Friday 28 September 2007

STOP THE ABUSE




Yesterday 1,OOO'S of bloggers around the world joined in BlogCatalog's Bloggers Against Abuse September 27th 2007. the outcome to be part of the largest group of bloggers to ever blog about an important cause, all on the same day.

Im a day late as I hadnt realised this had taken place until I visited by chance http://akelamalu.blogspot.com/ and read her very powerful post in relation to Abuse of children.

This is something I feel so strongly about that Ive decided that even a day late this is too important to ignore. I have chosen a passage from a book that I once found very helpful in understanding the full impact of childhood abuse on a childs psyche hope that the more this is spoken about and the impacts understood then perhaps children showing signs of any form of abuse will find adults willing to get involved and report their suspicions or support a child who may in fact turn to them for help as has happened with me.

Excerpt from Romancing the Shadow...written by Connie Zweig and Steve Wolf

With incest, a timeless taboo that lives in the collective body of humanity is broken. With incest, a household is cursed with a psychic affliction. With incest, a child's natural erotic warmth and authentic openness turn cold and hidden as shame, like the original fig leaf, covers over a naked vulnerability.

Although the act is sexual, some of its consequences are deeply spiritual. When a parent sexually violates the trust of a child, the youngs one's spiritual wholeness is violated. Betrayed, robbed of innocence by those who should be the protectors of her innocence, the child responds unexpectedly:with self blame. Because a child is dependent on the adult for its very life, the shadow makes a U turn, transforming the offending adult into a good parent and the victim into a bad child. In psychology, this internal act has come to be known as identification with the aggressor. The child's soul is so vulnerable that it must protect the parent as the wrongdoer, thereby taking on the blame. To her, she is not simply engaging in bad behaviour, she is badness itself. This is the root of intense feelings of shame and contamination that are epidemic among survivors of abuse, ingrained at the level of identity. And this is the root of their ongoing mistrust of others and their lack of faith in life itself..Finally, in this internalized parent, the family pattern is carried on.

If the family's religious orientation reinforces the offending parent's rule as divine law, then the childs obedience is sanctioned by higher powers. If the parent denies the behavioural reality, then the child is confronted with an untenable situation, a Faustian bargain: to deny his or her own bodily experience. At a soul level, this calls for the survivors sacrificial death; the surrender of identity, the loss of will, the end of reality testing.

Tragically experts estimate that today a shockingly high percentage of girls and boys are molested. As more and more adults have recalled episodes of childhood abuse in therapy, the validity of their memories has been called into question and dubbed " the false memory syndrome". For us, the actual reality of these incidents is less significant than the reality of the psyche: If a boy was not sexually molested but has felt a sense of intrusion, he may have been emotionally molested. Either way, his soul was voilated and cries out for healing. If he does not recieve it, he may identify with being a victim and, in turn, become a victimizer of the next generation,spreading the wound like a virus.

As the cycle of abuse recurs again and again, the child tells herself: "This is really happening", creating a character at the table. Another part of her responds, "It cant be happening" creating another character. Eventually her memory gives up, banishing the event and its attendant feelings into the shadow. It cannot retain the truth and allow her to survive. The defenses of repression, dissociation and denial are at work.

This is such a difficult and sensitive subject to talk about, imagine what its like for the child who lives with abuse in any shape or form. The very journey through healing traumatic, yet miraculously possible.

However a journey no child should have to undertake..one child being one too many

4 comments:

Gledwood said...

I see what you mean "happening"/"not happening"...

o, I saw some horrible images at somebody's blog a couple of days ago... they were "battered wives" only battered was hardly the word... some of these photos came from burns units they were so horrible

I honestly think abusers should be killed, not just locked up. Why keep them alive? What purpose does it fulfill? At best they "suffer" at worst they are alive to communicate with others and pass their evil ways on to someone who WILL get out and WILL pass their evil on. No! Kill 'em all! I mean it!

Akelamalu said...

Thank you for dropping by my blog and taking the time to comment Audrey. More importantly thank you for taking the time and making the effort to post about Abuse - a very powerful post it is too. x

Icarus said...

Good on you Auds.
Very good on you. Remember that song that starts "I believe that children are our future..", Whitney Huston, etc. It is as simple as that. But then again, we don't live in a song,which never changed anything in itself. We live in this, and it is full of very grave sicknesses that our human kind have put in it.

Sxxxxxxxxxxx

Tatyanna (and Dorian too) said...

So painful ... my brother and I went through it when we were little. My mom was not strong enough to get rid of him until we were already adults. But I don't want to go back down that road. I tend to agree with Gleds.

Can you find time to stop by my latest post? I need some advice! Nothing as serious as this though ;)