Vicki Dau (00:00)
What was lost was the ability to fight back. I've heard that from a lot of survivors as they just freeze. It's really easy to think now, be like, why didn't I fight back? Why didn't I run away?
You froze. That's a legit response that we have. And then how did we compensate for the ability to fight back? We created the belief that we're powerless.
Vicki Dau (00:30)
Welcome to Re-Framing Life and Love, where Tom and Vicki guide you on a transformative journey through healing and connection. Together, we explore the profound effects of childhood sexual trauma on adult relationships and share practical tools to help you build a loving partnership. Two things. We do have a trigger warning.
This podcast discusses sensitive topics related to childhood sexual abuse and trauma. Listener discretion is advised. And we have a disclaimer. We want to remind you that we are not medical or mental health professionals. This podcast is based on our personal experiences and what has worked for us. While we aim to provide valuable insights and support,
We encourage you to seek professional advice for any specific mental health or relationship issues which you may have been facing. Now, here is our next episode.
Vicki Dau (01:39)
Welcome back to part two of defining sexual abuse and maybe like the damage done. I guess that would be another way to say it. We created this sheet it basically shows, it's just a brief overview, but it shows what happened, what was lost, how we compensated and what is still possible.
I guess I feel like if they want a copy of this, we should maybe make that available. That would be a good idea. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. There'll be a link in our show notes to get your copy of this. Anything from us to make any of this more understandable and more confirming for you. Yes. That's what you read my mind. What you've potentially been through and what you may be feeling or wondering.
can be a big help for I mean confirmation for you from other people is a huge thing because you there so and all of you I'm sure many of you listening feel very much alone in all of this and you are in an absolute massive majority of people. yeah, yeah. Cool. Okay, we'll make it available. So what happened? Maybe you reacted by Sometimes. So it's fight our nervous system fight.
that's a new one that has come out that survivors have reacted. Fawning. Fawning. Yeah. That they kind yeah, they were fawning. What does that
There's a great woman on, her name. I'll put it in the show notes. She's on Instagram and she does amazing videos, but her reaction was fawning and for a long, long time, nobody believed that that was a reaction to abuse. So like you fawn over somebody. you you try to please them. You try to, you try you know, make things great and make things good.
I know I may not be defining that.
But she's maybe you reacted by freezing. So I just have that here. What was lost was the ability to fight back. I've heard that from a lot of survivors as they just freeze. It's really easy to think now, be like, why didn't I fight back? Why didn't I run away?
You froze. That's a legit response that we have. And then how did we compensate for the ability to fight back? We created the belief that we're powerless. And what is still possible is we can take our power back. We can choose to take our power back.
Another thing that happened is the trauma was so intense that the brain dissociated that also happened with me
was lost is the ability to be present?
That's Like I can I can dissociate at the drop of a hat even now Because it's such a prevalent defense mechanism How we compensated repressed or foggy memories
easily triggered often unexpectedly
I actually I think this is pretty common for sexual abuse survivors is a
What is that called like a high startle reflex,
So the high startle reflex is something where he can come around the corner or I go to walk out back and somebody's coming in the back door and I'm like, you know, very, had this happen like a month ago at my daughter's when I was watching my grandson, I'm sitting there and I'm working on my computer and all of a sudden she's standing like over here holding the baby and I was like,
Like I did not hear her coming. I did not see her coming. I almost started crying. I mean, I haven't had one of those in a long time, but that's also an effect.
So what is still possible is learning to be safe in the moment and to be present. So that is what our goal is, right? And I actually, now when I kind of get jumpy,
I actually will laugh sometimes. You know, there was a time when I would like cry every time, but now I actually will laugh or I just move on to the next thing. also, also I'm cognizant of it now. So frequently when it happens, I'll apologize so that it diffuses it right away too. think that that's a help. that, is that true? Yeah. And it's hard too, because like,
They know that have a high, my kids and my husband know I have a high startle reflex. Coming in the back door now, honey. Coming in the back door. Literally do that sometimes to avoid her being startled. Right.
Vicki Dau AI (06:36)
Tom and Vicki had an unexpected power outage and are back on track.
Vicki Dau (06:40)
So we need to learn, what is still possible is learning to be safe in the moment and be present. So to know it's okay to just be in the moment.
Another thing of what happened is we couldn't stop the abuse. And what was lost was feeling in control of our lives and how we compensated.
was being a controlling person, a perfectionist, second guessing everything. The first part of our marriage, I was very controlling, would you say? Yeah. These were before even the memories had come back. But I was often, I always needed to be in control. had to, I had to, it always had to be my way or the highway.
