is a disease lyn... once they have their first drink they can't help themselves"

when i first read your thread... that is what i was reacting on... but i tried to hear what you were saying and understand.

i think everyone has different ways of processing information... i tend to need to understand things logically... an example of that is i am trying to finish my degree and i have had to retake several math classes... my son told me he would help me with it... he can look at a problem and get the answer... he doesn't need to do the steps let alone understand them .... i on the other hand need to know why each step works... we are opposites... and needless to say... he was the wrong person to help me. he was also he tends to be very black and white in his beliefs... while i focus on the gray areas so that i can get to the black and white areas... i know i am not making any sense... i guess what i am trying to say is everyone heals in a different way... lyn

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Kiya said:
and yet... we injure ourselves. what made us choose ourselves over injuring others?

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kiya that's the million dollar question... maybe we still believe their lies... i know that i use si to disassociate... did it then and do it now... just looking at the abuse of my past causes the urges...you know?

"just looking at the abuse of my past causes the urges...you know? "

oh lord, do i ever know.

I have been thinking (dangerous) and feel that I have mostly been talking about abuse on the family level. It is what I am mostly familiar with personally and in reading. It is harder for me to "visualize" -- and thus get some insight into -- abuse by a hardened criminal. I think it is probably part of a continuum, but with a repeat, criminal offender, any treatment would probably be a lot harder, and take a long time to be successful, even with skilled treatment.

hi pachyderm....hope you don't take offense at my commenting again? i think sometimes i just don't word myself too good...didn't grow up speaking English for one...so can i try again? all i was trying to say before was...yes, i think we all wonder why abusers do what they do. but i've known enough abusers over the years who know themselves why and don't care to change, they just learn how to play the system so they can carry on abusing. it would be great if understanding the root causes of abuse meant abusers could somehow be helped before they actually got to the stage of abusing..but that obviously would never eradicate abuse 100% when there's people out there who actually WANT to be left alone to carry on abusing others?

i think it's great you feel able to start a thread like this if it's gonna help you or anybody else in anyway...and while it's gonna be unpopular with some...i certainly hope you didn't take my remarks personally? i guess coz i'm currently the target of an abuser who openly admits he has a problem but couldn't give a damn about getting help coz he actually likes hurting ppl just made me perhaps take your thread the way i did. apologies if you took it as a personal attack, it wasn't meant as one!

peace to you...
roz

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pachyderm said:
When I was growing up I swore not to become someone like my mother. Later I found that at times I was so messed up that I did have the urge to attack someone or something. Even now I have occasional thoughts about harming my kitties -- if only to revenge myself somehow for all the injustices that it seems I have been subject to.

Are you sure they won't help in doing so?

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Maybe they will...

I have to say that I was outraged by this thread at first, but now I just have to say thanks. These are things I need to think about, these are the things that will slowly mend those wounds for me, even as they turn my little blue world upside down. I think this is at the very core of what my therapist has been trying to help me know. It is much easier to grasp in my head than in my heart (but my heart is so afraid to learn anything new lest it hurt again...)

I am not in any way excusing anyone's abusive behavior. It is absolutely inexcusable. However, if I can believe that the abuse, at its deepest level, was never about me, then that means that I am okay. I'm not the one who is broken, dirty, worthless. I was, unfortunately, the outlet for someone else's brokenness. There is nothing deserving in me of the things I endured. (Much like your kitties, if you had given into those urges.)

I don't know if any of that makes sense, so forgive me if it doesn't.

"It is absolutely inexcusable. However, if I can believe that the abuse, at its deepest level, was never about me, then that means that I am okay. I'm not the one who is broken, dirty, worthless. I was, unfortunately, the outlet for someone else's brokenness. There is nothing deserving in me of the things I endured."

Jully - I think you have hit on something Golden there.

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pachyderm said:
I have been thinking (dangerous) and feel that I have mostly been talking about abuse on the family level. It is what I am mostly familiar with personally and in reading. It is harder for me to "visualize" -- and thus get some insight into -- abuse by a hardened criminal. I think it is probably part of a continuum, but with a repeat, criminal offender, any treatment would probably be a lot harder, and take a long time to be successful, even with skilled treatment.

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I hate to tell you that many family offenders ARE repeat offenders. Whether offending multiple times in their families or moving into other families, statistics show that those that abuse once, usually continue.

