Ending the Silence

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The abuse was never our fault! We never asked for it, wanted it, or needed it. It was done to us!

If you have visited this site before then you know that its appearance has changed yet again. I love to hear what you about the changes to the site, if you like them, or prefer the older look, and if you are new, well then you have little to compair this new look with, but in neither case, I hope you enjoy the site and thank you for stopping bye.

Been battered and bruised,
Been lost in the darkness,
Drowning in the sea of sorrow,
But here I am still standing,
Still seeking and striving
To stand tall.

Click on any of the areas listed below to visit those pages. Thank you.

What is normal?

Crippling Fear

Feelings: Necessary part of life

Panic: Calming Down

Guilt & Shame

What is guilt?

Have you ever wondered if you were normal or not, or asked yourself the question, �am I normal?� If so, then you�ve spent your time seeking something that doesn�t exist. The term �normal� consist of a broad range of behaviors. Essentially, the term �normal� references to what a group may think is normal, or an individual, whence in other terms, what is considered normal is determined by who is stating what is normal. Simply put, what one person or one group states is normal behavior may not be normal behavior for another person or group. Thus, why should one spend their time seeking what is normal, when in reality the whole concept of being normal needs to be forgotten. The term and question is a useless one that will just leave someone spinning their wheels but not actually getting anywhere. In reality, the question one needs to be asking is what is functional and what is dysfunctional, and do you know the difference between the two.

For those of us who have survived child abuse from our caretakers have ample examples of dysfunctional, but still that doesn�t mean that we can tell the difference between functional and dysfunctional. Yet, the search to learn what is functional is much more productive then seeking what is normal. For any behavior that is functional, in the end can be what is normal for the individual. Yet, how can one know the difference between the two?

A constructive question to ask yourself to determine what is functional and what isn�t, is to ask the following questions:

# Will it work to get the job done?
# Will it hurt me?
# Will it hurt others?
# Is it practical?

For example, suppose you had been out drinking and was debiting on driving yourself home. Ask yourself the above questions. The first question is yes, since driving yourself even though you have been drinking will still get the job done, but when asked the other questions, two of them being yes, and one no, leaves the activity as being dysfunctional. a functional activity will still get the task done, but will not hurt yourself or others, and will be practical.

The other things that someone can do when faced with a difficult situation is to ask the advice of someone you trust, to trust yourself, and your instincts, or read more about it, research the problem and different solutions of others. In the end, a functional behavior is one that is functional to you, hurts no one else including yourself, and gets the task done.

Forget the term �normal�. The whole concept is crippling and harmful. If you remember nothing else from this short piece, remember that what works for you is normal for you as long as it hurts no one including yourself. Stop comparing yourself to otherss. We are all unique individuals with the ability to make our own decisions and discover what is functional for ourselves.

How many of us allow our fears to control our lives? How many of us allow our fears to prevent us from experiencing something new? How many of us allow our fears to trap us in a familiar place? Maybe it doesn't matter how many of us are, but that we are doing just this. When was the last time you did something that you were afraid of, tried something new that scared you, or did something out of character? We all have fears, but it is the crippling fear that keeps us locked in old patterns, and prevents us from enjoying and experiencing life.

I know for myself, I have lots of fear. I have a fear of failure, of not being good enough to be loved, fear of what others may think of me, fear of making mistakes, fear of closed in spaces, fear that I am failure to name a few. Yet, if I allowed these fears to overwhelm me, and control me, then what would I truly be experiencing in life, not much.

If you find fear a strong issue in your life, ask yourself:

* "What has the fear done for me lately?"

* "What would I be doing or enjoying if I didn't have this
fear?"

* "Is the fear keeping me from enjoying life?"

* "Is the fear a valued tool, or is this fear keeping me a
prisioner?

* "Is the fear an unexplained, crippling emotion or is it
warning against danger?