You always had the answer and the plan.
Yeah. Okay. but what is still possible is trusting our healthy relationships, especially our husbands, allowing our life to unfold instead of controlling everything. It is way more pleasurable that way. What's so funny? Nothing. you're not going to say nothing. You're still, you still run, you still, you still run a good ship.
But, but I think for me, I'm just smart because, you're one of your skillsets is you're an amazing administrator. So you, which, and you run, you ran, it was actually kind of serendipitous that you had that controlling hyper control thing going on because with seven kids, you never let the house get out of control. And we raised a really good, strong family because of that.
God blessed, blessed, put blessings in it anyway, which is good. You know, there's still fruit in there. And, and, and so you're still, you still are an administrator. I'm more easy going and I go with the flow. But I just can't leave it alone. No, you are absolutely in a different place. 100%. Okay. Yeah. Thanks.
Wow, okay, I Just feel like I can flow with it more Much but it comes up. It's like okay. Let's do whatever I still like to have things in a good way Correct. I still like to have a plan correct, but not controlling not like yeah, that's different to be
Controlling as opposed to having things be have a plan. Yeah carrying it out. I'm good with that Thanks
another thing of what happened is we may have been caught off guard or shocked and What was lost is the ability to relax? So always looking at what's going on always got to have you know, see where people are what people are
to sit at restaurants
and I would look at her looking around past me and by the end of our meal she could tell me what was going on at different tables and actually peg people's situations without even hearing what they're doing. Fascinating to watch that hypersensitivity of your surroundings to make because you you learn that to be in a place of of needing to be safe and understand
that there isn't going to be something shocking coming to you, right? Right. So, but it was interesting to see how that went into our daily lives. The We used to do that. I didn't even know I was doing that at a restaurant. He'd be like, Vicki, hello, right here, right here. And I could tell him, okay, those two people are not married and they're on their fifth date or whatever.
or celebrating a birthday without even seeing things to that degree. All right. Well, I remember one table one time, like there was like eight or 10 people at the table and I said, okay, there's two there that are married. There's two that are not this one. This, these, this, that baby belongs to these two. That baby doesn't belong to anybody. Somebody's watching that baby. I just remember. Yeah. Yeah. Anyway. so what is still possible?
is create an awareness of our surroundings and retrain our nervous system to relax. I think this also goes with the high startle reflex. Hard to relax. Yeah. You bet. And so that's when I'm, you know, if I'm totally caught off guard, then it kind of really kicks in. yeah. okay. Abused by a family member.
we lose the satisfying relationships or support system and the ability to believe in ourself. Oftentimes we keep our mouth shut because if we say something that it was a family member, it's on us that we destroyed the family.
I chose to share what happened to me, to my family, and I was blacklisted.
I made that decision. I was seeing a counselor at the time and getting a lot of healing. And I thought lots of prayer and time went into making that decision. Yes, you and me to to do that and the details of that are kind of a deeper dive, but right. Yeah, but it was a situation. I mean, I know people who were abused by family member and they still haven't shared. They still haven't told anyone because they just.
It would destroy their family. Maybe somebody would take sides. was a situation for me that I traced the sexual abuse back 80 years that I could document with personal testimony. And one side of your family. Yeah, and one side of the family. if I had not, I thought this is crap. Nobody said anything before now.
look what happened to you. I'm saying something. Yep. I thought it stops with my family. Yep. That was what I was doing. I wanted to protect my kids. wanted my kids. future generations. Yes. That we're not hiding anything anymore. There are no more secrets. And all our kids know about it. They do. And have known about it. Yes. Yep. And I have no relationships with the family. Yep.
all of them. And so that is a possible price that is paid.
I mean, I know people who haven't told and every family event they go.
and they have a stomach ache or they avoid that person or I hope that person isn't there or whatever and you know everybody's got to make their own decision that is like something that is we chose to do what we did and we we are in a peaceful place now because we found we have our tribe we have our family and we know what's what's real and what wasn't and we're sticking with the real yeah how we compensated
was blamed and isolated ourselves. We believed it's not safe to let anybody in. So that's one thing that can happen. And what is still possible? We can learn who is safe to trust and be confident in our judgment. a lot of times as kids, we make these blanket statements like, I can't trust anybody. But now what we can do is choose to trust certain people.
to look for signs of who is safe to trust and who isn't. yeah, and go with that. Our own judgment. That we can even trust ourselves in our own judgment. Yeah. Because that is actually damage that is done is that we think we can't, have good judgment. Like we can't trust ourselves. One of the things that happened, damage.
is we took the blame for the abuse. What was lost was the clarity to understand it was not our fault and the abuser was to blame.