I think that it is interesting that you separate family abusers from "hardened criminals." Many of those "hardened criminals" were family abusers and got caught and now are where they belong..in prison doing hard time.

Abuse is abuse. Dynamics maybe different, but people made a choice to behave in a way for them. Giving them insight is not going to help them....

I was in foster care and all the foster kids I knew, if sent back home, came back to the system.....And supposedly the parents were "educated" and given information about their abusive ways. It doesn't help.

What helps? Putting them away from everyone else and let them live together and abuse each other. Why are we wasting money treating people that can't be helped??

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Jully said:
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pachyderm said:
When I was growing up I swore not to become someone like my mother. Later I found that at times I was so messed up that I did have the urge to attack someone or something. Even now I have occasional thoughts about harming my kitties -- if only to revenge myself somehow for all the injustices that it seems I have been subject to.

Are you sure they won't help in doing so?

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Maybe they will...

I have to say that I was outraged by this thread at first, but now I just have to say thanks. These are things I need to think about, these are the things that will slowly mend those wounds for me, even as they turn my little blue world upside down. I think this is at the very core of what my therapist has been trying to help me know. It is much easier to grasp in my head than in my heart (but my heart is so afraid to learn anything new lest it hurt again...)

I am not in any way excusing anyone's abusive behavior. It is absolutely inexcusable. However, if I can believe that the abuse, at its deepest level, was never about me, then that means that I am okay. I'm not the one who is broken, dirty, worthless. I was, unfortunately, the outlet for someone else's brokenness. There is nothing deserving in me of the things I endured. (Much like your kitties, if you had given into those urges.)

I don't know if any of that makes sense, so forgive me if it doesn't.

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jully thank you for sharing this insight... i needed to hear this tonight,.. thank you...lyn

> hope you don't take offense at my commenting again?

Nope.

> i certainly hope you didn't take my remarks personally?

I did not.

> if you took it as a personal attack, it wasn't meant as one!

No problem at all. I can see how people can react to some of the things I write -- especially since I cannot always say things just the way I want to.

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Jully said:
...if I can believe that the abuse, at its deepest level, was never about me, then that means that I am okay. I'm not the one who is broken, dirty, worthless. I was, unfortunately, the outlet for someone else's brokenness. There is nothing deserving in me of the things I endured.

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Yes.

> I hate to tell you that many family offenders ARE repeat offenders.

Yes.

> I think that it is interesting that you separate family abusers from "hardened criminals."

I have thought a little more about it. As I said before, I guess it is just a matter of degree. Things are on a continuum. When I think about criminal abusers I think about how much they want to hurt. But I suspect that they as children were hurt so badly that that's all that they can think of: revenge, hurt, hurt, hurt, payback. And their victim gets caught in the crossfire.

> And supposedly the parents were "educated" and given information about their abusive ways. It doesn't help.

Depends on what you mean by "education." Just telling people, just having them in a class, does not necessarily help. But people can learn, can be educated, in other ways. They can begin to learn.

> Why are we wasting money treating people that can't be helped??

Don't agree.

As far as being a repeat offender, my mother would fit in that category. I lived with her for years. She was very close (literally) to me. It is hard to condemn entirely someone you knew at close hand, someone who was family. Isn't it better to comprehend what made her do it than to condemn her to eternal exile?

And when I think about it, I remember instances in which she expressed pain and fear about what she was doing...

i dunno - i've condemned my dad to eternal exile (i refuse to acknowledge him any more) because he refuses to acknowledge he did any wrong, and continues to wound with his words. i don't need it, i said adios.

right now i feel really conflicted... i was abused by several different men and teenage boys from the time i was 5 (earliest memory) until i left my husband (well for awhile after that)...most of these men i loved and believed they loved me... right now i am dealing with memories of my dad... who was my hero... and i am having to face the fact that he was one of my abusers... that the flashbacks and memories that are locked in my body were with him...this may make some angry at me... but i love my dad... and when jully and this thread helped me to see that it wasn't about me... that it was his to own... i guess i should be angry at him... but what i feel right now is intense pain... and sadness... because i did have many positive moments with him....my t tells me often that i am a lot healthier then i should be... and i think/thought that it's because i always knew my parents loved me ... now i am having to revisit this... and it is knocking me off my foundation...lyn