Remember that some fear is a warning against dangereous situations but a fear that keeps you locked at home alone, or one that limits what new experience or people you will meet maybe a crippling fear that prevents you from moving forward in life.

For myself, I asked myself is the fear a real fear of the situation/experience before me or is it just a fear of the known, or my own personal self-doubt. I listen to my fears, hearing what they have to tell me, and if they seem biased in illusions or my fear of the unknown, then I know that it isn't a valued fear, but the fear that keeps me from changing, growing, and experiencing life.

How do you handle your fears? Do you have fears that prevent you from enjoying something? Do you understand your fears, or are they unexplainable? Would you consider your fears normal or crippling? If you have crippling fears, how do you work with your fear but still enjoy life?

As a survivor of child abuse, when asked, "What are you feeling" or when your upset and asked "What's wrong?" Do you stare blankly at the person unsure of what the person is asking of you? Unsure of how to tell the person what you are feeling, unable to label the feeling, and to express it to them. If so, then you are not alone. Every person has feelings, whether your aware of them or not. Feelings arise in response to whatever is occurring in our lives. They are a natural response, but we may find ourselves not always having the ability to recognize or understand them.

Lately, I have been discovering that this is a main factor in my life. I found myself on emotional roller coaster ride. At time I am not positive of the cause or really what I am feeling, and find myself when asked "what is wrong" responcing with familiar and safe comments. I know that the underlining factor is the changing family structure within my household. I have a teenager daughter who is beginning to demand her independence and wants to begin to date, which is a triggering source for me. Even though I know this is natural, that my daughter has a right to begin to have a life outside of the family unit I am riddled with insecuries, fears, and overwhelming saddness. Slowly, I am beginning to understand them and deal with them, but many times I feel so behinf the curve. I feel as though the stuff I shouldn't of already known isn't there. For in my childhood feelings of love and trust were betrayed, feelings of hurt and ager were dismissed. My pain was minimizeed and denied by those who cared for me. I find myself struggling to label what I am feeling much less dealing with them.

As a child we reflect our emotions off those who cared for is and when we are unable to do this, then we learn other ways to deal with feelings and to label them. Sometimes we may not even have the ability to know what we feel. For myself, I find this to be true, and find myself unable to explain what I feel to myself much less to someone else. Yet, feelings are a necessary parrt of life. We all need feelings. They are insights and warnings to responses to a particular situation. Yet, within the same breathe they can be overwhelming and confusing.

"Feelings are a package deal." Once the floodgates are opened, there is no closing them. One needs to learn how to accept them without judgement, experience them, work with them, and learn from them.

Getting in touch with ones bodily functions or reactions to feelings is another big step for most survivors. I know for myself that in order to function and to survive I would not acknowledge what my body was telling me. Yet, each feeling as a reaction within our bodies, like a tightening in the stomach, trembling in the hands, labored breathing, tears in the eyes, tightening in the throat, etc. If you have ignored your body for a long time tuning in to these emotionals reactions may be difficult and overwhelming. One needs to begin to teach themselves what bodial signals we are being given, and label them to the feelings we have. For most survivors, myself included I have spent a lot of time and energy to be one step ahead of my emotions, or suppressing them, not acknowledging that they even exist. We may quickly label them with feelings that we are comfortable with, such as when one is beginning to feel happy we slide into anxiety, when feeling anger we slide into self hatred, and yet, there is an underlining feeling that we are running from.

As a child we were unable to say that we hatred our fathers, mothers, care takers or siblings. Instead of directing our anger or acknowledge that it was okay to feel the way we did, we turned it inward, blaming outselves. We could find dozens of reasons to hate ourselves, to blame ourselves, for as child it was difficult to place the blame and the anger at the source. If you find yourself turning anger into self hate, then one must explore the underlining reasons, the feelings underneath the self hate for it has become a habit and not the truth.