It is not our fault. Nothing we wore or didn't wear, whether we were drunk or not drunk, whether said no or didn't say it clearly enough, whether we didn't run away fast enough. There is nothing.
that can be said.
that I believe can create blame for the abuse. Nothing we did or didn't do, even though we still may have that whisper in our ear, if you wouldn't have wore that dress, you behaved in a seductive manner. You caused him to do
So if no one has told you yet.
You are not to blame.
how we compensated, punished ourselves by consciously or unconsciously sabotaging any happiness, good or abundance in our life. So we kind of touched on that before where if you're blaming yourself, you don't deserve anything good to happen or you need to be punished for what did happen. So I'd like to call bullshit on that belief that you need to be punished.
calm bullshit on it because you don't. You deserved to have protection. You deserved to have people care for you, not abuse you. deserve to trust people who are supposed to take care of you. True. them. True. Because so many of these circumstances are when people are very, very young. And abused by people they know. 93%. Yeah. 93%.
what is still possible, understand the truth and show ourselves grace and love for what we survived and have overcome. Give yourself some grace, bet. Yep. Celebrate you for who you are right now. And what we have overcome. And who you've always been. So not just now, celebrate who you've always been. Absolutely.
You've been special from birth. From conception, you're special. So celebrate every part of that. Yeah. Full timeline. Last one on our sheet. Last one. Physical damage done to the body is something that could have happened. was lost is a healthy enjoyment of sex or any interest in sex, maybe the ability to have children.
This could also a lot of times with trafficking we can see some of we volunteer. volunteer with a Reclaim 13 stories that those girls have are horrifying. And that's one of the damage that some of the damage that could be done that could have been done.
And how we compensated is we created the belief that we are damaged goods. We perform our wifely duties, which can compound the guilt and shame and resentment. What is still possible? Develop an emotional intimacy within healthy relationships, which can lead to deeper intimacies, especially with our husband.
So intimacy isn't just sexual, like emotional intimacy is a big deal. And when we develop emotional intimacy, that makes it easier for sexual intimacy. Wouldn't you say? the biggest thing would be to get him on the same page.
to let him know everything you're going through? Because we have to be patient and we have to be understanding. And if there's a no, we have to say, OK, I understand and I'll stop. You know, all of those things from the guy's perspective, we have to be the proper teammate and the proper human being to respect the situation that we're in with our wife. Our wives who've been through this. The abuse situations and.
give them the grace when they need it to be able to work forward and grow together and make it stronger as time goes by by discussing what's going on because it was because we've had that happen you know stop tom i can't do this right now okay and it's okay okay i respect that hundred percent i stop and then
short while later at some point we discuss what happened. That's what's really important. So that we both know what happened and there could be a workaround for that at a future time. And a lot of times it just takes time. And so for me to grace our relationship with that, I can do it when she opens up to me and says, I can't do this right now. And I say, okay, got it. That's our side of it.
our side of it. Is choosing to speak when it may be uncomfortable because we have to let my side of it. The woman's side. So to let him know what's going on even if I don't feel like talking. And knowing that it's important to talk about it later, not just blowing it off. And you've been 100 % awesome with that because we always end up talking it out. Thank you. But
You need time to get out of the ick of the moment. Yeah, absolutely. I respect that. Yeah, for everything to calm down. then we talk. So that is episode two with damage and possibilities in the books. And we would love to invite you guys to our
Our exclusive membership community called Love and Life ReFramed. For a limited time, we're offering half off our membership. So for less than $10 a month, get monthly exclusives, monthly exclusives Q &A. The men get one with Tom, women get one with Vicki. Plus you also get discounts on our group tapping circuit.
every single month. Like that's four times the cost of the membership. That's the discount that you get. And then you get other special bonuses. So we're going to put the link in the show sign up for that membership. Because when we, when go to our regular cost, you guys will be grandfathered in.
So it's only going to be for a short amount of time. This is not a gimmick. We're just doing it for a short amount of time as we launch our podcast and want people to know and provide support for couples. But we also are going to be offering kind of a deeper dive in our membership community. So we want to let you know about that.
If you know anybody who's in the same circumstance share this with them. Bring them on board. Let them be a part of what we're sharing. God bless.
Vicki Dau (23:09)
Thank you very much for joining us on this episode of Reframing Life and Love. We hope you found the inspiration and actionable insights to enhance your relationship. Don't forget to subscribe for more empowering discussions.
