Breaking the Silence: The Hidden Epidemic of Sexual Abuse

This podcast is about defining sexual abuse.

So what are we talking about? One of the things that I've often heard is women will talk about their sexual abuse, like almost minimalize it. well, I wasn't trafficked or mine was only five times or it's like they compare. Or that other one was much more than I went through. Like theirs doesn't count as much. And there is no non-value of what's happened to anyone when this kind of thing is taking place. 

So the damage done when we are sexually abused as a child is extensive and it may have long life effects. The purpose of us sharing this, these definitions are for informational purposes only and should not be considered a substitute for medical care and is by no means exhaustive list or what happens to everybody. Each survivor circumstances may vary greatly.

A lot of this is my story or people I know who have shared and so it's more personal experience. So it can be an unpleasant topic to talk about, but it really helps to understand that we are not alone. It is estimated one in three or one in four women have been sexually abused. And that's what they've documented. I just think that number is so much higher potentially because we, we know personally, so many people who haven't shared it where no one would know to put it into a category of, this happened to this person and they're part of the, of the count. The more we talk and listen to people, the more we realize just how thick and widespread this thing is.

So what helps to hear this stuff is to understand that we're not alone and that we're not imagining all this crap that we've had to deal with in our lives as an adult and especially if we get married. Now we're assuming if you're watching this and you're in a relationship and you're using maybe some of the advice that we have or that some suggestions that we make, that you're in a healthy relationship now, that we are not trying to give advice, we're not trying to give advice. We're sharing our circumstances for people who... Maybe you can draw some parallels off of what we're sharing. Yeah, but you are not in an unhealthy relationship, that you are not trying to keep a toxic relationship going -that this is a healthy relationship you are in and may have bumps along the way you may have gaps but it's a healthy relationship. So that's the caveat that we're that we're making and so we have created this resource to help you realize that all you have gone through and to celebrate everything you've overcome you are a champ if you're listening to this and you're thinking about it and you're working on yourself you are an absolute champion. 

Because my wife is a champion for all that she's been through and and and sharing and deciding to share it with me so that because crap under the rug never stays there and when we bring it out we can deal with it and we can better our lives as individuals but then it's a couple too because it's horrible as the things where that happened to Vicki.

We're at our point now where we look at each other, literally look at each other and say, I so much love doing life with you right now. And we've worked to get to that point. So it's awesome. It's worth it to do the work. That's a lot of why we're here to tell you. Because you can be able to be in that place. The work is worth it. I was overwhelmed and amazed by how much I knew and actually didn't know was common for survivors of past sexual abuse. So I've heard women say, I don't know what I experienced was really abuse.

So we're defining it. Stopitnow.org defines, in quotes, all sexual touching between an adult and a child as sexual abuse. So any sort of touch. Sexual touching between children can also be sexual abuse when there's a significant age difference. often defined as three or more years between the children or if the children are very different developmentally or size-wise. Sexual abuse does not have to involve penetration, force, pain, or even touching. If an adult engages in any sexual behavior, looking, showing, or touching with the child to meet the adult's interests or sexual needs, it's sexual abuse.This includes the manufacturer distribution and viewing of child pornography and now called child sexual abuse material.

According to RAINN, every nine minutes every nine minutes, a child is sexually assaulted. 93 % know their perpetrator who are usually in a position of trust or responsible for the child's care. I mean, just to think about that, our podcast, if we go for 18 minutes or 27 minutes, it's horrible. 

This can shed light on the massive amount of damage done to a child's physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual well-being. Damage which can affect a woman in her entire life and men. You can search online and you can find many resources to document the effects survivors face and need to overcome. So you can feel free to check out the extensive report for yourself from the American Counseling Association.

And I used that extensively in this resource. Damage from past sexual abuse shows up physically as an adult. I am a firm believer in physical ailments that we have are manifestation of feelings that we've buried. There's two resources that I have used with my clients, with myself. One is called Feelings Buried Alive Never Die by Karol Truman and the other is by Louise Hay and it's called You Can Heal Your Life.

So if you're not sure how your past sexual abuse may be showing up, use your body as a barometer. There's a chapter in each book that highlights physical ailments and their probable emotional causes. We're not gonna go into that right now because the purpose of this episode is to define sexual abuse. So we're kind of trying to stay on track.

