When I began recovery many years ago, I had no resources. My family doctor of many years, alarmed at how many anti-depressants and sleeping pills I was using told me he no longer believed the story I had been telling him for years that my father hadn’t sexually abused me. He sent me to a therapist who specialized in child sexual abuse, in particular incest. I stumbled my way through the first couple of meetings giving nothing to indicate what had happened. She had me do an exercise where I drew a picture of my life at different intervals during my childhood, utilizing my left hand (the opposing hand, which was dominant). It didn’t matter that I could hardly draw stick men. She wanted me to color each picture with different colors, blue for serenity, red for terror, etc. When she looked at my illustrations later, especially the one when I was thirteen years of age, she said it was time to call in a hypno-therapist. It was a picture of a young girl lying in the bottom bunk of a bunk bed sound asleep in the middle of the night. The door was opening and a man with gray hair was coming into the room. I grabbed a red crayon and wrote across the center of the page, Help me! Help me! I had no idea what that was supposed to mean as I hardly understood what I had drawn and written.
As I progressed through my recovery, I bought book after book on how to recover from incest. None of them helped at all. My biggest problem was finding a support group. I wanted to be able to talk about the pictures that were emerging. I found one started by a nearby church but was ill prepared for their hostility. They turned on me at every meeting later saying that they needed someone to vent their own anger and fear on and since I was still living in a domestic violence relationship and wouldn’t get a divorce, I was perfect for what they wanted. They were also angry because I hadn’t turned in my children’s perpetrator. My girls had extracted a promise of secrecy before they would tell me what had happened
I wandered from one group to another, never finding a niche, carrying my box of tissue every place I went. I was living in a desperate situation at home, trying to fight off continual rapes, emotional and mental abuse while living with a man who I later came to realize was not only a sociopath but he could serve time in prison for most of what he was doing to me. He was controlling in every way. He told me what I could wear, whether or not I did gardening in the front yard, which jokes I could laugh at and who I could talk to on the phone. I began feeling like a prisoner.
I found out after we were married that he had sexually abused his sister from the time she was five until she was 15. He had been sexually abusing his teenage daughter for years as well. She was an alcoholic and in and out Psychiatric Wards due to suicide attempts. My husband had been able to convince me that I was the abuser and he was the victim.
My escalating violence in retaliation towards my husband at his continual rapes was frightening me and needed immediate attention. While working as our Department Representative for the United Way Campaign, I heard someone talk from a group called The Alternatives to Domestic Violence. At first, I knew it didn’t pertain to me, but as she continued to speak, I could not deny the nerves she kept touching. Within days, I set up an appointment with a counselor at ADV. I felt sure they could help me control my violence. I walked away stunned. After explaining to the counselor my marital difficulties, she was adamant about how I was not the abuser but was in fact living with an abuser. I wasn’t sure why that came as a shock. I always knew that what my husband was doing was wrong and still clung to the belief that I must be responsible. She recommended I begin attending their weekly meetings. When I first walked into an Alternatives to Domestic Violence meeting, I had little hope. I sat, clutching my box of tissue as if I were drowning and it was my life raft, my eyes swollen and red rimmed from hour after hour of crying. The women began telling their stories. After hearing the stories each woman told, I said, with some shock, “You’re all married to my husband.” Once I told my story, I realized I had found a home. My recovery began turning around. Telling my story at the right support group empowered me more than I would ever have predicted.
If you are living in a domestic violence relationship; if you were sexually abused as a child, find a Lamplighter Chapter near you. Get a copy of REPAIR Your Life and begin working the program. It has a chapter showing how to choose the right therapist and the right support group. Join a Twelve Step program especially Codependents Anonymous. Check out our website at http://www.thelamplighters.org for more information.
