Healing Victimhood from sexual violence
These days, we are encouraged not to see ourselves as “victims” but instead, “survivors,” but does changing how we call it change our inner condition? Is that lipstick on a pig? It is Truth that ‘we create at the level of our thoughts,’ but honestly, the book “The Secret” and other similar teachings lost their luster very quickly in my world, after giving them a good old-fashioned try. For one thing, these teachings tell us not to think any ‘self-defeating” thoughts. On the other hand, there are other teachings that tell us we need to accept and own our pains, before we can transcend them. How do we balance these intrinsically conflicting advice? Can we truly fake it till we make it?
Having walked the valley of the shadow of sex abuse, this issue has been a recurring one that I have had to ponder at different points of my journey. One day, I am at the point of calling myself a Survivor; the next day, I am coiled up in a despondent ball as I recognize there is still more healing to do. At these times, the “peeling back the layers of the trauma onion for healing’ is the better analogy.
You see, a few months ago, I was arming myself to go out there and help children who are potential prey or already prey to sex abuse. This has been my life-long dream and finally I had the opportunity to do something. I had found an organization that I could work with. This organization, ‘Light for Our Children’ which is based in Ghana (Africa) has various outreach programs for schools, afterschool and home educators to help prevent childhood sex abuse. This work has been going on since 2010. The organization leader send me the results of a recent Unicef survey in Ghana which was damning. It showed 52% of girls in Middle to Senior years in school had been sexually assaulted and here is the whopper! 45.7% of these girls were in the 11 to 16 age bracket. This in 2023. stunned! And then that deep despair in the pit of my stomach re-emerged. For days, I could not sleep. I thought, is this problem even solvable?
Being a student of New Age Spirituality, I do subscribe to the wisdom that at some level, and for whatever reason, we do play a part at the pre-incarnation stage in choosing the major challenges of our earthly lifetime. It took me a while to buy into that one, for sure - but having listened to Near Death Experiencers and Channelers who have communicated with the other side. These messengers affirm this wisdom for me. There must be a reason God and the angels are not intervening to prevent these seemingly incessant cesspool of tribulations on earth. And mind you, I am still not sure why we would choose these challenges. but like the poet Rilke said, sometimes we must live the questions.
I was beginning to doubt my readiness to help bring healing to these children. I asked myself, am I even healed enough if the results of such a survey has such an impact on me? Am I still a victim? Am I really a survivor? What stage of healing am I in? And then there are the New Age Healers who have a snarky tone around victimhood. Some call it, “Woundology, the over-identification with emotional wounds.” Others say it is “arrogant to consider yourself wounded, because God does not create junk.” I know they mean well, but where is the love? These healers have been immensely helpful to me on my spiritual journey, but I have seen during Q & A times when other less stoic attendees have been visibly leveled by these stark platitudes.
Recalibration
A few days after re-composing myself following my reaction about the worseing child sex violence in Ghana, I sat down to re-ponder the matter of healing from sexual violence. As a medical doctor, the parallel of wound healing after physical injuries such as a knife cut seemed appropriate, after all, the power that made the body will likely have similar mechanisms in place for healing of all woundings.
In my deliberation, I struggled to find the words to discriminate between the wound associated with non-interpersonal trauma such as would occur with a knife cut and those that are associated with interpersonal physical violence such as rape or fighting. Interpersonal trauma has a physical injury component, as well as emotional, psychological, social, spiritual wounding. Some victims also experience chronic physical health conditions.
It is true, that non-interpersonal wounding, depending on the severity may also cause emotional and psychologic effects. Someone who experiences 3rd degree burns may lack appetite, energy and have a low mood during the healing process. Non-interpersonal injury may also result in chronic non-healing wounds such as chronic ulcers or chronic burn injuries.
Another consideration is that there are times when interpersonal wounding does not include physical violence. Much of the literature talks about ‘visible’ and ‘invisible’ wounds. We often have a blindspot regarding interpersonal physical injury, which is more prevalent than we would hope. Unfortunately, there is no word I could find which would distinguish between non-interpersonal injury and interpersonal injury. I decided to stick with these categories. The medic in me is tempted to insert a table. The poet in me wants to go with prose. The poet wins, so here goes:
Bleeding phase:
Non-interpersonal injury: When the integrity of the skin is broken, the blood vessel walls which supply the skin are also disrupted. This leads to the release of bright red blood from the blood vessels.
With inter-personal trauma such as rape, the initial response is shock. Shock is our way of bleeding even though it is not visible. The shock is due to a surge within the body of strong emotions including fear, anxiety and helplessness.
Hemostasis (Blood clot) phase:
Non-interpersonal injury: Within minutes of injury, the body gets into action to stop the bleeding. Bleeding leads to the body sending cells to the site of wounding to arrest further blood loss.