A lot of sexual abuse survivors have eating disorders like anorexia, bulimia, struggle with being overweight. Possible feelings linked to being overweight, according to Karol and Louise, are feelings of insecurity, self-rejection, wanting to protect the body, seeking love and fulfillment, feelings being stuffed inside and unexpressed, misperceived, and inappropriate feelings, running away from feelings. So all of those possible emotional causes might be reasons why I have issues with my weight or I was struggled with bulimia for most of my life.

According to the report, the long-term effects of childhood sexual abuse, is common for survivors to struggle with headaches, difficulty swallowing, digestion issues, vertigo, diabetes, infertility, pelvic pain, and cancer. Even the inability to breathe deeply. When we don't look deep enough into the trauma from childhood abuse, we just treat the symptom instead of getting to the root. By processing the trauma of the abuse, often physical symptoms go away. I mean, just looking at those-headaches, difficulty swallowing, digestion, vertigo, diabetes.  There's a lot of sexual abuse survivors have very, very shallow breathing. I've experienced it myself, and then I've been a part of it.  No deep breaths and releasing.

And that's why I said before, when you can't put it under a rug because things one or two or both things are going to happen if you try to put it under rug and just push it away chances are very good it's not going to stay there at some point the rug is going to get pulled back and just come out anyway but but by by pushing it down it will manifest itself in your body physically probably in a multitude of ways that we would hope we feel in our experience so our story is that we weren't gonna medicate those symptoms. We were gonna look at what those were and work on our situations to get our bodies to then work properly by releasing the trauma.  And then in so doing, finding the body responding in a positive way by letting go of some of those ailments that we're a part of. Manifest as a result of the trauma.

We literally are watching that happen with you and me me with me. I wasn't sexually abused but we've all got trauma of some sort right and I've got my stories maybe we hit on at some point maybe we won't but but working on myself. I found that I also am releasing physical situations now because of dealing with them and not pushing away because pushing away.

It's pushing back and it will always win if you don't deal with it. 

Most childhood abuse happens by a family member or trusted adult, which leaves a traumatized child to believe that it was their fault manifesting and self-destructive behaviors as an adult and suicidal tendencies compared to adults who didn't experience the abuse. Depression and anxiety, guilt, shame and self-blame are all emotions that are familiar as well. Our mental state is affected. If you dissociated during the abuse to prevent you from experiencing the horrific trauma as an adult, you may experience flashbacks, confusion, disorientation, nightmares, difficulty experiencing feelings, and even struggle with having any clear memories of your childhood.

I don't have lot of memories of any of my childhood. Vicki has said that over and over and over again to me through our years of marriage and our relationship that she thinks back on a period of time like I'll think back to, I remember when I was in high school for these four years in a certain thing, you know, these different things happen or whatever or earlier in life before that. And she would look back in her mind as we're sitting there, she's listening to me and she'll look at me and she goes, I don't have memories of stuff like that. Meaning-Not that she didn't do those things, but she just doesn't have memories of being alive then.

Because I, my, my mind didn't process what was going on. it, it just, okay. So our minds are wired to keep us alive. If we are, don't feel safe, we're not going to remember things or it was for your personal protection. Yeah. Yeah. Our mind is making us not remember.

There's also chemical things that happen in the brain that prevent memories from landing. When you're in the abuse experience that chemical things are going on with all that stress level. And it actually prevents the memory from fully landing and you to being able to recall it. And so we're going to be talking a lot about different things, repressed memories.

And that was Vicki's story. Her memories didn't come back. At this point in time, we're married 37 years. Her memories didn't start coming back until 18 years into our marriage. Yeah. So and that we're finding more and more and more people. 

Back to the definition. Frequent relationship struggles revolve around difficulties with trust and fear of intimacy. We have passed evidence that and create the belief that the person that loves us will hurt us.

Is it any wonder that maybe our marriage might be struggling or that we fully don't open up because of the beliefs that we created during the abuse, in the abuse, after the abuse about what's safe and what's not safe and how we have to behave and act and how if we're letting that six year old girl make our decisions now, how that is. Not properly serving you. 