The journey isn't an easy one. It is a path that I am walking on myself, and yet each day I try to learn about myself, exploring my feelings and learning about them. to look underneath my instinct self-blame and self-hate to see the true feelings that I am feeling. In this life, feelings are a natural response and an important part of life.

Panic occurs when you become frightened of your own emotions and lack the skills to calm yourself down or when you�re trying like to suppress feelings or memories. Even though it seems that panic attacks come out of the blue there is always an underlined trigger. During the attack you may not realized the connections but they are there. All you know during the panic is that you are feeling out of control.

The first step when you are beginning to feel a panic attack is to breathe. Often times the first reaction is to quickly run away from the scared feeling, but this frenzy need to escape increases the attack. Instead, try to reassure yourself that it is just a powerful feeling and don�t rush into action. Expressing the feelings when you are extremely frightened can free you from the free, but the most effective way to deal with panic is to catch it early. Once the panic runs out control it is more difficult to stop.

The important thing in calming down is to do whatever works for you, even if it seems embarrassing or silly. Through trial and error you can discover what assist you in calming down. Try comfort things and write up a list, keeping it handy so that when an attack begins you can use your comfort things to calm yourself down.

For more suggestions and help with panic attacks check out these links:

* The Anxiety Panic Internet Resource: http://www.algy.com/anxiety/
* Panic and Anxiety Disorders: http://panicdisorder.about.com/
* Breathing Excerises: http://panicdisorder.about.com/cs/shbreathing/
* Panic Disorders: http://panicdisorder.about.com/cs/panicdisorder/
* Anxiety and Panic Hub: http://www.paems.com.au/
* APA Panic Disorders: http://www.apa.org/pubinfo/panic.html

A panic attack is a sudden surge of overwhelming fear that comes without warning and without any obvious reason. It is far more intense than the feeling of being 'stressed out' that most people experience. Symptoms of a panic attack include:
� racing heartbeat
� difficulty breathing, feeling as though you 'can't get enough air'
� terror that is almost paralyzing
� dizziness, lightheadedness or nausea
� trembling, sweating, shaking
� choking, chest pains
� hot flashes, or sudden chills
� tingling in fingers or toes ('pins and needles')
� fear that you're going to go crazy or are about to die
Source of the above information is: APA Panic Disorders: http://www.apa.org/pubinfo/panic.html

Emotional Wound - The physical act, whatever it may have been, was done by the perp to give himself a feeling of power, and to give you a feeling of powerlessness. The act was carefully chosen by the perp, thinking like a torturer, to give you the most emotional pain. So when dealing with shame, don't think in terms of healing your physical wounds. You must think of it in emotional terms, and analyze what your emotional wounds are. For your emotional wounds, you have to see a therapist. Many people resist this step, but it is no stranger than seeing a doctor for your bruises or cuts, and is every bit as important.

Powerlessness - The powerlessnes, the fear, the shock of the abuse is behind your feeling of shame. Even if you know the perp is guilty, that doesn't necessarily affect your feelings of shame. You need to realize that the perpetrator worked very hard to ensure that he had all of the power, and you had none.The thing to remember is that no matter what the specifics are, the perpetrator has taken enormous pains to make sure that this is not a fair fight; that all of the advantages are his, and you have none at all. It is not fair for you to feel that you "should" have been able to do something to stop it. The perpetrator made sure you couldn't. In those circumstances, almost nobody could have. The abuse happened because the perpetrator planned it carefully, and was never, never fair. It's not because you were weak, or cowardly, or stupid.

Defintion of shame as per Webster dictionary: "A painful sense of guilt or degreaduation caused by consciousness of guilt, or anything degrading, unworthy, or immodest."

