Vicki Dau (00:01.74)
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. Yeah. So like theirs doesn't.
like theirs doesn't count as much. Right. And there is no non-value of what's happened to anyone when this kind of thing is taking place. Thank you. Right. That's awesome. 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. So 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, 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. So I just, it's
The more we talk and listen to people, the more we realize just how thick and widespread this thing is. So I'm going to do a pause. Do you need to move that closer, or is that good? I feel great where it is. We're learning how to do this whole thing, but it's great. I got it all going on. But I'll do that now. Make her happy.
Vicki Dau (02:25.986)
We're just being us folks. do that. We do that. 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...
toxic relationship going that this is a healthy relationship you 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
absolute champion. I will tell you that. 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.
Vicki Dau (04:47.842)
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.
Vicki Dau (06:01.506)
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. Yeah, it's horrible.
Vicki Dau (06:30.88)
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. So 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,
Vicki Dau (08:53.142)
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. I didn't even be able to breathe properly. mean, holy smokes. Well, yeah. 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. So, yeah. Crazy. Yeah. Yeah. 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. Correct me if I'm wrong, but this is what we're doing. And then in so doing, finding the body responding in a positive way by letting go of some of those ailments that were
a part of. Manifest as a result of the trauma correct and 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.
Vicki Dau (11:20.65)
It's pushing back and it will always win if you don't deal with it. Yeah. 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. She 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. Right? Yeah. That's true. 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. There, we're going to have a great guest on that.
Vicki Dau (13:45.14)
has a repressed memory movement where she's she is.
Vicki Dau (13:52.578)
showing how common it is that your memories are repressed. used to think I was the only one. It's actually massively common. 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. we tell that story, like, yeah, that's me. Yeah. Yeah.
22 or 40 years old, around 40, 45 years old is when it's very common. That it will start coming back. That the memories will start. And I was like, my gosh, I was right in that window. Like how common. 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. Correct. Right. Yeah. Yeah.
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.
Vicki Dau (16:16.202)
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. But it's just amazing that it's not. Yeah. It's just amazing to me that it's not one or two things. It's it's holy cow. It's, know, out of 15 things yet, 12 of those, you know what I mean? It's just, yeah. Yeah.
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. what 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. my gosh.
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.
Vicki Dau (18:41.526)
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? That was kind of... So after my memories came back...
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 So I would like make it easier. 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. But I will give her her alone time.
Vicki Dau (20:38.001)
Yeah, we did that. We had that space.
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.
So it's 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
Vicki Dau (22:43.5)
hope that it can be better. Absolutely. We've given some definition. We want to, so I'm an artist and I wanted to show you a picture.
Vicki Dau (22:58.73)
of how I felt.
Vicki Dau (23:02.945)
you
Vicki Dau (23:06.988)
So I'm guessing there's a bunch of survivors out there that can relate to that.
Vicki Dau (23:17.036)
So she paints that out of her person and out of her experience and her emotions and her feelings. And then she shows me and I look at it and I just.
I, there's so many different things that go through me when I look at something like that that she did of her experience. Pain and sadness and anger and disgust and sadness, just wanting to cry right now.
Vicki Dau (23:57.206)
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. Before you put those away maybe.
Vicki Dau (24:23.062)
Okay, seriously? Okay, so.
Vicki Dau (24:35.347)
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. So.
as.
Vicki Dau (25:01.74)
we have this this is like what we're gonna say I feel like you could say that each time so I'm gonna do the offer or do you want to do and then am I gonna read that off paper we're gonna record just that yeah but am I gonna be reading it off the paper like earlier you can
Vicki Dau (25:23.136)
Or I can put it in the It might look nice to have it the prompter because then we're looking at it that's going to be something you can continue to use at the end, right? Is that the idea? Right. I think we should do that. So I'm going to delete all the stuff before that. Yep. So we would like to offer you an exclusive membership community called Love and Life ReFramed because what we have found is kind of looking through the lens.
of a survivor of sexual abuse, if you reframe it, it really helps your perspective. And so for a limited time, we are offering half off our membership. And so for less than $10 a month, you guys, it's like a steal. get monthly excu... You get monthly exclusive Q &A's. So once a month, you get a call with Tom.
and once a month you get a call with me. And so it's just the wives or just the husbands on the call. We also have a monthly newsletter and then we have discounts for group tapping sessions. I offer a regular group tapping circuit where we, it's, you'll hear about it later, but anyway, you get a discount for it and a bunch of other special bonuses. So if you go to our website, you can click on
the exclusive membership community and get actually in the show notes. We will have the link to join for a limited time half off of our membership. So under $10. So we invite you to take advantage of that. So we're going to still offer our podcasts for as many people as want to listen, but we are going to discuss certain things in that community that are private.
So it is a very deeper dive. Correct. We're going to share things in there that we're not sharing in our podcast. We're going to offer these exclusive times for husbands to talk to Tom and wives to talk to Vicki. Those can be super powerful, you guys, because we're dealing with exactly what you want to hear for your particular circumstance. And then sharing our experiences that may be parallel to that so that you can find a way to continue to move.
Vicki Dau (27:49.932)
forward positive way and just real quick that whole tapping thing Vicki talked about I mentioned that you know as you deal with the stuff you want you want to be able to get rid of it that's what tapping can physically do yeah okay all right we'll see you in this in part two
28 minutes. I love that. Just talking.