Sexual abuse survivors may struggle with interpersonal boundaries and end up in abusive relationships as an adult. But if you're with a good man now, it's all the more reason to work to make it the best it can be. It is documented that difficulties range from avoiding sex, a lack of interest, or approaching it as an obligation. We can feel anger, disgust or guilt from touch, we can have difficulty being mentally present during intimacy, not to mention not being able to feel any pleasure emotionally or with our bodies. It's amazing as you're reading this, thinking back to our years of dealing with all of this, how much of that is your experience? And how much we've overcome. Right, right, right. We have big time, big time.

I was thinking that as I read that. It's amazing. And I'm guessing that's probably true for most people who've been in an abusive situation. Just how many of these things ring true. And when we talk to people, it's rare that they don't ring true with people. 

Even damage to our spiritual state may show up in a lack of relationship to God. Maybe you cried out to God to save you and you didn't feel his help or someone who you thought was a church leader or had a great connection to God was the abuser. So you made a connection that God and abuse go together. So it makes perfect sense that you might stay away from God or religion because the negative evidence that we experienced.

And as weird as it may sound, our financials can be affected by what we believe about ourselves and manifest in high debt or a low paying job or making money and losing it.The reason for that is if we are blaming ourselves for the abuse, which often happens, there's something I did to cause him to do that to me. He told me it was my fault or I'm the one to blame. You are not allowed to experience any good in your life. You will sabotage things. You need to punish yourself. only just not have good happen, you need to be punished. So you'll sabotage things in your life. And so what we want to do is bring truth and awareness and hope. That the damage can be reversed. It can, I don't know if reverse is a good thing, is a good way to say it. I think you folks ought to understand too that we're saying, you know, you can do this. You can be like us. can, well, and you're thinking, well, you know, what was it? How difficult was it? I will tell you it's a fact. Multiple times, probably more multiple times than I know, Vicki, early on you pondered suicide.

You pondered suicide. But even more profound than that for me is just the idea of laying in bed and her thinking life would be easier if one of us just didn't wake up in the morning. And that happened a crap ton of times, right? 

I thought about, I don't want to talk to him. I don't want to try to figure this out with him. It's too hard. It's too fucking hard. I don't want to do that. so I thought about, okay, then do we get divorced? And I thought about, have seven kids and it's like, okay, the logistics of that and the financials of that are ridiculous. Okay, what's the next option? One of us could die in our sleep. I would lay there and I would hope that night after night and then one day I thought okay. Let me look at who I'm married to if I take myself out of our situation and just look at this man as a human being and where he rated

He's kind. He's loving. He's a great father. He cares for me. my gosh. mean, yeah. He's my dream man.

I need to choose to make this work. Do I really want to be alone? Do I really? Do I really want to be alone? No, I really don't. And so I would make choice. I would talk when I didn't feel like talking to share when I didn't feel like sharing. Sometimes I would say, I need to talk to you, but I need to calm down first. Or I need to talk to you, but give me, I'm going to do it tomorrow. And even, as important, more important, me saying to her, Hey, something doesn't seem right, Vic, what's going on? And her deciding not to say nothing, but deciding to say, Hey, you know what? This, this is what's going on. This is what's going on in my head.

Everything in life is about choice, right? It is. And you chose and we chose over and over and over again not to quit but to just do the little steps to get to the bigger better places. But choosing to talk all the time. That was the pivotal turn for me was to choose to speak to share, to get him on the same page with me so he understood what I was going through. I then had to give him space of, okay, he's mad at this person when he found out who one of the abusers were. He was mad at this person. He was mad at this person for their response to me when I shared about the abuse. So I had to give him space to do that. I had to digest it, figure it out, not take it out on her.

Let her know, yeah, I'm really pissed right now, but it's not you, babe. It's not you, but let me be angry at this person right now. And she let me do that because it's equally important for me to let her go through her processes, but her to let me go through mine, right? So we can walk this journey together, not separately, because then the marriage isn't being tight, right? But it took us a while to get to that place. And so we want to offer you hope that it can be better.

So the goal is for you to be feeling like this or like this because that is how I feel now. I see you do that outside sometimes don't I? Every morning I do when after I cold plunge I put my hands up in the air and have a little mantra.

We've started defining sexual abuse. We have another sheet that we want to read and we're going to go into like part two of our episode.