Thus, does that not imply the guilt one feels, or accepts due to a traumtic even, or repeated events stems from a sense of humiliation, degradation, or immodesty of what one has suffered? Is not shame (guilt) a warped sense of failed responsibilty for something one has not meet expectations of? In an essence what sense of shame drives one to accept that which is not one's to have, where one bares no responsibility too, yet has accepted it has their own? Is it not this impression, this programming that peads one to repeatingly say, "they are sorry" for things they had no control of, nor possible even a place in the situation to begin with? Is it not related to the dysfunctional envirnoment I was raised in? an environment where whose who probably truly should of bore the responsiblity, the failure, the shame, the guilt could not for what ever reasons, and in their place I stepped up to the plate. Is it not implied due to my caregivers denial and thier refusal that triggered my warped sense of what I was responsible for? What fault within me, allowed me to do so, to readily step into this role, yet I feel the fustration and the anger at being forced to play this role of responsiblity at such a young age, feeling old before my time, thus the guilt of failing at an imagery role, the sense of shame at the necessary skills to be able to perform them. Is not this not the root of some of my anger toward myself and others? Is it not, what I resent so badly? I wonder, if I shall forever greive for the childhood that never was, and yet at the same time, forever accept responsiblity for it. 
 
Guilt is a simple debriefing and rehearsal process that the mind engages in after perceiving that something negative has taken place and has caused painful and/or anxious feelings. One's mind goes over and over the something negative and the painful/anxious feelings and forces us to again and again review what happened. This is NOT necessarily a completely negative thing to happen. It doesn't feel good -- true.

The feelings it brings up again and again are very uncomfortable, but again and again it comes to mind. This goes on for several hours, perhaps off and on for days or weeks or even over months.

Sometimes, though, self punishment beyond guilt feelings can hurt. To the extent that the punishment overloads the mind with negative feeling, any learning from the experience is clouded or lost. The only things really punished when punishment is too harsh are self-respect and awareness. Decreasing self-respect will make one more likely to not care about danger. Decreasing awareness is the same as decreasing one's intelligence. It isn't smart to make one's self dumber by being hostile to self.

Preferences can differ, but its advisable to clarify what you should feel guilty about -- or if you should feel guilty at all -- as early in the guilt experience as possible. An excellent though not foolproof check on whether you believe you should feel guilt feelings is to ask yourself how you would see the situation if it were a friend in your situation and you were in the situation of support. If you are expecting more of yourself or harder on yourself than you would advocate that a friend should be, ask yourself why.

As survivors of child abuse we may feel guilt about what happened to us as a child, however we have nothing to feel guilty about. We did nothing wrong, wrong was done to us. Feeling guilty about the abuse or about what had happened is just another way that we continue to punish ourselves for something we no longer need to be punished for.

When guilt feelings are way out of line with logic but they don't seem to go away or diminish, it can be a very frustrating, negative experience. This situation is uncomfortable in itself but it also often can corrode self-esteem, motivation, productivity and health. It can be a cause of depression and self sabotaging behaviors. One can feel increasingly helpless, hostile to self and hopeless.

Allow yourself to let go of guilt, and I know it is easier said then done, but it must be done to continue to move forward.

Guilt is:
* Feeling of responsibility for negative circumstances that have befallen yourself or others. 
* Feeling of regret for your real or imagined misdeeds, both past and present. 
* Sense of remorse for thoughts, feelings, or attitudes that were or are negative, uncomplimentary, or non-accepting concerning yourself or others. 
* Feeling of obligation for not pleasing, not helping, or not placating another. 
* Feeling of bewilderment and lack of balance for not responding to a situation in your typical, stereotype manner. 
* Feeling of loss and shame for not having done or said something to someone who is no longer available to you. 
* Accepting of responsibility for someone else's misfortune or problem because it bothers you to see that person suffer. 
* Motivator to amend all real or perceived wrongs. 
* Strong moral sense of right and wrong that inhibits you from choosing a ``wrong'' course of action; however, you assign your own definitions to the words. 
* Driving force or mask behind which irrational beliefs hide.