Interpersonal injury: The analogy to the blood clot is frozen. We often hear of fight or flight, but more recently, another body response to injury that is gaining recognition is freezing. We experience an emotional shut down, which sometimes last many years. We are on automatic. We function, like robots and do not have the where withal to process the pain. We are essentially numbed out. Some may support this phase with addiction whether it be abusing drugs or substances or whether it be other humans. In my case the violations I was subjected to were buried deep in my subconscious for a long period. On the surface, I lived a normal life on the surface. I completed medical school, got married and had a beautiful daughter. All was well until the inflammation phase begun.
Inflammation Phase:
Non-interpersonal injury: In this phase, the body sends cells to the wound site to begin the healing process. the surrounding skin is red, hot and swollen.
In inter-personal trauma terms, this would be when we begin to look at the violence that happened to us and its consequences in our lives- I call it, The Processing phase. Here, we experience anger and grief. We begin to take stock of the impact of our deep wounding. Our pain body has many manifestations. These include a toll on our self esteem, flash-backs, insomnia, eating disorders and other addictions, to mention a few. I previously would call the sexual violence that happened to me an injustice. In time, I realized that inherent in the term injustice is blaming the predators, and blaming has not helped in the healing process. Yes, it was reprehensible; yes, others should have stopped it; it wasn’t fair; life sucks; etc etc. But, it happened. As adults, as part of our healing journey, we learn to describe it as, “It happened, period.”
Proliferation (New healing tissue formation) Phase- Healing is beginning:
Non-interpersonal injury: Here, the wound enters the reconstruction/repair phase, when new tissue is being brought to fill the wound space from bottom up. Healing is beginning.
During this phase of inter-personal wound healing, we are trying to make sense of what happened to us. We are trying to develop a new narrative -A way to share the impact of this violation in our broader life story. The abuse or trauma can never be justified with any level of coherence, however at this stage we begin to regroup in whatever way we can.
Epithelisation (New skin formation):
Non-interpersonal injury: New fragile skin is forming over the wound which is very delicate and can break easily with any significant impact. It is helpful to protect this skin from being re-traumatised.
Interpersonal healing: In this phase, we are re-triggerable. There are experiences that send us back to the inflammation phase. Our sense of self is fragile and we are still developing a new sense of self.
Delicate scab formation:
Non-interpersonal injury: Completion of healing is underway by the formation of a scab. The scab is a dry, rough protective crust that forms over the wound. As the scab heals, we often experience some itching which may tempt us to further damage the skin and delay the completion of healing.
Interpersonal trauma: I call this the phase of developing a calmer self. What is sometimes referred to in psychological circles as “agency” around our wounding. We are more able to make grounded choices that serve our future and our dreams. We are still triggerable, but we do not fall too far down in the vortex of inflammation. It is easier for us to pick ourselves up, dust off and continue the journey.
Prominent scar formation:
Non-interpersonal injury: The wound is completely healed and the scab has fallen off. Depending on whether there was normal scar formation or if scarification was abnormal or pathological (medical lingo). Normal scars are flattened areas of discoloration.. Abnormal scars show large raised areas sometimes called keloids. Keloids sometimes need additional medical or surgical intervention.
Interpersonal injury: I call this stage of “rewiring to groundedness.” We are developing more self acceptance and self-esteem. We have a clearer sense of purpose and ability to serve ourselves and others. Sometimes, we need support including friends, partners and also through a spiritual or religious practice. We are more grounded in ourselves.
Fading scar:
Non-interpersonal injury: This follows a normal scar and the area of discoloration is fading such that soon, we may not be able to visibly tell that there was a previous wounding in the location.
Interpersonal injury: This is the phase of transcendence. While the sexual violation may never be forgotten, we have journeyed; we have slogged; we have done the deep deep dive into the darkness to find the light at the end of the vortex. Now we have transmuted this pain. We embody making lemonade out of lemons. We made the choice to grow our hearts and expand to a Grander Perspective. We are experiencing more peace with the higher purpose it served in our lives. It takes a lot of work to get to this stage, primary among them being the work of forgiveness. We forgive the perpetrators. We show ourselves tremendous self compassion. We are one with the Divine.
Coming full circle in the journey of healing from rape is achievable, although it takes time, patience and perseverance. It also takes a lot of compassion. Self-compassion and also from loved ones and healers. As one of my favorite poets Rumi said, “Don’t get lost in your pain, know that one day your pain will become your cure. “ I write this blog at this time, not being at the end of my healing journey. I vacillate between developing a “calmer self” and rewiring to groundedness. It is still tremendous progress which has been sourced mostly by grace and a willingness on my part to get to transcendence. If this is also your journey, I send you blessings and hope. Heaven is reaching for you.