What can guilt do to you?
Guilt can:

* Make you become over responsible, striving to make life ``right.'' You overwork. You over give of yourself. You are willing to do anything in your attempt to make everyone happy. 
* Make you over conscientious. You fret over every action you take as to its possible negative consequence to others, even if this means that you must ignore your needs and wants. 
* Make you over sensitive. You see decisions about right and wrong in every aspect of your life and become obsessed with the tenuous nature of all of your personal actions, words, and decisions. You are sensitive to the cues of others where any implication of your wrong doing is intimated. 
* Immobilize you. You can become so overcome by the fear of doing, acting, saying, or being ``wrong'' that you eventually collapse, give in, and choose inactivity, silence, and the status quo. 
* Interfere in your decision making. It is so important to always be "right'' in your decisions that you become unable to make a decision lest it be a wrong one. 
* Be hidden by the mask of self denial. Because it is less guilt inducing to take care of others first, instead of yourself, you hide behind the mask of self denial. You honestly believe it is better to serve others first, unaware that "guilt'' is the motivator for such "generous'' behavior. 
* Make you ignore the full array of emotions and feelings available to you. Overcome by guilt or the fear of it, you can become emotionally blocked or closed off. You are able neither to enjoy the positive fruits of life nor experience the negative aspects. 
* Be a motivator to change. Because you feel guilt and the discomfort it brings, you can use it as a barometer of the need to change things in your life and rid yourself of the guilt. 
* Be a mask for negative self belief. You may actually have low self-esteem, but claim the reason for your negativity is the overwhelming sense of guilt you experience. 
* Mislead or misdirect you. Because many irrational beliefs lie behind guilt, you may be unable to sort out your feelings. It is important to be objective with yourself when you are experiencing guilt; be sure that your decisions are based on sound, rational thinking.

Suggested steps to overcome guilt
Step 1: You can recognize the role guilt is playing in your life by choosing a current problem and answering the following questions in your journal:
a .    What problem is currently troubling me? 
b .   Who is responsible for the problem? 
c .    Whose problem is it, really? 
d .   What did I do to make this problem worse for myself? 
e .    How much guilt do I feel about this problem? 
f .    How much does the guilt I experience exaggerate or exacerbate my problem? 
g .    If I felt no more guilt what would my problem look like then?

If the answer to question ``g'' is that your problem can be solved by reducing guilt, go to Step 2.

Step 2:   Redefine your problem with the absence of guilt as an issue.

* How insurmountable is the problem? 
* Is this problem an interpersonal or intrapersonal problem?
* If it is interpersonal: Can I help the other person and myself to set aside guilt and resolve this problem? 
* If it is intrapersonal: Can I set aside guilt or the fear of it and resolve this problem? 
* Does this problem have more than one solution? Can others and myself experience satisfaction, comfort, and resolution with a minimum of debilitating guilt? 
* Whose problem is it, really?
* Is it my problem or another(s)? 
* Am I taking on another's responsibility? 
* Am I trying to keep another from experiencing pain, hardship, or discomfort?

Step 3:  If the problem is really someone else's, give the problem back to the person(s) to solve and to deal with.

If the problem is yours, go to Step 4.

Step 4:   You must confront the real or imagined guilt or fear of guilt preventing you from either handing the problem back to the person(s) whose problem it really is (Step 3) or from handling the problem on your own. Consider the following: 
a .    What fears are blocking me at this moment from taking the steps I need to resolve this problem? 
b .   What are the irrational beliefs behind these fears? 
c .    Refute the irrational beliefs using the steps given in the ``Handling Irrational Beliefs'' section two in Tools for Personal Growth. 
d .   Initiate a program of self-affirmation as presented in the "Self-Affirmations'' section 3 in Tools for Personal Growth.. 
e .    Use an imagery scenario with ``guilt'' as an object you packaged in a nice box. It is brought to a mountain top and thrown off a cliff for good. 
f .    Affirm for yourself that: 
         You deserve to solve this problem.  
          You deserve to be good to yourself 
          You deserve to have others be good to you, too!

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